Sharing Information Resources: a Study of School Clusters from Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

The purpose of this survey-based study, undertaken at the Inkandla and Mbazwana school clusters in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, was to investigate the awareness of community members with regard to the concept of clustering. The term community is used in the sense of a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality (Webster's online dictionary 2008). They share government, and have a common cultural and historical heritage. Although the intention of the initiative was to increase access to essential information resources, the preparedness of the communities to share these resources, to tolerate the hardships of travelling long distances, to accept the challenges and responsibilities and learn from the lessons, were also part of the study. Access to amenities like laboratories and libraries are often viewed by policymakers, among others, as unnecessary luxuries especially by those who were deprived of these facilities in the course of their education, but who managed nevertheless to achieve success. A resource-based curriculum, such as South Africa's Curriculum 2005, requires an abundance of resources, but a lack of funding prevents many schools from having all the necessary resources to support the curriculum. Creative ways of providing resources and expertise have been conceived by education departments and the clustering of schools to encourage sharing is one such method used by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education. The evolution of this clustering project took different forms. Subsequent events showed that the form taken either allowed for further growth and development, or subjected the project to failure and decay. Issues of acceptance by the communities, particularly their awareness of the vision and their preparedness to share resources, interacted with problems of accessibility and community dynamics to determine either the success or failure of the project. Knowledge gained from the study could be important for other initiatives in similar contexts, but must be applied with caution.