Sacred Heart making strides in transformation

15 February 2015 - 02:00 By Prega Govender
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A year after the 1976 Soweto uprisings, Sacred Heart College in Observatory, Johannesburg, appointed its first African teacher.

Since then, the Catholic independent school has become one of South Africa's leading lights in transforming teacher and pupil demographics.

Unlike many other schools that employ African teachers only to teach African languages, the college's 18 African teachers teach a variety of subjects including maths, accounting, history, technology and IT.

College head Colin Northmore said pupils at his school did not regard the race of a teacher as important. "What they worry about is whether the teacher is able to teach them."

Apart from the 18 African teachers, the Marist-tradition school has 47 white, four coloured and six Indian teachers.

About half of the school's pupils are African, 18% are white, 13% are coloured and 16% are Indian.

The school charges fees and levies of R30100 a year for Grade 00, R50700 for Grade R, R69520 for grades 1 to 6, R77493 for grades 7 to 9, and R87468 for grades 10 to 12.

Northmore said the school was "fully sponsoring" the studies of seven university students who wanted to become teachers, five of whom were black.

Alumni of the school include leading plastic surgeon Dr Ridwaan Mia and the award-winning author Maria Phalime.

"If you want to have an integrated staff, there cannot be one dominant culture," Northmore said.

One of Sacred Heart College's most popular teachers, Boitumelo Letho, 58, who has been at the school since 1991, said she liked teaching there because of the diverse pupil and teacher population.

Letho, a Grade 00 teacher, said many matric s praised her in their farewell speeches because of her caring nature.

"Parents always say they want their child in my class. Even a parent from England e-mailed the school to say she wanted her child in teacher Buti's class. She didn't even know me, but must have heard about me by word of mouth."

The parent of a Grade 00 pupil said she was happy with the teacher demographics in the pre-primary section.

"There are quite a number of black [African] teachers for the pre-primary school, including the swimming teacher and the most popular teacher, although I couldn't say if there is a majority of any race," the mother said.

She described the racial and cultural diversity of the children at Sacred Heart as remarkable: "You can't say there is a minority or majority of anyone, and the so-called racial tipping point doesn't seem to feature."

Another school that has made great strides in transforming its teacher complement is Durban High School, where at least 38% of teachers are black.

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