Armenia is a West Asian country that is a bit like Lesotho. Like Lesotho, it is landlocked and not super-endowed with natural minerals.
It has a population of 2.7-million people, while Lesotho has about 2.2-million.
Like Lesotho’s working people, most Armenians leave their home country to seek jobs elsewhere.
Armenia has done something spectacular: it teaches its children mathematics.
Before the collapse of communism 35 years ago, it was one of the mathematics hubs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
It continued the traditions in the post-Soviet era and is known for “exporting” mathematicians, engineers, scientists, programmers, coders and other tech boffins across the globe.
Now, listen to this carefully: The BBC reported recently that, 11 years ago, Armenia launched a school programme, in partnership with the private sector, called “Armath” (which means “root” in English).
It teaches children programming, robotics, coding, 3D modelling and other subjects.
There are now 650 Armath laboratories in schools across Armenia, with more than 600 teachers and 17,000 students writing code and inventing apps and gadgets of all kinds.
Armath started because the country wanted “to see Armenia becoming a tech centre powerhouse that delivers utmost values to Armenia and to the world”.
And in just 11 years it is headed there: Armenia, with just 2.7-million people, has 4,000 tech firms (SA has 650).
“One floated in New York in December 2024, and is now worth more than $10bn (R182.1bn),” the BBC article said.
What does this tell us? A country needs a vision, a strategy and the political will to see that strategy through.
Armenia had that will, hence the success of the programme.
Last week, I came across a story that broke my heart.
We come across so many of these heartbreaking stories in SA and the world these days that we tend to ignore them. They have become normalised.
I came across one such story last Thursday, and it reminded me that we must not stop raging against such betrayal of SA’s poorest and most vulnerable.
The story is particularly cutting because it is an assault on our children, the people who will inherit this place.
It showed how we are robbing them of a future. Depressingly, there is no outrage, no noise, no shock or horror at this story.
The ministry of education announced last week that 464 public schools do not offer mathematics to their pupils.
Yes, 464 schools do not offer maths to pupils. Of these schools, 135 are in KwaZulu-Natal, 84 in the Eastern Cape, 78 in Limpopo and 61 are in the Western Cape.
The rest are in Gauteng and the North West (31 schools each), the Northern Cape with 19, the Free State with 14 and Mpumalanga with 11.
It’s not as if this is a new problem: the percentage of pupils opting for maths declined from 46% in 2011 to 34% in 2023.
In 2024, only 255,762 pupils registered for the subject, down from 268,100 in 2023.
The education ministry said “schools may not have sufficient resources or demand to offer both mathematics and mathematical literacy”.
Let us be perfectly clear and honest with each other here.
This is not about lack of teachers. This is about leadership.
Our political “leaders” have for 31 years not cared about the education of our children and still do not care today.
If they cared, then education, and maths education in particular, would have been top of their agenda. As these statistics show, they do not care.
Over the past 30 years, our political leaders sent their children to “formerly white” schools and abandoned township and rural schools.
Local councillors, teachers, principals, packed their children into dangerous minibus taxis to schools in the formerly white suburbs.
Township and rural schools were left to rot without teachers to lead pupils in maths or science.
This lack of leadership, this lack of a plan to make every school in rural areas and in townships a centre of excellence, is where we failed.
This is a spectacular failure of vision, strategy and leadership.
Many of our politicians run around telling poor people to kick out foreigners who run shops in townships.
What these politicians don’t say is that we have stripped many of our own children of the ability to run their own spaza shops.
They can’t count, add, multiply or divide, let alone determine a profit margin on a packet of sweets.
We tell our children to be entrepreneurs, yet we strip them of the ability to even start.
That this is not a national emergency underlines just how awfully inadequate and ill-equipped for leadership our politicians are.
We are faced with a disaster here. This is how countries collapse.
This is why teeny-weeny countries like Armenia manage to wipe the floor with us in every way.
We are led by people who have no clue what it takes to build a successful, prosperous and durable country.
