We owe the 14 schoolchildren who were killed in the crash between a minibus taxi and a truck on Monday last week the truth. It was a tragedy we have manufactured over 31 years. It is a tragedy that stalks every child who has to travel long distances in dangerous “scholar transport” from their neighbourhood to a school in a formerly whites-only area.
What happened was political cowardice and leadership failure trickling down to the public and causing death and untold pain. The chickens have come home to roost, and the people are the ones who suffer. The ANC can argue until it is blue in the face, but there is perhaps no sphere it has failed in more spectacularly than in the education of black children.
The crash that occurred on a narrow strip of road in Vanderbijlpark was not caused by poor driving, an overloaded taxi, an expired licence disc or a dodgy public transport permit. It was caused by this: Why are hundreds of thousands of black children packed into unsafe minibus taxis every weekday morning to learn at formerly white schools far from their homes? Why, 31 years after a free SA was ushered in, aren’t there excellent schools in Sebokeng or Zola or Soshanguve?
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