Last night I went to a talk by Zackie Achmadt about access to education in the New South Africa. It was very good, I left really inspired! The work they are doing is so great. He has moved away from TAC, handing it over to the next generation of leaders. He is now involved in an organisation called Equal Education, which seems to be an activist organisation that fights for education in a similar way that TAC fought for HIV/AIDS related issues.
One of the Equal Education projects is called "1 school 1 library 1 librarian" - they are campaigning for school libraries. IOL reports that "There are functional libraries at only four of Khayelitsha's 53 public schools serving 57 000 pupils" (here).
I have mixed feelings about the need for school libraries myself. I don't think they are a bad thing, I just think that community libraries are perhaps a better use of resources. I suppose there is something to be said on either side. Myself, I never really used the school library. But I went to our local suburb library probably at least once a week for much of my childhood.
I remember graduating from having a children's library card to having an adult's library card. Children's cards only let you take books from the children's section, but adult cards cold take out any books. It felt like quite a big transition in my life!
I think the benefit of community libraries is that they can serve a wider group of people, so they can be bigger, they can have more specialised library staff, they can run fun reading events for kids, they can have a wider range of reading material, etc. I think putting specialised libraries in schools just limits access of those books to kids at one particular school, and duplicates the effort of running a library.
That said though, I grew up in a reading family with a librarian mother. So using the library has been the norm since as far back as I can remember. Perhaps for kids who grow up in families that don't use libraries, perhaps having a school library that they are encouraged to use will help form the habit of reading. Where maybe they would not have been exposed to larger community libraries.
But still, I favour community libraries. If they are running well, if they advertise. If they have good staff. They can even run projects in conjuction with local schools.
What do other people think?
What I really REALLY am in favour of though, is mobile libraries! Our local library was being rebuilt at one stage, so every Wednesday the mobile library used to come park in the parking lot of the shops a few block away from us. So on Wednesday afternoons we used to go get books from the bibliobus!
It was really just a minibus, with the walls lines with shelves of books. The books would rotate from a central library, so their used to be a different selection every week.
I think mobile libraries are brilliant because they give *everyone* access to books - they can rotate through different areas of a city, and also go to small towns and rural areas.
I googled to look for mobile libraries running in SA at the moment and I found some projects:
* The Mobile Library Education Project in Khayalitsha.
* A mobile library project in the Free State (followup info here).
* Mobile libraries in Limpopo.
* Donkey drawn mobile libraries?
* Even the ANC commends the use of mobile libraries!
* And I know I shouldn't laugh, but this is kindof funny: Please help us find our stolen mobile libraries.
* Finally, some general info on SA libraries.
The Bua article above says that "About 21 mobile libraries are currently visiting 380 schools in four provinces, Free State, Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal on a daily basis."
21 doesn't sound like a lot! Better than nothing though, I suppose. Perhaps the mobile libraries need a "5 schools 1 mobile library 1 librarian" project!
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Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Monday, September 07, 2009
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Teachers' politics
I came across a story on iol today, where Naledi Pandor warned political parties not to campaign in schools (Article here). It is a good thing, I think, that she made a statement about this.
It reminded me of a story I read in Business Day in January. Apparently teachers in Gauteng had been holding political meetings during school hours. Ronald Nyathi, the chairman of the Gauteng branch of SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union), defended the teachers rights to do this, because apparently "the Labour Relations Act allowed the union to call meetings during working hours, which it had “always” done and would continue to do." and "Teaching hours lost would be made up in the early mornings or in the afternoons"
Nyathi also commented that the schooling in his area would “not be stable” until Jacob Zuma became president (Article here).
Which was all pretty bit dubious. Teachers bunking school to attend political meetings?
The DA, IFP and ANC all condemned Nyali's statements.
Last year Nyathi also told parents from a school in Alexandra to keep their kids away from school the next day: “not a single pupil should be at school tomorrow because they will be exposed to extreme violence.” This was after the provincial education department suspended a whole lot of teachers at that school for not teaching.
Unions are important to protect their members from exploitation, of course. But they shouldn't be protecting people who are not doing their jobs. And they certainly shouldn't be doing it violently. Particularly if children are involved.
What a bad precedent to set to kids!
I found another interesting article from last year, a bit of an overview of political battles being played out in schools:
Hmmmm... so I do think Naledi Pandor's warning was well placed. This is something to keep an eye on as elections approach!
