1996
This year was a watershed one for education in the country. What we feared in terms of further retrenchments was actualized at the end of the year when principals received their new establishments in the last week of the school calendar. Athlone High lost no fewer than eight teaching posts as a result of the state’s restructuring process. We joined forces with various progressive organisations earlier in the year in attempting to thwart the state in its determination to slash funding to poor schools.
The Western Cape Parent Teacher and Student Forum was a leading stakeholder in condemning the cutting of posts and was instrumental in organizing the “Mother of all marches” in Cape Town in May to demonstrate the unhappiness of thousands of teachers. Mr Mackrill marshalled his troops as it were and many teachers and pupils joined the big march in the centre of Town
Nelson Mandela attempted to allay teachers’ fears at the Hewat College of Education in Crawford when he said, “As long as I am president of the country, no teacher will be retrenched.” The strategy of the state was to use euphemisms and terms such as ‘redress’ and ‘equity’ were used. The cold fact was that rationalization of posts was going to take place. Legal action was considered and the sad reality here was that many schools couldn’t raise the small contribution asked of them to fight the government’s retrenchment of teachers.
Two of our sister schools took a risk in hiking school fees so as to retain quality in education. Athlone High took a risk in not doing so. The fact of the matter is that at many of the Cape Flats schools, education has simply not been the same again. Teacher workload has increased drastically and so have stress levels. It goes without saying that class sizes have increased dramatically and that discipline has suffered.