The ridiculous school pledge

And we’re back!

In between the excessive amount of work I’ve had in the last few days (thus no updates) I’ve become aware of a very alarming development in our country. The government is looking to institute a new law where all school children will be expected to recite a school pledge every morning. The pledge in its current form looks like this:

“We the youth of South Africa, recognising the injustices of our past, honour those who suffered and sacrificed for justice and freedom.
“We will respect and protect the dignity of each person, and stand up for justice.
“We sincerely declare that we shall uphold the rights and values of our Constitution and promise to act in accordance with the duties and responsibilities that flow from these rights.”

Firstly who actually has the time to come up with this rubbish? I’m not really sure what on earth a school pledge will achieve in any way? Which useless civil servant came up with this rubbish? Seriously it’s absolutely ridiculous that they even thought of this. The worst part of the matter is the government had to pay a department to come up with the pledge who most likely outsourced this at a huge cost. Taxpayer’s money spent well. It strikes me as an absolute waste of money when there are vastly more pressing issues for government to spend their money on. While I doubt this cost billions it’s not going to come cheap if it gets implemented and the question is: “What the hell for?” This is a typical ANC vanity project by the looks of things and leads to nothing more than gratification for our government.

Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, came up with these words of wisdom: “Those are universal values that you would want any human being to attach themselves to.” I usually think Pandor is one of the better ministers in our incompetent, corrupt government but this is an absolutely ridiculous statement on her part. The Pledge has nothing to do with human rights and if she wants people to associate with human rights then add it in to the syllabus.

I guess my issue with the school pledge is the fact that the first association I have with the topic is how it reminds of something the Hitler Youth Movement would have said with a little less moaning about the Jews. The Pledge in its current form screams of indoctrination on behalf of the ANC government. I just feel like it is brainwashing a generation to be pro South Africa.

I do not understand why a government needs to promote a positive attitude towards your fellow man through a pledge; this should be a lead by example concept and is something the government is failing in miserably. Many other commentators have called this ANC brainwashing and while I’d like to say that is not true I cannot really find any other reason for the pledge.

I suppose at the end of the day my issue with this pledge is that it speaks about the past and for the current generation of learners it’s time to move on without the chains of the past holding them back

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