Violent incidents at Hoërskool Jan Viljoen in Randfontein this week struck me with a sickening sense of déjà vu.
In 1996, I had sat on the Kambule Commission of Inquiry into education in North West, which singled out Vryburg High School as a hotbed of racial disharmony.
“The situation in this school, in our view, remains extremely unsatisfactory,” it found. “We recommend a sustained intervention to bring together the children from polarised backgrounds into one effectively integrated student body. Such an intervention would need to involve parents and teachers, the whole learning community.” Such an intervention never took place.
Two years later I led a task team to investigate a racist attack on black pupils by white parents and teachers at the same school. Sadly, once again, few of our recommendations were implemented.
Following the Vryburg incident, almost every year we hear of another school experiencing racial problems; Brackenfell High, Milnerton High, Wynberg Girls High School, Bishops Diocesan College, Hoërskool Jan Viljoen, the list goes on.
Not all the incidents reflect the same brutality and violence as was experienced at Vryburg but, overt or covert, the racism continues. This is a serious blot on our legacy, nearly 30 years after SA’s first free and fair elections.
LISTEN | Hoërskool Jan Viljoen parents clash as some black parents refused entry to parents' meeting
Schools are intimately connected with broader SA society. Much as we profess “rainbow-ism” and reconciliation, we are living in a country where there is no rainbow and racism thrives. It is apparent in businesses and organisations, in our universities and colleges. And racism is not always “white-on-black”, as the situation in Phoenix showed us in July 2021. Racism, as Malcolm X reminds us, “changes its model every year”.
I am convinced that we should deal with this ongoing stigma of racism in our schools directly, without further investigations or endless commissions. However, Jerome Joorst of Stellenbosch University proposed in 2019 that we hold a national education indaba to bring multiple stakeholders together to discuss effective solutions. This would be a good start. Stakeholders should include education departments, heads and educators of schools, school governing bodies, interested parents and, of course, pupils.
But talking only gets us so far. Emerging from such an indaba should be a binding commitment from all on making schools safe and anti-racist spaces. This commitment should be spelt out in a national anti-discrimination policy. The policy should explain what racism is, how it manifests in its many nuances, and how schools should deal with it, including typical sanctions for educators and pupils found to have transgressed. It should also consider how to reward schools working towards becoming anti-racist spaces.
For an anti-racist climate to be effective, educators need to be informed about issues of race, culture, discrimination and prejudice. Part of their training should include diversity, prioritising race and how to create inclusion and equity for all. The emphasis in schools should move from assimilation (making everyone fit in to resemble the old guard) to integration (embracing a new inclusive culture). Black African South Africans constitute the overwhelming majority in our country; this should be reflected in the languages learnt, the values imbibed, and the culture and traditions upheld in our schools. Jan Viljoen should consider a name change, in this regard.
The leadership of schools, head teachers and principals have a vital part to play. Not only should they embark on personal journeys of transformation and change, investigating their personal biases both conscious and unconscious, but they should model the anti-racist stance they wish their schools to adopt by walking the talk.
The curriculum for pupils should include information about racial differences. Schools should voluntarily undergo regular training in understanding and managing racism, discrimination and prejudice.
Schools should become models for promoting and supporting anti-racism. They should form the bedrock of the nation we wish to become: unified in our diversity, unapologetic about dismantling racism.
• Oakley-Smith is MD of Diversi-T Consulting.
