EDITORIAL | To end segregation, how about sending your kid to a township school?
There are many good schools in townships and rural areas, and mixing it up would go a long way to advance integration
Last year white pupils occupied 62% of the spaces in elite public schools and 55% in private schools, while their black African counterparts occupied 20% and 27% respectively. These percentages were based on pupil enrolments at SA’s top 30 public schools and top 30 private schools, according to their 2021 fee levels. On the other hand, enrolments at all schools across SA, based on the department of basic education’s 2021 annual school survey data, indicated that the average white pupil attended a school that was 68.5% white, 3.3% Indian, 8.5% coloured and 19.6% black. Conversely, the average black pupil attended a school that was 0.9% white, 0.7% Indian, 2.0% coloured and 96.4% black. Former white schools are, on average, the most racially diverse, but they also contribute most to segregation because white and Indian children remain strongly over-represented in these institutions, relative to their numbers in the population...
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