EDITORIAL


EDITORIAL


gramme, and by yielding food parcels to vulnerable children and their families.


Children spoke about how they are able to talk more easily to youth facilitators than to educators or their family members. The home visits help facilitators to understand the home cir- cumstances of the children better and to share this knowledge with educators and the school as a whole. They initiate a range of activities such as music, dancing, traditional dancing, sport and debating, which the children really appreciate.1


WHY ARE CHAMPIONS FOR CHILDREN IMPORTANT?


Building partnership to ensure meaningful access to education depends to a large extent on ‘champions’ like Rebecca who take child well-being and justice seriously. These champions understand the circumstances of children — including local risk and protective factors; are familiar with government policy and services; and enable children to get the help they need.


Champions for children also recognise the need to put children first. Life orientation and social sciences teacher at St Paul’s High School in Sekhukhune, Stephy Dikgale, explains how she learned really to listen to children:


“In the past I just used to tell the teenagers what to do and didn’t listen to their stories or excuses. Through the Catholic Institute of Education I learnt to listen to the children. It was a gradual process of change from telling teenagers what to do, to listening and counselling them.


One of the learners who helped me change the way I do things was a grade 10 learner who was always skipping class and smoking. One day I asked him to speak to me at break. He told me that the year before his uncle had forced him to go to the mountain school. He said he didn’t want to go but his uncle took him to a shebeen. He got drunk and when he woke up he was at the mountain school. When he came back he was very angry and didn’t speak to his uncle. He started smoking because he wanted to make the uncle angry.


I suggested that he speak to his uncle. Two days later he told me that they had solved the problem and were speaking to each other again. The boy seems to have stopped smoking and bunking classes. The boy helped me to realise that I need to listen to learners’ stories.”


Champions for children understand the need to build partner- ship. This includes working with professional service providers, parents, learners and the wider community. Schools have been able to make significant improvements when they have started to listen to children and recognised their role as active partners in the process, as illustrated in case 2.


CASE 2: CHILDREN AS PARTNERS


Nontobeko Sithole, from the Catholic Institute of Education, describes working with a group of learners from four schools in Sekhukhune, who all regarded toilets as dangerous:


Learners in one school dreamt of having clean and proper toi- lets at school, but the learners couldn’t do anything about this on their own, so they asked the school-based support team to raise the issue with the SGB. The SGB then organised 14 chem- ical toilets. This happened quickly and easily, so the problem wasn’t about money. Toilets simply hadn’t been seen as a prob- lem (or a priority) by the teachers and the SGB. This project shows how real change is possible once teachers start listening to children and see them as active partners in the process.2


WHAT ARE THE CONCLUSIONS?


Relationships between schools and communities can either prevent or support meaningful access to basic education. The challenge lies in stimulating awareness and growing the conver- sation about children’s rights, well-being and development, and in working together for change. Child-rights champions who promote partnership with other service providers and who lis- ten to children can have a profound impact, especially for the benefit of those who are most vulnerable.


However, it is important to remember that even with the best intentions, income and spatial dimensions of poverty impact on the quality of partnership and what communities with limited resources can achieve.


Commitment and action is required from influential role-players in government, business and civil society at all levels in order to support school communities, address persistent inequalities and ensure that all children reach their full potential.


1 Mudekunye L & Allan K (2008) Reaching the most vulnerable children through Caring Schools. In: Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service. SAfA- IDS News 2(14): 15-17.


” 2 Children’s Institute (2009) Participant report: Networks of Care workshop, February 2009. Unpublished. 90 CHAPTER 4 | SCHOOLS AT THE CENTRE OF THE COMMUNITY www.ed.org.za www.ed.org.za CHAPTER 4 | SCHOOLS AT THE CENTRE OF THE COMMUNITY 91


BRIDGE COMMUNITY FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE


SOURCE: THE BRIDGE PORTAL (2011) AFTER-HOURS TUTORING TO LEARNERS FROM CAPE TOWN’S TOWNSHIP COMMUNITIES, BRIDGE COMMUNITY FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE.


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AFTER-HOURS TUTORING TO LEARNERS FROM CAPE TOWN’S TOWNSHIP COMMUNITIES


The Bridge community for effective practice that focuses on “After-Hours Tutoring to Learners from Cape Town’s Town- ship Communities” started


as a LEAP Science and Maths


School initiative in May 2009. Thirty organisations providing after-hours tutoring in Cape Town’s township communities are actively engaged in this forum. All organisations listed on the database receive minutes and information about each meet- ing and have access to shared resources and the community’s communication platforms.


Bridge joined the forum in August 2009, originally as a partici- pant and observer. Bridge now drives the maintenance, logis- tics, communication platforms, tracking and evaluation of this community.


The community reaches about 4000 learners in 150 schools in the Western Cape. It has created working groups and identi- fied champions in key areas, which focus on:


n consolidating organisation information and identifying op- portunities for collaboration;


n engaging with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED);


n engaging with higher education institutions to identify op- portunities;


n using technology to share resources and materials; and n considering the psycho-social context of learners.


A notable shift in behaviour and increase in effectiveness that the collaboration amongst the participating organisations has brought about is the charging per learner for after-hours tutor- ing. The results of this shift have been that a better record of who is attending classes has been possible, learner attendance and retention have improved, and an income stream has been generated for the employment of more tutors.


There has been a maximising of resources as participating or- ganisations share information about the reach and nature of their work, as well as a reduction in duplication as the com- munity records and circulates information about areas that are currently not being served.


The collective voice of the community has also been evident in its interactions with the WCED. In 2010, the community invited Mrs Linda Rose, Chief Director of Districts, WCED, to address the forum and share the department’s plans for providing after- hours support to schools in the province as well as to learn about the work of the community. In 2011, the community has further engaged with the WCED, and district officials met with the com- munity in March 2011 to discuss the provision of support services around curriculum delivery.


The community has initiated a range of partnerships and col- laborations, and it has had a number of quick wins. An example of this is the donation, by ASSET, of 20 bursaries to learners involved in the South African Education and Environment Proj- ect (SAEP) tutoring programme. The community utilises the Bridge social network and portal, as well as email, for sharing resources amongst participating organisations.


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