Opinion
Behind My Pipe Smoke
By Fanzo Skhova
08/09/2016
The other morning we woke up to a big Afro-hair problem that ramified into allegations of sickening racism. Things took an unpleasant turn when a group of black girl learners staged a peaceful protest on the premises of Pretoria Girls High School in Tshwane. The girls summoned the intervention of the MEC for Education in Gauteng.
To match the seriousness of the matter, MEC Panyaza Lesufi duly obliged. He rescheduled his diary to visit the school to meet the aggrieved and apparent perpetrators, the school management. The showdown attracted media, youth, parents, politicians and the general public’s interest. Social media was abuzz with everything hashtag afro.
The monster amongst us is a school policy that prescribes “presentability” of learners. The policy requires that girls’ hair styles should “fit in well with the school uniform”. I wouldn’t like to be petty but if I may ask, wouldn’t green hair fit well with the green tunic? Let us face it, racism is here to haunt us for as long as there is power and ownership disparities in this country. However, the issue of disparities between historically white schools will remain a permanent feature of our not-so-rainbow nation. There are three culprits; namely, the government, our communities including black business and parents.
Government is making no effort to bring rural and township schools to a level closer to historically white schools. The truth is that much as these schools are open to learners of any race, they are too few to accommodate all black learners in the neighbourhood. These schools have the requisite infrastructure, teaching and learning resources as well as properly trained, highly motivated and committed teachers. I wish I had sufficient space to discuss the three key factors; trained, motivated and committed. Government has a responsibility to bring “black schools” to the same level as “white schools”. It is attainable. The previous regime attained it for their own communities. In doing so, government will be eliminating historical inequalities and ensuring that schools compete fairly amongst themselves.
Community members have a civic obligation to uplift their own neighbourhoods. That includes improving the standard of education and of the resources invested in education. Black business should start contributing towards uplifting their own rural and township schools. When you drive around the suburbs of Tshwane and most urban parts of the country, you will observe schools in these areas proudly display sponsorships by businesses within the community. A black business too can sponsor a school by building a netball, basketball court or soccer field or build a library, or fund equipment or books for schools in their area.
The problem with a majority of black parents is that theirs is not limited to a desire to access better services and resources for the education of their children. Parents often unconsciously adore if not idolise anything about historically white schools. Black parents would rather miss a funeral in the neighbourhood in favour of “attending a fun day at my child’s school” to support the child. That sounds right, doesn’t it? But why don’t we see the same kind of commitment in activities of our own local schools. The problem with this adoration is that it generates obedience and conformity amongst us. We do not challenge the authority because we adore and idolise them. Black parents attend school governing body meetings whereas some are even either elected or co-opted into the SGB committees. These committees, approve bizarre policies yet black parents do not object and propose more appropriate policies and guidelines. Instead, black parents read and accept the school code of conduct without questioning some of the controversial requirements. It is wrong in any language for school policy or practice to prohibit learners from speaking mother tongue on school premises. It is a direct confrontational assault on indigenous languages and the broader culture. It is deliberate action to bring language and culture to extinction and at worst, extended colonisation.
We need to understand that any form of social advancement should not be embraced at the expense of the identity of the African people. What makes me really nervous is the high rate of participation in the crusade to extinguish African identity by Africans themselves. Most African parents enrol their children in English-medium Early Childhood Development centres and proceed northwards of the education system. They seem to believe in a symbiotic relationship between the ability to speak English and academic achievement. You will note I said “speak” English. The truth is that most learners in these so-called Model C school system are weak at writing academic English. WE observe that parents speak English with their own African children in their homes. Some have banned the use of mother tongue in their own homes. Africans have developed a confusing relationship between speaking English and prestige, success, social class advancement and probably some bragging rights. Some of your friends will even start addressing you in English then apologise because “wa tseba bo Lesego bare teacher a re re buwe le bona sekgowa.” We see these practices in malls, family gathering and people’s homes. If you accepted and you are using English in your own home, why complain about the rules at Pretoria Girls High? We need to find ourselves first. Develop that self-pride so that you will know what you want or don’t want from these privileged schools. You must consider yourself very fortunate to hear an African parent tell you that they enrolled their child in these schools because they offer excellent tuition in Geography or Physics or Accounting. It is clear therefore that the reasons are not necessarily academic. Black Africans are approaching the acute stage of Self-Pride Deficiency Syndrome at light speed.
So, the big hair problem at Girls High is but one stripe of this zebra. I have already seen comments on social media by some black parents saying that “children should focus on education and not politics”. To the credit of such parents, the idea is all about accessing and milking the “superior education” offered by these privileged schools. Because I am not too smart, as you probably know by now, I am going to argue that we still have Bantu Education of a special type. The curriculum content may be the same by law but the quality and standards are poles apart. Racial lines in education remain firm and intact. What complicates the situation is that rich and middle class blacks are ganging up against the poor by funnelling resources into these well off institutions.
Racism in schools and the broader education system is not only practised by individuals and groups, it is also institutionalised through regulations. We have come to painfully realise that in some instances, they are even backed by the Constitution. The South African Schools Act gives controversial powers to school governing bodies in key areas of the school environment. Language for instance, is a weapon of choice used by white minorities to restrict access into their schools by determining the language of instruction. You will realise that around Tshwane, most of the privileged schools apply Afrikaans as a language of instruction. By so doing, access to these resourced schools is restricted by law, to white or Afrikaans speaking learners. In some isolated cases, SBGs in such schools were successfully forced to make concessions but the status quo remains predominantly tilted in favour of the minority.
I will not forgive myself if I don’t raise the issue of racist academic assault on our children. They have a structured way of ensuring that some black children in these schools are doomed for good. At the end of general education, grade 9, average performers and some on the borderline of excellence are sifted. Going into grade 10 a learner is expected to choose a career path. The process goes like this: the child will be given counselling on his or her strengths and weaknesses. Once that is done and the learner is made to understand that they have limited talents, the parents will be called in for the same therapy. With assistance from teachers and or guidance counsellors, a grocery of subjects that will doom a child forever are assigned. Learners are advised for instance to select languages, mathematics literacy, and additional choices from a list that includes tourism, computyping, mercantile law, geography, physiology, art, life orientation, technology and computer practice. Further, they advise African learners, to register for examinations purposes, 70% of these subjects in standard or lower grades. That is done to ensure that she or he does not fail examinations thereby guaranteed a matric pass to avoid tarnishing the success record of the school. In the end, the combination does not lead to either university entrance or any meaningful career path. Post-school, these learners fall through the cracks and to make it in life, they are forced to pursue careers such as tourism, secretarial, sales, receptionists or beauty therapy. The only thing by which you identify them as products of these privileged schools is the rehearsed nasal speak. You find these graduates in cosmetic departments of retail shops, hotel receptions, secretarial postings and call centres or telesales.
I am not necessarily looking down upon these types of careers but I get very unsettled watching their fellow white school mates going on to become engineers, artisans, accountants, medical practitioners and related careers. I view this approach as a form of dumping learners off the mainstream instead of giving them the necessary support and assistance to improve performance in these “prestigious subjects”. I respectfully consider this move discriminatory, equally racist and an exercise similar to separating chaff from the wheat. Behind that big afro, there is more trouble. Winning the hair war is like removing one stripe from the zebra. Not many will notice.