pupils
Dawn Blalock
RONL BURGER is a businesswoman of the year who can barely turn a profit. Burger is the headmistress of Malvern Primary School, Johannesburg. She is also the owner of a privately run hostel that houses up to 35 of the school’s children.
Wearing her two hats – one as a government servant and the other as the owner of a potentially profitable business – places her in a murky ethical area.
There is no doubt among the children’s parents and the school’s management council that the hostel is providing a much-needed service for children who would otherwise be forced to travel long distances on public transportation or taxis.
The law says any education employee with a second job must declare it to the department and disclose any profits to the tax authorities. But the issue is such a new one that even Gauteng’s MEC for education, Mary Metcalfe, is unclear about the legality and says she would have to look into it, although she praises Burger’s efforts.
“Here’s somebody who’s prepared to go out on a limb to make sure the children are okay,” says Metcalfe. She says Burger has a well-established reputation for nonracial, quality education and “I don’t have any doubt she’s doing it properly”.
But the grey area in which the hostel operates makes some in education circles uncomfortable.
Legal or not, “morally, it doesn’t sound right”, says Don Pasqualli of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union. “It’s like the principal owning the tuck shop at the school.”
On the face of it, Burger, a self-described “blonde Afrikaans lady”, who sports lots of jewellery and perfectly manicured long pink nails, doesn’t appear to be enriching herself. According to her figures, the hostel, operating at full capacity, could bring in about R160 000 a year. Profits would be slim after subtracting the costs of feeding, bathing, and cleaning up after 35 children, plus paying the staff and the bond and repairs on the 100-year-old two- storey house.
Parents are not balking at the fees, which run from R4 000 to R6 000 a year on top of school fees of R750. The hostel is full and has a waiting-list.
The hostel was originally conceived to deal with the dangerous commute faced by children ferried from Soweto. Black children from the townships were treading new territory when the school opened in 1992, and taxis heading into white areas were being harassed. Children wore their “civvies” for the commute, only to change into their uniforms of bright purple blazers and hats when they arrived safely at school. The ritual was repeated in reverse for the homeward trip.
Some taxis would not make the trip back and impromptu slumber parties were arranged at the homes of obliging teachers for children stuck in the city for the night. “All the children who stayed behind told all the other children what a ball they had,” says Burger, and suddenly “missing” your taxi was a popular option. Plans for the hostel were hatched and approved by the school’s council – provided Burger made the purchase.
Everyone agrees that Burger, named Gauteng’s businesswoman of the year last October by the South African Council for Businesswomen for her work in training adults to set up their own businesses in Soweto, used her business acumen to achieve wonders on a shoestring budget with the “shell” of a school she took over.
Classrooms at the former Afrikaans school, which had been serving only about 60 white children, doubled as rubbish heaps. But as Burger set to work, word of mouth about the “purple school” got around and Malvern Primary was inundated with applicants. Today, enrolment is just shy of 900 in a school originally planned for 500. More than 80% of the students come from outside the local area, with some making more than 70km treks.
But the long trek begs a bigger question: “Why should parents want to send children so far? Why not send them just down the block?” asks Johan Potgieter, a law professor at Unisa with an interest in education.
Ask Reuben Nxumalo, a single father, who jumped at the opportunity to get his 11- year-old son Nkosana “out of township life” and into a “quiet, good place to get his life in order”.
His son has a regimented life in the hostel with set study and play times, Bible readings and bedtime at 8pm.
“I miss him so much, but it’s for a good cause,” says Nxumalo, a clerk with the Housing Department who works and lives in Soweto.
Hostels such as Burger’s will be seized on by people like Nxumalo, “ordinary parents who go to extraordinary lengths to get their children educated”, in Potgieter’s words.
“We need to be demanding the same high standards in schools everywhere,” says Metcalfe.
But, as Malvern Primary shows, the stream of children into town will not be staunched until parents feel they can get a quality education in their own neighbourhoods.