During Thomas Piketty’s Nelson Mandela lecture a friend tweeted that, despite the standing ovation, many would choose what to remember. They would parrot his call for investment in education because that was unthreatening. Forget land redistribution, a wealth tax and the national minimum wage, just get the kids in school!
6 October 2015 OPINION
Equal Education’s recently concluded sleep-in protests in three cities have shown how disturbingly difficult it has become to hold legal protests, even for organisations fortunate enough to have access to resources and legal expertise.
10 April 2015 OPINION
Today, Equal Education is protesting outside the Public Investment Corporation because it is an investor in the Curro private school chain. DORON ISAACS, Equal Education's Deputy General Secretary, explains his organisation's concerns with Curro.
10 February 2015 OPINION
In his 2004 Nelson Mandela lecture Desmond Tutu bravely suggested that an “uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity” constituted a threat to democracy in South Africa. He said that “too many are foolhardy and opt for silence to become voting cattle for the party.”
12 December 2013 OPINION
South Africa came very close to civil war in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but instead of a bloodbath there was the negotiated settlement, also known as the ‘miracle’. In fact parts of the country were in a state of civil war, and the miracle is that it didn’t engulf the country.
9 December 2013 OPINION
“Join our hands to fight the drug companies, join our hands to raise money from the private sector, join our hands in raising money from each of us who will contribute to save lives of everyone who needs to be saved.” With these words Zackie Achmat launched the Treatment Action Campaign in 1998.
29 May 2013 OPINION
On Friday Judge Phalatsi ordered that 13-year old Lerato Radebe be immediately readmitted to her school in Welkom. Every morning since 26 February Lerato was removed from her classroom and marched to the staff-room where she was made to spend the school day sitting idly. This was done because Lerato, whose family is Rastafarian, wears dreadlocks in her hair.
20 May 2013 OPINION
This is an edited version of remarks made by Doron Isaacs at an event hosted by the UCT Palestine Solidarity Forum for Israel Apartheid Week 2013. The other panelists, who spoke prior to Isaacs, were Professor Andrew Nash and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi.
15 March 2013 OPINION
Angie Motshekga is in an ebullient mood. On Tuesday at Parliament she told the media that South African education is on an upward trajectory, characterized by focus, consistency and clarity. Fine. Nothing wrong with a bit of positive thinking.
5 March 2013 OPINION
