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Opening of Dalindyebo hostel  complex
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Education

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EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

SPEECH BY MEC FOR EDUCATION, STONE SIZANI, ON BEHALF OF THE PREMIER

AT DALINDYEBO SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL -

OPENING OF HOSTEL COMPLEX -

ON THE 30TH SEPTEMBER 1999





King Zwelibanzi, beloved Madiba and other political leaders, honoured guests  including our sponsors, officials and most importantly the 
learners and educators of this school and any other schools present  I greet you on behalf of our premierm the honourable reverend 
Stofile.

When someone has the honour of representing our Premier, they must not look at things in an everyday way. What they have to always have to 
do is to try and look through the Premiers eyes, and seeing what the premier sees. What the premier sees when he looks at a school is not 
just the school, but also the community; and not just the community around the school but bigger communities. I am talking about the 
community of the region, of the province, of the country and even the community of the nations of Africa and beyond. All of the leaders of 
these communities, in every field  be it politics , science or religion  all of them attended school at some time in their lives. Many of 
them  like our own Madiba, the late King Dalindyebo who founded this school, and the late great Julius Nyerere of Tanzania  many of them 
had to find schooling in remote rural areas. This school has already produced intellectuals of renown, who are serving the people of the 
Eastern Cape for example as lecturers and medical doctors. But whether urban or rural, every school has the potential to produce leaders of 
that quality. Leaders who can make a difference to the lives of communities, big and small. And every school has the potential to bring out 
the leadership qualities in every one of its learners so that when they go into their communities they can improve their own lives and the 
lives of others.

Let us look more closely at what we are celebrating today. With encouragement from our own Madiba, ABSA and other donors have made a big 
investment by funding the building this hostel and supporting this schools This is not the usual kind of investment where people buy 
shares, or gold or whatever, and expect to make a profit in terms of money. This is another kind of investment, an investment which will 
pay off if this beautiful hostel will help produce the kind of citizens who will help build this country and so enrich all of us. The 
hostel may be beautiful, but it is just a building, so the question must be asked: How will the hostel help us improve the quality of 
learning and teaching? After all, that is the core business of education.

Firstly, if you look at the bigger picture, always using the constitution to focus your vision, you will see that you cannot divorce the 
issue of quality teaching and learning from the issue of equity. In other words, it is no good if quality learning and teaching is only 
available to a small elite of learners  our goal must always be to make if quality learning and teaching available to ALL learners. In 
situations where people live in deep rural areas, scattered over a large area with poor roads, then one solution is to attach hostels to 
schools. This hostel will give learners access to quality schooling from all over the Transkei.

Secondly, you must understand the difference between schooling and education. Schooling means putting learners and teachers together in 
schools. Education means learning and teaching and developing your capacity to learn and teach. Learning is influenced by your whole 
environment and many of us learnt more outside of classrooms than inside classrooms. Of course, you can learn negative as well as positive 
things at school and outside of school. What is important to note is that conditions at a school influence learning and teaching, although 
it is also true that learners and teachers can do wonderful things in spite of harsh conditions. The new hostel, when fully equipped, will 
make an enormous difference to the lives of the learners and so also to the lives of the teachers. We hope and expect that having regular 
showers and sleeping well will help the learners in this school get better examination results. This will show the department and ABSA that 
their investment is paying off.

I want to end this speech by focusing on the fact that this is a senior secondary school. According to the policies we are developing, 
further education and training, or FET, begins at Grade 10. Learners in the FET band are at a very important crossroads. They are facing 
adulthood and all the responsibilities of being a citizen. They are also facing the world of employment on one hand, and on the other hand 
continuing their education through colleges, technikons and universities, though work place training and learnerships or through self study 
courses. Given the nature of work and the global economy in the 21st century, life long learning is not a luxury  it is essential to our 
survival as a nation. The contribution made by ABSA and other donors to this school fully recognises this, and together with our partners 
we can build our youth and the nation. I thank you.



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