South African Township Schools Research Articles

Unveiling the significant contribution of Child and Youth Care Workers in South African township schools

The deployment of Child and Youth Care Workers (CYCWs) in South African schools is a recent development prompted by the growing barriers to learning faced by learners. This study explored the critical role of CYCWs and their contributions to eight township schools in Botshabelo, South Africa. The aim was to explore and understand the experiences of stakeholders’ regarding the contributions of CYCWs within the Thari programme to township schools in South Africa and how their contributions affected the school environment and aided the well-being of learners. The study followed a qualitative case study design, which integrated the insights from the programme staff, CYCWs (n = 9), principals (n = 5), educators (n = 16), and stakeholder forum members (n = 4) forming part of the Thari programme. Programme documents were also analysed as background and the face-to-face individual and group interviews were thematically analysed.Aligned with the developmental approach to social services, the findings revealed that CYCWs partake in diverse semi-professional activities which significantly contribute to helping learners navigate the challenges they experience in their daily lives. These activities encompass providing psychosocial support, conducting awareness campaigns, organising group sessions, and facilitating educational games. Furthermore, they assume the role of surrogate parental figures and role models for children facing vulnerabilities.The study found that the CYCWs registered in the auxiliary category were not supervised by CYCWs in the professional category. They also had restricted access to full-time social workers for referrals. These challenges underscore the pressing need for increased resources and professional development opportunities for CYCWs so that they can fully attend to their responsibilities in schools.Several recommendations are made, such as increasing resources for the Thari programme, investing in CYCW training, promoting collaboration with other professionals, conducting regular evaluations, engaging parents through workshops, and acknowledging the pivotal role of CYCWs as role models and parental figures. The study offers valuable insights into enhancing the impact and effectiveness of CYCW interventions in township schools, thereby contributing to South African children’s holistic development and well-being.

Implicit gender-based violence against Black high school girls in South African township schools

Implicit gender-based violence against Black high school girls in South African township schools

Rethinking literacy pedagogy in the context of 4IR: Learners’ access and reading motivation

Background: In the education sector, technologies are (or can be) repurposed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to facilitate teaching and learning. However, this shift may impact on learners’ access to reading materials and reading motivation.Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine whether Grade 8 English First Additional Language (FAL) learners’ motivation to read is influenced by access to reading materials in a traditional classroom setting or through online reading platforms.Method: Likert-scale survey questionnaires were used to measure this relationship. Data from 466 Grade 8 English FAL learners from six South African township schools were collected and SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the data.Results: In traditional classrooms, the findings showed that increased access positively influenced motivation, whereas this effect was not evident in online reading platforms. However, in both settings, motivation increased when learners had access to a diverse selection of reading materials. Finally, the findings indicated a parallel relationship between learners’ low motivation and limited access to reading platforms.Conclusion: The study concluded that while traditional classrooms continue to play an important role in global education, the ongoing evolution of technology-based learning platforms has compelled a shift in reading practices toward online platforms, which are reshaping the educational landscape, demonstrating the increasing significance of technology-mediated learning in modern education.Contribution: The authors recommend enhanced collaboration between teachers and learners to devise innovative methods for motivating online reading, ensuring learners’ inclusion in the 4IR literacy pedagogy evolution.

COPING STRATEGIES AND SUPPORT PROVIDED BY EDUCATIONAL CENTRES TO TEENAGE MOTHERS RE-ENGAGING WITH EDUCATION POST-PREGNANCY. A CASE OF A TOWNSHIP SCHOOL IN SOUTH AFRICA

Teenage girls who conceive while in school are often confronted with a number of health, social and economic hardships. As a result of the pregnancy related hardships, some of the teenagers drop out of school and fail to re-enter the school system after giving birth. However, a growing body of literature show some of these teenagers re-enter the school system after giving birth to continue with their studies. We employed qualitative approach to explore the coping strategies by teenage mothers’ when they returned to school following childbirth and the support mechanisms used by the schooling system to meet their learning needs. We adopted a single case study design of a South African township school in Gauteng Province, South Africa. We collected data using in-depth one-on-one interviews involving the teenage mothers. The findings revealed that consultations with educators and participating in after-school programmes, with the aim of catching-up on missed content was some of the coping strategies used by teenage mothers re-engaging with education following childbirth. In addition, sympathetic educators provided extra consultation time slots and also motivated the teenagers to persevere and focus on their studies. A call is made for schools to enhance learner support programmes, especially those aimed at supporting teenage mothers who decide to return to school to complete their studies after giving birth.

