The Scourge of Unequal Education

I listened to an interview this morning. I sat in the car for a few minutes and again, that horrible feeling you get when you ask all the WWWH questions and get no answers swept over me.

The lady on the radio was the acting principle of Beaconvale High and she was telling how she had to council students after two of their classmates were shot in apparent gang related shootings. The one, a young man who had dreams of becoming an architect, was shot and killed the day before he was to get his results. He had passed his matric and was going to chase his dream.

WHY did this happen

WHO did it

HOW could we allow this.

WHEN will it stop.

I wrote a little piece last year using the beaches around our city as an illustration of the inequality around our city.

Two days ago a mother who we give a lift to told us how her son did not want to go to school due to the trauma he’s experiencing as result of having to fight for a seat in an overcrowded class room at the school he attends in Hanover Park. Once again all I saw was that horrible picture of how unequal our society is.

The young ladies I took matric pictures off last year all passed. Two of them achieved Bachelors exemptions. The other managed a C diploma pass. She was kind of special in that she fell pregnant and gave birth in July. So her C pass was indeed an against the odds achievement.

The first one was a student at a well-known school in the somewhat middle/upmarket suburb of Pinelands. And taking nothing way from her achievement, I know she worked hard for it and without doubt deserved it to the fullest.

The second young lady attended a school in a poorish area out in Kraaifortein. Her daily commute to school was probably her biggest challenge, having to travel from the back end of Kuils River to school every day. Here to, she worked hard and is thoroughly deserved of her success.

The third young lady, well here is a slightly different story. Much of the challenges she had was self-inflicted. No one held a gun to her head and said get pregnant. However, in spite of that, she rose above all that, stayed with the program and passed.

My point is this.

Three very different schools in three very different areas. Three very different candidates with different backgrounds and circumstances. One education system.

The reality is an overcrowded classroom will never happen in Pinelands or at any other high fees former model C school. The mother in question tried at another school that in the old days was in a predominantly white area not far from where she lives and was told “sorry we’re full”. No quarter given. Admittedly she left it late to no fault of her own. Prevailing circumstances. So the only choice left to her son is for him now to continue fighting for his place every day.

Overcrowded classrooms have been around for ever. Even back in the day when apartheid was alive and kicking, thirty plus kids in a class was a norm. Reality is back than kids did not have to deal with gang violence on the playing field, a shortage of books, kids that threaten teachers with their lives and the like. And before we start flinging politically coloured mud against the walls, these schools are not only situated on the green and yellow side of the fence, but right here where the blue flags fly as well.

So while Angie sings the praises like she does every year and pats herself on the back for been at the head of a well-run education department, the dark shaded face of inequality peeks over the wall and silently says “I’m still here” in the shape of the kids dying in gang infested neighborhoods and fighting for place in overcrowded classrooms with limited seating and text books.

Why must a family, a family who had a son who had dreams and ambitions, a family who had battled against the odds to put a young man through school, now have to weep as they bury him. While on the other end of the spectrum families sing and dance as their children achieve amazing heights of success. And NO. I do NOT begrudge them their success.   They deserve it. They worked for it. The inequality is not their fault.

That lays at the door of Angie and all those, regardless of the color flag they fly, that made promises of a better life for all.