Funding shortfalls, crowded schools and unequal access to technology threaten learning. Education leaders need to support teachers, improve resources and create safe classrooms for all. Some of the six-year-olds in our refugee school project struggle to adjust to routines.
I think of Mpho (Gift), who was always in trouble for not following directions or not keeping her hands to herself. Sometimes, she threw tantrums. She was repeatedly spoken to for screaming, throwing pencils, running away from her teacher or refusing to go to another classroom for a time-out.
Many teachers have had similar experiences with children who don’t seem ready for school. Teachers are sometimes unaware of the dynamics of complex trauma and easily mistake its manifestations as wilful disobedience, defiance or inattention. This leads them to respond as though it were mere “misbehaviour”.
Read Full Article on Daily Maverick
[paywall]
Mpho lives with a single mother in a low-income inner-city neighbourhood. Children in such circumstances are at greater risk when they start school. Researchers say that the “neurocognitive and social emotional skills integral to self-regulation undergird early learning and are likely to be compromised for children growing up in poverty and other adverse circumstances”.
Today’s planners can use data and AI to understand difficult social and economic contexts more precisely. Instead of just focusing on daily news (waves), they can look for deep, slow-moving forces (tides) such as automation, demographic shifts and resource scarcity that cause challenges in schools. A recent Christmas YouTube video quipped: “Santa has a list of good children and a list of bad children.
The good children will receive lots of presents, and so will the bad children. In fact, the only ones who won’t benefit are the poor. That’s because Santa judges every child’s goodness largely on parental income.” This is the harsh reality the Minister of Basic Education must confront.
Her ambitious plan to revamp the system is built on key pillars: The Minister of Basic Education understands that choices, willpower and action, not just external forces, shape the future. She needs her planners to use new tools and visualise new possibilities and overcome the tendency of slow, top-down decision-making disconnected from on-the-ground realities: The time is ripe for big tech companies to step in and help with technical know-how and deal with the tremendous backlogs. Their legacy can be more than gadgets – it can be the cultivation of enlightened minds.
The minister cannot ignore the issues of teen pregnancies and fragile mental health. These are silent cries, woven into the daily fabric of school, and are concerns that are easily overshadowed by infrastructural needs. But schools must be places of second chances and unwavering support, where young mothers can reclaim their futures, and no anxious mind feels alone.
The minister’s challenges are formidable – she faces a maze of choices and must find a path through a labyrinth of needs. The central challenge must be to break the ongoing cycle of inequality by fixing the foundation: ensuring every child, including Mpho, reads with understanding and calculates in the earliest grades. At the same time, the summit must be transformed; upper grades need to be dynamic, skills-focused and relevant.
The education budget, like the national fiscus, is not infinitely large. This ambitious transformation must be engineered within tight budgets, against a headwind of social storms. This will only happen through practical, unwavering support for every teacher, the nation’s backbone. These solutions can only work with the help of the community, where parents, businesses and every citizen become guardians of the children.
[/paywall]
