READER LETTER | Danie Malan school a targeted political scapegoat

The saga surrounding Laerskool Danie Malan and the Gauteng education department’s attempt to address it puts a spotlight on us, as Africans.

The department usurped admission power from schools; they determine who goes to what school. Now they have set up satellite wings linked to schools such as Danie Malan.

The noise circling Danie Malan came about because they could not meet the demand. The school had reached its full capacity while there were still parents who wanted their children enrolled there.

The department’s attempt to address the matter is a definite way of destroying a functioning school, overburdening Danie Malan as though that district does not have other schools.

It will come as no surprise if some of the teachers choose to leave the system. The political game at play is obvious: the department is avoiding the tough decision of wresting township education from the stranglehold of Sadtu, and  they are targeting earnest suburban schools that are not dominated by the union’s members.

Functioning schools are being scapegoated to conceal the department’s weakness and timidity. Sadtu members do not have faith in their own work; they were among the first to send their children to suburban schools. I have yet to meet a Sadtu member teaching his own child.

The centralisation of admissions sought to advance transformation. But I do not recall the transformation drive focused on township schools. If there are areas requiring targeted renewal, it is the townships.

The energy expended on fixing what is not broken in suburban schools would be better used in the townships. They need real transformation to stem the daily exodus of pupils.

It implies Africans cannot run functioning schools. It also means there are no able African educators who can run schools effectively. For African children to get quality education, they need schools like Danie Malan.

This insinuation is contemptuous to the thousands of capable African educators. Or this should be viewed as a admission of the general decline in almost every sphere of the state.

Themba Motaung, White City, Soweto