I improved education – Zuma

Speaking to the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) on free education in Durban on Wednesday, Zuma heaped praise upon someone he feels did a great job of improving South Africa’s education system – himself.

According to the former president, his decision to split the department of education into the basic and higher education departments resulted in improved matric results, The Times has reported.

“When I became the president, one of the things I did was to separate the department of education‚ which was just a huge department. The problem‚ as I saw it‚ was that there was no focus put on basic education. If you wanted our children to be like other children‚ you needed to deal with the foundation. And that’s why I wanted a black child to be empowered‚ so that the black child must help us to get where we need to be as quickly as possible‚” he said.

Zuma is not alone in lauding his contribution to our education system. Organisers of a student demonstration in support of Jacob Zuma ahead of his court appearance in April called him a “blesser for free education in South Africa”.

READ MORE: Zuma: I want to warn them, they must keep quiet … they must not provoke me

At the event, Zuma also said free tertiary education should have been implemented in South Africa more than a decade ago – and if it had been‚ the country would have produced job creators rather than jobseekers.

Fees Must Fall student activist Bonginkosi Khanyile during a strike. The movement is widely seen as a huge factor in influencing Zuma’s decision to provide free tertiary education. Picture: Rudy Nkgadima

He described the implementation of free higher education as a turning point in South Africa’s history‚ saying it was a decision that would be appreciated in years to come.

“We forget about the elements that make education so important because we should have declared free education more than 10 years back. We would be very far now in terms of what is that we are doing in every level in our country‚” he said.

“This decision will be appreciated by people in many years to come because‚ for the first time‚ we have said, let’s use our resources to empower ourselves in order to change the quality of life [in] our country. Implementing free tertiary education was a turning point of our history‚” he said.

Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi speaks with members of COSAS after a media briefing at Mahlube Secondary School in Mamelodi East on 16 October 2017. Picture: Yeshiel Panchia

Zuma announced that government would subsidise free higher education for poor and working-class students in December 2017.

While many praised the move, Zuma’s critics have accused him of opportunism, of only making the decision to roll out free education because of the pressure from the Fees Must Fall movement, of making the decision too late and of leaving the practicalities of it to the administration, who would take on that burden rather than have him deal with the nuts-and-bolts of it himself.

“It was reckless for the president to announce free education without really showing a financial that is step by step in terms of how it’s going to be funded,” Johannesburg-based independent economist Thabi Leoka told ANA in January.

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