Mukoni T Ratshitanga
During December 1993, I was one of a dozen students at Liivha School in the Northern Province town of Thohoyandou who built a classroom with materials donated by local businessman Omar Ahmed.
There was excitement when the idea of building the classroom was first mooted and our enthusiasm didn’t wane as we worked in the scorching sun.
Some of the elders initially yelled at us, saying we would waste the materials as it was an ambitious project and they thought we just wanted to play. We took their criticism as a challenge.
With supervision from an informally trained builder, the structure was up and functional in two months.
Although a few rows of bricks on one of the walls protrude slightly outwards (plastering took care of this), we were elated when we finished the project. This changed our attitude towards the school, we saw it in a new light, we were now a part of it. It had become precious to us.
The school is much changed since then, but when we return for a visit we always first inspect the building over which we sweated.
There are other self-help initiatives like our project, but too few. And they are in sharp contrast to so many hair-raising sights: young people lazing around street corners, cafes or shebeens sipping beer. Or the city malls where the “cool” youths hang out, doing nothing, their gear and behaviour reflecting their obsession with Hollywood.
All too often one is tempted to question the clich that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. That this is just a great South African dream. South Africa does not have a policy through which to engage young people in community service.
However, last week 167 organisations attended a National Youth Summit. The host, the National Youth Commission, was mandated to appoint a task team to draw up a Green Paper detailing a national youth service programme.
The proposal will broaden community service to take in all tertiary students and will absorb unemployed youth into a public works programme.
This will mean young people will give something back to the communities which educated them.
There is already a vast rural brain-drain that threatens the government’s commitment to redressing urban/rural imbalances.
Community service will help all young people, especially graduates, to gain practical experience.
I believe the crime rate will drastically recede as unemployed youths are drawn into the programme.
The government’s goals of reconciliation will be strengthened as young people of different races and culture – who would otherwise not have come into contact with each other – pursue a collective goal.
This will contribute to the transformation of higher education by linking teaching, research and community work.
Tertiary education curricula should be responsive to the development and needs of poorer communities. At present, tertiary institutions are only responsive to the market and little, if anything, is being done to address the technological and development needs of poorer communities.
We are still to see tertiary education which enlightens us on how to provide low- cost housing, cheaper road systems in rural areas, how we can best address the energy needs of rural and township communities.
If tertiary education becomes more relevant, the government would be less tempted to slash funding .
As I sat in that conference hall listening to the deliberations of the delegates, I remembered Ngugi wa Thiongo’s observation that the colonial and post-colonial eras have been places of confinement in the shadow of poverty, ignorance and disease.
Thiongo said: “The peasants and workers in Africa have done all they could to send their sons and daughters to schools and universities at home and abroad to scout for knowledge and skills which could relieve the community of these burdens, but, lo and behold, each one of them comes back speaking in tongues.”
And I was overjoyed that the youths seem to be committed to straightening our tongues. So, I left the National Youth Summit as upbeat as I was the day we completed that classroom five years ago.
ENDS