Episode 39 - Dr Naledi Pandor: Leadership, Education And South Africa’s Future

In conversation with Dr Naledi Pandor on the importance of education, the development of South Africa’s education system, teacher preparation, and the challenges that remain in building a stronger society.  

Dr Pandor reflects on her family’s intellectual and historical legacy, the influence of Z.K. Matthews and Nelson Mandela, her experiences in Parliament, and the debates that shaped South Africa’s constitutional order.

Transcript

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Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 0:05

Thank you so much and um uh I I I I wanna start with soft questions. As soft, I hope they they don't get as too difficult as uh everyone makes it out. But I have a big interest in the intellectuals that have lived in in the Southern African continent. But we have been so critical to the ideas that we take for granted today, ideas that invited not just death from the regime, but sometimes isolation from your people as well, because they were so universal, brave, but also strange, and one of these intellectuals not giving as much credit as he should is your grandfather, Professor ZK Matthews. Can we begin with you introducing him to our very learned audiences? Who was Z. K. Matthews?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Well, um, I suppose the best way of describing him is to go back to the uh various um accolades uh that were uh you know given to him by many upon his death in 19 uh 68. And I think the most perhaps significant was something that appeared in the world newspaper, uh whose title was Indota Inest Tunsi. And that is how many, many uh African people viewed uh ZK, and even beyond our own people, uh those who came to know him, those who worked closely with him spoke, and in English that Indodenistunzi was a man with a shadow, uh a man of dignity, uh, a man who was widely respected, uh a man of ideas, a man who brought people uh together. Um so that that was uh ZK Matthews was really a leader uh that the people didn't idolize, they actually respected and loved him.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 2:50

I'm aware of um at least two of the most significant moments in this intellectual history of the NC of the liberation struggle, really. And that is he was the leader of the uh committee Uma put together, uh President Uma. President Uma is important because it's really under him that this ANC that we know today took form. The ANC with the Women's League, the ANC with the youth league, and a new constitution that largely has remained relatively the same. But part of what they do was to hear of the Atlantic Charter. When he hears about the Atlantic Charter, he says Africans should respond to this important international development at the end of World War II. And ZK becomes the leader of a group of about 28 uh African thinkers, trade unionists, lawyers, da-da-da-da, to write an Africa's claims document. Many people far find or credit it as the foundation, really. The Atlantic claims of uh of the constitution as we know it today. This capacity in his life, as well as to call for the for the Freedom Charter to be constituted and all of that. I mean, I'm making all this background, but to ask you to give a little bit of detail to his contribution in the struggle, what would encapsulate for you his major contribution to South Africa's struggle for liberation?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

You know, I think uh that many of our founding leaders dislike the focus on themselves as individuals and always spoke of the collective. So I want to give you a bit of a longish answer and say, um, I take my understanding of the kind of society we aspire to build from the first formative meeting of the then African National Native Congress, meeting in Vihuk in Bloomfontein in the Free State. Why do I begin there? See, when they met, these men essentially were very insightful because they had a notion of an organization and of South Africa that directly contradicted the racist South Africa of the time and the way in which those who governed this country viewed it and its people. They invited participants from all professions. It was African because it was a meeting of the oppressed, but they brought lawyers, teachers, academics, doctors, religious leaders, and most interesting, they understood that the intent of colonialism was divide and rule for Africans, and that the instrument of division was often ethnic mobilization. So they invited traditional leaders as well into a single gathering to create this understanding that to build a future South Africa, we would have to overcome all the discrimination that results from the differences that exist within humanity, and that we need an umbrella under which all of us can repose and which draws us together, espousing the same ideals. Now, I begin there because for me, for people to do that in 1912, very progressive thought that tribalism can destroy Africans, and so we must seek to eliminate it and show them that despite where they come from in ethnic identity, they can work as one for freedom. So I think we have had leaders who really understand politics and humanity, and who had the ability to frame ideas, programs, and objectives that might not be associated with the mentality of one who is oppressed or colonized. And so it is no surprise to me having that 1912, which I conceptualize in the way I've described, then leading into the 1936 formation of this African Claims Committee, which seeks to draw from an international document that which would make up African aspirations and the view of South Africans of the world that they wish to live in. Then move into the 1955 Congress of the People and the call by ZK Matthews in 1953 that we should call a Congress of the People at which we will finalize a document called a Freedom Charter that sets out the South Africa that we wish to build as a political movement for freedom. And that this must involve all our people. And we as organizers will go from town to town gathering ideas and will bring them together at this National Congress of the People and craft the document out of the thinking of our people. We could do it as intellectuals, we can do it, we can sit down and draft, but we want the people's input. And what a marvelous contribution by ordinary men and women. Yeah. That all people belong together. We wish to choose our own government. Education is critical, and all must enjoy it. And finances should not prevent you from having access to education. Arts and culture are the lifeblood of a community and must be invested in. There shall be friendship, and all conflict must be determined by negotiation. Coming forward with the most progressive thought about what a society should be like. So I think we've been fortunate that we've had really great minds giving shape to the nature of our society. But we can go back even further than 1912 and look at people like my great-grandfather, John Knox Borkwe. Because people speak of the Matis, but they forget the Bokwe. The Bokwe family was also part of those founders who went to traditional leaders in the Eastern Cape and asked for land to build a university to which Africans would be admitted. And that's how Fort Take came about. So, you know, this notion we have that we are part of a people who don't think in modern terms is challenged by the reality of our history, and we neglect to study it. There's an interesting book called The Founders, which really signals the historic contribution of various Africans, you know, the Jordans with respect to African languages. Then you have uh the intellectuals who contributed to our publications by starting Lovedale Press and so on. So there's so much uh that is linked to these great intellectuals, and I make reference to them to reference the question you've posed of ZK Matthews. He's part of that tradition. If you read what he writes, he uh constantly argues that African people can be as good as anybody, if not better. And says, why is it that human beings who are made exactly the way we are, who have the same heart, blood, everything that we have, why do they regard us as less able? We must make sure that they can see that actually we can do as well, if not better. And his whole life was lived on that basis. So he published, he was politicum, he practiced law, and all was done to show that we, if we wish we are as good, if not better, than anyone.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 12:50

