The late ANC politician Steve Tshwete used to say that you shouldn't praise a lion for catching a buck.
This is what it does naturally, so it is only to be expected, an observation we should apply elsewhere as well.
What to make, then, of President Jacob Zuma's exhortation that "teachers should be in school, in class, on time, teaching, with no neglect of duty and no abuse of pupils"?
This is surely the bare minimum that should occur, yet in many schools it is the exception, not the rule.
Zuma observed that whereas in former whites-only schools, teachers teach in class for an average of 6.5 hours a day, in township schools they teach for only about 3.5 hours a day.
Can one really still blame apartheid for this extreme laziness that dooms millions of disadvantaged children to inferior education?