Chester Missing slams President Cyril Ramaphosa's tablet drive
Puppet Chester Missing has fired shots against President Cyril Ramaphosa's alleged plans to roll out thousands of tablets to pupils, suggesting that more basic resources were needed in schools and should be given priority.
According to City Press, the president will use his State of the Nation Address next month to announce the roll out of tablets for all pupils in the country’s 23,700 primary and secondary schools.
Other plans include the introduction of robotics and coding in grades one to three and the digitalisation of school curriculums.
The reports have sparked massive debate on social media with even former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela stressing caution.
I hope these are nationally or African manufactured tables because if not there’s nothing visionary about trapping our country in a dependency future of consuming digital goods from China, Korea and other manufacturing countries https://t.co/VVusxUpSkF
— Prof Thuli Madonsela (@ThuliMadonsela3) January 6, 2019
But one of the cheekiest responses came from the puppet, who took to Twitter to ask if the tablets would help eradicate broken and pit toilets in rural schools.
Ramaphosa says they gonna roll out tablets to 23700 schools. We also have kids literally drowning in poo because we don’t have working school toilets. Hopefully your tablets will have an app for that.
— Chester Missing (@chestermissing) January 6, 2019
Cartoonist Carlos Amato weighed in on the debate with a comic about the issue, while others expressed their thoughts on the debate.
Indeed. Here's a cartoon I did on this kind of madness, @chestermissing pic.twitter.com/NMfseDZcY3
— Carlos Amato (@CarlosCartoons) January 6, 2019
We have a serious problem at primary where some grade 4 kids are illiterate, some can't do arithmetics, classes overcrowded, 1 teacher teaches 3 subjects, poor infrastructure, lack of/no studying resources etc.... Tablets won't solve anything!
— Flavorism (@MusaMbusow) January 6, 2019
My view is 2019 is not a year for grandstanding. We are working, toilets and tech infrastructure is equally important. Different budgets for each but on twitter that wouldnt fit the agenda. Im 100% behind the President tech ramp up in schools, lets forge ahead
— Mgaa ♿ (@manono10) January 6, 2019