Free primary education saga further exposes Tinkhundla’s disdain for the education of the poor!

The latest twist in the free primary education saga is that Tinkhundla’s warped interpretation of free education amounts to E560 or $70 per child per annum. All this happens in a context where the annual fees in some public schools top E1200 or $150. Well, Tinkhundla Education Minister, Wilson Ntshangase, can rest assured that we do not appreciate his uncalled for show of ‘transparency’ in giving us whatever concocted figures. We neither need it nor even care to know what figures are involved. Our understanding of free education is enrolling children and not worrying about any payment whatsoever. In fact, that is what the people of Swaziland were promised from the outset of the constitution making process all the way to the time that free primary education was finally due at the beginning of 2009. That is what we will now have. It is the duty of the government of the day to either cap the fees for all public schools or take care of whatever differential in school fees payment. In short, that part is absolutely none of our business. Our responsibility, instead, is to pay taxes, feed, clothe, and then present our children to any public school – end of story. Some of us warned the Tinkhundla government (for free) to not even think about messing with the highly inflammatory issue of free education, no matter how used they are to getting away with taking us for granted. They did not listen, as expected. Look how badly this whole thing is backfiring already. The Ministry of Education should abandon the stupid games and just deliver free primary education forthwith. For God’s sake, the games simply aren’t gonna work anymore. FREE primary education will…

Democracy on display in south Africa!

Watching the tail end of the general elections in South Africa on Friday (24/04/09), the fourth since the return to non-racial multiparty democracy in 1994, I couldn’t resist admiring especially the agitation among the depleted opposition parties toward a more united front to counter the ruling ANC’s continued parliamentary domination, which at best could also signal political extinction for smaller parties and at worst neutralizes democratic practice.

 

I had to agree very reluctantly that that country’s 15-year-old democracy is not just approaching maturity but also remains the beacon of hope for a sub-region that has known little more than chaos in its stuttering march toward credible multiparty democracy. The huge turnout with visibly vigorous youth participation, the absence of violence even in identified pre-election hotspots, the generally smooth and transparent management of one of Africa’s largest elections by an evidently independent IEC, and the impartial nationwide coverage by a free but disciplined media were four of numerous pluses for me.

 

It was however one analyst’s call that the ANC was yet to be effectively challenged by any opposition, old and new, on the crucial question of “legitimacy” that has captured my imagination more than any other aspect of the electoral process. Look, when the ANC insisted on pushing Jacob Zuma’s presidential candidacy despite damning criminal charges against him (never mind his acquittal of one and the dropping of a dozen others, both on a technicality), I personally expected the electorate to emphatically punish a party whose moral radar had gone arrogantly awry. Gosh, was I wrong!

 

Obviously, the South African voting public wouldn’t be the least bothered by Zuma’s unresolved courtroom baggage and are, in fact, even more than willing to toss that to one side if they perceive their candidate to be at least willing to identify with and heed their more pressing needs, e.g., rampant unemployment, poverty, and housing. These are just three cognate examples of the many delivery sore spots for successive post-apartheid ANC administrations. Any unrelenting undertaking to finally address them, as Zuma is known to have done, is sure to persuade South Africans that a potentially morally questionable presidency is a gamble worth taking for the promise of the hitherto elusive fruits of that costly liberation struggle across the board. In any case, which politician hasn’t been less than squeaky clean, so to speak?

 

As things stand, the ANC’s gamble has been rewarded with just less than the three-thirds parliamentary majority that would have allowed the ruling party to alter the constitution without consultation; not that they really need that either. The liberation pedigree of the ANC and those in it who still project the liberation movement’s humble service to the masses of its grassroots supporters, it has strongly emerged, remains the decisive measure of “legitimacy” for the party in government.

 

This is so particularly in the eyes of black South Africans for whom the wheals of institutionalized and systematic apartheid dehumanization may never truly heal.

