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22 October 2018 Photo Sonia Small
Prof Philippe Burgers book Getting It Right
Prof Philippe Burger’s book Getting It Right: A New Economy for South Africa highlights the urgent need to purge government policies of all forms of toxic patronage relationships and mismanagement in order to save our economy.
South Africa is in an economic rut. Economic growth has collapsed, the unemployment rate has increased, and the country’s level of inequality is of the highest in the world. As if that’s not enough, high levels of corruption, patronage, and state capture also mean that it suffers from severe institutional rot.

It is a sobering picture that is painted on the outside cover of Getting It Right: A New Economy for South Africa – the latest book by Prof Phillipe Burger, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.  In the book, he explains how the legacy of the Apartheid era labour system, the old system of Bantu Education, and the former Bantustans still cripple our economy. And why 24 years of democratic government reforms could still not deliver on the promises of work and prosperity.

Education to blame
 
One of the chargeable factors he singles out, is the state of our education system.
 
“Half of South Africa’s children start school, but never finish. Less than one percent of learners achieve a distinction in Maths in the final matric exam. And on an organisational level, many schools are crippled by labour unions calling the shots, which often means that underperforming teachers stay in their jobs. All these things eventually contribute to our unemployment rate of 27%,” he says.

Towards solutions
The solutions he advocates include securing recurrent economic investment by creating an investor-friendly environment, but also paying urgent attention to ridding our education system and communal land areas under traditional chiefs, where 32% of South Africa’s population are still living, of all forms of self-serving patronage relationships.
 
Prof Burger wrote the bulk of the book during his nine-month tenure as a Fulbright Exchange Scholar in the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University’s Earth Institute (New York). The time he spent there with renowned American economist, Professor Jeffrey Sachs – who also wrote the foreword of his book – was invaluable to his research.
  
Returning from an overseas trip recently, Prof Burger was delighted to see Getting It Right on the bestsellers shelf of Exclusive Books at the OR Tambo Airport. 
“It was a great welcome-home gift!”

He hopes the book will be read by the generally informed public in the run-up to next year’s elections, and that it will help to influence how people think about policy issues.

News Archive

Eusebius McKaiser talks about the magic of books
2013-03-19

 

Eusebius McKaiser
Photo: Johan Roux
19 March 2013

“If you want to turn around this country in terms of the rot in education, you have to start reading. You have to read for your degree."

This was the message from writer and political analyst, Eusebius McKaiser, at a public lecture hosted by the UFS Library and Information Services to celebrate South African Library Week.

Addressing the audience that consisted mostly of students, McKaiser, author of “A Bantu in my bathroom,” said it is not too late to start reading.

"We claim we are too busy as adults, but what is the opportunity cost of not reading? I think we lose our humanity, our sense of awe in the world around us when we stop reading as adults. Instead of saying we are too busy, we will do well to ask ourselves what is the cost of no longer reading as much as we did when we were children."

Reading from some of his favourite books, McKaiser spoke about writing techniques and the magic of books. He read excerpts from JM Coetzee's book “Disgrace,” which he considers to be the most important South African novel. He also read paragraphs from books by Rian Malan, James Baldwin and K Sello Duiker – calling the latter a genius.

Reflecting on the role of fiction, McKaiser said the genre is misunderstood and not utilised sufficiently by academics. "We see fiction as something restricted to the English Department or literary departments. I think fiction can be used as a tool in many departments in the humanities. It gives more real material for exploring complicated questions in the humanities and thought experiments that resemble life."

McKaiser also discussed the role of librarians and writers, saying writers should write what they like, but should not ignore the context. "As academics, librarians, teachers, we have to write for the context in which we teach. We have to order books for the context in which we are librarians and as academics we must not write textbooks for students who live in New York. We have to write textbooks for students who come from townships.”

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