The "Messy Schools": Who Did "Not Know"?
Between February and December 1996 100 fieldworkers visited 32 000 educational institutions to conduct the School Register of Needs Survey under the joint auspices of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the Education Foundation and the University of the Free State Research Institute for Education Planning. The findings of the survey were released recently by the National Department of Education.
They reveal a grim picture of gross inadequacy in the provision of educational facilities. They quantify the educational abuse suffered by the vast majority of South African children. They explain in detail the current high level of illiteracy and innumeracy of South African adults, the past-generations victims of a dysfunctional schools system. They give the background to, among other ills, our run-down economy, high unemployment rates, high crime rates. The evidence is detailed in a newspaper article headed "Messy schools we did not know of". The evidence is irrefutable. Now no-one can ever again say; "We did not know"!
People in the field of education and those who are conscientiously committed to the cause of education have long been aware of this situation. Certainly no reader of this Journal (or of the many publications of the Teachers' League, from Presidential Addresses to single-leaf pamphlets) will experience even a mild form of the shock apparently suffered by the writer of the article and by the National Minister of Education, Sibusiso Bengu, on his reading the findings. Newspaper articles, departmental reports, reports in the annual survey of the South African Institute of Race Relations and personal observation have for a very long time given insight into the critical state of education. The huge gap between the per capita spending for the different groups categorised by the population register, between the teacher:pupil ratios, between their matriculation examination results have all contributed to fleshing out the sad situation. That a man who for decades was part of the discriminated against oppressed majority, who was the rector of an apartheid 'university' whose students were the victims of this "messy" school system and who for some years has been the country's Minister of Education should claim to have been shocked by what the survey exposed - that really is shocking. Over more than a decade the country was rocked by a series of adult, pupil and student protests and revolts, and Minister Bengu does not know why?
The revolt of the students in Soweto in June 1976 was a reaction against not only the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at secondary school levels but also the whole system of Bantu Education statutorily enforced under the Bantu Education Act of 1953. Despite the National Constitution of 1994 the effects and after-effects of that system will continue to plague education in South Africa, as well as several aspects of our society, as the new millennium approaches. In this period of change we need to learn from our history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
"Bantu Education" was devised to indoctrinate the African oppressed into accepting retribalisation, Bantu Authorities and Bantustans. "Coloured Education" and "Indian Education" duly followed, legalised by the relevant statutes to perform the parallel functions for the groups identified by the Population Registration Act and kraaled in the appropriate group areas. The education of the "white" pupils was the responsibility of the provincial councils functioning under the authority of and in accordance with the Department of National Education. The education of each group was designed to cultivate its "separate identity", its own culture, its own political institutions and institutions of higher learning and to prepare its members for their "ordained" places in the economy of the country.
The revolts of Langa and Sharpeville in 1960 reflected the rejection of the political philosophy underlying the National Party's policy of apartheid. From its inception in 1953 "Bantu Education" was strenuously opposed by those who believed that all South Africans shared a common humanity, that race classification was an infection from Nazi herrenvolkism and that all children should enjoy fully and equally the educational opportunities available from the rich resources of the country. By the same principles "Coloured" and "Indian" education were rejected as anti-educational and divisive.
As workers at this time were relatively unorganised owing to the White Labour Policy of successive White minority governments, teachers and parents played a leading role in resisting the implementation of the various means used by the racists to achieve the indoctrination of pupils and students at all levels. These teachers made it their business to understand what educational and political objectives Bantuisation, Colouredisation and Indianisation were intended to achieve. They informed parents and organised them against collaboration with the National Party's scheme. Teacher organisations made detailed analyses of the racist education systems and built resistance within their communities and on a national scale. International organisations, through church and charitable connections, were also aroused to declare their opposition.
The Nationalist Government responded to the swelling chorus of resistance in the late '50s and '60s by invoking various draconian measures. The Suppression of Communism Act, the General Laws Amendment Act, the 90-day and 180-day detentions and the declaration of States of Emergency provided cover for government agents of various descriptions to infiltrate organisations and to betray and denounce courageous resistance fighters at all levels. Militant teachers were summarily dismissed, banned from political activity, subjected to house arrest, tortured and imprisoned for their opposition. Organisations with political philosophies opposed to apartheid and to the capitalist paymasters of the nationalist regime were outlawed and their members subjected to all manner of harassment and restrictions. As the BAD and BED juggernaut steamrollered their iniquitous schemes across the country in the 1970s and 1980s, the resistance of parents, teachers and students increased in scope and intensity.
But let it not be forgotten that there were also the armies of collaborators who sought to make hay under the protection of the government's mailed fist. The teacher-collaborators swarmed onto the gravy train of the government payrolls. They served on committees to devise better schemes for debasing the education of "Bantu", "Coloured" and "Indian" pupils and students in schools and colleges; they informed on their militant colleagues; they lorded it over the ghettos and locations, in partnership with the location merchants financed by the Development Corporations of the BAD, CAD and IAD; they purified their organisations so as to be recognised and elevated as the mouthpieces of the "people".
