The Executive Director of the Ministry of Education, Arts, and Culture has apologized to stakeholders who felt offended by recent utterances from the Ministry, saying any offense was unintentional.

Sanet Steenkamp appeared on nbc's Talk of The Nation to discuss the readiness of schools to begin.

"I want to say it on national TV, there is nobody like us educators, who are teachers ourselves, who understands the complexity that our teachers face. If we did offend you in any given manner unintentionally, whether by anger, with public discourse, or by being defensive. We sincerely apologize. We need you, we need each other."