Why is it that the public gets so silly and hysterical when the issue of language in education is raised? Suddenly there’s an unholy tizz played out in the media, shrieks of incoherent distress that you’d expect only when the cockroaches finally take over the world.
From my side, I say bring it on! Giving our indigenous languages a meaningful place in our schooling system is a fabulous — and totally necessary — move. It’s the key to so many things, from nation-building to educational success.
Yet when Minister of Education Naledi Pandor made the pledge to ‘vigorously and effectively [promote] South African indigenous languages in our schools” in her education budget speech in Parliament last month, everybody and their puppy yelped doom and gloom. ‘She’s banning English!” they cried. ‘It’s a diabolical anti-Afrikaans plot!” they screamed.
Get a grip! Pandor was very clear on the fact that neither of these languages is being banned or attacked, and really what it’s about is making room for everybody.
The problem for me is that she didn’t mention the how and when and how much of this plan. There’s an urgent need to spell out each of the steps that will lead us from the noble sentiment to the working reality. Otherwise there’s the risk that this good idea, like others before it, will simply become more hot air.
What I did find alarming was Pandor’s threat to review the South African Schools Act (Sasa) because of what she describes as a minority of school governing bodies that see schools as ‘their personal property” and refuse to be inclusive. If it really is just a few schools, why is there a need to amend Sasa? Surely they could be effectively dealt with on a case-by-case basis using existing legislation?
But Pandor does seem to have most of her priorities straight. In another important speech she made last month — to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) — the minister was pretty candid with her provincial counterparts about failures of implementation.
She drew attention to one evil that cannot be tolerated — the dreaded word ‘underspending”.
It boils down to the fact that provinces have failed to spend the money they have been given by the national government to meet the many needs of schools. This year, the nine provinces combined have failed to spend the massive amount of R660-million. The worst offenders are the Free State, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
These millions had been set aside for capital spending — money for building things such as classrooms and toilets, for example. So here’s the riddle: on the one hand there are youngsters learning their ABCs under the leaky roof of a tree’s branches, having to pee in stinking, dangerous pit toilets. On the other, there are millions of rands specifically earmarked to build classrooms and toilets. But the money remains in the provincial coffers, the children under the tree. Huh?
The usual reason given for this is the equally intolerable one of ‘lack of capacity”. I understand this to mean that there are not enough people employed in provincial governments — or not enough people with the right skills — and they have too few resources to do the job that needs doing.
Perhaps this is the case. But I think another part of it is the lack of a ‘can-do” determination. I think many bureaucrats are guilty of a fat-cat attitude, which means they’re more interested in their fancy fast cars and overseas study trips than in working for their salaries; and those who do arrive at the office with purpose soon have their passion and energy extinguished by eternal red tape.
Which brings me to an important theme of Pandor’s speech to the NCOP: accountability. She pointed out the absence of ‘agreed tools of evaluation and accountability” between national and provincial education structures, and the negative implications of this. Without them, there is no way to understand properly when policies fail to work in practice — Is the problem that the policy developed by the national department is unworkable, or is it that there is not enough effort in the provinces to make it work? There is also, therefore, no way to solve the breakdown.
Pandor’s statements need to be followed up with some real pressure for these mechanisms of evaluation and accountability to be created. It’s high time that the weak links in the long chain from minister to educator are properly identified, and effective steps taken to fix them.