‘OBE damaged our schools’

Retiring educator fires parting shot after 39 years

CHANGES in the curriculum, a lack of transparency in the classroom and labour unrest by teacher unions were cited by a retiring educator as some of the things that had damaged South Africa’s education system.

Speaking last night, on the eve of his official retirement after 39 years of service, Vincent Oliphant said the Department of Education needed to work on preventing problems rather than intervening once the damage was done.

Oliphant has nearly four decades of experience on many sides of the education spectrum, having been a maths and science teacher, maths lecturer and vice-rector at Dower College of Education before its closure in 2000 and a maths subject adviser at the Port Elizabeth district office.

-Zandile Mbabela