Cape Town – Numerous articles featured recently in the media about the unfortunate and apparent racist matters at Rustenburg Girls Junior School (RGJS).
The root of the problem should be placed at the door of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), with its reluctance to eradicate such practices as indicated below.
The racist practices witnessed at former model C schools can be linked to their anti-transformative admission policies. It was reported that RGJS refused to admit a pupil from Khayelitsha, despite full sponsorship guaranteed by an American couple.
After investigating the matter, Mrs Bronagh Hammond, spokesperson for the WCED, stated the girl's prerequisite for immediate admission and her application would have been considered if she applied.
Hammond further stated once the girl was accepted, the financing of her school fees would have been considered in terms of the donors’ contribution.
What Hammond failed to state, is that the poor girl had a snowball's chance in hell to be accepted, based on the school's archaic admission criteria, as a first entry to schooling, where preference is given to applicants; (1) who reside closest to the school and (2) whose parents must own such property or (3) have a valid signed lease agreement for at least a year for the property.
In the absence of the knowledge that, (1) her fees were guaranteed for the full 7 years at RGJS, (2) her address in Khayelitsha being provided and (3) the occupations of both parents reflected on her application form, would the poor girl's application have been accepted, Mrs Hammond?
Based on the track record of the SGB, the poor girl would never have been accepted, bearing in mind that the closest former non-white residential area, Garlandale, is 3km from RGJS as the crow flies, with Khayelitsha approximately 28km from RGJS by road.
Shockingly, despite the apartheid-like admissions criteria, the chairperson of the SGB at RGJS also stated that it was unanimously decided that there was no merit for the entire SGB to step down as requested by the group, Parents for Change and, moreover, the SGB also expressed a vote of confidence in their chairperson.
Prof Nuraan Davids, as a former SGB member, is proof that it was difficult to change the archaic policies of the school from within. According to Davids, the SGB even opposed the suggestion of setting up a scholarship for underprivileged pupils.
At no point, while this matter was unfolding at RGJS during the past two years, did the WCED take any meaningful corrective action, creating the impression that the custodian of public schooling in the province is looking the other way and condoning such actions.
Do you blame me for labelling the WCED as promoting racism in public schools in the Western Cape?