Prof Sibusiso Bengu made public service an honourable thing

I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Prof Sibusiso Bengu. I got to know him through my involvement in the student movement in the early 90s.

I first met him at a summit on education in the early 90s. Later, I would interact with him again at similar meetings.

In our interactions, I experienced him as a very calm and deeply thoughtful individual — qualities as a leader which made him very accessible and receptive to the ideas of the student leaders.

While he did not always agree with our views, these qualities are critical for effective leadership in higher education today.

As stated in many tributes, as South Africa's first minister of education of the post-1994 era, Prof Bengu laid the policy foundation for South Africa's post-1994 education system.

He led this process as he managed interactions with the student movement — consultatively.

Through an array of conferences, commissions and working groups and meetings, this period saw the emergence of a number of critical legislative and institutional interventions that formed the cornerstone of state education policy in subsequent decades.

Key to this was the abolition of a vast array of apartheid-era laws and institutions and their replacement with a number of people-centred laws, policies and institutions — all of which were guided by a vision of an open society that is free of racism, sexism and capitalist exploitation.

In fact, a great number of the progressive policies that govern higher education today were introduced under the leadership of Bengu and on the back of huge and progressive grassroots struggles that pushed for progressive change in the 1980s to 1990s.

The early 90s were also characterised by the active participation of national student organisations in the national conferences on the transformation of education in our country.

At the time, these conferences included student organisations such as the Azanian Students Convention (AZASCO), the South African Students Congress (SASCO) and the Pan Africanist Student Organisation (PASO), (which later became PASMA).

Owing to the politically diverse representation among the student movement, these conferences were often characterised by robust debates.

These debates shaped the terms of the new struggles that emerged in the context of the new challenges of building a free and open society.

Even though there was not always uniformity among us as student organisations on such issues as access, language policy, institutional governance, student funding and even the concept of transformation, our conferences never really deteriorated to the point where there would be open skirmishes or a total breakdown of the unity of the student movement on fundamental issues.

We understood that the unity of the student movement on fundamental issues was sacrosanct.

We also understood the connection between education and economic policy and between education and social equality. After all, how can one have free education in an unequal society?

At a much deeper level, we were also acutely aware of the post-independence problems that have characterised a number of African countries and, in particular, the dangers that come with adopting neoliberal development models.

For this reason, we treated the policy proposals that emanated from the department of education with a lot of ideological suspicion and made sure we never missed an opportunity to make an input to whatever policy proposals were published for public comment by the department.

In fact, as the NECs of student organisations, we made the critique of the policy proposals of the department a standing agenda item at our national conferences.

Even though there were some policy proposals we disagreed with, there is nevertheless a sense in which some of today’s progressive education policies in South Africa are also a product of the student struggles of the 80s and 90s.

Given the substance of Bengu’s contribution, as activists, policymakers and progressive organisations, his passing should propel us to pay more urgent and collective attention to some of the unresolved challenges in the transformation of our country’s education landscape.

The first is the need to ensure that we don't take our feet off the transformation/ decolonisation pedal in higher education. This we must do with a particular focus on curriculum review, language policy and the deliberate training of more young black academics and women.

The second is to ensure that we strengthen the resource allocation and infrastructure of historical black institutions to ensure they don't just become financially viable but also observe the high standards of ethical governance and are empowered to offer academic programmes that deliberately respond to our development context.

The third is the need to massify the size and diversity of the TVET/CET sector relative to the higher education sector to reflect the country’s economic and developmental imperatives.

The fourth is to strengthen the governance, improve the quality of the infrastructure and teaching and address the safety and institutional culture in our state schools.

This we must do with the view to ensure we transform all our state schools into functional centres of excellence in all areas of human development.

The fifth is the need to deliberately build and strengthen the quality of leadership within our state schools, public TVET and community colleges and universities.

This we must do with the view to challenge the racist stereotypes that seek to make the collapse of public institutions synonymous with black leadership or those that equate the aimless destruction of public infrastructure with being revolutionary.

The sixth and final task is to build and maintain a vibrant culture of ideologically solid and ethically grounded student leadership.

This we must do with the view to ensure that the progressive component of the student movement continues to play a meaningful role in advancing the objectives of the national liberation project, both within educational institutions and in society.

Through his lifelong service to our country and its people, Bengu stands as one of the symbols of competent and ethical black leadership.

In his many public roles, he was never smeared by any scandal. As a black leader, he essentially contributed to making public service an honourable thing.

Inspired by his monumental legacy, we must ensure that we do away with the disturbing phenomenon where a huge number of our country’s young people (the majority of them black) are not in any form of education, training or employment.

As part of the student leadership of our generation, I wish to take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Prof Bengu.

• Veli Mbele is the spokesperson for the minister of science, technology and innovation, former president of the Azanian Students Convention, and former council member at Peninsula Technikon. He writes in his personal capacity.