THE stories in today's edition on the condition of schools in Eastern Cape should shame our government into action.

But, in all likelihood, they will not. Because these are not new revelations.

The debilitating poverty, the oppression of the poorest children in this country, the inefficiency of the provincial government to deliver the most basic of functions are, unfortunately, all too well-chronicled to shock.

So why invest in sending a team of reporters to Eastern Cape, why bother to tell a well-reported story when "everyone" knows about the state of education in that province?

We sent our team because we want things to change - we want to tell our democratically elected government that this is just not good enough, that it is simply not acceptable to leave thousands of this nation's children to disappear into the darkness of deprivation and poverty.

These are our children too - irrespective of where we find ourselves, irrespective of the comfort and luxury we enjoy, and the middle-class schools our children can attend.

For if we do not care about the pupils of Eastern Cape - not only of the two schools we feature today - then we do not care about this country's future.

Because there are far too many of these pitiful excuses for schools in South Africa - in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

And it is time that we say that enough is, quite frankly, enough.

It is time for the ANC government to get its house in order as far as this nation's children are concerned. We cannot have another 18 years of excuses, promises and platitudes.

If we do not intervene, if the political will to transform these children's lives is not forthcoming, then we will condemn them to perpetuate the lives of their parents - miserable, poor, uneducated and entirely dependent on the largesse of the government for their livelihood.

Surely this cannot be the "better life for all" the ANC promised them?