News

Steven Noble
The Eyeopener

Talk of racially exclusive schools and segregation is setting tongues on fire in Toronto.

Sankofa Juba graduated from Ryerson in 1997 and left the school with a history of involvement and activism within the black community. Juba sees a need for what he calls "Afrikan-Centered schools" and says, "We will fund our own schools and develop Afrikan-Centered curriculum."

Juba doesn't believe segregated school systems are anything new in Ontario. "We have Jewish schools with their curriculum for decades in Ontario and we also have private schools whose tuition is so high only the rich elite of society can attend. Are these schools not segregated? Yes, they are."

Professor George Dei, who specializes in sociology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto thinks the media is getting carried away with the idea of segregation. Dei says it's more about "black focused schools that are defined more by principles" than by racially exclusive student faculties.

The idea of all black schools was given the spotlight last Wednesday at a forum on black achievement in the Toronto school system. A student success study done in 2001-02 found that 54 per cent of Toronto students that were born in the English speaking Caribbean had 14 credits or less by the end of grade ten. By the end of grade ten students should have 16 credits.

Dei said that it couldn't hurt to try it on an experimental basis. "Parents have been talking about this for too long. We have to do some radical things to get change. We can't keep doing the same things we've been doing for the last 30 or 40 years."

Juba said "the White European educational system was not set up to educate our youth for success." He called it a "Mis-education system".

Rubina Shaikh, a third year ITM student said, "That's copping out on kids doing well in school." Shaikh disagrees with the concept of racially exclusive schools. She how would you determine who is black enough to get in? "What about kids that are mixed? They're going to have an identity crisis."

Mohamed Leali, a third year biology student from York who frequents the Ryerson campus, visiting friends, agrees with Shaikh's comments. "How would that help? The problem is mentality. There are a lot of black people who do well."

Milica Boskavic who is a second year economics student at the University of Toronto was on the Ryerson campus visiting friends doesn't see the problem as one that should be divided along racial lines. "The public school system is failing everyone."