It reminded me of a story I read in Business Day in January. Apparently teachers in Gauteng had been holding political meetings during school hours. Ronald Nyathi, the chairman of the Gauteng branch of SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union), defended the teachers rights to do this, because apparently "the Labour Relations Act allowed the union to call meetings during working hours, which it had “always” done and would continue to do." and "Teaching hours lost would be made up in the early mornings or in the afternoons"
Nyathi also commented that the schooling in his area would “not be stable” until Jacob Zuma became president (Article here).
Which was all pretty bit dubious. Teachers bunking school to attend political meetings?
The DA, IFP and ANC all condemned Nyali's statements.
Last year Nyathi also told parents from a school in Alexandra to keep their kids away from school the next day: “not a single pupil should be at school tomorrow because they will be exposed to extreme violence.” This was after the provincial education department suspended a whole lot of teachers at that school for not teaching.
Unions are important to protect their members from exploitation, of course. But they shouldn't be protecting people who are not doing their jobs. And they certainly shouldn't be doing it violently. Particularly if children are involved.
What a bad precedent to set to kids!
I found another interesting article from last year, a bit of an overview of political battles being played out in schools:
... organisations wanting to flex their political muscles in schools are doing so to the detriment of children...
... a trend by the South African Democratic Teacher Union (SADTU), in particular, to use threats in schools to get what they want. Earlier in 2009 there were reports that, after teachers were reprimanded in Alexandra for not teaching children, Sadtu threatened that every child who came to school would be met with violence.
A memo came to light from Sadtu, which wanted to put a stop to curriculum training by the Gauteng Department of Education, because such training takes place on Saturdays and in the afternoons on weekdays. Sadtu said teachers must be paid overtime for the courses.
"Anything that extends beyond the working hours and conditions of service of our members will be a declaration of hostilities," the letter read.
"We are in a state of perpetual readiness as Sadtu to disrupt these meetings and declare war on anyone who is arrogant to disregard this call." Article here.
Hmmmm... so I do think Naledi Pandor's warning was well placed. This is something to keep an eye on as elections approach!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Moremogolo & Laura on free education
This post is a response to Moremogolo's comments on my post "The ANC Election Manifesto." His comments in green, my responses in black. If you have anything you would like to add, I invite you to comment below.
I will however like to take issue with your view that you are not for things like free education and would maybe support exemption for poor parents to not pay for their kids' education. I would like to believe that this is exactly what the ANC is pushing for but the unfortunate thing is that most of the people in the townships and rural areas cannot afford to pay school fees, hence the exemption of most schools from paying fees.
Maybe we should also define what we mean by free education. I know a lot of white students who received free education through bursaries and scholarships from companies and corporations who got rich as a result of cheap labour in SA. Mind you, rather than paying taxes most of these companies would rather make their contribution through bursaries and scholarships, which is laudable.
A few Black professionals are where they are as a result of being recipients of these bursaries. But there is a lot of bright Black students who were excluded from university as a result of failure to pay for their fees, students whose parents could never afford to pay for their fees even if they wanted to. There are also countless pupils in primary and high school who have been excluded from school because their parents could not afford to pay.
Okay, let me start my response here...
At the moment the government requires children up to the age of 15 (I think) to attend school. This means that up to the age of 15 every child *must* be in school, whether their parents can afford it or not. So to facilitate this, school are required to offer school fee exemptions to parents who cannot afford school fees. And their are regulations for doing this (I found a nice explanation here by googling for school fee exemptions). So if your family earns less that ten times the school fees, you pay nothing. If you earn between ten and thirty times then... etc. etc.
Exactly how these exemptions work is up to the governing body of the school, as I understand it. It is also up to the governing body to decide what the school fees should be to start with.
So there should be no student under the age of 15 who is excluded from school because their parents can't pay.
You have been speaking about school education as well as tertiary education, but in this response let me just speak about school education. I'll reply to your points on tertiary education in another post.
And just one more thing before I continue - there is no such thing as free education. Someone has to pay for buildings and salaries and books and electricity and water and so forth. When you say you want free education you mean you want the government to pay for our education. And the government gets its money from citizens (rich and poor - everyone pays VAT). So effectively what you are saying it that every citizen of the country should be forced to pay to educate all of the youth of our country.
Most of the white kids and a few black ones who went to these exclusive private schools because their parents could afford received multiple bursaries and scholarships to study at university. Whereas if you are poor and black and have been fed inferior education and you manage to escape the trap, chances of you getting those scholarship and bursaries are next to nothing. There are countless number of such students who could not go into tertiary education because they could not afford to pay a registration fee.
Now of we are really serious about doing away with this dependency syndrome and getting a productive nation we have to ensure that our nation gets educated. Not this situation where parents know that if their kids go to public schools in the township they are doomed for failure because education there is free and they ought to be grateful for whatever handouts they get. Free should never be equated to useless.
