'I retired too young' - Zuma
Jacob Zuma Jacob Zuma
Durban - Jacob Zuma says he retired from his position as president “too young”.
He was addressing pupils at Bizimali High School, one of the top performing schools in his hometown of Nkandla northern KwaZulu-Natal, on Saturday.
“I am still young. I will be here for a long time to tell you why education is important,” he said.
Zuma said that although he did not go to school, he wished that the children of Nkandla could be educated and wanted to see more presidents come out of his rural home town.
“For us (blacks) to be exploited and denied knowledge, the oppressors used education to hinder and conquer us. When we are free and don’t know that education is our only tool to free ourselves, that means we are still in the dark, we haven’t seen the road to freedom,” Zuma added.
He said economic power in South Africa was still in the hands of those who benefited from apartheid, and transformation would only happen if the black majority was educated.
Zuma announced in December government would subsidise free higher education for poor and working class students in 2018, and revealed on Saturday that he had faced resistance, but would not elaborate from whom.
He said he remained resolute as he had taken an oath that he would not leave government until free education was introduced, even if he faced criticism.
“I had a lot of arguments with people who said there was no money. Education is more important than other government programmes; if there is no money, let’s take from those programmes, let’s close the least important,” he said. However he did not specify which government programmes he was referring to.
Zuma added that if he had six months as a dictator he would sentence young people hooked on drugs to Robben Island for compulsory education.
“If it were up to me I would enforce a rule that a child not at school be arrested. Those who do whoonga, dagga, alcohol, be removed to a college, maybe Robben Island, and be forced to learn and leave that place with a degree,” Zuma said.