P Mlambo-Ngcuka: Julius Nyerere Lecture

6 September 2006

Vice Chancellor, Professor Brian O'Connell,
Vice Rector Academic Affairs, Professor Stan Ridge,
Vice Rector Students Affairs, Lulu Tshiwulla,
Tanzanian High Commissioner, His Excellency, Emmanuel Mwambulukutu,
Members of the academic staff and students,
Distinguished guests,
Family of S Walters,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It has been said that the benefits of Adult Education "are by no means
universal neither are they negligible" which presupposes that the results and
benefits from adult education depend on an integrated effort. It means that
adult learning should not take place in isolation.

It has to be an integral part of improving the quality of life of adults,
youths, families and communities. It has to respond to real needs.

We meet here today to honour one of the finest politicians and elder
statesmen to have emerged out of the African continent, Julius Kambarage
Nyerere, says one African intellectual, Professor Ali Mazrui who described
Nyerere with the following words:

"In global terms he was one of the giants of the 20th Century... He did
bestride this narrow world like an African colossus." (page 9, Nyerere And
Africa: End of an Era - Biography of Julius Kambarage Nyerere 1922 - 1999,
President of Tanzania, Godfrey Mwakikagile, 2002, Protea Publishing, United
States)

One of his biographers also pays tribute to Nyerere by saying he was: "A
towering intellectual, and a paragon of virtue, he had profound insight and
highly analytical skills and knew exactly what he wanted to do for Tanzania and
for Africa as a whole. Yet he was not without fault, and admitted his mistakes,
unlike most leaders who see that as a sign of weakness and not an attribute of
leadership." (page 8, Nyerere And Africa: End of an Era - Biography of Julius
Kambarage Nyerere 1922 - 1999, President of Tanzania, Godfrey Mwakikagile,
2002, Protea Publishing, United States)

He was one of the most consistent campaigners for education that improves
basic conditions of people, his approach to education was for education to be
an integral part of community life - the Ujamaa villages were such an attempt.
However, they did not come without controversy.

Mwalimu Nyerere as he was affectionately known by his people came from that
pioneering generation of African leaders, who led struggles against colonialism
and imperialism, who led their countries to independence from the late 1950s to
the early 1960s. Among such luminaries are leaders who left unparalleled
legacies like Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Patrice Lumumba
(Congo) and Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) and our own Oliver Tambo just to mention a
few.

They led the struggles for the emancipation of Africa at a time when the
world was divided into two bi-polar positions by the Cold War between the East
and the West. The challenges of rebuilding their countries from the ravages of
colonialism were enormous beyond belief. But their achievements were
significant.

Julius Nyerere was one of the most influential leaders in the twentieth
century, and his death in October 1999 marked an end of a political career that
spanned almost half a century. It also meant an end of an era of the African
founding fathers who led their countries to independence in the sixties. At the
time he passed away he had left Africa with a rich legacy in humanism, modesty
and humility, all invaluable lessons for our continent.

At a time when Africa was plagued by dictatorships, corrupt leaders and
leaders who overstayed their welcome in power, Nyerere showed the way by
stepping down from being a President of his country without people having had
to force him out of power. That was an important lesson for all those who
believe in democracy.

In my generation every young person who was ever an idealist, who dared to
dream about a better Africa, about the role of education in liberation had to
know about this great African - agree or disagree with him but you could not
ignore his ideas or be indifferent to the originality of his thoughts - the
passion for pro-poor policies and the painfully simple but not simplistic ways
with which he approached even very complex issues.

Speaking to students at the University of Dar es Salaam he once described
Tanzania as a country under siege from poverty and the university students
represent the emissaries on whom the whole society invest and give everything
so that they can go and get help to rescue the nation. They are sent out to
seek help out of the siege he said. If they go and not come back with help, the
nation dies under the siege, and that will be after giving all the nation has
to the emissaries.

I think those of us who are fortunate to have higher education even in South
Africa, are indeed emissaries. We need to think about our responsibility to
resource the nation both in small and in big ways and to rescue our people from
the siege. So ours is not a small contribution.

As a committed Pan-Africanist, Nyerere provided a home for a number of
African liberation movements including the African National Congress (ANC) and
the Pan African Congress (PAC) of South Africa, Mozambican Liberation Front
(Frelimo) of Machel when seeking to overthrow Portuguese rule in Mozambique,
Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) of Robert Mugabe in their
struggle to unseat the white regime in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

He also opposed the brutal regime of Idi Amin in Uganda. Following a border
invasion by Amin in 1978, a 20,000-strong Tanzanian army, along with rebel
groups, invaded Uganda. It took the capital, Kampala, in 1979, restoring
Uganda's first President, Milton Obote, to power; also not without controversy,
nevertheless a remarkable show of force by an otherwise very peaceful and
loving Tanzanian people, even at war it was a war for peace.

