The experience of schooling

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday April 7, 2025 13:05

That is how schooling experience felt in the last half of the 1970s. The school system was less tolerant of anything coming outside itself . The school even changed the names of our parents and grandparents gave us and replaced them with its own preferred names. An acquaintance of mine told me the other time that she first stepped into the school grounds as Shirley and reluctantly walked out of the school as Sheilah. The teachers told her in no uncertain terms that there was nothing like Shirley.

At the time, if the teachers, the undisputed fountain of knowledge, did not know something, it meant it did not exist. My family was not spared either. My grandfather was born and known as Osia and when my elderly siblings began their primary education, the school altered the name to Hosia, to align with one of the biblical minor prophets. The goal of Christianising our traditional names was clear and undisguised. My father waged a spirited battle against an assault on his father’s name but to no avail.

As if that was not enough, every effort was made to give the school a Christian character. At the morning assemblies, they gave us a new hymn book, which had nothing to do with the songs we mastered and sang passionately at our local religious gatherings. The goal was to take the village out of students and build a completely new world order. This mission was accomplished with relative ease. The failure to incorporate village life into the school life was a grave mistake which invited some pockets of resistance.

You could not fault those few naughty boys for choosing to escape the school system to pursue their passions in the villages. Some boys became notorious for skipping lessons because of the love and passion they had for donkey riding. It looked silly at the time but they were genuinely missing a favourite sport, which was not an integral component of the school system. In the primary school I attended, there was a village dam (pool) in the vicinity. At the end of the business of the school, students made a habit of visiting the dam to learn how to swim. But not all students were patient. The rogue and impetuous elements illegally visited the dam at the expense of their learning in school to enjoy their unsupervised swimming experience. This is the bitter pill of exclusivity. Schools should be champions of inclusivity. It would have been better if the school could have embraced swimming as an extra-curricular activity. This means at all times schools should be conscious of the fact that students are facing competing priorities. There is a continuing clash between the school curriculum and the out of school curriculum.

To thrive and prosper, schools should incorporate into the curriculum some popular village activities or offer something better. Some where I read that one student got interested in her school because as she put it, “my teacher is making me build a rocket ship with some other students, so that got me interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), because I like to build and create.”

To attract learners from all walks of life, schools should endeavour to offer a dual curriculum featuring theoritical and practical oriented learning. Not all students desire to sit and listen to classroom instruction. Some relish hands on experience. Schools should deliberately provide a well blended curriculum catering for diverse student interests - to create room for those who desire to sit and listen to classroom instruction and those who want to have hands on experience.

Schools should embrace indigenous knowledge and experiences. In a locality where students could be distracted by availability of indigenous fruits, this activity should be embraced by the school. Retention of students is a big issue posing a serious challenge. It is important to eliminate any potential distractions. Embracing diversity is a vital element in the journey of keeping our students in school. Exploiting the diverse talents of students requires modelling schools along Madiba Secondary School which offers both technical and academic components. The dual system does not leave any child behind. The present challenge of underachievement can be tackled through promotion of diversity, which ensures full exploitation of the strengths and comparative advantages of every student. No fails but schools fail them. The only thing lacking is provision of relevant schools that offer every student an opportunity to excel.