“I personally believe that there is no better investment that we can make than creating opportunities for young people to acquire good quality education.
“I personally believe that there is no better investment that we can make than creating opportunities for young people to acquire good quality education.
As part of our schools partnership, we as a university have made a commitment, that any young person coming from these schools who has performed exceptionally well, to make sure that we find money to support that person,” says Dr Sizwe Mabizela, Deputy Vice-Chance of Academic Student Affairs, a member of the Schools Partnership Programme from Rhodes University.
“We as a university have a responsibility to the Rhini area, Grahamstown and the Eastern Cape.” The programme began in 2006 when Dr Saleem Badat became Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University.
Badat was alarmed firstly that the matric results were so bad and secondly that there were no young learners coming from Rhini to study at Rhodes University.
So early in 2007 he called a meeting with school principals from Benjamin Mashlasela, Khutliso Daniels, Mary Waters, Nathaniel Nyaluza, Nombulelo, Samuel Ntsika and TEM Mrwetyana and all agreed that something had to be done.
Nothing much happened after that until 2008 when Dr Joyce Nduna, Director of Community Engagement arrived. Mabizela says she was “very very energetic and she tried to revive the schools project”.
She visited all the seven schools and through an intimate interactionswith the schools, valuable information was gathered which was then closely analysed. Four broad themes were identified.
The first one was about schools leadership, management and governance. It involved principals and governing bodies and looking at their effectiveness.
The second theme was that the content knowledge of teachers was weak, especially in the sciences. There are often instances where there is no teacher for a certain subject and other unqualified teachers end up taking over.
The third area identified was the problem of learner discipline. The idea was to work on creating better learner leadership councils to help better discipline the learners.
The final theme raised was the general physical environment of the school. Schools often have no running water, desks or black boards. Broken windows and uncut grass prevail.
Mabizela identified four main stakeholders in the Schools Partnership Programme: the district office of the Department of Education, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), school principals and Rhodes University.
“What the programme is really trying to do is create an environment that is conducive to quality teaching and learning for the young people in these schools,” says Mabizela. “We don’t see it as a quick fix; we see it as a long term commitment.
The problems that need to be addressed can’t be addressed in the short term.” Last year in March a memorandum of understanding was signed by all interested parties including the municipality.
Mabizela stressed that the astern Cape has some of the best schools in the country, both private and public. Yet a stone’s throw away rom these schools are schools that are completely dysfunctional.
“If there is any place where a meaningful intervention should work, it’s in Grahamstown,” says Mabizela. “I’m firmly convinced that this schools project is something that will make a meaningful change in the quality of education that the young people receive in this township, unemployment in the town is just beyond belief.”
When the programme started Badat was offered funding to pick out the cream of the crop and bring them into private schools in Grahamstown.
Badat would not entertain the idea at all. It would have “robbed the schools of their shining stars,” says Mabizela.
It’s important to look at the entire school and how both the environment and the quality of teaching and learning are improved. It is vital for these young students to interact with students from Rhodes and for them to realise that Rhodes is not so far away.
“Most learners don’t really think beyond Grade 12, they see the university is physically there but they don’t see themselves in the university.”
This shows the importance of initiatives such as the Dean of Students project of bringing a learner to Rhodes.
“As a university we have the expertise and resources to help these areas. Many Rhodes students have been getting involved through the volunteer programme, tutoring at the various schools,” he said.
Mabizela said that while the Department of Education often throws money at the problem.He feels, “there needs to be a fundamental shift in the thinking of parents, principals and teachers so that people start to value education and understanding the capital that derives from having access to quality education”.
