ANC stalwart and former Minister in the Education as well as the Water Affairs Departments, Professor Kader Asmal has passed away. He was 76. Asmal died of a heart attack just two weeks after the passing away of another ANC icon Albertina Sisulu.
While Asmal was a Minister at the Education Department he was responsible for introducing Outcomes Based Education or OBE to the Mzansi education system. He and his supporters sold OBE as the one solution that would take us out of the dark ages and bring us into the 21st Century as a country. Unfortunately OBE failed dismally to such an extent that the education crisis worsened under his leadership. In fact, Colleges of Education were shut down during Asmal’s watch, a move now being recognised as being ill-conceived.
He later went back to his activism roots by heavily criticising the government of the day regarding issues such as the disbanding of the Scorpions unit and more recently, the proposed changes to the Access to Information Act. He is survived by his two sons and their two sons.
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