SPEECH BY PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI MP
TRADITIONAL PRIME MINISTER OF THE ZULU NATION
CHAIRMAN:THE HOUSE OF TRADITIONAL LEADERS [KWAZULU NATAL]
AND PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY

I am delighted to be able to attend and say a few words at this wonderful congratulatory ceremony for Mrs Bukelwa Cosa, who has received a Bachelor of Education degree from my alma mater, Fort Hare University.

I thank Mr Cosa for extending a cordial invitation to me to be the guest speaker on this joyous occasion when family and friends are celebrating Mrs Bukelwa Cosa's academic triumph. Mr Cosa is one of our freedom fighters just like Mr Mbotoli and others from many strands of our liberation movement. And that is why I could not hesitate to accept a cordial invitation that he extended to me to be here today, to celebrate with his family and friends the success of his better half in her studies.

During the dark days of Apartheid I proclaimed EDUCATION as a great tool for our liberation. Education has continued to be that tool particularly for us who come from the previously disadvantaged sections of South Africa's population. So today's function is a day on which we celebrate that freedom in the broadest sense, which one acquires through education. To me freedom from ignorance seems to be the ultimate freedom a human being can acquire.

It was for this reason that when another liberation movement came up with the slogan: "LIBERATION NOW EDUCATION LATER" during the youth's uprising against Bantu Education in 1976 I responded with "EDUCATION FOR LIBERATION".

It was as a result of that stand which I took as the Chief Minister of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government, that some of our freedom fighters such as Dr Ntatho Motlana of the Committee of 10 fame, and Dr Percy Qoboza then Editor of 'The World' newspaper which the Apartheid Regime had banned, asked me to make arrangements for their children to get education in some of our KwaZulu Schools. This I did for I was never in doubt that we would achieve our political emancipation. I felt then that we needed in the spirit of the scouts' motto "TO BE PREPARED" for the second struggle in which we are now engaged for our economic emancipation. This is the freedom we are still far from achieving and which we will only achieve when education and acquisition of skills are available to each and every one of our young people.

Educators such as Bukelwa Cosa are scarce in South Africa today. That is why there have now been suggestions that even some of the retired Educators must be re-employed in order to meet the very serious problem of qualified Educators. It is important to give this background to today's function. We need to put it in its correct context within the huge and protracted struggle for our economic emancipation that we are waging as the previously disadvantaged section of South Africa's population.

Today's function is also important for another reason. One of the giants which we as black South Africans are facing is abject poverty in which we are still trapped. That is why I speak of our economic emancipation.

Today's function is taking place in one of our rural areas. I am myself someone who was born and bred in a rural area and who continues to live there. I hope to live there for the rest of my life and to be buried there.

This I always argue places me in a very advantageous position in knowing and understanding the poverty of our people. I do not need to go to libraries in order to know exactly who the poor are, for I live amongst them. I have great understanding and empathy for them even when they migrate to all our cities, where they live in the most squalid conditions in the hope that this might improve their chances to be get their freedom from poverty. It is for this reason that our getting such a highly qualified Educator that Bukelwa Cosa is, is a blow for our struggle towards our economic emancipation.

Mrs Bukelwa Cosa's success is also a blow on behalf of our whole womanhood.  Our women have had more hurdles to jump over because of the fact that they have always been discriminated against because they are women. And yet one wonders where we would be as a Nation if it was not for our women.

Whichever way one looks, whether you look at the Church or the black education, one wonders where we would be without our women. Our women in spite of the discrimination they have had to endure as women were always ahead of us in their thinking. I know that were it not for my late mother, I would not have gone in my schooling as far as I did. I think that can be said by many of our educated black South Africans today about themselves. I remember that while my father also wanted me educated, he did not see any need for my sister to get educated. It was through my mother that she did acquire education and qualified as a nurse and at the end married Dr Mafu Dotwana who came from not very far from here in the Eastern Cape. Mrs Cosa's success is a tribute to our whole womanhood and it does remind us of an old saying which remains true even today,

that "when you educate a man you educate an individual, but when you educate a woman you educate the whole nation".

