There were tears in the Lotriet household this week. Little Egg rang the ceremonial bell at his new primary school on Wednesday to ring in the start of his school career.
And when my bright-eyed son walked off to join his new friends, I couldn’t hold back the tears. I am very proud of my six-year-old son who faces the prospect of a good education, the opportunity to make new friends and build memories that will last a lifetime.
But I also mourn the hundreds of thousands of children in our country who will never enjoy the blessings of a quality education. I mourn the millions of people who will grow up unable to read and write, who will have almost no job prospects.
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Our children have the constitutionally guaranteed right to a quality education, but corruption, poor economy, poor training, bad parental decisions, unemployment, malnutrition, avoidable health problems and poverty rob us of the one thing among the conditions. and terrible opportunities.
My little egg is lucky to start his academic life in Class 1 in a good school and I can only pray that the quality of his education will improve in the next 12 years.
Even as a parent – and after more than half a century, I have yet to see an objective parent when it comes to their children – I cannot claim that they have more opportunities than millions of other children. They are just lucky that they can get quality education.
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Just like every child in this country should. We can no longer endure the painful spiral of lack of education. We must raise the leaders of tomorrow. Engineers, scientists, astronauts.
But, instead, we are raising South Africans who do not have enough education. The unemployed, the poor, the hungry. We can’t do it another year.
Education is the key to employment and employment is the only path to growth. Quality education is the right of every child. If nothing changes, they will stay the same. And we cannot allow things to remain the same.
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