Too many pupils for small classrooms, survey finds

Research by nonprofit organisation Equal Education (EE) has found more than 70% of classes in schools in a Gauteng township which they inspected are overcrowded.

The findings from the report were discussed during the launch of their #NoSpaceForUs campaign on Saturday in Ekurhuleni.

The campaign follows years of advocacy by Equal Education to get the minister of education to get all schools to meet a minimum standard of infrastructure.

On 29 November, 2013, the norms and standards for public school infrastructure policy was included in the South African Schools Act by Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga. This policy defines the basic infrastructure that every school must have to function properly.

Between September 2019 and June 2020, EE surveyed nine schools in Etwatwa, Ekurhuleni.

The researchers collected data on 751 classes, measured and inspected 105 classrooms, and interviewed 51 school community members. The report was published on Monday to mark the eighth anniversary of the adoption of the norms and standards policy.

According to the report, a class is overcrowded when its size limits “teachers’ and pupils’ ability to create an effective learning environment”.

Nicola Soekoe, author of the research report, said government data suggested that there was no overcrowding in the nine schools.

On average, teachers have 30 pupils.

But, there’s a discrepancy between the real situation in schools and the government’s data. The data does not take into account that classes are often split up unevenly based on subject choice and language preference, said Soekoe.

“[A total of] 557 of the 751 (74%) classes have more than 40 pupils. The norms and standards state that no classroom should have more than 40 pupils. In reality, classes are bigger than 40 and in the schools we visited, 72 out of 105 classrooms (69%) are too small for the number of pupils in them,” said Soekoe.

Gauteng deputy director-general of education support Vuyani Mpofu was at the launch. He said the department was aware of overcrowding problems.

Mpofu added that budget constraints prevent the department from addressing the problem. –