Naming your school after socks (yes, the ones you wear on your feet) may not inspire much confidence that it’s a place that takes itself seriously.
But not even the smelliest hosiery is likely to bring down the Makause Combined School outside Witbank in Mpumalanga.
The school, which started as a tiny farm school back in 1931, got its name from the custom of farmers giving labourers new socks (kouse in Afrikaans) each Christmas. It initially catered for the handful of children of local farm workers and operated out of two buildings donated by the Methodist Church and the Salvation Army.
Amos Mahlangu, who has been with the school for 25 years (21 of those as principal), remembers the difficulties well: ‘I used to have to walk nearly 2km between the two classrooms just to see what was happening at each of the buildings.”
A decade of making use of various mine buildings followed, until in 1994 Makause finally moved into a real school building when it took over the buildings of the Tweefontein Laerskool.
Today there are about 570 learners at the school, which also started to offer Grade 10 classes at the beginning of last year. Within the next two years it aims to take it all the way to matric.
But what is remarkable is not the steady growth in numbers for a school that started with so little. What’s really remarkable is that Makause made it on to the Mpumalanga premier’s top-five list for service excellence for 2004.
Mahlangu gives credit to everyone: the teachers for their commitment and sacrifices and the children for their active participation in building up the school. But the principal himself must clearly also take some credit, with evidence of his organisational and management excellence everywhere.
There are performance charts and rosters all over his office and in the staff room, ensuring that each class is responsible for things such as keeping the school grounds tidy and checking on the neatness of uniforms and individual needs of children who have difficulties at home.
Running the school like an efficient business has been key to its success. And many of these changes were introduced when a local mine, Xstrata Coal, helped the school with things such as an integrated maths and science programme and paid for the services of education consultants to work in a holistic way with the school. Consultants exposed Makause staff to new approaches to teaching and to better strategies for working with limited resources.
Says teacher Solomon Dhlamini: ‘The mindsets of the teachers have changed. We see the potential for things. The consultants also help us to understand outcomes-based education better.”
Dhlamini adds: ‘Before, I used to come into the classroom and preach and just think about getting through the syllabus. Now my classes are more interactive and the children are more cooperative.”
Mahlangu says the discipline and positive attitude in the school comes from having a code of conduct that is respected, so everyone, teachers and pupils, acknowledge their roles and responsibilities.
Mahlangu also makes a point of involving both parents and the broader community in the school’s development.
Some local farmers have come on board to help with things such as the general upkeep of the school’s gardens, donating produce to the school’s soup kitchen and funding school excursions.
A local mielie and cattle farmer Tielman Roux, says: ‘I became involved three years ago with the school because many of my workers’ children come to this school. It is good to see that there is food for the children through the soup kitchen and that the school is developing nicely.”
Makause’s defiant track record of striving for excellence despite its difficulties is a serious challenge to the tired old argument that without resources, teaching and learning will never improve.