With days to go before the country’s matric class of 2022 start writing their final examinations, having weathered unprecedented turmoil unleashed by a global pandemic, they must navigate one more tempest.
And that is our debilitating electricity crisis.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga says everything humanly possible has been done to prepare pupils for the final push to complete the academic year. About 942,000 candidates are registered to write the National Senior Certificate (NSC). Most exams, written during the day, do not require electricity. But those late night study sessions will be difficult without electricity for many pupils.
Motshekga acknowledged in an SABC interview, during a prayer session for grade 12s on Sunday at a school in the Free State, that they were a “unique class”, having lived through the disruptions and lockdowns triggered by the pandemic since early 2020.
“We are as ready as could be. We have done everything humanly possible to make sure we prepare our pupils, we prepare the system,” she told the broadcaster. “And this is a very unique class, they were right in the middle of Covid-19, so they have seen it all,” having to cope with remote learning challenges then rotating classes, which left many having to play catch-up.
“The mere fact that for three years they had to go through the storm made them the most disadvantaged cohort of pupils, and that’s why all efforts were made to have Saturday classes, weekend classes, last pushes, getting support ... so everybody, even from the private sector, has been coming to our rescue because this class was the most disadvantaged.”
Given that context, it must have been cold comfort for some pupils and parents who woke up on Tuesday — two days later — to discover SA had abruptly been plunged back into stage 4 load-shedding. Motshekga’s comments on the same day (Tuesday) to the SABC rubbed salt in the wound when she was asked how pupils would cope with final exam preparations given the power cuts.
No, you work around it. The way business works around it. You look at the schedule, there is going to be load-shedding at five ... which means you study [later].
— Angie Motshekga, basic education minister
“Are you saying they must go and buy candles?” she was asked. “No, you work around it,” replied the minister. “The way business works around it. You look at the schedule, there is going to be load-shedding at five ... which means you study [later]. People don’t stop going to work because there is load-shedding. Businesses don’t stop operating because there is load-shedding. You work around it,” she explained.
Asked about the unpredictable nature of the rolling blackouts, as witnessed early on Tuesday, Motshekga answered: “No, but learners are not an exception. So everybody coped, traffic coped, we coped. So they wake up, there’s no light so it means they will study later when the sun rises, but what I’m saying is ... I don’t want to stress kids and say ‘here is a big problem, stress out’. We’ll have to work around it.”
Those three words “work around it” were received like a blow to the solar plexus in some quarters. A minister, with backup power systems and, until the recent public outcry, who was, according to the latest ministerial handbook, entitled to free water and electricity at her official residences, appeared to be saying just grin and bear it. Critics weighed in pointing out that business was being hamstrung, jobs lost and daily life enormously disrupted by the rolling blackouts.
However, there is an equally valid counterpoint. What more could the minister have said or done, given the gravity of the energy crisis gripping the country? It’s practically impossible to hit the pause button on load-shedding at night for pupils to study around the country if there simply is not enough electricity available. Of course we should never have ended up with an electricity crisis, had the warnings sounded years ago been heeded, generation capacity been added to the grid and essential maintenance carried out with money siphoned away instead by corrupt schemes. Load-shedding is, for the time being, not going away.
Motshekga’s words can be interpreted another way, reading between the lines: in the face of adversity, we must be resilient. When faced with a problem, seek solutions. It’s the kind of thinking that, one would hope, is ingrained in pupils once they leave school. Sadly, this is not often the case and entering the “real world” where problem solving is an essential skill can be daunting.
But it’s the mindset that will propel our future young innovators and leaders forward. One just has to look at schools in parts of the country that have produced exceptional results, despite classrooms and pupils’ homes not having electricity. What seem like insurmountable odds have, and continue to be, overcome by grit and determination.
One would hope this is what the minister was trying to convey.
Nevertheless, it’s a sad state of affairs that our matrics — having already weathered so many rough seas — are sailing through yet another storm at this critical time in their lives.
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