First name. I mean he also taught since he was a professor, but it is really here that I want to bring in the other figure of uh whose foundation uh you chair, uh President Nelson Bandale. He would have been your father's generation. Yes, they well, he was older than my dad, but uh they were together at university. And they would have been the first generation of youth leagues. Yeah. But uh, I do uh I do want to ask in relation uh to their interaction with the elderly people, in that case, would have been L Thuli, would have been uh Mahatu, I mean um uh Reverend Mahabani, I think. As well as uh Kalata, as well as even Chief Morocca, Morocca, yes. These would have been elders, but Ltuli and ZK, very, very key. And then there is this woman from conversations. The story that Nelicid Mandela tells there about being overly zealous. But please, you tell it. I don't want to tell it, and I'll ask my question thereafter about both Madiba and the foundation.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Well, the story goes, you know, and our dad used to used to tell us the story that uh, you know, the youth leaguers thought they were very radical, you know, and that the older people, the older leaders, uh were conservative because much of their work of uh strong activism had been petitions. Uh you know, peaceful demonstration, petitions to the colonial uh uh authority and to the uh apartheid state. And so they regarded them as a bit too conservative and that they were the ones. You know, that's why they called themselves the Young Lions, for example. They thought they were very radical and so on. So um the story goes that uh they were going to have a meeting, the old people, with the Institute of Race Relations, which used to work closely uh as a liberal organization with the then uh progressive uh liberation movements. Um and when they came back from the meeting, apparently Mr. Mandela was a bit cheeky, you know, because he thought they'd gone to sell out. Yeah. You know, they were yeah, you were with whites and so on. Um and uh the story goes that ZK turned and looked at him, and he said, You've been wearing short pants until I introduced you to long pants at university. What do you know about white people, you know? Uh uh and you know, Mandela was sort of a big, a bit silenced by that rather rude comment. Uh, but you know, so everybody just breaks into laughter uh with the story. And there were lots of little incidents like that. Of course, eventually, um Mr. Mandela did get into quite some trouble uh with ZK when he became principal uh of Forte. And even uh Mr. Mbake uh is one of the students who was actually expelled uh uh from Fort Air. By then ZK Matthews, the acting uh principal. So he was also he was strict. Um and he, I think if one tries to interpret him, he believed being strict would save the student uh the students. And and perhaps he was overzealous. You know, uh he was they were conservative. I mean, you know, you know, one should say that. Uh they weren't radicals by any uh any means, any stretch of the imagination. Uh and he expected, you know, that the SRC would work in cooperation with the management of the university. And of course, young people wanted to show uh their strength. So um so you had, you know, you had those stories. Uh, but uh Mr. Mandela does appreciate that they learned a lot from uh these old people, particularly in terms of academic learning. And uh the things that um the old people said eventually came to pass because we negotiated the post-apartheid uh state. Uh we didn't win it by arms, as the young people thought, had thought would happen. Um so my dad always says, you know, the old people they they understood much more than we thought. And you know, tells of some of the incidents uh where young people would argue with these old guys, and eventually uh the outcome would be what the old people had predicted.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 18:23

Yeah. This is strong tradition. I mean, uh very few South Africans, because of those conditions of uh colonization, colonial humiliation of black people, Africans, uh, but also destruction of their family lives and uh of their culture and all of that. Very few people, even in the movement, could say, you know, my great-grandfather, you know, is part of this important group that built forte. My grandfather is part of this important group that starts the ANC. And he's actually the brains behind Africa's Kings charter and the Freedom Freedom Chart. And you know, my dad is uh a key young lion. And as a young woman, you grow up, not just a politically strong family, but also intellectually strong professors and da-da-da-da. Does that reach a family upbringing, coupled obviously with institutions, da-da-da, in any way contribute to your political participation in a nonetheless patriarchal, masculine-dominated movement where women still, to this day, I would argue, uh, find it hard to be accepted as natural political authorities to be presidents, uh, to be chiefs, and so on and so forth. Are you able to take me through how that upbringing, that particular heritage, which is your heritage, contributes in your survival, I would think, in a patriarchally dominated political movement, political journey?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Well, I think we grew up with that patriarchy uh being there, but then we had very strong women in our family. Uh my grandmother was at Forte, same time as Ed K. They met at university. My mum was at university same time as my dad. So the strong women were a great influence because they were very influential even in the family. Um, so I think there was that influence. But in our family, the most important thing that was stressed by adults was education. Uh, politics was not encouraged. Um, you know, it was really that uh daddy and grandpa were in politics. The rest of us had the duty to get educated and get a profession. Um and there was a clear belief that both boys and girls must be educated. Boys to be able to be independent, and girls not to rely on anyone. Because the sense was girls will get married, but we shouldn't become, you know, the subject of our husbands. And so so there was always that, you know, conversation you would get from time to time. That you've got to finish your schooling, you must do well in school, because you know you must be independent and free. And it's more important for girls to be educated so that boys don't dominate them or husbands. So there was that. But politics really was seen as being grandpa and daddy, much more than us. In fact, my dad was quite horrified when I got onto the list of the ANC because they'd worked uh most of their lives to try and keep us out of politics. Uh, because of what had happened to them. You know, they'd been in prison and whatever they experienced in exile, and they didn't want that kind of life uh uh for their children. And so they kept us kind of out of politics. Uh my you know, most significant uh perhaps role as a teenager and and uh child was in making coffee and tea for refugees who came to our house rather than being in a protest or joining uh the young uh uh uh pioneers. We were, you know, really they tried to keep us away and uh to push us uh to schooling. Also because living away from South Africa, uh the primary supervision was only our mother. Our dad was busy with politics. And I think our our parents lived in fear that we were gonna go wrong. And so they really guarded us uh and and you know emphasized education. Uh and if you didn't do well, you got a thrashing. You know, uh a real threshing, not what people know today. I mean, we were given good hidings, uh to make sure you understood that the expectation was you succeed with the education. And that is how uh uh uh we we grew up. It's as I uh began my professional life as a teacher, and and I suppose really at university that I became more interested in politics, uh becoming aware of various movements. There was the Chinese revolution just happening just as I went to university, and we were protesting in support of Mao Zedong, protesting against the Vietnam War and against Americans. So I began to more maturely understand politics then. Otherwise, really, it was about being in exile, being with refugees, never mixing with others, just South Africans, you know, who were in exile and understanding ourselves as a people who were not in their country, but who were striving to get back to it.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 25:02

