The centre cannot hold

By Athambile Masola

“Things fall apart
The centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”

Yeats’ words from the poem The Second Coming are often used to allude to a state of affairs that demands attention from everybody. Today, this aptly describes the state of South Africa’s education system.

Things are falling apart in many schools across South Africa. Even though there are schools that are beacons of light under great duress, many schools in South Africa, especially in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, bear the negative image of things falling apart — where the centre of quality basic education cannot hold.

The obvious starting point would be the matric results released in January. The Eastern Cape has once again featured at the bottom with numbers getting lower and lower. Even though it is often misguided to use the results as a benchmark for the standard of education, they are an indication of the deteriorating quality of education in a province in need of development and which cannot happen without this education.

Mere anarchy is loosed into these communities with children who cannot read and write at the end of Grade 3, and Grade 12 learners leave school with no skills for the next phase in their lives. Mere anarchy is loosed into these communities in the form of droves of young people sitting with nothing to do or some finding meaning in lawlessness and criminal activities. Anarchy can also be found in the form of disempowered young women without skills to support themselves and their families.

“Surely some revelation is at hand, surely the Second Coming is at hand” is an indication in the poem that it is not possible that such anarchy and hopelessness can continue much longer. But what does the second coming look like for South Africa’s education system?

The paradox about education is that it has the ability to change society and open doors for some people and for others it is the very factor that contributes to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We see the latter for many of South Africa’s learners. Learners from schools that are referred to as previously or historically disadvantaged are still disadvantaged and the gap between those who have skills and knowledge for a fast changing world and those who do not, keeps getting wider.

There are many individuals across South Africa involved in changing the status quo of education in both the private and public sectors in SA but development is often stunted by action that is led from different angles and programmes that do not grasp the complex issues when working with people’s lives. Education is multifaceted and mirrors its society.

Examples can be cited with work by Equal Education, People’s Participation in Education Network (PPEN) and the Development Bank’s Education Conversations. The Education Conversations created spaces for debates for those who are involved in education to get together and share ideas about getting education right in South Africa.

The conversation in Rhini-Grahamstown was somewhat disappointing as the atmosphere was one of accusation towards those responsible for the schools in this region.

PPEN has also had a strange success in the Eastern Cape but has been successfully launched in the Western Cape and Johannesburg and we need to ask ourselves why this is the case.

Parliament’s portfolio committee on basic education made a call last year November for written submissions focusing on the delivery of quality education, challenges in education and access to education. But are these organisations and initiatives able to reach the rural parts of South Africa which experience a different reality of education or will we have people speaking on behalf of those who are marginalised in these areas?

I do not intend to be alarmist or pessimistic but rather hopeful for the “second coming” — a time when education only becomes an issue when teachers go on strike, when the Grade 12 results are released or when schools open once a year. Hopefully our second coming will be a time when parents will have opportunities to have meaningful conversations with district offices, when policy becomes action and when education becomes a burden and responsibility everyone will carry with them.

Athambile Masola is a disgruntled student of education at Rhodes University.