EDUCATION SHAMBLES INEXCUSABLE

Is there anything of importance – at least to the ordinary folk – government can do correctly, is a question elicited by the consistency with which those entrusted with the onerous responsibility of governing have blundered and thrown this kingdom into tailspins of crises at just about every turn especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Often times making it possible for conditions conducive to the wildfire-like spread of the pandemic owing to erratic decision making, such as enabling hosting of events that should have been canned as well as shortening operating hours for service providers, especially supermarkets, thus enabling the creation of potential superspreading cells, to take root. The latest of such instalments has been the reopening of schools without proper planning and organisation.

Diabolical was the reopening of schooling by the Ministry of Education and Training without sufficient teaching staff considering the caution and precautions that needed to be employed to contain the spread of COVID-19. Of course, it would be convenient for the ministry to blame the shambles on pressure from lawmakers to speedily reopen schools when it was not ready to do so. It turned out that there was a deficit of approximately 1 000 teachers who are routinely engaged on contracts that had since expired. As if that was not enough, the hiring of these contract teachers could not be undertaken expeditiously because - wait for it - the hiring agency, the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), was headless since the contract of its chairman, Simanga Mamba, had also expired. Consequently, the chairman’s contract has since been extended by two months to facilitate the process.

As I see it, there ought to be consequences for this blatant neglect of duty because there are officers employed to run the affairs of the ministry. It cannot be that the expiry of the TSC chairman’s contract came as a surprise because the date of its expiry was recorded on the very contract when it was consummated. There is definitely a dereliction of duty here because someone has not done the work for which they are being paid by the taxpayer, which calls into question how the ministry is managed and, by extension, government’s effectiveness in properly governing the country.

Contract

This also brings forth the question of contract teachers. Why would government deliberately disenfranchise emaSwati teachers by engaging them on a piecemeal basis? Is teaching such a lowly regarded profession from government’s perspective given this apparent marginalisation? No wonder teachers with requisite qualifications are out-earned by soldiers with no education to speak of. This casual approach to education, upon which the foundation of this nation ought to be constructed, speaks to the very question of the essence of government and governing.

If education is not a priority, which empirical evidence suggests, the question has to be asked how government hopes this country would develop and become competitive globally if the education of the liSwati child is a by the way and not central to national developmental imperatives. This explains why the country is lagging in just about everything because the focus of the leadership is probably not in sync with the dreams and aspirations of ordinary emaSwati, but a preoccupation with securing the tenure of a dysfunctional political system hence its focal point is the military upon which it is anchored. The people’s elected representatives in Parliament must put an end to the exploitation of teachers by ensuring that they are permanently engaged to create an enabling and conducive environment to ensure the liSwati child gets the best education possible.

Repaying

Then there is the conundrum of repaying parents 2020 school fees and those who had not paid not to do so. Again acting on instructions from lawmakers, Education and Training Minister Lady Mabuza issued a political statement that parents who had not paid 2020 fees should not be required to do so while those who had paid should be refunded. Paradoxically, the ministry had before then been in the forefront in ordering parents to pay 2020 fees disregarding the fact that they had also been negatively impacted by COVID-19 with loss of jobs and earnings. Meanwhile, schools are refusing to oblige because they have not received an enabling instrument from the ministry. Consequently, this is setting up head teachers against parents while both the ministry and legislators watch from the sidelines.

A solution to this apparent tit-for-tat would have been a direct intervention by government by appropriating additional funds to schools to assist them with their running and allied expenses and not simply create a financial vacuum by executing the parliamentary directive. Regrettably government’s annual budgeting was as if all was normal and did not nuance the COVID-19 pandemic in which extraordinary resources should have been directed at education and health.

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