By Frederick Philander MARIENTAL Total rejection and open political hostility by the Hardap Regional Council against him as a person could not deter him from doing his job to the best of his ability. These are some of the many problems faced by retiring Hardap Regional Education Director, Hermanus Izaks. He is retiring at the end of this month after an illustrious teaching career spanning 37 years of uninterrupted service. “The whole Regional Council at the time of my appointment by the Ministry of Education rejected me outright without any acceptable explanation by any of the honourable members – something that baffles me to this day. They persisted in their hard-line attitude and antagonism despite a visit to the region by a high-ranking government official to allay their fears at the time,” recalled Izaks during an interview in his office at the town. The 58-year-old former teacher and popular principal of the Rehoboth High School opted for early retirement from his present government post because of expanded farming interests. “The Regional Council then just point blankly refused to accept me as the director of education, something I suspected originated from the fact that I was appointed for both the Karas and Hardap Regions. I was specifically appointed to combine the two educational regions into one as part of the government’s plans to establish a national educational system in 1991,” Izaks, who was born and bred in the village of Schlip, said. He persisted and continued with his government mission until gradually and eventually the Regional Council members accepted him as the de facto director of education in their region. “The political antagonism was just the beginning of many other problems I faced in both regions, such as the racism and hot-headedness of specifically white principals at the former privileged white schools. They were very pessimistic and hesitant to pull their weight because of fear of the unknown and the political uncertainty at the time from their own perspectives,” Izaks recalled with a wry smile. According to Izaks – owner of two livestock farms in the South – it took him basically a whole year to allay the unfounded fears of the white teachers in both regions. “It was only in 1992 that things started to show up and improve on a professional level. White teachers started to realize that if they were not going to play along as professionals, they might have lost their jobs. I think we pulled through on both the political and educational sides, thanks to the timely appointment of two Nama and three white deputy directors of education in the same year by the Ministry of Education,” he said. Today, there are still a number of schools with predominantly white staff members, a great concern for Izaks. “The problem is that black teachers initially were also very hesitant to apply for posts at the former privileged schools. This played right into the hands of those white teachers who still wanted to continue their old ways of white exclusivity. The situation demanded a lot of convincing to get our people to apply for advertised posts at these stern, white-dominated schools in the Southern Regions. I take my hat off to all teachers of colour delivering the same high-quality educational services in all previously advantaged schools in these two regions,” Izaks said. Today there are 58 schools, 18ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 560 learners and 558 teachers in the Hardap Region alone. “Due to a lack of staff in the Hardap regional education office, we are still struggling to provide quality education services, but we are getting there. In the beginning, I used a kitchen table and chair to operate from my sub-office in Rehoboth, and on many occasions I stood in as driver and clerk due to insufficient staff,” he said. According to Izaks, discipline in all schools in the Hardap Region leaves much to be desired. “Discipline remains a big problem in most of our schools due to the fact that parents’ involvement in education ceases after they have formally registered their children at the beginning of the year. Thereafter, they disappear until their children have problems at school. This is not my philosophy of parent involvement in education – total apathy. No wonder we have so many teenage pregnancies and so much alcohol abuse in our schools,” Izaks stated. He expressed reservations about the validity of in-service training for under- and un-qualified teachers. “Many such teachers are regularly called up and commanded to attend multiple training workshops without us ever knowing the impact of such workshops on those teachers who attend. My impression is that too many of these workshops are in fact a nice time to get away from school, sort of paid leave without implementing acquired knowledge at these workshops in the classroom situation. Unfortunately, the education authorities are entirely dependent on the integrity of teachers who attend such workshops,” said the father of two sons – both teachers. Hermanus Izaks, who leaves office at the end of March, together with his wife, Leah, also a teacher by profession from Oudtshoorn in South Africa, intend focusing on their livestock-farming interests.