I met Arch Tutu as he was about to leave Grahamstown to catch his flight to Johannesburg in Port Elizabeth.
He had attended the closing of the Highway Africa conference and the World Journalism Education Congress
at Rhodes University earlier this week.
I met Arch Tutu as he was about to leave Grahamstown to catch his flight to Johannesburg in Port Elizabeth.
He had attended the closing of the Highway Africa conference and the World Journalism Education Congress
at Rhodes University earlier this week.
Clad in an olive tweed suit, the well-known cleric made his entrance greeting the young nervous Upstart reporters with me.
After a brief introduction one of the young reporters asked Arch Tutu what brought him to Grahamstown. “I am a good stage prop.
You know a stage prop, it’s the thing that you use on the stage sometimes to make you think this is a big house.
I’m a good stage prop, so now and again I get invited to things just to show that,” he said before bursting into his familiar high pitched laugh.
When asked what it takes to be a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate he said, “A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate must have a big nose, easy name and sexy legs.
Nobel Laureates do not drop from heaven, they are ordinary people.” Regarding the constant changes of the national school curriculum, Arch Tutu said the responsibility lies with the teachers.
“We compare many of the teachers in our schools, they aren’t like the people who taught me. Many of the conditions faced by school children nowadays are the same conditions we faced back then.
The big difference is the quality of our teachers. We had people who were devoted to teaching. “I owe a lot to the teachers I had, they made you believe you could do anything regardless of what you had.”
He said South Africa needs devoted and dedicated teachers, not teachers “who go on strike at the drop of a hat”.
He said teachers need discipline and commitment. “The key is not so much in the curriculum. The curriculum is important, but far more important is the teacher,” he added.
