Minister Blade Nzimande: Memorial service of Dr Jennifer Glennie

Programme Director, Prof. Mary Metcalfe
The Leadership of Wits University
Dr. Mark Orkin, husband of Dr. Glennie
Dr. Glennie’s nephews and nieces who are here today
Dignitaries
Senior Government Officials
The Leadership and Staff of the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE)
Representatives of our National Academic and Science Institutions
Representatives of International Partner Institutions
Academics and Educationalists
Colleagues and Friends of Dr. Glennie
Fellow South Africans

We have gathered here today to pay tribute to one of our nation’s most decorated and internationally recognised mathematicians, a lifelong educationalist, and tireless campaigner for social justice, Dr. Jennifer Glennie.

Even though she is celebrated for her pioneering work in education, a more critical assessment suggests that the impact of her work transcends the field of education and has catalysed the fight against apartheid and the project of building a free and democratic South Africa.

Therefore, in paying tribute to her, I wish to highlight what I regard as some of the key aspects of her contribution.

First, her practical commitment to education and social justice. She was not content with merely pointing out the deficiencies in the apartheid education system; she was deeply committed to finding practical solutions to those deficiencies.

As some of you may be aware, at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, she initiated and participated in the formation of a number of progressive education initiatives. Through Khanya College, which at the time was popularly known as the “people’s college,” she contributed to empowering black young people from marginalised communities and preparing them for university education.

Her intervention in this regard laid the basis for future policy thinking on the transformative power of people’s education and deeply informed the formation of the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) in 1986 and its declaration for a radically new people’s education system.

She did all this at a time when the mere act of speaking out against the apartheid system or pointing out deficiencies in the public education system could be met with detention without trial, torture, and even death.

Second, her uncompromising commitment to the quality of public education. She did not stop at fighting for access to education for the marginalised majority; she was also deeply concerned about the quality of such education.

This is why, as the founding Director of the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), she played a leading role in developing innovative and inclusive pedagogic approaches, which included the African Storybook initiative promoting home-language literacy for African children.

In fact, there is a sense in which she was ahead of her time. Her focus on strengthening and expanding distance education in the 1970s and 1980s has today become a central part of government’s strategy to expand access to education.

Third, her contribution in the area of higher education. Through a variety of roles in the higher education sector, including being a Member of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and serving on the Councils of some of our universities, she helped shape the legislative and institutional architecture of our country’s public higher education system.

Related to this, the two of us were appointed by the late former Minister of Education, Prof. Kader Asmal, and as Minister of Higher Education, I also appointed her to represent our country on various international bodies on distance education. She represented our country with distinction.

Today, we pride ourselves on having the biggest and most robust higher education and public science systems on the continent. All of this would not have been possible without the tireless intellectual contribution of patriots such as Dr. Glennie.

Fourth, her innate grasp of the nexus between education and science. She understood that you cannot have quality education without quality science, nor quality science without quality education.

This is why she paid particular attention to the role of technology in the provision of education by focusing on such things as e-learning. Esteemed colleagues, we live in a digital age defined by transformative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.

As policymakers and educationalists, I believe we must continually think of sustainable ways of harnessing the power of AI and other emerging technologies to address inequities in our public education system. We must, of course, do this with due regard for the ethical use of AI and other exciting modern technologies.

Fifth and finally, the multidisciplinarity of her work. Her work in education contributed to significant advances in related areas such as reading for meaning, technology for education, mother-tongue education, and decolonisation.

Equally significant is the fact that the Education Policy Units, which some of us were part of, benefited immensely from her insights and research. In my view, this aspect of her contribution—her multidisciplinarity—is without doubt her biggest contribution, and I believe this must form a big part of the training provided to our educators today.

At a fundamental level, the sum total of her work contributed to a much bigger objective: building a South Africa wherein all its citizens would be able to realise their potential regardless of race, gender, class, religion, or area of residence.

As Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, and as someone who was intimately involved in the development of education policy during the initial stages of our democracy, I wish to suggest that the best tribute we can give Dr. Glennie is by doing our best to kill the fear of maths among black people, especially in the townships and rural areas.

There is, of course, a history to this fear of maths, and I often refer to it as the Verwoerdian curse. You will recall the repugnant statement by one of the architects of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, who explicitly stated: “What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?”

As you know, mathematics is the foundational analytical tool for the basic sciences and is therefore critical for enhancing South Africa’s capabilities in key emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Biotechnology and Genomics, Sustainable Energy and Climate, Renewable Energy, Quantum Technologies, Nanotechnology, Advanced Materials, and many other critical technology domains.

In conclusion, I have no doubt that history will remember Dr. Glennie as an irrepressible activist, an ethical public servant, and above all, a patriot who dedicated her knowledge and skills to building a humane and just country and world.

On behalf of our President, His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa, and our government, I wish to convey our deepest condolences to the family of Dr. Glennie and further express our nation’s gratitude to her for her selfless service to our country and its people.

May we use her towering legacy to inspire more meaningful change in our country’s education system.

Thank you for your kind attention.

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