This is a movie about Equal Education's Campaign for School Libraries. This movie promotes the march to be held in Cape Town on 21 March 2010.

Equal Education, a movement of  learners, parents, teachers and community members working for quality and equality in South African Education, is hosting a 24 hour ‘Read-In’ at The Bookery at 20 Roeland Street, Cape Town (the Old Charly’s Bakery).  The 'Read-In' begins on Saturday 6th March at 10h00 continues on until Sunday the 7^th March at 10h00. 

The Bookery is the home of Equal Education’s book drive, which aims to collect 100 000 books to be redistributed to rural and township school libraries. You can support this initiative by attending the Read-In as well as donating books that are in good-as-new condition which you think may grab or stir the imagination of a child or young adult. The 'Read-In' will cater for all. There will be storytelling, engaging book readings as well as discussion.

As 21 March 2010 approaches, EE has gone up a gear in its efforts to have 10,000 people come together for a concert and march to Parliament.

Huge news this week is that HHP will be playing at the concert.

Soon, there will be daily EE clips on Cape Town TV at around 4:30pm, so look out for that.

But the real work to get people to the march happens on the ground.

This past week EE volunteers have been up before dawn to hit train stations and taxi ranks with petitions and pamphlets. On Friday 26 February it was the turn of Phillipi Station and Nyanga Junction to experience the campaign. From OK Bazaars workers and petrol attendants on their way to work, to security guards coming home from the night shift, to learners from hundreds of different schools off for another day in the classroom, everyone was recruited to support the campaign: "1 School 1 Library 1 Librarian".

These primary school recruits opened their schools bags and we put fliers directly into their bags so they could show their teachers.

If you'd like to help, and feel like an early wake-up from time to time, give Lwandiso Stofile a call on 071 118 4662 and ask him to add you to one of the campaign groups.

Inside a Divided Upper East Side Public School

Whites in the front door, blacks in the back door

(This is an article from a newspaper called the Village Voice, in New York City. To read the whole article, click here. Note, it is in 6 parts.)

If you're a white student and you arrive at the public elementary school building on 95th Street and Third Avenue, you'll probably walk through the front door. If you're a black student, you'll probably come in through the back.

It's a very New York kind of school facility: two completely different elementary schools sharing the same space.

The boxy, utilitarian structure was built in 1959 to house P.S.198, named after Isador and Ida Straus to commemorate the Congressman and Macy's department store owner and his wife, who both died in the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.

Since 1988, the building has shared space with another school, in a tradition that has rapidly increased under the reformist scheme of Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

In this case, it's the Lower Laboratory School for Gifted Education (P.S.77) that has been given space in the old Straus building—including the part that contains the front door.

Lower Lab is mostly composed of white students (69 percent) and Asian children, who are driven in from all over Manhattan.

Straus is zoned, which means it has to serve any child from the local neighborhood. For that reason, it's overwhelmingly Latino (47 percent) and black (24 percent).

Over the main entrance, the old sign for Straus remains, but Straus kids are told to go around to the back of the building.

Even Straus staff members are instructed by the NYPD School Safety Agent at the front door to use the rear entrance.

An African-American attorney, Granville Leo Stevens, who showed up at the front door recently on official Straus business, says he was only "grudgingly" allowed to enter the front door after he complained to the SS agent.

"It's the craziest thing I've ever seen," Stevens says.

The only people welcomed openly to the front entrance of the schoolhouse are very young kids with killer testing skills.

Lower Lab is designated as talented and gifted, and it's open throughout the Department of Education's District 2—which includes all of the Upper East Side and much of Manhattan south of Central Park—but only to youngsters who score high on tests given to them at four years of age.

In return for the high marks, the privileged kids of Lower Lab not only never have to sit in classes with the Straus children, they don't even have to mix with them on the way to school.

By 8 a.m., except for a few stragglers, the local kids walking on their way to Straus—some holding hands with parents—have all trudged up 95th Street, entered a gate, crossed a schoolyard, and disappeared into the back entrance of the building.

And that's when the other kids start showing up. Classes for Lower Lab start later—at 8:30—so at about 8 a.m., the automobiles start to arrive: Black Mercedes sedans, town cars, and taxis pull up to the curb at the front door, depositing white children onto the sidewalk. At one point, on a recent morning, there were so many black SUVs backed up that it looked like a head of state was stopping by before heading to the U.N.

