Every day I read articles detailing how the government is failing the South African people: most notably over the past few weeks is the absolute tragedy of the Education crisis.
However, one thing that has become clearer and clearer reading these articles, is how much time ordinary South Africans spend COMPLAINING.
Face it: most of us know (or at least acknowledge) that the current government is corrupt. Most of us realise that the government’s inability, or unwillingness, to properly address the education crisis (and the job crisis, the housing crisis etc.) in South Africa will have consequences reaching so far into the future that it will affect our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
We KNOW this. And yet our only response is to keep reminding ourselves of it and keep hoping that if we complain long enough or hard enough: it will somehow, somewhere, make someone sit up and take notice?
And I’m so tired of hearing the same old “race” and “apartheid” arguments: from ALL SIDES. I’m too young to know what it was like living under apartheid, but yeah – it must have sucked in ways a lot of us can’t imagine. We get that. But I didn’t vote for it then: and if it were an option today, there’s no way in hell I’d vote for it now. Whether you’re Black, Coloured, Indian or White: Racism is wrong. Period.
Wake up man. You’re all so focused on analysing the problem, trying to work out how to assign blame; you’re all missing the point.
Arguably the single biggest failure of modern South Africa is our inability to properly educate our children. The question should not be “who or what is to blame for this mess?”- It’s “SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”
And yeah, perhaps there might have been a time when we could have safely passed the buck to the custodians of our collective taxes. But, at best, that was once upon a time: and a definite case of “happily ever after is just a story that hasn’t ended yet”.
Education is not a political directive: it’s a humanitarian one. And no, the two ideas should not be mutually exclusive … but alas, they apparently have to be if we’re ever going to fix this.
When the DA announced its Working for Jobs plan, I was half-way encouraged by the “Opportunity Voucher” scheme, until it dawned on me. Effectively all the DA is going to do is drop students right back into the system that failed it so badly the first time.
As Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it”.
FYI: most companies don’t actually need the government (or the opposition) to fund worker training. We’re actually quite happy to do train them ourselves. What we do expect is that, once they get to the workplace, they’re at least TRAINABLE.
And maybe you’re all right: maybe we can’t change a government-led system without changing the government: BUT who said we couldn’t add to it or improve on it?
Who said we can take the current system, compare it with all the good things in the old system (and there were a lot of good things), work out how to address the gaps created by the Bantu system: and get the experts to develop a voluntary, donation funded ‘void-filler’ development programme that kicks OBE’s “I’m ok, you’re ok, feel-good” and the Bantu “you’ll never be as educated as me” collective ass?
Who says we, as the South African collective, can’t start an #EducateSA foundation: specifically created to do exactly that? In case you didn’t know, donations are tax exempted or at the very least tax deductible. If you were wondering how to spend your tax rands – doesn’t this sound like a better option than blindly paying it over to SARS?
And no, I’m not saying this would be the best solution. But, I don’t hear any of you making another one.
All I AM saying is: this is the conversation we need to start having – and if you have something constructive to contribute … let’s talk.
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