Post-apartheid education in South Africa: a different class of divide?

Can South African schools be led away from apartheid’s grim legacy? Are policy interventions ridding schools of injustice? Are schoolchildren learning values of democracy and equity? Or are classrooms still places where kids learn about the unjust divisions that exist between different groups of people?

A report from the University of Sussex’s Centre of International Education and the University of Durban-Westville assesses progress towards educational inclusion in nine schools in KwaZulu-Natal. The study focuses on two questions: how do individuals experience and understand inclusion within the school system? And how are top-down educational policies, designed to address diversity and promote inclusion, interpreted and acted upon at the school level?

The report warns that the South African school system is moving from a racial to a class divide. Middle-class children – comfortable with the use of the English language – are likely to share a common world view with parents and teachers. Working-class children face the tension of negotiating their parents’ expectations that schooling will lead to a good job and their teachers’ aspirations for academic success. English second language users are left to fend for themselves and many students react to their teacher’s bias towards English speakers by ignoring their peers who are fluent in the language.

Black parents sending their children outside of their home township schools into perceived “better schools” in former White, Indian and Coloured suburbs, see schooling as middle class and an opportunity for their children to learn and work in an interracial context. For many the main link they have with schools is through fees – which many cannot afford to pay. Fees reinforce the perception of schooling as a financial transaction, not a relationship between community, parents and school. By contrast, white parental involvement in schools is significant. Schools control the level of involvement through the way they respond to the School Governing Body (SGB) and how they include or exclude SGBs in school management.

As more black pupils seek admission into former white schools, Indian parents move their children from former Indian schools and white children move out, so the race, class and cultural background of teachers is increasingly different from that of their pupils. In schools where the racial composition has changed, but the teaching staff has not, teachers strive to preserve the previous ethos of the school.

The study also notes:

• In the absence of well-planned language policies, teachers explain the under-performance of black learners through racial stereotyping, rather than in terms of linguistic ability.
• Schools often operate as if they are independent of nearby communities, which differ in the cultural ethos that the school wishes to promote.
• When schools introduce greater ethnic diversity among staff, newcomers often complain of subtle forms of marginalisation.
• School fees work against inclusion and encourage a two tier system where some schools serve the poor and others serve those who are better-off.

The authors urge policy-makers, teachers and head teachers to:

• make greater efforts to involve working-class parents in school governance issues
• give space for alternative voices to be heard within SGBs
• learn more about the demands of the parent community in relation to the school and its curriculum
• build capacity to teach learners whose first language is not English
• encourage discussion about diversity: simply placing teachers with diverse backgrounds within homogenous cultures is not sufficient
• reassess school fees and their role in creating inequities in educational provision.

Source(s):
‘Inside and outside the school gates: exploring marginalisation in KwaZulu-Natal schools in South Africa’ IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 1 2003, pp 90-95, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK by Michael Samuel and Yusuf Sayed Full document.

id21 Research Highlight: 12 March 2004

Further Information:
Michael Samuel
School of Educational Studies
University of Durban-Westville
Pvt Bag X 54001
Durban 4000
South Africa

Tel: +27 (0)12 312 5667
Fax: +27 (0)12 324 4484
Contact the contributor: msamuel@pixie.udw.ac.za

Contact the contributor: Samuel.M@doe.gov.za

School of Educational Studies, University of Durban-Westville, South Africa

Yusuf Sayed
Department for International Development
1 Palace Street
London
SW1E 5HE
UK

Tel: +44 (0)207 023 0190
Fax: +44 (0)207 023 0287
Contact the contributor: Y-sayed@dfid.gov.uk

Department for International Development, UK

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'Pushing the "problems" underground? Left behind learners in South Africa'

'Testing times for teachers: educational assessment in South Africa'

'War-zones forever? Tackling violence in South Africa’s schools'

'Class control: The school governance challenge in South Africa'

'Conspiracy of silence? Stamping out abuse in African schools' Insights Gender Violence Special issue

'Staying poor in South Africa'