We should not have any useless school. I completely agree. Why are schools useless? Definitely historical disadvantage is a problem. Some schools have inferior buildings. Inferior equipment. Less well educated teachers. These are problems.
But are they the main thing that makes a school useless?
I put it to you that no, that is not what makes schools useless. What makes schools useless is:
a) Bad leadership
b) Bad administration
c) Useless teachers
Not uneducated teachers, useless teachers. Teachers who miss school a couple of days a week, just for just. Teachers who just couldn't be bothered. The stories I hear about schools in my area blow my mind. Teachers who are late marking exam scripts from the previous term's exams, so they just bunk school for a few days to do the marking.
And bad administration - missing textbooks, not ordering textbooks in time, mismanagement of funds. Buildings falling into disrepair. I saw pictures the other day of a school close to me where the boy's toilets have been out of order and locked FOR TWO YEARS.
And kids coming and going all hours of the school day. Kids lounging around on the playground all hours of the school day. Terrible discipline.
Are these problems that will be fixed by making education free? No. Are these problems that will be fixed by government giving more money to these schools? No. These are social problems, they cannot be solved simply by government throwing money at the problem.
You just have to look at the situation in Zimbabwe to see what education can do. The economy of that country is in ruin but the Zimbabweans are surviving against all odds. This is because they are an educated lot and they are all over the world selling their skills and keeping their families alive at home. Mugabe ensured that each child receives quality and free education.
Cuba is one of the poorest nations in the world but it can export its skills for free all over the world and it has literacy skills unmatched in the world. This is because they have ensured that their citizens recieves free quality education.
Through quality and accessible education we can get our country to dream. What we are being offered now is nowhere near that....
I completely agree that quality education is *really* important. But making it free won't make it quality. In fact, I read an article last year where the principal of one of these new no-fee schools was saying that it was a disaster for them, because the money they get from government is barely enough to scrape by, and now they are not allowed to supplement their money from the government with school fees.
No. There is already an accommodation for parents who can't afford school fees - let them apply for exemptions. But most people can afford to pay something, even if it is a small amount. So let people pay what they can to give their children opportunities in life.
The way schools are meant to be run is that they have quite a lot of freedom to be organised by school governing bodies, who represent the parents. Because ultimately it is the parent who is responsible for a child, and the childs education. Not the government. (The government can step in to help, by subsidising schooling and requiring schools to offer exemptions, but ultimately parents have the responsibility for their children.)
The problem is, in the words of Trevour Manuel - Governing bodies only work in the leafy suburbs. Where there is a long standing culture of parents holding bake sales and sitting on school committees and overseeing the schools finances.
So schools in disadvantaged areas are... disadvanteged... by this. But again, it is not a problem that will be solved by making education free.
You said in your post here, "And free education here does not mean the kind of education that our students receive in the townships." So it seems to me that he emphasis of your request is not actually on free education, but quality education. And you also say, "And schools should be well resourced and if parents want to contribute to the resourcefulness of the school they should be allowed to do so." Isn't this just a description of school fees? School governing bodies, representing the parents, get together and decide on an amount of money they will pay towards their children's schooling? Then that amount of money becomes binding on all of the parents, and they all pay (if they are not exempt). And of course this means that in more opulent areas, at schools that more opulent kids attend, fees will be higher...
... and they will receiver better education.
Probably. But is their better education primarily because fees are higher? Well, yes and no, I would say. Money does help. It may mean they have a fancy pool and a computer lab and more hands on science equipment. Which is helpful. For sure. It may mean they have better educated teachers, which is helpful, but not critical. It could also mean smaller classes, which is a good thing.
But I expect that the main reason that their education is better is that their teachers are in class every day. Working hard. That kids sit in school for the entire school day. Working hard. They get their textbooks at the beginning of the year. Their school time is structured. Classes are kept in order and difficult kids are disciplined. Kid's aren't coming to school hungry or missing a lot of school. Year after year after year.
And many years of getting these small basic things right adds up to a good education.
Of course, another issue is that they have probably been taught in their home language for their entire school careers - but that is another discussion for another day.
I suppose to summarise:
I definately think we need to up the quality of our schooling. And it is something government need to take part in (especially in provinces like the Easter Cape where the Education Department is in shambles and really making things bad for schools) and it is something that parents and communities need to take part in. Things as simple as insisting your child goes to school every day, and on time. And sits down to do school work after school every day. And kids need to take their education seriously. Even if you are learning in a class with 50 other kids and no electricity, you still make the choice whether to go to class or not. Whether to listen in class or not. Whether to do your homework or not. Whether to take advantage of additional programmes that are run all over the place - extra maths maths lessons, science lessons, dance, sport, clubs.
