PRESERVING WESTERN CAPE PRIVILEGE?

The aim expressed in the subtitle is admirable. The document, compiled by Helen Zille Maree in January 1999, is characteristically well written and conveys the impression of academic and professional competence. Its judgments are therefore likely to be given credence, even when they ignore many crucial factors.

The opening argument -- that declining senior certificate and matric exemption results show that "the quality of general public education seems to be declining further" and "are among the few benchmarks we have to measure our education system against past performance" -- implies that the new administration has not taken seriously the view that "education has become the most important and sustainable form of wealth redistribution in any society".

The document maintains that in order to maintain and improve the South African education system priority should be given to sustaining schools that perform well and to "good average schools" which include a significant number of former House of Representatives and DET schools.

There is no analysis of why certain DET and homelands schools have performed exceptionally well despite the general budget constraints. The fact that most of the schools which should be prioritised are those which previously enjoyed unjust privilege (coloured less than white) and are still receiving 150 per cent of the national average is quietly ignored.

This and other arguments contained in the Western Cape DP document assume that readers adequately appreciate the magnitude and complexity of the task of reconstructing education that had to be tackled in the four and a half years (to end of l998) and yet are qualified to pass judgment on the new administration.

What follows is a relatively brief summary of the facts, problems and issues involved in the transformation of the old apartheid education systems into one national, non-racial system consistent with the democratic constitution of the "new South Africa"

It is based mainly on the relevant Annual Surveys of Race Relations (SAIRR). As you read it you may wish to consider whether it is appropriate and intellectually defensible to pass judgment on the national department of education in terms of "quality of education" without acknowledging what has and is been involved in dismantling and reconstructing the entire process in order to lay the foundations and begin to build the structures and mechanisms needed for future development.

1. Education and training, with about 20 per cent of nett national budget, affects some 11.8 million pupils and up to 1.8 million out of schoolchildren and some 400,000 teachers (not to mention non-teaching personnel). Add to this the tertiary education sector (universities, technikons).
2. At primary and secondary level there were nineteen departments of education which were racially, politically and financially divided, and spanned 11 different languages. They were to be brought together in a unified non-racial national department of education and nine new provincial departments. These would de facto be very disparate, from inheriting five languages ,the residues of six departments and immense burdens of poverty to the Western Cape with no homelands, 80 per cent in two departments and relatively favourable economic circumstances.
3. The reorganisation and restructuring had to be done in terms of the Constitutions (interim and final, approved May 1996) and the interpretations thereof in respect of provincial powers, labour relations, Public Service Commission requirements (with constraints imposed by Kempton Park compromises ), financial allocations and, above all, the struggle for legitimacy and cooperation of all stakeholders at every stage.
4. There were/are major human problems to do with teachers who, after all, are at the coalface of education. These problems include(d):

5. Likewise, there were major problems with what Americans term "plant":

6. Constitutionally the Department had to adopt a policy of free and compulsory education as far as possible -- in principle over ten years from age seven. This meant bringing over one million unschooled children into the system.
7. In view of the politicised state of schools in the past, it was not possible to regulate the flows of pupils to particular schools in particular areas. These flows, affected by strong socio-economic factors, have made planning and provision exceptionally difficult.
8. etc. etc……..

Dealing with these and other factors called for the recruitment and appointment of senior personnel (from within departments and beyond it), intensive and extensive processes of data gathering, consultation, drafting and redrafting of policy documents, drafting and redrafting of proposed legislation. All this involved a wide range of stakeholders from political to educational (at various levels and in different guises e.g. teacher unions) and bureaucratic (many of them "old SA" in attitude and with jobs protected until after the1999 elections, therefore able to "footdrag" if thus inclined).

Inevitably there was uncertainty, controversy and stress, within the education sector as well as on the wider scene (occasioned by constitutional and political wrangles, the rising tide of crime, the social instability that is known to accompany major social change).

There was also discontinuity and loss of professional leadership through movement of people from education into national and provincial parliaments and civil service, also into local government sector.

Halfway through the 29 page DP document reference is made to five new pieces of legislation as providing "acceptable parameters for achieving stability, predictability and functionality in education". There is also a criticism of the SA Qualifications Authority Act "which will probably prove too complex to implement effectively and efficiently" as if Rome can be built in a day.

The document does acknowledge that "South Africa has a sound educational policy framework" but then complains that it is "not being translated into good practice in the average classroom".

The DP in the Western Cape then proceeds from its privileged position to present its vision and proposals for implementing them. Surely these should be considered against the background of Western Cape data.