Smart Board use and Pedagogic Practices among Educators: A Case of a South African Township School

The purpose of this study was to understand the state of smart board use and pedagogic practices among educators in a township school. Four educators participated in this case study-based research project. The study established different means in which smart boards have become central in the teaching and learning processes within the township schools. It was found that educators used the smart boards for writing, downloading and uploading multiple tasks. It was further established that smart boards were making teaching interesting. In this regard, smart boards were found to equally make teaching easier in many ways. The smart board use was however found to face challenges such as resistance especially from senior educators, technical challenges such as freezing and the challenge of load shedding. The research however concluded that despite the challenges, smart boards remained an important source of ensuring transformative and pedagogical oriented teaching and learning as well as enhanced teaching and learning in poor settings such as townships. Equally, a holistic approach that targeted key aspects of schooling such as technology and educators was used to understand how new technologies such as smart boards especially for township contexts could be drawn upon in enhancing teaching and learning. A qualitative research methodology was used in which in-depth interviews as well as observations were used for data collection. The social constructivist approach was used in the discussion of the findings. This approach aided in exploring the educator practices and opinions regarding their use of smart board technologies in various subjects.

Slow violence, depoliticisation and hope: Cultural landscapes of schooling in Wentworth, South Africa

This ethnographic study of environmental learning in a South African township school unravels how formal education can depoliticise young people’s understandings of environmental decay. Conceptualising environmental learning through Rob Nixon’s notion of ‘slow violence’ and Hannah Arendt’s understanding of ‘action’, the article argues that despite the depoliticization enacted through schooling, individual learners and educators articulate subterranean understandings of the environmental multicrisis rooted in informal learning. This helps us understand the potential of environmental learning outside schools.

The use of English to offer learner support and enhance perceptual skills development in South African township schools

Research has identified the underdevelopment of perceptual skills as a cause of lifelong learning struggles and the restriction of developmental progress in learners. The literature also indicates that early intervention is one strategy that effectively mitigates the long-term effects thereof through learner support. However, the inadequacy of in-service teachers’ skills to assess perceptual skills development, coupled with the implementation of the teaching and learning language policy, are issues for concern, particularly in South African schools.This article reports on a module-aligned community engagement project conducted with 87 pre-service teachers to assess the perceptual skills development of Foundation Phase learners as part of their work-integrated learning (WIL). The two selected schools used English as their language of teaching and learning. Two lecturers and eight Grade 2 and Grade 3 in-service teachers from Pretoria East schools participated in the project. Play-based pedagogy was used as a resource for assessment as a qualitative approach, thus inspiring in-service teachers’ and learners’ creativity and enjoyment at the schools.Kolb’s cyclic theoretical framework consisting of four cycles underpinned the project. Firstly, the project confirmed literature findings of teachers’ lack of skills to assess perceptual skills development using English in Foundation Phase learners. Secondly, the use of non-mother tongue language as a medium of instruction in early learning centres affected learners’ knowledge acquisition. Thirdly, the use of the foreign medium of instruction affected the learners’ speaking and listening skills, thus impacting language and cognitive development essential for learning.

