Response to Minister Angie's "WE ARE GEARED"
Revolutionary greetings
The above mentioned organization would like to take this opportunity to express its disappointment and embarrassment to Honourable Minister Angie Motseaga's understanding that pupils are ready for the upcoming final exams, we are quite interested as to where is she getting this information and we wonder as to what is informing it.
Our belief is that so long as students are over crowded in some regions of the North West we are not yet geared, so long as some teaching and no-teaching stuff continue to threaten to disrupt schools using their unions and other organizations to do so and nothing is being done in terms of bringing them to book we are not yet geared.
We strongly believe that as long as the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign struggles to find expression in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape to mention but few we are not yet geared, as long as students shared textbooks and did not have access to computers (computer literacy) let alone internet we are not geared, so long as corporal punishment exists in our schools and the department of basic education systematically deny it and those who practise it walk free in our schools we are not yet geared.
Reality is that children of the working class and the poorest of the poor go to school barefoot and hungry for the feeding scheme programme has failed in many provinces predominantly in rural areas we are not even close to being geared, as long our townships schools continue to be a breathing ground for criminal activities we are not yet geared. So long as education is a commodity, so long as our call since 2006 to Nationalise schools has not been realised we are far from being geared.
It is not fair to assume on the basis that one's children go to a school that has better facilities than that the schools of the rest of South Africa's poor that we are geared. A range of studies and reports that the department of basic education has agreed with that our teachers are not equipped and skilled enough especially in Maths and Science, and today all of a sudden according to the Minister we are geared. We do not however wish to say that the Honourable Minister has misled the South African population rather she is misinformed or she is not in touch with the painful realities on the ground.
In as much as the situation in our schools is unacceptable given the fact that we are twelve years in to our democracy we call upon our students to inspire confidence in the fact that they are sons and daughters of fighters that stood the test of time and our came out victorious to rise to the occasion. We continue to have confidence in you, that just like the generation of 1976-1985-2007-2011 to mention a few you will rise above and make our parents proud by passing with flying colours.
We urge parents, School Governing Bodies and society at large to support our students and give them time to study for they owe it to Hector Peterson, Tsietsi Mashinini to mention a few, the priority is not only Grade 12's but every student in the country. The each one teach one call is more relevant today and students should know that without each other they have nothing. GOOD LUCK Yours in student struggles
Bongani Mani
COSAS President General
Statement issued by COSAS, September 23 2011
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