Free State

And here is a plot of the latest Free State results:


(The plot axes are explained here.)

Election rigging!

Nah, I'm just kidding. But if the numbers on the News24 maps now are correct, the elections must have been rigged:



81% for the ANC! 12% for the UDM!!! Not so much - the votes add up to way more than 100% !

There must be a problem with their program :)
Maybe take their results with a pinch of salt... (You can download the official results from the IEC website. It is not very user friendly though, I am afraid.)

A completely different picture!

Here is the equivalent graph for the voting stations in the Western Cape:



I had better get to work so I am not going to comment on it. But isn't that just a completely different picture!

Election Results by Laura

My labmates and I have been eagerly watching the News24 election results map all day - it is quite wonderful! (It is here if you haven't seen it yet).

But we have also been lamenting that there are no graphs.

So here is my offering to the floor - a graph of the Eastern Cape votes counted so far. It shows the leading 5 parties, and the percentage of the vote they got in each voting district. (The voting districts are just each given a number on the x-axis).


See, isn't that fantastic! You can tell so much from this graph! That the ANC is doing well across the board, except for a few dips. The big dip towards the right must be a UDM stronghold - and if I go back and check what areas those polling stations were in, they were from the OR Tambo District. So that must be a large area of UDM support.

The DA and COPE are interesting. COPE has fair percentages across most polling stations, ranging between about 10 - 20%. The DA is different though - across most sites it has almost no support at all. But where it does have support, it has strong support, often beating the ANC.

I suppose (what do you think? perhaps I am wrong?) that it is because DA votes are concentrated in primarily white suburbs, where a vast majority of people vote DA. COPE votes, however, are move evenly spread across urban, rural, opulent and impoverished areas. And perhaps more evenly spread across racial lines too?

The ID doesn't have much support. But the areas where it does have support are also areas of strong DA support - I suppose the ID and DA appeal to similar sections of the electorate. But here is another interesting thing - DA and ID peaks pretty much always go together. But there are COPE peaks where there are no DA and ID voters. What is that telling us? That COPE was getting votes from areas that are not traditionally opposition party strongholds. In other words - in those areas COPE was taking previously ANC (or UDM) votes! Also interesting in that COPE and the UDM often have similar areas of strength.

Interesting!

I'll make a map of the Western Cape for curiosity's sake too quick, then I had better work!

Election party

My friends and I decided to have an election party. But we live in a block of flats so we have limited options party wise, unless we sucker someone else into letting us use their house as a venue. Which is a mission. So we were trying to think of something fun we could do to celebrate the elections. Because it is important to celebrate these things! (We celebrated freedom day last year, for example).

Se we eventually came up with "30 Seconds: SA Election 2009 edition" - we are going to play the board game 30 seconds, but make our own additional South Africa and election themed cards to supplement the original cards. I have been charged with making the cards. The words I have to put on the cards, so far, are:

affirmative action, alive with possibility, African Renaissance, Alan Boesak, alliance, aluta continua, arms deal, Ballot paper, Bantu Holomisa, black diamonds, black economic empowerment, Blade Nzimande, bourgeois, broad based black economic empowerment, bus rapid transit, cadre, campaign, civil society, coalition, cock a snook, Colonisation, commission of enquiry, comrade congress of the people, conscientise, constitution, COPE, Cosatu, counter revolutionary, crime, Currie Cup, Deborah Patter, democracy, deploy, Desmond Tutu, Drankensburg, Elections, emigrate, Eskom, Evita Bezuidenhout, fifa world cup, food parcels, food security, freedom, gautrain, Gwede Mantashe, Helen Zille, Hugh Masikela, Human rights, Imbizo, Independant Electoral Commission, informal settlement, Interface, investigation, Isidingo, Jacob Zuma, judiciary, Julius Malema, Kgalema Motlanthe, KFC, lambast, land reform, liberation, Luthuli house, Madiba, Mafikizolo, Mahendra, Mangosuthu, Msholozi, Buthelezi, manifesto, MEC, Miriam Makeba, mobilise, Motorcade, national democratic revolution, National Prosecuting Authority, Nelson Mandela, Nkandla, Nkosi Sikeleli, opposition party, Orlando Pirates, Outcomes Based Education, parliament, Patricia de Lille, Polokwane, premier league, president, province, rainbow nation, rally, reconciliation, republic, Rivonia, ruling party, rural development, SABC, SAFM, scorpions, Sevende Laan, Steven Friedman, swart gevaar, Table mountain, Task team, tender, Terror Lekota, Thabo Mbeki, Third degree, Thulasizwe Simelani, trade union, transformation, travelgate, treatment action campaign, Trevor Manuel, two-thirds majority, ubuntu, UDM, Umkhonto we Sizwe, umshini wam, Union buildings, universal franchise, vuvuzela, woodwork, Zapiro, Zwelinzima Vavi

