Why is NEEDU apologising to Minister Motshekga?
In a statement released yesterday, the Department of Basic Education indicated that the CEO of the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (NEEDU), Dr Sibusiso Sithole, had made a groveling apology to Minister Motshekga.
It said:
The NEEDU CEO admitted that as a team they have erred in judgment on several occasions over the past five years to the extent that they had to apologise to the Minister. “In my communication to the NEEDU team, when I was talking about the Minister having raised concerns about how ‘certain issues were handled in the past,’ I was referring to these errors in judgment, which are best known to the NEEDU team and the Ministry,” said Sithole.
This comes after the DA revealed evidence this week that Minister Motshekga is curtailing the independence of NEEDU in order to shield her Department from public scrutiny.
The question is: why is the CEO of NEEDU apologising to Minister Motshekga? And what “errors of judgment” is the CEO referring to?