Zim can teach us thing or two

Jonathan Jansen: When faced with the choice between two teachers, one from Zimbabwe and one from South Africa, I will choose the Zimbabwean without any further question.

It is not simply the fact the Zimbabwean teacher is likely to know more mathematics or physical science than the average South African teacher. It is the crucial fact that the Zimbabwean teacher is likely to work much harder than the native South African.

The Zimbabwean educator is not the kind of teacher who is likely to demand more sick leave even before they get ill. She is not used to taking off the last payday of the month to do her banking and shopping. She is certainly not one to give up weeks of teaching time to further her own salary interests. The Zimbabwean teacher, despite a low salary and poor working conditions, is at heart a professional who places the child at the centre of her duty.

I was one of those optimistic South Africans who made my way to Zimbabwe in the late 1980s to study its highly successful school system. Despite the fact that the war had destroyed many rural schools, there was something in the culture and character of Zimbabwean schools that drove their success.

Like many activists, I too sneered at the Cambridge examination syndicate, on which its curriculum and examinations were based, as a nasty relic of British colonialism. I mean, how could a proclaimed socialist state, which Zimbabwe of course never was, cling so uncritically to the educational instruments of its own oppression?

I now temper that criticism with a good dose of pragmatism, for the Zimbabweans did not throw out the education baby with the ideological bath water: they kept in place what was working. If only the gods of outcomes-based education had learnt from education reforms across the border.

Of course, I am generalising. There are many good South African teachers on both sides of the resource divide who struggle against the odds not to succumb to the rising tide of mediocrity in the public school system. To those teachers I doff my hat. My problem is with the majority, the close to 80% of teachers who will not blink an eyelid when a few hundred thousand children again fail the senior certificate examinations.

The dilemma we face, of course, is that yet another generation of youth would have seen 12 years of poor and inconsistent teaching, and pull their noses up at the noble profession. And so the cycle of despair continues, and it gets worse.

Ask yourself: what were the dominant images of schools in the press in recent months? In other words, what picture of schools, of teachers and of pupils did observant teenagers in school have of these important public institutions?

They would have read, heard and seen on television endless images of a school called Jules High. They would have seen pictures of sex on the playgrounds, rumours of rape and date-rape drugs available, teachers laughing at the spectacle (whether true or not) and - heaven forbid - they would have seen the mobile-phone images of children's sex circulating among friends. That was the second half of the year.

During the middle of the year they would have experienced long stay-aways from school, boredom at home, idleness on the streets and teachers who simply didn't care a damn while hours upon hours of instructional time was lost.

At the beginning of the year they would have observed that weeks whittle away while schools try to admit students, finalise timetables and basically wait for the spirit of the summer vacation to wear off.

If I were a desperate township parent who could not get my child into the fancy schools in the suburbs, I would take the risk of being an illegal immigrant and flee across the border in the opposite direction - into Zimbabwe. Yes they have a tyrant for a president, and sometimes they lack bread in the shops, but at least the schools work and the teachers teach.

Instead of protesting service delivery that might never come, I would campaign for thousands of "Zim" teachers to be given special professional visas by Home Affairs and special housing by Human Settlements. I would do anything to get my child educated for this is the one thing that can break the cycle of domestic poverty: my child in the hands of a dedicated, knowledgeable, professional teacher.

Can you blame such a parent?