I was trying to strike a balance between ones people are more likely to know, and ones people are less likely to know! I'm still thinking up more - anyone want to contribute some? :)

Just for fun

Some posters I saw outside the local Pick 'n Pay last year:

Three words on Umshini Wam

Listen, its not my favorite song. I don't sing it in the shower or hum it as I walk to campus.

But, you know... really.

It seems to me that this is a classic case of much fuss being made about nothing.

As far as I understand, it was a song sung in a certain time period in our history. When young men hopped the border and were trained to fight. And the machine gun, it was part of that. The armed struggle - was it right, was it wrong, did it do more harm than gooda? Was it necessary? I don't know. I'd rather like to know more about it. But whatever way you answer those questions, the fact remains that some South African's took up arms in the hopes of winning their freedom. And it was part of how we came to be here today, a democratic society.

And to remember that aspect of our past? Surely its okay to remember? To sing the songs people sang then? Isn't that part of remembering? And some people sacrificed a lot to be a part of that. Soldiers fighting for a free South Africa. They are worth remembering, I think.

So me myself, I don't really have a problem with "Umshini wam." Unless there is a verse that translates "I am going to shoot Laura with my machine gun if she doesn't vote for the ANC on the 22nd." If there is, gosh, please let me know and I will change my mind. But for the moment, I really don't have a problem with the song.

And I think that the irony here is that if people had not made a fuss about it in the first place, it wouldn't be so widely sung at all.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But it seems to me that the reason there are Umshini wam ring tones, that it is sung in election queues and at all ANC events, is just ANC members being defiant in the face of disapproval from some sectors of society. How dare they say we can't sing this song that is meaningful to us! We will sing it! We will sing it at every possible occasion! And, ha, there is nothing you can do to stop us!

And the problem is that getting angry about Umshini wam is really majoring on a minor minor issue. And when you major on minors, the actual problems get overlooked. There are real reasons to be concerned about the ANC. But we get too caught up being outraged over Umshini wam and other such small things. So there is no time to listen and think and engage, and offer informed criticism.

Yup, those were my three or so words on umshini wam.

We're poor people

I had all of these ideas for blog topics, but they have all just entirely escaped me. Oh well.

I'm busy watching Blood Diamond with some friends. Having just finished an argument about Zuma/Mbeki and a discussion about the EAC (East African Community).

Ah this is a sad movie. What they do to these child soldiers especially.

I was all ready to blog about the NPA announcement, but I'm just over it now. All I have to say on that matter is to share a proverb I remembered today: "When two bulls fight, the grass suffers."

Instead let me tel you about a terrible faux pas I made a few days ago. I was in Pick 'n Pay shopping with my digsmate. We were walking past the meat section, and I noticed these huge rolls of polony, and I said...

*pause here*
You need some background. Firstly, I had recently been speaking to my digsie about the sad state of my bank account, and were were commiserating about our lack of money.
Now you know when you hang out with the same people for many years, you develop your own slang. One of our slang phrases is "we are poor people." I don't know where it came from, but it is said with a certain itonation and it is just a way of saying that we don't have any money.
Okay, secondly, I quite like polony. My digsmate loathes it.
*unpause*

... and I said something along the lines of, "Hey, lets get one of those polonys, because we are poor people!"

!!!

Now I was really just teasing my digsmate about her polony aversion, using a turn of phrase we always use.

But *woops* - because that is not what it looked like! It looked like I was mocking poor people eating polony!! Eish. A man walking past gave me quite a look!

I should watch my tongue!

The cutest boy ever

For the past week I have been working at SciFest Africa, the national science festival in Grahamstown. Scifest is great actually... it is a big festival of exhibitions, workshops, talks, talkshops, games and so on, all with a science theme. And thousands and *thousands* of kids come to participate. Mostly from the Eastern Cape, but also from all over South Africa.

I was stationed at the SAAO Astronomy exhibition. I suppose they put me there because I am studying Astronomy-ish type stuff. It was all pretty intense, especially the times when there were masses of kids.

