‘Clever cubs’ get own school

THE Clever Cubs School is a brand new school for 24 San children that opened this month on the N/a’ an ku se Wildlife Sanctuary outside Windhoek.

The school was built with funds donated by the Clabile Trust, a UK trust which supports education for children.The children have been taught under a lapa by teacher Jill Robson since the beginning of the year. They are taught basic English, literacy, numeracy, life skills and conservation.’I am delighted about the school buildings, as there are no more pigs running around between the children or baboons coming to steal the stationery,’ says Robson. There are 24 San families living on N/a’an ku se and all the children used to attend school in the Gobabis area. The San have very strong family ties and the children got homesick and ran away from school for weeks on end. This prompted the owners of N/a’an ku se to build a school on the farm in the hope that the children would stay in school and also that the families would settle and stay in one place close to their children. Twelve of the children will attend formal schools in Windhoek next year and the plan is to drive them to and from school each day so that they can still live with their families. The farm school has two rooms – one for the pre-primary class for children under the age of seven and a classroom for four older children. One of the children is 16 years old and has never attended school. He had polio as a little boy and never received any education. The other three are all over 16 years old and all three have dropped out of school and are now too far behind to go back. To give them a better chance in life, they will be taught to read and write at the Clever Cubs School. All the children also receive a meal a day. Next year the school is looking at employing a fulltime teacher who can teach the children in English but also understands Afrikaans. The children’s mother tongue is San but they all understand and speak Afrikaans and need to be taught English.