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17 August 2006

The Rector, Guy Pearson,
The Bishop of Natal, Bishop Phillip Rubin,
Chair of the Board of Directors, Bruce Dunlop,
Members of the board of governors,
Visiting Heads of Schools,
Teachers,
Parents,
Senior prefects and prefects,
Students:

It is a singular pleasure for me to be with you here today on the most important calendar day of Michaelhouse High School, when the school awards those who have worked hard and have excelled in their various fields of study.

I am touched and delighted to be part of the Speech Day and to present prizes to the boys just when the school bids farewell to all those who will be leaving either for tertiary institutions to further their studies or to join the world of work. In particular those who will strive to be self employed, be wealth creators, those who will be committed to the public service and those who will be care givers. Aiming to get a degree or a job is a small ambition; you must aspire to be your own bosses.

Our country has just celebrated two important events in our national calendar. The 50th anniversary of the Women’s Day last week on 9 August and before that the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of 16 June 1976.

Those two important days changed the course of history in our country and left an indelible mark and made a lasting impact in the history of the struggle for freedom. These historical landmarks should therefore be celebrated by your generation and the generations to come.

We celebrate people who didn’t follow a path but who opened new pathways. Many a times those paths are now footnotes of history.

I am raising these issues because it is a duty of any young learner to learn from the history of their country and where they come from; in that way their road to the future will be informed and hopefully they will be inspired to stand up and be counted!

It is also important for you to understand the importance of our national symbols, national anthem, coat of arms and to understand their meaning and historic significance. For those things are meant to build a sense of identity among our people and are instruments of nation building and reconciliation, without this social cohesion all of us we can have no peace and harmony and nation to boast about. What each one of us does counts!

It is important that as you stay in this island of bliss far from the turbulence that many public schools face you identify, integrate and embrace your country and its national symbols and its challenges.

As it was expressed by the founding father of this institution, founder Canon James Cameron Todd, on Speech Day 1897 when he said (I quote): "Our aim is to make not accountants, not clerks, not doctors, not clergymen but men - men of understanding, thought and culture," close quote.

In a recent award-winning book about Anglican schools in Natal, the author Robert Morrell writes as follows:

“Michaelhouse [founded 1896] was built along the lines of Eton and Winchester to ‘promote the idea of a learning community’ not individual and recluse scholars or individualistic. James Todd, believed that classics and maths were essential for ‘producing men of understanding, thought and culture’. On the other hand and I disagree with him, he had a deep disdain for applied subjects like shorthand and bookkeeping.”

Education was an integral part of social engineering in colonial times and these schools were the cradles of masculinity and the subordination of women.

It is not difficult to understand why I would feel excluded from such a school tradition!

Many independent schools played an important role in education under apartheid and most have embraced our new constitutional order with enthusiasm. It is this tradition and ethos of independent schools that we are here to celebrate.

Twinning

In the new South Africa we seek to build bridges between the public and private schools. I firmly support the “twinning” projects that are currently in place between various schools. Especially if they are focused and of a strategic intervention nature. For instance when every partnership utilises the strengths of each partner as part of a well-crafted process of learning and development for all sides.

Entrenching interdependence and understanding must mean caring for others less fortunate than you and understanding their circumstances, thought culture and predicament. Because if you understand the circumstances you will be able to help them in the manner they wish to be assisted. You will do things with them and not for them. You will not patronise them after all some of them may in future be your leaders in business, government and society.

The Department of Education has to focus on consolidation and the provision of quality education. Quality improvement throughout the system will remain high on the agenda over the next five years.

Our vision is of a quality education system in which all our people will have access to lifelong education and training. Implementation of this vision requires that all our children enjoy access to well-resourced schools run by enthusiastic teachers. It also requires creating conditions for ensuring that South Africa has the high-level skills that will encourage innovation, creativity and growth in our economy. But of that innovation is producing young people as envisaged by Todd, who will leave school with higher ambition that getting a university degree or to be employers. Further we face a challenge of moving our attention from universities to Further Education and Training (FET) colleges and to respond to scarce skills as per Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA).