It is the International Year of Astronomy at the moment, so the Astronomy exhibition was *massive*. The SAAO was exhibiting, and the SKA, and the Cape Town planetarium, and some organisation that does Astronomy education for schools. So all of the Astronomy people had a massive exhibition with real telescopes people could use and posters and models of telescopes and planets and other demonstrations. And the biggest attraction - a big portable planetarium. Where about 20 kids at a time would go sit in this little planetarium in the dark, and look at a projection of the night sky. Then someone did a talk about the stars in the night sky (sometimes it was me doing the talks!!).

But one of the most wonderful things of the whole week was the most *adorable* boy I met today. He was in Grade 4, and he came to look at a solar system model I was showing people. And he was *so* keen. He was amazed by everything I said. So I took him all over the exhibition and showed him different things and different pictures. And he was priceless. Sometimes he was just speechless with awe. Like when I told him that stars were actually as big as the sun, just far far away. His little eyes just got big and he was amaaaazed. Wow! Wow! That's amazing! And he would just ask questions...

Ah what a lovely boy! Made my day today :)

Malema

If any of you remember... last year my birthday wish was to have tea with Julius Malema.

Well I was very excited last week, you must know. I thought my chance had finally come - I heard Julius Malema was coming to speak at Rhodes. So the day before the event I found some ANCYL people chilling on a wall on campus and offered to pick Julius up from the airport.

They laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed :)

So I didn't end up going to pick up Malema from the airport. And in the end, he didn't end up coming to the Progressive Youth Alliance meeting he had been scheduled to address. But I went along to the meeting anyway.

And aside from the fact that it was mostly 3 hours of sitting around waiting for things to happen, I had a great time.

A journ student from Rhodes put up a bit of an account of the event here. It is funny how two people can have such a different take on the same situation. As I left the venue at the end I bumped into a friend and I asked her how she felt about the event... she said she found it very disturbing. Why? I don't know really. Perhaps it is that same "Polokwane" image we saw on TV, of dancing shouting hordes of people. If you look with one eye, it is people having a good time, getting into the spirit f things. If you look with another eye, it is a marauding mass of angry violent people who are going to shoot you with their machine guns.

Which it isn't. Really. Its mostly people having a good time, supporting their party. And if the way you do that is shout "hah!" and sing songs in your own language (not english!)... well... hey, whats wrong with that?

I am a but of a Youth League sympathiser myself. So I'm probably biased :)
And they can get carried away, to be sure. And they really shouldn't mock people in their speeches. It is just coarse. And at this particular event they *really* shouldn't have lied about Malema not being allowed on campus (That really was a lie, I don't know why they did it. Probably a combination of covering themselves for not telling people Malema wasn't coming, and general anger at Rhodes admin.)

But ja. This idea of people in yellow t-shirts being angry violent neanderthals is really not ok.

The day before the meeting, after I asked the ANCYL guys sitting on the wall if I could pick up Malema from the airport, and after thay had finished laughing, we sat and chatted for about half an hour. About Zuma and my qualms about him and COPE and separation of powers and what not. And it was all very pleasant. And I saw them at the event itself and waved and they laughed at me all over again. And it was great.

I wish people could just get a glimpse of the other side of these events, and this bunch of people. And realise their fear and indignation are a bit misplaced.

Confederation cup

A conversation between my brother and I:

Laura: Let's go to a confederation cup match!
J: What's that? Tennis?

Small town drama

So there is a real drama going on in Grahamstown at the moment. I might get this a bit wrong, because it's all a bit complex. But let me try let you in on our small town drama of the hour.

So in Grahamstown we have three grocery chain stores. I think. Shoprite is on the other side of town from campus, so I don't go there much. Then in the more city centre area there is Checkers. And a block removed from that, there is Pick 'n Pay. Pick 'n Pay is in its own little mall, call Peppergrove.

Just down from Peppergrove is the BP garage, which has its own 24 hour Kwikspar. From campus it is about a 10 minute walk to Pick 'n Pay and maybe another 5 minutes to BP/Kwikspar.

So during the day students walk to Pick 'n Pay. By night they walk the extra five minutes to BP. There is a lot of night time traffic to BP - I know because I live in the area and it is *noisy* sometimes.

Ok, so here is where the drama starts. Lets call the two men involved in the drama Mr A and Mr B. The man who owns Peppergrove mall, the land Pick 'n Pay is on, is Mr A. Mr A also runs Kwikspar. The man who runs Pick 'n Pay is Mr B. Mr B also owns the houses next to BP/Kwikspar.

