With at least 40 years of experience in the teaching profession and years of being a leader, mentor and a passionate student of life, the Principal at the Western Cape’s Paarl Boys’ High School, Derek Swaart comes out as a winner of the coveted 2024 Kader Asmal Lifetime Achievement Award.
Launched in 2011 by the former Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshega, the award honours educators who embody the spirit of the late Minister of Education who is behind the inception of the National Teachers Awards (NTAs) in the year 2000, Professor Kader Asmal.
Also honouring Professor Asmal’s contribution to the educational development of the country, educators who participate in this category of the NTAs are recognised for their educational activism that enables them to lead by example, their quest to advance social justice, their unwavering bravery when faced with “unpopular” issues, their intellectual tenacity and rigour, as well as their creativity in the pursuit to deliver the best education they can.
While Swart has been in the education fraternity before South Africa’s democratic inception, the formidable leader says that the biggest change he witnessed was the eradication of corporal punishment, which he says has been an opportunity for educators to find other means of instilling discipline in their schools.
Hailed for his dedication towards maintaining academic excellence by creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment for the entire school body, he is regarded as a trusted figure of authority in and outside the school.
“Our school sticks to the tradition of gentleman-ship where we teach our boys to stand up and greet people for instance. We talk about the five principles of gentleman-ship and through these principles, we see our boys taking pride in their school and their behaviour,” says Swart.
“Them [the boys] hearing people compliment them for being disciplined encourages them to maintain good behaviour and things like corporal punishment become irrelevant in our school. Sometimes parents may be too lenient on disciplining their children but as a headmaster who manages 3 000 people, it is my duty to remind them about the school’s code of conduct and enforce the discipline.”
Swart’s exceptional contribution to South Africa’s educational development is well noted through his creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that he encourages the Paarl Boys’ hone through the young entrepreneur’s prize giving ceremony that is hosted annually.
Through the “Bring your own device” academic strategy, he has incorporated digital learning into the learning process to stay abreast with the changes that have been happening globally where digitisation has become a new way of teaching and learning.
A mentor at heart, he shares his management skills with other schools to help them consolidate their management and consolidation processes. He also contributes education-related content through his show community radio station, Radio KC.
After 17 years of leadership at the school, he has adapted to the various socio-economic challenges that learners have experienced, with the devastating aftermath of the Covid-19 global pandemic being the latest issue to have impacted the lives of many.
“What happened in COVID-19 with us is that we, in our teaching, soon found that there were boys who didn’t have money for data. So, we approached the corporate sector and one of our parents who works for Vodacom helped put in a Wi-Fi mast just outside the school.”
I asked if they don’t have money for data, will they get money for food? It turns out a lot of boys didn’t, so we started the “Backup Boys IR” program and with the help of parents, they gave us supplies from the farms. Now we’re feeding in the region of 30 boys every day with a sandwich and fruit or something like that. If it wasn’t for that, they wouldn’t have had food in any of it,” he explains.
On top of his teaching qualifications, Swart also holds a Masters Degree in African Languages and an Occupational Psychology Degree. His passion for learning extends to his love for music and has a qualification in modern day guitar from the Trinity School for Music.
Inspired by the leadership style of the Springboks rugby coach, Rassie Erasmus, Swart follows in his footsteps by acknowledging and embracing the different backgrounds, religions and communities that the Paarl Boys come from, has further added to the school’s aim to eradicate any form of discrimination. These are principles that he also instils in the school’s rugby team that he still coaches.
His advocacy for inclusivity is also behind the enabling environment where every boy in the school has got access to equal opportunities that are backed up with full support from the entire leadership at the school.
This approach is hailed as one of the reasons for the school’s outstanding matric results in 2023 with a 99.4 percent pass rate. The school had 83.73 percent of bachelor passes, 284 distinctions with 25 A-averages and 39 B-averages.