The legacy of racial discrimination in the South African education system, characterised by poor outcomes, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate facilities and learning materials for tens of thousands of students, still looms large 25 years into freedom, Amnesty International said on Monday.
The sad assessment marked the rights body's launch of a new campaign #SignTheSmileOff, which highlights that South Africa’s education system is still unequal.
Amnesty international campaign warns that unless the SA Government seriously tackles the issues that prevent children from receiving a quality education, they will be fulfilling the legacy of apartheid.
If Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid and apartheid education, looked back now, he would be smiling. Because unless we tackle the deep inequality he created in our education system, we risk fulfilling his legacy. #SignTheSmileOff pic.twitter.com/NT1Lyk2vP4
— Amnesty International South Africa (@AmnestySAfrica) July 29, 2019
"From today, and for the next couple of weeks, smiling images of Hendrik Verwoerd, the original "architect of apartheid", will be seen around Johannesburg," said a statement released by the rights body.
The campaign urges members of the public who care about the provision of quality education to "sign the smile off Verwoerd’s face" by demanding that South Africa’s leaders urgently provide all children with the decent quality, basic education that is their birthright as enshrined in the constitution.
"By signing the smile off Verwoerd’s face the public will add their names to a petition that calls on the government to fix the problems in education by 2021," said the statement.
Commenting on the matter, Executive Director of Amnesty International South Africa Shenilla Mohamed said: More than two decades after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s education system still mirrors the apartheid years, with many schools serving our poorest communities relying on outdated and poorly maintained infrastructure and a dire lack of teaching resources that provides a wholly inadequate learning space for young people.
"While South Africa has made progress in proving access to education it has yet to tackle the deeply entrenched legacy of apartheid, left by Hendrick Verwoerd, that continues to result in massive inequalities in the country’s education system.
The campaign highlights how 78% of South Africa’s 10-year-old learners cannot read, and 61% of 11-year-old schoolchildren cannot do basic mathematics.
Pupils at 17% per cent of the country’s schools are still forced to use highly dangerous and unsanitary pit latrines, leading to several tragic deaths by drowning in recent years. Currently half of the around 1.2 million learners enrolled in Grade 1 every year drop out by Grade 12.
Only 14% of pupils that enter the country’s school system will qualify for university.
Kumi Naidoo, a South African who joined Amnesty International in August 2018, is a firm advocate for the right to quality education.
She said their campaign rightly points out that if the man who created apartheid looked back now, he'd be smiling.
