In July 2004 we walked into our grade 11 classroom to hear that our mathematics teacher had been involved in a car crash. We did not have a maths teacher for three months following that tragic incident.
Feeling hopeless, many of my classmates gave up on the idea of passing the subject that year. It was then, at the age of 17, that I decided to teach my fellow classmates. Those of us who persevered passed that year despite our difficulties.
It pains me to see the disruption the Covid-19 pandemic had brought upon the education system in SA today. Schools were closed for a significant portion of last year, resulting in the loss of teaching and learning time, and an adjusted curriculum to salvage what was a difficult academic year. Although the difficulties of not having a teacher cannot be compared to the trauma of living through a pandemic, I know what it feels like to be on the brink of giving up as a learner.
The decision to close down schools in 2020 and delay the start of the 2021 academic year was influenced by the rapid spread of the virus. What troubles me is that the education of children from communities without resources and reliable internet connection will be the most impacted by the pandemic.
The truth is that the education of the African child in rural areas and townships is under siege. And as we try to keep healthy and stay alive we must begin to think of creative measures to help save these learners from a life of illiteracy.
In her response to questions in the National Assembly, basic education minister Angie Motshekga confirmed that a staggering 300,000 learners may have dropped out of school during last year’s lockdown. Furthermore, the department told the parliamentary portfolio committee that it expected as many as 75,000 learners in grades 7 and 12 to drop out. These are not just statistics. These are individual futures that stand to be destroyed, unless we proactively do something to avert a bigger educational crisis.
What we are seeing as the pandemic unfolds is a deepening of existing socioeconomic gaps in our society. Learners who drop out of school today have little or no prospect of leading sustainable lives in the future.
Despite efforts to reform our schooling system post-1994, many of the schools in township and rural areas have inherited structural difficulties from the previous dispensation. To add to the challenges, grade 12 learners are still expected to sit for the 2021 final examinations at the end of the year. While learners from privileged schools are gearing up for these examinations through online learning, learners from rural areas and townships schools have no access to online material.
If anything, the situation should encourage us to come together as stakeholders including parents, educators and civil society to help our children survive the times. This means creating affordable resources and digital solutions that can be accessed by learners in under-resourced communities. It also means former learners passing down learning materials to current learners, which include question papers and tutorial material while encouraging reading time at home. It simply means refusing to let our children’s future go down the drain.
It has been 17 years since I picked up a piece of chalk to teach my fellow classmates mathematics. I held on to that piece of chalk and grew up to be a mathematics teacher and an activist in the education space. My experience has taught me to appreciate the importance of pushing boundaries and fighting for a better education for all.
I realise now that had it not been for the rallying support of my community and other teachers in the school, we would not have been able to complete our mission to pass the grade. I have gone on to teach in many other schools since then and have seen how the same attitude of solidarity helped us achieve excellent results. My hope is that the class of 2021 receives the same sense of support to make it through these dark days.
• Nong is an internationally acclaimed mathematics teacher and CEO of GoMaths
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