In a shanty town, pupils achieve 100% pass rate.
By CHRIS MCGREAL in Orange Farm
MOEKETSI Molelekoa began turning potential pupils away from his school after the number of new applicants topped 300. The headmaster of Leshata secondary school had room for only half that number.
There were places at other schools in the area – but Leshata’s reputation had spread rapidly after it achieved the near impossible. Last year, every one of its entrants passed the matric exam. At nearby Sayaphambili school not a single student passed. Across South Africa, fewer than half of all school leavers gained the precious certificate.
Leshata’s achievement is all the more remarkable, because it is situated in Orange Farm, a sprawling shanty town south of Johannesburg.
”It’s a matter of sacrifice by the learners, by the teachers and the principal,” said Molelekoa.
”There is no library in the area. These learners are living in shacks, some without electricity. They study by candlelight. Some of them have to help bring money home because their families are the poorest of the poor. About three quarters of the fathers are unemployed.”
Leshata secondary school (motto: ”Let your loins be girded and your lamps be burning”) has come a long way in a short time. In 1997, only one third of its pupils passed their matric. A year later, the success rate shot up to 93%.
Molelekoa attributes part of the turnaround to the school getting its own buildings. For years, Leshata had to share premises with two other schools. Children learned in shifts.
With their own premises, Leshata’s pupils are encouraged to continue working after regular school hours, which run from 7.30am to 2.45pm.
”We do not knock off until five o’clock,” Molelekoa said. ”Poverty affects the activity of the mind. Each and every matric subject is given double time daily.” Many teachers in state schools are poorly paid and unmotivated. Some take second jobs to survive. A generation after pupils led an anti-apartheid boycott of schools to demand ”liberation before education”, indiscipline is the rule in many classrooms. Some teachers live in fear of pupils who carry guns to school.
But Leshata has a different philosophy. ”The important thing here is the learner, not the teacher,” Molelekoa said. ”It’s very easy to motivate poor children. They live in shacks. You can tell them that the only way they are ever going to live in the rich suburbs is through education.
”I tell them that we have to live with the parents God has given us, and if they are poor that is not their fault. But you can choose your future. You can make things different.”
Leshata has few resources. There are no computers, scientific equipment or musical instruments. It puts the school at a huge disadvantage compared to the private institutions attended by many white children in Johannesburg.
But Molelekoa says his pupils are far better off than the black children educated under apartheid.
”We have a new school. The government does not have much money but it is really trying to help us,” he said.
Leshata wages a constant battle against burglary and vandalism – not by pupils but by local residents. There is no electricity in classrooms because all the junction boxes and fittings have been stolen. The school built a strongroom to store the photocopier and typewriters. Thieves cut their way through the thick metal door.
”The community around us does not always value education. It’s our biggest problem. People want bread to survive, not education – so they come and take what little we have,” Molelekoa said.
The parents of most of the pupils face the same struggle for survival. All state schools in South Africa have fees. It costs R80 a year to go to Leshata, among the cheapest in the country. But many families in Orange Farm still have trouble finding the money.
However good their results, most pupils cannot afford higher education. Last year, one went to medical school. Leshata paid for his first year at university, but it cannot afford to do that for all pupils. The school has launched a trust to help others.
”They have to go to work after matric. They don’t have the money for anything else. Some have ailing parents or they’re orphans,” said Molelekoa.
”But having your matric is a big opportunity. It means you have a tool, a weapon to go out with and fight for your place in society. Then maybe their children will be able to go to university.”
— The Guardian, February 1 2000.