PW_MAIN_E1_160520_ALL-1

OOPINION
6
You have casual Fridays.
Those of us who work at home have
shaveless Mondays… deodorantless
Tuesdays… sockless Wednesdays…
and of course, topless Thursdays.
ROB HARRELL
Adam@Home cartoonist
SATURDAY, MAY 16 2020 | PRETORIA NEWS
ICYMI | IOL.CO.ZA
PR EXERCISE REEKS OF
DESPERATION
The publicity stunt by former president
Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzane is
an ill-advised political strategy, and a
pathetic public relations exercise, argues
writer Jovial Rantao of the Twitter videos
Zooming with the Zumas.
See https://bit.ly/ZumaGamble
EDITORIAL
COMMENT
Children
bear brunt
of lockdown
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa’s
extension of the continued
quarantine of this country
until the end of the month,
which he announced on
Wednesday night, is already
being met by legal challenges
over the impact this is having
on our beleaguered economy.
There is one aspect, though,
that everyone is missing; the
collateral damage wrought by the
lockdown.
Ramaphosa, to his credit, spoke
out harshly this week against the
perpetrators of domestic violence.
We almost always see domestic
violence as meted out by men
against women: assaults that are
verbal, physical and sexual.
What no one has seen though
is the violence visited upon
children by parents who are
unused to having their children
around them all the time for a
protracted period such as this.
No schools are operating.
Instead, parents and caregivers
are expected to undertake those
educational responsibilities at
home. No school meals are being
offered, placing further strain on
already overstretched resources.
The result is as inevitable as
it is tragic: some households are
buckling under the strain with
terrible consequences – parents
and adults lashing out at children,
many of whom are far too young
to understand why or what it is
that they have done wrong.
Some families unable to cope
are choosing the desperately heartrending
solution of abandoning
their young children at places
of hope more accustomed to
receiving unwanted newborn
babies.
Nowhere in the rhetoric
and feverish debates about lives
versus livelihoods have we heard
anyone take up the cudgels for
the children.
It’s high time we did. As
adults, we don’t just have a
responsibility to the youngest
and most vulnerable; we have a
vested interest in ensuring they
are properly nurtured and given
the best chance – not just because
they are tomorrow’s leaders, but
also because they will be our
caregivers, too.
Editor
Newsdesk
Advertising
Subscriptions
Deliveries
FOUNDED 1898
Valerie Boje
012 300 2107
012 300 2200
0860 326 262
0860 326 262
Mail: PO Box 439, Pretoria 0001
E-mail: pta.newsdesk@inl.co.za
Web: iol.co.za/Pretoria News
Facebook: facebook.com/
PretoriaNewsSA
Twitter: @Pretorianews
Instagram: @pretoria.news
PRESS OMBUDSMAN
Complaints relating to editorial content
can be sent to
complaints@inl.co.za
PTA News Weekend is printed by Insights Publishing,
47 Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Street, Johannesburg,
Gauteng. The copyright in the literary and artistic works
contained in this newspaper and its supplements, as
well as in the published editions and any other content
Or material (including in any online version), belongs
exclusively to Independent Newspapers (Pty) Limited
unless otherwise stated. The copyright, including the
reproduction and adaptation of any content or material
contained in this newspaper and its supplements,
is expressly reserved to the publisher, Independent
Newspapers (Pty) Limited, under Section 12(7) of the
Copyright Act of 1978. The circulation of the Pretoria
News Weekend is certified by the Audit Bureau of
Circulations,which can be contacted at PO Box 47189,
Parklands, 2121, South Africa or Suite 5, Ground
Floor, 158 Jan Smuts, 9 Walters Ave, Rosebank, 2196,
Johannesburg. Cover price: R9.50 (includes VAT at 15%)
PUPILS in rural areas have been getting a raw deal when it comes to schooling compared with their urban counterparts. | ANA Archives
Stimulus plan needed
for rural education
Teachers and pupils across all schools deserve equal ‘norms and standards’, says experts
SAKHELA BUHLUNGU, NHLANGANISO
DLADLA, SELLO HATANG, NOBUNTU MAZEKA,
VUSI MNCUBE, RELEBOGILE MOLETSANE,
SISA NGEBULANA, BUHLE PHIRI, KIMBERLEY
PORTEUS and MVUYO TOM
WE COME together united by a longterm
commitment to education and
rural development, to motivate that
we approach the Covid-19 crisis as
one that fundamentally combines
health, the economy and education.
