SOUTH AFRICA: Huge skills deficits have prompted Pretoria to seek teachers abroad, writes Joe Humphreys
Teachers, priests and nuns are a much-maligned breed these days, but Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka hasn't forgotten their value - to her life, at least.
Growing up in apartheid South Africa, she was educated by Catholic missionaries who deliberately rejected the state's Bantu schooling.
"The teaching of mathematics in black schools was almost non-existent," she said, and recalled the words of assassinated former prime minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd: "What is the use of teaching a Bantu [ black] child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?" It was the architect of apartheid's belief that no African should have employment ambitions beyond farm labouring or domestic work.
The Catholic missionaries disagreed. "The [ Bantu] system was structured to 'uneducate'. That is why the missionary education was so good," said Mlambo-Ngcuka, who went to school under a strict-sounding German nun.
"The missionaries almost set out to teach the subjects the system had said black people don't need."
Today Mlambo-Ngcuka (51) is South Africa's deputy president, with special responsibility for driving the country's economic development.
How Mr Verwoerd would squirm.
A former school teacher, who has been tipped as a future president, she is in Ireland this week for two days of intensive meetings with political and business leaders.
As well as calling on President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, she will discuss the possibility of sending South African graduates to Ireland for courses that would help transform them into skilled public servants - so desperately needed in this 12-year-old democracy.
Speaking to The Irish Times at her offices in Pretoria's Union Buildings, she said it would be a "learning visit" but one she hoped would also produce results.
The legacy of the Bantu education system is still felt in South Africa, where there are major skills deficits in local and national government.
In answer to the crisis, the deputy president recently launched a "skills acquisition" programme with a cross-border dimension. Both public and private sector partners have already been found in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, and she believes they may be in Ireland, too.
"We should get all your Irish people who worked in missionary education here [ in South Africa] to share their experience because that experience has worked so well. We actually need it now as we try very hard to rebuild our education system.
"So if you know of any Irish nuns, or any Irish missionaries, or non-missionaries, you can tell them our schools are waiting for them."
The friendly sales pitch is typical of a politician who, in a short time, has charmed her way to the top echelons of power. A member of parliament since 1994, she shone in her first full ministerial portfolio, overseeing much-needed reform in the country's minerals and energy sector.
Fiercely supportive of President Thabo Mbeki through the ruling African National Congress' (ANC) internal disputes, she was promoted to the country's second-highest post in June 2005 after former deputy-president Jacob Zuma was sacked amid corruption allegations.
Mlambo-Ngcuka has since being accused of abuse of power, specifically by using a state aircraft for a family shopping holiday to the United Arab Emirates in December 2005.
The so-called "gravy plane" scandal was investigated earlier this year by the public prosecutor, who cleared her of any wrongdoing.
More recently, she has helped to turn around South Africa's oft-ridiculed HIV/Aids strategy. Since she was put in charge of the brief two months ago, she has successfully silenced crank voices in government - that once included the president - who both questioned the link between HIV and Aids, and promoted unproven, traditional "remedies" for the disease, the country's biggest killer.
"We have not used the partnerships we have had optimally - all sides. The partners did not use us enough as government. We did not use civil society and business enough," said Mlambo-Ngcuka, who is due to relaunch the country's national Aids co-ordinating council on December 1st.
"The bottom line is really about strengthening relationships. There is no fundamental shift in the policy itself. Rather, it's about closing the gap.
"Implementation is not as good as it can be . . . Now we are trying to remobilise everyone to say, 'Hey, this thing is big and everybody has a role to play'."
Disarmingly cheerful, Mlambo-Ngcuka speaks optimistically about her country and her continent - and indeed about most other things, with the exception perhaps of her political ambitions.
Asked would a woman president be accepted either by the ANC or South Africa, she replied: "Oh yes. I think so. There are still die-hard male chauvinists in our society, that's for sure. But I think the majority of our people have been able to appreciate the contribution the women have been able to make."
Would she take the job if asked? "I don't think it's going to arise . . . I don't think anyone will ask me. There are too many contenders, and I am not important enough," she replied, with a mischievous laugh.
South Africa's deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is travelling to Ireland with a large delegation that includes two cabinet members and three junior ministers.
South Africa's education minister Naledi Pandor, and transport minister Jeff Radebe - who is taking a lead role in the country's preparations for hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup - will be accompanied by up to 30 government advisers and civil servants.
A number of prominent South African businesspeople are also travelling with the delegation to explore the opportunity of partnership deals with Irish companies in the information technology, tourism and education sectors.
The deputy president will sit in on education and business seminars in Dublin tomorrow before attending a dinner at Iveagh House hosted by Minister for Health Mary Harney.
The latter had invited Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka to Ireland last March during a meeting in Cape Town. "When Ms Harney was here it was so much fun," the deputy president recalled. "We were kind of like long-lost cousins, and it was St Patrick's Day so we had a lot to drink," she joked.