 

I have just one request to the incoming South African administration: we democracy-loving Swazis hope that President-elect Jacob Zuma’s frequent visits to our troubled Swaziland has adequately alerted him to our thirst for liberation from the shackles of a feudalistic Tinkhundla regime under King Mswati III, who also doubles as the Chairperson of the SADC Organ Troika on politics, defence, and security. We say to you Sir (soon to be head of SADC), that a soccer coach makes a terrible rugby referee and Mswati has no business overseeing democracy in Southern Africa when he does not want the same for Swaziland. We hope that you can put the cause of the oppressed people of Swaziland ahead of your (presumed) personal ties to Mswati, whatever the devil they are. We once took care of you as an MK cadre. We do not want to end up like the fiasco that is the Zimbabwe unity government that Mswati presided over with your previous government’s brokerage. We want the same democracy that has legitimately put you into power. Swaziland depends on South Africa for all its economic needs. The economy wouldn’t last one day without your continued co-operation. It is therefore not too much to ask you to put telling pressure on Swaziland to democratize. Your COSATU alliance partners already got the ball rolling in this regard. We thank you in advance for your anticipated positive input. Good luck to you and may God guide your new democratic administration.

The internet begins to hurt Mswati!

This is the state of neglect at the Manzini taxi rank. These downtown ravines represent the state of the road in downtown Manzini taxi rank. Of course Mswati wouldn't have been aware of this because he has never been there.

In its king’s birthday celebrations preview last Friday, the Swazi Observer (17/04/09), a state-owned publication with an undisguised pro-state editorial outlook, quoted the king of Swaziland as acknowledging that the internet is a welcome technological innovation which, he however lamented, some people had unfortunately turned into a forum for insulting others. Ag shem, birthday brat!

Either Mswati or his Swazi Observer propagandists elected not to reveal the perpetrators and the nature of their insults. How convenient! Such right royal whining would be funny if it weren’t serious. Is the big baby finally hooked up to the net now? Welcome to the club. The next step for Mswati is to then ask Barack Obama just what a mighty weapon the whole ICT invention has become in 21^st century politics.

Then again Mswati might want to pick Obama’s mind on whether he too finds distasteful internet content about himself and how come. Oh, no! Obama lost the use of his Blackberry handset upon becoming US president. Sorry then, Swaziboy! My mistake. Ah, uh-uh maan…how could I forget? Mswati and the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy wouldn’t be on talking terms either as we speak. Phela the two stand on opposing sides of history, if I recall Obama’s inauguration declaration. Ouch!

And Uncle Bob in Zim wouldn’t be of much help either. Nor would Swaziboy’s newfound Middle East ideological chums. They don’t like the internet any more than Mswati himself does. Absolutely no awards for guessing the obvious!

At least Mswati is said to be aware (well, not in so many words) that he is helpless when it comes to restricting his subjects’ free access to and independent use of the internet. Now, there you have it! Who is to say that Swazis have no media freedom? It’s all unpatriotic lies which, Mswati reckons, it is the state duty of his government to patriotically “counteract”.

Yeah, you got that right: if you can’t beat them, then for God’s sake why not join them and beat the hell out of them at their own electronic game! Brace yourself for a frantic official Swazi cyber mania – perhaps another fancy royal millennium project. If you wonder just how the state cybernauts might fare, look no farther than the cobwebbed Swaziland Government website. There is still no Science & Technology Centre from Taiwan, remember; so much for the customary umlomo longacali manga (the mouth that never lies) myth. And that fantasy (Korean) Limkokwing University of Creative Technology remains just that too. The biggest losers (pun intended), of course, will always be you and I (taxpayers) who are sure to pick up the tab without fail at the end of the misadventure. No wonder Charles Dickens talked about the coexistence of the best and the worst of times hundreds of years ago!

My free humble advice to Mswati – reading (and surfing the net) is a more constructive hobby than ogling maidens, but listening is even more desirable in this instance. I sure hope you thoroughly enjoy this post, Your Majesty. Bayethe!

To the multitudes of politically frustrated and silenced Swazis out there, join the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) Forum and, by all means, do set up your own complementary blogs too. Your individual and collective voices of dissent can only add that extra punch required to finally dislodge Mswati and his visibly rocked Tinkhundla dictatorship. He is beginning to groan because it hurts. All we need do is push even harder. I want to exercise my democratic right to vote for the government of my choice for the very first time in this lifetime (I am over 40 years of age and yet to cast my first ballot). I’m sure you want the same thing. What are you waiting for?

And with illegitimate PM (bogus Dr) Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini already expectedly threatening to ban (politically embarrassing) protest marches, the internet could be our only mode of expression by the end of this year. So, do not allow the Tinkhundla dictatorship to stifle all of your voice: log on in…!

