LETTER: Ramaphosa finally owns up

President Cyril Ramaphosa said something unusual at the Bana Pele Early Childhood Development (ECD) Summit in Johannesburg on Monday (“Ramaphosa says government late in boosting early childhood education”, March 17).

In fact he did something unique for an ANC politician. He admitted that universal early childhood education should have started at the dawn of democracy in 1994.

This is a welcome departure from the usual ANC focus on the need for redistribution to seek redress for the sins of the predemocracy regime. The usual refrain is: we must have racial equality in all leadership positions, based on the ethnicity of the entire population.

But now the president is saying, in effect, that racial equality is a chimera as the majority lack the necessary educational and social foundation. And that this is not the fault of white racists but of the liberation party itself, which despite having untrammelled power sorely neglected early education of the poor majority.

The president is of course entirely correct. The tragic neglect of early — and indeed subsequent — education is by far the greatest failure of the ANC. This failure was not inevitable. The skilled minorities were more than willing to assist, but were blithely discarded in the rush to establish majority ownership of the entire state apparatus, including education.

It’s never too late though. Abandon our suffocating race quotas. Employ the best of whatever colour in all facets of education. Embrace all those — including those from outside the country — who have an urge to give the greatest gift of all, as portrayed in Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: unfurling knowledge’s ample page, rich with the spoils of time, to eager eyes. 

Willem Cronje
Cape Town

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