Submitted
by Durban University of Technology Drama and Production Studies HoD, Prof
Deborah Arlene Lutge
From ivory tower education to
entrepreneurial roots to alleviate poverty and unemployment through an
idealistic “I have a dream…” methodology.
The dilemma in academia during the South
African Covid-19 national lockdown inevitable lies in the institutional
confusion determined not by the lack of policies and procedures but primarily
by the lack of precedent. Nothing now relates to business as usual. As CEO of
the Gauteng Market Theatre Ismail Mahomed said in an April 22, 2020 email to
me: There is a need “to re-imagine” the reconfiguration of our futures. He
adds: “In our time of despondency, despair and confusion it is from idealism
that we may find some direction”.
Politics and economics have become key
features in all aspects of industry and reach far into an educational system
struggling to bridge historically inherent economic distress and the politics
of educational inclusion in respect of those traditionally socially excluded
from the privileges associated with ‘ivory tower’ education, namely: in respect
of access to technology, devices and data. Therefore South Africa finds itself
at an educational cross roads dictated by four pathways.
First it is important to understand the
percentage of the student population with NSFAS funding and the percentage of
this funding allocated to educational resources that may not in the present
COVID-19 situation facilitate long-term sustainable internet access. Second it
is imperative that we test transitional pedagogy in the transfer of
practice-led arts campuses to remote learning virtual channels and platforms by
retraining staff and students during a year of uncertainty and possible
continual rescheduling with the promise of a 50% unemployment rate and a final
Higher Education year that is less than satisfactory for the student who opted
to learn via a completely different contact methodology. Third it is necessary
to consider how residences, formerly representative of improved learning
environments for many South African students, as isolation rather than communal
living spaces, presuppose possible mini COVID-19 epicentres as in the current
situation the prevention of visits home is untenable. Proposing family
separation at a time of crisis becomes an isolation crisis of inhumane
proportions rather than a distancing tool requiring resolution. Finally the
possibility of a suspended year with government projects employing students
under retiree mentorship, offers a gap year in order to guide the building of
sustainable cities ‘for the people, by the people’. These cities potentially
provide employment, alleviation of poverty, ownership of the future,
achievement with dignity, industry with reward, and finally a working
environments for all by building a Covid-19 city where co-conspirators, the
potentially unemployed and an already poverty driven informal settlements work
to uplift communities.
As an academic practitioner, engaging in
conservatory-styled training in ‘live performance and theatre directing’, this
opinion piece is framed as the final idealistic proposal/pathway, and thus it
is in the transmutation from shanty to mini metropolis in which I invest my
argument. Students that are living in cramped environments with unemployed
family, frustrated by their inability to access university communiques,
teaching and learning; accompanied by the struggle to afford to feed whole
families on NSFAS loans, keep abreast of fast paced technology affecting future
employment possibilities; and the challenge of bridging two worlds that levy
unparalleled economic demands and urgent academic stresses, may find this
option potentially life changing in that it allows for a positive option,
driven by the promise of a regenerated future.
One of the detracting features of current
sustainable cities is that high rise buildings are built with little
consultation. Further inhabitants are provided with no skills development or
socializing context that would allow for a deeper understanding of the
functional needs, responsibilities and invested accountability of full communal
engagement. The end result therefore does not equip the end user to become a
positive, invested, contributing citizen, readjusted to accept a future derived
from the final legacy of this community re-making. If the three biggest
elephants in the room are unemployment and poverty and property then this
proposed model addresses all three.
In 2007 Dr. Kenneth Netshiombo our former
FAD Executive Dean requested consideration be given to teaching classes in
Lesotho. As my field is ‘live performance’ and there was at that time no
equivalent Department at the Lesotho University with which the exchange was
proposed, I looked further and found what I thought to be the closest link in a
course in civilizations offered by the Humanities Faculty. This was the
catalyst to begin thinking in terms of the effective governance in the ancient
Greek polis studied in Drama History with its confined population numbers,
responsible citizenry, and effective community engagement. This connection
brought with it at the time notions on how disenfranchised environments could
be positively impacted via an eco-friendly sustainable polis facilitating and
facilitated by emerging research, and how a community after the initial
development might ‘pay it forward’ ad infinitum to the next informal shanty
town occupants, who would in turn ‘pay it forward’ in the same manner.
So my first thought was what would a city
polis need? A small town municipality in charge of infrastructure affecting
light, water, rates; schools; a bank; protection or policing to apply polis
community rules; a clinic; a community arts centre catering to after-hours
homework prep, extramural activities and aftercare facilities; IT experts
assisting with access problems, call centres and laboratories; a civil and
family court advocating a justice system; a mall or business centre focused on
African entrepreneurship with an innovation centre and offices for professional
accountants, architects, lawyers, medical practitioners, insurers, etc.; a
hardware warehouse with offices above it for a plumber, a repairman/builders; a
park or garden centre dealing with florists, botanists, gardeners and nature
lovers; a small enterprises park housing crafts and markets at the very least.