We motivate to rapidly extend the
stimulus package to make a massive
once-off investment into equalising
the basic resources of schooling, with
an emphasis on primary schooling
and early childhood development.
As a nation, we have been focusing
our attention on the Covid-19 curve.
We draw attention to another
curve. We can call it the Ed-Curve.
It consistently destroys between 60%
and 70% of our children’s lives.
The Ed-Curve represents children’s
educational performance by
measures of socio-economic status
of a child. Across the world, there is
a relationship between educational
performance and the socio-economic
circumstances of a child.
The South African Ed-Curve is
more severe than this international
norm. Analysts describe the South
African Ed-Curve as “bi-modal”
because it reflects two school universes
within one nation.
In the top quintile of schools (former
“Model C” schools) the global
rules apply. Children from more
wealthy homes have a statistically
better chance of learning to read with
meaning by the end of Grade 4. Children
from less wealthy families have
an uphill battle, but they still have a
fighting chance. Taken together, 65%
of children achieve the low international
benchmark for Grade 4 reading.
If we focus on the poorest 60% of
schools, the line looks very different.
Like an electroencephalogram (EEG)
of a patient in a protracted coma, the
line is basically flat. Only 11% of children
in the poorest quintile reached
the lowest international benchmark,
increasing to only 15% by the third
quintile. Statistically speaking, 60%
of children do not have a fighting
chance to learn to read with meaning
by the end of Grade 4. Schooling fails
not only to mediate inequality, but
makes it worse.
Why is the system so unproductive
for 60% of the school system?
Education is notoriously complex;
solutions take time.
The Department of Basic Education
(DBE) is working to build sustainable
solutions. However, one starting
point remains intractable. Teachers
in rural schools do not have the basic
resources that give them a fighting
chance to succeed.
Covid-19 has clarified our national
understanding that we cannot expect
health care professionals to take on
this challenge unless we provide them
with the basic resources that enable
them to do their jobs. It has forced us
to take a calculated political and economic
risk to invest into our nation
beyond normal fiscal disciplines.
When applied to education, this
means identifying the basic resources
that provide teachers and children
with a fighting chance to perform,
and holding ourselves accountable
to achieving these “norms and standards”
across all schools.
In the past 10 days, we have
observed rising public tensions as
the DBE has grappled with how to
safely open schools. The department
has established “non-negotiable” preconditions
for school opening.
Despite assurances from the Minister
of Basic Education, there is little trust
among teachers and parents that their
concerns have been heard.
One of the most important assets
of any education system is the solidarity
between and among parents,
teachers, and the educational systems
and authorities of the state.
Solidarity is under threat not simply
from Covid-19, but from a system
that has been unable to fully respond
to the daily struggles of rural schools
for too long.
The public knows, in its bones, the
task at hand lies beyond the resources
and systems currently at the disposal
COMMENT
of the DBE. We believe the public
is unlikely to trust the plans going
forward unless education is provided
with a massively extended mandate,
machinery and resources to get the
job done.
While the detail of an educational
stimulus plan lies beyond this call, we
highlight a few elements below.
First, Covid-19 threatens to further
undermine the early childhood
development services serving poor
children.
A recent rapid analysis undertaken
by ECD stakeholders concludes that
between 20 000 and 30 000 centres
run the acute risk of closure. We
must ensure that the stimulus package
reaches people working in early
childhood development, whether
registered or not.
Second, we must make a massive
investment into school infrastructure
(classrooms – including Grade
R and RR, sanitation facilities, water,
electricity, staff rooms, furniture,
libraries and playgrounds), teaching
and learning resources and ensuring
pupil-teacher ratios do not exceed
policy expectations in each classroom
setting. This includes the “nonnegotiables”
identified by the DBE
(classrooms, substitute teacher posts,
water, safe sanitation, cleaners) and
the less obvious resources that contribute
to building a more differentiated
culture of teaching and learning
where every child has a sense of
individual learning space (moveable
desks and learning resources for each
child).
The DBE has detailed plans to
address many of these concerns; it is
time we mobilise the resources and
private sector skills to get the job
done.
Third, we need to invest quickly
into building the online resources
and capacities of rural schools. Middle
class teachers and parents are rapidly
strengthening their capabilities to
leverage online resources to support
children.
