Six more schoolchildren, the very future of the country, were sacrificed at the altar of God-knows-what this week while South Africans were largely pre-occupied with what should really have been a trivial issue in the grander scheme of things.
The precious souls died in a tragic crash involving a train and a bus near Middelburg, Mpumalanga, in the latest instalment of deaths related to scholar transport in the country.
They added to the sorry tally of scholar transport deaths this year, and their demise came barely three weeks after 12 pupils died in a crash when the minibus they were traveling in collided with a bakkie in Carletonville, Gauteng.
Yet, absurdly the nation collectively found reason to elevate – if the “debate” on traditional mainstream media such as radio talk shows and social media is anything to go by – the issue of the eligibility and suitability of a damsel to contest the Miss SA title.
We are not saying South Africans have no right to feel however they do about the merits or otherwise of a child born and bred within our borders to immigrant parents to contest a beauty pageant, but not in a week like we just had.
In the wake of the tragedy in Mpumalanga, we had officialdom, this time as high up as the minister of basic education and the deputy minister of transport, visiting the scene of the crash thus lending the tragic story the gravitas it needed, outvoiced as it was by the crescendo of the outcry about a beauty pageant.
Sadly, it is a pattern all too familiar – officialdom going through the motions in the wake of such tragedies. As if on cue whenever a tragedy like this occurs, political heads of education, transport, and safety and security drop everything to rush to the scene of the crash, visit grieving families and then attend the obligatory mass memorial service to make speeches promising to do something tangible about the state of affairs.
Then, South Africa being South Africa, life goes on and the news focus turns to the next “big story” until the next tragedy strikes.
The charade must stop.
It is time we demanded more of those mandated to govern us. They must set aside considerable time and resources to get together to close the policy gaps that result in these tragedies.
Unroadworthy vehicles, unfit drivers, unmaintained roads and signage, unethical traffic officials and parents and guardians who are not aware of the conditions of the vehicle their children are shipped to school and back home every day because they themselves are rushing to catch their own deathtraps to their workplaces in the morning.
In the education budget vote on Wednesday, you wouldn’t tell that Gauteng education had just come out of a grim month. No mention was made of the scholar transport deaths.
On the national front, Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube in her maiden budget vote speech, which identified five key priorities for her department, made no mention of scholar transport safety despite having just visited the grieving families of the children who died in the Carletonville incident.
Suffer little children…