Our young people need to emerge from our schooling system proudly South African and with the potential to compete globally. We intend to create a further education and training system ready to equip youth and adults to meet the social and economic needs of the 21st century. Starting with identified scarce skills which are:

* High level, world class engineering and planning skills for the ‘network industries’ transport, communications and energy all at the core of our infrastructure programme.
* City, urban and regional planning and engineering skills desperately needed by our municipalities.
* Artisan and technical skills with priority attention to those needs for infrastructure development.
* Management and planning skills in education, health and in municipalities.
* Teacher training for mathematics, science, information and communication technology (ICT) and language competence in public education.
* Specific skills needed by the priority Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) sectors starting with tourism and business process outsourcing (BPO) and cross-cutting skills needed by all sectors especially finance, project managers and managers in general.
* Skills relevant to local economic development need of municipalities especially developmental economists.

* The vision is to produce leaders through education and to enhance the potential of young people. We also know good education does not produce best and good leaders but it helps to do that.

You must know and learn about your country, love it and understand its challenges and have the will to find solutions using the talents, skills and passion to uphold the values of our new South Africa as reflected in our constitution. Fight against the assault decay. Passing on these values is a challenge to us in the education system. The challenge is to overcome the racial and cultural divisions of the past. The challenge is to transcend race, language, religion and culture.

Reconciliation, nation building and social inclusion are the values that we must aim to promote in our schools. As parents, educators and learners being proud South Africans and keeping your brother is part of the process of creating an inclusive and sustainable democracy.

The promotion of the values of non-racism, non-sexism, gender equality, equity, Ubuntu and respect are entrenched in the Department’s manifesto of values. The challenge is to bring all these values to life and make them a way of life.

Our languages need to have a special place.

In the past and currently, African languages are undervalued and underdeveloped. Black South Africans had little choice over the language in which they would be instructed. It has been crucial to redesign our language policy so that it reinforces an inclusive approach to cultural identity and better vision. We now have a policy of mother tongue instruction in the foundation phase and the encouragement of multilingualism throughout a child’s school career. The absence of such a policy a policy has had a negative impact on our language policy seeks to achieve a number of important imperatives.

The policy recognises that past policy and practice has disadvantaged millions of children and it also promotes the effective learning and teaching of the previously neglected indigenous languages of South Africa.

The policy has not enjoyed a prominence similar to that given to other policy shifts in education. The policy does not, as some have claimed, deny children the opportunity to acquire English or any other second language.

Rector, we need to assist the children to grasp better complex concepts in a language they understand better.

Second, all young people should be able to speak and write in a language other than their mother tongue.

Third, young people need to have the ability to communicate in a third indigenous language.

The development of communicative ability, in at least, one African language for all South African children is a goal we must embrace as part of building our nation and building capacity to effective citizenship.

The major obstacles we face in promoting mother-tongue learning are that the many of parents still prefer their children to be taught through the medium of the English language and the elite attitude of schools and governing bodies towards African languages is backwards.

So, what have I been trying to tell you?

1. Understanding that thought and culture is important. It means that your education must be a stepping stone not towards getting a job but to make you a better person.

2. You must aim to create a path not follow one. Education must help you to be a job creator rather than a job-seeker. You must find a niche in life. Education is not everything, values are more important.

3. It must mean that you must be your brothers’ keeper and that you can make a difference in your society. With good education you can go very far for yourself but with good education, thought, culture you can change the lives of many people.

4. We know that many people who are our torch bearers today, who have given us a democratic country, did not have as much education but they had thought they stepped in the forefront with limited education but they have made a tremendous difference. The light in you must shine for others. You can even go further in future if you dare! You can make that choice teachers and parents can help or inhibit you so you have to want to be more than a footnote.

The world is waiting for you to be a great South African to make a valuable contribution in your country and a valuable member of society. We say you have to enjoy your life and make a difference. You‘ve got time on your side.

God bless!

Issued by: The Presidency
17 August 2006