Christel House SA Blog

This article was written by Elspeth Donovan - Learning Design Consultant & Chairwoman of Christel House SA- we would love as much feedback as possible, so please leave a comment, link us, email this article to your friends or just @ us on Twitter !

The results from matric 2008 have prompted the usual flurry of debate around educational standards in South Africa with the DA leading the pack in calling for an independent enquiry into the exams.

Falling pass rates and departmental blunders along with concern that the new OBE model is in fact taking us backwards, top the agenda. Political point scoring aside, there are some facts that are inescapable. First, pass rates continue on a downward trend - 62, 5% this year (although this with 50 000 results outstanding) down from 65% last year. And second, the poorer you are the less likely you are to pass go. Pass rates were worst in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga – two of South Africa’s poorest provinces with just 50.6% of learners in the Eastern Cape getting through – of which just 8662 (14.3%) have met the requirements for admission to tertiary education. Even less of these have the coveted maths and science marks needed to boost the numbers of engineers, scientists and doctors in our country.

This is what people mean when they talk about the cycle of poverty and the difficulty of escaping from poverty and it is at the root of why transformation is chugging along at a less than satisfactory rate in the country. As Mamphele Ramphele, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town has remarked: the current system is “failing 80 percent of its poor, young people”. And in doing so, the idea of black inferiority is being reinforced, because the majority of those being failed by the system are black.

Quite simply, if we continue down this path we can look forward to a future where major divisions between rich and poor and black and white, continue to dominate our social agenda. Understanding and acting on what is contributing to this impasse is going to be one of the major policy challenges of the next few years.

Fortunately there are some pointers. Pockets where people are getting it right. One such is Christel House South Africa – an independent school in Cape Town that caters for disadvantaged children. One hundred percent of the School’s 700 odd learners come from families that fall below the poverty line and yet they have a 99% retention rate year-on-year. The school enjoys a 96.8% attendance record from learners and 98% from teachers. Statistics that are above average even in the best resourced schools.

Started just seven years ago, Christel House South Africa is part of the global Christel House network – a non-profit organisation set up by travel entrepreneur Christel deHaan in 1998 to help children break free from the clutches of poverty.

What the organisation does differently is that it takes a holistic approach to problem of poverty. Recognising that poor children come to the classroom not just without the ability to read and write, but with social problems, often hungry, living in dysfunctional families and so on.  Lack of education is just one of the causes of poverty. Lack of opportunity, lack of dignity, lack of good health and a lack of positive role models all play their role in keeping young people from achieving. Thus, in South Africa, Christel House ensures that children are collected from their homes and dropped off again every evening. While at school they get plenty of food and plenty of opportunities to get a feel for a world that is different from the one they are growing up in. Social workers are on hand to identify at risk learners before it is too late, class size is kept below 27, and for the first two years Xhosa and Afrikaans teaching assistants work alongside English teachers to ensure that by the time they reach year three they are fully bilingual. Children come to the school because it is a safe and nurturing environment. From art therapy to nature walks, HIV awareness, life skills and community service initiatives (in addition to the usual curriculum of course), the learners at this school are being groomed to be tomorrow’s star students and employees and ultimately – leaders.

Teachers (whose salaries are benchmarked with WCED salaries) are kept engaged through staff development initiatives, peer review systems, and exposure to innovative teaching methods.  The School also works with parents to equip them with better parenting skills and to help them identify their own opportunities for finding work and supporting their children as they progress through the school.

Of course it is all quite a lot for a small outfit to manage. Hardly surprising then that Christel House takes a collaborate approach to solving these complex social problems. More of a cross sector social enterprise than a school, it works with government, civil society and the private sector to find the funds and the energy needed. It is an expensive model, costing roughly five times what government currently spends on each child. Although this is still considerably cheaper than what is spent on a child in private education, the kind of education the children get is comparable to that of a private institution.

Policy makers might balk at the cost, but with some reorganisation of budgets it is not such an impossible target. All that is needed is a shift in thinking so that education and poverty are not addressed in silos but as part of one, co-ordinated effort.

Financial support from corporates – and individual donors – is also an essential part of the model and Christel House is on a mission to increase its sponsorship from local sources so that it can continue to refine and improve its model. In addition to its mandate to educate, the School sees itself as an experimental think tank in deriving new and exciting models for what works in education in a South African context.

This year, Christel House will move into new, purpose built premises in Athlone and will graduate its first matric class. The 27 learners in that class joined the School as youngsters in Grade 5 when it opened its doors in 2001. Based on past performance, a 100% pass rate is expected which will put Christel House in the league of some of the Provinces best resourced private schools.

The ultimate business and economic benefit of the Christel House model is that these learners are going to emerge from the School ready for further education and as highly employable individuals. In a country crying out for skills, this has to be an attractive prospect.