Get Mad/Glad

Media Monitoring Africa is GLAD about the Mail & Guardian’s in-depth, insightful and critical article that digs deeper into the issue of education and the lack of access to knowledge within South Africa’s education system. “Missed Opportunities” (29/07/2011, p.49) explores to greater extents, the challenging realities faced by both learners and teachers in challenging learning environments.

The article went beyond merely stating the existence of the problem of the lack of access to education for many children and general problems in the system as a whole but clearly reported specific issues which lie at the root of the broader problem of learning in South Africa. The article raises the call to address the problem of poor education at its core, clearly illustrating to the reader how learners cannot learn if they do not understand what is being taught to them. “For many, education is simply a daily routine of sitting through lessons without understanding,” states the writer Veerle Dieltiens, a researcher at the University of the Witswaterstrand. 

The article accessed both learners and teachers and provided varying perspectives of the issue. The numerous perspectives and voices heard essentially highlighted the difficulties and frustrations many children are faced with in our education system. By giving children a voice in this way, explaining and depicting their situations, the article allows the reader to understand what being in school is like for many of them, from their own perspectives. The article also pointed to frustrations faced by teachers and pupils in the system including one as conveyed by a Grade 8 learner who said “It is rare on a given day to get teachers to honour all their periods. There is at least one teacher absent or who is at school doing other things”; and examples of children who simply are unable to comprehend their lessons.
 
The author also relayed an encounter with two young girls who when asked a simple comprehension question in relation to a reading exercise, responded by smiling shyly and shrugging, as they didn’t know the answer. Additionally, a learner calculated a simple arithmetic question by using her and a friend’s fingers. These examples speak out very loudly on the children’s behalf, of the reality faced by many of them in trying to learn. In so doing, the author provides strong arguments for the need to look at children’s education in South Africa more thoroughly, and understand the country’s education crisis as more than merely providing access to learning institutions for children. The article communicated that the process of education is more than simply attending lessons but providing children with the skills and abilities to learn, as well as equipping them with solid foundations early on in their education which would then allow them to accumulate knowledge and continuously build upon what they have learned and connect the dots between lessons.

It is by highlighting these numerous individual factors, which contribute to the poor education of South African children, that allow for them to be addressed and solutions developed to overcome them.

We congratulate the Mail & Guardian for taking a step towards this direction. “Missed opportunities” is a positive article which brings children’s struggles into focus, gives them a voice and exposes the need for the development of a solution.

By Melanie Hamman.