Initial impressions of the re-opening of schools in January suggest a huge improvement compared with previous years. Recurring problems include overcrowding, supply of textbooks and state-subsidised transport – but on a far smaller scale than has been experienced in the past.
Schools in the five inland provinces opened their doors mid-January without major problems.
“We are impressed,” said Dingani Ngobeni of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu). “Where overcrowding is occurring, schools are arranging mobile classrooms to ensure everyone is accommodated.”
Sadtu’s impression is shared by the second-largest teacher union, the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa. The union’s president, Dave Balt, said the union had very little feedback from regional offices suggesting serious problems.
But there were also glitches, said Silumko Radebe, a fieldworker at Wits University’s education policy unit. In Soweto, he found some cases of pupils’ report cards being withheld because of non-payment of fees (this is illegal). In the Vaal region of Bophelong, buses did not arrive for about 800 pupils, apparently because the Gauteng department of education had failed to renew the bus company’s contract. As a result, these pupils were walking more than 5km to get to their schools, said Radebe.
He agreed that, overall, the back-to-school experience had been far better than last year. In Limpopo, he found no problems, except for late registrations; and Soweto was “coping fine”.
Like other observers, he found some instances of overcrowding, transport problems and fee-based exclusions, but on a far smaller scale than before.
“There was certainly no overall chaos,” he said.
But problems might still emerge, cautioned Faranaaz Veriava of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University. So far, the centre had received only two complaints – one concerning a report card illegally withheld, the other involving non-payment of fees.
She said the Education Alliance will be working with all stakeholders during the year to ensure the identification problems before they occur, not afterwards.
The Education Alliance was recently formed to support efforts to widen access to education and tackle issues of quality. The alliance consists of Sadtu, the African National Congress Youth League, the Congress of South African Students, the National Association of School Governing Bodies, the South African Student Congress and the Young Communist League.