JONATHAN JANSEN | If the wheelie schoolbags are a ‘practical solution’, ask yourself these 7 questions

There is something quite distasteful when middle class people pass off as solutions to education for working-class children something that they themselves would not dream of using for their own offspring.

I speak of course of the recent donation to black schools of branded desks made by McDonald's and MiDesk working with the department of basic education. This portable wheelie school bag converts into a desk and chair that has a solar light and USB charging point to boot.

The marketing behind the bag-desk-chair contraption tells us that this invention “restores the dignity of learners” and addresses the national backlog in classroom furniture. We really are a gullible people.

Before you read my responses, try to answer these seven (uncomfortable) questions on your own before you accept this “practical” solution to a real-life problem:

1. Would you accept this wheelie bag as a school desk for your own children?

Of course you would not. You want your child to have a stable, reliable, functional desk not one your grade 1 child has to drag to school and home every day. So if the wheelie bag is not good enough for your children, why is it good enough for the children of the poor and working classes? It is, to drill the point home, class hypocrisy parading as goodwill.

2. Are there beneficiaries from this scheme other than the children?

Yes, McDonald's. What you have here is cheap advertising on the backs of disadvantaged children who are being exploited by this popular brand. This is a “nothing burger”, if I may stretch the metaphor; we are not even talking about the serious health dilemmas for vulnerable children that come from consuming these greasy products.

3. Why is this ‘donation’ from private sources necessary in the first place?

Because the South African government has not fulfilled its primary responsibility to disadvantaged children: to give every child a reliable and workable desk for schoolwork as it should do for every child. When the minister of basic education sat in one of these desks, there was not even a hint of embarrassment for this failure in basic provisioning for over 30 years of democracy.

4. Did the purported beneficiaries demand this resource?

Of course not. The bags/desk were given to them, and they were told to smile and be thankful for something made partly from recycled materials whose prototype used cat litter boxes and old spade handles. They smiled and were thankful. If you ask any parent, they would ask for regular desks and chairs and textbooks as one would expect in an equitable school system.

5. Who is providing the resource for whom?

It is white and/or middle class people providing the wheelie bags for black people. It is as simple as that. It’s a hand down. It’s the second-choice option. Since you have nothing, here, take this and get on with it. There is a stunning inability for self-reflection on the part of the givers; how sad.

6. Does the purported innovation work in the context of its envisaged usage?

As something to sit on, yes. In fact in a Mpumalanga school it was reported this week that children brought buckets to school to at least sit on something. Same idea. I was amused though by the mention of USB charging points on these contraptions. Really? The children of struggling people, without desks, are going to charge their cellphones on these smart desks? Then we are told the wheelie comes with “reflective stickers for visibility at night”. At night? These children are going to wheel their desks at night and there are stickers to prevent them from being knocked over? Wait, there’s more: “ruggedized wheels for rural terrains.” I need a break.

7. Do the claims made for the resource have any purchase in reality?

“Research has shown,” says a MiDesk website entry, “that a child’s academic performance increases by 48% if they have a designated homework station.” This anodyne statement is akin to saying that “research has shown that your results improve if you stay awake in class”. I would expel one of my postgraduate students if they came up with this kind of research finding. And I would love to see the research showing that a wheelie restores the dignity of poor people.

What’s next from the minister and her department of basic education? I would not be surprised if we heard that in response to the never-ending saga of pit latrine toilets, the department proposes portable toilets in the veld, something you can drag home with you, complete with solar light, ruggedised wheels and luminescent toilet paper.