Reverend Msibi le Phuthego ya AME
Kea le dumedisa ka lebitso la ntate. Ke motlotlo ho ba le lona tsatsing lena le botlhokwa, la thuto.
“Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.” These wise words come from Aristotle, a great Greek philosopher and teacher. His words remain spot on.
It therefore gives me great pleasure being with you launching the Education Ministry of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Thank you so much for making this possible.
Your launch is very timely, only three days after the opening of inland schools as we set out together with our children on a positive journey into the 2012 school year. We’ve started the New Year with a bang emboldened by the inspiring performance of the Class of 2011 that gave us a 70.2% pass.
I thank all our children, some of whom are here, for the exceptional effort they put into their education last year, preparing for a happy and fulfilling life beyond old-age.
Thank you to all the parents here and the community of Mabopane for their role in education. All in all, 348 117 learners out of 496 090 have passed matric.
Your province, Gauteng, which got second position among all provinces, achieved 81.1%, up from 78.6% of 2010. For this I congratulate all of you. Well done for the great work!
I’m happy AME has brought us together in ‘the year of unity’. I appeal to all of you to help us keep all the children in school. Together we must arrest the drop-out rate, at least until children have passed matric.
From all our homes and places of worship, we must provide career guidance to the young before they pass matric. Teach them university is not the only place to go to. There are many options. Do invite people from FET colleges or universities of technology to come and discuss with church members and grade 11s what the options are and how to apply.
From last year, we are providing workbooks to help improve reading and counting from a tender age. We rely on parents to work through these valuable books at home with the children, read to the children, every day.
When you get your children’s results of Annual National Assessments, look at them carefully and use them to intervene in your child’s education.
We welcome the AME’s decision to start an educational ministry, believing it will advance and support all our efforts to improve last year’s performance in terms of the number of learners who pass and the quality of the passes, right across the system, from Grade R up to Grade 12.
Reverend Msibi tells me the overarching vision of the educational ministry is to inculcate the culture of learning and moral regeneration among the youth and the community at large. Accordingly, the AME Church is expected to minister to the social, spiritual and physical development of all our people.
We thank warmly the Church for this noble gesture. This is one crucial campaign to help us show that ‘education is a societal issue’. It is a responsibility of all of us. No government, all over the world, can educate the people without the people.
Today therefore represents an important occasion attesting to the correctness of our decision as a nation to make education a top priority. For indeed it is through education that we can make this congregation, and all our people, lifelong learners, regardless of age or background.
Our problems are many. We need your support. We need schools that work and principals who are responsible fully for academic excellence in their schools.
We need teachers who teach every day and every period without fail. We need learners who are disciplined, dedicated, respectful and willing to be taught and to learn.
We have a challenge of improving performance in poorly performing schools and districts. We need proper classrooms, sufficient and high-quality learning and teaching materials, and we need safety in schools and surrounding communities.
Reverend Msibi, I invite you and the congregation as well as the entire community of Mabopane, to support “The Adopt a School Campaign” which we launched recently. It is through this campaign that your programme on learners ‘adopting’ parents as their support system can be strengthened.
We welcome your kind act of donating school shoes to needy learners. I am happy that community involvement in education is taking root and the urgent call for a social compact is gathering momentum.
Tomorrow, ABSA bank will also donate shoes to a school in Joburg and Nedbank will provide uniform to a school in Limpopo. All these efforts show South Africa’s unity and commitment to the education of our children.
As I say, all the time, to young people, ‘make much of time’. Seize opportunities, take your schooling seriously, make education a provision for a happy journey to old age.
Always remember, your rights, including the right to education, did not come cheap. Many people gave their lives as they laid the foundation for your peaceful journey to adulthood.
While we view academic achievement as a key indicator of quality in our public education system, we also expect education to help us promote commonly shared values and a human rights culture for the benefit of all our people.
‘Thank you’ to the AME Church for joining hands with us in the endeavour to build value-based schools. Through your support we can plant the seeds of moral regeneration. As former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt once said:
“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
We need the church and all of South Africa to build a caring society and “to improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person”, as the Constitution says.
I thank you deeply for making us part of this important service.
