Rather tackle poor state of education

IS one to understand that the fracas at Astra Primary School was about the payment of (voluntary) fees before progress reports would be issued? What, as The Herald pertinently queries, is the brouhaha all about (“Martin in school report scuffle”, December 20)?

Does principal Desmond Lewis need to be defended? It seems not!

It appears that he has done an excellent job in defending his rights as teacher and as principal. It also appears that he has the support of the parents.

While as a political figure Christian Martin has the right to enter schools, one would like to know if he had obtained the written permission of the Education Department head of department to do so? Did he then also comply with all the provisions of the act and seek the principal’s permission to visit the school?

Why was Joy Grobbelaar, acting district director, present at Astra Primary on that day? Was she, with Martin, culpable in exacerbating the potentially explosive situation?

After all this was a scheduled meeting of a principal with his parents. The plot sickens: one cannot escape the sense that Lewis is being victimised because of the stance he took during the northern areas schools closures and street demonstrations during the last two or more years.

Has it become personal? Lewis should obtain a written explanation from the education authorities of Grobbelaar’s involvement.

The Astra Primary School community have structured a legally constituted agreement to raise funds voluntarily for the school to employ additional teachers to cater for their needs. This is being done by parents and teachers in an attempt to provide quality education for their children.

Why did they have to do that? Let’s get to the crux of the matter.

We have a system of quality education for a minority (the haves) and a debased, ghettoised education for the majority in the schools of the poor (the have-nots). Many township schools are housed in dilapidated temporary structures, most with little or no sports facilities, and very few with libraries and laboratories. We even have classes being conducted under trees, obviously without electricity, potable water and sanitation.

No-fee schooling is as distinct from free schooling as night is from day. No-fee schooling has deliberately been created to hoodwink the oppressed into believing that parents do not pay for the schooling of their children. Why lie to parents?

Their taxes are being used to fund education, and for that matter the fat salaries of district directors and MPLs. The very poor, the unemployed and those no longer seeking work are not absolved from paying as VAT is imposed on all services and food, with a few exceptions.

“Secondary” or “hidden” taxes are imposed on parents, represented by the school governing bodies, as they have to take responsibility for the funding of their children’s education. The children of those parents who are not able to pay are thus subjected to a demeaning education system as evidenced in the township schools.

Instead of raising the issue of school fees and withholding of reports Martin’s time would have been better spent if he had raised the question of free quality education. The budget cuts and the increasing numbers of retrenchments of teachers are all indications of the implementation by the ANC government of policies created mainly by the World Bank and IMF.

I have often asked why the issue of free higher education has been raised by students before it was raised in the schools?

A demand resonating in all the political programmes of all liberation organisations was free quality basic education. Free and compulsory education has now all but been forgotten, dead before it was born.

The principal, staff and the caring parents of Astra Primary have been doing their best to step into the breach created by the gross neglect of the state. It is clear: the education authorities are directly responsible for the upheaval at Astra Primary and the destabilising of the schools of the poor.

Hamilton Petersen, Uitenhage