Today we come together to pay tribute to a great South Africans of our time. As Director-General I feel honoured to pay tribute to the late Professor Asmal on behalf of the Department of Basic Education. Education would be the poorer today without the inspiring leadership and courageous decision making of the former Minister Professor Asmal.
He was passionate about education and he used his time in office from 1999 until 2004 to put in place many of the policies that have given shape to our schooling sector as we know it today. He built on the solid foundations laid down by Minister Bhengu and his own work was carried forward by Minister Naledi Pandor and the present Minister, Minister Angie Motshekga.
I speak on behalf of colleagues in Basic Education who are filled with affectionate memories of Prof Asmal and who look back at those five years with awe at someone who was prepared to listen, take considered decisionsbut who always urged everyone on to do their very best. He was irrepressible with the energy of a man half his age. He often left us standing in how he moved around at a trot, always enquiring and challenging.
He had a term when he came to the department that he expected all his officials to be "on tap". It must have been a term he brought with him from Water Affairs but it meant more than being on top of issues but ready to deliver. His initial impact on the department was extraordinary. Immediately following the commencement of Prof Asmal’s term of office, there was a palpable depression in the department. We were facing mass resignations.
We realised very quickly that he accepted that he was “bossy” but never authoritarian. A colleague remembers him as one Minister who allowed and encouraged his officials to argue with him and disagree with him in his meetings. He was one who could rubbish you and your work in the safety of Schoeman Street but protect you with all he had in public. As officials we enjoyed full protection - even for our mistakes.
From the time he came into office he set the pace. One of the first things Minister Asmal did when he took up office was to try and understand what was happening in the system from a various angles. He launched his period of office with his now famous listening campaign. Within five weeks in office, he met with met the leading representatives of every significant national education structure.
Professor Asmal called this time a “wonderful mission of discovery”. In his own words he describes what happened which sums up so much of the way Prof Asmal would engage with stakeholders and his officials alike: “We talked, we disputed, and we found common ground”.
We spent many a late night – assisted by copious amounts of whiskey and cigarettes discussing the state of education, our challenges and what to do about this. Some of most inspired activities were forged in these sessions.
He came out of this listening campaign with three conclusions:
- We have strong, committed leadership for the 21st century
- We have excellent policies and laws for the 21st century
- In crucial respects we are not ready for the 21st century
It was this third aspect that he took as his challenge. He did not try to shy away from the realities of what he had been told. He spoke of rampant inequalities, low morale of teachers in all communities, the vulnerability of learners and teachers in many schools, ill discipline on the part of principals, teachers and learners, a serious crisis of leadership, governance, management and administration in many parts of the system and the poor quality of learning in large parts of the system.
It was out of this scenario that he characteristically took action. This was not a time to cover up the challenges but rather to do something about it. His response was a Call to Action. He called for a national mobilisation under the slogan Tirisano, working together. In his words he described the need for action: “A national emergency requires an exceptional response from the national and provincial governments”
His decisive action was so characteristic of the man. His razor sharp mind allowed him to take decisions based on innumerable inputs; he was up to any challenge with his inspiring work ethic. As anyone who came into contact with him knew, he did not suffer fools gladly. But one of his most endearing qualities was his ability to show how deeply he felt. Kader was a man with a big heart.
One example of this was when he watched a video he had asked the department to make that documented the schooling conditions of the rural poor in 2000, not long after taking office. He viewed this together with his management team and fought hard to hold back his tears at the inexplicably derelict schools; chalk boards that had only gaping holes; no evidence of books or any other teaching resources but most of all the long distances children had to travel in search of a school.
The video ended with two, six year olds alone in school uniform, with bags on their back and a long dirt road before and behind them (and no sign of a village close by or any other human life either). The only evidence that they were going to school was their school uniforms and the school bags. At that point he could not hold back the tears and simply broke down and cried.
He once described the impact of the same video on the rest of Cabinet. “The impact on the entire Cabinet was astounding. Not because they saw anything that they were not already aware of, but because, in their accumulation and immediacy, the visual images stoked the burning cinders of pain that we all constantly endure”.
Professor Asmal recognised the challenges of Curriculum 2005 and one of the first major interventions he made was to direct his department to undertake a review of the implementation of outcomes based education. He was not as the media claims- the architect of Outcomes Based Education.
Former Minister Asmal himself judged that his greatest contribution to fulfilling his constitutional mandate was in his efforts to instil values in education. The Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy published in 2001, sought to identify the basic values we were committed to promoting in education.
During his term in office, he, in broad consultation developed new policies and programmes for identifying values, nurturing life skills, addressing racism, promoting multilingualism, removing barriers to learning, and understanding the role of religion in South African schools.
Professor Asmal was instrumental in the naming of the Education building Sol Plaatjie House – an action which he described as “exorcising the ghost of apartheid education”. He had great respect for Sol Plaatjie whom he described as the greatest intellectuals and freedom fighters our country.
But Kader also made mistakes. A notable example is the declaration he made during his first interview as Minister of Education. In the interview he boldly claimed that he would eradicate illiteracy in five years. This claim later changed to “breaking the back of illiteracy” which led to the formation of the National Literacy Initiative.
When Minister Asmal’s term of office came to an end in 2004 he summed up his time in education as “the last five years have been amongst the most exciting of my life”. In true fashion, he made the promise to add his weight to the efforts of education in his role as a Member of Parliament or in whatever capacity in the future.
Kader was a person who felt strongly about his positions which he presented with force, using his sharp intellect. In this pursuit, he sometimes attracted much disagreement. But this did not diminish the respect in which he was held.
Go well Kader – our Minister, our comrade, our master and commander.
Go well our friend.
You live on as a most evocative memory. You live on as a whisper in the collective soul of our department. You live on in everything we intentionally or unintentionally utter the phrases and gems that sprung from your intellect.
Your contribution and your humour is indelibly present in the DNA of the Department of Basic Education. We carry your spear – our fallen comrade – with pride and inspiration.
May your soul rest in peace.
Source: Department of Basic Education
