Education in our country is divided into categories characterised by the availability of resources. We have schools that lack no resources at all while we also have underprivileged schools that lack at most any resource required. Education in our country is distributed unevenly. Other learners have fully resourced schools while others even lack a roof to call it a school. They learn under unsafe walls that can collapse at anytime. As I think of this uneven distribution, I wonder what the future of our country will be like. It’s tough.
Someone may ask questions like “Who is responsible for this uneven distribution of education?” Or “where are the people who are supposed to make sure that the schools are well developed?” and find different answers. South Africa is the biggest investor in education than any other African country, but we still have situations like these. I’m asking myself questions like “Are our leaders from local municipalities keeping the money for themselves or is the budget a false statement?” It’s intricate but it is clear that something is wrong regarding this issue.
At least something has been done regarding our education as compared to the previous years. Back in those years we had situations whereby a parent/guardian could not afford to pay school fees and learners were forced to go and stay at home. The government solved that issue. Rural and underprivileged schools do not pay fees and everyone has the right to basic education. Some of those who could not afford school fees are grateful for this and are willing to do whatever it takes to create bright futures for themselves.
We might be complaining about the schools lacking resources while other schools have resources, but we have to try and appreciate what we have and work on what we don’t have. It seems like many of those in rural areas use this issue of lacking resources as a reason for not studying. It’s true that rural schools have no sufficient resources but I see no point in using this as a reason not to study. We have learners that obtain ”A” symbols coming from the rural schools. In terms of tertiary institutions, we have lots of bursaries, scholarships and study loans which also contribute to the free education in our country. Education is almost free in our country except for private schools.
Our education in South Africa is not the best of them all and also not the worst of them all. I believe if we can put more effort in it something great can be achieved. We have to accept the little that we have and use it to get the big that we wish for. As young South Africans we can do this.
Meshack Mtshweni
Imagined Communities: An idea that is greater than the sum of its parts
Benedict Anderson, a Marxist leaning political sociologist famously wrote that nations are “imagined communities” because “members will never know, meet or even hear of the majority their fellow-members, and yet, in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”.
This idea has tremendous potential, and encapsulates one of the three pillars of enke’s mission: Connect.
In political and social science, Anderson’s concept describes the reality that nation-states (ie. countries) are modern political constructions that emerged as a tool for mass mobilization and economic organization.
Most people living within a country experience very different lives, and very different day-to-day realities from one another. This is especially true here in South Africa, one of the most unequal and simultaneously diverse countries in the world. And yet, there is something inherently natural about feeling a part of something. One glimpse at the pre and post rugby world cup Springboks rally, is enough evidence of that.
Perhaps the potential of imagined communities, the human ability to establish connection, is greater than the sum of its parts?
Where is all this coming from?
I’ve just joined the enke team. I moved to South Africa 5 months ago from Thailand where I was living and working for the past year.
During the past few weeks as I’ve been reading the news to keep tabs on what is happening around the world, my eyes couldn’t help but pause on the dramatic images of flooding in Bangkok.
Despite the quiet, calm of the Greenside office where the enke team’s braintrust operate, looking at these photos, the familiar smells and sounds of Bangkok, and the memory of the wonderful warmth of the Thai people, comes flooding back (pun intended).
Looking at the people wading through waist high water, I can almost feel the fantastically mesmerizing pulse of a city who’s sights, sounds and smells that typically overload the senses are suddenly muffled under metres of water. Looking at the boats being used to transport people along the now very high waters of the Chao Praya river, I can imagine the people inside. I can imagine how they feel, the sense of helplessness.
The reality is that I probably have just as much in common with the people those boats along the river, as I do with the leathery faced parking attendants who helped me position my car this morning, who smile as I pull in to the office everyday and loyally keep their post “watching my car” sitting on their plastic chair along the side walk.
But it is the potential of that feeling of communion that we should think about, and focus on, rather than the naiveté of it.
The potential of that imagined community to create communion where there wouldn’t ordinarily be, is an incredible thing. For humanity to advance for the better, particularly in a county seemingly as divided as South Africa, we need to figure out how to harness that communion, without relying on racial or class targets.
This is why enke brings together youth from across the social spectrum, to facilitate the imagined communion that exists between all youth in this country.
Connect, is a process that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Chris