Now Mr A wants to expand Kwikspar. So he wants to buy the houses Mr B ownes. Mr A doesn't want any more competition, no no. So Mr A refuses to sell the houses to Mr B. Now of course, Mr B is ticked off. And Mr B is Mr A's landlord for the Pick 'n Pay building. Mr A and Mr B have a lease agreement for the Pick 'n Pay shop, so Mr B can't do anyting about that. So Mr B buys the land on the *other* side of the Peppergrove mall. And starts building a new mall, so he can put a new Superspar in the new mall. Which will be slightly closer to campus.

Part of Mr B's plan was to use some of the land from the local cinema, to have enough place to put up the new Superspar in the "new" mall, which is a wall away from the present mall. The cinema were behind on their rent to Mr B, so Mr B was going to cancel the lease with the cinema and demolish part of it for the new mall. Shame for the cinema, but they are just empty so often, I don't think they make enough money to justify having three cines. Anyway, so Mr A gets smart and approaches the owner of the Cinema. He buys shares in the cinema to keep it going and enable it to make rent payments. So Mr B can't kick them out and use the land for Superspar.

Yup, thats it. Or something like that. It is all a bit confusing. There is a Dispatch article about it here.

What a drama, hey!

The Pick 'n Pay recently extended their opening hours to 6:30 am to 10 pm. Thinking about it now, they are abviously trying to steal the 24 hour Kwikspar's early morning and night time customers!

We, the people of Grahamstown, watch with interest!

Teachers' politics

I came across a story on iol today, where Naledi Pandor warned political parties not to campaign in schools (Article here). It is a good thing, I think, that she made a statement about this.

It reminded me of a story I read in Business Day in January. Apparently teachers in Gauteng had been holding political meetings during school hours. Ronald Nyathi, the chairman of the Gauteng branch of SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union), defended the teachers rights to do this, because apparently "the Labour Relations Act allowed the union to call meetings during working hours, which it had “always” done and would continue to do." and "Teaching hours lost would be made up in the early mornings or in the afternoons"

Nyathi also commented that the schooling in his area would “not be stable” until Jacob Zuma became president (Article here).

Which was all pretty bit dubious. Teachers bunking school to attend political meetings?

The DA, IFP and ANC all condemned Nyali's statements.

Last year Nyathi also told parents from a school in Alexandra to keep their kids away from school the next day: “not a single pupil should be at school tomorrow because they will be exposed to extreme violence.” This was after the provincial education department suspended a whole lot of teachers at that school for not teaching.

Unions are important to protect their members from exploitation, of course. But they shouldn't be protecting people who are not doing their jobs. And they certainly shouldn't be doing it violently. Particularly if children are involved.

What a bad precedent to set to kids!

I found another interesting article from last year, a bit of an overview of political battles being played out in schools:

... organisations wanting to flex their political muscles in schools are doing so to the detriment of children...

... a trend by the South African Democratic Teacher Union (SADTU), in particular, to use threats in schools to get what they want. Earlier in 2009 there were reports that, after teachers were reprimanded in Alexandra for not teaching children, Sadtu threatened that every child who came to school would be met with violence.

A memo came to light from Sadtu, which wanted to put a stop to curriculum training by the Gauteng Department of Education, because such training takes place on Saturdays and in the afternoons on weekdays. Sadtu said teachers must be paid overtime for the courses.

"Anything that extends beyond the working hours and conditions of service of our members will be a declaration of hostilities," the letter read.

"We are in a state of perpetual readiness as Sadtu to disrupt these meetings and declare war on anyone who is arrogant to disregard this call." Article here.

Hmmmm... so I do think Naledi Pandor's warning was well placed. This is something to keep an eye on as elections approach!

News24 !

I came across this blog yesterday. I think I found it via thinking aloud, but I'm not sure exactly... somehow I navigated there via via another blog.

I thought the guy's post on My ANC, My Vision, My Future was pretty interesting. So I wanted to comment on it. You know. Like we normally comment on other people's blogs.

So I tried to comment. But you need an account to comment. Arg. So I create an account and wrote my comment. Yayi.

Then I try find a place to link my new News24 account to my blog here. It is pretty standard to allow you to link to your own blog when you comment on other people's blogs. Like on the Thoughtleader blogs, or Blogspot blogs, or Wordpress blogs. Or The Times blogs. The Daily Dispatch blogs.

