Township Education

     On Saturday night we were able to go to dinner at a jazz club (so amazing!) and while we were eating, we got to talking with our driver about education in the townships where he lives. It was one of the topics that was important in Mother to Mother, which we read in class, and it also came up in nearly every novel I read for my independent reading class. Plus, I personally believe that education is one of the best weapons we have to fight oppression so I am very interested in the topic. According to our driver, township schools are full of fights, drugs, and other violence. Many of the parents try to send their children to school in Capetown. However, to do so they have to pay for the transportation themselves which is about 1000 rand (I am not sure if this is for a semester or year). If the parents can’t afford this expense, which most can’t, then their children either don’t go to school or they spend their lives in a dangerous and inadequate township school. So, basically, $100 is all that stands between many of the township children and a good education. I don’t even know how to comprehend something so asinine. Still, even if all of the families could somehow come up with the transportation fees, the Capetown schools would not be able to accommodate the thousands of children living in the townships. What is the long-term solution? We’re still struggling in the U.S. to offer equitable educational opportunities to African Americans years and years after the Jim Crow laws were abolished. South Africa is an even newer democracy that had just as much, if not more segregation and oppression of their black population so what immediate hope is there for these children growing up right now? Something needs to be done right now, but all I can think is that it is going to be a very long struggle and I wonder how many young people will have dismal futures in the meantime?