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Greetings to you all.

To the editors, writers, learners, their teachers and parents.

On thinking about the title of this competition, "Short Stories Values in Education Competition", I began to wonder about the significance of the phrase, "short stories", especially in contrast to the phrase, "Tall tales". All good things come in small packages, which suggests the idea of the short story as a gift, an idea, surprise or joke, crafted into a well rounded and short story. A tall tale connotes the idea of a sailor's yarn, a fib, something unbelievable and possibly outrageous. This is once again different from the idea of "telling tales", which is what we advise young children not to do to their teachers or their parents. So the tale or the story is a powerful weapon, a literary cultural weapon made available to us in many oral and written cultures.

The great Orientalist and writer, Edward Said, reminded us at the SAAMTREK: Conference on Values, Democracy and Education, that the book is a carrier of knowledge, wisdom and learning, but it can also be the carrier of totalitarian slogans, a closing down of the mind. It is how we use this weapon, that makes writing and the book a contribution to society.

South Africa has its own treasure-trove of oral and written literary greats. One of the most famous writers of the short story in particular, of course, is Herman Charles Bosman of Marico and peach brandy fame. Those of you who have had the honour to be chosen as the three finalists, are being judged by three literary giants of our time: Njabulo Ndebele, Nadine Gordimer and Antjie Krog. Sol Plaatje, as many of you in the newspaper fraternity would know, founded the first Setswana newspaper, he was an author, a translator of Shakespeare into the vernacular, and an activist who agitated for the improvement of blacks. I mention Sol Plaatje as an example of the ability to weave between the different languages and cultures, and to contribute through writing, literature and journalism, to the betterment of the lives of South Africans. It is unfortunate that it is mainly speakers of African languages that achieve this chameleon like ability to adopt many languages and forms, rather than speakers of English. Gcina Mhlophe is another bearer of tales - she publishes wonderful short stories, but to watch her narrate or dramatise her tales orally is a magical experience. She travels around the country to encourage people to read and to enjoy stories. Hopefully in decades to come, your names will be inscribed in the hall of fame, as one of South Africa's literary greats.

Events such as this competition are very important for education and for the Values, Democracy and Education Initiative, because they encourage the growth of creativity, and with this, the culture of literariness. By way of digression, and in order to get back to the point about short story writing, I would like to spend a few moments talking about literacy and orality. I am especially committed to the increase of literacy in South Africa, because literacy is associated with power and learning. But I am also aware of the enormous power and vigour associated with orality in South Africa. This is not just an egalitarian point made in order to be politically correct. On the contrary, the very points associated with the values of writing are associated with the art of traditional and public story telling: writing slows us down and encourages us to reflect on what we want to say - oral tradition is a form of slow speech, quite unlike everyday and private conversations. Writing encourages reflection - oral story telling encourages young people to reflect on what their elders have told them. Writing allows the writer to embellish and improve a passage, thus facilitating improvement in the writer's literary ability - tales told repeatedly take new flourishes and are embellished with the re-telling, a clever phrase is added after the pregnant pause. Orality, dialogue, sharing through words and bodily gestures, is surely an important foundation for literacy, and one which we should not downgrade, especially in the classroom.

I make this point in order to stress that South Africa represents the richness of a confluence of cultural influences. This point is demonstrated amply in our national flag, national anthem, our coat of arms. Our short stories, too, are the carriers of our cultures. This implies that our writers bear an enormous responsibility; they have a contribution to make towards the realisation of the values inherent in our constitution, by telling stories about our life in South Africa as it is, and as we wish it to be. How we write the stories, or how we retell them, is equally important: honestly? Openly? Wittily? With thoughts for those whom our barbed spears might hurt? Courageously? Using many languages? Using indigenous languages? Do we usurp the voices of others, telling their stories for them instead of with them? Our stories are the carriers of our cultures and our histories, but they also convey our hopes, visions for the future, and at times, even despair.

On this latter point, the Department of Education arranged with the Education Labour Representative Council for a creative writing and art exhibition to coincide with the international Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related ills, held in Durban in August this year. It is evident from the many heart-rending and poignant contributions on the subject of racism, that young people in this country have a great deal to teach their elders and a great deal to learn from each other. Their contributions also highlight the important role that young people will have to play in realising a non-racial, and democratic culture in South Africa.

But writers cannot do it alone. The clichéd but realistic image of the starving writer or artist in the French Garret sums up the extent to which good writers and good writing relies on an appreciative society. Good writers rely on a flourishing publishing industry, on encouragement from the press, who themselves could benefit from becoming more literary, at times. Good writers also rely on positive role models or mentors. Good writing is not just the result of extraordinary talent, but a combination of that, of motivation to write, and of enormous patience, to hone the craft of writing. This is where the importance of mentorship comes in, and where the young writers of today benefit from this short story initiative. The culture of good writing also relies on an appreciative readership. For this the non-writers should at least become good readers. Another of the initiatives of the Department of Education, Masifunde Sonke, is in support of the year of reading. The name of the initiative says it all: Masifunde Sonke - let us all read. The Xhosa word for "read" means both to read and to learn. Let us all read to learn, and learn to read. So, those of you who are teachers have an enormous responsibility, to encourage reading in your schools, and with reading, learning.

Various recommendations were made in the SAAMTREK: Values, Democracy and Education Conference, which was held in Cape Town in February this year, on the subject of writing and creativity. One of these is to call for higher education institutions to provide for artists and writers in residence for schools in surrounding communities. Another is for an endowment for the Arts in education. My Department is taking all these suggestions up, and if any of you here today would like to contribute to these initiatives, with voluntary assistance or funds, for example for bursaries for talented and aspiring young writers, or if you want to publish this call in your papers, I am sure we will be glad to hear from you about this. The Department is also planning a national creativity celebration, including creative writing, indigenous sports, to be linked with values in education.

It rests for me to do two things: firstly, to congratulate the winners of this competition, and to repeat to you what I said earlier: I hope I hear from you, or should I say read more from you, in the near future. I hope that the copies of the useful contributions you have made on the subject of values will be made available so that I can share your promising ideas with my Department. We can surely learn from you as well.

Secondly, I must thank the organisers of this competition: Wilmot James, who, together with the Cape Argus initiated this wonderful project - we need more projects of this nature and to include all South African official languages; to the judges, Nadine Gordimer, Njabulo Ndebele and Antjie Krog - I hope you might be prepared to render your services, to further initiatives of this sort which we might initiate; and of course, to Irish Aid, for funding this competition.

Thank you.

Issued by: Ministry of Education, 30 October 2001