This is the one from the city to Manzini's northern suburbs, past William Pitcher Teacher Training College. It was taken from the front seat of a mini-bus which operates this route. The dirt road is just 800 metres from the millennium (project) semi-stadium where Mswati's birthday bash took place on Sunday, April 19.

And the people marched!

I can confirm that the proposed march for free primary education took place this morning in the industrial city of Manzini. When I joined the marchers (about 2000), the march was in its final phase. They sang and danced and listened to intermittent speeches on their way back to the traditional starting point, Freedom Square, along Nkoseluhlaza Street. Business came to a standstill as the march proceeded peacefully. I’m so proud of the 2000 Swazis who go beyond moaning in solitary corners but take to the streets to peacefully register their impatience with Mswati and his Tinkhundla dictatorship. The world will only effectively help if they see that you are seriousy doing something about your situation.

Yesterday, the Tinkhundla PM, Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini, confirmed that his government will still defy the court ruling to roll out free primary education forthwith. Instead, Tikhundla wants the children of the destitute to wait until next January. Well, you know as well as I do that they cannot afford that kind of luxury. Let’s push even more for their sake. If Mswati’s luxury cars can’t wait, free primary education is too basic a right to wait.

Soon we will reach the promised land. Come on all you Swazis out there, you do not have another Swaziland. The next march should be one to remember both because of your unprecedented attendance and what we will have achieved at the end of it all. Aren’t you tired of watching the South Afriican elections like a bunch of prisoners who do not have the same privilege? We can do it, man!

Swaziland has no vision!

The royal University of Swaziland!

In the April issue, the Nation magazine editor, Bheki Makhubu, observed that the country’s football sector, outwardly by far the most democratic, has however failed to improve the standard of the game. The cumulative failure, argues Makhubu, is exemplified both by the national soccer team, Sihlangu’s failure to qualify for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup in South Africa and the incoming Sports Minister’s frantic (belated) efforts to find ways in which the country could still benefit the event next year.

All this because, adds Makhubu, the country’s duly elected football administration has no vision; something that prompts him to conclude that even if we suddenly had the multiparty democracy we crave so much we would still be in the same political mess we find ourselves in today. Sad, isn’t it?

Mr Makhubu’s observation and conclusion are neither new nor without substance. What is new is his illustration of lack of vision in our sports portfolio. In March, 2007, then head of the University of Swaziland’s (Uniswa) Journalism & Mass Communication (JMC) department, Associate Professor Richard Rooney, observed in an open lecture on “ethics and professionalism in the media” at Uniswa’s Multipurpose Hall that media practice in an undemocratic society such as Swaziland inevitably reflected, if not exuded, that society’s general outlook and discourse around issues of human rights.

The reason is simply that the media is both a product of that society and, whether by design or by default, an agent of the society’s reproduction. I am glad that Richard is always on hand to redirect appropriately in the event of misquotation/misinformation.

Yes, our sports, like all other aspects of our national life, both lack direction and are in disarray.

A further illustration is now in order. Uniswa’s mooted journalism degree course might never see the light of day because, again argues Rooney, the institution has neither vision nor plan. See, we all may have good intentions for our country, but we have a lousy example to copy in the current national administration. I’ve always argued and, perhaps much to the irritation of my political associates, that I look around and I see a lot of Tinkhundla mentality in our modus operandi. I’ve also always been at pains to explain too that while this is something that we should never be ashamed of because we really can’t help where we come from, we should however be alert to the Tinkhundla baggage we bring to our pro-democracy aspirations enough to prevent us from resembling the past we would rather leave behind. Sadly, we don’t have much still left in the way of a democratic example to look up to immediately outside our borders either. Unscrupulous neighbours are even taking advantage of my democracy-deprived countrymen & women to enhance party prospects in their own “democratic” elections. I have close family in the southern border with South Africa and I know what I’m talking about.

March for free primary education!!!

The barefooted girl is a 9-year-old Grade 1 pupil who featured in my PhD research fieldwork. She's the fatherless daughter of a single mother who works as a lowly paid garment factory labourer. Without free free primary education, she has no hope of completing school.

A woman knocked down by a motorist at a zebra crossing holds tight to her baby until she is helped up by members of the public. Police are deployed to monitor jaywalking and enforce crossing at designated points like this one in the byzzy city streets. But motorists don't even respect the zebra crossings. Meanwhile, thugs like the one who shot my brother have a field day in the rural areas of Swaziland.

