A public school has severed sporting and cultural ties with one of the country's most prestigious private schools, alleging that its top-performing pupils were being poached in the Eastern Cape.
A long-standing relationship built on “trust, mutual respect and a shared commitment to education and community” appeared to crumble this week as Graeme College accused Kingswood College of an “aggressive recruitment policy” offering parents reduced school fees as a transfer incentive.
The school in Makhanda said its pupils had been approached discreetly and parents were seemingly required to sign non-disclosure agreements about the incentives offered to switch.
Graeme College decried the loss of several pupils without the “customary communication between schools”. In retaliation, the school elected not to participate in any sporting or cultural engagements with Kingswood until the impasse was resolved.
Kingswood College rejected the allegations, telling sister publication the Daily Dispatch that it offered scholarship and bursary opportunities adhering to a fair, transparent process, centred on the individual learner and opportunities that could be provided to them in consultation with their guardians.
Kingswood received more than 600 applications nationally and globally for its scholarships and bursaries, and “looked at each candidate through an equal lens”.
“The narrative that Graeme, or any other school, is being targeted is simply untrue,” the school said.
The poaching of talent to assemble a top notch rugby team, for example, or produce outstanding academic results so as to be perceived as a “good school” is by no means new. But it does not often explode into the public domain.
A decade ago, the Sunday Times documented how wealthy schools and rugby unions were “poaching top black rugby players from schools across South Africa and offering them free tuition, accommodation and air tickets”. At the time, principals at four top rugby-playing schools in East London penned a document outlining their frustration at losing talented players to schools in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
TimesLIVE reported in 2019 that Wynberg Boys’ High, then ranked 21st in the country in 2018 by SA School Sports, cut ties with Paarl Boys’ High, ranked 8th, after the transfer of a grade 9 pupil who had a scholarship at Wynberg in contravention of an agreement signed by many traditional boys’ schools.
Twenty-four top state boys schools agreed years ago to a sports charter “born of the concern that some of the high-profile sports at our schools are increasingly being driven by noneducational imperatives and affected by questionable (unethical) practices”. The charter rejected the practice of “approaching and offering money to boys to allow or encourage them to switch schools”, reported Business Day.
It was agreed that scholarships and bursaries should be offered for academic achievement and financial need respectively, ideally only in grade 8 and not the final grades.
Poaching happens in the corporate and professional sporting world, but it's a double-edged sword with consequences, good and bad, for affected pupils and schools.
Of course, many would argue a pupil poached from a less well-resourced school was getting a life-changing opportunity for a better education, professional sports coaching, sports equipment and better career prospects later in life. Given the opportunity, with incentives such as bursaries and reduced fees, who could blame any parent turning down such an offer? A shot at provincial, national and even international sports exposure is very tempting.
Graeme College, on the other hand, said a recent exodus of pupils was disruptive and deeply demoralising for the school community.
“While not unlawful, the active recruitment of Graeme learners undermines the relationship between our institutions and threatens the stability of our school,” headmaster Kevin Watson and SGB chair Cameron McConnachie wrote in a letter to parents on Monday. They said three other schools in the province had cut sporting ties with Kingswood.
“We firmly believe ... that Kingswood’s success should not be at the expense of public schools in Makhanda and the Eastern Cape, most of whom operate within very challenging economic circumstances,” wrote Watson.
Top-performing pupils parachuted in to a new school in the later grades can also face hostility from classmates who spent years striving for academic or sporting excellence.
It's a tricky balancing act, but we hope that common sense prevails and schools are able to resolve the latest hurdle with constructive and transparent dialogue that ultimately benefits our rising young stars.
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