A FAILED EDUCATION SYSTEM
IN South Africa, like in many countries which had to fight colonialism, the indigenous people are still battling for control of their education. Since 1994, the ANC-led government has made great efforts to provide education to its people.
It immediately introduced compulsory education for learners (I still prefer the term students ) from grade 1 to grade 9 or up to age 15. Not many African countries have taken this important decision. This has greatly increased the literacy rate in South Africa. It was a very bold move on the part of the ANC-led government.
Unfortunately, instead of looking at the state of education in SA in 1994, the government opted for an overseas-based educational system, Outcomes Based Education (OBE). The government overlooked the struggle of People’s Education espoused by Struggle activists at the time, such as Neville Alexander, Willie Leith and Fazlin Bell and many others.
SA inherited OBE from the guru of OBE William Spady in the US and other countries such as Australia, Britain and New Zealand. Jonathan Jansen critiqued in 1998 the OBE system and said it would fail. He was right – it failed miserably. Our system has not recovered from this major setback. OBE was embedded in the educational philosophy of our teachers.
Today, we still see teachers expecting students to do a plethora of assignments instead of concentrating on good, solid teaching. Covid-19 has encouraged teachers to continue on this route, giving students a multitude of tasks.
In 1996, the SA government was under pressure from the financial agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to spend less on education. Instead of increasing the number of teachers in former “homelands-bantustans” and the Department of Education and Training (control of “blacks” in urban areas), it set down a ratio of 40 students to one teacher. A ratio that still holds today.
At the time, many teachers at these schools were extremely happy with this ratio. Why? Instead of having 60-80 students in their classes, they now had 40 students in each class. Understandably, they were happy.
However, if we look at the situation today, these very teachers are calling for class sizes to be reduced to 30 students per class. They are quite right to do so. Model C schools and private schools have survived because of the school fees they charge their students to appoint more teachers.
The National Department of Basic Education (NDBE) has now said it would appoint 287 000 temporary teacher assistants. NDBE will be paying these teacher assistants a meagre R3 700 per month!
I would be disappointed if the teaching fraternity in schools of the poor were satisfied with this temporary arrangement. If I was still a principal, I would tell the education department our schools require more permanent teachers in our schools.
I would demand through the teacher unions, the staff at the school and the staffs at neighbouring schools, through principal associations, Representative Council of Learners, School Governing Bodies and community organisations that more teachers be appointed by NDBE in schools based on the ratio 30 students to 1 teacher.
The NDBE is thinking that they can now, like Pontus Pilate, wash their hands clean and say we are helping the schools tremendously with these unqualified teacher assistants. Their job description is to assist the teachers with administrative duties in the classroom. NDBE is expecting these teacher assistants to be trained by the teachers. Surely this is an onerous task for teachers. I suppose these teacher assistants will also be asked to teach. What are we unleashing on our students?
Such short sightedness