Lower Lab parents often get out of their cars to walk their children the last few feet to the front door. Mom and Dad wear well-tailored jackets and suits. Several children's coats are adorned with lift tags, suggesting a weekend ski trip. And many of the Lower Lab kids arrive with musical instruments slung over their shoulders. (Lower Lab has an instrumental musical education program; Straus does not.)

Inside, the building is not divided neatly in half for the two schools. They share floors, and a Lower Lab classroom might sit right next to a Straus classroom.

There are areas that both schools share. In these spaces—hallways, for example—an emphasis has been placed on harmony: The hallways have been given names like "Respect Avenue," "Understanding Street," and "Unity Avenue."

Except for these nods to cooperation, you see signs of the division between the two schools everywhere. In a hallway, on a recent morning, there was a five-gallon water bottle for soliciting funds for Haiti disaster relief—but only from Straus people. A large bulletin board reads, "We are All Connected," and graphically connects pictures of all the teachers, assistants, and administrators—of just Lower Lab.

On a wall of "Golden Rule Avenue," there's a display of "position papers" written by a class of Straus fifth-graders. The illustrated title pages demonstrate how earnest 10-year-olds can be.

"Eat Healthy! It's good for you."

"The Damaging Effects of Alcohol."

Another, "No Smoking!," features the declaration that smoking "Damages teeth! Damages chin! [Makes a] Hole in throat! [Makes you] Lose fingers!" It's accompanied by matching drawings of finger amputation, face mutilation, and even a tracheotomy—the horrors of each rendered for maximum effect in the hand of a child using Magic Marker.

If only these earnest young moralizers were so passionate about classroom order.

"They are good children, they really are," a fifth-grade Straus teacher says as she fights a continuing battle to keep things under control. "But I have to get them to listen," she adds, her voice rising as she turns back toward her chattering flock, giving them the evil eye.
 

(You have just read Part 1 of the 6-part article. To read the whole article click here, and then move through each of the 6 parts.)

Doron Isaacs, EE Coordinator, interviewed about the Campaign for School Libraries on ETV News.

Sometimes in campaigns you need good surprises. Two days ago Equal Education (EE) received a very nice surprise. In our mailbox huge stuffed A4 envelopes began to appear. These were packed with petitions signed and collected in schools in and around Soweto.

It was inspiring for the staff, volunteers and members to realise that people in Gauteng are as passionate about this campaign as the members in Cape Town.

With these new arrivals, and the petitions collected recently in the Eastern Cape, we are about half-way to our target of 100,000.

It seems that the man behind this amazing work in Soweto is Mr. L.B. Jacobs, a District Director in the Gauteng Education Department. He sent a letter to all schools in his district which said:

"It is our dream to ensure that each and every school should have a fully-fledged and functional school library with a full-time teacher librarian. Equal Education supports this vision.

To support the campaign, schools are requested to duplicate the petition as per the attached copy and to let learners, parents and educators sign...

Let us be positive and support this campaign. Things may change for the better."

Mr. Jacobs is a reminder to all of us of the fact that there are people in the national and provincial departments of education who are dedicated to the improvement and change of South Africa's education system. EE is committed to working with them.

Please sign the petition online by clicking here.

The Tokiso Review on labour strikes found that the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) was responsible for 42 % of all working days lost due to industrial action between 1995- 2009. 

There are two important factors to consider when analyzing this statistic. This first is SADTU a proportion of the labour force, and the second is the 2007 public sector strike.

With a membership of 240,000 SADTU is the largest union in the public service and the second largest union in the country representing nearly two-thirds of South Africa's educators, and over 13% of COSATU’s paid-up membership. A high proportion of working days lost are therefore to be expected (although not 42%). 

The 2007 public sector strike explains the disproportionately high percentage, as explained by Tanya Venter, the CEO of Tokiso, quoted in Business Day:

“(The 2007 strike was) the largest in SA’s history by the public sector, of which Sadtu was the largest participating union. Between 1995 and 2009, the number of work-days lost to strikes per annum was on average between 1- and 2-million, however in 2007, this trend line spiked to 13-million workdays lost.... The majority of work- days lost that are attributed to Sadtu fall within the 2007 strike. Indeed, this is confirmed by the Tokiso Review statistic on the number of strikes (as opposed to working days lost) over the 1995 to 2009 period, where only 2% of strikes fell within the health and education sectors.”

