2003

Western Cape Premier, Ebrahim Rasool and Andre Gaum, his MEC for Education, commissioned commissioned a retired ‘educationist’ to conduct a six week survey on the state of schooling in Cape Town. The report was audacious in that it demanded that teachers at poor schools “must do more with less”. The report drew a fierce newspaper response from me as I castigated Rasool, Gaum and the educationist. My rebuke was in the context of there being no consultation with teachers and that there was no empathy for their challenging work. Many teachers who had attempted to do “more with less” had suffered from burn-out. This was owing to one teacher at any poor school having to do the equivalent work of three teachers. Staff establishments at poor schools had now been drastically reduced.