Because, you know, that's how this whole "blogosphere" thing works. Fred Khumalo writes his 2 cents on Julius Malema, we read and comment. I write my 2 cents on JZ, people read and comment. You write your 2 cents on the rule of law or Obama or Gadaffi or the sad state of Isidingo at the moment. And I read and I comment. And it all becomes a fantastic space to see what different people have to say about different things and all engage with each other. And argue about the integrity and charisma of Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Much fun.

Anyway I look for a place to link my new News24 account to this blog. Maybe a field where you can put a website. Nope, can't find anything.

Eventually I see where you can create your own News24 blog. Ok, well seeing as I can't seem to link to my Blogspot blog any other way, I create a News24 blog and make the first post a link to this blog.

Great.

Then I get an email from News24 to say they see I started a blog to link to my own private blog. This counts as advertising/marketing for another forum, so if I do not intend to blog on News24 then they will delete my account.

Ok. That is a bit Bill-Gates-esque. But okay.

So I send the lady a nice email saying pretty much what I have said above, why I created the account (to comment on other people's blogs) and how I tried to link it to my blog. And I said I could double post to blogger and News24 I suppose, but that seemed a bit of a waste. So if she needed she could delete it.

So next thing I look my News24 blog is gone (fair enough) and my whole account, and the comment I initially made the account to write. ARG!!!

Well, I suppose she was just doing her job. But it seems to be poor form to me. It seems to miss the whole point of blogging, this blog monopoly thing News24 are doing.

I thought about making a new account to re-post my comment (arg that is was deleted!!) but I think I won't. For now anyway.

Sheesh, useless News24.

10 points Blogspot
10 points Thoughtleader
10 point the Times blogs
10 points Wordpress
10 points Daily Dispatch blogs
0 points News24 blogs.

Sober thoughts

There have been reports that a student from Rhodes was raped a week or two ago. I'm not really sure what the full story was. The Grocotts story about it was beyond awful and the Rhodes official statements are always a bit thin on actual information. Which is reasonable, I think, if the people involved want to keep the information private.

Anyway, I don't know much about it. But rape is a scary thing. Perhaps other women are different, but reports of rape often make me jittery. Not for any rational reason. But something in me just gets scared.

A few years ago one of my friends was raped. And I remember a couple of days afterwards, getting onto the lift in a building on campus. And a man got in with me, someone I didn't know. And the doors closed and we started going up. And suddenly I was completely irrationally afraid to be in this enclosed space with this man I didn't know.

Of course I got to my floor and got out of the lift. And it was all fine. But for those few seconds in the lift I was filled with a crazy desire to cower in the corner.

I remembered the lift incident because a couple of day ago I was alone in my digs. There was a knock at the door and it was a young guy I know who had come to ask me for something. It was nearly lunch time so I made him taost and we sat and chatted in the lounge. And I had another mini-lift experience. Where I was suddenly aware that I was alone with this guy, and it made me afraid of him.

Which is crazy. I know him. In fact, those few moments of fear make me feel quite disloyal to him.

But rape is scary. And hearing reports of rape, it sortof gets into your mind. It becomes something to be afraid of. Horrible.

It is a sad thing that I know so many women who have been raped or molested. Some by strangers. Some by family members. So many.

People don't really talk so freely about rape. Because it is crime where the victim feels ashamed. How ridiculous that someone would be ashamed of something done to them - but that is the nature of this crime.

So because of that, rape sometimes feels distant. Something that happens to people in other neibourhoods, not yours. In other families, not yours. In other schools, on other campusses, in other social circles. Not yours.

But its not distant. It is just often hidden.

My friends who do pastoral work in my church tell me that in their experience one out of every three women have been sexually abused or raped.

Its not distant.

Cape Town

I've been out of town for a few days schmoozing at a conference. Actually, I hate schmoozing so I mostly tagged around with my friend who is a good schmoozer. She is very outgoing and does really well in these sort of conference environments, where it is mostly a matter of making small talk with strange men. Me, I just drink my coffee and hope the break ends soon so we can get back to listening to talks.

Anyway, all of the important scientist people were hogging the power points at the conference so I didn't manage to blog.

We stayed at the most wonderful accommodation in Cape Town. It was this little apartment on Green Market Square, rented by fzp properties. If anyone is looking for a place to stay in CT, I highly recommend one of their apartments.

