President Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed sadness at the passing of South Africa’s first post-apartheid education minister Sibusiso Bengu who passed away this week at the age of 90.
Bengu, who also served as South Africa’s ambassador to Germany from 1999 to 2003, died in his sleep at home on 30 December 2024.
“Prof Bengu was a pioneering leader of our democratic dispensation and administration who led the transformation of education in a democratic Government of National Unity where deep divisions existed about how far this transformation should go,” Ramaphosa said.
He highlighted Bengu’s critical role in dismantling the injustice of unequal education, which consigned most citizens to intergenerational economic exclusion, poverty, and indignity under apartheid.
“The Education Act formulated under Prof Bengu’s leadership and adopted by our fledgling Parliament was a cornerstone of our liberation and unleashed the human potential of all South Africans. It was and is still the lever for the empowerment and development we see today in the lives of individuals and communities,” Ramaphosa added.
Ramaphosa acknowledged Bengu’s patriotic and visionary service, both at home and abroad, as South Africa’s ambassador to Germany.
He noted that Bengu’s legacy is entrenched through the Sibusiso Bengu Development Programme, which advances the development of historically disadvantaged institutions in higher education.
“Today we are grateful for Prof Bengu’s diverse contributions to our development, which will light our way forward. We reflect as well on his life of faith which inspired his commitment to restoring the dignity of all South Africans,” Ramaphosa said.
Bengu became the first black vice-chancellor of Fort Hare University in 1991, a significant milestone in South Africa’s higher education history.
JN/APA