The the that entire uh sense of a movement that is male-dominated? If I know it might be like a very complicated uh it might need a lecture, this question to answer, but what makes politics so stubborn uh to matriarchal authority? What why it is the slowest of the sectors of society other than maybe religion? But I've seen even some religious circles, it depends which religion we are dealing with, so maybe we compare the two. But in a way, what makes politics, which has such a commitment to these ideas and yet so stubborn, to accept the authority that comes with women, mothers, uh, females, whatever, but to be accommodative and accepting of an authority other than the patriarch.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Well, um, I suppose patriarchy is about power, very, very much, and politics is about power. And the greater uh the closeness to the source of power, the more influence you have over events and assets. And so I think uh patriarchy goes very closely with keeping others away from power and from assets, from control. Um, and you see, you know, this influence of patriarchy uh even within families. Uh, we know in most families women control a lot of things, but it's hidden. You know, men would pretend in public that they control everything, but at home, they know that the best financial manager, if you're wise, is a woman. Uh, the guide to the family, the persons who spend most time with children, et cetera, are women. The people who socialize in the community, who hold the community together, are women. But few men would admit it. Um, so I think it's this uh competition for who controls power, uh, who has access to it. And by limiting uh power to one gender, we're really losing opportunity because women are pragmatic, uh, they're multitask-oriented, uh, they are far more strategic in the way in which they make decisions. And also they are brilliant managers because they have to cope with so many dimensions in terms of task that I think they would bring amazing flexibility and capacity to the management of power. But all is associated with patriarchy and with how we define power as linked to being male rather than as a social instrument which anyone should be able to wield and utilize.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 28:39

You you are in parliament, first five years, brilliant generation of first parliamentarians. I think we were checking the other day when we I used to work there. The amount of laws, bills, the sheer number of bills that the first parliament passed. We felt we don't deserve our salaries. You know. But you were you were not just an ordinary member of parliament, but in the very elite leadership of the caucus of the ANC. Uh faced with a group of white people, not the ones we found, we found relatively low the intellectual acumen in the white political leadership, I think it deteriorated over time. But you found the chaps that designed, whiled, uh, upard date, that were immediate stumbling block to your very entrance into parliament. How was that parliament compared to the one you left? Oh, it was it was robust, dynamic.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Uh, we had incredible uh leadership, uh erudite debaters, we had debates for hours. Uh, you know, and uh we would argue. I mean, we had to educate about what freedom meant, what democracy meant. And it was a struggle for those who came out of the National Party uh tradition to understand democracy and to appreciate that we could argue, but we didn't want to kill each other. Um, and that we really believed uh in the reconstruction and transformation uh of our society. So it was, it was tough. And for us as well, it was difficult because sometimes you take it as self-evident uh that what we needed to do would be understood by any normal person. But you had to really fight for every idea. Uh, and we weren't used to a parliament uh to you know debating time and making sure you can encapsulate uh all your ideas in that five minutes you were given, or 10 minutes, or and it was quite strict on time. Um yeah, so it was an amazing learning curve. Um I recall my first uh campaign uh debate in a public meeting was at Stellenbosch University with a candidate of the National Party. Uh, and he began his speech by talking about how Africans crossed the mountains to come into South Africa. And the boo was already in South Africa, farming and growing a lot of things. Then there were these interlopers. Uh and I couldn't believe it. What am I gonna say, you know? Uh and I had to mount my my own response to the debate in that very hostile setting. And we had many such meetings all over uh uh leading up to 27 April. Uh it wasn't easy. Parliament wasn't easy, but we had brilliant uh uh parliamentarians from across the liberation movements, you know, the PAC, ANC, uh Azzapo, who were prepared to hold their own uh in debate, you know. Uh but it was uh also a great honor and privilege to be in the Constitutional Assembly, which was the engine room where we were framing and writing the Constitution. And even there, you had to argue because some didn't believe in the kind of bill of rights, I was in the Bill of Rights Committee, in the kind of Bill of Rights we were trying to write. They wanted something different with limited rights or group rights, you know. And so we had to argue that this is a constitution for everyone. It will promote equality and the key, right? And that everything we write must fall under the repose of equality. Uh and you know, Tony Leon and others would argue issues of affirmative action and how we dealt with them uh in the Bill of Rights. You know, it's nice when you see Tony Leon today, but you must go back and watch those videos, you know. Uh Douglas Gibson, um, Ken Andrew, you know, may his soul rest in peace. Um it was it was tough. Uh but we had brilliant, brilliant MPs, you know, who really could hold their own. And of course we had Mr. Mandela. Yes. Uh we had Mr. Becky. I mean, you know, it was just used to marvel uh at our people and their contributions and how they would fight, because you had to fight back. Uh it was uh there was almost an intention to have a state of attrition on our ideas and compel us to then take the neoliberal positions that were being uh promoted as the best for a multi-cultural society, such as I would not accept it.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 34:50

Do you think the the movement and ultimately the ANC put more effort in the choice of the quality of the cadre than it did um this is by way of repeating the latter part of my question, which is to really mount this comparison about the caucus you left. Are the levels of quality application? You left the ANC in the majority still. I'm not sure what's happening now. It must be tougher now for them. But would you say the sustaining, it should only get better with all these freedoms, but would you say the quality got better or the quality deteriorated of the cadre in the benches?