A Taxi Ride to Critical Literacy: High School Students as Co-Researchers and Text Analysts

This article describes a critical literacy research project undertaken with English Additional Language students at a South African township school. Students were invited to take on the position of researchers in gathering and analysing bumper stickers found in commuter minibuses known as itekisi (taxi). These everyday texts in English and African languages are salient for the students’ discourse communities. Bringing them into English lessons validates the use of languages and discourses that multilingual students inhabit and draws on their ability to move fluidly between languages. Framed by critical discourse analysis theory, this project aimed to facilitate students’ abilities to develop and use critical literacy knowledge and skills in analysing taxi bumper stickers. The findings indicate that the students were able to demonstrate some criticality as they investigated multiple interpretations of the texts by community members and themselves. Inviting students to investigate texts drawn from their own communities was envisaged as enabling their development as critical readers with a social justice orientation to texts. However, their relentless negativity towards taxi drivers made it difficult for them to keep their focus on the texts, suggesting that teachers’ selection of salient texts for lessons with a focus on critical literacy may not always achieve the intended outcomes.

Immigrant Parents' Voices on Children's Right to Education in South African Schools: Connecting the Disconnected

This paper focuses on the school's protection of the right to education for immigrant learners as perceived by their parents. With its approach to the subject from the human rights-based educational perspective, this paper sought to examine immigrant parents' views on their children's right to education against their background as vulnerable and marginalised school community members. The assumption on which the study presented in this paper is based is that meaningful discussion on the right to education for immigrant learners cannot be disconnected from the challenges their parents face in educating them. Immigrant parents have their views and experiences relating to children's educational rights, which are seldom studied. Guided by this view, a qualitative approach was followed to gather data through semi-structured individual interviews held with parents of immigrant learners from four purposively selected South African township schools. The results show that immigrant parents experience enormous challenges in the education of their children in South African schools. While some of the challenges are transferred from them to their children because of non-citizenship, they attribute most of the challenges to people who teach their children, namely, teachers. 
 
 Received: 2 August 2021 / Accepted: 3 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

Investigating Teachers’ Perceptions of Critical Literacy: A Case Study from Two South African Township Schools

Researchers have described critical literacy as an important aspect of literacy in education and in the language classroom. However, this concept, including the notions that underlie it, has not been widely researched in English Second Language (ESL) contexts in Africa. This article reports on a qualitative study that investigated teachers’ perceptions of critical literacy. Interviews were conducted with Grade 8 and 9 teachers in two township schools in the City of Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa. A thematic content analysis using emerging themes and pre-set questions was used to analyse the interview responses. The findings of the study showed that teachers had little understanding of critical literacy, did not use a critical-reading approach in their classrooms, and cited a range of factors that hampered their efforts to implement critical reading in their ESL classrooms.

Juxtaposing South African and Namibian teachers’ perceptions and teaching practices to develop self-regulated learning: Do they practice what they preach?

Teachers are expected to be self-directed and to instill in their learners the ability to self-regulate their own learning processes. There are however personal and contextual factors that promote or inhibit teachers’ abilities to develop self-regulated learning skills. This study was conducted in two South African secondary township schools and in two Namibian rural secondary schools. Twenty-eight, conveniently and purposively selected teachers participated. This qualitative case study, was intended to provide food for thought about the uniqueness and challenges of township school and rural teachers’ perceptions and practices to develop self-regulated learning skills. Data were collected via observations and semi-structured interviews. The results indicate a need for interventions to train practising teachers to be activators and facilitators of SRL skills.

A closer look at the interactional construction of choral responses in South African township schools

In order to better understand literacy practices in high poverty L2 contexts, we use a conversation analytic approach to study two forms of chorusing in Grade 3 classrooms in South African township schools: choral reading and choral answering. Based on more than 6 hours of video recorded classroom interaction, we show that choral reading aloud is initiated by explicit and implicit instructions, combined with intonational cues. Choral answering is initiated by yes/no questions, designedly incomplete utterances or known-answer questions, producing short answers. Teacher feedback in both forms is extremely limited. Choral practices risk limited individual student engagement and restrict development of language and cognitive skills. However, we also show that students demonstrate a high awareness of the subtleties of a variety of interactional “rules”. They are occasionally encouraged to produce their own answers and are capable of reading new pieces of text aloud, showing potential learning opportunities through classroom engagement.

