*Memorial Service in honour of Comrade **Kader Asmal*
**
*5 July 2011*
**
*Input by T.W. Nxesi MP*
*//*
*/Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform/*
*//*
*/and former General Secretary of SADTU (South African Democratic
Teachers Union)/*
/[PROTOCOL]/
It is with great sadness and some trepidation that I venture to say a
few words today on the passing of Comrade Kader Asmal. We are all of us
saddened by the passing of this truly great comrade. His record speaks
for itself -- in the struggle, in exile and in his immense contribution
to the building of the new South Africa.
I say trepidation, because at first we did not see eye to eye. Let me
explain. When Comrade Kader was appointed Minister of Education, he
found me already there as the General Secretary of SADTU. The new
Minister was determined to show us who was the boss. Differences and
tensions were inevitable. I expressed my opinions on the eve of a
Departmental Education Conference -- probably not a wise move. For when
the NGC broke into commissions, I found I was being stalked by Comrade
Kader, who followed me from commission to commission to counter my
arguments with his own.
But isn't that a measure of the greatness of this man. If he had a
problem with you or disagreed with you, he would say so without fear or
favour. He didn't go behind my back. He didn't hurl insults or try to
label and intimidate me. These things are alienating our people from the
movement. In this sense Comrade Kader represented the best traditions of
the ANC -- the traditions of open, honest and robust debate. This
remains the only way to deal with political and ideological differences,
and we neglect that tradition at our peril.
Let me state for the record that the debates at that Education
Conference, and subsequently, helped to establish a basis for real
mutual understanding and respect, and as General Secretary of the South
African Democratic Teachers Union I had the privilege of working
alongside Comrade Kader Asmal during his time as Minister of Education.
Let me add: Minister Asmal was not afraid to engage with trade unions.
He understood the importance of bringing together all the stakeholders
in order to address educational challenges. You will remember the
campaign launched by Minister Asmal under the slogan of 'Tirisano' --
working together. Indeed we might say that Comrade Kadar was ahead of
his time. The theme of working together was to be taken up by the
broader movement and the ANC in the 2009 General Elections.
Let me say a few words about what I see as comrade Kadar's contribution
to education during those years. First let's deal with the
misconceptions. Some media have wrongly linked the policy of OBE and
Curriculum 2005 and subsequent failures to comrade Kader's period as
Education Minister. Of course, OBE and Curriculum 2005 were already in
place before he was appointed Minister of Education. At the time there
was general buy-in to the vision of OBE, and a failure to appreciate the
conditions needed to make it a success.
Indeed, it was Minister Asmal who ordered a review of Curriculum 2005
following concerns expressed by teachers, unions and researchers that
the curriculum was over-complicated and had not been adequately
conceived or resourced. In other words, he listened to teachers'
complaints and began the process of curriculum review -- culminating in
the greatly-improved National Curriculum Statement of today.
Comrade Kader brought to the education portfolio the knowledge and
passion of a trained teacher -- receiving his teacher training here in
South Africa, and in exile ending up as a university teacher and
professor of note.
He brought to the education portfolio a very special focus on the
importance of ethics, values and a sense of history in the curriculum.
This has had lasting and beneficial results. An appreciation of our
constitution and the theory of human rights upon which it is based is
deeply embedded in the curriculum statement -- ensuring that all
learners receive a grounding in a commonly held set of values and ethics.
Comrade Kader was very mindful that -- if we were to avoid the mistakes
of the past -- it was essential that learners received more than just a
technical education, and grappled with ethical issues of right and
wrong, of discrimination and equality, of tolerance and diversity.
Whilst we -- rightly -- seek to monitor literacy and numeracy levels
within the education system, I would hope that at some stage we are also
able to monitor and evaluate what kind of values we are encouraging and
instilling in our learners.
In the same vein, Comrade Kader was deeply concerned at the lack of
focus on History in the post 1994 curriculum -- and that fact that young
learners had little idea or knowledge of the epic struggle for democracy
and equality that had taken place in South Africa. How could we move
forward and avoid the mistakes of the past, if the young had no
understanding of where we came from? It was with this in mind that
Minister Asmal re-established History as a stand-alone subject within
the curriculum.
We will remember Comrade Kader as a great communicator and he was
certainly very skilled at getting his message across to the public
through the media. There is a story -- and I don't know if it is true,
but it sounds true -- that one of Comrade Kader's favorite sayings went
something like this: 'Silence in a politician is not necessarily a
virtue.' And speaking as a Minister he was right. It is essential, that
as government departments, we get our message out, we engage with the
public, and explain what we are doing and why. Comrade Kader was a
master in this respect.
But I also want to acknowledge that there were many things that Comrade
Kader did which were not publicized and for which he sought no public
recognition.
More recently, as part of Rural Development and Land Reform, I was aware
of his work in assisting vulnerable farm dwellers to access legal
services. Professor Asmal chaired an Advisory Board which guided the
Department on policy issues relating to the administration, management,
systems, procedures and the strategic work of a project to establish a
legal panel to assist vulnerable farm workers and dwellers facing
eviction threats and other infringements of their rights.
It is interesting to note that the first thing that the project did was
to develop a code of professional conduct to regulate the conduct of
lawyers on the panel. There have been 10 meetings of the Advisory Board
which Comrade Kader chaired. It goes without saying that he attended
every one of those meetings -- a measure of the energy, hard-work and
commitment of the man -- Comrade Kader Asmal -- a champion of human
rights to the end.
*Hamba Kahle Comrade.*
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