Rural public schools in the South African context are located in areas that were reserved for black people by the apartheid regime. From 1910 onwards education for black people was as far as possible under missionary control and situated in the reserves (Truscott 1994:45). Policy evolved towards the transfer of educational responsibility to local authorities under strict government control. Mission schools were considered subversive and so were constantly under attack by the National Party government in the 1950s. These rural schools were taken over by the Department of Bantu Education and with the formation of the homelands, were handed over to their respective governments (Vinjevold 1998:207). New schools were started as communities were forced from one area to the next. In many cases, desperately limited resources meant that communities met the need for new schools by building them themselves (Peterson 2004:90).
Rural communities live in areas with the highest levels of poverty, unemployment and rely on meagre sources of income derived mostly from social grants or migrant labour. Despite these desperate conditions there is a deep underlying support amongst parents and communities for the schooling of their children. Nonetheless this support is undermined by the conditions of poverty and unemployment (HSRC 20004:38).
The advent of democracy, through rural development, has opened up the possibility of better life for all. In the short term formal democracy has not yet resulted in development in these areas whose history has been to serve as labour reservoirs for the mines and factories of white South Africa. The education challenge within South Africa is largely
framed by the economic challenges facing the country and slow economic growth (Chisholm 2004:208). The process of educational reform since 1994 has been the articulation of new goals of access, equity, redress, quality and efficiency.
A fundamental requirement is the need for adequate schooling facilities in all communities and capable, well trained teachers in all classrooms. According to Chisholm (2004:230), the following features influence the capacity to provide quality education for all South Africans:
• the increasing number of children in the country
• the high level of poverty (37 per cent of the population live below breadline) • slow economic growth (an annual growth rate of 3 per cent is necessary to
alleviate employment creation and the provision of equal education opportunities for all; since 1996 the gross domestic product growth rate has remained below this figure; the instability of the rand, the dramatic increase in the inflation rate, the First World’s association of South Africa with the developing countries and the escalating influx of illegal and poorly skilled immigrants have a detrimental effect in education.
Lack of basic services influences every aspect of community life, daily living schools and clinics and recreational facilities. This has bearing on the access to schooling and quality education. Schools without electricity are not in a position to offer evening classes to adults. Many buildings in rural areas are in serious need of repair, with doors, windows, flooring and toilet facilities being highest on the list of needed repair.
a) Improving rural classrooms
Rural communities often differ on whether the medium of instruction should be English or the learner’s first language. Some argue for mother-tongue instruction others for English and yet others for Afrikaans. The language of teaching and learning has historically been a highly contested matter. Many international and national reports on learners’ performance, mainly in rural areas, point to the importance of mother-tongue instruction, particularly in the early years, followed by proficiency in the language of teaching and learning (Macdonald 1990; Cummins 2004; Desai 2004). Currently, the policy in schools promotes additive bilingualism in order to realise the national policy of
multilingualism. In other words learners must start studying in their L1. They begin to study additional languages as they progress from the foundation to intermediate and senior phases (SASA 1996).
One of the requirements of the South African Schools’ Act is that the school governing bodies are to develop formal language policies that describe the strategies that will be employed to promote multilingualism. Brown’s (1999) study of KwaZulu-Natal found that schools made ad hoc decisions on language policy but that none of these decisions constituted formal school level language policy as stipulated in the new legislation.
Teachers and learners in these schools share the same home language. The English language infrastructure in the rural schools and communities are extremely limited. Learners typically only speak, read and write in English in the formal school context. Reading materials are limited to textbooks and in some schools learners have few opportunities to use these (Chisholm 2005:238).
English for rural school communities is, therefore, not a L2 but a foreign language because it is not spoken in the immediate environment of the learner. Mass media such as TV and radio may provide the only opportunities for the learner to use the language in communication settings.
It is important to differentiate English language infrastructure levels and subjects in and with teachers work. There is a need to disaggregate schools and classrooms along three different axes. Programmes and infrastructure need to be tailored according to whether they are in English foreign language or English second language, whether they are primary or secondary school classrooms and finally whether they are about language as a subject or language as a medium of instruction (Pretorius 2000:98). Without specific attention to these aspects educational inequalities will only be exacerbated and leave some of the learners and teachers stranded at some point of their educational journey.
The school governing body is required to decide on the language of learning and teaching, which can be the same or different to the mother-tongue. Alexander (2004:15) says that most rural schools in South Africa are monolingual because of continuing regional concentration of languages of speech varieties. Only in a few cases is regular
contact with English and Afrikaans prevalent. It is also correct to say that most primary school teachers who are prepared to live and work in rural areas tend to be those who are less articulate in the languages of power and high status which are English and Afrikaans.
The implication is that there is neither an English speaking environment or any good L1 or proficient L2 English role models in most such areas. The possibility of extramural reinforcement is minimal or totally absent. Consequently the normal benefit of L1 medium of instruction is vitally important under these conditions. Moreover, as rural school learners seldom go beyond the foundation phase, it can be accepted that whatever cognitive development and stimulation they do receive at school will come by means of L1 instruction. This does not mean that an additional language, specifically English or Afrikaans, should not be taught as a subject.
Alexander (2004:65) maintains that it is educationally unsound to want to use an additional language as a medium of instruction in rural areas as it is unlikely that proficiency will be obtained in the additional language.
The use of L1 medium of instruction among African learners is also not without problems. Some of the complexities are underlined by dialectical differences in rural areas. Whether English or the learner’s first language is used, the challenges of the relationship between the language of teaching and learning and the languages spoken by the teachers and learners at home remain fundamental. The recognised African official languages have many dialects which implies that there are learners who speak an unofficial dialect which is not recognised and therefore unacceptable at school (HSRC 2004:138). Pedagogically all African learners in rural areas are expected to master their L1 standardised grammar in both its spoken and written form. Educators examine learners on the basis of their mastery of these standardised languages and expect them to have acquired the specific skills by the end of the year. Many learners who do not speak the dominant language find it difficult to cope when, for instance, they write essays. They get penalised for using the language they know. Outside the school environment learners revert to their dialects.
Both parents and learners in rural areas associate poor quality rural schools with the lack of English proficiency. Teachers in these areas also feel that they are unfairly judged for the quality of their teaching on the basis of their use of English.