Ann Bernstein
The Silent Crisis: How to Fix South Africa’s Schools
Summary
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Ann Bernstein
Ann Bernstein heads the Centre for Development and Enterprise, South Africa. An independent think tank, CDE is South Africa’s leading development policy center, with a special focus on growth, jobs, education, cities and the role of business. Her book, The Case for Business in Developing Economies (2010) won the Sir Anthony Fisher Award 2012, Atlas Research Foundation, Washington DC. She is a regular commentator in South Africa’s newspapers, radio, and TV and a frequent op-ed writer in leading newspapers
Interesting question. I don’t think … Two part answer. I don’t think this is a big issue, but I don’t really know, or have the facts, and then the government did something right at the beginning of democracy, which was really stupid, they offered any teacher who wanted to take a voluntary severance package, out of the system, they could do this, and they offered them a package. Well, of course all the better people said, “Great, I’ll take my package, and I’ll go, and get another job, or I’ll do something different, or whatever.” So, you diminished the quality of the teaching system, right at the beginning. So, that would be, I think the answer about that.
I’m afraid it is, we did a big research project a while ago, where we sent researchers into rural parts of South Africa, and towns around the country, and these researchers came back absolutely shocked, they told us stories of … We were looking at private schools for the poor, and they said in the private schools for the poor, there’re no unions, often worse conditions, but the teachers are there, and they’re teaching. In the public schools, they found absentee teachers, they found teachers who were in the classroom, but they weren’t teaching, they were eating their Kentucky Fried Chicken. So, yes absenteeism is a big issue, whether of mind or body, or both, terrible situation, and no penalties.
I think … Well, all our schools are now mixed race, which is great, including the better public schools, and it’s fantastic to see the number of excellently taught kids coming out of our schools, irrespective of race, I wouldn’t call this a race issue, I’d say it’s more a class issue, and so if you at a school where the parents can’t afford to contribute to the public school, in terms of extra teachers or whatever, then both Black and white suffer. But in the main, in the main, I am talking about an appalling education system for the poorest 80% of our learners, and that’s overwhelmingly, Black South Africans.