Trip highlights:
* My supervisor lending us his rental car (woop woop!!)
* Meeting some interesting scientists from Europe.
* Dinner with lovely people.
* Tea with a friend who recently moved away from CT.
* Dinner at MacAfrica (Moyo) - some cheesy Africa-for-tourists stuff, but the setting was beautiful.
* The cute little apartment we stayed in. We have stayed in some really questionable places over the years, and this little place was a real winner.
* Coming home!!! (Always a highlight!)

Oh and wait, I just thought of another:

* Finding out that a friend I know is also secretly a bit impressed with Mangosuthu Buthelezi. I don't know, there is just something about him. My digsmate says he is "regal".

My superpower

Extension 9 by day

So this week I discovered my superpower. It is the ability to navigate unfamiliar township roads in the middle of the night.

The first time my superpower manifested I was the navigator, not the driver. And we were weaving our way through Extension 9(*), a newer area of the township. Which of course means rows and rows and rows of RDP houses. Painted much the same colours, all with similar wire fences. At 10:30-11ish at night. With only those horrible orange lights to guide us (Why do we still have those lights? they are horrible. Come on, 15 years of democracy and we haven't replaced them???).

We were giving someone a lift home. So it's all fine and dandy, she directs us to her house. Until we drop her off and we have to find our way out of this forest of identical houses, which we have weaved in and out and around to get where we are. In the orange dark. It was like something out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

So we held our breaths and did a U-turn. And at this point my new found superpower kicked in and I directed us home. It was quite instinctual, "no don't turn here, it's the next left," "okay, carry on straight here." I think my subconscious mind must have been taking very careful note of our path on the way in.

So we lived to give lifts another day.

Two days later I found myself offering another girl a lift home. This time in Extension 4(*). And this time at about 12-12:30 at night. Ext 4 is marginally closer than Ext 9, so you might have thought it would be easier to drop her off. But no. It was a rainy night and when we got into the township the rain had somehow morphed into this thick mist, so in some places you couldn't even see the houses on either side of the road. It was just you in the car in the orange glow.

Again, things are fine and dandy until we dropped off the girl who needed a lift. Of course, she just tells us to go back the way we came. Ext 4 is not an RDP section, thankfully. But we could literally only see a few metres in front of us as we drove, making it completely impossible to note landmarks.

At one point we got to a junction and the friend I was driving with was adamant we should go strait. Again my spidey sense kicked in and I don't know how I knew, but I knew we had to go left. With visibility so bad it was tickets if we chose the wrong direction. And I don't even know who we could have phoned for help if we got lost. But in the face of my friend's insistence on strait, I followed my gut and turned left.

And some way down the road we saw two familiar donkeys. And we new we were on the right track :)

So yes. Again, we live to give lifts another day!

I wonder if there is a market for my talent?




(*) The lesson of the week is that any part of the township that does not have a name (like "Joza" or "Fingo"), and is instead "Extension XXX" is going to be *far* away.

Random Thursday points

Eish, looking at my last post now, it was soooo long. I think I might need to go back and streamline it. Otherwise I might not even be able to bring *myself* to re-read it.

So to lighten things up for today, 3 random Thursday points:

1) I picked up a guy from Polokwane(*) from the bus today. It was my first time meeting him, at the bus stop. So when I got back to my flat after dropping him off at his new house, my flat mate excitedly asked me what he was like, and "Does he look like Lungelo(*)??"
And then we had a good laugh about the ridiculousness of her question. She only asked because Lungelo is one of the few people we know from Polokwane. It was like expecting all people from Port Elizabeth / Nelspruit / Australia to look the same :)

2) If anyone remembers my post about trying to think of something to do for the Afro-jazz thing last night? Well I wracked my brains, thought of a few ideas, then ultimately decided I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. So I pulled out. Also I had a bit of a cold sore throat thing and I was quite hoarse, so it was for the best I suppose. My new flatmate did a rap and some Swahili singing. She is the cool flatmate.

3) Mystery question of the day - I have this pair of ballet-show style black pumps. Very cute, shiney, I love them. But the mysteriously *always* get stones in them when I am wearing them. The right hand one especially. How is this happening?


(*) Name and place changed to protect me in case he ever reads my blog.

Moremogolo & Laura on free education

This post is a response to Moremogolo's comments on my post "The ANC Election Manifesto." His comments in green, my responses in black. If you have anything you would like to add, I invite you to comment below.

