Duncan Hindle’s article on The School Inspector, the website he has set up offering a forum for the public to comment on particular schools (“Time for schools to be marked”, Mail & Guardian, September 2), created some fanfare on the internet. Some even called it a “creative” move.
The interest lay partly in the fact that Hindle once served as director general in the national department of education. Two concepts that Hindle emphasised were accountability and participation. Because I am familiar with the issues at stake, that captured my attention.
So I read eagerly and in my mind, as I did so, were the profound commentaries by people such as Professor Jonathan Jansen and Dr Mamphela Ramphele about the plight of education in this country.
Could Hindle emulate them or even offer a breakthrough approach to finally put education woes to bed, I wondered? How radical is he given his previous position in the department? Did some of the challenges he described arise during his tenure and how were they resolved? I had to find out, so I read on!
Concept is flawed
But midway through my enthusiasm fizzled out as I struggled to understand exactly what new perspectives on education the article offered. And, with all due respect to the bloggers, there is nothing creative about what Hindle proposes with The School Inspector. It is a web-based tool for the public to ventilate its views and anger about education. As a concept The School Inspector is flawed because its aims, theory and modus operandi conflict with the principles of democracy and civility.
To create a cyberspace tool for the public to comment on and rate a school’s performance regarding quality of teaching, organisational effectiveness and the promotion of constitutional principles and values is problematic. It is based on the flawed assumption that the public has a holistic understanding of the dynamic and systemic factors that undermine our education.
I do not doubt that there is public knowledge of education matters. My concern rather centres on the extent of that knowledge and individuals’ ability to interpret diverse systemic nuances that might not be obvious. We do need empirical evidence that is plausible to use as the basis for analysing trends in the performances of schools.
The South African School Act of 1996 gives the public a far greater role in the governance and improvement of education than was previously the case. It also requests all stakeholders to accept responsibility for the organisation of schools. Research on why school governing bodies have been dysfunctional in public but not private schools is needed — and it would also be of interest to get a former insider’s view on how the department plans to correct these faults.
Hindle argued that the public will use information about schools that is already in the department’s records. But it is dangerous to assume that all departmental data about schools’ performance is beyond reproach and critical scrutiny.
The standardisation of the matric examinations is a classic case. It is, after all, the same public that questions the standards and quality of matric results and Umalusi, as the quality assurer of the examinations, has failed to debunk the myths on which at least some public concerns and reservations rest.
Who will moderate the comments?
Similarly, it is not clear who will “moderate all comments and scores and provide a fair assessment” of the public opinions expressed to The School Inspector. For instance, what measures of quality assurance will be deployed to decipher public chaff from facts?
Seventeen years into our democracy, a significant number of schools still teach learners under trees and in mud-built enclosures without books, libraries and laboratories. All these inadequacies violate our Constitution and the millennium development goals as a global commitment by the nations of the world to work together and change lives.
The School Inspector might add to the debate but what real reach will it have in rural communities, given that only 30% of South Africa has access to ICTs? Rural schools certainly perform poorly because of systemic imbalances, but how will they access his site? If through cellphones, at what price?
The School Inspector draws its inspiration from retributive-justice theories that say people deserve public punishment in proportion to the harm that their actions have caused. Hindle is emphatic that “underperforming individuals and schools must be publicly disgraced — the time for excuses is over”.
Teachers aren’t the only ones to blame
He believes that teachers deserve public humiliation — a “public disgrace” — for their classroom misdemeanours if they have contributed to poor learner performance. Of course teachers do share the blame, but there are other stakeholders, especially the department and communities. Has the department shown political will and effectively used the law to rein in those who undermine quality education?
Given the volume of financial resources injected into basic education — R2.7-billion this year to improve basic education and R2.8-million ring-fenced for assessments of literacy and numeracy, a greater enforcement of policies and strategies is indeed sorely missed. For instance, the department’s “Code for Quality Education Learning and Teaching Campaign” was launched in 2008 at the Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. It would have been great to get the perspective of an insider such as Hindle on whether the campaign worked.
The retributive justice advocated by Hindle “will not be negotiated or rule-bound — [It] will be done in the public eye and the only censure would be that of the court of public opinion.” The School Inspector’s approach is backward-looking and will inflame the already explosive relationships between teachers, communities and department.
It is a dangerous attack on the rights of the citizenry as protected by our Constitution. Instead of censure, a more restorative approach would be to create dialogue and engender organisational accountability and rule of law. Let us rather find creative and practical ways to solve the systemic challenges that undermine quality education.
Lebusa Monyooe is a director at the National Research Foundation.