For some of us it is in the education arena that Nyerere's influence and
ideas have proven to be long lasting and with an enduring impact. Indeed he
will always be remembered for his efforts of linking education and the everyday
and basic needs of the people.

My own views about education as a student of education and later as a
teacher were profoundly impacted upon by this great intellectual and
educator.

In the Declaration of Dar es Salaam Julius Nyerere made a ringing call for
adult education to be directed at helping people to help themselves and for it
to be approached as part of life: 'integrated with life and inseparable from
it'. (Nyerere, 1978, page 29). For him adult education had two functions
to:

* "Inspire both a desire for change, and an understanding that change is
possible.
* "Help people to make their own decisions, and to implement those decisions
for themselves." (Nyerere, 1978, page 30)

Again bearing in mind about adult basic education and training (ABET) that
"the gains are by no means Universal neither are they negligible!", which
should mean that ABET has to be an important part of our education and with
development interventions, a tool to intercede in the second economy and to
develop and empower women. It must not be in isolation from broader
developmental interventions and the macro-economic context.

Having said this, I must also add that lifelong education as against
literacy and adult basic education is a much more ambitious proposition which
takes on board the concept of a learning nation.

In a country such as ours where skills shortage and skills inadequacy is so
glaring, lifelong learning must be seen as a way of life with basic adult
education as only a stepping stone, to those with any certificates or
qualifications, it has to be a way for self improvement to move from being
qualified to being able.

There is indeed a difference between being educated in the formal sense and
being productive and acquiring competencies and capabilities, being educated
does not automatically mean "you can". Qualifications show us what learning you
have been exposed to, books you have read and so on. Ideally for education and
learning to be productive it must happen together. When it does not happen we
must use lifelong learning to close the gap.

In the case of the Republic of South Africa, we have not made the kind of
progress that we require in ABET or lifelong learning education. There has been
an increasingly enabling environment which is yet to give us the results we so
desperately need. We all have not taken full advantage of the political
environment we have created, which does not mean I think, we have created a
perfect environment but it is enabling. The Department of Labour's
qualifications framework is part of this enabling environment.

"A survey of the 1996 Census statistics shows that 4,066,187 adults had
received no schooling at all, while 3,512,415 had received some primary
schooling. Out of a population of 40,583,573, this translates into a percentage
of 18,67% persons who had very little or no schooling" (2004 : Statistics South
Africa - Stats in brief ten years of democratic governance)

"The 2001 Census figures show that 4,567,497 adults had received no
schooling at all, while 4,083,742 had received some primary schooling. Out of a
population of 44,819,778, this translates into a percentage of 19,3% persons
who had very little or no schooling." (2004: Statistics South Africa). This
represents a major challenge and socio-economic deprivation. While these
statistics are not new they are very indicative.

Our Department of Education is working on a programme to take our work on
ABET to new and greater heights. That work will need to be integrated in the
broader developmental agenda, as part of the Integrated Developmental Plans
(IDPs) and Local Economic Development (LEDs), to achieve what is envisaged in
the Nyerere dream referred to earlier. It remains troubling that some of our
Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) employees choose not to use
training resources to train people at lowest and sometimes even peripheral
aspects and not for cutting edge critically needed and relevant
capabilities.

Further to that we have to lift our people out of functional literacy to
skills that make them effective and productive citizens, who are also critical
thinkers, citizens who are able to take full advantage of opportunities in our
economy and benefits of democracy. Too many South Africans are missing out and
instead they are becoming dependants of the state. Our Accelerated and Shared
Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) is much about growth as it is about
the sharing of it.

The phenomenon of unemployed graduates, who are without abilities to
self-employ and self-determine, after spending three to four years of post
secondary education is an indication to all of us of the challenge in our
education at a tertiary level.

Universities and government have to share responsibility for this state of
affairs and take corrective actions sooner, for the emissary has gone and not
brought back help. This has been the underlying motivation for AsgiSA and the
Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA), in the short term to
equip the emissaries. The solution lies in large part in more fundamental
institutional and curriculum reform.