SPEAKER_01 35:46

I think it deteriorated uh because uh people who joined ANC before freedom were very different from those who joined ANC after we became free. It was very easy.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 35:59

What would have been your most embarrassing ANC input in that um final half a decade? What would be a moment where you sat there and you're like, what the hell are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 36:17

How many times you don't have to tell me the penalty many, many times uh worry about lack of preparation. Uh, I think people not always understanding uh the particular policy issue. So there were many, many times. Uh, but for me, the most distressing uh has been a lack of understanding of the kind of society we want to build. That it's not, we're not going back to being an African or white-dominated uh country. We want a country where everyone can live, where each person's rights are respected, and where we build and strengthen the notion of community. I think some people, uh, when they're facing difficulty, they resort to a kind of racial notion uh of South Africa. And that one, those arguments which I heard sometimes, uh, I just found ridiculous. And they indicated to me that these people had not really understood why we struggled for freedom and the kind of country.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 37:28

A lot of the uh certainly in some of these sections of the white intellectuals of uh I would say conservative institutions uh have a concept that they are they they marshal these days, um that we are facing the possibility of a complete a future completely uh uh uh subdued to enclaves in South Africa. And they say the union might not hold. You know that uh this is uh there were only two entities that really could hold South Africa together as a union, apartheid and the ANC, and the weakening of the ANC has revived this question of South Africa might fall apart, uh held by a very lean state into enclaves, some of which are poverty strick, poverty-stricken, some of which live in the first world richness and poverty. And you you do a lot of work over Madiba's legacy, and it seems to me that is to say the thread of Mandela's project from 1994 faces the most the biggest test ever in relation to the questions of a united, democratic, non-racial South Africa. How do you raid the union at this moment? Would you agree with these assessments? If not, uh threats that face South Africa, unemployment, poverty, but people think we are now in ethnicism, we are now in the true demons that shield the real issues. Would you agree with that assessment? And what would be the role of keeping the legacy fighting back in the form of the foundation look like?

SPEAKER_01 39:45

I think conservative liberals have a negative view of the ability of Africans to manage democracy. And so they constantly have this practice of raising a bogeyman image to illustrate that we can't succeed in a vibrant democracy being sustained by us as Africans. So they've got to push these notions because their idea of black people is that we are tribal and so we must always be divided, that we cannot manage development, and so we must not have infrastructure and other things, that uh we are unable to manage an economy, and so they won't invest their capital, which they hold and have acquired illicitly through colonialism and imperial dominance. So these ideas are associated with conservative liberalism. And as black people, we should not be surprised. Our task as black people, however, is not to constantly be captured in trying to persuade white people that we've got brains, that we have capability, and so on. Our task is reconstruction and development. And that's what we should be focused on. We should make sure we address our inadequacies ourselves and do so properly. And we should be wary of this propensity to reify the worst images of being an African. There's a lot that's at fault with us, but much of it has to do with the white perspective, the conservative liberal view of what an African is. And unfortunately, we fall into the trap all the time. There's a lot of money out there devoted to particular imagery of Africans, brilliant use of propaganda, brilliant use of creating a notion that we're incapable. Look for a moment at the entertainment industry and cite for me, because I know as young people, uh, you are the ones who watch these showmacs and Netflix, cite how many of those films or series you watch show you a truly successful family that pursues education. Uh, that's not a drunkard, that's not a womanizer, that's not tribalist. So you watch now. That's not, you know, I some of it, but not a lot. Um, and I think we allow others to create a particular image of ourselves, and uh we fall into the trap. So I think uh the ideal of Mr. Mandela and other leaders was that we will work hard at building a different South Africa, and we're gonna do it ourselves on our terms, in the interest of our people. Our people are not foolish. You know, you think you're gonna go to Cape Town and divide Western Cape, and our the majority who are African are gonna accept that. It's not gonna happen.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 43:25

It won't be accepted. I saw the this campaign thing you're speaking about, the scary numbers uh that came from some of the media reports about Afri Forums finances uh and how they spend hund they spend hundreds of millions in campaigns. And we know that the the key of those campaigns recently has been to portray South Africa as engaged. Engaged in the slaughter of white people. Which has resulted in this American response to us. I've had a little privilege of being outside the country in people who don't speak our language. The biggest identity when you say you're from South Africa that comes immediately is Madiba. So genocide is not apartheid anymore. Apparently, in the past, the biggest thing associated with South Africa was the term apartheid. Is Nelson Mandel. And it seems to me the campaign would have been to invest in a complete destroying of that image of this peaceman, the man that could build peace at the face of an animalistic war, of rejection, of bestiality, could come in and reconstruct a society of peace. An Afroforum has spent millions, hundreds of millions of rands invested in the destruction of the image of South Africa. Does the Nelson Mandela Foundation, for instance, can you match these budgets?

