i) Changes in teaching staff at schools
Klein (1993: 113) states that: ''In schools with a consultatively and fully developed anti-racist policy, all staff, whatever their cultural background, will be working together towards policy implementation as part of their educational aim."
The appointment of African educators at former Indian and White schools would change the cultural composition of educators so as to correspond with the change in the cultural composition of the learner population. The interactions between African and Indian educators would enable them to develop a better understanding of learners belonging to different cultural groups.
ii) Selection of more appropriate teaching strategies and teaching methods.
The use of different strategies and a variety of teaching methods would cater for the disparate learning styles of learners. Different groups have different learning styles, so educators must be well trained and prepared for diversity. This is supported by Klein (1993: 131) when he says: ''If it is indeed true that what has
worked for the White learners may not work for the Black learners, then educators require professional training in order to accommodate the learning styles of all their learners, so that no one is systematically disadvantaged in the classroom.
iii) A greater use of co-operative group teaching methods
These methods would help to develop positive interpersonal relationships, especially between learners of different cultural groups.
iv) The introduction of Zulu into the school curriculum
Unlike the Indian learners, who speak English at home, African learners in the study are Zulu speaking. The incorporation of Zulu into the curriculum would help African learners to cope with their classwork and also enable Indian learners to develop a greater understanding of their newly-arrived classmates.
v) A revision of the promotion requirements of learners
Although continuous evaluation now forms an important component in the promotion of learners, certain practices of the apartheid era still continue. This
then means that Black learners do not stand the same chance, as Indian learners, to be promoted.
A new learner assessment and promotion policy, shifting the emphasis from year- end examinations to continuous performance appraisals, was presented to the parliamentary portfolio committee on education. (Sowetm:!, November 4, 1998:9)
This approach outlined above should serve adequately as a temporary measure to address diversity issues in schools. However, other aspects need to be considered in developing an approach for the future. These include:
a) Changes in the curricula to cater for the diversity oflearners' interests and to equip them adequately for job opportunities (still to be discussed in detail in Chapter 6).
b) Rewriting of text books to eliminate cultural biases and correct misconceptions of the past.
c) Educator training is also a key factor in a multicultural school. It is therefore important that it is structured and reviewed to meet the needs of culturally diverse learners in our society.
2.8 The effectiveness of multicultural education
Although there are different meanings and definitions for multiculturalism and multicultural education, the researcher has presented a definition in Chapter One which needs to be used for the sake of this study. Furthermore a detailed discussion of culture and multiculturalism has been presented in this chapter. The reason why the researcher has decided to do that is to show how important and effective multicultural education is in bringing about national reconciliation and cultural tolerance in a multicultural society. In the 1970s, and into the 1980s, multicultural education came to be seen by many liberal educationalists as the new panacea for redressing the educational difficulties faced by minority learners; the 'common sense' solution of its time. The problem of the educational 'underachievement' of minority learners would be redressed. This enthusiasm for multicultural education is also enhanced by the apparent ease with which multicultural programmes could be adopted.
It is very clear that it promotes a broad education while fostering tolerance and empathy. It strives for an equilibrium between the maintenance of reasonable social and political stability and the tolerance and encouragement of the diversity of culture and to a certain extent this has been achieved in most schools where they have adopted a multicultural approach. Lastly, it has been made clear by the researcher, especially in this chapter, that for multicultural education to be effective it should at least embrace certain principles which have been discussed in paragraph 2.5 of this chapter. Generally speaking, multicultural education plays a major role in bringing together different cultural groups.
2.9 Shortcomings or problems of multicultural education
Although multicultural education is seen as an education for national reconcilia- tion by many writers, that does not put it above criticism. The emphasis on cultural pluralism in multicultural education has come under fire from radical critics for its inability to move beyond the surface.
Manifestations of culturalism, and its consequent inability to address the structural inequalities which limit the life chances of minority learners. Education programmes promoting multiculturalism have been added to the existing
(monocultural) curriculum but have done little to challenge or change the cultural transmission of the dominant groups within schooling. That is why the researcher believes that the school curriculum must be multiculturalised. As Onleck (1990: 163) observes: ''Multicultural education as ordinarily practiced, tends to merely insert minorities into the dominant cultural frame of reference, to be transmitted within dominant cultural forms, and to leave obscured and intact existing, cultural hierarchies and criteria of stratification."
While this critique of multicultural education is one that the researcher largely agrees with, the problem with combining critical educational theory and practice remams.
According to Cross, Mkwanazi-Twala and Klein (1998:28-29), the problem with multicultural education is that it would do very little to address the existing cultural and social imbalances in South Africa. South Africa experienced a limited case of multiculturalism, which emphasised the role of education in entrenching and reproducing cultural consciousness while obscuring the dominant relations of power. Tensions and divisions in society were exacerbated. The masses were disempowered and prevented from taking control of their own lives and destiny.
South African multiculturalism was based on a typically racist and oppressive value system which stressed racism, sexism, tribalism, individualism, elitism and the like.
Cross, Mkwanazi-Twala and Klein (1998:28) believe that a meaningful alternative policy should be dynamic enough to redress this legacy and should have enough flexibility to be able to reconcile unity and diversity while contributing to the
solution of the economic and social imbalance imposed by the legacyof apartheid.
The researcher thus proposes a model based on radical pedagogywhich recognises the following principles: unity, democracy, nonracism, nonsexism, nontribalism and the need to redress the existing imbalances in our society which may hinder the process of nation building. Underlying this model is the ideal of national reconciliation.