SOUTH AFRICA-EDUCATION: No Order, No Control

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gumisai Mutume

JOHANNESBURG, Jul 22 1996 (IPS) - Schools in the sprawling black township of Soweto near here bear the scars of battered and broken institutions.

The action behind the schools’ walls sounds like a page taken from a Hollywood script — a student shoots another student; a teacher is killed over examination results; the principal has little control over the running of the school and at times, is at the mercy of student factions fighting for control.

Yet within a 30 kilometre radius on the other end of town, the mood is totally different. A peaceful group of mainly white pupils at assembly sing Afrikaner hymns at schools that resemble first world institutions.

The disparities within South Africa’s education system are astounding. A transformation is underway to revamp the educational system and institutions for blacks, but the change is slow.

Black students must work extra hard to catch up after years of disruptions, and they often face indifferent school authorities.

“Our teacher is not interested at all. He hardly ever attends, and when he does, he simply sets assignments and leaves,” complains Thatho Leltlalo (20), a final year secondary school pupil in Soweto, a township of some three million people.

“Our assignments are hardly ever marked, yet we are going to sit our examinations this year. My brother failed his matriculation exams and is idle at home. I cannot afford to fail too,” says Leltlalo, who has already missed two years of schooling due to disturbances caused by the struggle against apartheid.

He says he is frustrated by some elements who seem to run the school, disrupting lessons and threatening teachers and students. His parents are too poor to send him to a Model C (former whites only) school.

Leltlalo’s predicament (and that of other students like him) is documented in a recently released report on the Culture of Learning and Teaching (CCOLT) in Gauteng schools.

The report highlights teacher absenteeism and indiscipline as major problems confronting schools in Gauteng, the capital province which includes Soweto, followed by lack of facilities and resources.

Autocratic management, poor staffing, inadequate buildings, pathetic learning facilities, poor syllabi and lack of sporting facilities are some of the problems facing the schools, according to the report. A sample of 16 schools in the province were studied between June and November last year.

The report notes that students consistently raised the problems of teachers’ lack of professionalism — lack of respect for other teachers and students, sexual abuse and harassment of students, absenteeism, use of corporal punishment and drunkenness.

But a Soweto high school teacher, Maria Mashile, says it is hardly the teachers’ fault. They are underpaid and overworked, she says. The entire educational system, she adds, is not responsive to the needs of the community.

For instance, Mashile is in charge of a classroom of 60 students in Orlando West, a part of Soweto where the 1976 student riots began. While a student:teacher ratio of 40:1 is recommended at primary level, there are cases where students number as many as 125 per teacher.

“I am fed up already and intend to take up a retrenchment package and go into the private sector, because it’s a no-win situation,” Mashile said.

Apartheid brought a breakdown in the educational system for blacks. It began with the passing of the Bantu Education Act in 1953, which ushered in second rate, segregated education for blacks, and eventually led to the 1976 Soweto uprisings, when students protested against the system.

During apartheid, attendance was sporadic, teachers lost the desire to teach, principals failed in their duties, and gang wars, rapes and drug abuse ruled the playgrounds. This inevitably led to poor results and high drop out rates.

In an attempt to redress this, Gauteng education minister Mary Metcalfe last year established a committee on the culture of learning and teaching, as part of a drive to restore an environment conducive to learning. The CCOLT report is part of this process.

According to members of one of the teams which produced the CCOLT report, at a school they visited in Pretoria, the principal claimed the school belonged to the community, and gangs known as ‘Magents’, often spin their cars in the school yard.

Stolen property from the school was traced to a neighbouring house and the culprit identified by the police, but no action has been taken, the team members added.

The school is located in an area where social problems are rife. Gun shots ring out nightly, doors and windows are regularly stolen and night watchmen are shot at.

In one of the schools in Soweto, a CCOLT team had to cancel their visit, because of a murder in the playgrounds a day before, reportedly by some pupils revenging the death of their colleague.

“The community needs to be stabilised through more effective local job creation strategies, as well as control of the impact of guns, gangs, vandalism and drugs existing in the community spilling over into the schools,” the CCOLT report recommends.

According to Metcalfe, “short-term deliverables are critical in order to establish and maintain an education environment in which long term transformation is made possible.

“… Without a commitment to long term transformation, rapid short term delivery may have little more than a cosmetic effect on the deeper processes of learning and teaching,” the Gauteng education minister added.