It has become accepted worldwide that all individuals require a sound
general education in order to participate effectively in increasingly complex
social and economic environments. A good general education is therefore no
longer simply a basic human right, but a strategic necessity, but so is
lifelong learning; to give people another chance to acquire competencies that
will make them survive better, and live better.

Lifelong learning is also not age bound so it is crucial for the development
of both young and old citizens. We cannot talk positively of a growing economy
if we cannot share the benefits of that growth. We know that the biggest
limitation to shared growth in South Africa is skills. We also know that
millions of our people have no means to tackle challenges of growth without
acquiring appropriate lifelong learning skills. Also know that you are
educators and students, and as policy makers and private sector you hold the
key to this puzzle.

We must move away from historically simplified adult learning that is
sometimes more sentimental than practical and equipping. We have to count the
cost to individuals of being given an education that is not relevant to the
real needs of those individuals. The poorer they are, the less they can afford
the luxury of irrelevance.

The disjuncture between the demand and supply in the skills and learning
arena is a luxury our country cannot afford even for the noble goal of academic
freedom, as that freedom and right comes with responsibilities and
accountability in relation to what we plough and what we reap.

It is the case with lifelong learning which must be connected and give real
change. It must assist with socio-economic justice in a direct and simple
manner, but not simplistic. The curriculum developers are not paying enough
attention to issues of relevance and ensuring that we all pay attention to the
skills and competencies learners acquire when they come out of higher education
and other training programmes, including SETAs. Government, business and labour
are all guilty.

In the Tanzania of Nyerere there was so much poverty that it was harder to
see opportunities for economic growth let alone empowerment. In South Africa we
have missed so many opportunities because of skills. We import artisans,
welders even for regular scheduled activities such as statutory shutdowns of
oil refineries. Our lifelong learning interventions must deal with these
distortions, in policy and proactive and ongoing manner. In my language we say
"Umuntu Ufunda Aze Afe", which recognises the fact that you learn until you
die.

In South Africa we have 70% of the potentially economically active youth out
of work, in poverty and under-skilled. Our lifelong learning has to address
these matters. As we speak we believe that our economy has to grow at a minimum
of 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per annum by 2010. If only we can get
the skills alignment right and a skills revolution going. It is in the lifelong
learning arena that we can advance a significant part of this skills
revolution, in the short and medium term.

But, concurrently we also need a skills revolution in the curriculum of
tertiary education, as well as in the quality of public education, especially
around teacher training as teachers are becoming a scarce and priority skill in
South Africa. I am referring here mainly to teachers of mathematics and
science, technology and language teachers (including African languages
teachers) in public schools. But in general the culture of teaching, which has
been significantly eroded.

In identifying growth areas in our economy we have isolated the growth and
areas in which inadequate service provision constrains growth. These are:

* "infrastructure limitation as a constraint
* "sectoral development: e.g.
- tourism
- business process outsourcing (BPO)
- bio-fuels
- agriculture and agro-processing
- cultural industries
* "Second Economy initiatives - targeted at especially and in particular
education,
- youth
- women, both in urban and rural areas
* "service delivery, and, especially basic services at municipal level
* "Human Resource Development (HRD) - The biggest cross-cutting constraint.

Since the issue of appropriate skills arises as the most constraining
factor. In AsgiSA we have established the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills
Acquisition (JIPSA) as an interim response to deal with skills shortages. The
skills that we lack and desperately need - not to do the work of established
education institutions such as schools and universities, but work with them to
deliver, are:

* engineering skills - (100 000 per annum)
* planning and management skills - especially for local and provincial
governments, and education and health managers
* artisans - including welders, plumbers and boilermakers
* teachers - in public education - in mathematics and science - the inability
to communicate by graduates has been identified by employers as a major problem
that contributes to the unemployment of graduates
* cross-cutting skills - at the very top where experience is needed
* Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
* project managers
* finance skills - but entry level and middle level skills are needed to avoid
further shortage at the top
* skills for growing sectors - e.g. ICT - we need about 500 000 ICT
practitioners at different levels as we speak.

Lifelong learning is very critical to the challenge of sharing growth so we
have to use it as such. South Africa is hugely indebted to leaders and pioneers
like Nyerere who achieved the liberation of their countries earlier than us and
thereby showed us a way, what to do and what not to do, so that we also avoid
doing the same mistakes that they did and benefit from their strengths.
Humility and solidarity is one of the greatest lessons Tanzanians and Julius
Nyerere bequeathed us. Indeed we are very grateful to him for showing us the
important role of education in development and nation building.

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
6 September 2006
Source: SAPA