All kids have right to education: Lehohla
Statistician General Pali Lehohla on Monday, said necessary interventions are required to ensure that all deserving South African children get quality education.
“It depends with where you get the money. There is no free education but it certainly depends on where you tax, and who pays [the taxes]. It should be possible to have free education,” Lehohla spoke to journalists at the commission of inquiry into feasibility of fee-free education chaired by Judge Jonathan Arthur Heher in Pretoria.
“You cannot have people that you say they cannot go to school. They have to go to school. Constitutionally, they have the right, as children, to go to school. That right doesn’t rest with the parent, but it rests with the individual who is the child. If they don’t go to school, their rights are violated.”
Lehohla told the inquiry that even after acquiring education at the level of a bachelor’s degree, the black African graduates usually endure unemployment, failing to eke out a living out of the education.
“In 1953, the then minister of bantu education [Hendrik] Verwoerd said what is the use of teaching the bantu child mathematics when they cannot use it in practice. By that statement, bantu education was introduced and education among the blacks was destroyed. What we are seeing now is a consequence of that legacy. There was a battery of laws that ensured that it happened,” said Lehohla.
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“The Indians didn’t depend much on being employed. It’s only now that they are actually becoming employees. Amongst blacks, the migratory labour system has been very important in the destruction of education of education.”
Lehohla said compared to their white compatriots, black South Africans were also currently enduring much lower pass rates at universities.
“Now for every one black persons [who succeeds at university], there are six whites succeeding. This is where the problem is – blacks do not succeed at university,” said Lehohla.
Since 2015, the majority of South African university have been rocked by violent protests, leading to the temporary shutdown of the campuses. Under the #FeesMustFall banner, the protests gained momentum and even saw students storm Parliament in Cape Town and the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
The Heher-led commission has already submitted an interim report to President Jacob Zuma.
The inquiry was established in January last year following several months of the violent countrywide protests.