Wherever you are in Swaziland, in neighbouring South Africa, or in Mozambique, and whatever you initially had planned for this Thursday, 16^th April 2009, please clear your diary. We have a date! Let’s join the march to demand our constitutional right – free primary education – from the Tinkhundla Ministry of Education, which has inexplicably continued to withhold it in violation of both the constitution and a court order. We owe it to the orphaned children, destitute widows, these and all those who make up the 70% who subsist on less than $1/day, the 42% unemployed, and the around 40% directly ravaged by the AIDS pandemic.

Let me give you a bit more background. According to official projections, it will cost government some E225m (equivalent to $25m) to provide free primary education. While government insists it does not have this kind of money, King Mswati III’s personal wealth is estimated to be around $200m. To prove just how loaded he and his unconstitutional government are, Mswati will throw a multimillion Emalangeni birthday bash later this April.

As you read this, my younger brother lies in the casualty ward of the decrepit Mbabane Government Hospital with bullet fragments lodged in his eye area, fighting for more than just his life. This is because in the morning of Wednesday, 8^th April 2009, a gunman entered his grocery shop in my rural hometown, Lavumisa, in the south of Swaziland, and drilled three bullets to his head, and one each to both his arms, breaking the left one. He’s lucky to be alive because the head shots miraculously diverted from penetrating his brains, but still caused extensive damage to his eyes. In short, a scan to be administered (probably) this Tuesday (today), i.e., if he gets that lucky, will determine if he will ever regain any of his sight. The prospects are extremely poor. The suspect is still at large and, if the attitude of the Lavumisa police is anything to go by, there will be no arrest at all. My brother is a breadwinner for his wife and five children.

A number of things quickly become evident. First, if my brother were a member of the royal family, he would not have fallen victim to freak thugs like the ‘hit man’ in question. The reason is that we pay the security forces with our hard-earned taxes to protect the ruling class; to hell with the lives of those like my brother who toil everyday to make their luxury possible. The police had been pre-warned about the impending attack following a number of unsuccessful earlier ones. The police were too busy doing God-knows-whatever-else to respond. My brother would have bled to death had a sympathetic local mini-bus operator not abandoned his commuters and used the bus to take the barely conscious man to the nearest clinic, a good 7 km away, where first-aid was eventually administered before he was transferred on a 140 km stretch of road to the country’s biggest referral hospital, Mbabane, itself a mere death-trap due to crumbling infrastructure, understaffing, chronic drug shortages, lack of equipment, poor administration, theft, etc. Once again, the police did not pitch. When they were called, all they wanted to know was whether the gun shot “victim had died”, in an all too familiar laidback manner. When they finally showed up, he was already in hospital.

Second, you and I have no decent healthcare. The reason is that the ruling class and its government officials use our taxes to fly out to access state-of-the-art healthcare in South Africa, Taiwan, etc., and why would they even bother improving local healthcare facilities? For them, there is no waiting for days/weeks before a scan is administered to determine life-threatening/changing injuries.

Third, I’m using this rather personal case not for political posturing or grandstanding. Some things are just too close and too sombre for that kind of game. I’m doing it to make you aware that this government will not deliver what is rightfully your entitlement without you joining those who can wait no more to demand it. I know that my brother’s children are lucky to still have a father in whatever physical condition. Many more have never been as lucky and their harrowing stories will never be told. For them, the only hope to get any schooling is if government is persuaded to immediately roll out free primary education. We may never give these children all that they are entitled to as human beings but which they are deprived of by a heartless regime. But we can certainly give them a fighting chance in life if we ensure that they receive at least some education. I know this because, if you were unaware already, I came from a similar background and made use of the available educational provision to go all the way to even earn an internationally recognized doctoral degree (PhD). Let’s do it for the sake of these children and our country’s future. Don’t just say you love Swaziland; show it!

Swaziland’s constitution discriminates against women!

Educated women in Swaziland: A female lawyer for human rights (middle) hands awards to outstanding students at a school's prize day. Even they are still told what to wear despite their education.

Swaziland, like other nations, is stepping up immigration security measures to ensure that the illegal acquisition of authentic or counterfeit travel documents and passports is either minimized or put to a total stop. We have, as a result, been instructed to present travel documents and diplomatic passports (for those privileged few who carry them) to immigration outlets in order to secure them against fraudulent acquisition.