SPEAKER_01 45:16

No, we can't. I mean, uh, they're withdrawn the minute you mentioned Palestine. We lost a lot of funding. Um, and I warned the foundation not to have me as chair because I expected uh the reaction that we have had. Uh UCT passed a resolution on Gaza uh supporting that uh Zionists were acting in an apartheid fashion and intent on genocide. They lost over 250 million Rands in donor funding in a very short space of time. So you're dealing with very powerful forces. And we shouldn't neglect the danger that confronts us. You know, the fact that a university that intends to be Afrikaans medium is being built and is receiving hundreds of millions of rounds. Oh, billions. Is just something, you know, and the only person who comments, Jonathan Jansen. The rest of us were quiet. We're too uh uh uh complacent uh with our freedom. And it's a huge undertaking because what we are battling is centuries of racism and colonialism. And uh people who've had control don't let go easily, you know. So what they do, they find other ways. So they'll get uh, you know, entrepreneurs who become their tools who work against you, but you think they're working for what you aspire toward. Um so we also need to have regard that we're not just in a democratic South Africa. We are in a process of building a fundamentally different, endurable, progressive democracy. And if we understand that, then Afroforum won't have currency. But because we have no answer, we're too casual. You know, we we just take things for granted. And I am afraid sometimes at the lackadaisical response that we have to conservative liberalism. And I really think uh we need to have a conversation about building organizations which are political, but which understand history and which, when they develop a response, understand that it needs to be strategic. It can't just be ordinary, because we're not just in an ordinary world. We're in very difficult and dangerous circumstances, and uh we have a lot that makes us a desirable object. Uh so this and the ability to act decisively and strategically are absolutely necessary. And I'm not sure with the crop of leaders we've got at the moment uh that we understand uh these things.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 48:42

Yes, um, crop of leaders. I'm gonna cut I want to come back to your organization in this struggle where the ideas of Matthews, of Mandela are under real attack. Uh and the project of a united South Africa is under attack. But isn't it true as well that part of what is troubling about South Africa is education, the department and the state of our schools. When you became minister, there were fewer schools. Maybe just remind South Africans of the type of infrastructural badlock that faced the new democracy and the education hunger of something as simple as the presence of a high school or a primary school in a distant area and a teacher willing to teach there. What were the conditions like? Where did you have to take the education system from and where did you leave it?

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Well, uh, by the time I became minister, we'd had already uh two ministers of education. Professor Bengu was first, and Professor Asna followed him, and they had done a great deal uh to address the inadequacies uh that we found. Um I suppose one of the best ways of describing where we've come from is to indicate that in 1994, about 45,000 students wrote Matric. In 2024, over 400,000. So there's been a dynamic shift from where uh we were uh uh uh years ago. Second, Africans are a majority in higher education. So it's not all perfect, but there's been change. The imperfections are we are not in what we call critical disciplines, sciences, engineering, economics. We tend to be in the humanities and the social sciences. And this is something uh we have to change. In terms of infrastructure, when I became minister, the topical issue discussed by Mr. Mbeki in his State of the Nation in that year was the large presence of schooling under trees, where uh our children didn't have infrastructure, didn't have classrooms, basic classrooms, schools, desks, and so on. So the big programs under Mr. Mbeke were school infrastructure. We had a massive injection into school infrastructure, and we saw the mushrooming of proper school buildings, primary and secondary schools in many, many different provinces throughout uh the country. We also saw in the era of Kadha Asmo a massive injection into bursary and loan funding for higher education. It had been a very small pot prior to 1994, grew a little bit post-94, but it was Cada Asma who gave us the national student financial aid scheme of millions of rats. So you've had steady progression and improvement of the system uh since 1994. But the troubles continue, and these require proper research. I believe one of the key problems under apartheid was the destruction of the African family. And I think that what is missing in us achieving true success in education is the family's absence from the success of their children. That apartheid effect straddles a lot of social action and in particular education, which so requires family participation for one to succeed. So, for example, our children go home, they may not have a discussion about the schooling of the day. The parent may not ask about homework, or they might not have electricity to do the homework. More and more families do, but still, far too many do not have that basic uh service of energy to be able to play a role. So I think the role of family in social progress is something we still need to address. And then improvements courageously in areas that remain a negative. We have to do more mathematics and just insist on it. Uh we've got to train teachers and improve their training. A number of the teachers we have come out of the old system, not the new, still. And a lot of them do not know how to teach reading and writing and numeracy. We need to improve on that. So we do have a dilemma of poor performance, of lack of quality, uh, that we still need to address. But you know what? If you're doing badly in something, if you set your mind to improving, you will improve. But you've got to recognize that you're doing badly.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 54:45

Do you think the GNU and the deployment of a DA minister to basic education has demonstrated an appreciation of the challenges you've just outlined?

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Maybe. I don't know. Um because I don't know her experience, I don't know her well. Uh I think if you have a sense, if you've been a teacher or been in education, uh, you might have an appreciation. But if you come from another field into education, it's quite a big, complex arena. So I really I don't know the individual sufficiently to be able uh to judge. It appears stable uh at the moment. So let's hope something good is bubbling under the surface.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 55:40

One of the big criticisms about that first era is the closure of teacher colleges. Um I wonder if being a minister but also having been in parliament would you would you say that strategically delayed or that strategically undermined this building uh of a quality teacher? Did that in any way affect the project of building quality teachers?