Western Cape Data

1. Thanks in part to the 1955-86 "Western Cape White and Coloured Labour Preferential Area Policy", with massive forced removals of black African people, this is a province of minorities … approx. 60 per cent coloured, 20 per cent white and 20 per cent black African. These categories are constitutionally obsolete but, alas, have major de facto effects on people's lives -- from material conditions to mindsets.
2. The province has about 10 per cent of the country's population and the second highest per capita income.
3. Most of its pupils have benefited historically by per capita education expenditure: in 1993/4 white R4,772, Indian R4,423, coloured R3,601 and DET R2,110 (homelands R1,524).
4. A five year programme is under way to equalise expenditure per pupil. In 1996/7 this meant that W. Cape pupils were still receiving 149% of the national average while in a poverty stricken province like the Eastern Cape they were receiving 82%. Yet the DP document complains about cuts in subsidies.
5. In 1994/5 pupil/teacher ratios reflected the following:

Province	Primary	Secondary	Average
E.Cape	49:1	29:1	41:1
W.Cape	28:1	21:1	25:1
National	37:1	27:1	34:1

At that stage the Western Cape had an estimated 7% of the country's pupils and 20% of its teachers.

W. Cape pupils not only had smaller classes (even in coloured schools, which had half the resources, House of Reps policy was for small classes at the cost of facilities like laboratories). They also had better qualified teachers: whites very well qualified, therefore nationally absorbing 33% of salary budget while comprising 16% of total); one third of coloured teachers under qualified, compared with 64 of black African teachers underqualified.

1. Reorganisation of schooling in the W. Cape has been institutionally less difficult than in most other provinces as Model C schools have been "open" for the past 7-8 years and the (white) Cape School Board tradition already provided much experience in school governance. Provincial legislation in November l994 placed final power in the hands of the MEC for Education. In turn, she allowed Model C schools to sell "surplus" land and keep the proceeds for themselves. (This has since been restricted by national government.)
2. On the other hand, the process of "rightsizing" i.e. reducing the number of teachers in relation to pupils has been traumatic. An April 1996 Three Year Conditions of Service Adjustment Package permitted an educator to apply for a voluntary severance package, subject to the approval of the provincial education department. Rightsizing committees comprising representatives from the Department of Education, school governance committees, staff members and observers from unions were to be established to make recommendations regarding excess teachers. Provincial and national redeployment agencies would be established to compile a data base of excess teachers and facilitate their transfer. That was the theory. Unlike Gauteng, which also had to lose excess teachers but had a provincial administration committed to alleviating the worst effects of the reductions, the W. Cape came into sharp and sustained conflict with the National Department. The negative social, educational and financial effects of this conflict are still being experienced.

The lengthy and detailed list of proposals overlaps with a large number of policies and recommendations already agreed by the Department of Education and due to/in process of implementation e.g. the new Further Education College in Citrusdal. There is, therefore, no argument about the desirability of many of the proposals. The problems are to do with method. feasibility and how to achieve "more with less" through synergy and productivity gains.

The document notes that the core of its vision .."a quality education is already a reality for a significant number of middle class SA learners , most of whom attend schools that were previously under the jurisdiction of the House of Representatives (coloured) and House of Assembly education departments. In some of these schools the tradition of quality education is seriously at risk due to subsidy cuts and the pressures of ‘transformation’. The challenge is to retain and build quality education where it exists and to extend this opportunity to everyone within the shortest possible time".

The argument seems to be that educational progress can best be achieved by conserving standards that have been built up on the basis of minority privilege, and assuming that these centres of excellence can gradually be extended.

There is much attention to "consumer choice" as the dynamic of such progress and many promises about what the DP will do in service delivery -- without explaining how the willing and, indeed, sacrificial co-operation of the majority of teachers, parents and pupils would be secured.

This emphasis needs to be considered in relation to the very specific Western Cape realities, historical and contemporary, as already indicated.

For just under five years the government, teachers, parents , pupils and private sector have been engaged in the mammoth task of "turning SA education around" in order to put all South Africans on the road to prosperity in the next century. The DP refers to all HARDWORKING South Africans as if the effective division in the past has been between those who worked hard and achieved and those who did not.

No one denies the need for hard work and sacrifice. But when the exhortation comes from the sector that has enjoyed unjust privilege in the past and is widely perceived -- whether rightly or wrongly -- as engaged in protecting that privilege as far as possible, the results are likely to be counterproductive.

And that is a great pity, as the contribution of the hitherto privileged, when made available in a spirit of service and reparation, is needed in the work of nation building

THAT ALL MAY ENJOY A BETTER LIFE.

Margaret Nash
May l999