The government is still funding an elite school set up by Lucas Mangope, writes Paul Stober
THE government is spending R12-million a year to subsidise one of Lucas Mangope’s pet projects: a palatial school in Mafikeng that cost an estimated R100-million to build and caters to only 500 pupils, mostly foreign students studying a British curriculum.
These students are subsidised at a rate of R24 000 per pupil, compared to R1 001 for pupils at other schools in an area where 21 percent of youths of school-going age are not in classrooms.
Within a few kilometres of the school’s palatial building on vast grounds between Mafikeng and Mmabatho are a number of other state schools, all dilapidated, overcrowded and desperately short of teachers and resources.
Educationists in the North-West province are campaigning to get the government to redirect some of the money being spent on the school to more needy institutions. Last Saturday, the regional launch meeting of the South African Democratic Teachers Union called for the provincial government to urgently review government support for the school.
The North-West cabinet is expected to discuss the controversy soon. Unmarked pamphlets, attacking the school as a waste of taxpayers’ money, are circulating in Mafikeng.
The International School of Bophuthatswana, which opened its doors in 1990, was set up by ex-president Lucas Mangope as an attempt to win international recognition. This was despite a report by the Human Sciences Research Council which said the school, built at an estimated cost of R100-million, was not necessary.
Described as a “little England on the veld”, the school, renamed the International School of South Africa after the fall of the Mangope government, is modelled on British public schools, runs the examinations of the Cambridge Examining Board and is staffed mostly by expatriates.
In a government document, dated July 1994, which looks at how the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) will affect the North-West education department, it was pointed out that the school received R12 322 356 from the government a year — or R24 644 for each of its 500 pupils. This figure excludes construction and maintenance costs.
The document also notes that, except for those on bursaries, each day scholar pays R13 002 and each border pays R21 900, in annual fees. This means that the per capita expenditure for each child in the school is roughly between R37 646 and R46 544.
The headmaster of the school, Wilf Stout, said the school expected the provincial subsidy to dry up at the end of the current financial year. “The government is honouring its contractual basis, but at the end of the year the school will be completely independent,” he said.
What has really angered residents of the North-West is that the majority of pupils and teachers at the school are foreigners.
The document notes: “The majority of pupils at the International School are foreigners and are being educated on a British curriculum and will end up in foreign universities. There is absolutely no benefit for the province in this kind of wasteful spending.”
Over 50 percent of the school’s students and 62 percent of the staff are from outside South Africa.
Allegedly exorbitant salaries and perks for staff have also caused anger among teachers at government schools in the area.
In April this year, the two joint administrators appointed by the Transitional Executive Council to run Bophuthatswana after the fall of Mangope agreed to conduct an investigation into the school. Although all the details of the investigation have not been released, it is known that as a result of its findings the joint administrators prepared the papers to set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the school.
But at this point the new provincial cabinet and a MEC for education and culture were sworn into power. The new MEC for education, Mmamokoena Gaoretelelwe, then stopped the proceedings, and indicated she would appoint a new commission to investigate the school — effectively putting the government review of the school back to where it was 12 months ago.
Government sources indicated that one of the reasons the MEC was not acting decisively on the school, was the confusion around who exactly owns it. The investigation by the joint administrators indicated that ownership of the land and buildings of the school had been vested in its board of govenors by the Mangope government. The board was appointed by Mangope and his sister-in-law, Rosemary Mangope, continues to serves on it.
Stout said ownerhip of the school was vested in the board of govenors. The new government, which continues to subsidise the school, has no representatives on the board.
Two weeks ago, a government sponsored conference on education in the province called on the MEC to “urgently” establish the “legal status, the ownership of the land and buildings and the cost of developing and running the school”.
Documents and letters submitted to the provincial government and in the posession of the WM&G also allege:
* The school is inefficiently administered.
* The administration is racist
* Some members of staff are not adequately qualified or sufficiently experienced for the positions they hold.
Stout vociferously denied all the allegations, describing them as “libellous”. He expressed full confidence in his staff and the non-racial character of the school.
Coincidentally, a public relations firm this week circulated information about the school for a campaign to raise bursary money from the business community. It boasted that the school, which “in some respects … has the air of a British institution”, provides education for about 100 bursary students from the province, “many drawn from disadvantaged communities”.