It is not only the sleepless night caused by a constantly buzzing phone — Hong Kong goes to bed six hours before South Africa — that caused Higher Education Minister Naledi Pandor to feel tired. Speaking to Daily Maverick on the margins of the Yidan Prize Summit in Hong Kong, Pandor — who turned 65 on 7 December — admitted to being “really exhausted” when asked whether she would return after the general elections next year.

“I don’t know, actually, I’m really exhausted, and I’m just… I found [in] Parliament there’s been a decline in political respectability, or I don’t know what one calls it. I believe politics succeeds in courtesy that is robust, and I found that courtesy has become crude, and I feel quite often that it’s undignified to be part of what I’m seeing,” she said.

“So I’m questioning… I’m not sure, really. It’s up to the branches as well. They might say ‘it’s time for them to go, they’re old, and they’ve been there so long’. We will see what comes up. We have a list process coming up, we don’t know what will come out of the branches.”

Pandor is one of the longest-serving members of the national legislature, having started out as an MP in 1994 and appointed the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces in 1999. She’s been in Cabinet since 2004, in the Education, Home Affairs and Science and Technology portfolios. Both Julius Malema, when he was still ANC Youth League leader, and Willie Madisha, as Cope MP, have made fun of her British accent, with Madisha doing so during a parliamentary debate.

Pandor admitted that the corruption — popularly termed State Capture — under former president Jacob Zuma was deeper than she had thought, and that she experienced times of doubt about remaining in his Cabinet. She said, however, that she served in portfolios — Science and Technology, and Home Affairs for 18 months — where “people didn’t seek those things” (corrupt favours).

“Work has to go on,” she said. “The nation has to continue to exist, and work that you want to see succeed continued to exist”. This included the Square Kilometre Array Telescope. This is why she chose to remain in government. “So ja, there were questions, but I always feel you must work, and as long as you’re working with good principles as your practice, then you (can) continue.”

At the summit, Pandor was a speaker on education policy, which followed the awarding the night before of the Yidan Prize — one of the biggest education prizes in the world sponsored by Charles Chen Yidan, the founder of Chinese internet giant Tencent. Applied statistician Larry Hedges, who developed a scientific approach to education outcomes, and edX CEO Anant Agarwal, who developed a web platform to make tertiary education more widely and cheaply available — were recipients.

Pandor told the audience that much more needed to be done in terms of education for reconciliation in South Africa.

“We have had some instances that surprised me because I believe that in higher education you’re at the highest level of intellectual activity, so to find someone promoting gender inequity, or being racist, is really a testimony to the fact that your intellectual project is not succeeding,” she said. “We have to pay attention to ensuring that everybody actually acquires the principles and values that are enshrined in our Constitution. That’s still a project ongoing.”

Speaking on the same platform on this topic, former Colombian education minister Yaneth Giha said education became the number one priority after the peace process in her country in 2016, while the defence budget was decreased. Giha, who was also deputy defence minister, said she had her most difficult moments as a leader in education, dealing with a striking teachers’ union.

Pandor also spoke about the #FeesMustFall campaign, saying that, while she didn’t believe the government could provide free tertiary education, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme was there for poor students. Although there were problems, there were efforts to ensure that it would be properly administered in future.

Middle-class students, from families of teachers and nurses for example, who were above the qualifying threshold for aid, but whose families could not readily afford tertiary education, also needed to be accommodated, and the government was working on plans to do so.

“I’m convinced that government is committed to continuing to help the poor and the working class, but the middle class is also a concern,” she said at the subsequent interview. The “gap funding” would be partially a grant and partially a loan. Pandor also said universities should provide support if parents couldn’t afford the “modest fee increase”. Their subsidies had improved “significantly”, so she would ask them “what is your contribution to the government’s funding?”

Pandor would like to see tertiary institutions in the provinces as well as across borders in Africa improve. When she was the minister of Science and Technology she wanted to create research chairs shared between institutions elsewhere on the continent and South Africa.

“We have to remove the barriers to collaboration,” she said. “I believe that the minister of science and technology [Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane] is carrying on with the idea. If she does, then I will be happy.”

Other speakers at the summit included Graça Machel, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands and Charles Chen Yidan. DM