Ten Upstarters journeyed to Cape Town to attend The People’s Summit for Quality Education, from 25 to 27 June, at the University of Cape Town and in Khayelitsha. They joined teachers, parents, NGOs, unions and 100 pupils from schools around the country in a national movement for quality and equal education.
Ten Upstarters journeyed to Cape Town to attend The People’s Summit for Quality Education, from 25 to 27 June, at the University of Cape Town and in Khayelitsha. They joined teachers, parents, NGOs, unions and 100 pupils from schools around the country in a national movement for quality and equal education.
The summit focused on schools in communities and the challenges to quality education that all of us can help to overcome. Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga was invited to address the delegates and speak to the deep disappointment of learners who, after 17 years of democracy are still receiving poor-quality education.
Emotions ran high as the learners wanted to know if they should wait for the next Basic Education Minister, or whether Motshekga would be their hero.
The Minister acknowledged that poor educational achievement was a major challenge in South Africa and said, "We have a choice. We can dwell on the bad news, and whip ourselves and one another for it. "But that will not solve anything. We have to harness our joint anger for the greater good of the children. We have to find a way forward."
Upstarters participated in group discussions with other young people around challenges they faced daily at school. Aphiwe Ngalo, from Mary Waters, said, “I’d grown to accept and ignore the gap between former Model C schools and township schools. But at the summit I learnt that it is a big problem and that we as young people need to be active in fixing it.”
Xabiso Mnyamana, a pupil from CM Vellem, said he had learned that it was important for young people to make their voices heard by marching to the offices of government officials to demand their rights. “We must value what we have – the teachers, classrooms – because there are schools that have less,” said Nkcubeko Balani, from Mary Waters.
The summit was hosted by Equal Education, a community and membership-based organisation that advocates for quality and equality in the South African education system.
The organisation began in February 2008 and now has active members in most provinces in the country engaged in evidence-based activism for improving the nation’s schools. Equal Education closed the three-day summit by launching a campaign to adopt an Education Charter to unite the education movement in South Africa.
The Campaign aims to take forward the important work started at the Summit: the articulation of a joint vision of a just educational future and a national movement to realise this vision.
Pupils, parents, teachers and workers from across the country will discuss, debate and put forward their demands for an equal education system, both as individuals and as organisations.
The Charter will educate communities about their rights and responsibilities, provide impetus and a strategic direction for joint efforts and campaigns, and galvanise the movement around a joint vision of an education system that is equal, progressive and just.
