Our Mission 

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Fighting for an Education

Parents and children make heroic sacrifices to secure an education that will give their children access to a better life.

 

Children are woken in the early hours of the morning to be put onto taxis to start journeys to school that will last many hours. Others set out on foot to walk kilometers to and from school everyday. For many the journey is not safe. The schools they reach are bereft of the most basic infrastructure. Needing to go to the toilet can be a death sentence.

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The school environment is toxic with children facing bullying and sexual abuse from fellow pupils and teachers alike. In many, if not most schools, proper school disciplinary practices are either non-existent or archaic. In a school discipline situation all children should be considered. As is noted by a leading academic in the field the focus is often/always on the transgressor "However, misconduct impacts on the best interests of victims of and third parties to, misconduct. A narrow focus on the transgressor therefore constitutes an undue dilution of the constitutional obligation to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the best interests of all the children concerned in a matter. The overemphasis on the interests of the transgressor, often at the expense of the victims of and third parties to misconduct, is evident from legal prescriptions and practice." Victim's rights in these circumstances are vital. It is often the victim who is effectively punished having to leave the schools in question and sometimes school altogether.  

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Children with special needs remain at home for a lack of places in schools. 

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One response to this chaos is home education. But home educators face constant harassment and pressure from state institutions..

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Other parents have found a solution in cottage schools but these are dismissed as illegal by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Provincial Education Departments (PEDs). These schools face the constant threat of closure and harassment from officials. These schools need to be brought within the schooling network by developing reasonable and fair regulation.

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Unregistered “low-fee schools” find themselves in the same situation as the cottage schools. Research has shown that low-fee schools represent as many as 30% of all schools in certain areas. In some inner cities they actually outnumber public schools. Many of these schools are unregistered because they either simply cannot pay the hundreds of thousands of rand needed to register a school and keep it registered.

 

Registered “low-fee schools” face the varied and complex compliance requirements of registered high-fee schools. These compliance costs increase school fees in less affluent social sectors and reduce the pool of resources available to such schools to improve their outcomes. Researchers in this sector have noted that one of the reasons these costs are excessive is the DBE’s fixation with measuring inputs rather than outputs and duplication between regulatory bodies. 

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Excessive school fees strain the finances of all but the very wealthiest of South Africans. In our work we have come across families, which would be considered wealthy -and in fact are wealthy - when measured against the rest of South African society. who have to make heart rending choices between high school fees and needed medical interventions.

 

Of particular concern are the vast numbers of young South Africans (mostly ‘Born Frees’) who for any number of reasons, some as banal as having to move to a different town, have been excluded from the very rigid schooling system and are now living lives of desperation and hopelessness without access to education. These are the hidden victims of an education system in which the real matric pass rate is 37.3%. The rigid matric system makes it virtually impossible for children who are called "drop-outs" buy are in many cases "forced-outs" to get a matric. 

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The concern for a better education for our children unites all South Africans. Achieving it cannot be done unless we work as a united community.

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Community-based Education

Two fundamental concepts lie at the heart of creating a community-based solution to our education crisis.

 

The first of these is solidarity, no South African can afford to have a "pull the ladder up jack I am fine" attitude. We all have to care for every child as if they were our own. We work to secure the right of every child in South Africa to a basic and a tertiary education. LearnFree's co-equal key value is "Every child is my child".

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That key value could result in undue interference in the rights and duties of parents and children. It is balanced by our other key value which is 'subsidiarity'. The principle of subsidiarity is that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. Practically, this starts with the family, groups of families, community organizations, school governing bodies and NGOs working in their local contexts. LearnFree works to clear away the road-blocks that inhibit this principle. This principle does not mean that the National and Provincial Governments should not have a role. Certain programs and actions can only be addressed by such institutions but they should always be working to empower smaller organizations rather aggregating power to themselves.

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Our Commitment

LearnFree's supports use their skills and talents gained in the spheres of business, the professions and academe to do all they can to honour the sacrifices of parents and learners.