Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga says she cares about education in South Africa. After our shocking matric results, one would hope that this would manifest in the form of a minister eager to engage in crucial parliamentary sessions. Yet the minister has still not attended a single basic education portfolio committee, and yesterday did not even attend the quite crucial meeting on the budget review and strategic plan.

The acting director general of basic education described yesterday's meeting as: "one of the most important events on our calendar". It beggars belief that the minister would not attend it. Instead, on very short notice, Motshekga sent her deputy to attend the meeting.

This meeting dealt with critical aspects of the budget, and the department's strategic plan, with a view to addressing the crisis in our education system. Put simply, there could be no more important meeting for a minister of basic education to attend, than one that is supposed to set the entire agenda for basic education policy and policy implementation.

Motshekga is always quick to meet with unions, stop by at Jacob Zuma's court cases and attend as many lavish dinners and functions as possible. But when the most important parliamentary session on education in the entire year is on her diary, she still sees fit to miss it!

This sort of grossly negligent and unprofessional behaviour is precisely the sort of reason we have a crisis in education to begin with. It demonstrates chronic disinterest and smacks of a minister who has no real interest in tackling the real problems in society.

I registered my dissatisfaction with the minister's failure to attend this meeting. She must, as a matter of high priority, come before Parliament's basic education committee, to engage with parliamentarians on the crucial education matters of the day.