The Status and Role of Resource Centres in ExHouse of Delegates (ExHOD) Schools Under Post Apartheid

The role of school resource centres in promoting educational excellence has been largely ignored in South African post apartheid education. Previous so called advantaged schools that have begun to enroll large percentages of students who are black are now beginning to suffer due to the strict adherence of national norms in terms of funding and staffing. This systematic application of staffing and funding formulae has resulted in the demise of school resource centres in exHouse of Delegate (exHOD) schools. In the past, these schools were endowed with a full complement of resource centre staff. However under post apartheid education, the school resource centre personnel have been redeployed within the school and in some instances to other schools. This redeployment and removal of resource centre staff has led to dire consequences in exHOD schools. The resource centres are closed for most of the day because teacher librarians have been redeployed into main stream teaching of examination subjects. This study thus revealed that the pupils who are black are the worst off in ExHOD schools as they are being denied the opportunity of accessing these resource centers. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)