Reclassifying Township Schools—South Africa’s Educational Tinkering Expedition!

Abstract

This article critiques a proposed policy by the Gauteng Department of Education to reclassify province’s “Township” schools. In 2016, Gauteng MEC for Education Panyasa Lesufi announced that province’s schools will be reclassified to obliterate the “Township” School Tag commonly associated with the past regime. The reclassification is based on a three-pronged school performance category in a) Matric pass rates, b) Maths and Science passes and c) Bachelor passes. The new classification is arbitrarily divided into the following categories: 1) Poor schools with 0% to 40% performance; 2) Fair schools with 41% to 60% performance; 3) Good schools with 61% to 80% performance and; 4) Great schools with 81% to 100% performance. It is argued that the three tier classification criteria lack theoretical rigour and explication to justify policy’s credence and implementability. It further argues that “Township schools” exist in real geo-spaces, and changing name tag shall not obliterate their geographic presence. It concludes by cautioning that classifying schools based on performance might have unintended consequences, for instance, schools tagged as “poor” might naturally disappear as parents would not want to enrol their children in schools state deem dysfunctional. Failure by both “Poor” and “Fair” schools to enrol adequate learners puts more pressure on rest of schools to accommodate additional learners. When learners’ en-masse moves to urban schooling environments, it creates an operational conundrum and has potential to destabilize the educational provisioning processes and system in general. In a nutshell, the proposed reclassification of schools by the Gauteng Department of Education is flawed and unsustainable because it: a) waters down systemic challenges to simple act of rearranging of schools based on sectorial learner performance rather than holistic and research based form of rationality; b) fails to interrogate a suite of intertwined factors that underpin educational provisioning in its entirety; c) is sectorial in outlook and fails articulate modus operandi to institutionalize teacher efficacy and organizational effectiveness; d) obfuscates tenets for robust engagement on creative whole school improvement trajectories firmly anchored on solid research; e) will not enhance learner performance and quality education; and f) is an inconclusive political tinkering expedition devoid of sustainable beneficiation.