Education MECs are taking to blitzing problem schools to sort them out.
LEARNERS and teachers who like to be serial slackers had better watch out. These days, the next guy to walk into the shebeen during working hours might just be an MEC.
Worse still, as Gauteng MEC for Education Ignatius Jacobs showed late last month, the authority in question won’t be there to join in the drinking and dancing.
This was literally the scenario that greeted the horrified eyes of Jacobs when he barged into the Oasis nightclub on a weekday in Thembisa: 300 learners, some half naked but most in uniform, having a whale of a party, instead of attending the scheduled school sports meeting. Some learners were so inebriated they had to be carried out of the nightclub; others sober enough to recognise the MEC fled the scene.
Jacobs, who was acting on a tip-off from concerned parents, is one of several MECs who are taking Minister of Education Kader Asmal’s calls for rigorous action to heart. He and others like the Western Cape’s Helen Zille and Mpumalanga’s Craig Padayachee are examples of education MECs taking a tough, hands-on approach to problem schools.
Jacobs did more than just visit the scene of the fiasco — he followed up with a meeting with scholars, teachers and the principal from the errant school, Ingxayizvile High, emphasising that they must focus on the business of learning and teaching.
Principal Cass Sehloho said he ”appreciated the stand taken by Mr Jacobs. It is a commendable thing. He’s a hands-on man and he’d like to make a difference in his position as MEC.”
The incident highlights one area of crisis in education that is referred to so often it’s fast becoming a cliche: the breakdown in the culture of learning and teaching. While Asmal has been holding up the principal as the main role player responsible for getting schools functioning, accountability for the situation spreads beyond the principal or the education authorities generally. Sehloho emphasises how the lack of parental involvement in their children’s schooling undermines his efforts, saying that most parents ”vanish into thin air after registering their children”.
Broader society is also responsible for making such behaviour possible — and they are being forced to take responsibility. The owner of the Oasis, Colin du Toit, is facing action for selling liquor to under-age students.
A traffic officer, who was acting as DJ while his car was parked outside the club, is also under investigation for his part in the incident.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, March 1, 2000.
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