Hidden in plain sight: Privatisation of Education Who is Professor John Volmink and what is his business? The Department is Corrupt Volmink is the head of Minister Angie Motshekga's investigation of "selling of posts" by the Department of Basic Education. The Department is the employer and is responsible for employing people, but the report, as the newspapers say, "fingers SADTU". In other words, the Department admits that there is corruption in the Department, but it has set up a campaign, in collusion with the City Press newspaper, for two years past, which refuses to investigate the department. Instead investigates SADTU. Professor Volmink has become the latest ringmaster of this circus. Some people, myself included until today, use to think that Volmink was an arm-length, impartial, disinterested character who would actually investigate. But in one of the newspaper reports <http://ewn.co.za/2015/12/20/Sadtu-denies-allegations-made-by-Umalusi-head> it came out that Volmink is the head of UMALUSI, and then a little research at the UMALUSI site showed that the board of that entity is appointed by the Minister <http://www.umalusi.org.za/show.php?id=2894> , Angie Motshekga. So Volmink owes his daily bread to the grace and favour of Angie Motshekga. Volmink is not at all impartial. The likelihood of his producing a report that is less than completely pleasing to Motshekga is zero. We need to touch a few bases in this investigation. Everything is in plain sight, but the connections need to be pointed out. We can come back to why the Department is being un-investigated at the expense of SADTU, later on. Volmink in plain sight plus Education, Inc and Pearson In 2010, Angie Motshekga announced the creation of "NEEDU" and the appointment of Prof John Volmink as its CEO. The announcement contains plenty of plain-sight information. It is reproduced below. It shows that Volmink is Motshekga's appointee. "Education, Inc" is a documentary about how privatisation of education is proceeding in the USA, school by school. Pearson is an educational publisher that seeks to become a universal, international education service provider. Among the many interesting things in this announcement is the fact that Volmink at that time was the Chairperson of the "International Education Business Partnership Network (IPN)". According to its web site <http://www.iebpn.net/> , "The IPN is a not for profit organisation (501C 3) registered in the USA." It does not define Education Business partnership but the Conference Board of Canada <http://www.conferenceboard.ca/topics/education/ebp.aspx> does so, thus: "What Are Education-Business Partnerships? Education-business partnerships are mutually beneficial, cooperative relationships between one or more educational institutions and one or more businesses. Plain sight begins to become a little blurred after this. A cloak of euphemism and coyness seems to fall, decorated with platitudes and earnest avowals of good intentions. What's it all about? It's about privatisation. It's about indoctrination. It's about owning the next generation. It's about the destruction of all rivals, first of all unions (in this case SADTU), and then the state. It's an attack on sovereignty. Professor John Volmink is the Point Man. It's in plain sight. Here is an interesting page <http://www.iebpn.net/about-the-ipn/board-of-directors/> of the leadership of the IPN, the organisation that Volmink was the Chairperson of. If I have made a mistake about this matter, please show me where. As Sergei Lavrov says: If it walks like a terrorist. then it's a terrorist. VC SA Coat of Arms.jpg Department of Education, 14 July 2010 Appointment of Professor John Volmink as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (NEEDU) Minister Angie Motshekga appointed Professor John Volmink as the CEO of the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit. NEEDU was created to strengthen accountability systems in education. It will be responsible for monitoring service delivery at all levels of the system including national, provincial and district offices, but will also be responsible for monitoring what happens in schools. Prof Volmink assumed duty on 1 July 2010. John Volmink was born and raised in Cape Town South Africa. He started his academic career at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Mathematics Education at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York in 1988. He started his professional career as a high school teacher and later became the Head of Mathematics at the then Peninsula Technikon. He also held various other teaching positions including the University of Western Cape, University of Cape Town and Cornell University. He returned to Southern Africa in 1990 after almost a decade in the United States of America. After a brief stay at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, he returned to South Africa in 1991 and immediately got involved in teacher development initiatives as the Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Science and Mathematics Education in Durban, South Africa as well as other similar programmes in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere in South Africa. He later served as campus Vice-Principal at the then University of Natal, Durban and later Pro-Vice Chancellor: Partnerships at the University of KwaZulu-Natal until 2004. During his term at the University of KwaZulu-Natal he was responsible for partnership programmes with business, government and the community. He has also been centrally involved in curriculum reform in post-apartheid South Africa and has been asked by all four Ministers of Education to play a leading role in the transformation of education in the new South Africa. He was, among others, a member of the following committees and task teams: * One of three co-coordinators of the school syllabus revision process (NATED 550) in 1994 under the auspices of the National Education and Training Forum (NETF) * Member of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Reference Committee, 1995. * Member of Review Committee for Curriculum 2005, February - May 2000. * Member of the Ministerial Project Committee to streamline and strengthen C2005, December 2000 to 2002. * Member of the ministerial task team on mathematical literacy Further Education and Training (FET), December 2004 to April 2005 * Member of the ministerial task team for the reduction of learning areas in the Intermediate phase of the General Education and Training (GET) band, September 2009 to June 2010. For the past four years, he has served as the Chairperson of Umalusi Council,the statutory body that monitors and improves the quality of general and further education and training in South Africa. In recent times, he served as the Principal and Chief Executive Officer of Cornerstone Institute for five years and also Honorary Professor of Education at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Currently Chairperson of the International Education Business Partnership Network (IPN), Professor Volmink provided leadership on the boards of non-governmental development organisations involved in education, health and community upliftment in different parts of the world. The Department of Basic Education is very pleased to have attracted someone of the capacity and experience of Professor Volmink to the position of CEO of NEEDU. Professor Volmink will report directly to the minister and his first task will be to advise the minister on the structure and functioning of the new unit. Source: Department of Education <http://www.education.gov.za/> From: http://www.gov.za/appointment-professor-john-volmink-chief-executive-officer -national-education-evaluation-and -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
