EDITORIAL | Phasing out multigrade classes is good. Closing small schools is not

On Tuesday, Marie Sukers, an African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) MP, made an impassioned plea to parliament to intervene in the reopening of a tiny school in a deep rural area in the Central Karoo.

Seekoegat Vgk Primary School in Prince Albert, a one-teacher institution with 29 pupils in grades 1 to 6, was shut down by the Western Cape education department in December after it was found to be “non-viable”.

Nationally there is a drive to down all “micro-primary” schools, those with less than 135 pupils. Undeterred by the closure of the school, feisty community members, with assistance from private donors, have dug in their heels and kept the school open.

Two teacher assistants are volunteering in the absence of a qualified teacher whose contract expired at the end of last year.

Parents, mostly landless farm workers, are fiercely resisting moves by the provincial education department to move their children to a school in Beaufort West, about 90km away.

The close-knit Seekoegat community, whose forefathers attended the 115-year-old school, fear for the wellbeing of their children and their “exposure to social ills” if they are sent to Beaufort West.

Sukers, who describes herself as a “farm girl” and product of a rural school, contended in a petition to parliament that a monthly visit home for the children, if they were in Beaufort West, “is insufficient to maintain family bonds”.

She is not alone in championing keeping small schools open, especially those in rural areas. A local chief and some community members in the Chief Albert Luthuli local municipality in Mpumalanga are opposed to Mhlanagazane Primary School, which had only 83 pupils last year, merging with Phumelele Primary School.

The Eastern Cape has 3,285 schools with low pupil enrolment, including 1,981 that need to be closed, according to recent figures from the provincial education department. At least 1,118 schools in the province have less than 100 pupils.

The basic and provincial education departments believe multigrade teaching is ineffective. This form of teaching refers to a situation in which a teacher teaches pupils from different grades simultaneously in the same class.

But MPs who support the petition said schools such as Seekoegat are also centres of community life and that current policies and rules were devised for urban/bigger schools and not suitable for the rural/farm school set-up. They are of the view the rules are wrong and need to be flexible to accommodate such schools.

The department of basic education gazetted the draft rural education policy in January 2018. The document pointed out that the implications of closing small schools in rural areas are far bigger than closing small schools in urban settings.

The proposed policy also maintained that in sparsely populated areas where distances between schools and poor road conditions are not conducive to public transport, small schools can be the only means of access to education.

One of the proposals in the document was that a minimum of six teachers, excluding the principal and Grade R practitioner, were needed in small primary schools so they do not have multigrade classes across the schooling phases.

Sadly, more than four years later, this policy is yet to see the light of day.

Providing quality education to pupils, especially in rural areas, by phasing out multigrade classes is noble.

However, one of the unintended consequences is that some pupils in far-flung areas may drop out of school rather than move to a more resourced institution.

Instead of rigorously applying regulations and ticking the boxes, provincial education departments should display compassion and empathy in their approach to these schools and the communities that would be affected by their closure.

Extensive and thorough consultations with parents of pupils and other stakeholders should take place and different options be discussed. Wielding the big stick and closing down all schools with less than 135 pupils because the regulations say so is not the way to go.