OPINION: Pupils have right to criticise our politicians, Dlamini-Zuma

It would be irresponsible to ignore the education opinions of our next president.

From Zamdela in the Free State to Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, the former AU commission chair has started her campaign to take over from her former husband when he leaves office in 2019. Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma speaks with a quivering voice so it sometimes seems as if she is unsure of herself or lacking in confidence.

But these stump speeches of an usually subdued public figure cannot be dismissed as “pure politics” for they reveal a lot about her thinking on social and political issues, including education.

She is correct, of course, that colonial education made black people feel inferior and that the conquest of people was not only physical but intellectual, in the form of ideas.

No serious student of education believes that schools are neutral entities that stand above the politics of the day in any country.

So we should dispense quickly with some of the retorts to the next president’s statement that schools are non-political organisations.

Wherever they are located, schools teach some things and ignore other things.

Even in one country schools can teach the virtues of the ruling party or its excesses and vulgarities or find ways of upholding a glorious past.

None of this should surprise us. Teachers are human beings with their own personal histories and ideological preferences which come through in their teaching, regardless of the official curriculum.

Schools too, hold particular views about the past and present depending on where they are and whom they serve.

A public school that insists on holding a Christian assembly every Monday morning, regardless of the religious diversity in the student body is making a very powerful statement of its disregard, even contempt, for those who believe otherwise.

That is a much more serious charge than teaching about the venality of the ruling party, but don’t expect the next president to say anything about force-feeding Christian values to fee-paying non-Christian students.

For a politician from one of the liberation movements to tell schools in this day and age not to be critical of government or the ruling party is, of course, sheer hypocrisy.

In the 1970s and ‘80s schools were doing exactly that – at the centre of the protests against apartheid education was creatively involved in the drive for alternative education.

Teachers have a solemn responsibility to teach criticality not patriotism; love of country not admiration of government; respect for democratic values not regard for the interests of a political party.

And if in fulfilling its critical mandate a school and its teachers raise questions about racial nationalism, whether black or white, that would be a very patriotic act indeed.

This kind of political talk is, of course, a red herring.

As everybody now knows, the real problem is that the majority of our schools – black schools – are poorly served by the party and the government the future president wishes to shield from criticism.

Imagine if every disadvantaged school had a competent teacher, a textbook in every subject, a decent infrastructure for learning and an undisrupted teaching calendar for the entire school year.

Even before she takes the oath of office, this is the only question I would love to ask our first woman president: what are you going to do to fix our poorest schools?

And while you’re at it, Madam President, don’t waste your time hitting on former white schools.

There are too few of them and the children and grandchildren of the freedom fighters are all getting a fairly good education from them.