Educator Perceptions and Use of Technology in South African Schools

ABSTRACT South African schools experience diverse access to educational technology. Further, South African educators have limited opportunities to attend educator professional development workshops focused on technology integration. These differences can have a tremendous impact on students’ educational experiences and educators’ levels of self-efficacy toward implementing technology in their school settings. To provide further support and training opportunities to educators in South African township schools, administrators are able to partner with nongovernmental organizations and institutions of higher education. This article provides an overview of South African educational contexts and how partnerships can be formed to provide educator support to integrate educational technology in township schools.

Managing acceptable academic outcomes in a context of multiple deprivation: Making do in a South African township school

This article explores the intervention strategy used by the staff and school management team of a South African township school to ensure that final-year learners exposed to an environment of multiple deprivation are adequately prepared for the year-end standardised examination. Analysis of the interview data confirms literature findings on the debilitating effect of multiple deprivation, in the form of absolute poverty, on learners’ chances of learning successfully. Research findings reveal strategies related to an intervention programme to prepare final-year learners for the year-end examination. The intervention programme, consisting of Saturday morning and school holiday morning classes and a study camp event a fortnight before the final examination commences, counteracts inhibiting home and environment conditions, to support learners holistically to achieve acceptable academic outcomes. However, the negative influence on learners’ diligence of extending their final school year over two years and the constraint on knowledge and skills attainment of a pass mark of only 30% for some subjects are adverse factors limiting the chances of social mobility for learners with multiple deprivation.

From ‘sheep’ to ‘amphibian’: English vocabulary teaching strategies in South African township schools

Background: South African learners have performed consistently poorly in reading assessments. This paper addresses two key components in improving reading literacy: vocabulary development and teacher knowledge and skills required for quality vocabulary instruction. Aim: This small-scale exploratory study reports on the English vocabulary teaching strategies of eight Grade 3 teachers in South African township schools serving poor communities and their implementation of these strategies in practice. Setting: The Western Cape teachers taught English Home Language (HL) learners. The Eastern Cape teachers taught Xhosa HL and English First Additional Language (FAL) learners. Methods: Teacher interviews and classroom observations. Results: The teachers used a range of basic vocabulary teaching strategies that complied with evidence-based vocabulary teaching strategies identified in the literature. However, most of the strategies employed did not reach an advanced level of active learning in which students were challenged and took ownership of their own vocabulary learning. Results showed that especially the English FAL teachers relied heavily on their L1 for vocabulary instruction. Conclusion: Grade 3 teachers in South African schools that serve poor communities are capable of providing rich print exposure in their classrooms showing that schools can, to a certain extent, play a compensatory role for the limited literacy opportunities in homes of children from low socio-economic backgrounds. However, in order for the learners to develop a more durable, rich vocabulary their teachers would need to engage in more interactive and in-depth instruction. Implications for policy are discussed.

English vocabulary exposure in South African township schools: Pitfalls and opportunities

Background: This small-scale study investigated English vocabulary exposure from graded readers and teacher talk in Grade 3 classrooms in poorly resourced township schools in South Africa. Vocabulary is one of the key building blocks for becoming a fluent reader. Most words are learnt through incidental exposure to oral or written language. Objectives: This study is a first attempt to investigate opportunities for incidental vocabulary exposure in poorly resourced classrooms in South Africa. Method: A corpus linguistics approach was used to analyse a written corpus of 57 143 tokens and a spoken corpus of 12 242 tokens. Results: The study showed that there are vast differences between levels of written and spoken vocabulary in the classrooms and that the role for oral vocabulary exposure in classrooms is restricted. Spoken vocabulary registered above the K-3 word frequency level largely came from teachers’ read alouds of print materials. Conclusion: The study findings show that even in contexts where print exposure is limited, oral language cannot compensate for the richness of written vocabulary. Situational constraints, such as lack of books, negatively influenced the effective use of graded readers. Opportunities for incidental vocabulary learning, as well as implications for policy and further research, are discussed.

