If it ain’t broke, break it anyway

If only the Gauteng education department’s racism SWAT team – the fastest scrambling unit anywhere in government – was as good at hunting out weapons and drugs in our schools as it is chasing the ghosts of victimisation, then perhaps our institutions of learning would be a whole lot better off.

We have just witnessed the sick spectacle of the department conducting an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful witch-hunt against the principal of Pretoria High School for Girls, Phillipa Erasmus, over trumped up allegations of racism among her pupils.

The details of the alleged case are not worth going into, save to say that no less a personage than former president Thabo Mbeki and a team of similar luminaries could find no evidence of racism. Yet, despite that, education MEC Matome Chiloane and his henchmen pursued the unfortunate Erasmus.

In the end, a disciplinary hearing – questionable in and of it itself – found her guilty of two breaches… failing to do her duty when appointing a new finance manager for the school and allowing her husband, Mike, to help tend the school’s gardens – for free, nogal!

Quite what the motive for the crusade against Erasmus is, is not clear, although there is probably an element of jealousy in the fact that this white-run school is excellent by any educational standards.

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Maybe there is a black school head waiting in the wings – possibly a well-connected ANC apparatchik – to take over to push the claim of black excellence… who knows?

Meanwhile, in the schools in poorer areas, there are principals who have bought their positions, who dip their fingers into the school funds, fire teachers on a whim and generally show that, for them, teaching is just another way to acquire wealth.

In these schools, unionist teachers don’t give a damn, pitching up late and then sexually harassing the youngsters they are meant to mentor and protect.

Sure, that is a generalisation, but it is not an exaggeration of what is going on in the lower quintile schools, where the ANC hierarchy would never send their kids.

Also, while there are undoubtedly dedicated and professional teachers and heads in some of these schools, the jewels in the crown of education in Gauteng are those former model C ones which often have whites at the helm.

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I know – my wife taught at one of them. I marvelled at how they nurtured girls who were not only knowledgeable but confident. Some have gone on to become leaders themselves in the private sector.

My wife and her colleagues lived to teach.

At the school my son and daughter attended, the much-reviled “standards” are still high both in academic and sporting terms.

The same is true of many Afrikaans schools: just down the road from us, Laerskool Fairland produced Olympic champion and world record holder Tatjana Smith.

Because they are perceived by the ANC as enclaves of Afrikaner privilege, these schools are now also in the sights of the ANC through the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill.

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However, the ANC, in its headlong pursuit of the chimera of transformation, apparently does not believe in the truism that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…”

On the contrary, in most places in society it has taken functioning systems – from Eskom, to the defence force, to municipalities, to virtually every single state-owned enterprise – and broken them.

And, all the while, as we pursue the ghosts of the past and our victimisation, the rest of Africa is queuing up to eat our lunch.

By the time we wake up, we’ll be a “has-been” nation…