SPEAKER_01 56:19

We had many teacher training colleges. There were a few that were really good, but a number of them were very bad. Um and they were costing a large amount of money to the state. So the adjustment was necessary to ensure we invest the resources efficiently in the system. Teacher training colleges were largely for African uh teacher trainees. There was few in the Western Cape that were whites only, but largely the large number were for Africans, and they were producing teachers trained in the Bantu education system. There were some that were very bold. There's one in Poor Poor, another in Rustenburg, that were renowned for real quality, but broadly, they were a drain on education resources and were not giving us the quality of teacher we require. If they were, the system would be doing well today. Because a number of those in the sector come out of that college uh system. So the intention of Clojure was one, to direct resources into higher education and to prepare graduate teachers who would be skilled sufficiently to actually execute that task of education transformation. But I think what happened was we didn't have good regard to the curriculum at the university level and didn't follow what had happened in other transforming systems, where emphasis was given to greater subject knowledge and then professional training. And so what you have is a lot on education theory and insufficient on the subject. So we have teachers who might be trained in education, but they don't know mathematics or English literature or history or geography or whatever the subject. Other systems have strengthened subjects and then done uh the professional.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 58:41

When you became uh minister, it was um you we all felt it as kids because um you know there was outcome-based education system, and it had a physical effect on the classroom. So we're sitting in groups and we're learning in a specific way, and you threw all that out of the window. We went back to I changed some of it there. Yeah, we went back to test and more self-reliant learning. Um what failed about what was wrong about outcome-based education system? I mean, in a sense of it it had such a short time and then it it had to be dispensed with. And you oversaw this thing.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

It was still outcomes-based. Uh that's still the curriculum we use, but uh we have a far greater focus uh on uh the content of the curriculum and greater specificity for teachers. Outcomes-based was just too many items, too much for the teachers to do, very project-oriented, you know, you almost had to learn by project and learn by groups, which didn't individualize learning and teaching. Uh so what I observed in the, I went to schools all over, and what I saw in the classroom was a lot of noise. It was very noisy, everybody was talking. But when I looked into the exercise book, I would see by mid-year, children had written one paragraph. And in most successful systems, you should be writing an essay a week. And I thought, oh, you know, we're heading to trouble. Got to go back to proper writing, to assignment, homework, to children using the pen and their fingers, and you know, so we introduced that what I call foundations for learning and try, bring back the foundations so that when you go into secondary school, your cognitive uh skills are of a level that allows you to transition into senior learning in subjects. But with what we were doing, all that group work, that shouting by the teacher, no. It was just terrible.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:01:15

Would would you, I I mean, I know, and it's a question that will lead me back to the ANC. Would you have been persuaded? I mean, you are such uh one of those comrades called independent thinkers, people that are to persuade you the value of an argument, da-da-da-da. But would you have really been persuaded to reduce the past mark as Minister of Education?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Probably not. Um there's a sound argument to it, because it's done everywhere, uh, but I might have been worried uh about it. Um I think I got into trouble because um I insisted on the quality of the matric examination papers, and maybe they became too difficult. So in my time, the results went down. Uh and you know, we could acclaim you mean the the the pass rate. Yes, the pass rate dropped. Um, and I of course I was, you know, they blame the minister uh uh for it, but the quality of the examination papers was excellent. So it means the people who passed were top-notch. Uh and that's what we should achieve. But it doesn't make good sense to have a lot of children failing. So we should have been looking at other options, and we were discussing that. Um, so you know, I suppose one did make mistakes. Uh uh I did, uh certainly. I didn't uh like or support math literacy, for example, uh, because I knew it would be a disaster, but I allowed the officials to persuade me. And what I suspected happened, which was a lot of children dropped out of maths and went for math literacy, which brought down our numbers in mathematics. Over time, we've begun to make it up. Uh, but I still think it's a matter we should address. There's some kids who won't do pure maths, but they might pass a mathematics A or mathematics B or whatever you would call it. Uh, so I do think we need to think there. I think math literacy is important, uh, but not as a main subject. Something all children should have, just uh knowledge of numeracy, how to work out change, and so on, you know. But uh we need more mathematicians.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:03:55

The way we've structured math, firstly, historically, we were not supposed to do it. Then we were getting to do it, then they invented the lower version of it. Why kids are not doing maths literacy? No, some are. But in the main, I mean in the in the main, the numbers are proportionate.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

They do maths and a lot fail. Actually, we should have changed maths. In other countries, they have mathematics and what they call additional maths. For the ones who do we had standard in the standard and higher, so other countries don't call it that. Uh they call it uh uh either maths A or pure maths and mathematics.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:04:42

Uh, I think that's I find it at this math's question so central to the conduct of the struggle because it was such an important discipline in the driving of apartheid, of how to render us culturally and a collectively dumb people? Was this parliamentary decision to say they mustn't do meds and science? Because they are hewers of wood.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Um and we did how much of that consideration uh came into the design of the post-apathetic education thinking that the one place I think you see what happened was the team that we had then framing the curriculum had done a lot of their studies overseas and had seen changes uh that had occurred in emerging systems, Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom were in a process of reforming. And so almost mirrored what they did. If you'd been in the caucus of ANC at the time. You would have heard some people arguing against moving in that direction totally, and that we should have a more measured approach. But it almost became like a religious uh, you know, uh intention. Uh, and there were hard minds that we must move in that direction. I was just, you know, with others worried that it was overloading a system that was a troubled system. Already. And you had to go with greater caution initially. But sometimes they say, you know, to change you must be bold. You move, and then you might uh uh make uh the you know alterations uh later. So we are where we are now. I think it has improved. Um, I see the numeracy and literacy outcomes are still really worrying. Very bad. But children don't teach themselves. So maybe we're focusing too much on testing children when we should be assessing the teachers' skills. Because it might be that the teachers are struggling to teach reading, writing, and numeracy, and we test the children.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:07:22