Thermal Cameras as a Semiotic Resource for Inquiry in a South African Township School Context

Inquiry-based approaches to science education are central to recent South African primary and secondary school curricula, but have been found challenging to adopt in disadvantaged township contexts. It is therefore important to find ways of introducing inquiry-based approaches, where pupils are encouraged to investigate phenomena they are interested in and to engage in true dialogue, as opposed to teacher-led triadic dialogue. We typically experience thermal phenomena through the sense of touch, but infrared (IR) cameras provide an additional opportunity to experience heat-related phenomena through the visual sense. Previously, in a Swedish context, we have found that hand-held IR cameras allow for strong pedagogical affordances and inspire pupils to engage in inquiry in the area of thermal science. In the present case study, grade 7 and 8 pupils (13–14 years old) in two South African township schools were introduced to IR cameras during predict-observe-explain (POE) exercises on heat conduction. The results revealed that if pupils had a sufficient conceptual understanding of heat conduction beforehand, they were capable of engaging in true dialogue in relation to the exercises and interpreting the thermal camera visual imagery. However, if pupils did not show such understanding, it was tempting for them and the facilitator to resort to triadic dialogue.

Are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning the sciences in South African low-quintile schools than western literature suggests?

Some research suggests that the use of instructivistic teaching strategies may be detrimental to learning, while other research asserts that such strategies can enhance learning under certain conditions. I argue that the conditions present in South African township schools and probably more broadly in schools typical of developing countries, correspond to the conditions for which such strategies are appropriate and may currently be the only strategies implementable on a large scale in the South African township context. I propose two kinds of instructivistic resources which may be effective in improving learning in this context by developing language competence, increasing feedback and reinforcement, and extending teaching and learning time; namely low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets and software. I discuss difficulties which could be encountered and caution against a simplistic interpretation of my argument. Discussions such as this are necessary as we search for appropriate and implementable solutions to the crisis of South African township underperformance in education.

How is their word knowledge growing? Exploring Grade 3 vocabulary in South African township schools

In this article, we report on a study that examined the active and receptive English vocabulary of two different groups of Grade 3 learners in South African township schools. The groups consisted of English Home Language (HL) learners in the Western Cape and Xhosa HL and English First Additional Language (FAL) learners in the Eastern Cape. The purpose was to document their different vocabulary trajectories during Grade 3. The Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey was used to measure the active vocabulary levels of 118 learners at the beginning and the end of the school year. Another 284 learners from the same eight Grade 3 classes participated in a receptive vocabulary test at the end of the year. This test assessed their knowledge of the 60 most frequent words that occur in South Africa Grade 4 English textbooks. Results showed that although the HL learners knew almost double the number of words their English FAL peers did, both groups of learners increased their active word knowledge through the year by about 9%. Regarding their receptive vocabulary, the English FAL learners on average only knew 27% of the most frequent words at the end of their Grade 3. No significant gender differences were found. Learners in both language groups who were above their grade age had significantly lower scores than their younger peers. This confirms findings that children who start school with weak language skills tend to stay weak. Finally, initial active vocabulary knowledge was found to be a strong predictor of vocabulary development during the school year.

Repeated retention or dropout? Disputing Hobson’s choice in South African township schools

South Africa, like many developing countries, is heavily burdened by high dropout and unemployment rates and an undersupply of skilled workers. Grade retention is a common practice when learners do not meet the specific requirements – especially in countries with limited socio-economic resources. In South Africa, 52% of the learners are retained at least once before they reach Grade 10. However, the results of this study clearly suggest that the policy of repeated scholastic retention does not contribute positively to the academic achievement or to career maturity of Grade 11 and Grade 12 learners in township schools in South Africa. This study emphasises the importance of improving learner performance, starting in the Foundation Phase (Grade 0/R to Grade Three) and the need for accessible career guidance and counselling for all learners. By guiding these at-risk learners into vocation-oriented or technically oriented directions before the career maturity and academic achievement decline emerges, a decrease in dropout and an increase in the outflow of skilled people in the short term and unemployment in the long term may be addressed. The latter can be regarded as the cornerstone of socio-economic development and enhanced social capital in all developing countries. Keywords: academic achievement; career maturity; drop-out; grade retention; township schools; unemployment