Uneducated youth and no hope for the future of South Africa is some of the reasons that the African National Congress (ANC) is creating a culture of entitlement, says Rhoda Kadalie, executive director of The Impumelelo Stellenbosch Academy for Social Innovation and human rights activist.

She was one of four speakers at a seminar hosted by the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) and the Institute for Futures Research (IFR) today (28 January) at the Medical Research Council in Parow.

She referred to the recent student protest about student fees that must fall. “If I was a Vice-Chancellor I would have told them (protesting students) to go and study their work. The year has hardly started and the students are marching about admission fees.

“When I was a student I worked to pay for my own admission fees. But because our education system is so pathetic we compensate for what is going on at universities and breeding a culture of entitlement,” she says.

Adding to the problem is uneducated parents. She says: “We have too many parents who can’t parent because they are too poor and they have to struggle to find work. Too many parents can’t help their children with homework because they are illiterate.”

She also says that after 22 years of ruling, the ANC have wrecked the economy.  “We have high unemployment rates but the majority of young people are too uneducated to be employed.

“We also have a culture of political intolerance. People are being fired left right and centre for expressing their opinions. President Zuma’s contempt for us was demonstrated by the unceremonious way he got rid of Minister Nene.

“After the Nkandla scandal, the Prasa scandal, then the proposed nuclear deal with Russia and the South African Airways deal that led to the firing of Minister Nene, it becomes clear that the President is impervious to criticism and an accountable government,” she says.

Although she says “there are not many reasons for optimism, South Africa is still worth saving”.

“It is up to civil society and our watchdog institutions to save South Africa. We are peripheral to the ambitions of the ANC whose central goal is to control and own the economy.”

Issued on behalf of The University of Stellenbosch Business School