First democratic education minister’s legacy honoured

The legacy of South Africa’s first post-apartheid minister of education, Professor Sibusiso Bengu, includes the establishment, through policies, of the foundation for a unified system with a strong emphasis on higher education.

Paying tribute to his mentor, who died on 30 December 2024 at the age of 90, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Dr Blade Nzimande said the higher education sector is indebted to Bengu for several key policy interventions, particularly the establishment of the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) under Professor Jairam Reddy in 1995.

This led to the development of policy instruments such as the Green Paper on Higher Education (1996), the draft White Paper on Higher Education (1997), and the White Paper 3 – a programme for higher education transformation (1997).

Speaking at Bengu’s official funeral at the University of Zululand on 10 January, Nzimande told mourners that he consulted regularly with Bengu before the late former president Nelson Mandela appointed him minister in 1994.

He added that the recommendations arising from the establishment of the NCHE guided the government’s programme to transform the country’s higher education system and were responsible for the country today having the largest and most vibrant higher education system on the continent.

Bengu started teaching in 1952. He continued studying at the University of South Africa, a distance learning institution, where he completed a bachelor degree and, in 1966, an honours degree in history. He founded Dlangezwa High School in 1969, serving as its principal until 1976.

While working as a school principal, Bengu completed his PhD in political science at the University of Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International Studies.

Bengu’s academic career started at the University of Zululand as director of students in 1977. The following year he left the country for self-imposed exile in Geneva where he served as research and social action secretary at the Lutheran World Foundation. In 1991, Bengu returned to South Africa to become the vice-chancellor of the University of Fort Hare. He was integral to the ANC’s plans for transforming education in the run-up to democratic elections in 1994.

Reversing apartheid’s legacy

Nzimande, who chaired the portfolio committee on education, a parliamentary oversight committee, while Bengu was minister, added other milestones: the passing of the Higher Education Act in 1997 (Act 101 of 1997) and the establishment, in terms of the act, of the Council on Higher Education (CHE), a policy advisory and quality body, as well as the transition from the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa (TEFSA), which provided financial support to students, to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

Over the past two decades, millions of South African students from poor and working-class backgrounds have benefited from access to tertiary education through NSFAS.

“As a country, we owe Bengu and his family an incalculable debt of gratitude. It is my sincere hope that we will use his monumental legacy to give impetus to the task of building a society that is not only free from oppression and exploitation but also a gentler and more humane world,” Nzimande said.

South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile, in a eulogy at Bengu’s official funeral, said the former minister and diplomat had played a key role in shaping education and other social policies, contributing to the sector’s transformation and, most importantly, reversing the legacy of apartheid in education.

“Those among us who were fortunate enough to work with him will never forget his commitment to fighting for social justice and promoting democracy in South Africa,” he said.

Mashatile said that Bengu was instrumental in demolishing the apartheid structure of the country’s education sector as a champion of education.

“It was no surprise when President Nelson Mandela appointed him the first democratic government minister of education. Thirty years later, our educational outcomes are still improving – a testament to the profound impact of this icon. As part of president Nelson Mandela’s cabinet, he introduced many key pieces of legislation that shaped our education system.”

This includes the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the National Commission on Higher Education policy recommendations, which guided the government’s efforts to reconstruct and transform the apartheid higher education system.

He oversaw amalgamating 17 fragmented and race-based education departments into a unified national system and introduced Curriculum 2005 to reform the school curriculum.

University of Fort Hare tribute

The Chief Executive Officer of the CHE, Dr Whitfield Green, said that, during Bengu’s tenure as the first minister of education in democratic South Africa, important strides were made to establish one unified education system and to implement the legislation and plans that would guide and enable its continued development.

“It is incumbent on us to reclaim the strong foundations put in place by visionaries such as Bengu and to contribute to building an education system that effectively serves the needs of all South Africa’s people,” he said.

In a statement, the University of Fort Hare, where Bengu served as the institution’s first black vice-chancellor (1991-94), paid tribute to him for stabilising the institution during the 1990s.

“He laid the foundation for the university’s transition to democracy, enhancing academic standards, establishing its academic reputation, and securing vital funding from international organisations and donors. His leadership ensured the university’s survival and growth as a prominent centre of African intellectualism.”

Bengu left government in 1999 and was ambassador to Germany until his retirement in 2003.

A personal reflection

Sometime last year (2024), after I learned that Bengu had suffered a stroke (he also had a stroke while he was the minister of education) I spoke to Mrs Funeka Bengu to wish him well. He lived in Mtunzini, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. University World News had hoped to interview him as South Africa celebrated 30 years of democracy. She passed the phone to him and said he nodded to what I had told him.

It was not the ideal conversation, but it was good to acknowledge his contribution to creating a single education system.

He once told me that making a single education system was like turning around a plane from its intended course without crashing.

Bengu is survived by his wife, four daughters and a son.