Threats to interfere in schooling and curriculum disturbing
IT WAS probably more in sorrow and disappointment than in anger that the Governing Body Foundation noted the recent verbal attacks on Model C schools by presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and KZN MEC for Education, Mthandeni Dlungwana.
They have complained these schools are teaching learners that “the ANC is corrupt and useless”, and offering “a distorted version of history”.
If there was any truth in the accusations, why did Dlamini Zuma – herself a parent who chose to place her daughters at one of these schools and who was a powerful minister in the ANC government at the time – not do anything about it when she had a child being exposed to such supposed abuses?
And what are the grounds and evidence on which these sudden accusations are based?
Of course, Dlamini Zuma is not the only political or educational luminary to choose a Model C school to educate her offspring. Many – politicians, top educational officials and other societal leaders – have done so, and continue to do so. And their children, like numberless other children of ordinary South Africans, have benefited from the education on offer in these schools.
Many have emerged as top-of-thepile role-players, whether in leadership positions, politics, economics, business or sport, and both at and after school, while the schools themselves not only lead the education pack locally, but are competitive players in many arenas on the world stage.
The Model Cs have for the past quarter century been critical social and educational laboratories for the rainbow nation, one of the few places in our society where youngsters from a variety of racial, cultural, social, religious, economic, political and other backgrounds, have been able to meet, work, play, debate and live side-by-side, learning to understand one another and from each other, competing on relatively level playing fields, and making lifelong friends across the barriers of society.
It is a sad day indeed when politicking so cheapens itself that it chooses these leading schools as a battlefield on which matters that have little to do with education are to be fought.
But perhaps even more disturbing than the recent attacks themselves, are the implicit threats from officialdom to interfere with teaching and the curriculum and to undermine the societal progress so evident in these schools.
There is no small irony in the decision by the KZN Education MEC to “prescribe” a film about struggle hero Solomon Mahlangu for schools in his province, in an effort to correct the teaching ills he has reportedly espied.
Last year, in a number of workshops with member schools, the foundation highlighted the actions of the selfsame Mahlangu, a youngster from the 1970s Mamelodi township near Pretoria who, as a teenager post the Soweto uprising, joined Umkhonto weSizwe, got embroiled in the movement of arms during which two civilians were killed, and for which actions Mahlangu was subsequently tried, found guilty and executed. The difference is that we took a lead from the work of UFS rector Jonathan Jansen and compared his actions with those of 1890s Afrikaner teenager JP van der Merwe, who, in the light of the scorched earth policy, farm burnings and concentration camp atrocities of his time, joined the Boer commandos, fought on their side, and was later captured, tried and executed.
Our intent was to show the extent to which our history is mired in mirror images of so many South African stories, and we suggested it was incumbent on schools to ensure that both were recognised in our history teaching – in stark contrast to the current proposals which appear to seek the propagation of only one side of the historical coin.
Is it too much to ask that our political and educational leaders display some real understanding, insight and leadership in these difficult times?