The history of farm schools has much to do with the present difficulties in which many of them continue to struggle. Reports Julia Grey
Between a rock and a hard place is where the majority of farm schools are currently sitting – and they are likely to be stuck there for some time to come. There is no relief despite calls from top education officials to address their plight as a matter of urgency.
At the heart of the problem is the change of power relations and education philosophy that came with the transition from an apartheid to a democratic society. Farm schools were originally established by the 1953 Bantu Education Act, specifically to discourage urbanisation of farm workers, ensure a constant pool of inexpensive labour on the farms, and to provide very basic education to the worker’s children. In a report entitled Facing the forces of exclusion: the challenge of the right to education through multigrade schools by Geoffrey Lungwangwa, teachers from Sekhung in the Northern Province made the following comments about life in the bad old days: “These schools were established … to enable the learners to communicate with the farm manager and count his stock. They were not institutions for meeting education opportunities … Teachers had to be submissive to the Farm Manager … The teacher had to be very careful to avoid being chased … There was a day officially set aside for the school children to work on the farm.”
With the new dispensation, governance and financing of farm schools now fell to the State alone. But because they are public schools on private land, section 14 of the South African Schools Act (Sasa) specifies that an agreement must be reached between the government and the land owner, legally defining areas like:
the education departments’ responsibility for meeting the education needs of the school;
the land owner’s responsibility for ensuring access to the school, and for securing the safety of learners and teachers;
determining what financial compensation is due to the farmer for use of the school, for example, rental; and
protecting the owner’s rights over the land concerned.
An indication of exactly how sticky the process has been is how long it is taking for these agreements to be concluded. The terms set out in Sasa stipulate that the agreements must be signed during 1997; four years later, it is estimated that only about 10% of the agreements have been signed by the 4 500 farmers concerned.
A conference on the plight of farm schools, initiated by Minister of Education Kader Asmal in May last year, was meant to speed up this process. “Without these agreements the schools in question occupy a legal limbo, without the protection of any of the parties involved,” said Asmal at the conference. “It has made farm schools extremely vulnerable and, ultimately, it is the children who suffer.”
Among those invited were the agricultural unions representing the farmers, Agri SA and the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU). All agreed to December 31 2000 as the deadline, but the date has come and gone and still the majority of agreements have not been secured.
One crucial area delaying agreement is the issue of security. The contract holds the farmer liable for the safety of learners and teachers while at the farm school. Advocate Rapule Theledi, legal advisor to the Northern Province Department of Education, says securing learner and teacher safety is in line with a general legal principle, but adds that, “We’ve got to make sure that we talk about farm schools and the peculiar circumstances there – like wild animals and fierce dogs on the farm, for example.”
Farm owners, however, are reluctant to accept this liability when they feel they can’t guarantee the school-goers safety. If a child falls and breaks a bone while at the school for example, is the farmer responsible?
The other critical side to safety is that of the farmer and others living on the land. The agreement obliges the farmer to give access to anyone involved with in the school – which could range from department officials to relatives of learners.
Wilco Buekes, chairperson of Agri SA’s committee on training, argues that, “Many perpetrators of crime come to the farms saying they’re from some government department and then turn out to be robbers or murderers.” The safety of farmers is a very real problem: in 2000 alone, there were 739 attacks on farms and 109 farmers lost their lives.
Agri SA and TAU have taken very different approaches to the process. While Buekes blames the delays on “a lack of government manpower”, TAU is prepared to work within the government’s limitations. TAU acting executive manager Ria Loggenberg explains their view: “The education department can’t go to each and every farm to discuss the contract. TAU decided to organise information meetings in the provinces and facilitate meetings between provincial education departments and farmers”. So far 27 such meetings have been held in four provinces.
Frustration with the snail’s pace is raising the political temperature: provinces like the Free State and Northern Province have openly threatened to expropriate the land concerned from farmers who do not cooperate – a measure that is drastic, but legal. Obviously, though, this solution will not secure the farmer’s good will. In fact, Buekes comments, “It will be a sad day if they decide to expropriate. That will mean war.” But while the process stumbles forward, the consequences for the schools concerned are dire (see story below). Farmers who previously supported the school, often footing the bill for transport and amenities like electricity, have now ceased to do so. Meantime, the education authorities are reluctant to invest in the school because there is no guarantee that their investment is protected – until the agreement has been signed.
Ramafutsana Intermediate in the Gumtree area of the eastern Free State is one such school. The brick buildings were built by the farmer, and in 1979 it was electrified at the farmer’s expense. But now “the farmer is no longer interested in supporting the school,” says teacher Mokhantsho Makhongoana. “For four years there’s been no transport for the children – the farmer no longer pays. They walk between 10 and 15 kms to school.” A further insecurity for these teachers is the retrenchment of farm labourers – which, says Makhongoana, is because the labourers had become unionised and demanded higher wages. The scholars leave with their parents, and the school’s enrollment plummets. “When most of the children have been taken out of the school,” says Maselane Raboroko, “we’ll be facing redeployment. We feel uncomfortable because we don’t know where we’re going”.
The movement of labourers off the farms is an increasing trend which could see the closure of many farm schools. One reason for this, writes researcher Adele Gordon, is a cynical and deliberate attempt by the farm owner “to get rid of workers in order to prevent land claims from families who have been resident on the land for many years (sometimes for generations).
But if the schools can survive the difficulties they now struggle against, they could have a remarkable role to play. As centres of learning in remote places and with a community that is typically illiterate, the school could play a dynamic role in transforming the situation. A motto painted on the wall of Ramafutsana Intermediate expresses this hope: “Mamello e tswala katleho”, it says. If you are patient, you get something better.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, January, 2001.