Grahamstown schoolchildren belonging to the Congress of South African Students led a march of more than 10km on Friday 23 August to protest what they see as the biggest problems facing education today.
Grahamstown schoolchildren belonging to the Congress of South African Students led a march of more than 10km on Friday 23 August to protest what they see as the biggest problems facing education today.
These include inadequate nutritional programmes, sexual harassment by teachers, the lack of safety and security, ongoing corporal punishment, and concerns about the publishing of matric results.
"We've been engaging with the teachers, but they do not want to listen to us," explained Sara Baartman Regional Executive Committee (REC) education portfolio member Sibongiseni Magqaza. "Now we are tired of it – we need to engage with the Department of Education so that we can settle these matters."
Number one on their list of demands is the banishment of corporal punishment which, as Magqaza points out, was banned by both the South African Schools Act and the National Education Act in 1996.
"If anyone uses corporal punishment on a student… they can be charged," he says. "Even the South African Democratic Teachers' Union claims that corporal punishment is not used in schools, but it is."
He said pupils were scared to refuse corporal punishment because of the threat of having their parents called and being "chased out of school".
Cosas sub-regional secretary Siphosethu Shane Ngxingo said the problem is especially prevalent in schools in Grahamstown East and, like many other pupils, he has witnessed classmates being beaten and slapped in the face.
Besides corporal punishment, there were many other things pupils in Grahamstown East schools said they'd had enough of.
Ngxingo explained that publishing matric results in the newspapers was a breach of privacy with serious consequences. "There are many students who are committing suicide after they have just [seen]their results," he explained.
"We want to see our students receiving quality education," said Mfundiso Olifant, Cosas provincial secretary. According to Olifant, one of the things on the organisation's national agenda is a roll-out of iPads for all pupils, eliminating problems with textbooks and communication.
"iPads are very easy to use," explained Olifant. "We're a new generation that uses technology. So when you receive an iPad, you can download everything you need on that iPad, like textbooks."
With schools all over the country exploring this option, he said, the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
Starting from Ntsika Secondary School in Joza at 9am, Cosas members came up against principal Madeleine Schoeman, who objected that she had not been given adequate notice of the march and would not allow her pupils to join in.
"I support Cosas's presence here, but not during school time," she said in a meeting with representatives who had called her from her morning classes. "You are embarrassing Cosas – it's just not the way to do things."
She also pointed to the fact that Ntsika matric pupils were about to start their preliminary examinations, while at some other schools they had started already.
During this meeting, a handful of Cosas representatives left the office and started rallying students, who streamed from their classes and clamoured at the now-locked gates. Finally, Schoeman agreed to let pupils who were members of Cosas – and therefore had their parents' permission to participate in marches – leave.
From there, the pupils passed Khutliso Daniels and Nombulelo Secondary schools and TEM Mrwetyana and Nathaniel Nyaluza senior secondary schools, where more than 200 pupils joined them on their way to the education department.
When the group of exhausted pupils finally reached the Education Department around 2pm, they handed over a list of demands to to education development officer Robin Solwandle, who received the memorandum on behalf of Grahamstown district director Amos Fetsha.
Solwandle praised the students, saying they had exercised their democratic right.
"You have done nothing wrong today, he said. "Democracy and our Constitution taught that if you are unhappy with something, you must report it to the people who are supposed to fix it, and you did just that," he said.
Solwandle promised that the memorandum would reach Fetsha, who would set up a meeting with Cosas officials before the two-week deadline for their ultimatum.
