Schools Without Desks and Clinics Without Nurses

Louis Freedberg, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine of April 18, 2004, critically examines the overall situation in South Africa, ‘Ten Years After Apartheid.’ IDEA is interested in extracting the parts on education and presents them for our readers:

The writer contrasts the South African College School (SACS) in Table Mountain (predominantly White) with that of Hlengiso Primary School in Nyanga (predominantly Black). While the students at SACS “spend time in the state-of-the-art computer center and “play water polo in the Olympic size swimming pool,” not to mention the rugby and cricket fields, Hlengiso “has no playing fields, no library, no science laboratory or overhead projector. The student body is entirely black, as are all the teachers."

Hlengiso is the epitome of deteriorating schooling in Africa as a whole, and as the author aptly puts it, “the danger signals are all around – in the crowded townships and the jobless rural areas, in schools without desks and clinics without nurses.” 

There is, however, a positive dimension to the story of decaying educational system. As per Freedberg, South Africa, “for all its problems, is functioning better than any in the continent.” On top of this, “during the past decade, nearly 5 million additional people – primarily children, elderly and the disabled – have begun to receive government grants. Thirty percent more households have electricity. An additional 9 million people, or 3.7 million households, have access to water. The government has built 1 million RDP houses – named after Mandela’s Reconstruction and Development Program – mostly for people who earn less than $250 per month.”