Yeah, the preparation I la I really am grateful for having reached where I am. I mean it's it's a it's it is a thing of the post-democratic state, but the truth is we knew as students, we were respectful, but we could see through our teachers. It became so tragic that we organized extra classes using the best kid to teach us, yeah. Because the teacher couldn't uh go through a maths problem without a textbook, uh, and when they tried to, there were these geniuses, there's always one or two geniuses, and they will be like, the answer is wrong. Yeah, yeah. And I wonder what would be a radical transformation of the perpetration of teachers. You are you are putting it, in my view, anyway. Um I'm having paid that much detailed attention. But it seems to me that was always the problem. The person standing in front, delivering the lesson, was always already of a low quality.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

Some of them, yes. Some, not all. Um in of course, in the past you had fantastic teachers, but they were not trained in Bantu education. They were trained in the missionary education. Yes, and and you know, for tear and so on. Uh but post that you've got this 1976 post-1976. Yes, yes. Schools were closed for a year or two years, people graduated without having a full 36 credit degree and so on. So all of that is part of our history. Right. I'm a trained teacher. I trained in Botswana. I did a four-year degree. For teaching, you did four years. Three years of that was subject. My subjects are English and history. And I did them as my majors for three years. Then you do alongside them some education electives. And it's only in the fourth year that you really have a steeping in the education practice. England does the same, Australia, Finland, etc. If you don't know the subject, you have a problem. One day I was the teacher in a school, and I asked her, What genre do you enjoy most in literature? She didn't know what I was talking about, but she was a teacher of English. It's a problem. If you don't know you're teaching Shakespearean, Edwardian, or African, modern, post-colonial, how do you teach English? So there's something to do with the qualifications and the content of our teacher programs, and we have to address that. To uh make change in society sometimes means facing uncomfortable and difficult issues and questions. And you come to a point where you actually say, as Ireland did, that the fact that our kids are all failing chemistry, let's test the teachers, and they did, and most of the chemistry teachers failed. You assume that teachers understand, but sometimes there's a real problem. And some change. As you know, being a PhD, that sometimes change depends on the kind of question you ask. Yes. And if you ask the wrong question, you just have a nightmare.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:11:41

Yeah. I'm I'll leave the subject. I'm very moved by this subject. Isn't it uh there are also additional sort of circumstantial problems to the learning of the child, but you you also were around during some of the most traumatic times in our education system. The AIDS outbreak in teenagers and the phenomena very challenging to this day of teenage pregnancy. When I got to standard six at the time, grade eight now, from grade eight to grade twelve, there were always at least three girls that fell pregnant. I'm saying all of my years. Some of them wouldn't come back. Uh it seems to still persist. But at the time it was coupled with AIDS, and we buried some of our classmates to AIDS at the time. Uh, I mean, you know, the country has gone through that, but this issue of teenage pregnancy or sex and its disruption of learning in our schooling system remains a big problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:02

What do we do? We have to have a conversation about it and be frank and open that it's a problem. And our society must address it. Why is the problem? Teach our children differently. We have to protect our girls, we have to get young men to respect young women and not to be too keen to have sexual relations at an early age. Uh create the understanding that you build relationships first. You know, uh you have to be emotionally mature uh to have a sexual uh relationship because it can uh result in particular outcomes. We don't have those conversations uh in our communities, especially black people and in our families. In fact, we avoid such a discussion and it should be regarded as anathema uh in many of our families. Uh I've never discussed such things with my parents, but I had an older sister, thank goodness. Uh, and she would say, You must be careful, you know. Um, so I think we need a different uh approach. And it's so serious now, because it's associated with statutory rape, sexual harassment, and so on, uh, that we have to have the conversation openly and admit that there's a problem. The fact that we have so many rapes, there's a problem. Um and we must be open about it and actually confront it.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:14:49

I some of my friends who went to private schools say teenage pregnancy is as prevalent as it is, as we are saying it. The difference is access to reproductive health care facilities as well as facilities for early uh healthy, I think, or safe abortion and so on. And do you think that might be particularly more important in our communities since the earlier diagnosis you made of the destruction of the family and the effect of non-involvement of parents either way in the children's education? Would that be a thing to do? Go increase these facilities so that girls are of course talk about these things, but they've got facilities to to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:55

No, I think education uh and socializing about this is more important. Because I think if you build facilities, you're just creating a culture where a young girl would have six abortions before she's 20, or you know? And I don't think that's that's correct, or she'll be having depot prevera uh injections uh before her time, and it affects your hormones and so on. So for me, changing behavior uh is more important. The conversation, the family, the involvement, the community, even the school, uh, if it is trusted by parents, plays a very important role. But parents, you know, uh they get auditory. Um, they look at the curriculum. Oh, you're teaching about gays. You want our children to be gay. I mean, that's some of the accusations, you know, you you get. Uh people still associate me with education. So when they meet me, they accuse me in the latest bill. And I said, but I left that, you know, 20 years ago. Um, so this jitteriness about these complex, difficult subjects is something we've got to, you know, uh get out of. Because our children are doing these things, um, and we have to help them uh to have those relations with a clear understanding uh of what they are meant for, uh, the impact that they may have on your life, and so on. Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:17:35

Part of the work you would have done is international relations. Um, I think we are sort of almost in agreement, like, you know, on the issues facing and the challenges of immigration in South Africa and uh whether the response was right or not. Is it funded by foreign agents? Da-da-da-da-da. Uh, I don't want to repeat those parts, but I want to ask a question about the continent's response this time. The leadership of the of the African continent residents. What do you make that Ghana and Nigeria as older states that have had actually the worst forms of the articulation of immigration problem? What would you what do you make of how they responded? South Africa must be taken to this and that fora. Uh I think hopefully they wanted us to end up in ICJ. What do you make of that particular response to the South African state and the South African leadership in general?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:58