So who are the "WE" who "did not know of" the "messy" schools in our deeply discriminatory school system? The "messy schools" environment is one face of apartheid schooling, the dark, grim face. In this environment physical development was stunted and mental and intellectual growth undermined and impeded. The drop-out rate among pupils who through government legislation were forced to attend these schools was exceedingly high. The majority of those who through sacrifice and sheer hard work reached Senior Certificate level merely increased the high failure rate in the end-of-year matriculation examinations.
But there was the other face of apartheid schooling, the rosy, smiling face. In this environment physical development and mental and intellectual growth thrived and there were high levels of achievement in a variety of sports codes. The parents of the pupils and the education authorities ensured the best facilities for teaching and learning since the children were to be the future leaders in politics and business. The schools composing this picture certainly did (and do) not form part of the "messy" schools environment. And the majority of these parents, cocooned in chosen ignorance of what was happening - or not happening - in the schools for the rest of the nation's children, are among those who can now claim "We did not know"! These two faces still exist. And the financial constraints the new government has placed on spending on education will ensure that they continue to exist for very many years.
Three years ago every election manifesto promised a vision of a better life for all. The hopes of millions of the poor exploited and forgotten were articulated in terms of jobs, houses, health and quality of life. And those who now hold the reins of power promised massive job creation, increased productivity, improved living standards, economic growth, the narrowing of the gap between rich and poor. In more sophisticated terms, these goals have been expressed in elaborate programmes: the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and, more recently, the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, as well as the overarching Black Empowerment which it is claimed will open new vistas of power and prosperity so long denied the majority.
Every single indicator of change and upward movement in the process of empowerment and improvement inevitably assumed or made explicit the centrality of education and training. Nothing could be achieved on the road to the better life for all without education. More and better education. Life-long education. All those who had been excluded, overlooked, left behind, all who had been forced to leave before completing their schooling, all who had been caught up in the struggle euphoria of liberation before education, all the millions who contributed the cheap labour resource of the South African economy - all would be given the opportunity to have their training and experience formally recognised and to resume or reenter some form of education and training. There were to be new initiatives in pre-school education, compulsory primary schooling for all. Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET), support for NGOs which focused on some of the areas of schooling neglected or forgotten by the State. The net was to be cast wide and was to be finely meshed so as to exclude none. Several industry and business enterprises and trade unions put more resources into training and education programmes, many gave financial support to students and to tertiary institutions, which would feed back training and expertise.
In the international economic order South Africa can remain competitive only if it is able to keep up with educational levels especially in Science and Mathematics in order to produce the scientists, engineers and technologists the economy so desperately needs to ensure its required level of growth. How does the schooling system on which this economic progress and prosperity are to be built measure up to the demands and visions?
The HSRC has commented on some of the conditions which caused South Africa to be at the bottom of the list of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tables: the poor school and home environment of most pupils, the quality of teachers and of teaching, class size, the poor schooling background of most parents. On the supply side, the report enumerates some of the typical features of the poorly resourced schooling system of most children: poor buildings, few if any libraries, laboratories and other basic facilities, overcrowding, accommodation and equipment shortages, poor provision of stationery and textbooks, lack of teacher support and proper school leadership and administration. Nothing new or startling. What many suspected.
The critical revelations of the School Register of Needs Survey give cause for desperate concern about the state of schooling in most of the country's 27 864 schools. Large numbers, many thousands, have no water, or flush toilets, or electricity, or textbooks; more than a million pupils have no desks, 100 000 teachers no chairs and there is at present a shortage of more than 80 000 teachers and 57 499 classrooms. All this confirms and strengthens the conviction that the schooling system continues to be in a state of deep crisis. More resources of every kind are desperately required to make the present system, with its heavy burden of apartheid deprivation, more functional.
These resources must be made available as a crisis management exercise in order to alleviate some of the worst of the appalling conditions which shocked even the generally impervious Minister of Education. But the crisis is infinitely wider. The legacy of segregated and apartheid schooling which has left the schools of the rural and urban poor severely under-resourced runs very deep and cannot be overhauled with crisis management. Fundamental restructuring of the whole system will need much higher levels of funding to improve what is in existence so as to absorb all those who should be in school, to explore and initiate new means of reaching the many millions of young people and adults who for any reason were unable to complete their schooling, and to equip them to give more meaning to their lives and to contribute to the general welfare.
Employers and investors talk of greater productivity, more skills training, more competitiveness in world markets, a better educated workforce. Everything points in the direction of the need for more and better schooling. Instead the budget for education is cut, thousands of teachers have been retrenched and it is planned to eliminate thousands more before the end of 1999, teacher-training facilities have been severely curtailed and further cuts are planned, there is no money for maintaining schools and none for expanding the school system. With education in crisis and in need of repairs, maintenance and expansion in the areas of basic essentials like buildings, furniture, equipment and especially teachers, the Minister of Education stubbornly repeats his determination to begin the implementation next year of the vague and controversial Curriculum 2005. This must be seen as an elaborate, expensive diversion with no possibility of success in the "messy schools" environment. It will only aggravate the crisis.
[THE EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL VOL.67 #6, OFFICIAL ORGAN
OF THE TEACHERS' LEAGUE OF SOUTH AFRICA, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1997]
EDITOR: Mrs. HN Kies, 15 Upper Bloem Street, Cape Town, 8001
Go to MTA's HomePage - Do not pass BEGIN, Do not collect R200.