Morris Isaacson High School sits like a jewel on the main arterial road through White City in Soweto. It is flanked by Naledi High in the west and Phefeni Senior Secondary in the east.
A trot to all three stops is enough to induce an Olympic sweat, but 39 years ago an energetic march from one end to the other went like a breeze until bullets started flying, felling 13-year-old Hector Pieterson.
When the march abruptly ended before reaching the intended destination, a new chapter opened in the history of South African politics, arguably culminating in the new dispensation of 1994.
The three schools are now part of what is called the June 16 Soweto Heritage Trail in memory of the student uprisings against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.
It was at Naledi High that the fire that lit the upheavals started.
A police car was burnt to a cinder on the school grounds. Today the spot is no ground zero, but it has been turned into a morning assembly point.
It bears excerpts of the letter by Enos Ngutshane to MC Botha, apartheid’s education minister of the time. The letter lamented the use of Afrikaans in township schools.
Ngutshane is today a top business executive and who is very active in the alumni of the school.
This alumni reads like a who’s who, with illustrious names such as Dr Frank Chikane, Sibongile Mkhabela and Popo Molefe.
The incumbent principal Kenny Babini Mavathulana uses the word “fire” a lot.
“In many of our learners, you can see the fire in their eyes.”
He is a passionate pedagogue who describes school children as “beautiful little things” and says he has no doubt that his school will continue to churn out a quality cadre of student like the generation of 1976. “No doubt about that,” Mavathulana says.
When the alumni come to the school to interact with the pupils, “they light a fire” in their minds and help them “see their future”.
Despite societal ills such as broken families, drug and alcohol abuse that affect his learners, Mavathulana is happy with his lot: “We have the type of child here who understands the message we keep throwing at them.”
We take leave of Mavathulana, giving him time to prepare for the premier’s visit on Friday.
When the marchers of 1976 left Naledi, their next stop was Morris Isaacson, where the principal today is Steven Khanyile.
He’s been at the helm for a short time: “It will be two years in October,” he says.
He confesses he’s aware of the big shoes he’s filling, those of the giant Lekgau Mathabathe, who was head of the school on the day that Soweto burned.
Mathabathe was an activist, a leader - both at school and the surrounding community. He supported the students totally and rejected the use of Afrikaans.
Khanyile says he’s read about Mathabathe and would not want to compare himself to this colossus.
Good idea, lest he be found wanting!
Instead, Khanyile prefers to zero-in on the matric results - 87 percent in 2013 and a drop to 71 percent last year.
“Our target is 90 percent,” he says, adding the school has 363 pupils in Grade 12.
The total student population at the school is 1 200.
Like most township schools, Khanyile says the school is afflicted by the drug problem in the broader community “but we are winning the war”.
The emphasis, he says, is on discipline through involving the parents. On the school grounds last Thursday, young charges mill about, having just left the exam rooms.
The school boys are in designer headgear, which is at odds with their uniform of grey flannels and white shirts. None of them look like Tsietsi Mashinini.
While Morris Isaacson had Mashinini, his opposite number at Naledi High was Khotso Seatlholo.
The shining light at Morris today is Thabang Thabane, 16, who is in Grade 11 and wants to be a political journalist, working as a foreign correspondent.
“I know just a bit about the history of the school. I want to know where we come from, that’s why I study history.”
His dreams can be realised given the determination of Khanyile and his staff. Morris Isaacson, after all, is proudly said to be “inspiring tomorrow’s heroes” as the board at the gate proclaims.
Unlike Orlando West High as led by educationist Dr SK Matseke, the story of Phefeni Senior Secondary is one that does not put the principal of the time in much glory. He was a reportedly a collaborator who vehemently tried to dissuade the children from marching.
But march the children did, until a primary school pupil was caught in the fray and his lifeless body in the hands of Mbuyisa Makhubu became the symbol of the struggle against Bantu education. The school hosts June 16 events religiously every year, says deputy principal Thabisile Gasa in a telephone conversation.
“Our learners are aware of the significant role the school played in the student uprisings and, from time to time, we host people from outside to come speak to them,” Gasa says.
There’s no school from tomorrow but on Tuesday a commercial radio station will be co-hosting this year’s commemoration function on the school grounds, the deputy says.
Just the other day dignitaries from Parliament came to the school to address the children.
None of the tour guides stops the buses outside the school.
Instead all make a beeline for the curio shops on Vilakazi Street where two Nobel laureates, former president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived.
However, this does not take away from the history of Phefeni Senior Secondary School.
A colleague is quick to explain that the pupils at Phefeni Secondary started it all as they boycotted classes for six months before the June 16 uprising.
One thing is certain, however, the script of the student revolt will not change as it is carved in stone with a plaque at the gate of Phefeni Secondary.
The history of this Struggle is not in dispute.
The courageous youth of June 1976 have seen to that.
Sunday Independent