You hardly ever think of the circus, unless it is in town or you are a clown. We seem to do something similar about our metriculants; people seem to care only when the results come out. This attitude is maybe appropriate when applied to an actual circus, but it can be harmful when it comes to metric results. Outside of the academic-related fraternities, metrics results, or rather the fate of our metriculants, seems to matter for only the first two weeks of January. It is only February now, it hasn’t been two months since the results came out, and you hardly ever see a discussion on TV about metric, no radio discussions, no articles.
In any case, I always find it hard to take seriously the people who suddenly come out of the woodwork to make statements after the results come out. Politicians, parents and all. If metric is so important to us, why is it only given two weeks of hullabaloo in the entire year? And why should there be a hullabaloo in any case? Granted, metric is a very important stepping stone, I don’t understand some of the noises that get made after results come out. If we took our children’s education seriously, there shouldn’t be a need to moan and groan during result time. In my view, if metric were that important, we should more or less have an idea how the pupils will perform way before the results come out. How many exams and tests do metric pupils write in the year before they write their final? Those exams and tests should be published as well so there are no surprises at the end of the year.
In fact, shouldn’t we also publish grade ten and grade eleven results as well? This would give us an idea of the calibre of pupils we are dealing with. What is the point of publishing only the final metric results? By then it is too late for anybody to do anything for the kids concerned. What surprises me even more are the parents of metric pupils who also act surprised when their kids do badly – they call radio stations, and write to newspapers to express their surprise! Do these parents even look at their kids’ report cards during the year? This metric results’ circus has to stop. Its just an opportunity for politicians, unionists, ‘experts’, and Tom, Dick and Harry to speechify. Why do we not hear from a lot of these people during the year? We are talking about our children’s future here; and people treat the whole thing like the festive season – it comes, we get excited, and forget about it as soon as we get sober on January the second.
Too many Hip Hop peeps complain all the time about the fact that Metro-FM’s hated T-Bo Touch is wack. I never really took time to hate the brother, but granted he is so hated, I was amazed when he spoke about something relevant this past Saturday. The hated one raised the issue of a general lack of support black people give to black entertainers. He gave instances of his buddies asking for free tickets for parties where is he DJying, but then heading straight for the bar once they get there and spending loads of money at the bar. His issue was that if people can spend one grand at the bar, surely they can afford R 80.00 at the door; so why don’t they want to pay?
Keep reading →
Why is it that the people who have already gotten ahead because of Affirmative Action or BEE (or both, for some) find it easy to be embarrassed by that fact? You find some people who have reached the middle-class because of AA at bars claiming that they would’ve gotten there anyway. Well, lets see them give up their plush jobs and go back and try. Then you have people who didn’t get through by the gracious offices of AA, denigrating AA left right and centre.
Keep reading →
Whenever Hip Hop sales, or their lack thereof, are discussed, one sneaky group of people hardly ever gets mentioned. But yet this group, more than any other, is so influential to the type of Hip Hop that is made, especially in South Africa at the moment. Some call this group Heads, others call it hardcore Hip Hop fans; but generally this group considers themselves to be Hip Hop ‘connoisseurs’. It can be tricky to try and define what a Head is, or how this name came about in the first place. It should suffice for this article to note that the so-called Heads are taken to be extremely serious Hip Hop fans or individuals that are very very dedicated to Hip Hop music.
Keep reading →
I have decided to make this blog entry into a sad poem lamenting the fact that my beloved Mrs Festive season is gone. Before we start, I would like to dedicate this to the people (and animals) who make this jolly season happen. Firstly, shout out to Santa Claus. If it wasn’t for this fury sucker, maybe kids would not want so many toys, and we would focus on buying school clothes and stationery for them. Secondly, you have to give it up to the poor reindeer that pull his (Santa’s) heavy behind across the whole world, delivering all those toys in ONE night! If anyone needs to go on strike, it [is] those reindeer – but they never do, big ups to them. Thirdly, you cannot forget the slippery business people who see fit to inundate us with sales on products of all kinds, from paint to cakes to music CDs: what would the festive season be without re-painting your house, eating the juiciest cakes and listening to the latest Mandoza CD?
Keep reading →
