/ 15 September 2000

Final bell tolls for progressive school

Roshila Pillay One of South Africa’s most progressive schools, St Barnabas College in Johannesburg, faces closure after Standard Bank refused it further financial assistance – despite a World Bank request that it provide temporary financial support.

The school has a unique approach characterised by a long-standing history of commitment to education where redress is most needed – in the rural and disadvantaged communities of South Africa. However, St Barnabas has been hit by a steady decrease in public donations and corporate sponsorships, upon which it relies heavily to remain functional. The only other source of funding comes from the 1,4% of students who can afford to pay in full the costly private school fees. “The school’s ambitious financial-aid programme ensures that no child is denied admission on the grounds of financial considerations alone,” says Michael Corke, the school’s headmaster.

As a result it has had to rely on an overdraft facility, which has now reached R8-million. Standard Bank has refused to extend this overdraft facility. “When [the school’s] debt reached R8-million several months ago, we informed the college that it would be irresponsible for us to allow any further escalation in our exposure,” says Erik Larsen, media relations manager for Standard Bank. The St Barnabas story spans 30 years of active work to provide a non-racial model of education that seeks to empower the poor. “It’s ironic that the one school that always fought against apartheid is now being abandoned,” says one of the school’s teachers.

This year’s matriculants are among the many whose future is now precarious. The Mail & Guardian understands that the World Bank’s South Africa country office made an impassioned written plea to Standard Bank to assist the school financially for the next few months while the World Bank explores different ways of supporting the school, including granting the school an institutional development fund and garnering international and national donor support for St Barnabas. However, Larsen told the M&G that “St Barnabas has been unable to meet certain of its payment obligations [in August] and the bank is, regrettably, unable to assist it any further”.

Years of investing in disadvantaged children, the development of our education system and teacher skills look set to come to an end. One of St Barnabas’s outreach programmes to develop rural schools, the education support programme, has been so successful there are talks of extending it. It is this proud heritage of commitment to excellence as opposed to profit that is now threatened.

“Is education about perpetuating privilege or is it about making a difference?” asks one of the teachers at St Barnabas. “If no one helps us now, the message is clear that there is no hope for South Africa’s poor in bridging the economic divide.”