DIMENSIONES DEL CUESTIONARIO

Teachers’ responses show that 79% of the teachers felt that poverty contributed to learners’ poor performance while 11.5% teachers felt that poverty did not contribute to learners’ poor performance in RSSs. The mean score of 3.95 is greater than 3.49, showing that poverty has contributed to learners’ poor performance in KZN. The Pearson’s chi-square p-values of 0.40534 (gender), 0.42754 (age), 0.53118 (type of employment), 0.97419 (post level), 0.86761 (experience) and 0.16789 (qualification) show no significant difference between biographical variables and poverty since the p-values were greater than 0.05 (5%).

Qualitative research findings show that poverty contributed to RSS learners’ poor performance in the grades 10-12 NCS. Poverty was mentioned by teachers during interviews as one of the contributory factors to poor performance of RSS learners since poor learners lacked self-confidence which negatively affected their academic performance. These findings are similar to Nieto & Bode’s (2010:407) view that poverty is one of the barriers to learners’

academic achievement. Ilembe School A principal stated this when commenting about the role played by poverty:

Poverty plays a greater impact in terms of poor performance not necessarily that these learners’ thinking levels are low; their background determines their performance. They are coming from very poor families. There is no exposure to media and resources such as libraries and laboratories. There is not even a radio, not to mention the television.

Teachers mentioned that rural families were poor and were dependent on social grants. Learners came to school with broken shoes and torn uniforms which caused a lot of de- motivation among themselves, lack of self-confidence and negative perception about the school which caused a lot of dropouts. The latter was witnessed during my observation process since some learners were wearing broken shoes and torn shirts. Teachers stated that their learners had nothing to wear. In some cases, teachers made donations for these poor learners. Most of these learners stayed with grandparents. Picture 5.1 shows us the poverty levels in rural areas.

Picture 5.1 Poverty in rural areas

Picture 5.1 is an example of the level of poverty in rural areas that impacted negatively on learners’ performance. One cannot expect quality performance in learners from such conditions. Furthermore, some teachers stated that some of their learners came from child- headed and single parent families. This has also had a negative impact on learners’ performance. Ilembe district School B Teacher Two added:

Poverty plays a negative impact on learners’ performance. Learners fail even to concentrate because of hunger. They think about their poor lives rather than focusing on what is taught in the class. They cannot even hear what the teacher is saying during the teaching and learning process.

Further research findings indicate that some of RSS learners come to school hungry. A practical evidence of poverty was provided by Empangeni School C Teacher One:

In this year alone, two of our learners have fallen down in the morning assembly because they were hungry. These learners come to school hungry and they have to wait until eleven in the morning for school nutrition. These learners cannot concentrate in the class when they are hungry.

Both teachers of Empangeni School C stated that when these learners who fell down during the morning assembly were given some food by teachers from their own lunch they managed to stand up, meaning that the problem was lack of food in their homes contributed by the high level of unemployment due to lack of development projects in rural areas. Teachers further stated that the feeding scheme in rural schools was addressing the hunger problem during school hours since if learners were fed they did not lose concentration. Teachers pointed out that this food made a big difference to learners’ performance since other learners came to school with empty stomachs and they only get food at school. However, after school there was no food available at home. The school feeding scheme was the only hope for these poor learners to get food. Some of the disappointing actions and behaviour of RSS learners were pointed out by Empangeni School A HOD who said:

Poverty is a big problem. Some learners come to school hungry. Some of them come to school since they know that they will get food but when nothing is cooked during that particular day they leave school before time.

Learners who left school before time might be that they were hungry or undisciplined. A recent study by Ncontsa and Shumba (2013:10) reveals that sometimes when teachers went to class they found that their classes were empty, because undisciplined learners left school during tuition time. Empangeni School A Teacher Two stated that when learners left school before time it frustrated them since their schools would be judged in terms of their matriculation performance rather than that when food was not available learners left school as they wished. Teachers further pointed out that some learners came to school because they knew that there was food. As a result, absenteeism has decreased. During my observation I discovered that most learners in each class were more than ninety percent present except at

Empangeni School A and School B and Ilembe School B where more than ten days by some grades 10-12 learners in each term were lost due to absenteeism.