Second, how will this enterprise prove
empowering? In The Great Depression roads such as the Durban esplanade were
built by qualified professionals so if we combined the drive of those paid to
use their newly acquired qualifications, seasoned retired experts, those in
tertiary training and those willing to work, evolve and develop skills for a
permanent place in the polis, then this combination may well be the
collaborative jelly. Recent surveys have highlighted high unemployment rates in
graduates. So is there a logical solution offered in career guidance testing
with an initial questionnaire to ascertain the interests and potential areas of
individual development needed or the appropriate polis training required, thus
enabling informal sector inhabitants to be assigned to the appropriate skills
development teams? A marginalised economically disempowered community, working
under retired town planners, town engineers, business magnets, and educators,
facilitated by students and graduates training or trained in these areas, would
thus be trained to lay out the infrastructure of the polis assisted by retirees
and research departments. The community may consult on the architectural
framework of the polis which may be: Ndebele designed buildings with flat roof
gardens; or comprised of contemporary concrete glass and chrome frameworks; or
embrace an African Kingdom polis resplendent with columns of large tusks and
metal wild life sculptures of rusted tin. The untrained builders, plumbers,
electricians, carpenters and artisans would learn a trade under retired
previously registered Master Builders, craftsmen and artisans. Further,
registered SABS approved plumbers and electricians would train informal sector
workers in laying down polis sewerage works and systems, polis electrical
infrastructure, with construction teams building brick or concrete factories -
perhaps made from reconstituted plastic bricks as well as constructing
residential developments, buildings and hardware stores - all built with experts specializing in
waste materials and repurposed products. Some of the marginalized informal
community would then be assigned to learning tools related to building this
sustainable eco-friendly polis from the ground up, embracing fields such as
architectural design centred on reconstituted waste materials or learning
bricklaying skills with plastic bricks or how to fit electrical wiring. This
could include areas from laying pipes to water distribution and redistribution,
from becoming plasterers and painters with a knowledge of eco-friendly
materials, to eco-farmers accessing communal gardens or individual roof-top
gardens. In this eco-focused polis garbage collection sites would become
repurposing sorting sites for say interior designers creating design notions
informed by economic viability and environmentally sustainable considerations
and fertilizer bagging companies would collect door to door using residential
earthworm farms from which to create export fertilizing businesses – therefore
all areas would run through environmentally friendly wind driven, solar
powered, cost effective options: an example of which would be trash collection
incorporating municipal delivery to recycling plants and residential worm farms
where scraps would be collected in blocks and turned into a creative produce
for a fertilizer bagging company rather than employing current quick fixes by
dumping waste in landfill sites. A further field would train a group of
financiers and accountants or bookkeepers to address production costs and
balancing of the polis books who might later be assigned to municipalities,
banks and business help-centres.
How would this be funded? The government
after securing appropriate land would fund the initial project by paying
trainees and learners a living stipend to turn zones of unemployment and
poverty into a thriving, motivated, eco-friendly mini metropolis with an
employed populace filled with dignity and respect, as these learners would be
training a created job market in order to pay forward to the next informal
settlements’ inhabitants, through the skills learned under the guidance of the
original trainers and researchers assigned. Thereafter the initial incubator
polis would make a living from operations conducted within the polis,
contributing as rate payers to a mini-municipality and as tax payers to a
national economy. How would the polis function with the initial trainers
withdrawn? The community would vote in their experienced police chief,
qualified judge, trained municipality workers and schools governing bodies for
5 years with re-election possible every five years so as to hold leaders
accountable to the people they serve, minimize corruption, reinforce
community-centred interactive ownership of the polis, and ensure
sustainability.
How would community based organization
facilitate the polis? Community Arts Centres would house galleries, private
arts studios, theatre and sports complexes and facilities, school rooms and
laboratories so once pupils finished schools eco-friendly transport would
collect children and drop them at the Centre where homework would be completed
under qualified teaching assistants. Thereafter pupils would select from a wide
range of activities or classes offered in any of the following areas,
including: sports; dance; theatre; fine arts; crafts learning hobbies; IT labs;
etc. in order to fill in the rest of the afternoon until home-time when parents
are transported through this same tram transport system to collection points
for each activity. Once a semester the centre would hold a parent weekend to
showcase work covered and keep the affirmation of the youth entrenched. This
means parents do not worry about children while at work. The arts centre
provides a structured activity academy, manned or controlled by graduates in
the arts, sports and other fields. This might also house a mini clinic with
graduates from medical fields to ensure safety for young people. Further
graduates would be assigned to facilitate these community centres or health
facilities, while engineering, science, and IT specialists as well as commerce
students assist in annual municipal upgrades and in small business centres,
malls, hospitals, banks etc. facilitating new applications and developments or
driving youth programs in the Community Centre once at the end of tertiary
training. This proposal enables people to return to their communities with the
latest information and serve in these communities as a conscripted national
service where graduates work for a stipend with the rest of the government
pay-package used to pay back the student loans. After this initial
undergraduate tertiary qualification the interns after a year of national service
in their communities, would be free to study further or enter the appropriate
field as a taxpaying citizens free to move nationally wherever employment
calls. The polis would be surrounded by a ring road with taxi ranks catered for
at points in the ring road, however internally there would only be eco-friendly
transport that is offered free by the municipality who earn their wages from
the polis tax compiled through monthly rates.
In this short opinion piece we have merely
skimmed the surface of all the possibilities from international research
funding and contributions from wealthier corporate bodies with a perceived
conscience. It is my hope that thirteen years after the initiating idea and
breakdown, this paper will prove as interesting to read as it was to
conceptualize back then. Perhaps the notion of shelving 2020 while working on a
productive proposal such as this might go a long way to moving forward a more
equitable South African society. The past is gone. Long live the future.
Professor
Deborah Arlene Lutge - HoD, Durban University of Technology
Drama and Production Studies.
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