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lumeer
Expert Member
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2018
- Messages
- 3,012
For me, Panyaza Lesufi is a bad MEC because he appears to care more for photo opportunities where he fights perceived racism at historically white schools, than for serious problems that plague historically black schools. For example, there are historically black schools with very poor infrastructure, that you rarely hear anything about from Lesufi. But, he's happy to spend huge sums of money on his tablet project, and should there be, say, a nursery school where a black child is photographed sitting by himself, rest assured that Lesufi will pitch up with a coterie of photographers and journalists in line, to give the school hell. He just seems very disingenous to me. He also shoots from the hip. One of the few times that I heard him express concern over historically black schools, was when he said of the principals of several schools that had very low matric pass rates, that those principals should consider themselves fired. What a stupid thing to say to the media, without even knowing the reasons for the low pass rates in those schools. Perhaps their pass rates are low because of a lack of basic infrastructure, because Lesufi prioritises tablets over basic infrastructure. In fact, such top down pass rate interference, where you threaten teachers with dismissal if their pass rates aren't up to some pre-determined standard, is very unethical, for it creates a conflict of interest in the teachers and principals. A teacher's role is part gate-keeper and guardian of academic standards, but will they do this when threatened with dismissal, or will they take the easy way out and just mark generously and do some creative tricks with computing the marks of their learners? For me, Lesufi is basically a politician. He had no background in education when he started as MEC. It's a bit like having a CA run a hospital.
