Education, philosophers told the world long ago, is the art of “bringing out new ideas”, and the parents whose children were not placed in school have suffered a great deal of trauma inflicted by an inefficient system placed on their paths by government officials whose credentials are suspect.
But let us also warn that there is no comfort for parents whose children have been accommodated in faraway schools, demanding an inconsiderable long travel between their place of abode and that of the allocated school.
It requires no genius to figure out the invidious position such children are placed in by our flawed education system. In a country where children are routinely molested, raped and murdered by marauding thugs, long travel distances
matter, if you consider your child’s future and safety.
What also has to be considered is the anxiety related to the costs to parents who must find financial resources to maintain the burden caused by this deficient system.
That is the one problem the education system, particularly in Gauteng, must deal with, where the system, year after year, is fraught with logistic and other difficulties, causing parents and children a lot of anxiety at the beginning of each school term.
This week’s registration chaos is a ticking time bomb.
Parents have been, for several years now, complaining about Gauteng’s inefficient allocation system, but Gauteng education spokespersons have become used to defending the indefensible, protecting their principals from parents’ justifiable anger, by offering half-baked answers why the system is, in fact, flawless.
There is simply no truth in assertions made by the spokespersons in defence of the government’s incompetence. The allocation system from the word go when it was first conceived was done without any parents’ input.
The then MEC of education, Panyaza Lesufi, rammed it down parents’ throats, arguing, falsely, that the system should be lauded.
In fact, the system should be scrapped.
The parents have spoken. This system does serve them or their children’s best interest.
Might it be plausible, as many people have asserted, that this system might just, one of the many corrupt systems that feed into tenderpreneurial scams to further loot state coffers?
Corrupt leadership lurks everywhere.
The so-called “comrades of the struggle” often used underhanded methods to corrupt the fiscus to their own benefit.
But the bigger question is whether education minister Angie Motshekga is the right person for that position?
The education system is in a dismal position as Motshekga coasts along with no dividends to show.
The world has changed.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution beckons and Motshekga understands little of it, if at all.
We need new blood.
The president must hear and listen to the people’s call.
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