Rural people have long been the worst educated, least organised, and therefore least able to demand assistance through formal or informal structures. Yet their ability to take charge of local government and to contribute to decision-making will be critical to the effectiveness of rural local government. It is the states obligation to create access to resources and to assist with access to programmes that promote good use of resources through capacity building support.
Capacity building can be defined as support or intervention that empowers people, communities or organisations to achieve their objectives. While training is important, it does not constitute all of capacity building.
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Effective capacity building requires the interaction of experience-by-doing, access to resources, facilitation, mediation, and training. There is a need for state assistance to increase the capacity of district and rural councils, and for those structures to employ people skilled in facilitation and mediation to promote organisational skills among rural people. The Pilot Projects for Land Reform are one example of a Programme that seeks to build capacity. Participant groups are required to engage in joint planning around a budget for implementation, one arm of which is obtaining the assistance they need to plan well.
Capacity building for rural local government and the community organisations with which it interacts will be critical to effective rural development. As RSCs come under democratic supervision as District Councils they will have to reorient, widen and extend their services. Rural people will want closer control over services through the speedy devolution of delivery to primary local authorities. Devolution to bodies with little experience and who are unlikely to secure bureaucratic assistance will be difficult. The Local Government Training Board has started some limited training of TLC councillors, but this is unlikely to have much effect in the short term. Similarly, it is unlikely that traditional leaders have yet benefited from such training.
Council officials also require training so that they can execute the decisions of political office bearers effectively and efficiently. This will require core managerial, administrative and technical competence, as well as attention to the organisational culture, values and attitudes that underlie local government transformation towards meeting the needs of clients.
Africans living in rural areas were denied educational opportunities to an even greater extent than those in urban areas. Most rural schools are poorly resourced with buildings, equipment, books and access to infrastructure such as electricity and running water. Children usually walk long distances to school and class sizes of 70 students are not uncommon. Drop out and repetition rates are high and a large number of children do not attend school at all. Opportunities for secondary education are restricted. Opportunities for childhood educate and adult education are rare although the needs are immense.
Community schools in the former homelands were built with only a partial subsidy of building costs from the state. The state provided teachers' salaries, books and furniture. All other costs building maintenance, cleaning equipment, educational resources, sports equipment, etc. - were paid for by the community. Given the prevailing poverty, it is hardly surprising to find most schools in a wretched state and consequently offering education of inferior quality. School committees, made up of parents, have no real power to influence school policy. Farm schools were built by private farmers, with building costs subsidised by the state. They provide mainly for the children of farm workers, one of the poorest groups in the country. Teachers' salaries are provided by the state. 'With few exceptions, these schools tend to be even more poorly resourced than the community schools.
New policies for rural education
The major rural education issues facing national and provincial governments are how to improve its quality to education, improve its quality and establish effective democratic structures for educational governance. To redress past neglect of rural education, there must be positive discrimination in favour of rural areas.
The Minister of Education has appointed a Committee to Review School Organisation, Governance and Funding to review the state's responsibility for education and such issues as how poor rural communities can become less dependent on their resources or the goodwill of farmers for the provision of basic education. The Committee will work within the framework of principles set out in the 1995 White Paper on Education and Training in a Democratic South Africa. Communities could, of course, still mobilise their resources to top up state funding, but the important thing is for the state to fund basic education in rural areas fairly and to achieve equity with urban areas.
Access to schooling must be improved to meet the state's Constitutional obligation to provide basic education for all. This will involve building more schools and classrooms to satisfy demand and expanding opportunities for secondary schooling, adult education and educate. Improving educational quality also requires adequate provision of stationery, textbooks and other reading material, decreasing the teacher: student ratios, providing in-service training for teachers, strengthening teachers' advisory services, and providing electricity, dean water and telephones to educational institutions. Ultimately, education improvement is tied up with the general economic upliftment of the rural areas. This will make infrastructure improvements easier to achieve, improve the educational potential of children and adults, help rural am-as to attract and retain qualified teachers, and improve the health and general welfare of children.
All schools will have elected governing bodies of elected representatives of parents, teachers, and (in secondary schools) students. Other important stakeholders could also be represented. Other educational institutions, catering for adults, distance-learners, pre-school children, or the community at large (e.g. libraries) should also have appropriate governing bodies on which all the main stakeholders are represented. This will require capacity-building programmes that will empower participants by helping them to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for the proper functioning of the governance structures.
Many national and provincial departments have begun, or are in the process of beginning, capacity building programmes which:
Rural communities must mandate their local and district councils to demand their fair share of funding for capacity building. It will be essential that applications from community structures for NDA funding emanate from the local coordinating committee if the funds are to be used to support capacity building that strengthens local development initiatives. The funds allocated to the NDA are tied to a formula that requires affirmative spending that favours poorer provinces, rural areas, and women. The probable use of the funds will be to buy training and capacity building from NGOs and the private sector. This is a major resource, and councils and community structures are urged to apply quickly for funding for suitable training. Provincial RDP offices will be able to direct queries to the correct channels.
| Rural people who wish to obtain funding assistance for capacity building, service delivery or infrastructure development must learn the importance of obtaining and using statistical information about themselves in their applications for funding. for example, It is proposed in Section B below that children's nutritional status becomes accepted as an indicator of development in rural areas. Rural communities can insist through the local health authority that nutrition statistics are collected and analysed regularly. NGOs working with rural people will do well to create awareness of such indicators, and their strength in supporting demands for assistance. This will also assist funding agencies to target assistance to the poorest areas. |