Sibusiso Bengu

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix =

| name = Sibusiso Bengu

| honorific-suffix =

| image = Bengu2007.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption = Bengu in 2007

| order =

| office = South African Ambassador to Germany

| term_start = 1999

| term_end = 2003

| president = Thabo Mbeki

| primeminister =

| predecessor = Lindiwe Mabuza

| successor = Moss Chikane

| order2 =

| office1 = Minister of Education

| term_start1 = 11 May 1994

| term_end1 = 14 June 1999

| president1 = Nelson Mandela

| predecessor1 = Piet Marais

| successor1 = Kader Asmal

| office2 = Vice-Chancellor of the University of Fort Hare

| term_start2 = 1991

| term_end2 = 1994

| successor2 = Mbulelo Mzamane

| predecessor2 = J. A. Lamprecht

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1934|05|08}}

| birth_place = Kranskop, Natal Province
Union of South Africa

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2024|12|30|1934|05|08}}

| death_place = Mtunzini, South Africa

| restingplace =

| restingplacecoordinates =

| birthname = Sibusiso Mandlenkosi Emmanuel Bengu

| citizenship =

| nationality =

| party = African National Congress

| otherparty = Inkatha Freedom Party (1975–1978)

| spouse = Funeka Bengu

| relations =

| residence =

| alma_mater = University of South Africa
University of Geneva
Graduate Institute of International Studies

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| deputy1 = Smangaliso Mkhatshwa

}}

Sibusiso Mandlenkosi Emmanuel Bengu (8 May 1934 – 30 December 2024) was a South African academic and politician. He was the first post-apartheid Minister of Education between May 1994 and June 1999. Before that, he was the vice-chancellor of the University of Fort Hare from 1991 to 1994. A former secretary-general of Inkatha, he represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the government.

Between 1952 and 1978, Bengu was a teacher in his home province, Natal, where he founded the Dlangezwa High School in 1969 and became the inaugural secretary-general of Inkatha in 1975. After falling out with Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, he went into self-imposed exile between 1978 and 1991, working in Geneva for the Lutheran World Federation.

In the April 1994 general election, Bengu was elected to represent the ANC in the newly established National Assembly of South Africa, and he became Minister of Education in President Nelson Mandela's cabinet. In that office he pursued controversial early reforms to South African education policy, including a nationwide program to redeploy teachers and a shift to outcome-based education under Curriculum 2005.

He left the government at the June 1999 general election and served as South African Ambassador to Germany until 2003, when he retired. He was also a member of the ANC National Executive Committee between 1994 and 2002.

Early life and education

Bengu was born in Kranskop in the former Natal Province on 8 May 1934.{{cite web |date=13 September 2018 |title=Sibusiso Mandlenkosi Emmanuel Bengu |url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sibusiso-mandlenkosi-emmanuel-bengu |access-date=19 February 2023 |website=South African History Online}} His paternal uncle was the evangelist Reverend Nicholas Bhengu,{{Cite book |last=Lephoko |first=Dan S. B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cG4ZzgEACAAJ |title=Nicholas Bhekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu's lasting legacy: world's best black soul crusader |date=2018 |publisher=AOSIS |isbn=978-1-928396-53-6 |location=Durbanville, South Africa |pages=42}} and his father was also a Lutheran minister.{{Cite web |date= |title=Sibusiso Bengu |url=http://www.anc.org.za/people/bengu_sme.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206185101/http://www.anc.org.za/people/bengu_sme.html |archive-date=1998-12-06 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=Parliament of South Africa}} He was educated at the University of South Africa, where he completed a Bachelor's degree and Honours degree in history in 1966, and at the University of Geneva-affiliated Graduate Institute of International Studies, where he completed a PhD in political science in 1974.

Early political and teaching career

Bengu began his career as a teacher in 1952. Between 1969 and 1976, he was the inaugural principal of the Dlangezwa High School near Empangeni, which he founded. He left the school in 1977 to become director of student affairs at the University of Zululand.

During this period, in 1975, Mangosuthu Buthelezi founded Inkatha, the political movement that dominated KwaZulu for the next two decades, and Bengu became the organisation's secretary-general. However, due to clashes with Buthelezi, Bengu left his job and party in 1978 and went into self-imposed exile in Geneva. He was secretary for research and social action at the Lutheran World Federation until 1991, when he returned to South Africa during the negotiations to end apartheid.

