Cape Town: Fears of crime and gang violence in the notorious townships surrounding Cape Town are compelling parents to send their children on long daily commutes to former white-only schools. This trend highlights the growing safety concerns in these areas, particularly in schools where crime is rampant.
According to BBC, Sibahle Mbasana, a mother of three from Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township, shared her distressing experience of her children’s school being infiltrated by armed thugs. These criminals would storm into classrooms, threatening teachers and stealing their belongings in front of students. Faced with such a dangerous environment, Mrs. Mbasana decided to transfer her sons, Lifalethu and Anele, and her daughter Buhle, to a safer school located 40km away in Simons Town.
Mrs. Mbasana expressed her desire to move her family out of Khayelitsha entirely but cited financial constraints as the reason for staying. Many township residents share this sentiment, yearning to escape the violence and insecurity.
Despite efforts by visionary principals and dedicated teachers to improve township schools, safety remains a significant challenge. Some schools are targeted by gangs demanding protection fees from teachers. The GroundUp news website reported an incident at Zanemfundo Primary School, where teachers were pressured to pay a portion of their salaries to extortionists. According to a teacher from the school, the situation is dire, with gangs brazenly entering schools and putting lives at risk.
The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has responded by stationing a private security company at the school and increasing police patrols in the area. However, similar incidents have been reported in other nearby townships, highlighting the widespread nature of the problem.
Mrs. Mbasana’s husband works in Simons Town, and she believes it is safer and more comfortable for her children to attend school there. However, the long commutes present their own challenges, with the children waking up early and returning home late, often exhausted.
The plight of township students commuting to suburban schools was brought into the spotlight when Lifalethu made national headlines after being forced to walk home from Simons Town to Khayelitsha when a bus driver refused him entry without a ticket. The incident sparked a social media frenzy, and Lifalethu was eventually found and returned home safely.
This situation underscores the broader issue of educational inequality in South Africa. According to Amnesty International, the country’s school system is one of the most unequal globally, with outcomes heavily influenced by socioeconomic factors. In the Western Cape, state schools are subsidized, but parents still face financial burdens, and the loss of teaching posts due to budget constraints has exacerbated the challenges faced by schools in impoverished areas.
The National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) has highlighted the impact of these cuts on township schools, where larger class sizes and stressed teachers are becoming the norm. Experts attribute the ongoing disparities to the fiscal challenges inherited by the African National Congress (ANC) government from the apartheid regime.
Aslam Fataar, a research professor at Stellenbosch University, lamented the neglect of township schools, emphasizing the lack of political interest and the continued burden of budget cuts on these institutions. He expressed skepticism about the possibility of increasing funding for poor schools, leaving parents like the Mbasanas desperate for a solution to provide their children with a safe and quality education.