Although the 2007 strike had a very debilitating effect on education, there is a clear difference between one massive strike as compared to the 15 years of lost working days which a superficial, and incorrect, reading of the Tokiso Review implies. Teachers of this country have spent many years fighting for a decent salary in the form of an OSD (Occupation Specific Dispensation), which they were finally able to attain through the 2007 strike. It is unforgivable that the details of this agreement have not been fully and punctually adhered to by government.

In light of these facts, any response that calls for education to be made an ‘essential service’, thereby making strike action almost impossible, is extremist and  amounts to a “knee jerk” reaction. More importantly, it turns a blind eye to the realities faced by teachers every day. 

Some have argued that, days lost to strike action, are the core reason for the increased failure rate in South Africa last year and that SADTU cannot coexist with quality education. In this press statement Equal Education offers a more nuanced view.

SADTU must take some blame for the crisis in education in South Africa, but it is a grave mistake to see the destruction of teacher unions and teacher rights as the path to quality education. 

Many of those attacking SADTU are doing so unconstructively. They show no understanding of the inequalities in education, inherited from the past, some of which are being perpetuated today.  Like the majority of learners in this country, many of our teachers have to endure teaching under trees or in mud schools. The majority of rural and township schools lack laboratories, computer labs and adequate textbooks. Only 7% of schools have functional libraries; this in a country where for the majority of people most homes lack books. Staff rooms are cramped and inadequate for the marking of work and projects. In many schools the classes are 60 learners or more. In these schools the teachers are responsible for twice the number of students and must mark twice as many tests, projects and homework assignments, but are paid less than their counterparts in middle class schools. 

Most of our teachers were educated at schools that gave them skills based on an inferior Bantu Education. Their own school experiences left them with an inadequate foundation. We want our teachers to provide a knowledge-rich and inspiring, yet structured and disciplined educational environment but their own school experiences did not provide them with an example to emulate. They went on to attend teacher training colleges that were sub-standard. The in-service training that has been put in place to compensate for this disadvantage has been inadequate.

When Outcomes Based Education (OBE) was introduced most teachers were given less than a week’s training. The notion that teachers were now ‘facilitators’ and later ‘educators’, who should not impose knowledge or structure on their classes, resulted in mass confusion and a regression in educational quality. Only now, more than a decade later, the Minister and the President are talking about textbooks, lesson plans and pacing to ensure that the curriculum is covered. 

Moreover, the focus on days lost to strikes distracts from the more serious problems of days lost to understandable factors such as overwork and stress, and unacceptable factors such late-coming and absenteeism after pay day. 

We call on government to improve the conditions of work and pay of our teachers, to increase the supply of teachers through universities and high-quality colleges, and to invest in ongoing in-service training and support. We call on government and unions to reduce barriers to entry into the teaching profession so that university graduates from a variety of fields can spend a few years performing community service as teachers in poor schools, and so that foreign teachers with good qualifications and experience can teach in poor schools. We will campaign for these things.

Equal Education acknowledges that SADTU has the right to freedom of association, expression and the right to strike legally like all people in this country. These rights are fundamental rights for the workers (including teachers) to negotiate wage increases and come together in a union (as a collective) and bargain with the authorities. In a society such as ours, where teachers are overworked, underpaid and disrespected, we should not prevent teachers from organizing peacefully and legally.

It is our belief that our whole society and the Department of Education in particular,  is failing the children of this country by continuing to disregard their teachers. We have put our children and therefore our future in the hands of these professionals. Our care and regard towards them will be reflected in the quality of our workforce, our ability to grow as a nation and the overall position of our nation on the world stage. 

However, teachers and SADTU are indeed partly to be blamed. Equal Education believes that SADTU, the biggest teacher’s union in our country, has on many occasions been a distraction to education and has contributed to the crisis in education in this country. It has prevented learning when it has called illegal strikes and used force against other educators and learners. Equal Education condemns any use of violence against teachers and children and any illegal strikes. Secondly, it has reinforced society’s low regard for teachers when drunk and poor performing teachers have been protected. Thirdly, it has focused all its efforts on protecting low-performance amongst teachers, and demanding salary increases, but has neglected to use the same urgency to demand teacher training and support from the government to improve teaching and learning.

