UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY AND ROLE OF POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN OUR SCHOOLS

I WAS recently invited to conduct a workshop on student leadership at a high school in Cape Town. I was surprised when I arrived at the school hall. Forty learners (I prefer to call them students) were present with all the necessary protocols in place concerning precautions taken around Covid- 19. I was told that the students present belonged to the Student Representative Council (SRC).

Most schools in South Africa use the political neutral term introduced by the Government in 1996, Representative Council of Learners (LCL ). I was surprised to hear from the learner leadership the history behind the SRC.

I was told by the school’s SRC that it was started in 1980 by a student who was part of the Western Cape student leadership.

Her name is engraved in gold on the honour school board in the school’s main corridor. It is told that she demanded that the principal allow her to form a SRC to hear the political voices of the students.

Since 1980, the school has retained the name of SRC, but of course, officially, the school is forced by law to call it an RCL. Immediately a quote I often use – Memory is the weapon – by the South African poet and writer Don Mattera came to mind.

One is often told by many adults that students are not interested in understanding their history and here I was being told the history of learner leadership. My thoughts went out to all the SRCs established around South Africa in oppressed communities from 1976-1993 and the tremendous role they played in freeing South Africa from the shackles of apartheid.

The trauma that these students suffered at the hands of the dreaded security police of the apartheid state. I was reminded of the sheer brutality of the police and the arms of the state including the then apartheid education authorities.

As I listened to the learners relate their history about their SRC, I was reminded of when I just became a principal in 1984. One day in 1985, learners went to a mass rally ( for those readers not aware of the term – it was a political meeting of students fighting apartheid ) at a school. The rally was attended by learners from different schools.

I allowed all learners to go, but not the Grade 8 students. While sitting in my office, a Grade 8 boy knocked on the office door and said to me: " Sir I just want to tell you, the Struggle knows no age." This young man taught me the lesson of my life and to this day I remember it.

I was being given a political lesson by these young students. It meant that the baton of political leadership was being handed over from generation to generation and the proud history and the role they played in freeing South Africa was being told to the next generation.

If this was happening at all schools in South Africa, I would be extremely happy, but sadly, I must say from my experience it is lacking in most schools. In private schools and model C schools it is entirely lacking. To my mind, it is a history that should be told to all learners in South Africa to remind them and future learners about the tremendous sacrifice students made in bringing freedom to South Africa.

On Tuesday, March 11, 2021, I attended a mass rally (to use a 1985 term) at the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED ) new offices of the 2 Lower Loop Street in Cape Town. Students, teachers and parents from different schools attended. The school communities wanted to hand over a petition demanding that the current Head of Education drop all charges against Mr Wesley Neumann, the principal of Heathfield High.

WCED alleges that Mr Neumann did not allow students to come to school due to the Covid- 19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the Head of Education Mr Brent Walters did not come out to receive the petition and it was handed to another official of WCED.

I want to pay tribute to our young learners who made great sacrifices in the 1980s and 1990s and are still doing so today. Viva the learners.