Upon his return, Bengu was the first black vice-chancellor of the University of Fort Hare between 1991 and 1994.{{Cite web |last=Linden |first=Aretha |date=2 January 2025 |title=University of Fort Hare remembers Professor Sibusiso Bengu (1934–2024) |url=https://www.ufh.ac.za/news/News/UNIVERSITYFORTHAREREMEMBERSPROFESSORSIBUSISOBENGU1934%E2%80%932024 |access-date=3 January 2025 |website=University of Fort Hare}}{{Cite web |date=1996-03-22 |title='Bush' college and proud of it |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1996-03-22-bush-college-and-proud-of-it/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} Meanwhile, Bengu had struck up a friendship with Oliver Tambo, president of the African National Congress (ANC), during his exile, and he stood as an ANC candidate in South Africa's April 1994 general election.{{Cite book |url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/13429370/south-africa-campaign-and-election-report-april-26- |title=South Africa: Campaign and Election Report April 26–29, 1994 |publisher=International Republican Institute |year=1994 |access-date=13 April 2023 |via=Yumpu}}

Minister of Education: 1994–1999

Bengu was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in the 1994 election, and newly elected President Nelson Mandela appointed him to the cabinet as Minister of Education.{{Cite web |date=11 May 1994 |title=Glance At Mandela's Cabinet With AM-South Africa |url=https://apnews.com/article/d74ce383d466e8a2f94ef55229ee9292 |access-date=2023-05-29 |website=AP News |language=en}} He suffered a stroke soon after his appointment,{{Cite web |date=1995-09-01 |title=I will teach my many critics a lesson says Bengu |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1995-09-01-i-will-teach-my-many-critics-a-lesson-says-bengu/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}{{Cite web |date=1994-08-12 |title=The First 100 Days |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1994-08-12-the-first-100-days/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} and public concerns about his health continued to linger as late as 1996.{{Cite web |date=1996-12-24 |title=How the politicians fared in 1996 |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1996-12-24-how-the-politicians-fared-in-1996/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} Throughout his tenure he was consistently criticised for a perceived lack of vigor,{{Cite web |date=1995-12-22 |title=How well did the Cabinet do this year |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1995-12-22-how-well-did-the-cabinet-do-this-year/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}{{Cite web |date=1997-12-23 |title=How the Cabinet did in 1997: A report card |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1997-12-23-how-the-cabinet-did-in-1997-a-report-card/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}{{Cite web |date=1998-12-24 |title=How the Cabinet fared in 1998 |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1998-12-24-how-the-cabinet-fared-in-1998-the/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} a perception which the Mail & Guardian suggested was compounded by his lack of personal charisma and media profile. The same newspaper later described him as having provoked an "escalating hum of frustration at his hands-off, 'it's not my problem' approach to every new crisis which drifted his way".{{Cite web |date=1999-10-22 |title=Papa Action or Dr Spin? |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1999-10-22-papa-action-or-dr-spin/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}

= Policy platforms =

Inheriting an education system distorted by the apartheid programme of Bantu Education, Bengu pursued a number of major reforms in the Department of Education and its education policy. During his first year in office the department undertook amendments to the history curriculum,{{Cite web |date=1995-07-14 |title=Old guard subverts syllabus changes |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1995-07-14-old-guard-subverts-syllabus-changes/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} and in 1997 Bengu announced a wholesale revision of the national curriculum under the new Curriculum 2005, an outcome-based education system.{{Cite book |last=Chisholm |first=Linda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ybz9Ei5TVaIC |title=State of the Nation: South Africa, 2003–2004 |date=2003 |publisher=HSRC Press |isbn=978-0-7969-2024-9 |language=en |chapter=The state of curriculum reform in South Africa: The issue of Curriculum 2005}} According to the consensus assessment of the new curriculum, "Its essential problem was that no one could understand it."{{Cite web |last=Macfarlane |first=David |date=2010-09-24 |title=New syllabus is 'flawed' |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2010-09-24-new-syllabus-is-flawed/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} Bengu also announced a new school language policy in 1997.{{Cite web |date=1997-07-15 |title=Pupils get choice of learning language |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1997-07-15-pupils-get-choice-of-learning-language/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}

Perhaps most controversially, from 1995 onwards, the education ministry pursued a new centralised policy in teacher employment, known as the redeployment process (initially right-sizing and redeployment; later rationalisation and redeployment). Under the new policy, provincial education departments were empowered to "redeploy" teachers to achieve redistributive policy aims – primarily moving experienced teachers to poor black-majority school districts, where school budgets were systematically augmented – but teachers retained the option to escape redeployment by accepting a voluntary severance package.{{Cite journal |last=Jansen |first=Jonathan D. |date=2002-04-01 |title=Political symbolism as policy craft: explaining non-reform in South African education after apartheid |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680930110116534 |journal=Journal of Education Policy |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=199–215 |doi=10.1080/02680930110116534 |issn=0268-0939|hdl=2263/130 |hdl-access=free }} By January 1997, some 18,000 teachers had applied for voluntary severance, and Bengu, acquiescing in a common criticism of the policy, admitted that the primary effect of voluntary severance had been to retrench experienced teachers – few of whom accepted redeployment – while costing the department millions of rands.{{Cite web |date=1997-01-31 |title=Rethink on teacher severance |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1997-01-31-rethink-on-teacher-severance/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} Later in 1997, the Grove Primary School in Cape Town mounted a successful legal challenge to the policy in the Cape High Court,{{Cite web |date=1997-06-23 |title=Bengu loses key schools case, will appeal |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1997-06-23-bengu-loses-key-schools-case-will-appeal/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} but the policy survived after Bengu's department entrenched it in an Education Laws Amendment Bill, passed later in 1997.{{Cite web |date=1997-10-31 |title=Bengu wins through on schools |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1997-10-31-bengu-wins-through-on-schools/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}

