Annual report

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRPERSON

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Those words alone – from Spanish philosopher George Santayana – give ample motive for the existence of the Historic Schools Restoration Project. We South Africans most certainly do not want to repeat the mistakes made in our past education history, mistakes that have led directly to so many of the problems with which we, as a nation, are currently dealing.

The people who read this message are able to do so because they have received some sort of education. They may have benefited from the education of white privilege or struggled through the inadequacies of the Bantu Education system, but they are able to read and write and display other skills which assure them of a reasonably secure future.

Sadly, too many young South Africans today are hamstrung by their inability to master these basic skills, because of an inadequate educational past brought about by apartheid discrimination and the struggle for democracy. The lesson of Bantu Education was that black South Africans were only capable of becoming hewers of wood and carriers of water. The lesson of the 80s was ‘Liberation before education’. The consequences of both have been a so-called ‘lost generation’. The new lesson must therefore be ‘Liberation through education’, and I believe I speak for all involved in the Historic Schools Restoration Project when I say that we are all dedicated to achieving this goal.

At the first Historic Schools Board meeting I remarked on the responsibility we Board members carry in ensuring that the Historic Schools Restoration Project is a success, but it is more than just our responsibility, it is the responsibility of all South Africans who have passed through the liberation struggle and emerged on the other side with homes, jobs, values and prospects. All of us must strive to ensure the kind of schooling which offers each and every South African child the chance to succeed as artist or astronaut, mother or mathematician, poet or plumber or anything else. It is only through the best possible education that the dream of the best possible nation will be fulfilled.

Justice Thembile Skweyiya
Chair: HSRP Board