Segregation within Education Institutions

This subsection is broken down into research into learner segregation at schools and the segregation of students at universities. The first thing to note, however, is that research into segregation within the education institutions in South Africa is not as extensive, in terms of sheer output, as that concerned with residential segregation. Some research has been done within geography, mainly by Lemon and his various co-authors (Lemon, 2004 and 2005;

Lemon and Clifford, 2005; Lemon & Battersby-Lennard, 2009 and 2011). The findings of Chisholm & Sujee (2006), although not within the field of geography, also provide some indication of the desegregation in schools in the apartheid era. Interestingly post-apartheid racial integration in South Africa’s universities or higher education institutions is not a well-researched area within the field of geography. In fact, Christopher’s (2001a) brief

investigation is the only research into this topic that was found during the review of this literature.

Schools are desegregating more rapidly than residential neighbourhoods in South Africa (Lemon and Battersby-Lennard, 2009). Rule’s (1996: 212) earlier study of the Bertrams Junior School in Bertrams, Johannesburg agrees with these findings. He found that after 1991 the school became multi-racial and the enrolment demographics changed at a faster pace than the integration of residential space in the surrounding areas (Rule, 1996: 212, 219). He also notes that white flight from the school occurred following the change to a multi-racial demographic (Rule, 1996).

Lemon (2005: 82-83), in a study of different schools in Pietermaritzburg, showed that schools have, generally, kept their apartheid era racial composition. Independent schools were predominantly white, former African schools were 100% African and no white learners were present in any schools formerly reserved for black groups (Lemon, 2005: 82-83). In one former white school, Russell, white learners made up 1.5% of the student body at the time of the study (Lemon, 2005: 82). Lemon (2005: 83) explains this anomaly in terms of the lack of appeal of the school’s physical location to white parents: the area is unattractive and dangerous at night

Lemon (2004) conducted a small study of schools and school inequalities in Grahamstown and surrounding districts in 2000. His focus includes desegregation and access, but it would be fair to say that his main focus is the inequities inherent in the system. In terms of desegregation, of the 11 secondary schools he focused on within Grahamstown proper, he found the independent schools to be fairly integrated, the former-Model C schools to show the highest amount of integration and the township schools to maintain their apartheid racial composition. The former coloured school within his study had integrated to the extent that 35% of its pupils were African. Integration was, therefore, found to be occurring, but occurring in a limited fashion ten years after the end of apartheid.

In a study of five of the nine provinces in South Africa with 2001 data, Chisholm & Sujee (2006) found that levels and patterns of integration of learners was place-specific, but that certain patterns were generally observable. Schools that were reserved for coloured, Indian and white learners in the past had diverse racial make-ups (Chisholm & Sujee, 2006: 154).

However, the number of African learners in these schools, especially former white schools, remained limited (Chisholm & Sujee, 2006: 154). Diversity in schools formerly reserved for

African learners was extremely limited and where there was change in learner profiles, coloured pupils were observed to have enrolled in them (Chisholm & Sujee, 2006: 149).

Lemon and Battersby-Lennard’s (2011: 99) study of Cape Town showed the same phenomenon of integration up the racial hierarchy of schools.

Lemon (2005: 85) and Lemon & Battersby-Lennard (2009; 2011) explain the movement of pupils to schools formerly reserved for other groups is caused by parents wanting a better education for their children. This can be justified by the major differences in the resources, facilities, learner-teacher ratios, financial standing and quality of education that exists within the hierarchy of schools from independent schools down to historically-disadvantaged township schools (Lemon, 2004 and 2005; Lemon & Battersby-Lennard, 2009 and 2011).

There are several reasons for continued levels of segregation highlighted in the literature.

First, Myburgh (1996: 206) argues that accessibility to schools is a factor related to the extent of integration within them. However, Lemon (2004: 278) argues that Grahamstown covers too small an area for distance to be an issue in terms of accessibility to schools. This is a very plausible thesis.

Second, Christopher (2001a: 218) remarks that the ‘emergent, colour-blind economic class structure’ was seen more in schools than in other spheres of post-apartheid cities. Lemon (2004: 272) and Lemon & Battersby-Lennard (2011: 105) argue that school fees form the obstacle to Africans accessing former-Model C and independent schools. Third, while an inability to pay fees is not a legal reason to exclude individuals from schools, Lemon (2004:

272) explains schools are able to exclude those who cannot afford fees through the designating of catchment areas and introducing admission requirements. The designation of catchment or feeder areas allows schools to define the areas from which they admit learners and, conveniently, former white schools and independent schools are usually situated in medium to high income former white group areas, which remain quite highly segregated.

Fourth, although schools are not legally allowed to use admission tests, a lack of monitoring allows them to screen-out applicants through these means (Lemon, 2004: 272). Fifth, schools often insist on dealing with biological parents, which can exclude those children who are raised by relatives or guardians, a relatively common situation for African learners (Lemon, 2004: 272).

In relation to tertiary education institutions, Christopher (2001a: 218) reveals that by 1998, integration within universities had occurred, but varied between institutions. He found that

the majority of student bodies of former white universities were still white, however, these universities did show a substantial increase in the numbers of those who were previously excluded (Christopher, 2001a: 219). In former black universities, integration, in terms of the presence of white students, was minimal if not non-existent (Christopher, 2001a: 219). By 1998, in the former coloured- and Indian-reserved universities, the University of the Western Cape and the University of Durban-Westville, African students made up the majority of students (Christopher, 2001a: 218).

Chisholm and Sujee (2006: 141) note that a lot of the investigations that have been conducted with regard to racial integration in South Africa’s institutions of education have used qualitative instead of quantitative approaches. When there are quantitative approaches, the dominant method of analysis of change within institutions of education has been the use of simple percentages (Lemon, 2004; Lemon, 2005; Lemon & Clifford, 2005; Lemon &

Battersby-Lennard, 2009; Christopher, 2001a; Rule, 1996; Chisholm & Sujee, 2006).

Like the papers reviewed in this section, this research uses percentages to explore the evenness of distribution or representivity of each race group within institutions. As mentioned in the subsection above, this is just one aspect of integration that has been chosen for exploration.