Hon Minister, and hon Chairperson, first it is actually welcome sight to see you in your office again because those of us who have been in teaching the era between 1994 when you assume office we knew that with each Minister we get a new
curriculum and that teaching and education in general was in a very unstable state at that stage. Actually nobody knew what to do and what was expected of them. You systematically returned stability and although we may differ on many important aspects at least one can say that in education people more or less know what is expected of them, that is to say when we work with professional teachers.
Now there is an artificial distinction which people make between education for qualification for the economy and education as a forming activity, that's of course is a false distinction because even the most forming education exercise also generate the characteristics which are necessary for economic success and the other way round.
That is where decolonization in education is a key factor, because in colonial thinking, there is a metropolis with one or more dependent countries or colonies. In the subjugated colonial mind, the metropolis is London, Lisbon, New York or Bejin. That is the centre of the world where my place is regarded as a
distant corner of the globe. Of course that is to limit oneself in a colonial mindset
A decolonized worldview, on the other hand, is one in which my place wherever that may exactly be, is the centre of your own world. Decolonization is taking responsibility for your own world, even though others may see that place as a distant corner of world. Decolonizing education has everything to do with economic success because the decolonized mind integrated itself with science and the world of knowledge which is confronted in the word of work and can interact with that in a very direct way.
South African education however, is sadly colonised. It is increasingly, and I'm very glad about what you told us about the development of African languages and the guarantee of mother tongue education but until now, South African education is increasingly offered in only one language, in English! And it is not always legitimate to say that Afrikaans is used as a way of exclusion where I come from in the Northern Cape there is no way
that you can exclude anybody with Afrikaans because everybody speaks Afrikaans.
In addition, our teachers don't regard themselves as professionals, but as part of the proletariat which organises itself in trade unions which get tough with its employer to the detriment of learners. This is one of the main problems that our unprofessional teachers who go on strike because they organise themselves in a trade union and not in a professional body like doctors or lawyers or wherever they would start at 17.38.10
Afrikaans children are colonised by subjecting them to a narrative in which their own past is only occasionally mentioned and then consequently to vilify them. The responsibility for education originates with communities and should also be delivered by community structures if some communities decide to delegate this responsibility to the state, either the national or provincial it creates no duty on others to follow suit. Thank you.