Crawford International North Coast celebrates 25 years of excellence
uThongathi was the first school set up from the outset to serve as a multi-racial school, setting it apart in a time of extreme social upheaval.
Crawford International North Coast (CINC) celebrated its 25th anniversary last week with a festival at the school’s grounds.
As part of the celebrations, parents, teachers and pupils participated in a 5km fun colour run/walk on Saturday.
The private school was the first of its kind on the North Coast, making world-class education available to residents and even attracting boarders from as far afield as Botswana and other African countries.
But the school’s legacy reaches even further back, to 36 years ago when its predecessor, uThongathi – meaning place of significance – was opened in 1986.
uThongathi was the first school set up from the outset to serve as a multi-racial school, setting it apart in a time of extreme social upheaval.
Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica was still banned when the first assembly was held, but this did not deter staff and pupils from singing the anthem in defiance of the apartheid system.
Built on this legacy, CINC continues to uphold uThongathi’s central beliefs: individualism, social responsibility, self-acceptance and being non-racial in every way.
When the school was bought by Crawford Schools in 1997, private schooling run as a business was still a foreign concept in South Africa.
Geography teacher Lesley Nielson, who joined the school that year, fondly remembers the founder Graham Crawford coming to them with the ambitious dream of a very different style of education away from the conformity of the British school system that dominated the country at the time.
“He wanted a school focused on the individual, a student-centred approach that would challenge conventional thinking and practices in education.”
Since the beginning, the school has been known for its different approach, giving pupils more freedom than traditional schools and teaching in a relaxed environment.
“This has allowed friendly, open relationships between pupils and teachers that fostered mutual respect.
“The result has been a school that produces pupils, who according to Nielson, “punch well above their weight”.
The school quickly grew to include a college, preparatory, pre-primary and boarding facilities.
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