Thoughts on Education.

I am getting settled in with this family. I am happy to have the four kids, who I feel are opening up to me more everyday. Classes are good and I really liked learning about the state of education. John lectured us that the government has spent a lot of money on reforming education yet the results have been dismal. In actuality, less children are graduating under the ANC government then during apartheid. Of course anything during apartheid, like economic growth and Bantu education, cannot be compared with a free SA.

One positive thing is the government was able to consolidate 17 different school districts into one. Other than that success has been pretty limited. Reading about education opened me to a great conversation with my home stay mother, who used to be a teacher. I felt like I was getting an inside story of schooling conditions, and I was happy to see her interested in our conversation. What I learned from her is that kids are still paying school fees. The nice schools use the fees to improve their schools and the parents have the option to set the price high so that only certain kids can enroll. My mother pays R800 per child, which is really cheap in relation to the other schools, and also has to cover books, uniform, bus, lunch ect. She also told me that if kids don’t pay they get humiliated and punished in class which turns away some poor kids and orphans who cannot pay the fee. I learned in class that the government does have a program set up to help with school fees but it is a process, can be humiliating, and is rarely done.

The rich kids go to the nice schools where they can afford stages and art teachers ect, while black and white children are still segregated. Sounds so unfamiliar.