3 minute read
EDUCATION
Jakes Gerwel Fellowship candidate fellows SOCIAL CHANGE REQUIRES SUPPORTED EDUCATION OF GIRLS AND WOMEN
Educating girls and women is often undervalued, yet it is becoming critical to ensure social change, writes CARLA WATSON, head of Graduate Teaching at the Jakes Gerwel Fellowship
Social change can be described as a wicked problem: so complex that its leadership begs resolution and demands vision, courage and commitment to excellence. Education in South Africa is also a wicked problem: historically used as a tool to oppress and now as a tool for encouraging social change and transformation. Today, South Africa carries the inherited educational systems of oppression; aiming to liberate and encourage critical thinking to build its society. The role and infl uence of girls and women in positions of leadership driving social change are often undervalued. At a school level, the Department of Basic Education’s 2019 report indicated more girls completed matric than their boy counterparts. However, this hopeful metric has to be considered alongside additional contexts and lived experiences. In South Africa, around 7.1 million people live with HIV/AIDS. This has the side-effect of girls and women dropping out of school to assume the role of caregivers. At a university graduate level, while women dominate studies in education, they are far outnumbered in the science, engineering and technology sector and in business and commerce by their male counterparts.
Carla Watson
CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO
Whoever fi rst wrote the future is female was correct, but which strategies are best for the future to be effective and relevant? Researcher, educational leader and former director of Independent Schools in South Africa, Dr Jane Hofmeyr, offers these crucial strategies to girls and women: “Educate yourself to become an expert in the area of your passion. To achieve success, lead with integrity and build a strong team. Teamwork produces the best outputs.”
Social change is evident in the way women leaders think: encouraging the challenge of the status quo; guided by the phrase, “yes, but why?”. As identifi ed by the fi fth Sustainable Development Goal on Gender Equity, women leaders value the challenge of the status quo; demanding agility and relevance to the contemporary needs of those they lead. In support of being relevant, Zimkhitha Peter, CEO of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Endowment, advises: “You are the gift to contribute to the world. Be clear about your vision for impact, break the shadows of the status quo and step into your potential. Education is a toolbox to sharpen your skills, vision and impact. Most importantly, don’t leave yourself out of your own growth. When put in charge, take charge … not just for the sake of being in charge, but also so you can courageously follow your convictions in creating impact in the service of others.”
As the head of the Jakes Gerwel Fellowship (JGF) Graduate Programme, I am designing and implementing a programme that encourages critical thinking, personal refl ection and asks for equity in high school teachers. The JGF recruits high-impact change-makers who will qualify as high-school teachers. The demand for agility, courage and commitment to excellence begins in our classrooms. The classroom really is the vehicle for change. For several years, I taught high school English Home Language to students for whom English was a second language, but the essence of learning and being challenged was far more important in my lessons. The focus on challenging the systemic oppression of my students, their embarking on a very unfair society, drives me.
I now advocate for teaching as an aspirational career. Nothing is more powerful than those moments with 40 or more students in your class, hooked on a lesson you’re sharing. You are shifting their perspective of their lived experience, far beyond the subject content. You’re helping them aspire to something.
We’ve grown up to the outdated beat of the drum of patriarchy. The education of males has been prioritised at the expense of females, but an equitable society invites the education of all. The investment in the education of girls and women is how we encourage social change.
