Fearing gang violence and armed robberies in Cape Town’s sprawling townships, a growing number of Black parents are putting their children on pre-dawn buses to former whites-only schools miles away, hoping better security and smaller classes will outweigh the long, costly commute.
Sibahle Mbasana says thugs regularly stormed her sons’ primary school in Khayelitsha, brandishing guns and stealing teachers’ laptops. “There’s hardly any security,” she told the AP. “Imagine your child seeing that every day.” Last year she and her husband enrolled 12-year-old Lifalethu, 11-year-old Anele and 7-year-old Buhle at a state school 40 kilometers (25 miles) away in the navy town of Simon’s Town.
The decision means 4:30 a.m. wake-ups and round-trip journeys of up to 80 kilometers that leave the children exhausted. Lifalethu briefly made national headlines in 2023 when a bus driver refused him entry for losing his ticket, forcing the boy to start walking the long road home before police found him.
Apartheid ended three decades ago, yet education remains starkly unequal. Amnesty International calls South Africa’s system one of the world’s most lopsided; pupils at the top 200 schools earn more math distinctions than those at the next 6,600 combined. Township campuses struggle with overcrowded classes, crumbling buildings and rampant crime. At one primary school near Khayelitsha, extortion gangs allegedly demanded 10% of teachers’ salaries for “protection,” local media reported.
The Western Cape Education Department says it has stationed private guards at high-risk campuses and uses police patrols, but budget pressures recently cost the province more than 2,400 teaching posts, squeezing already overstretched township schools.
“We’re in an impossible position,” the department said in a statement, noting that wealthier suburban schools can offset funding gaps with parent fees. Annual costs range from $60 to $4,500, leaving many township families to scrape together transport money instead.
Vice-principal Donovan Williams of a public school in Cape Town’s Observatory district says roughly 85% of his 830 students come from townships. “Many fall asleep in class,” he said.
Education researcher Aslam Fataar of Stellenbosch University doubts funding will improve soon. “Poor schools were never given a sustainable platform,” he said. “I don’t see, bar a miracle, how we can increase finances.”
For parents like the Mbasanas, the daily trek is a price they feel they must pay. “We don’t want to live in the township,” said Sibahle, a clothing designer who still cannot afford to move. “But until things change, getting our kids out each morning is the only option we have.”
