It has been reported that 1.1 million little boys and girls enrolled for Grade 1 throughout the country this year.
These beautiful ones who were born into a free and democratic society may be likened to a garden of what South Africa will look like in 2022. These are the little boys and girls who will wake up one morning to check their matric results in the newspapers to see how they have performed.
It is only then, a dozen years from now, that we shall know whether the education system has addressed the underperformance of African pupils or not.
It is those results that will tell if there is any change in the performance of black pupils against their white and Indian counterparts.
We all know that over the past 15 years, if not decades, the education of the African child and their performance in school, especially matric, has been allowed to run wild.
What we observed in 2009 should be a cause for alarm, especially in the black community.
But the reopening of schools in 2010 lays bare yet another chance for parents and educators, especially in the African community, to choose. Whatever decision they arrive at will inform this nation and the world whether they have cultivated new values in the character of African children or they will have continued to neglect them.
When 2022 finally arrives, it will be twelve years after the first Fifa World Cup in Africa.
If nothing is done to teach the young ones self-responsibility, focus, discipline and hard work, they will always look back and blame 2010 for their underperformance or failure.
But if they are taught that 2010 marks the crossing of the line from blaming the so-called apartheid legacy for the character flaws in the African personality, then they will have none but themselves to blame for success or failure.
We have to let go of the excuse of blaming outside forces and factors for the poor performance of black pupils.
The black community can no longer afford to produce and reproduce underperforming pupils, especially in matric, where they are outshone by their white and Indian peers.
It is no longer a secret that white and Indian students do not possess extraordinary intelligence which makes them glow like the flowers of this nation. But what we understand from their results is that they understand what is required to be straight-A pupils: work, work and more hard work.
The garden of 2022 needs to be cultivated now to make sure that black pupils get rid of their lazy attitude.
The little boys and girls who are at the entry level of the schooling career need to be told what is required for them to be the professionals, leaders and managers beyond 2022.
We have to weed out all the wrong, useless and impure thoughts of entitlement and affirmative action.
Instead, what is needed is to cultivate them towards a new perfection where they will understand that every man or woman is responsible for what happens in their lives.
No more lies of blaming the circumstances.
The leaders, school authorities, parents and everybody else knows what the solution is: good resources and, above all, self-responsibility and commitment.
By pursuing this approach, we shall have contributed towards the ultimate realisation of the dream of an equal opportunity and non-racial South Africa.
The process may result in today’s little boys and girls growing up with the understanding that the rules of success do not change: focus, self-discipline and hard work.
They will have been taught that apartheid or not, how you are focused, disciplined and hard-working will determine how far you will rise in life.
We tend to forget or conveniently overlook the fact that the group of boys and girls who started school in the new South Africa of 1994 finished their matric in 2005.
The question that has not been answered is: where are they and how are they doing now?
How many of those youngsters, especially from the black community, finished their studies? If we want to control the future we must study the past.
And if we want to change the past we must critically examine the present and identify the weaknesses.
The present is here and now in the form of 2010.
The thought and character of what South Africa will look like through its matric results in 2022 can only manifest and be discovered through the performance of today’s 7-year-olds in Grade 1.
How are we going to help them to help themselves?
What we have to accept is that the outer conditions that the children grow up in may not be radically different or change much.
This does not mean that circumstances under which the pupils are going to study are not a factor in how their results are going to be.
But it will always be the values that are inculcated into them at a very young age that will determine how high or low the young ones will rise.
For now, they are all taking that small step we have to turn into a giant leap into 2022 and beyond.
What excuse will black people have, then, if and when they are still outshone by whites and Indians?
Let the race against mediocre black performance begin.
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