Report of a Civil Society Education Conference
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CONTACT INFORMATION National Office Cape Town Office 16th Floor, Bram Fischer Towers, 20 Albert Street, 3rd Floor, Greenmarket Place 54 Shortmarket Marshalltown, Johannesburg 2000 Street, T: +27 11 838 6601 Cape Town 8001 Report of a Civil Society F: +27 11 838 4876 T: +27 21 481 3000 F: +27 21 423 0935 Education Conference Constitutional and Litigation Unit 16th Floor, Bram Fischer Towers, 20 Albert Street, Durban Office Marshalltown, Johannesburg 2000 Diakonia Centre, 20 St. Andrews Street, Held at the Webber Wentzel T: +27 11 836 9831 Durban 4001 Auditorium, Johannesburg F: +27 11 838 4876 T: +27 31 301 7572 F: +27 31 304 2823 14-15 November 2012 Johannesburg Office 15th Floor, Bram Fischer Towers, 20 Albert Street, Grahamstown Office Marshalltown, Johannesburg 2000 116 High Street, T: +27 11 836 9831 Grahamstown 6139 F: +27 11 836 8680 T: +27 46 622 9230 F: +27 46 622 3933 LRC ONLINE Website: www.lrc.org.za Facebook: www.facebook.com – search for Legal Resources Centre Twitter: @LRC_SouthAfrica Youtube: TheLRCSouthAfrica IMAGE COURTESY OF ZUTE LIGHTFOOT 2 OPENING FACILITATORS PANEL 1 PANEL 1 – LearninG SUPPORT MATERIALS 6 Learning support materials Facilitator Mark Heywood: Executive Director SECTION27. Chairperson of the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights. 12 PANEL 2 Sexual violence and safety PANEL 2 – SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND SAFETY Facilitator Bonita Meyersfeld: Professor of Law at University of Witswatersrand and Director of the PANEL 3 Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Wits). 16 School access PANEL 3 - SCHOOL ACCESS PANEL 4 Facilitator Modidima Mannya: Advocate Modidima Mannya served as Head of the Eastern Cape 20 Improving education Education Department until his resignation in April 2012. in Gauteng PANEL 5 – SCHOOL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNANCE AND TEACHER SUPPORT ADDRESS Facilitator Zeenat Sujee: LLB (Wits) and currently works at CALS and mainly involved in monitoring 22 By Commissioner and litigating in the spheres of the right of access to housing. Lindiwe Mokate, SAHRC PANEL 6 – ChanGING EDUCATION CONTENT AND PROCESS PANEL 5 Facilitator Monica Hendricks: Monica Hendricks is an Alan Macintosh Research Fellow at the 24 School management, Institute for the Study of English in Africa, Rhodes University. She recently wrote and co-wrote governance and teacher various chapters in South Africa's Education Crisis: Views from the Eastern Cape (2012) edited by support Laurence Wright. PANEL 6 PANEL 7 – MONITORING WORK ON CASES 30 Changing education Facilitator Adila Hassim: Cofounder and head of litigation and legal services at SECTION27. content and process Also founder and board member of Corruption Watch. PANEL 7 PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS 34 Monitoring work on cases 40 ADVOCACY FOR BASIC EDUCATION Patricia Martin, Advocacy Aid Writer: Melody Emmett, Sacred Cow Productions Copy editor: Libby Lamour 43 CONCLUSION Design: Kyle John Behrens & Byron Brad Behrens AUCOURANT DESIGN AND REPRODUCTION www.aucourant.co.za Project coordinator: Lauren du Toit, Legal Resources Centre EDUCATION CONFERENCE 1 “…we will be accused by our children of failing them and they will turn on us.” – Jay Naidoo WelcoME challenge when promises are made and not kept. BY JANET LOVE It is unfortunate that sometimes the huge threat of costly court cases is the only way to see that justice is done. Part of the agenda, Love said, is to find ways to link civil society organisations to a larger group of people: those who are affected by the failures in the education system, but are not part of the es- tablishment. The involvement of trade unions is crit- ical, but as Love pointed out, there are challenges in engaging the unions: “When we ask for isiZulu Janet Love is the National Director of the to be taught properly, we are asking for a differ- Legal Resources Centre in South Africa. ent composition of our teaching staff. When we rightly know we need mathematics and science “We have to reach across to people who are in teachers in rural areas of the Eastern Cape, we the union movement; people who are in social potentially are looking at changing the teacher movements… People who are part of the un- composition”. employed and who are the children of the un- employed and who are unemployed youth can OPENING ADDRESS actually join hands to build what we want to build BY JAY NAIDOO in the society.” Janet Love welcomed participants on behalf of the organising team of five NGOs that have used the law to advance the right to basic education: the Legal Resources Centre (LRC); Section 27; The Equal Education Law Centre (EELC); the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS); and the Centre for IMAGE COURTESY OF Child Law (CCL). NAIDOO.ORG Motivated by their common