Are We Being Prepared to Compete Globally — or Conditioned to Remain Employees?
Look at how proudly we celebrate that our children must master their home language in school, even to the point of repeating a grade if they do not pass it with excellence. But let us pause and ask an honest question: what is the purpose of spending twelve years in school studying a language that we already speak fluently at home?
From birth, we learn our mother tongue naturally. It shapes our identity, our culture, and our way of thinking. We speak it daily with our families and communities. Yet in the professional world, most companies operate in English and Afrikaans. Many international businesses function in Chinese, French, or other global languages. When seeking employment, how often does an employer require Ndebele, Sepedi, Sesotho, or isiZulu as the primary business language?
If you approach a global investor speaking only your home language, will you be understood? If the marketplace demands English or other international languages, why are we not equally encouraged to master those with the same urgency?
South Africa’s economic landscape shows that many major companies are owned by those who operate primarily in English and Afrikaans. Meanwhile, African children are required to achieve high academic standards in their home languages. At the same time, many politicians and wealthy families send their children to elite, multiracial schools where global competitiveness is prioritized. We must ask ourselves why this difference exists.
This is not about rejecting our home languages. Our languages are powerful and part of our identity. The real concern is whether the education system truly equips young people to build companies, create wealth, and compete internationally — or whether it mainly prepares them to become employees within existing structures.
Education should expand opportunity, not limit it. It should encourage entrepreneurship, innovation, and ownership. The question we must ask is simple: are we being trained to own the economy, or only to participate in it at the lowest level?
— Themba T Twala III
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