What is education? I do not know: Hlaudi

Once powerful but now disgraced former SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng on Friday swept up to Tshwane North College in a sleek grey Mercedes Benz E500 and said he wanted to address a student gathering where disgraced former deputy minister of higher education Mduduzi Manana was speaking.

Motsoeneng stayed inside his car waiting for the occasion to get underway‚ while leaders of the Congress of SA Students (Cosas) flocking to the vehicle to greet him.

Once on the podium‚ Motsoeneng rumbled on about everything - student issues‚ politics‚ the rand and that he knew nothing about education.

“I do not know anything about tertiary level‚ but what I know is I am very educated. I am very educated because you cannot define education by a certificate. There is a difference between certificated people and educated people‚ huge difference‚” he said to laughter from a trickle of students in the hall.

Motsoeneng said education meant changing people’s life‚ but he has seen certificates in the offices and homes of people who failed to implement transformation.

“If I cannot touch it and eat it‚ there is not transformation. [But] I have done it‚ I have changed people’s lives in SA but they chased me away. They chase me away but I have my legacy there‚” he said.

Malesela Madisha‚ the campus’s chairperson of the South African Students Congress‚ said Motsoeneng was not on their list of speakers.

He said their main speaker was Manana‚ who resigned from his position as deputy minister after a pub brawl where he was caught on video assaulting a woman.

“Motsoeneng approached us and asked for a platform to address the students and‚ because he is our comrade‚ we agreed‚” Madisha said.

Motsoeneng was fired from the SABC after he was found him guilty of misconduct after a disastrous reign as chief operating officer.