I will however like to take issue with your view that you are not for things like free education and would maybe support exemption for poor parents to not pay for their kids' education. I would like to believe that this is exactly what the ANC is pushing for but the unfortunate thing is that most of the people in the townships and rural areas cannot afford to pay school fees, hence the exemption of most schools from paying fees.

Maybe we should also define what we mean by free education. I know a lot of white students who received free education through bursaries and scholarships from companies and corporations who got rich as a result of cheap labour in SA. Mind you, rather than paying taxes most of these companies would rather make their contribution through bursaries and scholarships, which is laudable.

A few Black professionals are where they are as a result of being recipients of these bursaries. But there is a lot of bright Black students who were excluded from university as a result of failure to pay for their fees, students whose parents could never afford to pay for their fees even if they wanted to. There are also countless pupils in primary and high school who have been excluded from school because their parents could not afford to pay.

Okay, let me start my response here...
At the moment the government requires children up to the age of 15 (I think) to attend school. This means that up to the age of 15 every child *must* be in school, whether their parents can afford it or not. So to facilitate this, school are required to offer school fee exemptions to parents who cannot afford school fees. And their are regulations for doing this (I found a nice explanation here by googling for school fee exemptions). So if your family earns less that ten times the school fees, you pay nothing. If you earn between ten and thirty times then... etc. etc.
Exactly how these exemptions work is up to the governing body of the school, as I understand it. It is also up to the governing body to decide what the school fees should be to start with.

So there should be no student under the age of 15 who is excluded from school because their parents can't pay.

You have been speaking about school education as well as tertiary education, but in this response let me just speak about school education. I'll reply to your points on tertiary education in another post.

And just one more thing before I continue - there is no such thing as free education. Someone has to pay for buildings and salaries and books and electricity and water and so forth. When you say you want free education you mean you want the government to pay for our education. And the government gets its money from citizens (rich and poor - everyone pays VAT). So effectively what you are saying it that every citizen of the country should be forced to pay to educate all of the youth of our country.

Most of the white kids and a few black ones who went to these exclusive private schools because their parents could afford received multiple bursaries and scholarships to study at university. Whereas if you are poor and black and have been fed inferior education and you manage to escape the trap, chances of you getting those scholarship and bursaries are next to nothing. There are countless number of such students who could not go into tertiary education because they could not afford to pay a registration fee.

Now of we are really serious about doing away with this dependency syndrome and getting a productive nation we have to ensure that our nation gets educated. Not this situation where parents know that if their kids go to public schools in the township they are doomed for failure because education there is free and they ought to be grateful for whatever handouts they get. Free should never be equated to useless.

We should not have any useless school. I completely agree. Why are schools useless? Definitely historical disadvantage is a problem. Some schools have inferior buildings. Inferior equipment. Less well educated teachers. These are problems.
But are they the main thing that makes a school useless?
I put it to you that no, that is not what makes schools useless. What makes schools useless is:
a) Bad leadership
b) Bad administration
c) Useless teachers
Not uneducated teachers, useless teachers. Teachers who miss school a couple of days a week, just for just. Teachers who just couldn't be bothered. The stories I hear about schools in my area blow my mind. Teachers who are late marking exam scripts from the previous term's exams, so they just bunk school for a few days to do the marking.
And bad administration - missing textbooks, not ordering textbooks in time, mismanagement of funds. Buildings falling into disrepair. I saw pictures the other day of a school close to me where the boy's toilets have been out of order and locked FOR TWO YEARS.
And kids coming and going all hours of the school day. Kids lounging around on the playground all hours of the school day. Terrible discipline.

Are these problems that will be fixed by making education free? No. Are these problems that will be fixed by government giving more money to these schools? No. These are social problems, they cannot be solved simply by government throwing money at the problem.

You just have to look at the situation in Zimbabwe to see what education can do. The economy of that country is in ruin but the Zimbabweans are surviving against all odds. This is because they are an educated lot and they are all over the world selling their skills and keeping their families alive at home. Mugabe ensured that each child receives quality and free education.

Cuba is one of the poorest nations in the world but it can export its skills for free all over the world and it has literacy skills unmatched in the world. This is because they have ensured that their citizens recieves free quality education.

Through quality and accessible education we can get our country to dream. What we are being offered now is nowhere near that....

I completely agree that quality education is *really* important. But making it free won't make it quality. In fact, I read an article last year where the principal of one of these new no-fee schools was saying that it was a disaster for them, because the money they get from government is barely enough to scrape by, and now they are not allowed to supplement their money from the government with school fees.

