JONATHAN JANSEN: What makes a good school tick and a bad one stumble
'This is not a training problem; it is an imagination problem. It is about the way you make sense of the world in front of you'
It is a common perception that “if only there was more money” we could solve the problems of education in South Africa. Forget government allocations—the total CSI (Corporate Social Investment) expenditure last year was a staggering R9.1-billion (an increase of 6% over 2016 spend) of which half went to education distributed between higher education (30%), further and adult education (28%), basic education (25%) and early childhood education (17%). Money is not our problem. Consider the case of two poor primary schools I visited in a township of KwaZulu-Natal last week. In School A the principal’s office looks like a bomb hit it. Large boxes block walking spaces. The walls are bare and loose books lie all over the place. Two desks are squeezed into the small space. Two staff members are relaxing outside, legs stretched out, and slowly making ticks in the books they read. Water from recent rains form deep puddles all over the place and a self-built wall is dangerously skew even to the...
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