Bukelwa Cosa is one of our Heroines because many of our educators have the temptation to migrate to far away countries in pursuit of better emoluments.  It is no longer as if we can take for granted that such highly professionally qualified educators like her, are available. There are great attractions outside the borders of our Country. However she is one of our educators who believe that Charity begins at home. As a developing Country we need educators of Mrs Cosa's calibre more than people in the United Kingdom, where quite a number of our educators have migrated to, or people in Australia or Canada. These are all first world Countries which have achieved their economic freedom. Our job to achieve full liberation is still far from complete. We who are alive at this time face the great challenge of completing the Mission of the Freedom struggle of our people.  Mrs Cosa's great success should remind us of this great challenge which we owe those freedom fighters who struggled for many generations to get us where we are today.

I would like to congratulate Mrs Cosa for her work and dedication in obtaining this prestigious qualification.

Teaching has been, rightly, viewed as an important leadership position within our society. The premium placed upon education is captured by the ancient African proverb, which reminds us that it "takes a village to raise a child". We are mindful that many of our nation's first great leaders were also our first great scholars.

I know from our own experience of being thrust into the rarefied world of academia and political discourse at Fort Hare of how formative these years are. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the freedom we enjoy today was born from that very political discourse.

Only a fortnight ago I had the honour to receive this Fort Hare University Alumni Honorarium ring I am wearing at the Mandela Foundation. It was one of the gifts that Madiba received for his 88th birthday as a Fort Hare Alumnus. Seven of us were selected to receive the rings with Madiba, and the others were the late Dr Oliver Tambo, the late Mr Govan Mbeki, the late Mr Robert Sobukwe, The Revd Dr Khoza Mgojo, Professor Ephraim Mokgokong and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. All of us were honoured to receive the Honorarium ring as the Alumni of Fort Hare University.

Our freedom, however, does not inevitably translate into free choices we make about our children's education. Many of our people have to send their children to the nearest school regardless of its, often glaring, deficiencies. These schools make our education system as a whole seem crumbling amid their visibly crumbling infrastructure, both material and human.

It is also the individual achievements of those who have done their best within the dysfunctional system and the collapsing educational institutions that are being - alas unfairly - laughed at as a result of transformation.  This transformation has witnessed too much unnecessary upheaval. I suppose every transformation goes through the same upheavals.

I often fear that real progress and improvement is being retarded by ideology.  As a young nation, we must always put education first. I have always known that there is no better start in life than a solid education. As I have already said even in the Apartheid era, when others said political liberation before education, I said education for liberation. It is true today as it was then.

Today I would like to briefly touch upon some of the changes taking place in the education system, which are taking place at a fast pace.

On the positive side of the balance sheet, as far as changes to the norms and standards of school funding are concerned, I support the funding of the whole school, not the individual learner. It is exciting that poor schools across the country will be treated the same through the creation of national rather than provincial quintiles. This will greatly benefit the nation's rural constituency - the poorest of the poor, in poverty-stricken provinces, such as here in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga or Limpopo.

In the future, the education department should focus on upgrading the teachers we have in the system now, so that parents do not continue to desert rural and township schools in favour of expensive public schools. We must eliminate the emerging two-tier education system: one for the elite few, and another for the poor majority.

It is a national priority that we build more schools, fence existing schools, provide after-care in our poorest communities in order to fight the wave of absolutely unacceptable child kidnappings - the latest scourge to hit this beloved country.

We must applaud the overwhelming majority of teachers such as Mrs Cosa for their selfless service. I find it unacceptable that all too often teachers are not paid on time, that temporary teachers struggle to be paid correctly, that it takes between six and nine months for retired teachers in KwaZulu-Natal - who have spent their best years caring for our future to receive their first pension pay-outs after resigning. More must be done to assist these teachers. Teachers are the very life blood of our emancipation struggle.

My vision of education in future South Africa is, on the whole, a happy one.  I see scores of future pupils and students able to absorb information untainted by colonial and apartheid ideology and ready to take their places on the job market in the global village.

But I fear the practical setbacks and disappointments that can blur this vision in progress. I believe we are here today to help identify and remove obstacles on its path.

With these words I take great pride in expressing my congratulations and those of other guests assembled here and on behalf of my Party the IFP to Mrs Bukelwa Cosa. And to Mr Cosa for her triumph is his triumph. HALALA!