As the coronavirus bushfire rages across the country, it has brought into sharp focus the multiple failures of ANC government policy over the past 15 years, particularly in the key areas of health and education.
The situation in the Eastern Cape’s overwhelmed hospitals and clinics shows that not only has the administration failed to take advantage of the breathing space supposedly conferred by lockdowns, but it is falling apart after years of neglect, maladministration and corruption. Yet some politicians in the province continue to blame the apartheid era for the current catastrophe.
Now that the scale of the disaster in the Eastern Cape is becoming apparent, the ANC is looking to save face wherever it can from a political point of view. And Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has been accused of using schoolchildren as political pawns to keep the public from realising that the education system is, in many places, no better than the Eastern Cape’s health facilities.
Specifically, she wants pupils to attend classes now – when the infection spread is already beyond control – to present the façade of a functional education system. That’s because the Covid-19 spotlight has accentuated the failure of her department to bridge the gaps between rich and poor schools and to provide even basic facilities in rural and poor areas.
Many schools do not have adequate sanitation facilities, never mind access to online, or electronic, learning and they now face the threat of the virus. In Kenya, the government has regarded the Covid-19 threat in such a light that it has cancelled all schooling until the beginning of next year.
Given that South Africa has already lost months of teaching time (even in the better-off schools), is it not time for Motshekga and the ANC to consider doing the same thing here? Surely it must be: health first, education next.
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