In an area wracked by crime and poverty, a Port Elizabeth school principal has come up with an extraordinary way to turn the local 80% unemployment rate to the advantage of the school, its pupils and their parents.
In an area wracked by crime and poverty, a Port Elizabeth school principal has come up with an extraordinary way to turn the local 80% unemployment rate to the advantage of the school, its pupils and their parents.
Parental involvement is key to more effective education, and parents mediating in a classroom can bridge the gap between pupils and teachers, says Bruce Damons, principal of Port Elizabeth’s Sapphire Primary School.
Damons was speaking in Joza location last Monday at the first annual general meeting of local NGO Upstart, which focuses on youth in disadvantaged areas of Grahamstown.
Upstart intends to follow the Sapphire example. “I used to be quick to blame teachers for my child’s education, but I’ve learnt it is as much my problem as it’s theirs,” said Mona Jafta, volunteer at Sapphire Primary School.
The school is in Port Elizabeth’s Booysen Park, an area with an 80% unemployment rate, where most families depending on grants.
Damons and his team, consisting of 36 practitioners and 62 parent volunteers, have made this work to their community’s advantage.
Improving the quality of education has become a driving force behind the school’s parent-teacher assistance project, which has proved mutually beneficial.
Damons said many teachers arrive with expectations often out of sync with the situation of their pupils and the challenges they face.
This results in a gap between teacher and the pupil.
The volunteering parents are mostly unemployed, but the project has allowed them to gain skills through certified programmes.
They are trained in courses including computer literacy and reading workshops.
The outcomes are encouraging, ranging from a self-built clinic and vegetable gardens to a fully operational feeding scheme on the school premises.
Another initiative was the use of local gang members to act as security guards at the school.
“We tend to typecast our community,” said Damons. “I feel safer in my school than anywhere else in PE. We haven’t been vandalised since 2006.”
