Whose school is it anyway?

Molly Matlotlo, SDGS 4, 5 & 10 PRACTITIONER / MASTER TRAINER AT MOLTENO INSTITUTE OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, explores South Africa’s education, inequality and the quest for a national identity.

Every now and again, we all sit around a metaphorical table and have the same conversation world-wide. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were all infected and affected. We had to grapple with what it is that we’re dealing with, the implications and how we are going to get out of it. Locally, this conversation hasn’t been easy. The title for the world’s most unequal society belongs to my beloved country, South Africa. With the highest Gini Coefficient, the COVID-19 pandemic has left us exposed with education and economic disparities in full view. Catering to different socio-economic groups, their education needs and what their money can buy, we’re essentially running multiple education systems. What virtual learning could do for some, it couldn’t do for most. Where parental involvement could get some families, others couldn’t go. What books in the home could achieve for some, their absence was felt where there aren’t shelves to fill up.

The legacy of the difference in government spending on education along racial lines pre-democracy still haunts us. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 seeks to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. While spending R146 per Black learner and R1 211 per White learner, the Apartheid government was not ensuring inclusive and equitable education. With universities also not designed with Black learners in mind, the spaces are largely unaccommodating in their structures and institutional culture. Students often feel far removed from the curriculum content, which they claimed does not reflect their lived experiences, especially in the Humanities and Law. Calls for a decolonised curriculum have been prominent in recent years. Language policies have also been under scrutiny as language has been used in South Africa to grant and deny access. Although the country boasts 11 official languages, the majority of instruction at universities is conducted in English or Afrikaans. These languages are a second or even third language for most students. The insecurity that comes with teaching and learning happening in your second or third language triggers fears of intellectual inferiority and not belonging. For first-generation students who are finding their way to institutions of higher learning, these uncharted waters also mean a lack of academic support from home.

On the far end of the quintile spectrum, we find quintile four and five public schools and private schools. At this intersection we find race and class. These schools were not designed with black middle-class learners in mind who are now filling chairs at these schools. With the institutional culture dictated by White Cultural Capital, bringing one’s whole self and belonging in these spaces becomes difficult. From policies about hair to what socials look like.

With all these challenges that colour our existence, it is hard to answer President Cyril Ramaphosa’s question. “Who are we as a people? What is it that defines our national character? What is it that defines our identity? What is it that we stand for? Because the values we live by, and the principles we stand for, define us as much as what we wear, the food we eat, the languages we speak, the music we listen to, and they also make up our lives”.

As they exit formal education, we expect these young people to fill positions and take up roles in society and the economy. There’s an African proverb that goes “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”. Do they have reason to love and serve their country or have we failed them? With all the teacher training I’m part of at quintile one, two and three schools and friends being hired as Heads of Transformation and Diversity at private schools, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are a colourful and resilient people, Mr. President.

First published in Engage 23.

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By MOLIEHI ‘MOLLY’ MATLOTLO • April 13, 2022

36 Bicycles. Countless Futures in The Gambia.

By Ann Beatty • May 20, 2026

How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity.

Education for Hope in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Times

By Laura Griffin • May 13, 2026

‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here

I heard it said today by a friend that “You learn a language best when you use it to speak and write about things that are important to you. ”

By Susan Piper • May 6, 2026

This summed up to me about why I volunteer for the Hands Up Project. HUP is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and selfexpression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills. I joined HUP in 2020 during COVID. After going to Palestine in 2017, I wanted to get more involved in working with Palestinian children in schools. HUP gave me the opportunity to link up with schools in the West Bank and Gaza. Every week I’d tell them stories from all over the world, then we’d discuss it, play games and I’d get them to retell it. Sometimes we would work from their coursebook English for Palestine’ in mutual team teaching sessions with their teacher. The simple act of telling a story became much more than entertainment. It became connection, healing, and a bridge to the world beyond their immediate reality to help them improve their language skills, and to give them a platform to speak about their lives in a language that connects them to people everywhere. I loved it, every week, seeing their smiling faces on the screen and building long lasting friendships with their teachers. I even went to Gaza in 2023 and met some of the kids I’d only seen on Zoom. It was a beautiful experience and something I will never forget. As hostilities escalated, I lost contact with everyone. I thought about where the kids were and what had happened to them. As I watched schools being bombed, universities flattened, and people killed in their thousands, I thought about where the kids I’d met were and what was happening to them. I kept in contact with many of the teachers I knew and heard daily news of displacement, destruction, hunger and bombing. Recently, I’ve started to link up again with children in Gaza, and it feels wonderful to be back helping them learn after being denied an education for over two years. Connecting with children in Palestine is more than just words. When a child in Palestine confidently tells their story to someone on the other side of the world, bridges are built, empathy grows, and the world gains a fuller picture of childhood in contexts far from peace and privilege. My work with these children is rooted in the belief that education and voice are inseparable. Through storytelling and English language learning, I witness children not just learning new vocabulary, but reclaiming their narratives, believing in their potential, and finding human connection in a world they perceive has abandoned them. And more than anything, this work reminds us all that children — everywhere — deserve to learn, to speak, and to be heard. Links to HUP information, books and resources: The Hands Up Project BY SUSAN PIPER Susan Piper is currently an ESOL teacher in Oldham, Greater Manchester and has worked in education for over 30 years. She is also a volunteer for the Hands Up Project and is the International Solidarity Officer and President of her NEU district. She believes in quality education for all and aims to make her lessons creative and inclusive so that effective language learning can take place.