The announcement of the members of the new National Education and Training Council by the Minister of Basic Education, Ms Siviwe Gwarube, is an important step towards restoring faith in South African education. This is not only significant for public schools, but also for everyone engaged in education in South Africa. All South African learners receive the same National Senior Certificate, regardless of the examination body.
Our educational system has been in a state of crisis management ever since Professor Sibusiso Bengu hastily implemented outcomes-based education shortly after 1994. Efforts to provide equal education to all have repeatedly resulted in fundamental changes being made without proper prior consultation.
A sense of stability was restored when former Minister Angie Motshekga implemented the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) in 2012. These provided clearer content guidelines and facilitated teaching.
However, some of the most significant shortcomings in the approach to education have persisted. These include overloading teachers with administrative tasks and the poor pass rate. Not to mention the shortcomings related to executive incompetence, such as inadequate infrastructure and a building programme that fails to keep up with population growth and demographic shifts.
Despite these shortcomings, an overhasty reform programme implemented by a minister eager to sweep clean like a new broom is the last thing education needs right now. This kind of approach creates two problems for every one it solves.
The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) is not hopeful that South African education will break free from its current ideological foundation; which includes the centralisation of education as enshrined in the BELA Act and a version of so-called “nation-building” that disregards cultural identity.
Nevertheless, the Freedom Front Plus is cautiously optimistic that the Council will make a positive contribution.
FF+ Manifesto on Language rights: Protecting the rights of Afrikaans and other minority languages.
Red Pepper
Fun South African Fact: The oldest remains of modern humans were found in South Africa and are well over 160,000 years old.
Eye Devil
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”