No. There is already an accommodation for parents who can't afford school fees - let them apply for exemptions. But most people can afford to pay something, even if it is a small amount. So let people pay what they can to give their children opportunities in life.

The way schools are meant to be run is that they have quite a lot of freedom to be organised by school governing bodies, who represent the parents. Because ultimately it is the parent who is responsible for a child, and the childs education. Not the government. (The government can step in to help, by subsidising schooling and requiring schools to offer exemptions, but ultimately parents have the responsibility for their children.)

The problem is, in the words of Trevour Manuel - Governing bodies only work in the leafy suburbs. Where there is a long standing culture of parents holding bake sales and sitting on school committees and overseeing the schools finances.

So schools in disadvantaged areas are... disadvanteged... by this. But again, it is not a problem that will be solved by making education free.

You said in your post here, "And free education here does not mean the kind of education that our students receive in the townships." So it seems to me that he emphasis of your request is not actually on free education, but quality education. And you also say, "And schools should be well resourced and if parents want to contribute to the resourcefulness of the school they should be allowed to do so." Isn't this just a description of school fees? School governing bodies, representing the parents, get together and decide on an amount of money they will pay towards their children's schooling? Then that amount of money becomes binding on all of the parents, and they all pay (if they are not exempt). And of course this means that in more opulent areas, at schools that more opulent kids attend, fees will be higher...

... and they will receiver better education.

Probably. But is their better education primarily because fees are higher? Well, yes and no, I would say. Money does help. It may mean they have a fancy pool and a computer lab and more hands on science equipment. Which is helpful. For sure. It may mean they have better educated teachers, which is helpful, but not critical. It could also mean smaller classes, which is a good thing.

But I expect that the main reason that their education is better is that their teachers are in class every day. Working hard. That kids sit in school for the entire school day. Working hard. They get their textbooks at the beginning of the year. Their school time is structured. Classes are kept in order and difficult kids are disciplined. Kid's aren't coming to school hungry or missing a lot of school. Year after year after year.

And many years of getting these small basic things right adds up to a good education.

Of course, another issue is that they have probably been taught in their home language for their entire school careers - but that is another discussion for another day.

I suppose to summarise:
I definately think we need to up the quality of our schooling. And it is something government need to take part in (especially in provinces like the Easter Cape where the Education Department is in shambles and really making things bad for schools) and it is something that parents and communities need to take part in. Things as simple as insisting your child goes to school every day, and on time. And sits down to do school work after school every day. And kids need to take their education seriously. Even if you are learning in a class with 50 other kids and no electricity, you still make the choice whether to go to class or not. Whether to listen in class or not. Whether to do your homework or not. Whether to take advantage of additional programmes that are run all over the place - extra maths maths lessons, science lessons, dance, sport, clubs.

But I think cries for "free education" are misplaced. It is just not the solution to the problem we face. If we tomorrow made all schooling free it would only make every school equally financially disadvantaged. And the schools that are "socially" disadvantaged will remain socially disadvantaged, the schools that are socially advantaged will remain socially advantaged.

And anyway, parents should have the right to better their children's education by financing it. Sadly in SA not everyone has the means to do that. But that is not a problem with the education system, it is a problem with our society. And lack of finance is not the key issue anyway, as I have said.

BUT

I definately think drastic measures need to be taken to impove our education system.

Making education free just isn't one of them.

I think it is interesting that educaion was one of the major tools the apartheid government used to oppress people. And for the sake of justice I think that education for "previously disadvantaged" communities must be a priority of our nation. Our government too, but also our whole nation.





(Gosh that got long! Apologies for long windedness!!)

An appeal

I was going to do a blog post about Gadaffi's female bodyguards. (He is such an odd man - on the new yesterday he was quoted as saying that Somalian pirates are just protecting themselves from the greed of the west... see here.)

But instead I put to you this semi-urgent appeal...

My church is having an "African fusion" evening this week. Which should be much fun. We did it last year too and the theme was "telling our stories" and it was great.

Anyway, one of the organisers of this years event asked me this morning to participate, to share some funny stories about race.

So I impulsively said yes.

Eeek. Silly silly of me.

Now I am completely blank. And I have to stand in front of a crowd of people and tell stories about race that:
a) Make people laugh.
b) Don't offend people and ruin the evening.

And there are few more sensitive issues than race. Eeek. So I'm really not sure what to do.

So yes, I call upon you all, gentle readers, to help me out. Please, any ideas? And stories? :)