Excellence is endangered

If only the Gauteng education department's racism SWAT team—the fastest scrambling unit anywhere in government—was as good at hunting out weapons and drugs in our schools as it is chasing the ghosts of victimisation, then perhaps our institutions of learning would be a whole lot better off.

- Brendan Seery

We have just witnessed the sick spectacle of the department conducting an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful witch-hunt against the principal of Pretoria High School for Girls, Phillipa Erasmus, over trumped-up allegations of racism among her pupils.

The details of the alleged case are not worth going into, save to say that no less a personage than former president Thabo Mbeki and a team of similar luminaries could find no evidence of racism. Yet, despite that, education MEC Matome Chiloane and his henchmen pursued the unfortunate Erasmus.

In the end, a disciplinary hearing—questionable in and of itself—found her guilty of two breaches... failing to do her duty when appointing a new finance manager for the school and allowing her husband, Mike, to help tend the school's gardens—for free, nogal!