This article was first published by Business Brief on 21 August 2024
Siviwe Gwarube is the first Democratic Alliance (DA) member to become Minister of Basic Education; an impressive feat that is fraught with peril. The DA did not nearly accomplish all that it should have after forming a government of national unity (GNU) with the African National Congress (ANC).
The cabinet positions the DA did receive have very little coherency, or real influence over the power-making of the country. Unfortunately, the ANC did not form the GNU in good faith.
The cabinet positions it gave to the DA are more likely to be patsy positions, distracting the public from the ANC’s refusal to actually change its behaviour. Gwarube, regardless of her own competency, is very unlikely to be able to truly fix basic education in South Africa, as the crucial cabinet positions needed to make real changes are still held by the ANC.
But, if the DA was to fix basic education, there are a few changes they can and should work towards in order to ensure that as many children as possible receive the best education possible.
Privatisation and school independence
The DA should push for the privatisation of schooling. Public schooling has become rotten with corruption, mismanagement, and bad governance. Even under DA leadership, this is unlikely to end. The rot is just far too deep.
Many South Africans are now sending their children to private schools, but these can be exorbitantly expensive for most.
The solution is to raise the quantity of private schools, which by their nature are better run and have an incentive to aid their students to become successful individuals. Private schooling must be deregulated to further encourage the opening of more schools. With the ease of starting new schools, many cheaper private schools will open, allowing more and more people to access good schooling.
Existing private schools must also be given more freedom to shape themselves to fulfil the needs of their students – leading to more innovation in education.
As private schooling becomes more accessible and more common, the state can start replacing a lot of its funding of ill-managed public schools with the funding of school vouchers, further allowing poorer families to go to great private schools. This would be cheaper for the taxpayer, while also allowing South Africans to access the best possible education.
Stop interference in home and independent schools
The government has enough to worry about without interfering in home schools and independent schools. The fact that parents are wanting to send their kids to independent schools or keep them at home schools shows that they do not trust state interference in the education of their children.
The government must stop pestering these parents and kids, and give them increased freedom to take control over their own education. This eases the burden on state resources and allows for more diversity in the education of individuals across the country – which further breeds innovation and healthy competition.
Diversify curriculums
SA imposes strict curriculums on its students, with home-schooled students and independent schools having to jump through many hoops to teach different, often superior curriculums. This shouldn’t be the case. Diverse curriculums cater to diverse children, fulfilling different needs and producing students who can specialise in many different aspects of life.
We need a plethora of different curriculums to suit every type of child and to produce many types of adults. Allowing all schools to choose the curriculum that works for them will help our education system become one of the most dynamic and vibrant in the world.
Weaken the power of SADTU
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) is much less a union and more a brutal gang of politically connected thugs who have held SA’s education system hostage for decades. SADTU protects teachers from needing to fulfil the bare minimum of their duties, allowing many teachers to shirk their duties, demand pay despite not working, and even abuse children.
SADTU is one of the biggest stumbling blocks standing in the way of fixing our education system. As hard as it may be to accomplish, SADTU needs to be weakened so that it no longer can threaten mass strike action, protests or political aggression to push its selfish agenda. The needs of our country’s children should come first.
With privatisation of schools, on top of playing hardball against the SADTU thugs, the power of the union may diminish, allowing schools to once again become schools, and not just a penny jar for lazy opportunists.
I wish Gwarube luck as minister and hope she can make huge strides in fixing the education system for all.