= ANC National Executive Committee =

During his tenure as Education Minister, Bengu served as a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee for two terms between 1994 and 2002. He was first elected to the committee at the ANC's 49th National Conference in Bloemfontein in December 1994,{{Cite web |date=1994-12-23 |title=Populism over Indian option |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1994-12-23-populism-over-indian-option/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} and he was re-elected at the 50th National Conference in Mafikeng in December 1997.{{Cite web |title=51st National Conference: Report of the Secretary General |url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/51st-national-conference-report-of-the-secretary-general/ |access-date=2021-12-04 |website=ANC |language=en-US}}

= Resignation and aftermath =

Bengu served only one parliamentary term in government, declining to seek re-election to the National Assembly in the June 1999 general election.{{Cite news |last=Chotia |first=Farouk |date=24 March 1999 |title=An emotional Bengu says goodbye |url=https://allafrica.com/stories/199903240101.html |access-date=3 January 2025 |work=Business Day}} After the election, Kader Asmal was appointed to replace him as Minister of Education. One of Asmal's first major acts as minister was to call for an urgent review of Curriculum 2005,{{Cite web |date=2000-01-10 |title=Asmal to review Curriculum 2005? |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2000-01-10-asmal-to-review-curriculum-2005/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} leading in subsequent years to a major revision of the policy.{{Cite web |date=2005-04-21 |title=Asmal rides the rapids |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2005-04-21-asmal-rides-the-rapids/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}{{Cite web |date=2001-06-01 |title=A new era for SA schools |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2001-06-01-a-new-era-for-sa-schools/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} Asmal also reversed the teacher redeployment process in 2001, saying that it had achieved its objectives with the redeployment of over 25,000 teachers.{{Cite web |date=6 July 2001 |title=Teachers go into first gear |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/teachers-go-into-first-gear-20010706 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}

In August 1999, President Thabo Mbeki appointed Bengu as South African Ambassador to Germany.{{Cite web |date=1999-11-05 |title='ANC cadres are taking over civil service' |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1999-11-05-anc-cadres-are-taking-over-civil/ |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}} He held that position until 2003, when he retired.{{Cite news |date=2024-12-31 |title=Sibusiso Bengu gave wise counsel: Family |url=https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/sibusiso-bengu-gave-wise-counsel-family/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250102010803/https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/sibusiso-bengu-gave-wise-counsel-family/ |archive-date=2025-01-02 |access-date=2025-01-03 |work=SABC News |language=en-US}} He also dropped off the ANC National Executive Committee in December 2002.{{Cite web |last=Seepe |first=Jimmy |date=19 October 2002 |title=ANC poised to purge ultra-leftists |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/anc-poised-to-purge-ultra-leftists-20021019 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}

Personal life and death

He was married to Funeka Bengu and had four daughters and a son.{{cite news |date=31 December 2024 |title=Former Education Minister Sibusiso Bengu passes away |url=https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/former-education-minister-sibusiso-bengu-passes-away/ |access-date=31 December 2024 |work=SABC News |publisher=}} He died in his sleep on 30 December 2024, aged 90, at his home in Mtunzini, KwaZulu-Natal.{{Cite web |last=Khoza |first=Amanda |date=2 January 2025 |title=Ramaphosa pays tribute to late 'pioneering leader' Sibusiso Bengu |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/ramaphosa-pays-tribute-to-late-pioneering-leader-sibusiso-bengu-20250102 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}

References

External links

[http://www.whoswhosa.co.za/Pages/profilefull.aspx?IndID=2249 Professor Sibusiso Bengu] at Who's Who

Category:1934 births

Category:2024 deaths

Category:People from Umvoti Local Municipality

Category:Zulu people

Category:Inkatha Freedom Party politicians

Category:Ministers of education of South Africa

Category:Ambassadors of South Africa to Germany

Category:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni

Category:Members of the National Assembly of South Africa 1994–1999

Category:University of South Africa alumni

Category:Vice-chancellors of the University of Fort Hare

Category:African National Congress politicians

Category:South African Lutherans

Category:Academic staff of the University of Zululand

Category:Politicians from KwaZulu-Natal