According to weekend newspaper reports, women whose children were born of marriage to non-Swazi males have had their children’s travel documents invalidated because “they are not Swazi”. The unfortunate women, obviously outraged by what they view as unfair treatment of themselves and their offspring, did not realize that the constitution that came into operation in January, 2006, discriminates against them and their children who were born in Swaziland.

Chapter IV, section 43(1) reads: “A person born in Swaziland after the commencement of this constitution is a citizen of Swaziland by birth if at the time of their birth the father of that person was a citizen of Swaziland in terms of this constitution.” Section 43(4) reads: “Where a child born outside of marriage is not adopted by its father or claimed by that father in accordance with Swazi law and custom and the mother of that child is a citizen of Swaziland, the child shall be a citizen of Swaziland by birth.”

The women’s perfectly justified outrage is of course unjustified in terms of the constitution. It is the constitution that discriminates against them simply on the basis of their sex in a society that remains deeply mired in patriarchy. The women and all of us should be asking instead why a child born to a Swazi mother in Swaziland should not become an automatic citizen by birth as is the case with the children of Swazi males. We should be asking why it becomes necessary for a Swazi woman to remain unmarried for their children fathered by non-Swazis to become automatic citizens while the same condition does not apply to Swazi males.

Surely the desirability of this constitution was, among other things, to address human rights disparities, including the rights of disadvantaged groups such as women, children, and the disabled. How can a constitution whose authors are quick to impress on any outsider who still cares to listen that the royal-authored document is people-driven entrench disparities between male and female citizens like this? When the unconstitutionally appointed Prime Minister, Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini, recently monologued that, among other things, his administration would review the constitution; did he have discriminatory sections like the ones I just cited in mind? I doubt it very much. If his abysmal rule of law record is anything to go by, then we should brace ourselves for even fewer rights, if any. As for women, who are still told what and how to wear in royal residences, the law courts, parliament, prisons, as well as where to kneel in order to address public gatherings, they should be lucky if a future constitution, if any, even mentions the word women at all. Have Swazis forgotten that a clause that guaranteed cultural parity for men and women was snappily removed by a special traditionalist-dominated royal committee constituted to vet the (national) document just before the king signed this constitution into law way back in 2005? The committee, headed by the incumbent Ludzidzini (traditional headquarters) Governor, Jim Gama, and unilaterally handpicked by Mswati as we have become accustomed to, argued that the clause was unworkable in terms of a Swazi Law and Custom (SLC) whose codified version is yet to become public knowledge, if ever. For those who may not yet know, this SLC document (wherever it is in whatever shape) is the actual supreme law of Swaziland if one considers the obvious imbalance of power between it and the constitution.

I am an optimist; but by no means a blind (figurative) one. So, unlike senior citizen Musa Hlophe of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organizations (SCCCO) who wishfully believes that some of Sibusiso’s latest pronouncements on the way forward for Swaziland are in and of themselves praiseworthy (Times of Swaziland Sunday, 05/04/09); I do not even need to wait for the man’s actions to confirm my cynicism and dash Hlophe’s wishes. I trust my instincts on this one. Sibusiso is a trusted Mr no-change and that is precisely what his royal masters dusted him off and unleashed him back on us to do. And so far the writing is simply on the wall. Unwary optimists like Hlophe need to answer the question why Sibusiso’s moot programme of action would even mention the word “dialogue” while his God-forsaken government keeps PUDEMO President, comrade Mario Masuku, in prison for, among other things, proposing “talks” about a future Swaziland…

Free primary education will wait despite court ruling – Minister!

The author's social club (Umhlambanyatsi Social Club) & patrons of Umhlambanyatsi Sports Bar contribute & collect monthly donations for Cheshire Holmes Swaziland, Matsapha, 2007.

The face of destitution in Swaziland: The author (standing) joins members of his social club, Umhlamabnyatsi, in presenting monthly donations to the patients/residents, some terminally ill, at Cheshire Holmes, Matsapha, Swaziland, 2007. An interview with some of the patients here revealed that government contributes nothing. These people include parents whose children need to go to school. It goes without saying that they cannot afford school fees and that the free primary education that Ntshangase arrogantly withholds would come in handy.