concern about the Jay Naidoo is Chairperson of the Global Alliance way in which education is currently provided, for Improved Nutrition, which was launched at and about the difficulties in ensuring that the the 2002 United Nations Summit on Children, as a right to education is realised, the convening public-private partnership to tackle malnutrition organisations wanted to initiate a dialogue with facing two billion people in the world. other groups and activists in civil society in order to enrich and advance efforts to address the chal- “… If we don’t challenge... the deliberate negli- Opening lenges in education. gence of government to serve the interests of the people… we will be accused by our children of Love said the conference would not only look failing them and they will turn on us.” at the legal framework but also at the extent to which government is able to fulfil its obligations to “A central challenge we face in relation to the ensure that the right to education is realised. There delivery of the fundamental and constitutional have been some intermittent successes in work- rights of our people is the issue of governance,” ing with the state, but there is real frustration and Jay Naidoo said, adding that governance is not IMAGE COURTESY OF DAILY DISPATCH 2 EDUCATION CONFERENCE EDUCATION CONFERENCE 3 only about procedures and laws and policies and Naidoo noted that he had not seen the outrage teacher in the classroom, it is a system issue, not a The issue of resourcing is complex, Mannya add- physical narratives, but about the right to water, of parents, of students; of communities in relation constitutional issue. We need to look at the sys- ed. The education budget is higher than that of the right to education, and more than that, the to the crisis in education. He cautioned: “If we tem and ask: What is it supposed to do? What is it other African countries, but quality is the major right to the kind of education that develops hu- don’t stand up and define the constitutional right not doing? problem. “Are we fighting about resources or ef- man potential. of our children to education we have failed our fective use of resources?” he asked. constitution; the struggle we fought; leaders like Referring to the challenges confronting provincial He said that half of Africa’s population of almost Mandela and Sisulu… If we don’t challenge... the education departments, he said that the premier Focusing on corruption in the context of educa- a billion people is under the age of 20. The aver- deliberate negligence of government to serve the of the Eastern Cape had pointed out that the tion, Mannya said that in his view, if systems and age age of African heads of state is 62. By 2035 the interests of the people; if we allow people to use Eastern Cape comprises the former Transkei, the policies are not being implemented, this is cor- workforce of Africa is going to be larger than that our public treasuries as a public bank account; we former Ciskei, and the former Republic of South Af- ruption. It is active corruption if a teacher goes of China. By 2050, a quarter of the global work- will be accused by our children of failing them and rica with their legacies of extreme corruption (Tran- to school drunk; or if there are no teachers at the force will live in Africa, and the population of the they will turn on us.” skei), no service delivery (Ciskei) and discrimination school on payday; or if parents or teachers cannot continent will stand at two billion. (Republic of South Africa), and that all these still speak to children. It is important for civil society organisations to link a exist. Mannya said at some point there will have to Naidoo presented two possible scenarios for the legal strategy to the streets and to the informal set- be an application against the district rather than With regard to the implementation of existing future: Either Africa will become the economic tlements, Naidoo stressed. “It is their political nar- the Member of the Executive Council for Educa- policies, Mannya said that there are good policies powerhouse of the future; or it will become a rative.” Reflecting on his experiences in COSATU, tion (MEC). and bad policies that have not been tested, al- failed continent, with young people serving as he said: “…we started by organising mine workers though the law requires government to evaluate child soldiers in widespread conflict, a rise in cor- who were illiterate, lived at the bottom. We co- Mannya expressed his disagreement with Nai- what it is doing. He said that detailed attention to ruption and resource wars, and domination by an created with them”. doo about the value of mass protest. He said that the auditor general’s report can reveal inconsist- economic and political elite. Marikana and the service delivery protests had encies. If, for example, a department cannot ac- CONFERENCE ADDRESS showed the dangers of this as a strategy.