Pupils sit on floor while Bisho sits on its hands

THERE’S no excuse for this – children sitting on a cold concrete floor since September last year because only eight of the 26 classrooms in their new school are furnished.

When Motherwell’s Imbesa Primary School opened its doors for the first time last year parents and pupils were buoyant with hope and enthusiasm. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel had allocated a whopping 20 per cent of the national budget to education. In Bisho this translated into an impressive R9,7-billion. Education was the single biggest beneficiary in the Eastern Cape, but it would seem that those responsible for the development of new schools did not seem to think they would need to be furnished. Why are we not surprised.

Yesterday’s Herald picture of an eager classroom full of youngsters sitting on bits and pieces of cloth, bricks and anything else they could find graphically tells the woeful tale of neglect and how delivery in this province still desperately lags behind the good intentions of national government.

Principal Vukile Hewana says several letters have been written to the education department but have not produced any material response. Now after warning the department that the school would turn to the Herald for help, the department has finally promised action by Monday. Why it has taken eight months to get this far is anyone’s guess. But perhaps, since new Premier Nosimo Balindlela is herself a former education MEC, she may help oil the wheels on the regional education department.

Hopefully too, she and her education MEC Mkhangeli Matomela will hold someone accountable for the discomfort of Imbesa Primary’s pupils, and ensure that Hewana is not victimised for exposing this disgrace.

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Sonia, the reluctant political heiress

WITH a population of more than a billion, India is the world’s largest democracy – one that was hard won, given the long struggle against the British Raj.

Yet the political dynasty which has repeatedly achieved leadership there has not had it easy. Its patriarch, Nehru, achieved international respect as the nation’s first prime minister. But his daughter, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated as, later, was her son, Rajiv, who had assumed the mantle of his brother, Sanjay, who died in a plane crash.

Now Rajiv’s widow, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, after an impressive election showing, has caused immense disappointment among her teeming followers by declining the premiership and all its inherent risks.

Hers has been an astonishing political career, given her foreign birth. Yet it is one that is still a long way from its conclusion in view of the vociferous opposition to veteran economic reformer Manmohan Singh who has accepted the premiership instead of her.

Gandhi’s reluctance – and that of her family – are understandable. But India’s teeming electorate is unlikely ever to lose its volatility. All who admire that country’s achievements will hope that calm prevails and that an orderly transition is achieved. Undoubtedly, whether prime minister or not, a Roman Catholic Italian girl will wield huge influence in the future. May she be well guarded.