Centocow, a settlement in rural southern KwaZulu-Natal, has a history that rings with romance. The name is a simplification of the Polish word ‘Czestochowa”, and was given to the place in honour of the famous Polish Shrine of Czestochowa by Catholic Abbot Francis Pfanner in 1888.
But for all the apparent romance and rustic beauty, Centocow lies in an economic wasteland. Illiteracy and unemployment are the norm and grinding poverty is etched on every resident’s face.
A report, released last month, entitled Emerging Voices: A Report on Education in South African Rural Communities, draws out the wretched implications for schooling in places like Centacow, where everyone has ample lacks and not much else.
According to the report, literacy levels in the researchers’ focus communities range from 69% in Limpopo, 70% in the Eastern Cape and 59% in KwaZulu-Natal. The report states that 65% of children interviewed reported that no one in the house was sufficiently educated to help them with homework.
Khanya Hlela, principal of Centocow’s Nomagaga Primary School, paints a sorry picture about the extent of illiteracy in the area, estimating that 90% of the residents are illiterate. Another 5% he describes as semi-literate, while most of the literate people – the remaining 5% – have left the place for more hopeful prospects.
Hlela also highlights another obvious – and debilitating – effect of poverty: hunger. While his school does operate a feeding scheme, he says that it is sometimes disrupted by the erratic water supply.
The issue of food insecurity is mentioned as a key factor in the Emerging Voices report. It states that provision of meals at schools helps to promote regular attendance makes learners more attentive, and, consequently academic performance improves.
It further notes, however, that in many instances school meals are poorly managed and irregular, largely as a result of long delays from the relevant authorities.
Emerging Voices stresses again well-known obstacles to learning, such as distances to schools, school fees and uniforms, noting that these prevent children in poor households from going to school and create tensions between poor families and schools.
Hlela has devised ways to handle the sensitive issues of school fees and uniforms. ‘We identify all indigent learners and send their names to an NGO, Izandla Zothando, which helps orphans and the poor in the region. We also exempt them [parents] directly from paying, but this is done only after we have satisfied ourselves about their real economic situations,” he says.
Emerging Voices notes that in the areas researched there is a high dependency on social grants and pensions especially in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. It describes poverty and unemployment as starkly present in the everyday realities, speech and activities of people living there.
Nozintombi Shozi (83), a resident of Centocow, knows all about the dependence of large families on pensions. Her family comprises 17 members, all of whom live on her R700 monthly pension grant. The family shares three big, rundown rondavels.
‘We just survive by the mercy of God. My grant is a drop in an ocean considering the number of people I have to look after,” Shozi says.
Sometimes they go for days without washing as they cannot afford to buy a bar of soap, she says. Not one of her grandchildren goes to school, although Shozi says she wants them to get an education.
According to the Emerging Voices report, there is a deep underlying support among parents and communities for children to go to school, but this is undermined by the conditions of life imposed by poverty and unemployment.
Mavis Khanyile (53) finds herself in the same leaky boat as Shozi. Looking somewhat emaciated, her wrinkled and weather-beaten face shows life is taking its toll on her. Every morning she leaves her ramshackle hut and goes begging for food.
‘My neighbours just cannot put up with my begging anymore. I am now targeting people in the nearby farms,” Khanyile says. ‘Sometimes I bring something home. But there are also days when I come back empty-handed.”
Her four children are out of school because she, too, cannot afford school fees and uniforms. Her 16-year-old son, Thokozani, left school in Grade 3.
‘I had to drop out of school because my mother just could not cope,” says Thokozani. He says he can read and write and is keen to go back to school.
‘It pains me to see my mother, with my twin sister in tow, going out to beg for food,” he adds.
Thokozani is one of the children the report describes as ‘children trapped in a series of ‘unfreedoms’ created by poverty that fettered their capabilities to be the person they would like to be”.
Above all, Emerging Voices makes it clear that even those who manage to get to school are likely to remain trapped in poverty’s vortex.
‘For many, education cannot compensate for much deeper economic and social inequalities – it is not a ladder out of poverty, it simply confirms one’s status in life.”