Residents of a remote rural area hope a state-of-the-art school will be the first step in the region’s developent
Barry Streek
The construction of a R3,7-million high school, donated by Shell at the request of former president Nelson Mandela, in an area that could not even be reached by car this week – unless it’s a 4×4 – might seem a little odd.
Indeed, the Shixini administrative area in the heart of Gcalekaland, the seat of Xhosa King Xolilizwe Sigcau, does not have telephones, nor electricity. The approximately 30E000 residents do not have access to clean water, nor there is a clinic in the area.
This is about as remote as it gets in South Africa. And yet the launch of the Dumalisile Comprehensive High School, with 10 classrooms, ablution and administration facilities as well as a laboratory, a library, a computer room, a technical drawing room, a metal workshop, a carpentry workshop and a clothing workshop, could be the beginning of a phase of bringing Shixini into the modern world.
Despite the lack of telephones, the school can gain access to the Internet by means of a satellite link.
After consultations with the community, the school is no longer the originally planned single-stream education facility. In the words of the school sponsors: “It will be able to offer learners a wide range of skills-based learning streams, making it multifunctional in an area that requires skills development.”
However, the local chief’s son, Ngwenyati Dumalisile, puts it more fundamentally: “We are happy to instil a culture of entrepreneurship. It will be an academic and technical school. We want to instil a culture of entrepreneurship so that people do not have to suffer from the lack of jobs.”
The president of Royal Dutch/ Shell Petroleum Company, Maarten van den Bergh, emphasises this approach: “This school will cater for general learners, as well as for commercial and technically minded learner students.
“The once basic idea of Dumalisile has developed from a single teaching facility into a multi-level school that will cater for a wide range of development needs in the community for many years. This is truly a school of the people, for the people.”
When Minister of Education Kader Asmal says boys, not just girls, should learn to sew at the school, Dumalisile comments that “it’s true. Look at the fashion designers.” When Asmal says “many of our schools still remain alienated from their local communities”, he comments again: “It’s true.”
His brother, Ndabazandile Dumalisile, who is also the praise singer and leader of the choir, says the Dumalisile High School will be the feeder school for about 20 primary and junior secondary schools in the area.
This is, clearly, Dumalisile territory. Indeed, their father, Mandlenkozi Dumalisile, is the local chief. The Dumalisiles are prominent in the Xhosa nation as they are the righthand house of King Hintsa.
The clan name of most of the people in the area is, however, Tshawe, and during this week’s ceremony it was bestowed on Shell’s general manager of corporate affairs, Koosum Kalyan, who, the master of ceremonies pointed out, perhaps ominously, was unmarried.
The community’s leaders are clearly hoping Shell’s involvement in the area will not be restricted to the building of the school. There was much emphasis on the desirability of a continuing partnership with the oil multinational.
Mandlenkozi Dumalisile’s public complaint about the lack of a clinic in Shixini was later rewarded by Mandela: “We will try and get another company to put up a clinic here,” he said to loud applause and ululating.
The chief, in a lengthy thank-you speech, made sure Mandela does not forget his promise as he reminded the audience that: “Madiba has raised our hopes that a clinic will be built.”
The aim is to transform the Shixini area which, primarily because of its remoteness, has been starved of development by all previous governments and which, apart from the new school, has not seen much development under the current government.
Ngwenyati Dumalisile was emphatic: “Are you from the Mail & Guardian? You saw the roads this morning. You should write about them. It is already affecting the social welfare of the people. We have no clinic. We have no basic water, no electricity. These are the basics.
“The government is talking about integrated development, but there are no telephones here. This was what was promised to us. There are so many things lacking although we are highly blessed with this school.”
Ngwenyati Dumalisile was right about the roads in the area. The road from Idutwya to Willowvale, an old mission and trading station town, was terrible enough; full of potholes and flooded in parts. It was, however, passable.
“This is sick,” Ngwenyati Dumalisile said later. “How can you have economic development and tourism in conditions like this?” Indeed. Hopefully, Mandela’s linking of Shixini to Shell, and the building of the Dumalisile school, will start making the area less sick.
ENDS