Mark Hunter, Research Associate in Population and Development Studies at the University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN), demonstrated how the mobility of children between city schools counteracts government attempts to address education inequalities and creates a situation in which schools are increasingly divided according to class.
Using the example of Durban, a city still largely segregated along the lines created by Apartheid legislation, Prof Hunter demonstrated how parents from poorer areas are trying to send their children to schools in wealthier parts of the city. Those from Umlazi, he showed, largely wish to send their children to school in The Bluff, while children from The Bluff are sent to schools in the Berea.
This mobility is driven by families who are wealthy enough to afford higher school fees, but cannot afford to move suburbs. According to Prof Hunter, the assumption that children will be educated in their own communities is no longer accurate.
One of the primary reasons for children being sent to schools in the formerly white suburbs is the importance attached to being educated in English. The understanding is that speaking English with a particular, middle-class accent will allow children to access more job opportunities after matriculation. He said, there is a clear societal distinction between those who speak English and those who do not.
Prof Hunter argued that conceptions of prestige attached to the former model-C schools are also a factor in children being educated outside of their communities. “Getting into schools affects social relations quite dramatically,” he said.
He further said that attending a rural school or school on the periphery of the city can have the effect of marginalising a child in an education system where schools are continued sites of racial privilege and prejudice.
Prof Hunter said that this mobility between city schools is counteracting government attempts to address inequalities in the education system as children take their fees with them. “The designation of schools as no-fee might have lightened the burden on guardians, but has had limited success in reducing education inequalities,” he said.
According to Prof Hunter, the right to the city is combined with the right to education and continued inequalities in schooling are a reflection of continued segregation in broader South African society. “A less divided city and a less divided education system are two sides of the same coin,” he said.
Ms Nomalanga Mkhize, the discussant for the Lineages of Freedom series, highlighted the importance of research such as Hunter’s in providing context for those attempting to address education problems in South Africa.
She stressed that class divisions in education entrench class divisions in society and said that education in the black areas has become almost entirely devalued as those with some money attempt to “buy in” to formerly white, semi-private schools.
She also reiterated that education is no longer community-based. “Amongst the broad mass of South Africans, education has become a private issue,” she said.
His lecture entitled “Circuits of schooling and the production of space: the family, education and symbolic struggles after apartheid” which formed part of the “Lineages of Freedom” critical conversations series, hosted by the Rhodes University Faculty of Humanities in conjunction with the South African Humanities Deans’ Association (SAHUDA).
The series aimed to unpack multiple histories of liberation and repression in order to critically reflect on both the past and present.
By Kyla Hazell
Picture source: UKZN website