Ain’t it time we said goodbye?

Long before he became an old wrinkly, Rolling Stone songwriter Keith Richards penned a line which should be South Africa’s chorus this week. “Angie, Angie, ain’t it time we said goodbye?”

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been shambolic, with multiple delays in scheduled briefings, changes of announced plans, and a high court rebuke.

Having learned nothing from the outcry when she inconvenienced thousands by mishandling communication over which grades would open on what dates in June, she delivered a similar dithering performance this week. Keeping people waiting. Yet, of all the blots on her 11-year ministerial career, the worst is last week’s High Court in Pretoria ruling by Judge Sulet Potterill.

Motshekga and eight provincial education departments breached their constitutional duty by freezing school feeding schemes affecting nine million children.

“A more undignified scenario than starvation of a child is unimaginable. The morality of a society is gauged by how it treats its children,” the judge said, according to Business Day.

“Hunger is not an issue of charity, but one of justice.”

This government, whose fat-cat ways were displayed at the Zondo inquiry again this week and which wants to blow billions to keep vanity planes flying, had to be dragged to court to feed children. Worryingly, Motshekga claimed she did not have a duty to feed the children.

So the custodian of the scheme which provides food for half of all children in the country would rather not do so. This casts interesting light on the long-term nondelivery of books, and multiple deaths of schoolchildren in pit toilets.

If the minister doesn’t want to fulfil her constitutional obligation to feed millions of school children, what is her attitude to other aspects of their welfare? Indeed, what lives matter when you deliberately stop giving millions of children their only meal of the day and you spend taxpayers’ money defending that move in court?

The matter of whether schools be open or closed is unlikely to be settled by any decision of the Cabinet or the National Coronavirus Command Council. Court challenges loom. Educationist Professor Jonathan Jansen urges “close the schools until the peak is flattened and we have a much better sense of our options. Too many teachers infected, too many staff already died. Please be sensible.”

Indeed the vulnerability of teachers is overlooked. So, too, is the expectation that teachers must glide seamlessly back and forth between teaching online, remote lessons and being physically present in class. The exhortation to “close the schools” implies all schools should be treated equally, even when there are vast disparities. Among the inequalities is access to sufficient Wi-Fi/data for virtual education.

If that were universally available, how would its use or abuse be monitored? And the union demand that each pupil should be given a laptop or tablet is unrealistic in a country ravaged by economically ruinous lockdown regulations. Navigating all this requires skills which Motshekga lacks.

She long ago lost face with unions. She cannot claw back authority ceded. Her implied threat to teachers’ salaries if schools close is unhelpful. Time to say goodbye, Angie.

Martin Williams, DA councillor and former editor of The Citizen.

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