Solving The Port Elizabeth School Tragedy

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The school tragedy in Port Elizabeth is the latest episode in the ongoing Eastern Cape education disaster. Recently public intellectual, Professor Jonathan Jansen, wrote about the school tragedy in Port Elizabeth’s northern areas. Read his original column here: The real education calamity. He asks “why is there no public outcry about the fact that since the school year started more than 50 schools had not started classes?”

A friend sent me the article via Facebook. My first reaction was anger and blame and I want to share it with you below:

RT: Yes, this is a fact in the northern areas (Coloured townships) of Port Elizabeth. Now what is Dr Jonathan Jansen doing about it besides writing newspaper columns that he gets paid to write every week? [I am referring to all journalists who offer grand solutions from the comfort of their laptops].

AQ: I don’t know him or his responsibilities/capacity to do anything, but it’s not just about him tho. This eventually becomes everyone’s problem. Poorly educated children become ignorant and frustrated adults

RT: My point is this is common knowledge in Port Elizabeth area. And the parents are fighting SADTU union [and the MEC for Education, Mandla Makupula] which is virtually impossible to defeat.

Jonathan Jansen always writes these kinds of articles, and it’s easy to write about the problems and much more difficult to do something. HE, being a respected “Coloured” leader has been to Port Elizabeth (and Uitenhage) before, and can easily organise public meetings to mediate this conflict.

The MEC in Education in the Eastern Cape is useless as you know, so people like him with authority must can step off his high horse and engage more directly.

AQ: Why isn’t he being challenged on it then

RT: I am challenging you for believing everything he is writing.

AQ: Why haven’t you challenged him

RT: I have. He blocked me on Twitter when I asked him difficult questions. We have also spoken at the same conference at St Stitians College in Johannesburg in 2011.

AQ: My view is we are all responsible for the resolution of these problems part of that responsibility is consciousness and awareness. In this particular case I’m too far removed from the Port Elizabeth social discourse to engage meaningfully, however such situations grate me wherever they are. So my responsibility is to firstly be conscious of what is happening and in that regard I’m limited to what is available online and interacting with people like yourself, fortunately/unfortunately I cannot always judge character/political alignment and have to take the articles at face value, bottom line I feel it’s my responsibility to understand that there is a problem, extent of the problem and in my way and spaces contribute to its containment and hopefully resolution

AQ: I think we sometimes put people on pedals of responsibility when we know that they either lack the capacity or will (moral or otherwise) to be there

RT: Sure. I fact I am challenging you (to question the Prof. Jonathan Jansen’s responsibility) because you sent me the news story without any context or opinion.

— end of Facebook Inbox discussion —

There was some flaws in my argument. Teachers are not fighting teachers union SADTU, they are both fighting the provincial Eastern Cape MEC of Education, Mandla Makupula. The school tragedy in Port Elizabeth is exacerbated by the gang and drug problem similar to that on the Cape Flats.

And after re-reading the original column, Professor Jansen does indeed offer some good practical advice:

1. Activists must use social media to o signal for public attention flashpoints around the country where children are being denied education.
2. Responsible media needs to draw attention to these hot spots with, say, a running front-page spot carrying a reverse count-down message like “#32 days still without education in Port Elizabeth’s northern suburbs”.
3. Similar public notices can be carried for “Schools still without textbooks” or more pointedly “School X still without principal after three months.”

After all, I want to put his suggestions into practise. This is the type of challenge I thrive on.

Critisism of Professor Jonathan Jansen:

• What the heck, Jonathan Jansen wants honorary doctorate for Paolo Jordan
• How to be white in the new South Africa via Reddit

Government and The School Tragedy in Port Elizabeth

Eastern Cape’s MEC for Education Mandla Makupula unsuccessly tried to solve this teacher shortage problem in Port Elizabeth in 2015. This seems to have reached a stale mate.