Nearly 80% of South African high schools are failing their children, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) said on Friday.
”The bad news in South Africa is that nearly 80% of schools provide education of such poor quality that they constitute a very significant obstacle to social and economic development, while denying the majority of poor children full citizenship,” wrote Nick Taylor in the IJR’s 2006 transformation audit, titled Money and Morality.
He said most schools were unable to provide children with the attitudes and intellectual skills required to build a modern state.
The highest priority was to develop strategies to improve the poorest-performing schools.
”Nothing that has been tried to date, by the government or the non-government sector, has had any effect on most of these schools, despite decades of effort and billions of rands spent on improvement programmes.”
The ”overwhelming majority” of children in the failing schools were African.
Taylor measured the schools by their performance in mathematics, although noted that this was not the only key performance area for schools.
Taylor said dysfunctional schools needed external intervention and for their principals to be removed.
The better performing schools had good time-management practices and better curriculum leadership, while the dysfunctional schools did not.
He said even if those matters were addressed, the teaching of reading and writing at classroom level ”in the majority of schools is rudimentary in the extreme” and recommended a national literacy strategy as a ”matter of urgency”.
Taylor said a ”tiny band” of schools in the poorest communities provided some of the highest quality education, and these should be investment priorities.
Another group of about 400 schools, mainly in township and rural areas, were ”on the way to excellence” and were being helped by the government’s Dinaledi project, which tries to get help from the private sector.
”However, the majority of the best schools are those that were reserved exclusively for white children prior to 1994, but which today hold the promise of providing excellent education to the poorest children.”
Taylor said these schools should be given incentives to enrol greater numbers of poor children.
Anger over income gap
The IJR also said on Friday that poverty is declining but anger over the income gap remains.
”Poverty has declined since the turn of the century, principally due to the recent expansion of the social grant system. Still, South Africans demand more … Popular discontent remains a significant concern,” wrote Megan Louw in the IJR’s 2006 transformation audit report.
Although South Africa is experiencing its longest economic upswing since World War II, many poorer South Africans do not feel any better off.
Louw reported that the number of people living below the poverty line of R3 000 per person per year dropped to 46,9% in 2006 from 50,3% in 1990 to 94.
Over the same period, the number of people living above an ”affluence” line of R30 000 income per person per year rose to 9,8% from 9,2%.
Households headed by women had half the income of those headed by men.
Louw said there were three explanations for the ongoing grievance over poverty, despite the slight decline in it.
Firstly, there was a ”sharpening of the divide” between rich and poor.
Secondly, the drop in poverty was mainly due to the expansion of social grants, and the poor want jobs rather than grants.
”A rand of grant income is perceived to be worth less than a rand of wage income,” said Louw.
”Grant recipients may feel that despite now being able to put food on the table, they are no better equipped to earn a livelihood — through waged employment, self-employment or ownership of productive resources — than they were before.”
Thirdly, said Louw, poverty is a relative state, so the poorest in society remain the poorest relative to the rest.
”It may be that poor South Africans actually now feel worse off in relation to individuals at the middle and upper end of the income distribution, as they observe rising material prosperity but remain unable to access many economic opportunities.”
Elite network
Meanwhile, the IJR also reported on Friday that about 100 people form the core of South Africa’s new elite network, which combines economic and political leverage.
”It should be wider, it should not exclude and it’s an interesting group to monitor,” said IJR director Dr Charles Villa-Vicencio.
Villa-Vicencio said all societies had such groups and these were not in themselves problematic. However, the new South African elite was perceived as closed, leading to anger by those who had expected to benefit from democracy but were still excluded.
”If there is a growing economy largely within this connected group that does not allow anyone else in, then of course they are going to get richer and there is going to be growing discontent.”
The list of 118 includes politicians, their spouses, ambassadors, senior civil servants and business people.
On the list are: politicians President Thabo Mbeki, who is not listed as having business connections, former deputy president Jacob Zuma, and African National Congress Youth League president Fikile Mbalula; former premiers-turned-business executives Manne Dipico, Tokyo Sexwale, Popo Molefe and Mathews Phosa; current or former civil servants such as Director General in the Presidency Frank Chikane, former CE of SA Tourism Cheryl Carolus, Mbeki’s political advisor Titus Mafolo, and foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.