Cape Town - The education system is damaging millions of bright young people, says Brian O’Connell, outgoing vice-chancellor and rector of the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
In an interview following the announcement of his departure, he said the system was making many of the same mistakes the apartheid government had made. O’Connell, 67, has been vice-chancellor and rector for more than a decade.
He said the failings of the education department, which he viewed as a human rights issue, saddened him.
“This country is damaging so many millions of bright young people. When they come to us it is quite sad to see how in the beginning they are completely at sea and many of them don’t survive the first month or two. They already understand they have no way of coming to grips with the level of challenge,” he said.
“Those who hang on, those who somehow manage to get through that first year, sometimes failing it, more often than not failing it… once they start really, really engaging with the work… you just see them blossom and you see the genius emerge.”
O’Connell said that, under apartheid, 90 percent of people, and therefore 90 percent of geniuses, had been barred from participation in education.
“We are making many of those same mistakes now. It is a sad thing.”
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) had missed its opportunity to be the greatest trade union in the world, “a trade union that could lead our nation from where we were in 1994 to glory in 15 to 20 years, by having every one of its teacher members commit completely
to the academic project, to giving their heart and their soul to the academic project”, O’Connell said.
“Today, we sit with a union that is not in the vanguard of driving the knowledge challenge. It is a sad thing and a huge opportunity missed.
“Can you imagine what history would have written about Sadtu? ‘They understood, they marshalled their forces, they began to develop their competencies and passion, and they brought communities together, and changed South Africa completely, and developed for us a viable future’.”
O’Connell said South Africa would struggle for a long time until pupils and young people were appropriately prepared to attend university.
“That’s a generational thing and I don’t see too many signs of our making rapid improvement with respect to the quality of our students, the quality of preparation of our students for university life. There is nothing wrong with their heads, once you’ve got them and they are committed to the process and they get the right support. Then they just fly.”
O’Connell is to retire at the end of next year.
Cape Times