Barry Streek With more than 45% of South African schools still without electricity and more than 27% still without clean water, the call by the African National Congress’s national executive committee (NEC) for delivery in the form of the “Year of the Volunteer for Reconstruction and Development” is not a moment too late. Equally shocking is that 66% of schools (17 907 in 2000) were without adequate sanitation, 11,7% (3 188 schools) did not have any sanitation at all and 34% did not have telephones, according to figures disclosed in Parliament last year. Although the Constitution proudly states that “everyone has the right to basic education, including basic adult education”, the Constitutional Assembly negotiators could hardly have intended it to be as basic as these shocking statistics reveal about school conditions. Minister of Education Kader Asmal outlined in a speech in the National Council of Provinces last May what progress had been made in reducing inequality in the country’s schools, but then admitted that “the backlog is still huge and the differentiation between rich and poor schools within the public system is still unacceptable”. The reality is that after nearly eight years of democratic rule, gross inequality, largely racially and poverty-based, remains in the schooling system.
The NEC has called on its members and branches to “lead voluntary activities to serve the people” by focusing on education during the month of January. The party-driven campaign will move on to safety and security in February. It would also help if schools received their books and learner support materials in time, but as Asmal reported to President Thabo Mbeki in May, there were serious weaknesses and none of the provinces had received all their textbooks by the time the school year started. Asmal said there was “a lack of coordination across the country” and warned there was a danger schools might divert funds to the payment of services. Details about the lack of basic facilities in many South African schools were disclosed by Asmal last year in reply to a number of questions tabled in both houses of Parliament. He told the Democratic Alliance’s Nelson Raju that nationally 7 409 of the country’s 27 148 schools did not have water. While only 2% of the schools in the Western Cape and 2,7% in the Northern Cape did not have water, this rose to 40,3% of the schools in the Eastern Cape, 36,8% in the Northern Province, 31,7% in KwaZulu-Natal and 30,6% in the Free State. In addition, 12 257 schools had no electricity. While this was the case for only 4,5% of the schools in the Western Cape, elsewhere the figures were striking: 60,5% of the schools in the Eastern Cape, 56,7% in KwaZulu-Natal, 49,1% in Mpumalanga and 49% in the Northern Province. Asmal told the New National Party’s Stan Simmons that 3 188 schools were without sanitation and 17 907 did not have adequate sanitation, based on a ratio of one toilet for every 30 learners. In reply to a question by the Democratic Alliance’s Donald Lee, he said none of the provinces had completed the delivery of learning materials by the first day of the 2001 school year and only in the Western Cape were these delivered by the end of January. Even by early May, when he replied to the question, most provinces had not yet completed the delivery of learning materials.
He also told the DA’s Richard Ntuli that in 2000 there were still 67 000 un- or under-qualified teachers, down from 85 000 because of a major upgrade of teacher qualifications. In his speech to the National Council of Provinces in May, Asmal said there had been a decline in the average number of students to a classroom from 43 to 35, schools without telephones had decreased from 59% to 34%, the percentage of schools without access to running water declined from 40% to 34%, access to electricity had improved from 40% to 53% with the Eastern Cape showing “a very useful increase of 25%”, and that the number of schools with computers had increased from 2 241 to 6 481, with only 16% of the schools in Gauteng without computers. This does, indeed, demonstrate that progress is being made. There have also been capacity and sustainability problems practical issues of implementation. It is, for instance, not much use providing electricity if it cannot be paid for, or installing water-borne sanitation if there is no one to maintain the system, remove blockages and provide toilet paper. Sometimes parents and schools want computers rather than a decent sanitation system or running water and then find they cannot afford the software. However, the honest replies to parliamentary questions last year demonstrated that massive inequality in the public school system continues to exist. And that is, or at least should be, a national disgrace.