One of my previous post discussed education at length, specifically for the primary schools. This one will focus on secondary education. Oraanjekloof, the primary school where township kids go, will send the students that pass and choose to continue their education to Hout Bay High. Today we met with Mr. Julius who told us the many flaws in their system. At one time, Hout charged a R400 fee per student for the whole year (R7 = $1, about $57). Being townships students, only about 7-10% of the kids were able to pay that money. Hout Bay has about 600 students every year. 60 kids paying $57 is $3420 to run a school on for the whole year. Now, teachers are paid by the Department of Education, so the $3420 does not go to salaries but it is still not enough to run a school on. Mr. Julius uses the $3420 to try and get the other 90% of kids to pay fees. Use the only money you get to try to get the money you are owed = not a good school. DOE realized that and made Hout Bay a no fee school. So now the DOE gives Hout Bay R738 per student. The total budget for the school is about R80 000 (about $11,430). Less than $11 500 to run a school on for the whole year. Oh, and the South African government spends more money on education than any other country on the whole continent. It’s not a great comparison but there are schools in other countries, such as Zimbabwe, where the education is decent. That money is then used for but not limited to: pay electricity, water, sewage, toilet paper, paper towels, lunches, stationary, pens, textbooks. Starting to get the idea?
There are no sport programs for these kids, who happen to be great athletes at soccer and dancing. To haul the amount of kids that play to a game ends up costing about R2000. That’s just for one game. Needless to say one thing they could use is a minibus, or a regular bus for that matter. Something that can seat about 20 kids. That would cut spending in half according to Mr. Julius. Right now teachers haul the kids in their own cars, with their own fuel on their own time. A secondhand minibus costs about R200 000, more than the entire budget of the school for over two years.
Hout Bay is an all-black school. Last year there was only one white student but they left rather quickly as you can imagine. Now compare Camps Bay High to Hout Bay. Camps Bay is situated in an affluent white area and the only black kids who get to go there are the ones who happen to be sponsored by a wealthy donor. Either that or they have rich parents. Either way no poor kids go to Camps Bay unless it is on someone else’s dime. Cost of going to Camps Bay = R2000 per student. Per month. It totals about R18 000 not counting school uniforms, textbooks and other like materials. Oh and Camps Bay gets money from the DOE as well. Camps Bay also has about 600 students in their secondary school. And the teachers are paid from the DOE. Talk about a lot of cash. Where would you rather teach? Tells you who gets the best quality teachers. Also in South Africa, students are tested on the same curriculum nationwide. At the end of the year students from Hout Bay High and Camps Bay High will all be tested the exact same material. I’ll give you three guesses as to which school gets the higher score.
What do you do?
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