Will Youth Day bring with it better schools?
THIS past Saturday marked a month until Youth Day. Unfortunately, like many other holidays commemorating turning points in history, Youth Day has turned into a day for braais and other festivities.
Yet its true legacy is a sombre one. We were keenly aware of that legacy on Saturday when we joined 500 teachers, pupils, recent matriculants, parents and even some grandparents at the Schools Social Audit Summit in Soweto, just a short walk from where Hector Pieterson was shot dead in 1976.
At the summit, we reported to Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi about the results of our social audit of the learning conditions of 200 000 pupils in more than 200 schools in over 20 communities, or 10 percent of the township schools.
Lesufi listened as we told him that our social audit showed that the education system was struggling to provide the children of poor and working-class black families with a quality education.
We put forward five concrete demands for reversing the dynamic.
The deadlines for meeting the demands fall between now and June 16.
Lesufi responded: “I accept all your demands unconditionally.”
We commend the MEC for attending the summit and making this commitment. We intend to hold him to it.
Our social audit was motivated by Lesufi’s promise to spend R150 million to upgrade sanitation at 580 schools serving more than 500 000 students by the end of November last year.
He made the promise in September in response to Equal Education’s (EE) 2 000-member march to his offices in Joburg. Equal Education is a movement of pupils, parents and teachers campaigning for quality and equality in the education system.
To monitor this promise, EE worked with a coalition of churches, civics, community organisations and teachers from across the province including the South African Council of Churches, Gauteng; the Moral Regeneration Movement; the South African National Civic Organisation; the Gauteng Civic Association; the Alexandra Civic Organisation; self-help group Sidinga Uthando; and Bua Funda.
Before visiting schools, coalition members underwent rigorous training in research methods and the social audit.
To ensure the strength of the process, the auditors’ first visit to schools was overseen by an experienced trainer who could correct any mistakes on the spot.
Auditors then split into teams of two or three visits to schools in their community. They typically spent one to three hours at a school talking to staff and students as well as observing the conditions.
Afterwards, an independent team verified the audits by, if necessary, calling schools to confirm data. The intensive effort was required to ensure the audit results reflect the reality of the schooling system that the black child experiences. That reality is dire. For starters, there is a sanitation crisis in the township and rural schools.
About 30 percent of high school pupils go to schools where more than 100 students share a toilet. By comparison, according to the Wits Justice Project, 65 men share a toilet at the unacceptably overcrowded Johannesburg Medium A prison.
One out of every five toilets in Gauteng schools are locked or broken. In 60 percent of primary and secondary township schools where data was available, pupils do not have soap while 40 percent do not have access to toilet paper or sanitary pads. Finally, a quarter of schools have more than 400 pupils for one maintenance staff.
The audit identified other urgent issues that impact on pupils and teachers. About one in three schools have a class with 50 or more pupils. About 80 percent of schools have a shortage of proper desks or chairs.
Schools have almost no provisions for blind pupils and many do not have a toilet big enough for a wheelchair.
There are children with disabilities in every community sitting at home because schools do not cater for them. However, the news was not all bad. We found that almost all schools are connected to a supply of running water and electricity. Still, a connection alone is not enough. Water shortages and load shedding severely affect pupils and threaten the country’s future.
Finally, the social audit indicated that EE’s Gauteng Sanitation Campaign has yielded tangible victories. Many schools reported that Lesufi’s R150m sanitation investment had helped.
At the start of our campaign in August 2013, we found that 50 percent of high schools in Tembisa were over the 100 students-per-working-toilet mark. This audit, which looked at a broader range of high schools, puts the figure at 30 percent.
Though this is far from ideal, it is proof that activism can achieve gains and the government can fix the problem – if it is willing to act.
Now that communities have done their part to report problems, it’s the MEC’s time to act by doing the following by June 16:
First, send contractors to fix urgent issues like broken fences at specific schools that the audit identified.
Second, increase the number of toilets, improve maintenance and the supply of toilet paper, soap and sanitary pads.
Third, release a cost plan for implementing Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, with Gauteng-appropriate standards and timeframes today.
Norms and Standards is binding legislation that sets out deadlines for when each school must provide basic amenities like sanitation, labs, and libraries.
Each province was supposed to submit their plan for meeting the deadlines to the Minister of Basic Education by the end of November. Nearly six months later, not a single province has made its plans available to the public. One wonders why.
Fourth, establish Gauteng-appropriate standards for critical areas like desks, chairs, overcrowding and access to information and communication technologies.
Finally, address the mass exclusion of pupils with disabilities.
This coming Youth Day, pupils throughout the province will be watching to see if MEC Lesufi’s team meets our demands.
If he does so, we will all have reason to celebrate. In that case, come June 16: MEC Lesufi, the braai is on us.
The government can fix the problem – if
it’s willing to act
Adam Bradlow and Tshepo Motsepe are the co-heads of Equal Education Gauteng. Equal Education is a movement of pupils, parents
and teachers campaigning for quality and equality in the South African education system