Open Letter to South Africa's President from Equal Education Members

This Friday, South Africa's Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, is due to publish Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure. These will set out the most basic standards for infrastructure that schools in South Africa must meet. Today, the organisation Equal Education, shared the following video on youtube. It shows schoolchildren reading an open letter to President Zuma, on why he needs to ensure that Minister Motshekga goes ahead and publishes the Minimum Norms and Standards.

Earlier in the year, Minister Motshekga released a draft of the Minimum Norms and Standards. However, the draft was too vague, and did not give proper details of the standards schools would need to meet. To understand more about this, as well as to learn more about Equal Education's campaign, here is an earlier video:

To gain a further insight into the standards of some schools, it is worth watching Equal Education's video of a Solidarity Visit to schools in the Eastern Cape, lead by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba:

The standards between schools in South Africa varies greatly. I attended Public Hearings held by Equal Education in Cape Town, back in March. Teenagers from schools in Cape Town told everyone of how their schools lacked science labs, libraries and sometimes functioning toilets. However, there were gasps and exclamations of shock from them, when they were shown some photos of schools in the Eastern Cape.

There is a countdown to the publication of Minimum Norms and Standards on Equal Education's facebook page. I am waiting with anticipation to see what will happen on Friday!