I am a great supporter of good, quality education. I believe that true liberation for black people will be achieved through proper education of our people.

A lot has been said about Jacob Zuma's lack of formal education.

I think that for a man who has never received any formal education, Zuma has done remarkably well for himself.

People should not downplay his achievements and take for granted his contribution to our struggle because of their personal bias against him.

We should remember that Frederick Douglass, the father of the civil rights movement and the man who set black people in the US free from slavery, was a slave himself who had not received any formal education.

Despite this, Douglass became a liberator, a world renowned statesman, chairman of several anti-slavery organisations, editor of a major abolitionist newspaper, and not to mention one of the greatest, most eloquent orators in history.

Douglass understood that the road to freedom for black people was through education, so he taught himself.

When we measure a man, we must measure him correctly.

We must take into account all the hills and the valleys that he had travelled, and not judge him on whether or not he had written an examination in his life.

Lucian Hlophe, Daveyton