Tutu Faleni
Johannesburg - The thought provoking article ‘Destruction of schools goes unpunished’, published in the Sunday Independent on July 24, 2022, has once more shone the spotlight on the destruction of South African public school buildings.
This is but one of the many perennial challenges that continues to undermine collective efforts aimed at rebuilding the South African public school infrastructure.
The writer (Edwin Naidu) concludes his article by posing the question: why has no action been taken against those who continuously vandalise our school buildings?
There are obviously no simple answers to the question. In the absence of pointed responses to the question, we are compelled to reflect on the issues raised by the question, and to hold accountable those who carry the onerous responsibility of maintaining our school infrastructure.
But, we need to analyse some of the possible reasons for the destruction of school buildings.
The point of departure is that schools are a reflection of society, and the neglect and destruction of school buildings indicates the wider culture of destroying public property that we see mainly in our townships.
The reference the author makes in other parts of Eastern Africa, which show rather a pattern of social behaviour that is bent on destroying school buildings, demonstrates that the destruction of school buildings is not a uniquely South African problem, but it’s a challenge that is found in African societies which experience political instability and social turmoil.
Yet, interestingly, compared to other African countries, the post-Apartheid South Africa has attained fairly reasonable levels of political and social stability, which are essential in the delivery of public services, including education.Given such remarkable progress in creating a free and democratic South Africa, how has it come that we have allowed anti-social elements (criminals and nyaope addicts) within our communities to wreak havoc on our school buildings? Are we all to blame for letting these sociopaths bring down our centres of teaching and learning in our communities?
It is not only the government that should carry the blame for failing to protect and preserve school buildings in our townships, but civil society organisations (churches, stokvels, formations, social clubs, community organisations and township businesses) are all to blame in our failure to protect school buildings against vandalism and destruction.
Naidu, the author of the original article, rightfully chastises the government for not taking meaningful measures to bring to a halt social patterns of anti-social behaviour that systematically knock down our school buildings.
The government is a central player in the provision of public education. This responsibility is a constitutional mandate. Failure to do so would be a violation of the constitution by the government.
But contemporary history has shown that the government has, in some instances, failed to maintain public schools that would ensure that school children receive education in safe schooling environments.
The story of the five-year-old Michael Komape is but one case in point which shows that the consequences of government failure in providing and maintaining safe school buildings can result in tragedy (Michael fell into a pit toilet at his school) and post-traumatic stress for the parents of learners who lose their lives at schools.
An academic research study by Mcube and Madikela-Madiya points out gangsterism as a main cause of violence in at least six provinces in South Africa. The incidents of violent death of learners due to gangster-related behaviour is an indication of the failure on the part of the South African government to maintain safe spaces for teaching and learning at our schools.
The argument that communities should play their part in rooting out gangsterism at schools does not absolve the government from executing its constitutional mandate of maintaining crime-free schools. We need to see consistent public government programmes which demonstrate the seriousness of the government in an effort to eradicate violent gangster behaviour from our schools.
As it is often said, violence begets violence.
The failure of the government to quell violent gangster behaviour, ultimately, leads to the vandalism of school buildings and other school facilities.
A gangster who does not respect human life does not see a reason to show respect for a school building. Therefore, we need to transform the behaviour of the gangster or throw the gangster out of the school. Education is too much of a serious business to be held to ransom by misguided gangsters masquerading as school children.
Politicians, often times, have advocated, publicly, for building social cohesion as a remedy for the social ills that continue to torment the post-Apartheid South Africa.
But we all know that talk is cheap, especially coming from politicians.
We should not talk as though social cohesion is a panacea for all our social ills (including the vandalism of school buildings). There was a great deal of social cohesion in the townships that was characterised mainly by active street committees and self-protection units and that, together with township residents, protected the township public facilities (shops, church buildings and schools) during the then ongoing battles against the forces of Apartheid.
These active agents of social cohesion did sterling work in protecting vulnerable township communities during the difficult, often violent period of transition from Apartheid to a democratic South Africa.
Therefore, politicians should not have bandied about the idea of social cohesion as though township residents are ignorant. In fact, it is the residents of our townships who gave meaning to social cohesion at a time when ordinary people needed moral guidance during difficult times, in the lives of people who were facing various onslaughts from the dark forces of Apartheid.
What is urgently needed now to combat the destruction of township schools is for township residents to create a new type of social cohesion, one that will protect school buildings and help bring to justice those who vandalise school facilities.
The post-Apartheid public school culture has also shown that the collaboration between strong school principals and the immediate community that hosts the schools can help protect the school buildings from ubiquitous criminal hyenas who knock down school buildings, often in the dark.
Such community-cohesive collaborations have succeeded to effectively maintain the soundness and integrity of school buildings in largely underprivileged township communities.
In our collective efforts to protect our schools, we do not need to look further than the largely successful schools as models on how to protect, maintain and preserve the school buildings.
These self-preserved schools have successfully generated a new relevant brand of social cohesion that utilises the collaboration between the school principals and the communities as a defence against acts of vandalism and the destruction of school buildings.
To inculcate the desperately needed capacity to protect school buildings, these schools have successfully embedded lessons of cohesive collaboration to preserve the wholeness of educational institutions, which we learned from our painful past.
We need to learn from these lessons of the past in order to salvage our school buildings from decay and destruction that may persist unabated if not arrested promptly and consistently.
Then we shall have learned from history. Nkosi Sikelela iAfrika.
Dr. Tutu Faleni (PhD) lectures education at Unisa and has been involved in public school education for more than twenty years. These are his personal views.