Without funds from the provincial government, some farm schools in the region have been forced to close
Lynda Gilfillan
Schoombee Trust School is one of the luckier farm schools in the Eastern Cape. It’s still open. But throughout the province schools are closing because the provincial education department has paid neither boarding nor transport subsidies, electricity bills nor rent to the farmers on whose land the schools stand.
The provincial government has committed itself to change the way farm schools are organised and funded, curtailing the role of the farmers. Currently, farmers are entitled to payment in the form of subsidies for building rental, boarding, electricity and transport. A Department of Finance representative says payments have not been made because the budget section is still trying to iron out problems in its attempts to balance the 1999/2000 budget. And so farm schools suffer along with everyone else.
In March the Human Rights Commission (HRC) recommended that by April 30 the Eastern Cape Department of Education effect immediate payment of farm school subsidies and report on plans to pay an outstanding R6,5-million. The HRC found that a submission by MECfor Education Stone Sizani – that no pupil had been affected by the non-payment of subsidies – was “not accurate”, and that “the rights of the affected learners to education have been violated” in certain cases. But Friday came and went – and the recommendation was apparently ignored.
Some schools have shut their doors because children who live up to 60km away have no transport. At others parents are unwilling to send their children to schools where there is no electricity or hot water, particularly with the onset of the cold Karoo winter.
The Schoombee school is one of 4E545 farm schools – a whopping 17% of schools throughout the country. Built with European Union funding and the assistance of local farmers, the school is in good shape, but the dilapidated farmhouse where 80 pupils board stands in stark contrast to the new school buildings. Children share facilities and, in some cases, dormitories with adult teachers.
The HRC was brought in by Emlitia Loock, chair of the Eastern Cape District Schools Association, which has also appealed to Minister of Education Kader Asmal, but has received only a letter of acknowledgment from Asmal’s office indicating that the matter “falls within the responsibilities of the MEC for education in the Eastern Cape” and regretting that the minister “cannot be of more assistance at this stage”.
There is mounting cynicism at the failure of the provincial education department to deal with the payment of subsidies. Donald Smiles, MPL and Democratic Party representative for education, dismisses the official explanation as yet another excuse: “This is unacceptable because there is [a provincial] Interim Appropriation Bill which allows payments to be made. These delays occur continually – it’s the same old story – and in the meantime nearly 4E000 children in the province are being affected.”
Clearly, a crisis point has been reached. Insults have regularly been hurled across the battle lines: a farmer is reported to have accused the government of achieving “what the National Party tried for decades to do – deny black children education”, while farmers themselves have been accused by a departmental official of shrugging off their responsibilities after having “got rich off the sweat of exploited black labour”.
This conflict has its roots in previous government policies. A study by rural development expert Marc Schafer of Rhodes University claims that “farm schools were isolated institutions serving a poor community, dependent on the grace of the local farming community, neglected by the state and offering an ineffective education which only perpetuated a cycle of hopelessness”.
The system has its origin in a 1955 government regulation requiring farmers to provide school facilities for farm workers’ children, while the state would pay salaries only.
Hendrik F Verwoerd, then minister of native affairs, argued that the system would combat “the trek from the farms” and economically benefit farmers by providing “useful” labourers. “Bantu mothers” would “erect walls where farmers allow it, and the department [would] provide windows”.
Farmers were assured, however, that they could at any stage “withdraw … permission” for the erection of such structures.
In this way, fiefdoms were created, and a
system of paternalism gradually entrenched. The system persists. Some farmers – who are themselves suffering economic stress – continue to donate food and provide free transport to learners. Some would argue that it is in farmers’ interest to provide such support, since the provision of schooling stabilises their workforce. Also, as long as numbers do not drop too drastically at the schools, the jobs of many farmers’ wives who are employed at the schools are safe.
But the department has pledged to change the system and to devise a policy on farm schools. As part of the process, a task force is currently conducting an audit of farm schools.
According to Faye Magala, deputy chief education specialist, “… the present inefficient system … is open to corruption and exploitation”. Once the survey is completed and the system changed, “individuals will be discouraged from abusing subsidies, and learners, for example, will not be at the mercy of farmers who pull them out of classrooms to perform seasonal labour. The role of farmers will no longer be dominant in the system – they will also no longer be able to interfere with teachers who wish to attend courses.”
In the new system, Magala says, “schools will be clustered, and the department will build accommodation at a central point. We will no longer have a situation where classrooms are converted into bedrooms at night to house educators, or where educators are forced to share accommodation with pupils, and, in some cases, animals.”
Assisting the department in the survey is the Vusisizwe Trust. Business manager John Hops endorses the department’s rationalisation process. He supports the position recently taken by the premier, that it is not feasible to keep all the farm schools going. And he maintains that the subsidy system, especially, has been open to abuse.
The new cluster system will utilise an official transport system and largely dispense with the need for hostels. Hops argues this will have positive social implications: “The present hostel system creates conditions that are ripe for child and sexual abuse.” Also, “learners will not have to leave home at the age of six for three months at a time. They will experience family life. And parents will be able to participate more fully in their children’s educational development.”
But, in the meantime, many pupils have already lost a year’s schooling. They are the victims not only of past ideologies, but also, it seems, of the current slow transformation process.