CHAPTER 1: CAN I CARVE A MASTERPIECE OF TEACHERS’ PERSONAL-
1.3 SOCIAL JUSTIFICATION: THE POLICY LANDSCAPE AND
1.3.1 Social action and policy justification
Social action or policy justification comes in terms of social activities, such as making visible the lives of teachers within particular socio-cultural and institutional contexts, to which teachers are irreducibly connected (Moen, 2006). For the purpose of this research that setting is schools within particular school quintiles.
According to the South African Schools Act, 84 of 1996, the South African government caters for two types of schools: independent and public schools (Republic of South Africa, 1996a). The majority of schools are public schools, all of which are primarily funded by the state. However, the allocation of funding is not uniform, but is based on addressing the unequal funding model practised during apartheid (Dass & Rinquest, 2017). To address this funding imbalance, the government affords financial support to all public schools through the National Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF), which was implemented in 1998 with the aim of addressing past racial inequalities and discriminatory practices (Republic of South Africa, 1998). Policies directed towards addressing this backlog have resulted in funding being directed to the most deprived schools, with steps also being undertaken to address the infrastructural backlog resulting from apartheid policies (Murtin, 2013). This funding decision has resulted in schools that were formerly designated for Black learners receiving more financial assistance from the government than those previously designated for White learners (Dass & Rinquest, 2017).
As shown by Dieltiens and Motala (2012), public schools within South Africa do not receive uniform financial assistance, as funding is determined by a school’s quintile ranking based on their poverty score. Previously, the socio-economic status of a school was determined by the provincial DoE. Funding was dependant on the relative poverty and the facilities that were available within the area. This funding model proved problematic, as learners within poor provinces received less funding as a result of regional disparities (Dieltiens & Motala, 2012). This inconsistency resulted in the quintile allocation being placed in the hands of the national DoE (Longueira, 2014). The changeover from provincial to national administration of funding led to a significant number of children from poverty-stricken families becoming beneficiaries of the no-fee schools introduced in 2007 to the poorest 60% of South African children. Presently,
14
schools that are considered to cater for learners from homes that experience poverty, unemployment, and high illiteracy rates are ranked as Quintile 1, 2 and 3 (Q1, Q2 and Q3) schools, and are exempt from paying school fees (DoE, 2002). These exempted schools also receive a larger NNSSF portion of funds than schools classified as “fee- paying” schools, which are ranked Quintiles 4 and 5 (Q4 and Q5) (Grant, 2013).
Schools classified as Q4 and Q5 are regarded as “less poor” and receive only 15% and 5% of their resources from the provincial DoE, respectively (Giese, Zide, Koch & Hall, 2009). Q4 and Q5 schools are expected to charge school fees as determined by the school governing body (SGB). The SGB is then expected to supplement the funds received from the DoE to run the school (Mestry, 2016). According to Nzuza (2015), requiring the SGB and the school to be responsible for the financial management of schools has consequences for the way the school is managed and for the experiences that teachers have at that institution.
The consequences of the government’s funding decisions regarding schools are evident.
According to the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and Section27 report (2019, p. 1) on funding basic education, “austerity measures adopted during the 5th democratic administration have resulted in decreased funding per learner in real terms. Additionally, spending cuts in education programmes have resulted in slowed progress towards realising quality education for all learners”. This observation that spending on learners has decreased is supported by Spaull (2019). In addition, a speech on KwaZulu-Natal’s (KZN) budget for education for the 2019/2020 financial year, delivered by the KZN MEC for Education Kwazi Mshengu (2019), indicated that the provincial DoE had allocated a budget of R2.1 billion for the funding of schools. (I focus on the province of KZN because this research was conducted in KZN.) Of this amount, R1.9 billion was to be used to fund Q1–Q3 schools. These schools were to receive the amounts shown in Table 1.1.
15
Table 1.1 Funding allocation to schools in Q1–Q5
School quintile ranking KZN provincial allocation National allocation
Q1 R955 R1394
Q2 R955 R1394
Q3 R955 R1394
Q4 R522 R699
Q5 R179 R241
The figures in Table 1.1 show that the KZN provincial funding allocation was below the national threshold. Mshengu (2019) also admitted that the KZN provincial DoE was extremely underfunded and that additional finances were needed to realise the department’s vision. As explained by the IEJ and Section27 Report (2019),
funding no-fee schools below this threshold is particularly damaging as these schools cannot raise additional funds through fees. However, almost 1 000 fee- charging schools also failed to make up for their underfunding by Provincial Education Departments in 2017 and as a result, had school budgets that were below the minimum per learner threshold. (p. 3)
The decrease in funding to schools has also resulted in allocation for school infrastructure upgrades being reduced. Evidence of learners dying in pit latrines and the lack of water and electricity also speaks to the infrastructure backlog that some schools experience (IEJ and Section27 Report, 2019).
While financial difficulties are a burden to most schools, they are not the only challenges.
Schools are divided into quintiles according to their context, and this process also locates the teachers who operate within these contexts. It foregrounds who the teachers are, and the capital (various resources), knowledge and skills they bring with them (Bourdieu, 1987). It also incorporates the external socio-cultural and economic context, and the internal organisational and environmental settings within which schools function (Hallinger, 2016). Therefore, teachers positioned within certain contexts may experience dilemmas concerning their educational context, and the socio-economic conditions of the
16
educational environment, amongst others. For that reason, the physical location, condition and quintile ranking of the school can either enable or restrict teachers (Nzuza, 2015) and in turn, result in personal-professional dilemmas depending on the quintile ranking of their schools. As a result, according to (Fransson & Grannäs, 2013), teachers may be forced to teach in dilemmatic spaces.
Thus, this research suggested that my feelings and experiences as a teacher were not peculiar to me (Day, Sammons, Stobart, Kington, & Gu, 2007; Malm, 2008). It also provided a platform to ask questions and raise debates about teaching, care and social practices within the dilemmatic spaces of public schools in South Africa, such as classroom management (Hong, 2012), teachers working with large class sizes, conflicts with learners, feelings of inadequacy (Manassero et al., 2006), lack of material resources, having to deal with vulnerable children and children with special needs (Grimmett, Dagenais, D’Amico, Jacquet, & Ilieva, 2008), and excessive workloads (Day et al., 2007).
However, while the literature points to the challenges that teachers face, the critical questions are: What do teachers do within these dilemmatic spaces? How do they negotiate the challenges they face? Do they allow the challenges to de-motivate them or do they draw on their past experiences, resilience and endurance to navigate the dilemmas they face? Do different school quintiles present different challenges for the teachers that work within these contexts? And what are the issues that increase the dilemmas at an individual and social level within schools classified according to these different quintiles?
These issues need to be addressed by making visible teachers’ lived experiences and the dilemmas that they face in particular school quintiles. Therefore, the importance of paying attention to the voices of the teachers who work in such contexts needs to be emphasised.