African Solutions for African problems

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a huge disruption for education, curtailing school years and upending the plans and dreams of, particularly, disadvantaged learners. And while this has exacerbated the inequality gap between those who have and who have not, the creativity and dedication shown by students and educators has given much hope for the future.

This was the heartening tone heard at Kagiso Trust’s latest Education Conversation held in conjunction with the University of Johannesburg recently. The webinar’s theme was African solutions for African problems, focusing on curriculum coverage, online teaching and the digital divide, remote learning and learner wellbeing.

Chaired by Prof Kat Yassim, who is part of the Department of Education Leadership and Management in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg, young teachers and social activists told of the stories and learnings they had experienced during the pandemic, sharing experiences of how they had to fight, innovate and motivate to ensure 2020 was not a lost year for many South African scholars. The need for the roll-out of a strong information and communication technology (ICT) programme in schools as well as a comprehensive examination and righting of needs and services at grass root level was required.

“Emotionally, teachers are drained, academically, they are stretched to the limit. Our teachers and our learners are, at the moment, academically unfit since they went back to school,” said Professor Petrus du Plessis of the UJ Faculty of Education in his opening address. “School leaders were not prepared to deal with a crisis like this.”

While online learning has been promoted as the main solution to providing education during lockdown Professor Yassim said “serious transformation in terms of equipment and methodology” was required for the future South African classroom. Educators and authorities needed to “experiment and create” to overcome the vast inequality shown by those who could access the internet and those who did not have the resources.

A blended model, “part face to face, with some of the remote learning experiences” could be the solution. “It certainly makes learning cheaper. How can we provide quality learning for everyone? We should look to the future and not just how do we get back to the way things were,” said Professor Yassim. “Education in your pocket, for example. How do we use cellphone technology as one of the ways we can enable access?”

Yandisa Tshutshani, an economics teacher and an alumni of UJ Metropolitan Academy, agreed, saying there is no one solution. “The provision of education in this country is not uniform, it is not equal. We need to start from grass roots to make sure it is equal. Where are you going to put a smart board where there is no electricity, where children are learning under a tree? What can we do if we face another pandemic? We have to think on our feet.

“We cannot make those who did not have access feel less than those who do. Individual schools and teachers can be creative in how they can overcome the gap. There are factors outside of our control and that of the learners. The department of education has a pivotal role in empowering and allowing teachers, schools and learners to play their part regardless of interruptions in teaching and learning especially in rural communities and schools.”

She gave examples of how teachers had adapted to the challenges of the pandemic, finding solutions for learners. “An Afrikaans teacher would record herself reading a novel and encourage learners to read along with her. She would explain and translate what she had read, very simply and send it to them via WhatsApp. The learners felt like she was in the classroom with them. They had that connection.

“An English teacher made workbooks and created a YouTube channel that explained the content of the work sheets, what was required of the learners and they were also able to mark the work as they went along, creating a full, complete assessment. WhatsApp became a primary tool. The features of the app allowed for many things: pictures of handwritten notes, PowerPoint presentations, voice notes and it allowed learners to do assignments. Learners could record speeches they had prepared and send them to the teacher.”

Emily O’Ryan, a writer and researcher in the political field who was named “Student of the Year” for 2020, published a book called Learning Under Lockdown: Voices of South Africa’s Children with respected educator Professor Jonathan Jansen. They received over 600 submissions from learners aged 8-18 who spoke of their experiences during lockdown.

O’Ryan said they received some heart-breaking stories that showed the mental strain learners were under, with a Khayelitsha boy saying he felt: “Desperate. Pessimistic. Tragic. Grim. Imprisoned. Enraged.” She did not expect, though, to “see how much capacity young people had to solve their own problems”.

“If we cannot equip young people with structured learning environments to navigate the distractions of working at home, we can provide them with reasons to learn,” said O’Ryan. “Not just incentives, but by communicating to youth that their experience matters for decision making and community work. A learner’s ability to reflect, process and communicate their experience will improve outcomes for them and us as educators and policy makers.”

The majority of teaching and learning comes through contact and while “no amount of digital classroom can replace the real classroom, we need to look at the future of the classroom,” said Ryan. “We are going to expand the idea of contact learning and how we see it. Contact is connecting, through the same WiFi portal or in the class. A lot of young people missed those social cues, of putting on their uniform in the morning, of the drive to school, of the class clown, the school bell. Young people are adaptable.”

Mishka Khotu, an accounting educator at UJ Metropolitan Academy who is involved in the implementation of evolved ICT teaching and learning during the pandemic, said “teachers struggle with ICT because they have not had training. It is either a non-comprehensive training or too advanced. We need a middle ground that addresses teachers’ struggles to help each of them with their challenges,” she said. “Teachers found the pandemic to be detrimental to their mental health, having to deal with constant technological strains and constraints, and learning new methodologies with no additional training.”

In thanking the speakers, Sizakele Mphatsoe, Head of Education at Kagiso Trust, said she believed the first Education Conversation for 2021 had not only shone a spotlight on the inequalities of South African education, but had offered true, workable solutions. “We take the learnings of these talks and align them to our models. We are not talking about theory here, but real-time people and real-time problems and solutions.”