The members of Equal Education expect more from the teachers of this country. We expect them to arrive on time, well-prepared and maximize teaching and learning time. We ask teachers to read more, and  embrace opportunities to increase their knowledge and expertise. We expect teachers to go beyond the letter of their contracts, to offer extra classes, to offer sports and extra-murals in the afternoons, and to be available to help students, particularly the poor and working class children, to pass their exams and get the most out of school experience. We will campaign for these things, and while we will support and respect our teachers, we will hold them to these high standards.

The book collection drive that EE is running in Cape Town, based in Roeland Street, was reported on in a French website that features stories from Africa. To read the article, click here.

Donate books to the EE Bookery to stock school libraries across Cape Town.

Below is an article by Justice Malala on the recent burning down of a library in Balfour, Limpopo Province.

"Mandela's strength was inspired and reinforced by books." – Jacob Zuma

From the window of the school clerk's office, one could see and read the names of the books and authors on their spines. They were exotic, strange, and attractive. Foreign names would come hard to our lips: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Sembene Ousmane, Chinua Achebe.
Incredibly, the bantustan Bophuthatswana government had delivered a full set of Heinemann's African Writers' Series to a rural middle school. Many of the books were considered so incendiary - like Wa Thiongo's work - in "South Africa" that detention followed possession of such literature.

What I remember about that set of books, with their trademark orange covers and spines, was how I longed to get my hands on them. My friends and I would loiter outside the clerk's office, hoping she would go to the loo, and we would hop in and have a quick read. Much to our disappointment, she seemed to be chained to her desk.

I was reminded of my thirst for those books this week, when I heard that protesters in Siyathemba township in Balfour had burnt down their library. I was staggered by the news. How can people who believe in a future, people who love themselves and their children, burn down a building that carries the knowledge that would without doubt carry them out of the poverty they currently experience?

Worse still, the protesters are not allowing pupils to go to school. In a province notorious for the failure of its education system, last week was crucial for those kids who had failed some matric papers and were writing supplementary examinations to make an improvement.
Mpumalanga's education MEC, Reginah Mhaule, issued a statement saying: "I am making a humble call to the community of Balfour to allow teachers, learners and non-teaching staff to be in schools so that teaching and learning can progress unhindered." She was ignored.

It is unclear, at least this time around, what the people of Siyathemba want. At first, protesters demanded work at a local mine, saying foreigners are stealing their jobs. Then the demand changed swiftly to demanding that the mayor step down.

Siyathemba might very well have legitimate demands. But not a single one of them is so pressing that a library should be torched. Such an act is the work of a deeply sick and backward mind.

Books, for the people of Siyathemba and those among our leaders who do not see the seriousness of what has happened, are freedom. It does not matter where you find yourself, in happiness and in sorrow, books are the one thing that can lift you out of your circumstances and catapult you forward.

It is ironic that books and knowledge are under attack at a time when Nelson Mandela's emergence from prison is being celebrated. Mandela, who studied for his law degree by candle-light while working as a security guard, is true testimony to what books can do for you: the knowledge he gained through books took him from his village and enabled him to become an acclaimed lawyer and international icon.

Mandela won a Nobel prize. Mandela's education, both formal and life-long learning, is emphasised in the Nobel's citation, in which the role of literature in building up Robben Island prisoners is referred to.

"Shakespeare was a common denominator for the prisoners at Robben Island. Only a few of them were Christian believers; a few were Moslems or Hindus; a few, communists; and their origins were different. They all knew Shakespeare, however."

And they read the bard, and performed his works. That is why Robben Island was regarded as a university: they devoured the classics and found revolutionary ideas inside them.

Mandela and the other prisoners drew inspiration from these works, with Mandela's favourite lines being: "Cowards die many times before their deaths;/The valiant never taste of death but once."

Mandela and his comrades' strength was inspired and reinforced by books. They might have been in prison, but their minds were set free. Because they read, they were way ahead of their jailers. They were free.

This is something the petty thugs who burnt down the library in Siyathemba do not grasp. When they burnt down that library, it was an act of betrayal of everything that we as a nation should stand for. It displayed a mentality that is unfortunately being fostered by many in our country today.

This sort of barbarity is what is dragging our country down.