But I think cries for "free education" are misplaced. It is just not the solution to the problem we face. If we tomorrow made all schooling free it would only make every school equally financially disadvantaged. And the schools that are "socially" disadvantaged will remain socially disadvantaged, the schools that are socially advantaged will remain socially advantaged.
And anyway, parents should have the right to better their children's education by financing it. Sadly in SA not everyone has the means to do that. But that is not a problem with the education system, it is a problem with our society. And lack of finance is not the key issue anyway, as I have said.
BUT
I definately think drastic measures need to be taken to impove our education system.
Making education free just isn't one of them.
I think it is interesting that educaion was one of the major tools the apartheid government used to oppress people. And for the sake of justice I think that education for "previously disadvantaged" communities must be a priority of our nation. Our government too, but also our whole nation.
(Gosh that got long! Apologies for long windedness!!)
I will however like to take issue with your view that you are not for things like free education and would maybe support exemption for poor parents to not pay for their kids' education. I would like to believe that this is exactly what the ANC is pushing for but the unfortunate thing is that most of the people in the townships and rural areas cannot afford to pay school fees, hence the exemption of most schools from paying fees.
Maybe we should also define what we mean by free education. I know a lot of white students who received free education through bursaries and scholarships from companies and corporations who got rich as a result of cheap labour in SA. Mind you, rather than paying taxes most of these companies would rather make their contribution through bursaries and scholarships, which is laudable.
A few Black professionals are where they are as a result of being recipients of these bursaries. But there is a lot of bright Black students who were excluded from university as a result of failure to pay for their fees, students whose parents could never afford to pay for their fees even if they wanted to. There are also countless pupils in primary and high school who have been excluded from school because their parents could not afford to pay.
Okay, let me start my response here...
At the moment the government requires children up to the age of 15 (I think) to attend school. This means that up to the age of 15 every child *must* be in school, whether their parents can afford it or not. So to facilitate this, school are required to offer school fee exemptions to parents who cannot afford school fees. And their are regulations for doing this (I found a nice explanation here by googling for school fee exemptions). So if your family earns less that ten times the school fees, you pay nothing. If you earn between ten and thirty times then... etc. etc.
Exactly how these exemptions work is up to the governing body of the school, as I understand it. It is also up to the governing body to decide what the school fees should be to start with.
So there should be no student under the age of 15 who is excluded from school because their parents can't pay.
You have been speaking about school education as well as tertiary education, but in this response let me just speak about school education. I'll reply to your points on tertiary education in another post.
And just one more thing before I continue - there is no such thing as free education. Someone has to pay for buildings and salaries and books and electricity and water and so forth. When you say you want free education you mean you want the government to pay for our education. And the government gets its money from citizens (rich and poor - everyone pays VAT). So effectively what you are saying it that every citizen of the country should be forced to pay to educate all of the youth of our country.
Most of the white kids and a few black ones who went to these exclusive private schools because their parents could afford received multiple bursaries and scholarships to study at university. Whereas if you are poor and black and have been fed inferior education and you manage to escape the trap, chances of you getting those scholarship and bursaries are next to nothing. There are countless number of such students who could not go into tertiary education because they could not afford to pay a registration fee.
Now of we are really serious about doing away with this dependency syndrome and getting a productive nation we have to ensure that our nation gets educated. Not this situation where parents know that if their kids go to public schools in the township they are doomed for failure because education there is free and they ought to be grateful for whatever handouts they get. Free should never be equated to useless.
We should not have any useless school. I completely agree. Why are schools useless? Definitely historical disadvantage is a problem. Some schools have inferior buildings. Inferior equipment. Less well educated teachers. These are problems.
But are they the main thing that makes a school useless?
I put it to you that no, that is not what makes schools useless. What makes schools useless is:
a) Bad leadership
b) Bad administration
c) Useless teachers
Not uneducated teachers, useless teachers. Teachers who miss school a couple of days a week, just for just. Teachers who just couldn't be bothered. The stories I hear about schools in my area blow my mind. Teachers who are late marking exam scripts from the previous term's exams, so they just bunk school for a few days to do the marking.
And bad administration - missing textbooks, not ordering textbooks in time, mismanagement of funds. Buildings falling into disrepair. I saw pictures the other day of a school close to me where the boy's toilets have been out of order and locked FOR TWO YEARS.
And kids coming and going all hours of the school day. Kids lounging around on the playground all hours of the school day. Terrible discipline.
