So as it turns out more books have been found dumped in Limpopo... a report last week was saying that the department of Education requests 14 million to sort this out. Minister Angie Motshekga went to the province to do investigation with her task team, have you heard a report except the amount of money they would like to get to sort out this embarrassment out? It breaks my heart that one person who the president has put faith in to take care of the education seems to not admit guilt or at least find someone who is guilty not for the textbooks that arrived in Limpopo in African time, but for the textbooks that never got to the schools. When I was in varsity I would buy textbooks for roughly R350.00 or sometimes more, I remember how I cringed when I bought a textbook for R 1200.00 and I dedicated myself to study and use that textbook that cost me so much. Well technically it wasn’t my money, but it was my book and I took care of it.
Why haven’t we found the people who are responsible for dumping those textbooks? Why are they not getting arrested, let me guess they took out a tender for delivery of textbooks and some bugger didn’t want to spend more fuel and decided to rather dump the textbook and drive back to his comfortable home, where his kids attend private multi-racial schools where they were not affected by the lack of textbooks. If the young people are denied the opportunity to get the education that is necessary to give them a chance of a better future what other hope do they have in this decaying society?The sad reality is that no one wants to put their head on the chopping block and yet in a few month or so we will have forgotten about this issue as other issues would be more pressing.
I am curious though… If you run a department whether it is a department in the store or a government department are there no reports or checklists or system you have in place to ensure that everything in your department is on point? Don’t you hold meetings in your department to find out what are the challenges the people who work with you are facing. I am not saying you much be a hands on person literally but be informed about the running and specifications of your department your department. I mean you work in electronics department and the guy an aisle 6 where there are cameras doesn’t tell you that there is a certain camera that is sold out, then that guy on aisle 6 is not sticking to his job description. If he however tells the electronics department manager that the camera is sold out and the manager doesn’t alert the store manager that manager should be gone.
Then again we can’t just blame the department minister; it is the system in which she falls in as well right down to the very teachers at the schools that were affected. The problem with some South Africans is we are very mediocre. We don’t complain when we get bad service unless you really do not like the restaurant or you are trying to show off or settle a score or simply having bad day. How many times do you check your till slip after paying at the till or check your bank statement just to understand what you are being charged for by your bank. I knew certain people who had money missing in their accounts and some had unbelievable bank charges but never asked the bank why that was being done to them.
We always make a plan if things do not work out well and when we tried and it doesn’t work out we accept it and move on… are we afraid to ask for help or are we just ok with things as they are. Strike for wages is larger than strikes for a green economy or saving energy. We want to be pushed to do things almost all the time otherwise we sit in the crap we get from around us and never out people to task for it. I’m just saying… follow me on twitter @leratoberry...
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