Class aspirations - not class sizes - are what count

WHITE children are conspicuous by their absence at many former Model C schools in Johannesburg's northern suburbs.

Although hundreds of white families live in Saxonwold, only five of Saxonwold Primary School's 427 pupils are white and only one of Houghton Primary's 620 children is white. In Kempton Park, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, a teacher's child is the only white pupil enrolled at Birch Acres Primary, at which 1000 children receive their education.

A senior teacher at Birch Acres Primary said: "White parents normally come and ask if there are any white kids left. We have to be honest with them. Then they go to other schools."

Brahm Fleisch, professor of education policy at the University of the Witwatersrand, said white and black middle-class parents moved their children to better former Model C and private schools because of "class aspirations" rather than "class size".

"Middle-class families are reluctant to see their kids going to schools with overwhelmingly working-class kids - and this is as true for the black middle class as it is for the white middle-class kids and their parents."

He said that parents internationally wanted their children in schools that reflected their class aspirations.

"Clearly, if there are 45 or 50 kids in a class, it's untenable. But whether there's a substantial value-add between 22 or 29 kids in a class, I think there's not sufficient evidence that a small reduction in class size will lead to substantial improved quality."

The quality of teachers and the school was more significant than class size, he said.

"Parents want a place where their children are going to be happy, where they are going to be safe and where they can flourish," said Fleisch, who is a member of the governing body at Parkview Senior.

He said one of the problems was that there were not enough middle-class schools in the public sector.

But Parkdene Primary in Boksburg, on the East Rand, has noticed another trend: children who went to private schools returning to state schooling - at least 30 in the past two years. A teacher said: "The parents say the quality of education their children get is most of the time better or as good as that provided by private schools."