Are these problems that will be fixed by making education free? No. Are these problems that will be fixed by government giving more money to these schools? No. These are social problems, they cannot be solved simply by government throwing money at the problem.
You just have to look at the situation in Zimbabwe to see what education can do. The economy of that country is in ruin but the Zimbabweans are surviving against all odds. This is because they are an educated lot and they are all over the world selling their skills and keeping their families alive at home. Mugabe ensured that each child receives quality and free education.
Cuba is one of the poorest nations in the world but it can export its skills for free all over the world and it has literacy skills unmatched in the world. This is because they have ensured that their citizens recieves free quality education.
Through quality and accessible education we can get our country to dream. What we are being offered now is nowhere near that....
I completely agree that quality education is *really* important. But making it free won't make it quality. In fact, I read an article last year where the principal of one of these new no-fee schools was saying that it was a disaster for them, because the money they get from government is barely enough to scrape by, and now they are not allowed to supplement their money from the government with school fees.
No. There is already an accommodation for parents who can't afford school fees - let them apply for exemptions. But most people can afford to pay something, even if it is a small amount. So let people pay what they can to give their children opportunities in life.
The way schools are meant to be run is that they have quite a lot of freedom to be organised by school governing bodies, who represent the parents. Because ultimately it is the parent who is responsible for a child, and the childs education. Not the government. (The government can step in to help, by subsidising schooling and requiring schools to offer exemptions, but ultimately parents have the responsibility for their children.)
The problem is, in the words of Trevour Manuel - Governing bodies only work in the leafy suburbs. Where there is a long standing culture of parents holding bake sales and sitting on school committees and overseeing the schools finances.
So schools in disadvantaged areas are... disadvanteged... by this. But again, it is not a problem that will be solved by making education free.
You said in your post here, "And free education here does not mean the kind of education that our students receive in the townships." So it seems to me that he emphasis of your request is not actually on free education, but quality education. And you also say, "And schools should be well resourced and if parents want to contribute to the resourcefulness of the school they should be allowed to do so." Isn't this just a description of school fees? School governing bodies, representing the parents, get together and decide on an amount of money they will pay towards their children's schooling? Then that amount of money becomes binding on all of the parents, and they all pay (if they are not exempt). And of course this means that in more opulent areas, at schools that more opulent kids attend, fees will be higher...
... and they will receiver better education.
Probably. But is their better education primarily because fees are higher? Well, yes and no, I would say. Money does help. It may mean they have a fancy pool and a computer lab and more hands on science equipment. Which is helpful. For sure. It may mean they have better educated teachers, which is helpful, but not critical. It could also mean smaller classes, which is a good thing.
But I expect that the main reason that their education is better is that their teachers are in class every day. Working hard. That kids sit in school for the entire school day. Working hard. They get their textbooks at the beginning of the year. Their school time is structured. Classes are kept in order and difficult kids are disciplined. Kid's aren't coming to school hungry or missing a lot of school. Year after year after year.
And many years of getting these small basic things right adds up to a good education.
Of course, another issue is that they have probably been taught in their home language for their entire school careers - but that is another discussion for another day.
I suppose to summarise:
I definately think we need to up the quality of our schooling. And it is something government need to take part in (especially in provinces like the Easter Cape where the Education Department is in shambles and really making things bad for schools) and it is something that parents and communities need to take part in. Things as simple as insisting your child goes to school every day, and on time. And sits down to do school work after school every day. And kids need to take their education seriously. Even if you are learning in a class with 50 other kids and no electricity, you still make the choice whether to go to class or not. Whether to listen in class or not. Whether to do your homework or not. Whether to take advantage of additional programmes that are run all over the place - extra maths maths lessons, science lessons, dance, sport, clubs.
But I think cries for "free education" are misplaced. It is just not the solution to the problem we face. If we tomorrow made all schooling free it would only make every school equally financially disadvantaged. And the schools that are "socially" disadvantaged will remain socially disadvantaged, the schools that are socially advantaged will remain socially advantaged.
And anyway, parents should have the right to better their children's education by financing it. Sadly in SA not everyone has the means to do that. But that is not a problem with the education system, it is a problem with our society. And lack of finance is not the key issue anyway, as I have said.
BUT
I definately think drastic measures need to be taken to impove our education system.
Making education free just isn't one of them.
I think it is interesting that educaion was one of the major tools the apartheid government used to oppress people. And for the sake of justice I think that education for "previously disadvantaged" communities must be a priority of our nation. Our government too, but also our whole nation.
(Gosh that got long! Apologies for long windedness!!)
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