Readers Sound Off: Eskom, Language Policy, and Corruption Fuel National Debate

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So Eskom employees want a 15% increase. What for exactly? It’s not like they’ve ended load shedding through their efforts. On the contrary load shedding has been reduced because more and more people are using solar thereby easing the load on the grid. So no increase for them. | Anonymous

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The department of Public Service & Administration’s acting deputy director-­general Anusha Naidoo said foreigners make up only 0.44% of the public service and attempts to justify this. The department can not justify any employment of foreigners. We currently have many foreigners who are teaching, working in legal services, hospitals and the engineering field in government to mention a few. These are certainly not scarce skills as we have many teachers and doctors unemployed for example. The public service cannot perpetuate this thank you spirit to countries that assisted us in apartheid times. We cannot grow and develop as a country when we feel indebted continuously. | San

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Thanks, We heard the good news about the money (re Ithala Bank). Thanx for that we are so, so happy. I wish to put a request, just to get my money from the first group. I need money very soon, no Christmas nothing, I want to get my needs and for my family, please. | Mhlungu

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Ekurhuleni officials like Mashazi and Mkhwanazi have reflected that they are not fit to hold office. They took no corrective steps when personally aware of serious misconduct occurring and even took bribe money from Cat Matlala. Furthermore, they saw nothing wrong with their actions. Most municipalities like the eThekwini Municipality in KZN have political employees like this who are not fit for office. The eThekwini police for example will not deal with illegal trucking in residential areas like Newlands West, yet they provide security for municipal staff and councillors. | Anonymous

Letters to the Editor

When language policy fails learners

I have raised this issue for years and yet little seems to change.

An article in today’s paper stated that “the growing trend of former Model C schools adopting English as an additional medium of instruction does not serve as a milestone for celebration”.

While I am not an academic expert, I approach this issue practically – and there are serious problems with the idea of teaching children exclusively in their home language, even up to a certain age.

South Africa has more official languages than any other country in the world, not to mention several unofficial ones. Quite simply, we do not have enough trained teachers to teach every subject in every home language – especially after so many teacher training colleges were closed. We also lack sufficient textbooks and reading materials in all indigenous languages.

Insisting on mother-tongue education across the system could, unintentionally, revive a new form of segregation in our schools, with learners divided by language.

This risks increased tension, bullying and rivalry over whose language carries more value.

There is also the issue of fluency. If children are taught solely in their home language until high school and are then switched to English and another language, they will struggle to achieve true fluency. Language acquisition is strongest in early childhood – something clearly evident among children who grow up hearing multiple languages from birth.

Internationally, children often grow up bilingual or trilingual because exposure begins early. In South Africa, however, if learners gain fluency only in a local language and are introduced to English much later, they will be severely disadvantaged in a job market that already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Fluency in a lingua franca is essential for economic survival.

There are no easy answers to this complex issue, but we must think beyond ideology and focus on what is most practical, realistic and beneficial for our children’s future. | Barbie Sandler Cape Town

Karl Marx on communist society

Marx had a passionate concern for humanity and the freedom of the individual.

Unlike the liberal or bourgeois concerns about political freedom, he believed that true freedom could not exist until the individual has economic freedom and economic could not come until the societies productive forces had been fully developed under capitalism.

The bourgeoisie has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids and gothic cathedrals (The Communist Manifesto). Marx’s freedom is best illustrated in the German Ideology. It is possible to achieve real liberation only in the real world and by real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam engine and the mule jenny.

Serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture and that in general people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity.

A glimpse of life in a communist society in a passage in the German Ideology. For as soon as the division of labour came into being each man has a particular exclusive activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critical critic and must remain so if does not want to lose his means of livelihood; Where’s in communist a society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each one become accomplished in any branch he wishes.

Society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter fisherman, shepherd or critic. | John P Naidu Springfield, Durban

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