DEFY THE LEGACY OF OUR PAST

THE TIMES NEWSPAPER
JOHANNESBURG, SA
By Jonathan Jansen
Mar 19, 2009

Courageous educationists who get communities to embrace ‘deep change’ will solve the education crisis

J-SECTION, Umlazi does not have many things to get excited about. Not until you reach Zwelibanzi High School, the jewel in the crown of this sprawling township that marks itself by “sections”.

The marks of our ugly history are evident everywhere in this community — potholes galore, dilapidated houses, stagnant water and unemployed youth. And then, up a sudden, steep hill, you enter the gates of education heaven.

The first thing that strikes you is that the head of every girl is shaved clean. The next thing you notice is that every boy wears a tie. Uniforms are identical — unlike any township school I have ever visited. Every child is fully and neatly dressed in the school outfit. I begin to soften my position on uniforms. Two of the teachers carry whips. I begin to soften my attitude towards corporal punishment. Here, in a desperate part of South Africa, the rod comforts and the uniform binds.

There is little in terms of resources: the classrooms need paint, the microphone for the speaker who invited himself does not work, and there is no school hall, so the entire school lines up along the corridors on both sides of a neat grass patch.

By 7.15 am every child is in school. They sing and pray earnestly as my heart fills with joy at this oasis in a desert of poverty. Pupils greet visitors. Every child walks tall and with purpose. They are going somewhere.

Everybody knows Zwelibanzi. Parents from faraway towns throughout the province go to great pains to enrol their children in this star school.

Outsiders whisper that the principal, Mr Sibusiso Maseko, is the best science teacher in South Africa. Indeed, he has been officially recognised as “South Africa’s leading science teacher in an environment with limited resources”. In 2004, he was voted the best teacher in KwaZulu-Natal. In 2006, he became the first recipient of UCT’s Stella Clark Teachers Award, for which he was nominated by the dozens of past pupils who study at this Cape Town university to become scientists, engineers and medical practitioners.

But like any good leader, Mr Maseko shifts the attention away from himself. He runs through a list of what the institution has accomplished. One of the province’ s top 20 matriculants was educated here.

That this township pupil had to compete against children from some of the most expensive and well-endowed schools on the continent says an enormous amount about Zwelibanzi and its principal.

Here, in the heat and humidity of an extraordinary township school, I confirm three consistent findings from educational research:

The dismal performance of so many of our schools is not the result of a lack of resources, but the inability of schools to turn resources into results.

Even in dismal circumstances, the single most important factor influencing educational outcomes is the quality of the school leadership.

In schools where there is structure, discipline and predictability, the pupils are more likely to achieve educational success.

Zwelibanzi no flash in the pan. More than a decade ago I visited this same school because of its reputation for excellence. At the time, one of my students was the principal and he has since been promoted to the inspectorate.

Zwelibanzi is a textbook example of sustainability. This is what can be achieved when a school culture is so strong and consistent that nothing disturbs the rhythm and routine of teaching and learning and managing.

The results of many schools fluctuate wildly — often because of the superficial spiking of their results from one year to the next.

To overcome these fluctuations and their causes, it is necessary to embrace what Canadian scholar Michael Fullan so perceptively calls “deep change”, which is what happens when the deep culture of a school changes in such a way that teachers, pupils and communities come to celebrate that change.

I descend from the hill on which Zwelibanzi High School is perched, optimistic again that change is possible — even in the most dire of circumstances.

More money won’t solve the education crisis. It will be solved by courageous leaders who defy the legacy of a broken past.