JONATHAN JANSEN | It was my privilege and pleasure to write for you every single Thursday

After 15 years, this is my last column for the Arena group publications. Change happens and yes, it hurts. It was, nonetheless, my privilege and pleasure to write for you every single Thursday (I did not miss one column due) even on days when I did not need to such as a public holiday or the end-of-year break.

Throughout, I have had excellent editors and subeditors at the Sunday Times and later @TimesLIVE even if, initially, it irritated me that some young subs believed they had a better grasp of the English language (which was possible) but then distorted the meaning of what I wanted to say. Sometimes I cringed when I read a headline that had nothing to do with the substance of my article; it was hard to convince readers that the columnist does not choose a striking and sometimes misleading title. Such minor alarms apart, to my editors and colleagues at the newspaper, thank you for your kindness and support over the years.

From the patient Rhina Matjila who harassed us to send invoices on time, to Fienie Grobler, who held my hand in the early years, to my editor Makhudu Sefara, a smart, decent and kind-hearted man who struggled to find the words that would put me out to pasture. I learnt at least five things about South Africans who read my education column, especially from the days when there would be long and intense responses in the commentary section below an online version of the publication. One, we care deeply about education.

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Maybe it is because of the Soweto uprising that sparked a national revolt which would re-energize and rebuild activism since the Sharpeville massacre. We know the stakes are high for individuals, families and country if we get education wrong. Two, I would learn over the years that virtually every South African knows that to change the school system we should rebuild the foundations of education and forget this obsession with the “matric” (NSC) results which only half of our children get to anyway.

If a political party wanted to change its fortunes with the public, it could do so simply by mobilising public sentiment on everything from high quality preschool education to the low passing standards to resolving the NSFAS mess. Three, we know that government is not coming to save us. They are the problem, not the solution.

Every minister has promised to eliminate pit latrine toilets, that single marker of decency and respect for children. None of them was able to do this. The flourishing of hundreds of NGOs and individual endeavor in education is a response to that vacuum of political leadership in education.

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