School integration in South Africa remains a problem, according to a recent study, with all schools examined practising some form of race, class or gender bias.
The question of school integration is profoundly controversial. In the past few years a number of stories have shocked the public, the most sensational being the Vryburg High School incident where Andrew Babizela was sent to jail for stabbing a white student.
A research study initiated by Yusuf Sayed of the University of Sussex and Crain Soudien of the University of Cape Town has looked at school inclusion and exclusion in South Africa and India.
Fourteen schools in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were selected for the study. They represented a range of former apartheid education schools.
Interestingly, the project found that while none of the schools studied was overtly discriminating against children, parents or teachers on the basis of race, class or gender, in practice all these factors existed.
For example, illegal as it is, schools were forcing young people to write entrance tests, to sit for language competency tests, were consistently pushing up their fees to maintain what they thought were ‘good” standards and were presenting themselves as bastions of one or other culture.
Most, in effect, were practising one form of exclusion or another. As open as many schools had formally become, in practice they continued to be places where the poor and non-English mother-tongue speakers struggled to gain access or to hold on to the access they had achieved.
The researchers also reviewed current education policy and showed how it does and doesn’t attempt to address past inequalities within the system.
Macro policies were found to be weak in terms of effectiveness and were at times naïve or unrealistic because of the almost abstract contexts of their formulation. Micro-level school policies were motivated by specific needs, interests and challenges and were of a pragmatic and practical order.
The researchers looked at the micro practices of the school, in particular their admission policies, their fee structures, their language policies and classroom practices. Teachers, learners, principals and members of the community were interviewed and classrooms were observed.
The theory used in the project was based on a novel understanding of inclusion and exclusion. While inclusion and exclusion have come to be understood as referring to people with physical and mental disabilities, the terms were used in the project to encompass all forms of difference.
The argument that formed the basis of the study was that inclusion and exclusion were mutually dependent terms. Inclusion was often premised on a set of ideas that privileged particular social qualities or attributes at the expense of others that were minimised. Often, as a consequence, programmes or plans that set out to include based on, say, race, would end up excluding others based on class or gender.
Although a new inclusive educational dispensation is set out on paper, and although schools have an understanding of what is expected of them, they are to a large extent hostages to their pasts, the study found.
Language in particular was mobilised to mediate race and class interests, and African languages and indigenous knowledge systems were being marginalised.
School governing bodies were not functioning in a democratic and inclusive way, often entrenching the power of principals with minimal community participation. Schools had little or no official departmental support in assisting them to deal with the complexities of change.
The study found that teachers were pivotal in making learners feel included in schools. Learners were conscious of unfair treatment where it occurred.
On the positive side, some teachers were making efforts to link their schools to the wider communities in which they were located. On the negative side, many teachers had difficulty dealing with their learners equitably. Often teachers came from the same group as those learners who were being privileged.
At one school, for example, teachers interacted more with Indian than with African learners. African learners expressed their dissatisfaction at being ignored. One teacher’s explanation was that he gave more attention to Indian learners because outcomes-based education disadvantaged them. He argued that African learners were not shy to express themselves, which intimidated the Indian learners. In aiming to include the Indian learners, the teacher excluded the African learners.
The project has strong links with India where similar research has taken place.
While there are signs that many schools are taking the challenge of transformation seriously, on the whole the findings did not provide grounds for optimism.
One step towards addressing exclusion entails undertaking this kind of detailed study into what schools are doing — and why — to create policies that help move towards a more inclusionary experience for learners.
Frustratingly, but also perhaps understandably, most schools that participated in the project refused to take part in feedback sessions about the research.