Well, you know, I was uh as Durco Minister, I attended AU meetings. So I was quite familiar with seeing leaders avoid difficult questions. And what our leaders are not doing is asking themselves why so many of their nationality or citizens wish to be in South Africa, which is a fairly small economy. It's large in African terms, but it's small in world terms. Why do they come here? And essentially they come as economic migrants or political asylum seekers. These are the two main reasons. And it means, therefore, that a number of countries on the African continent are not doing what they should in order to provide for their people. They're not getting the economies right, and you don't have freedom of association, freedom of expression, and human rights respect. And people are running to South Africa because those things exist here. So I was disappointed in the reaction because I think that the leaders know that the government of South Africa is not behind what was happening here. They know that there are organizations like March and March, which are leading this anti-migrant sector attitude, and that the government has tried to act, to assert human rights, to assert nonviolence, and has not been listened to. So blaming the whole of South Africa for the action of a particular set of groups or organizations was, I thought, particularly problematic, especially by two countries that have previously repatriated Africans from their own neighborhood. So I found the response disappointing. But I think that often on our continent, our leaders avoid complexity. When the subject is too difficult, they divert to something else. When they actually should confront the difficult issue. This matter of migration is not an easy one. It's a difficult dilemma, but we have to address it. And I believe it is fundamentally associated with our development challenges, with our inability to work regionally, to address infrastructure, to respond to rural development, to provide youth opportunity, to incentivize young people to become aspirant professionals. All those problematics of development are very closely linked to the issue of migration. And if our leaders don't want to look at that, they're always going to say, it's South Africa, take it there, take it. And South Africa was very right to say, let's have a full discussion about all the issues associated with this problem. Let's not jump to conclusions. And that was the correct response.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:22:46

Me too, I thought so. Are you campaigning? No. The elections?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:53

No, I've not been invited to to campaign.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:22:58

Do A and C members in good standing have to be invited or be membership of makes them already obliged to to campaign?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:12

I'm very ready to be active if I know where the meeting is and uh what its uh uh focus is. But I don't just jump around everywhere.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:23:23

Is there any other particular reason? Could you be less enthusiastic for these elections?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:32

I'll be very enthusiastic. If I'm told where to go, I'll do door-to-door as I normally do. I'll address public meetings. So now I'm very ready. Why unless I'm given the spur to do it?

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:23:46

Why do you think they haven't done that? And you want to bear that. The campaign is still coming up. Let's hope so. And and and when it does, you you will you will be campaigning this year. Yes, indeed. What will be your message?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:04

Let's select ANC, and we will make sure we do the right thing this time. We are being careful about candidate selection. Okay. We've learned uh the lessons of bad candidates, and we are being far more selective uh about this uh round of local government election.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:24:27

One of the big challenges uh in this campaign, I would say, and maybe you can also add of what else troubles the ANC. But Johan is back, and um you seem to be working on uh what some people might call a spent force. The last time I said that I regret it because you know I wished you would have uh been a head of state. Many of us used to say it openly anyway. But uh you do wonder if the NC is gonna announce Comrade Franchican for the mayoral candidate. Um is this um a race of the old crocodile zealot side? The hibiscite. I haven't heard of uh other candidates, but are the problems in Jobek so bad that you had to bring the first generation of leaders of the state to resolve them?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:37

I really don't know who the candidates are going to be. I've seen uh Reverend Chicani's name mentioned uh in in the press, but I have no no greater knowledge than that. Uh for me, um he's a person of great integrity and is a hard worker. Um, and if we want someone who's honest, who won't steal public resources, and who will have regard to the improvement and development of the metro, I don't think he'd be a terrible choice. But uh I would love to see a younger person. Yeah, a younger brought in. I think young people must be given opportunity.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:26:21

If they're being so careful about renewal and the rest of the stuff you've just said, how come you haven't been uh contacted about maybe Twani?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:35

No. Wouldn't you be available for a mayor award? No, and people from Twani robbed me at my house and I had no interest in talk. I can't wait to go home, actually. No, I wouldn't be interested. I I had a horrible experience there.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:26:52

Yeah. But do you think Chigan would uh would be an excellent band?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:56

He knows Johannesburg, he's a resident, yeah. And uh I think there's no um stain on his name. Uh I think he'd work uh uh uh for the Surtei.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:27:10

My final question is 2030, 30 years of the constitution, but 70 years of the women's march. Uh this is a commemoration of that important moment, which for us we have held as a country as an important reminder of women's contribution, women's leadership, and the brilliance thereof. What is your message for these two milestones colliding as they are? Uh particularly your message to young women out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:52

Well, first I would say to young women that um the freedom and opportunities they enjoy today are due to the struggle of those women of 1956. And uh I would remind them uh that struggle never stops. And so never be complacent about the freedom and equality you enjoy today. Keep in struggle uh in order to sustain the victory. Uh, with respect to the constitution, I think we're one of the most fortunate countries and people in the world. We have a fantastic progressive constitution drawing on the best ideals in constitutions all over the globe. We need to celebrate it, but most importantly, we need to live it. And the most vulnerable in our society need to feel its impact in their daily lives. That is the essence of what we aspired to when we drafted the constitution.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:29:05

Thank you so much, Mama. Thank you for your time. And again, I'm very, very sorry about uh uh being late, but uh I want to wish you the best with the Nelson Mandela uh Foundation. Um I think this time of Trump and his mad Zionists, I think it will pass. Yeah. And Mandela Foundation will survive.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:29

We hope so. Yeah. No, we've been uh you know working, we've got a very good CEO. Uh and we've had one or two good opportunities uh that have come up, and we're making new partners, building new partnerships as well. So sometimes difficulty leads you in a different direction. Yes, and you know, new opportunities emerge.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:29:53

And I want to call on all South Africans watching with um money in the continent as well. Let's support the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Chad, and Lady Pando. Thank you, Mommy. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Doc. That's it, comrades. See, 19