Schools in Tzaneen in Limpopo continue to struggle to make racial integration a reality. Black and white learners are taught in separate classrooms, use separate toilets, and black parents complain that their children are obliged to learn in Afrikaans at former white schools.
During a visit to the town, the Teacher found that practices amounting to discrimination are common in these formerly all-white, all-Afrikaans schools.
Ben Vorster High School first admitted black learners shortly after the first democratic elections in 1994. Of the 970 learners enrolled, 250 are black. Although they represent almost a third of the learners, only one out of six of the classrooms is set aside for their use.
This is one of the schools whose black learners are increasingly dissatisfied with their treatment. It’s not only classrooms, toilets and extra-mural activities that mark the discrimination on racial grounds; it’s also the fact that there are no black teachers at the school.
A black learner, who asked not to be named for fear of being victimised says: “White teachers always tell us to go back to rural schools because the school is for whites.”
Another black learner, who also asked not to be named says, “When there is theft they will blame the black learners. Most of the time there is no good communication between black and white learners. There is racism at the school and it has to be changed.”
White pupils at Ben Vorster High refused to speak to the Teacher, and the principal rejected the views of the black students.
“My school is happy and we totally reject the fact that there is racism. At school we don’t speak about colour,” says principal Piet Swart. “No institution on this earth can claim that everything is on the right track,” he adds.
But black learners at Marensky High School, also a formerly all-white Afrikaans school in Tzaneen, also complain about racism. Black learners allege they are called “baboons” and are also taught in separate classrooms from white students.
When approached for comment, Marensky High principal Johan van den Heever refused to speak to the Teacher.
But developments at Dr Annecke Primary School show that issues of language and race are becoming heated. The Nkowankowa Parents Association, representing black parents, is accusing the school management of imposing Afrikaans on black learners. They also claim that there is a separation of classes between black learners and white learners, and are threatening to take action.
“This was an Afrikaans school. It is a pity that people at this time come and think racism. That is an old regime,” says the school principal, Burger Westhuizen.
In section 29 of the Constitution, it states that “Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable.” In the Department of Education’s (DoE) language policy, it further states that “It is reasonably practicable to provide education in a particular language… if at least 40 in Grades 1 to Grade 6 or 35 in Grades 7 to 12 learners in a particular grade request it in a particular school.”
Although a school governing body (SGB) has the power to decide what the medium of instruction should be at their school, they are also obliged to accommodate learners who speak other languages.
Asked if there is a black teacher at the school, Westhuizen says: “We don’t have one and this has to be decided by the SGB.”
He says they don’t employ blacks because the SGB says blacks cannot teach Afrikaans properly.
But, says Freddy Greaver, Limpopo provincial education department representative, “If a white teacher can teach black learners why can’t a black teacher teach white learners? These are some of the problems we are busy addressing.”
He adds that the province has a programme of appointing black principals at formerly white schools whenever there are vacancies available. “We have already employed a black teacher at a formerly white school in Polokwane,” says Greaver.
Thabo Magabane, a representative for the South African Democratic Teachers Union based in Tzaneen, says, “Another problem that keeps on surfacing is that black learners are only allowed to register their subjects in standard grades, irrespective of their potential.
“Seating in classrooms is arranged in terms of colour or blacks attend in their own class while white learners attend theirs,” says Magabane. “When there are groups in school learners will never learn to be united.”
Racial tension is not only found at schools in Tzaneen. Last month, the South African Commercial Workers Union accused the management of two restaurants in the town of racism.
The union claims that the manager of one of the restaurants assaulted one of his employees after he was found in a toilet used mainly by whites.
In another incident, a black principal of a private college in town was allegedly assaulted at a restaurant by a group of white drunkards who called him a kaffir.
Ironically, the name Tzaneen originated from the sePedi word tsaneng, which loosely translated means “the place where people gather”.