Time for parents and the community of the Eastern Cape to take responsibility for the education of their children
The abysmal state of education in the Eastern Cape Province and the bickering among those tasked with the responsibility to administer our education in this province is a tragedy of monumental proportions. The recent developments regarding the suspension of school nutrition system, school transport system and termination of contracts of temporary teachers point to a decaying system that should make us ask uncomfortable questions about whether the officials tasked with this critical endeavour of educating the future custodians of South Africa appreciate the magnitude and seriousness of their responsibility.
Are they aware that this current state of education in the province has become a prototype of apartheid education system that produced most black children with neither skills nor requisite capacity for any meaningful economic participation except for being drawers and hewers of wood and water?
I think the Superintendant General for education in the province, Adv. Modidima Mannya, should indulge us and explain what consultation process he embarked on before terminating the crucial services meant for learners. Did he consult with the parents of these learners and other important stakeholders before taking such an important decision to cancel the critical services to learners? If he did, what was their response? If he did not why had he not done so about so crucial a decision to cancel the necessary basic services to learners of the province?
I raise this because it is so easy for a government accounting officer like Adv. Mannya to take unilateral decisions that will have untold repercussions and only justifying such decisions by saying it was financially prudent to do so. I understand Mr. Mannya's dilemma when faced with the unavailability of funds to provide and sustain these services to learners and his respect for the provisions of the Public Financial Management Act (PFMA).
But, it is my view that had he consulted widely with parents and other critical stakeholders on education in the province, he would have gained a consensus that would have approached the matter differently than a wholesale cancellation of these services.