The shift to supplement traditional
teaching with online resources
will grow in the future. Without a radical
investment into upgrading rural
teachers, children in rural schools
will again be left impossibly behind.
We must use this period to ensure all
teachers have appropriate technology,
data, connectivity, and experiences
using online resources for teaching
and collaboration.
Teachers must be equipped to
engage parents in modest homes to
support schooling (during and after
the Covid-19 crisis). This includes
combining an increase of the child
grants with affordable mobile phones
for parents, better zero-rated data for
educational engagement, and tools
for parental support in modest home
environments.
Far from a critique of the DBE, this
is a call to get behind the work of the
department.
If we fail to undertake a massive
plan of reconstruction in this period,
Covid-19 will rip the “two universes
of schooling” further and further
apart.
We call on the Covid-19 Command
Council to make an unprecedented
investment into rural schools, ensuring
that we open the 2021 school
year with a vastly more equitable
landscape for schooling.
♦ Buhlungu is Vice Chancellor,
University of Fort Hare
♦ Dladla, is CEO of the Eastern Cape
Rural Development Agency
♦ Hatang is CEO, of the Nelson
Mandela Foundation
♦ Mazeka is the Alfred Nzo District
Co-ordinator, Nelson Mandela Institute
for Education and Rural Development
♦ Mncube is the Dean, Faculty of
Education, University of Fort Hare
♦ Moletsane is the John Langalibalele
Dube Chair in Rural Education, UKZN
♦ Ngebulana is CEO and Deputy
Chairperson, Rebosis Property Fund
♦ Phiri is the Operations Manager,
Zenzele Itereleng
♦ Porteus is the Executive Director,
Nelson Mandela Institute, University of
Fort Hare
♦ Tom, is an independent consultant,
Albertina Sisulu Executive Leadership
Programme in Health
LINDSAY SLOGROVE
The people
are not the
enemy
AGH, no man, he did it again.
There were all the president’s
fellow citizens, hanging on every
word, holding their breath for
answers. There were some good
words – acknowledging errors,
saying the government was willing
to listen, that some relaxation was
on the cards – but not telling us
anything concrete.
South Africans have been
ordered to stay home in one of
the worst situations in history. The
pain of lost jobs, hunger, hacked
salaries, isolation, fear of the
future and restriction of individual
choices exacerbates the stress.
Enforcement has, in some
cases, been brutal and deadly.
The reasoning – explained
carefully and fully right at the
beginning of this horror show –
behind the lockdown is simple: to
try to slow, not stop, the spread
of Covid-19 and avoid having
people dying hideous drowninglike
deaths in their thousands
in the car parks of overwhelmed
hospitals.
We should remind ourselves
often that we are not wearing
masks and staying locked away
only for ourselves: we do it for our
fellow citizens, to save lives and
acknowledge how important every
life is. And to keep the danger as
far as possible from the essential
workers who turn up every day,
making it possible for the rest of us
to isolate and stay safe.
South Africans are, for the most
part, good people who want to
help others. But when the ruled
lose trust in the rulers, rebellion
begins to bubble.
The constitutionality of
some of the regulations has
been questioned, and the
implementation of those rules is
making people angry. That, on top
of the financial hardship, and the
perception that decision-making
is not transparent and fully
communicated, is detracting from
the reason for the lockdown.
For example, Minister of Trade
and Industry Ebrahim Patel,
already taking fire for limiting
ecommerce, this week revealed
a list of clothing and other
“essential” items which were
allowed to be sold.
Among these were “crop
bottoms”, and T-shirts if they
were displayed and sold as
undergarments to be used as an
extra layer to keep warm.
Everyone went wild and
Patel and the national command
council were called out again for
ridiculous and petty edicts.
It emerged soon after that
retailers had asked for specifics
about what items they could and
could not sell.
If this correspondence had
been communicated effectively,
and people understood and
were informed why this list was
produced, it would have prevented
a tsunami of mockery.
The government is relying on
mass obedience to try to limit an
enormously dangerous virus.
It must learn – quickly – that a
population that has spent decades
fighting against issues that deeply
affect their lives is not going to
suddenly toe the line if there is
suspicion of other agendas on the
part of those making the rules.
The people should be partners,
not the opposition or the enemy.
We should be entrusted with
essential information, behind-thescenes
reasoning and honesty.
Buy-in from Joe and Josephine
Public is vital if we are to tackle
this health and economic
catastrophe.
Slogrove is a news editor