If the DBE cannot assure children that their lives will not be compromised, how do you expect effective teaching and learning to happen? Have effective teaching and learning ever triumphed where fear reigned?
Angie Motshekga
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Teacher, don’t leave those kids alone
I watched the basic education minister, Angie Motshekga, deliver the matric results on eNews yesterday afternoon. It was not pretty. Neither were the results impressive. And the minister’s speech was awful. There were times when she lost me completely, most of all when it came to the actual provincial results. Or was that the district […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A black matric certificate is still worth nothing in SA
By Siphiwe Sithole I must congratulate the class of 2013 for achieving what is said to be the highest pass rate of 78.2% since 1994 in South Africa. It is always exciting to watch newly matriculated youths get into the real world, some get jobs, others further their studies while others journey to find themselves […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The men and women who make SA great, sort of
To mark the passage of 2013, some annual awards to the men and women who make South Africa great. Or at least jaw-droppingly memorable. The Xenophobia Award goes to the SA Police Service for reminding us that it is still possible to be too black. The son of former Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni was […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Helen loves Angie: How politics makes for strange bedfellows
What is not said is often more important than what is. The response of Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko to this week’s cabinet reshuffle is a case in point. Mazibuko welcomed the exit of Communications Minister Dina Pule but found inexplicable the retention of Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Malema’s problems will be over soonish
Let me tell ye how it shall be! The sun will be a blazing mass in the sky, rivers and oceans will run dry, massive swarms of locusts will roam the planet as human beings wither and die, blood will boil and turn to scabs as animals suffocate and drown in their own vomit … […]
Posted inEquality
Forget the skirt, arrest the fashion police!
If Lindiwe Mazibuko and Angie Motshekga appear poles apart politically, there is one reality they have shared socially — being subjected to public sexist insults. Mazibuko’s case is only the latest in a number of public incidents where women are dismissed on the basis of body, age and dress — that age old language of […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Angie’s panties, really Sadtu?
I am aware of how my children’s behaviour comes about from modelling mine. I see it all the time, from when my son gets hurt and his sister “kisses it better” to the way they conduct themselves in general. More than what I ever say to them, my children learn from my own conduct. I […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why isn’t Angie the new Manto?
So there I was, having dinner with my family, talking about Lance Armstrong and yellow bracelets, when I had a random thought: is Angie the new Manto? They do have an awful lot in common. Both instantly recognisable by a single name. Both spectacularly bad at their jobs. Under Angie, we’ve embraced chronic and possibly […]
Posted inNews/Politics
I benefit from the failure of the basic education system
It’s time to admit it. You’re white and you benefited. This is the challenge that Roger Young and Leonard Shapiro have set for white South Africans. The pair created and is selling T-shirts that read across the front: “I benefited from apartheid.” They say the T-shirts are their attempt at beginning “an important conversation about […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Angie not to blame for teen pregnancy but…
The world’s super-teacher, Ron Clark, recently told CNN how he “met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state”. “She was loved and adored by all but she told me she was leaving the profession. I screamed ‘you can’t leave us’ and she quite bluntly replied ‘look, if […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
ANC stance on DA school closures hypocritical
In 2007, Angie Motshekga, the then Gauteng MEC for education embarked on an unpopular operation — to close what she called “non-performing schools” in the province. The move angered learners, parents, teachers, unions and even some people in the ANC. Motshekga reasoned that the schools facing closure come January 2008, were schools that were badly […]