Education is a social duty that is ideally controlled on community level. That was the approach that was followed when the Schools Act of 1996 made the distinction between public and independent schools instead of differentiating between "public schools" and "private schools". In reality, the government has taken more and more control of education and greatly centralised the content and presentation thereof.
The centralisation was accepted by public schools as it is accompanied by funding. The systematic erosion of communities' control over education has been gradual enough to lay any suspicion to rest.
Covid-19 and the consequent lockdown have, however, shown that this surrender of authority to the government has come at a great price. School communities consisting of teachers, parents and learners who have gone to great lengths to prepare for the re-opening of schools, are now forced to sit and wait yet another week. The reason for this delay is that there are schools that are not yet ready at all.
The unpreparedness of some schools come as no surprise. As the FF Plus pointed out before, the Department implied that it will all of a sudden perform a miracle to ensure adequate facilities, transport and staff, but it has not been able to accomplish this in the last 25 years.
During the recent press conference, Minister Angie Motshekga had to admit that smaller, independent schools, as well as home schools, are much better prepared for overcoming the current crisis than the large, public schools.
Communities must take education back into their own hands. Public schools that are in the position to do so must be allowed to become independent schools. Subsidies must not be affected and decision-making must be devolved. Furthermore, independent education must be seen as a permanent and valued part of the educational sector. Lastly, sport and other extramural activities can easily take place within the community and independent of the government's educational sector.
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