About the school

!NXUNKHEWESA COMBINED SCHOOL

!Nxunkhewesa Combined school is in Platfontein in

South Africa

. The headteacher's name is Mr Jonkers and Ms Mpsi is the deputy headteacher in charge of international relations. There are 31 teachers and 1128 pupils which means the class sizes must be very big. The school is 20km from the nearest town,

kimberley

and 2km from the nearest main road so it must be hard to get to. Pupils are taught in Afrikaans, which is not their main language.

HISTORY OF THE SAN PEOPLE

The San community consists of various groups, of which the !Xun and Khwe are only two of those groups. But we would like to focus on the !Xun and the Khwe people. These people were relocated from

Namibia

to

South Africa

in March 1990 by SA Defence Force. The two communities, consisting of ± 5000 people, were resettled at Schmidtsdrift near

Kimberley

in the

Northern Cape

. The SA Defence Force employed most of the men as trackers during the war against Swapo. On arrival the SA Defence Force gave the families tents to live in. Each of the two communities has their own traditional and political leaders.

BACKGROUND OF !XUNKHWESA COMBINED SCHOOL

The school was started in the year 1990 . Tents of scattered canvas were used as classrooms. These tents were later replaced with corrugated iron structures. The language of instruction at school is Afrikaans. !Xun and Khwe are the home language of the learners. Poverty, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy are some of social challenges that impact negatively on effective learning and teaching. Parental involvement is virtually non-existing, as most of the parents are illiterate and do not understand Afrikaans. The latter results in parents not being able to provide scholastic assistance and guidance to their children. The meal learners receive at school ( sponsored by the education department) is often their only meal for the day.

The community used to be very isolated. Therefore most of the learners are inadvertently perceived as being introverted. Their relocation to Platfontein (approximately 13 km from

Kimberley

) significantly increased their opportunities to socialize with other existing neighbouring communities. We trust that, as a school, we will eventually realize one of our objectives, of preparing learners to participate optimally in a multicultural

South Africa

as well as globally. The link project will provide an excellent opportunity for peer interaction and cultural exchange with international schools.