This article is focused on the following UN sustainable development goals:
Quality education is the 4th UN sustainable development goal and is described as to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.’
This includes several revised statistics, the most relevant relating to covid-19. This states that school closures due to covid-19 kept 90% of students out of school, based on reversing a decade of progress towards the goal. (United nations. "The 17 goals.")
“Apartheid left South Africa with a deeply unequal and dysfunctional education system.”
On the first of January 1954, in what was then apartheid South Africa, the Bantu education act was passed. This legislated racially segregated education in which ‘Bantu Education’ was different from its white equivalent. Bantu education was inadequate, inferior, and poorly designed compared to white education, and has thus negatively affected those who learned from it creating an illiterate and segregated population whose capacity to learn had been severely crippled. Subsequently, in 1997 this was supposedly amended in the constitution of the Republic of South Africa under section 29 clause 1 in the bill of rights:
29.
Everyone has the right—
to basic education, including adult basic education; and
to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible (Constitutional assembly of the Republic of South Africa.)
Section 29 is named as transformative (McConachie). As its role is to not only provide robust and affordable education but education that remedies and addresses the disparity in lack of skills and abilities enforced by the apartheid government. This highlights basic literacy and numeracy at a primary level but also accounts for the need for a basic level of education for adults. The legislation makes clear several provisions with regards to the goal of the legislation being a transformative remedy to the past, namely:
Dignity- The environment and state of education must not degrade or hamper learners.
Freedom of expression- This makes it essential that both students and teachers may express their opinions. This is paramount to developing critical thinking skills.
Privacy- The right not to have their person or property searched, their possessions seized, or the privacy of their communication infringed. These rights are restricted in the school environment.
Equality and prohibition of discrimination- The patterns of segregation under apartheid remain in many schools, and the imbalances in resources and outcomes are far from being made right. Unfair discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation, among other grounds, remains common in our schools. This is prohibited under this provision.
Children are the primary beneficiaries of the right to basic education, and the main victims of inadequacies in our education system.
However, since the signing of the new constitution on the 4th of February 1997 and the supposed implementation of the provisions, many challenges have been faced in the upholding of the bill of rights. Especially with regards to access to resources in education. These are mainly related to the quality and accessibility of basic resources such as basic infrastructure i.e. electricity, sanitation, and materials which are necessities within a successful and conducive school environment. And the most adversely affected are government and rural schools. Before covid-19 in the years of 2015-2020, 77% of schools had no stocked library, 86% had no laboratory facilities, 22% had unreliable or no water supplies, 4% had no electricity, and 12% percent had unreliable supplies of electricity ("Infrastructure and equipment." Section 27).
Sanitation and safety are further complicated as 44% of government and rural schools in South Africa use pit/long drop toilets, which are not only often unclean but unsafe for young children who may fall into the pit and run the risk of suffocation, in addition, these environments are often not designed for disabled people. ("Infrastructure and equipment." Section 27). Work environments are unsafe and inadequate, this is further exacerbated by the lack of adequate textbooks and the faults of the systems that check for delivery. These systems are often complicated and hard to follow resulting in neglect of reported textbook shortages. The results of the state of government schools are demonstrated in the facts presented by UNESCO on education rates in South Africa. For instance, the literacy rate in adults of 65 and older was in decline between 2010 and 2017 with a rate of 73.9% to 59.9% in males and from 67.2% to 54.5% in females.
It is more than clear that the provisions stated have not been met in the 27 years after freedom and 25 years since the adoption and supposed implementation of the bill of rights. So do the people of South Africa hold the government accountable to the provisions?
Organizations must therefore hold the government accountable, and one such organization called ‘section 27’ has (in part) been a part of that process. Section 27 started as an aid organization in 2010 and now advocates access to healthcare and basic education services. As of then, the organization has been involved in several cases, the most notable being ‘the Limpopo textbook’ case where an appeal for a gross lack of textbooks was heard in 2015 ("Wits awards Gold Medal to SECTION27."). The organization continues to push for social justice following the constitution of the Republic of South Africa and is a part of several organizations that champion the fight for adequate access to resources from the government. However, in order to effectively deal with the problems faced, the youth in South Africa must advocate for service delivery, as the youth are the most adversely affected. Becoming familiar with the expectations and provisions provided by the constitution of the Republic of South Africa and becoming aware of the actions that can be taken can help in some varying way.
Youth can advocate in the following ways:
Create awareness- Educate others in personal circles on the current situation.
Become involved- Push for small contributions for schools in local communities that need improvement. This can be in the form of book drives and stationary donations.
Support advocacy- direct awareness to organizations such as section 27 in order to contribute to their support.
Remember, change starts with you.
Works cited
Constitutional assembly of the Republic of South Africa. "The bill of rights." SA constitution, 4 Feb. 1997, www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-
02.pdf. Accessed 26 May 2021.
Draga, Lisa. "Infrastructure and equipment." Section 27, 2 Jan. 2021, section27.org.za/wp-
content/uploads/2017/02/Chapter-13.pdf. Accessed 26 May 2021.
"Education and literacy-South Africa." UIS-UNESCO, 1 Jan. 2021,
uis.unesco.org/en/country/za. Accessed 5 May 2021.
McConachie, Chris, et al. "The constitution and the basic right to education." Section 27, 2
Jan. 2021, section27.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Chapter-1.pdf. Accessed 26
May 2021.
United nations. "The 17 goals." Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 1 Jan. 2021,
sdgs.un.org/goals. Accessed 26 May 2021.
WITS university. "Wits awards Gold Medal to SECTION27." University of the witwatersrand
Johannesburg, WITS, 27 Mar. 2017, www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-
news/graduations/2017/wits-awards-gold-medal-to-section27-.html. Accessed 26 May
2021.
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