Beacon View Primary School in Cape Town

South Africa is divided into nine provinces, each with its own plan for educating children. Cape Town is in the Western Cape Province. We learned from the Western Cape Education Department that many policies to improve literacy learning for all students are not exactly working in an exemplary manner just yet. After decades of inequitable resources according to race, test scores are not soaring by any means.

We visited Beacon View Primary School in an area of Cape Town called Mitchell's Plain. This is a low-income neighborhood that under apartheid was reserved just for "colored," a term widely used in South Africa for people of mixed racial heritage. While instruction is in English for Grade 3 and up, many students in this school have Xhosa as their first language, Afrikaans as a second, and English as their third.

Our People to People delegation was met by the Prefects who stood at attention along the walkway, welcomed our arrival with polite greetings and sweet smiles, and ushered us to an all-school assembly in the courtyard. We were treated to glorious songs from 1500 eager voices.

My private escort then led me from class to class where I had an opportunity to talk with teachers and students.

Like students everywhere, they enjoyed having visitors to shake up their day a bit.

Multiple Languages and Literacy

On Thursday morning we visited with the Faculty of Education at Unviersity of Johannesburg to learn about education initiatives in South Africa. In this new democracy, children born after 1994 (after apartheid) are considered the "born free" generation. I find it amazing how much has been accomplished and what's going on.

South Africa recognizes eleven languages as official. How cool is that?! Nine are indigenous such as Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, Swati, Sotho, Tsonga, etc. And also English and Afrikaans. So especially important here - as it should be all over the world - is multilingual education. I love this concept! Later in the day we met with the Molteno Institute, an organization that has developed curriculum and pedagogy for helping children become strong in their first language as a bridge to learning and literacy.



This day ended with an interesting visit to a Cultural Village where we learned more about the tribes and languages of the Zulu, Xhosa, Basotho, etc., and were privileged to watch dances illustrating multiple cultures.

I am re-energized by experiencing the wonders of our world of multiplicity!