This week I participated in a book launch about Legends: People who changed South Africa for the better. This inspiring book is not to be confused with a sister edition, 50 People who F**ed up South Africa. Of the 12 greats selected for Legends, only one is alive, my Stellenbosch University colleague, Thuli Madonsela. In this volume there are the usual “greats” like Sol Plaatje and Nelson Mandela, but there are also lesser known legends like Sailor Malan and Cissy Gool. And so, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I would use this column to reflect on 2023’s legends who this year alone changed South African education for the better.
I begin with a remarkable person I met only recently, a woman called Janine McEvoy who works for Breadline Africa. She has bounceability (last week’s column) in abundance, one of the most driven people in education. Janine and her colleagues build infrastructure for schools neglected by our government, including one of my projects to link an early childhood facility directly to a primary school in an impoverished area of the country. Janine’s energy, commitment, skills levels and absolute dedication to South African children, is something to behold. She is a legend.
If you have not yet met Bianca Flanders, your life is incomplete. Bianca grew up on the Cape Flats to become one of the most influential educators of children without employment by a government department of education. She teaches through her remarkable skills as an actor and director, but also through the written word; she has written a book series starting with Pumpkin Finds Her Beat, about a girl who learns to love her curly hair. To see Bianca inspire children through reading and performing is to see a legend in action.
I cannot let 2023 pass without mentioning a dear friend and inspiring education leader, Tate Makgoe, who earlier this year passed away in a car accident. To have seen this head of education in the Free State lift the matric performance of schools is to witness a miracle. A man of focused determination and deep integrity, he approached me with his premier and asked a simple question: how can we work together to improve the results of our children? Within two years, Tate had made this largely rural province the leading one of the nine in school-based performance. Wherever you are in the universe, dear MEC Tate, you are a South African legend.
Eric Atmore is the most persistent and successful activist in early childhood education. He understands something most of us do not, that without early investments in childhood learning, the foundations of school education remain weak throughout and beyond the 12 years of schooling. He works tirelessly with his team, including his indefatigable daughter warrior, Sarah Atmore, to bring quality education to those in the most disadvantaged preschools of South Africa. After serious surgery this year that could have taken him from us, Eric is back in the saddle pressing the politicians for policy to become action in service of children’s learning. When the roll is called up yonder, expect this legend in the front of the line.
Then there is Shireen Powell who works for Project Isizwe, whose simple goal is to put Wi-Fi in the most disadvantaged schools throughout the country. She works with missionary fervour in an area where wires are so easily mixed up, literally and metaphorically. Shireen’s skill is to see through the wiring and make simple things complex, in contexts where electricity and capacity are often in short supply. Within no time, children can link devices to state-of-the-art online education resources and pursue their learning with or without a teacher. Shireen’s legacy is the stuff of legends.
There are countless others like my colleagues mentioned who cannot be accommodated within the 750-word limit for this column. But they draw attention to what is possible within government and outside it when the bottom line is nothing else but children’s learning.
By contrast, the minister of basic education recently launched an attack on Prof Mark Tomlinson for saying what is so blatantly obvious: that South Africa’s education system is in ruins. No, says the minister’s speech writer, education is on the rise, and then hands out a few choice insults in the process. This is what you do when you are so obviously unable to change the status quo and everyone around you can see that the education emperor has no clothes.
Happy Christmas, and when you feel down and dejected, remember the legends who keep our country’s education aspirations alive and, in the process, give us hope.
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