Parents and interested Swazis will wait a while longer before their children are finally granted their constitutional right to free primary education; i.e., if ever. Education Minister, Wilson Ntshangase, is reported to have made this announcement this week.

The Minister was attempting to provide ‘clarity’ on his ministry’s anticipated compliance with a recent court ruling purporting to enforce a constitutional requirement to roll out free primary education in public schools without any further delay. In fact, according to the letter of the constitutional provision, free primary education should have been implemented WITHIN three years of the constitution coming into force back in 2006. Basic mathematics reveals that those three years elapsed in January this year.

Minister Ntshangase’s latest spin on a clear as ABC court ruling is yet another careless and absolutely needless play on words in a national matter as sensitive as this one. He argues authoritatively, if a Times of Swaziland report (31/03/09) is to be believed, that the otherwise straight forward ruling was only “declaratory”; i.e., perhaps as opposed to directive. He further declares a bizarre need to first visit the country’s four geographical regions to explain the court ruling to parents and schools. This is the same Minister who told the nation that he would go to the regions to explain what free education entails because, as far as he was concerned, it was already in place when government inexplicably withheld it back in January. He arrogantly concludes that the court ruling is still subject to discussion at cabinet level.

By my reckoning, Ntshangase is either plain dumb or he thinks only his obviously thick skull has any grey matter in it. First, the court ruling simply instructs government to respect the constitution by implementing its provisions. Otherwise, it is quickly losing its meaning. Second, democratic governments do not debate court rulings; they unconditionally comply with them. Otherwise, there is no rule of law – a universal precondition for democracy to flourish. Third, it is an unforgivable insult to the intelligence of the people of Swaziland to contemptuously suggest that they do not understand the luxurious games that the Tinkhundla government has indulged in since its heartless refusal to honour the constitutional provision for free primary education in January while 70% of the population for whom the constitution purportedly exists are destitute.

One has not forgotten that Ntshangase and his cabinet colleagues are in line to receive a hefty salary raise as we speak. That is in addition to their already obscene salary and allowance packages in the midst of abject poverty and suffering all around them.

How could Ntshangase not even be ashamed of his government’s failure to uphold its own constitution? When will it ever occur to people like Ntshangase that the same failure goes a long way in vindicating those of us who have always pointed out the obvious, that the constitution is just a smokescreen that was at no point intended to serve the needs of the Swazi populace? A government that shows flagrant disrespect for a constitution that it claims is a people-driven supreme law of the land, loses any claim to or semblance of legitimacy. The Swaziland government’s lack of legitimacy has now been firmly established by its own law courts. Ironically, the same courts recently ruled in favour of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) when the constitutionality of the body that conducted the 2008 Tinkhundla non-party parliamentary poll was challenged by civic society.

Last week I asked, in an article the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) subsequently asked to reproduce in South Africa’s Sunday Times, how SADC condemned the Andry Rajoelina ousting of profligate President Marc Ravalomanana in Madagascar as unconstitutional but endorsed the unconstitutional governments of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe and our very own Mswati in Swaziland. I ask the same question in the wake of Ntshangase’s utterances and yet another of countless instances of disregard for the young Swazi constitution this young year alone.

I do not know what further academic qualification Minister Ntshangase ever managed to add to the B.Ed degree he earned from Uniswa round about the same time that I acquired my first degree back in the late 1980s. Perhaps the less said about the fluent Zulu-speaking Swazi’s qualifications the better; particularly because the qualifications I refer to here count for nothing in the appointment of Tinkhundla functionaries such as Ntshangase. In fact, the only worthy qualification in this regard is unquestioning loyalty to Mswati’s absolute rule.

Interestingly, the Nation magazine, for which I am a freelance writer, published two months ago the shocking story of how a schoolgirl first aborted and then died just days after a customary whipping by Ntshangase for truancy in one of the rural high schools in which the Minister was a disciplinarian head teacher back in the late 1990s. Highly dubious police investigations cleared Ntshangase of possible culpable homicide, or even outright murder. That is perhaps Ntshangase’s best known achievement as an educator. You be the judge for whether he is fit to manage any country’s

Teachers make do with scarce resources to set poor children up to learn something somehow. For some of these children, orphaned, school is also the only source of basic physical provisions like food. Free early education would go a long way toward assuaging their difficulties. Not according to affluent Minister Ntshangase.

education.