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Nzimande: Please don’t discriminate against people with disabilities!

On Friday last week, News24 published an article in which it reported on a statement made by minister of higher education Blade Nzimande in which he stated that facilities for disabled learners and staff members need to be improved. A positive statement at first glance but if you look further down the article the minister seems to say something very different…

In the article, Nzimande begins by speaking about how post-school education facilities don’t have a uniform policy to deal with learners and staff members who have disabilities. He is quoted as saying:

"The management of disability in post-school education remains fragmented and separate to that of existing transformation and diversity programmes at the institutional level. Individual institutions determine unique ways in which to address disability, and resourcing is allocated within each institution according to their programme."

The minister also stated that a bursary scheme was started in 2008 by the department of higher education and training for people with disabilities; however, this funding was not used to its maximum potential:

"The Department of Higher Education and Training's disability funding was … under-utilised in 2010 and 2011, at levels of only 47% and 55% respectively of available funding.”

I don’t take issue with the above-mentioned statements. In fact, I quite agree with these. However, what I do take issue with is the minister’s statement that it is his presumption that many learners with disabilities don’t qualify for exemption which to me is saying that learners with disabilities don’t qualify for a matric exemption because of their inability to, for example, walk, see, hear, etc. To quote from the horse’s mouth: "It is most likely related to the fact that many learners with disabilities do not qualify for university education… “

According to the Employment Equity Act (EEA), it is illegal to discriminate against an individual because of their disability status. Possibly Mr Nzimande has also forgotten that the same act prohibits discrimination against people because of their race – a provision from which he benefits. Let’s hope that in his next speech, the good minister will choose his words more carefully.

Lia Marus is the editor of HR Pulse. She has a BA in French, Italian and Linguistics from UCT, an MA in translation from Wits and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the Wits Business School. She is currently studying towards her LLB through Unisa. Lia started her career off in corporate communications, where she worked as a sub-editor, researcher and marketing coordinator. She then heeded the call of the publishing world and went into the business-to-business publishing field. She worked as a sub-editor as well as a chief sub-editor. Before joining ITWeb, she managed an HR guidebook at a leading international publishing company.