Lessons from Armenia to engineer a better future for youth
Columnist
Image: Alexander Kryazhev
Armenia is a West Asian country that is a bit like Lesotho. Like Lesotho, it is landlocked and not super-endowed with natural minerals.
It has a population of 2.7-million people, while Lesotho has about 2.2-million.
Like Lesotho’s working people, most Armenians leave their home country to seek jobs elsewhere.
Armenia has done something spectacular: it teaches its children mathematics.
Before the collapse of communism 35 years ago, it was one of the mathematics hubs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
It continued the traditions in the post-Soviet era and is known for “exporting” mathematicians, engineers, scientists, programmers, coders and other tech boffins across the globe.
Now, listen to this carefully: The BBC reported recently that, 11 years ago, Armenia launched a school programme, in partnership with the private sector, called “Armath” (which means “root” in English).
It teaches children programming, robotics, coding, 3D modelling and other subjects.
There are now 650 Armath laboratories in schools across Armenia, with more than 600 teachers and 17,000 students writing code and inventing apps and gadgets of all kinds.
Armath started because the country wanted “to see Armenia becoming a tech centre powerhouse that delivers utmost values to Armenia and to the world”.
And in just 11 years it is headed there: Armenia, with just 2.7-million people, has 4,000 tech firms (SA has 650).
“One floated in New York in December 2024, and is now worth more than $10bn (R182.1bn),” the BBC article said.
What does this tell us? A country needs a vision, a strategy and the political will to see that strategy through.
Armenia had that will, hence the success of the programme.
Last week, I came across a story that broke my heart.
We come across so many of these heartbreaking stories in SA and the world these days that we tend to ignore them. They have become normalised.
I came across one such story last Thursday, and it reminded me that we must not stop raging against such betrayal of SA’s poorest and most vulnerable.
The story is particularly cutting because it is an assault on our children, the people who will inherit this place.
It showed how we are robbing them of a future. Depressingly, there is no outrage, no noise, no shock or horror at this story.
The ministry of education announced last week that 464 public schools do not offer mathematics to their pupils.
Yes, 464 schools do not offer maths to pupils. Of these schools, 135 are in KwaZulu-Natal, 84 in the Eastern Cape, 78 in Limpopo and 61 are in the Western Cape.
The rest are in Gauteng and the North West (31 schools each), the Northern Cape with 19, the Free State with 14 and Mpumalanga with 11.
It’s not as if this is a new problem: the percentage of pupils opting for maths declined from 46% in 2011 to 34% in 2023.
In 2024, only 255,762 pupils registered for the subject, down from 268,100 in 2023.
The education ministry said “schools may not have sufficient resources or demand to offer both mathematics and mathematical literacy”.
Let us be perfectly clear and honest with each other here.
This is not about lack of teachers. This is about leadership.
Our political “leaders” have for 31 years not cared about the education of our children and still do not care today.
If they cared, then education, and maths education in particular, would have been top of their agenda. As these statistics show, they do not care.
Over the past 30 years, our political leaders sent their children to “formerly white” schools and abandoned township and rural schools.
Local councillors, teachers, principals, packed their children into dangerous minibus taxis to schools in the formerly white suburbs.
Township and rural schools were left to rot without teachers to lead pupils in maths or science.
This lack of leadership, this lack of a plan to make every school in rural areas and in townships a centre of excellence, is where we failed.
This is a spectacular failure of vision, strategy and leadership.
Many of our politicians run around telling poor people to kick out foreigners who run shops in townships.
What these politicians don’t say is that we have stripped many of our own children of the ability to run their own spaza shops.
They can’t count, add, multiply or divide, let alone determine a profit margin on a packet of sweets.
We tell our children to be entrepreneurs, yet we strip them of the ability to even start.
That this is not a national emergency underlines just how awfully inadequate and ill-equipped for leadership our politicians are.
We are faced with a disaster here. This is how countries collapse.
This is why teeny-weeny countries like Armenia manage to wipe the floor with us in every way.
We are led by people who have no clue what it takes to build a successful, prosperous and durable country.
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