Infrastructure Investment Means More than Buildings

The problem stems from the lack of commitment to the intent in the National Skills Development Act that promised basics like a National Learner Registration Learner Database, that will house all learner information and credits they had attained in every academic endeavor they had engaged in their lifetimes. This is further exacerbated by the lack of strategy if not willingness to see to it that Recognition of Prior Learning is prioritized to appreciate that thousand of our people have skills, they can contribute meaningfully if given an opportunity to contribute to the economy and some believe in the value of honest hard work. There’s an obsession with politically correct arguments of skills shortages and other conveniences that continue to ensure that people are not taken on board and given opportunities to have the papers, then you have instances that students leaders will call academic exclusion in institutions of learning where some courses must as a matter of policy and practice be failed before they can be passed after several attempts, wherein its correct at any level of the National Qualification Framework to set rules and regulations that ensure perpetual exclusion of the dominated discourse, where its correct for people lives to be decided in two or three hours, to fail people simply because they are black, poor and undeserving according to some righteous arrogant cartels that are dominant and continue to ensure that they restrict the numbers of the majority in field of excellence on the basis of nice terms called merit. Where it’s correct to have sub minimum rules that begin to say no matter how close or how much you demonstrate understanding of a particular subject matter you will not get through because of some rules cast in stone in the name of quality. Where it’s correct for the latter practices to quality of a program or an institution be it a lower or higher education. Where people can sleep every night knowing very well that they refused someone’s child to be declared competent, because he was short of a mark or two. Where mediocrity is condoned in the name of excellence because it cannot be correct for the previously and presently disadvantaged to suddenly qualify in certain fields. Yes we may have attained the political freedom over a decade ago, but there’s a critical freedom that we have not attained which is economic despite our attempts in this country with Black Economic Empowerment and later Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment. Where in business its correct to throw entrepreneurs out of the economic mainstream because they are experiencing problems which are correct for the whole world to acknowledge through the work of this modern day saints with nice definitions found in economics literature describing them as recession and its acceptable but when the spaza shop cannot pay on delivery for a loaf of bread its correct to stop delivering for them, for small business to chased out by banks that have done thousand from them through unjustified fees for years needs assistance but its correct for the same greedy people at the head quarters of the dominant economic system to demand bailouts because they can save jobs. When the very poor workers they claim to be trying to save are the very people who cannot afford their lives in any case despite their good intention to be productive citizens yet making an effort regularly to change their lives for the better. It cannot be right for this malpractices to continue where capital has no soul as somebody had said and for academia to be a preserve field of the few where people languish the streets been made to believe that they are of no academic relevance because some examination board or institution has such draconian rules that will not recognize prior learning. I’m raising these two issues mainly because these are the very practices that continue to undermine the efforts of our people young and old to learn. The very that discourage not to bother starting a business as you are made to believe you wont succeed despite your best efforts. Where people can shout without any fear of contradiction that its normal to pretend as if they empower people yet commit atrocities to some people to put them in worse states than they were before some of the deals happened. The problems we have are both historical and present in nature and start in the classroom where children are assured they’ll become failures in life and efforts are made to that effect despite our migration to Outcome Based Education. What’s outcome based with a two hour exam sometimes? The system needs to change. Learning and teaching should be just that to ensure that learners are taught by those who are competent in the subject matter and not people who at best could rewrite contents of some prescribed textbooks and are regarded as scholars of high pedigree. Where learners and students alike are not expected to become experts but rather functionally competent in a subject matter, unless we need specialists then we’ll then be strict. In the same sprit we should guard against rigidness and intransigence where not attaining a mark will not allow one to qualify. Where learner’s spirits are shattered and drop out rates continue to increase from school’s right up and it’s correct for some experts to right reports of this status without providing answers to this unfortunate development. It’s only an idiotic practice that at best can be called academic exclusion and it needs to be condemned with the strongest possible terms. This nonsense has to stop and the ministry in Higher Education needs to move into this comfort space characterized by such tendencies on the basis of quality to bring things in line. It honestly cannot be business as usual if things are to change and there’s a need for leadership that unwavering in its commitment to rid society of the ills of crime, maltreatment and other maladies. This level of interrogation is paramount at the level of society first and foremost and then at educational institutions then change will be seen and we’ll be in a position to have a prosperous nation where everyone enjoys rights as espoused in the Constitution. Then there’ll be equal opportunity in the true sense otherwise this nonsense shall never cease to exist. Tshepo Lefera Tshwane