Dit is my voorreg, Speaker en eerbare raadslede, om 'n paar idees met u te deel. [It is my privilege, Speaker and hon members of the House, to share a few ideas with you.]
One may look at President Zuma's state of the nation address in terms of what he said and what he did not say. In terms of what he said, I have very little quarrel with that and support the overall thrust: the focus on job creation, education and health. The claim about the 480 000-odd jobs is a fudge and it is an act of what one may term "rhetorical elision".
I object - to use a Soviet Union-style term - to the rehabilitation of P W Botha. I will return to Botha at the end of what I have to say if there is time.
The main issue with President Zuma's address is what he did not say and the lack of ambition he indicated in word and manner for our country. Our economy is animated by the talent, ideas, intellectual property and spin- off entrepreneurial opportunities coming from some of our 23 universities, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and over 50 colleges. We have the most advanced science, medical and technology infrastructure on this continent by far. We are at the high end of astronomy, nuclear physics, biotechnology, medical genetics and large-scale engineering and construction.
Together with our science council system, we could be the powerhouse on the continent, competing globally with the likes of India, Brazil and Chile. But we are running at 40% capacity and we need to get to 100%. We need hundreds of trade schools for high-end artisan training. None of this is new to you. To get there, we require an unrelenting attention to quality.
I think of Stanford University in California, a fourth-rate institution in the 1940s after the war. It was built up by its legendary provost paying consistent attention to detail in hiring quality staff and attracting quality students, and working in a well-run and properly functioning institution on the basis of a quality infrastructure.
We certainly need to apply ourselves similarly. Careers pursued via universities, colleges and trade schools are equally valued and important, and we should market our aspirations accordingly.
Education should be the joyful unlocking of human potential and not a burden to the taxpayer of head-stuffing students, who are seen as units of information consumption. We have a great base on which to build.
Let me give you some examples of inherited nodes of the knowledge economy: Firstly, deep-level mining produced innovations in engineering, geology, paleontology and medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The second example is the HIV/Aids infrastructure that is emerging in KwaZulu-Natal - the University of KwaZulu-Natal together with this Wellcome Trust-funded clinic in the northern part of KwaZulu-Natal, together with the development of Aspen Pharmacare, which is the largest commercial producer of antiretrovirals in the country.
Thirdly, the viticulture - the art of wine-making - department at the University of Stellenbosch, together with plant pathology, was looking at the development of a bottling, corking and label-printing industry. There has emerged a knowledge economy around that very important part of the Western Cape economy.
The fourth example is the medical devices industry; biomedical engineering linked to heart transplant surgery and immunology at the University of Cape Town.
The fifth is dentistry at the University of the Western Cape; UWC has been producing dentists for the country through its practicing hospital in Mitchells Plain. I wanted to say something about the fact that they practice conservative dentistry, which is why most of the people there have front teeth. [Laughter.] The last example is the University of Pretoria's Onderstepoort veterinary division, where we have seen a world-class facility in animal health emerge together with the development of the sequencing of heartwater disease and vaccine development.
We need to move into other niche areas. We have a very long coastline and there are opportunities for marine biology and the development of aquaculture, which is fish farming.
We need to move into the area of carefully looking at alternative sources of energy. We need to look at the area of what advantages the Cape Floral Kingdom can give to plant biotechnology. But to get to 100% capacity, where our tertiary sector pumps away at the knowledge economy, we need to deal with some quality issues.
There are very serious governance breakdowns at our tertiary sector institutions. I have had a very close look personally at what has been happening at the Tshwane University of Technology, and the Minister of Education has tried to do that as well, and what we've seen there is a criminalisation of the residences at this university. And that requires very serious security and other forms of attention.
The administrative support systems, including library management, are hobbling, and many of the historically disadvantaged universities require much more demanding levels of accountability and performance management.
The academic staff recruitment practices similarly require scaling up at all our universities, but particularly at the historically disadvantaged universities. But I want to point out that of the 41 383 academic staff at our universities, only 16% have doctorates and 34% have masters degrees. Therefore, half of the academic staff do not even posses a masters' degree and the figure for the poorer universities is even more pathetic.
So I look forward to the budgets of the Ministers of Education, Health, Arts and Culture and Science and Technology, to see whether they will exemplify passion and ambition for excellence and quality for all the people who make up our nation. I have no doubt that they will try. It is my job to hold you to account for the unrelenting pursuit of quality because we deserve nothing less.
I do want to make one remark about P W Botha in closing. He signed the death warrant of District Six in the 1960s. He was responsible, together with Magnus Malan, for launching military attacks on our neighbours, including on ANC camps. He was responsible, together with Adriaan Vlok, for two states of emergency. He was responsible, in 1987, for tightening up the group areas system that caused misery for many people.
He met Madiba to size him up. He did not meet him in order to see whether he would release him. He was a belligerent, irascible bully who masqueraded as a politician and I don't think we should rewrite history in such a way that it honours him. Thank you very much. [Applause.]