June 17, 2025
Sibahle Mbasana described said her children and school administrators feel “powerless.”
Violence and growing gang activity are prompting Black parents in the city of Cape Town, South Africa, to make the difficult decision of sending their children to “white-only” schools out of fear, BBC reports.
While it’s been 30 years since apartheid ended in South Africa, white-only establishments still exist. As the violence increases, there are limited options for parents to count on a safe learning environment for their children, prompting long trips to outside areas.
Sibahle Mbasana has three kids who attend a school in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township.
“Thugs would go into the school carrying guns, threatening teachers, forcefully taking their laptops in front of the learners,” Mbasana said. “Imagine your child experiencing this regularly. There’s hardly any security at the school and even if there is, they are powerless to do anything.”
The issues forced her to transfer her 11- and 12-year-old sons to a state school nearly 25 miles away in Cape Peninsula, known for its picture-perfect views and South Africa’s navy base. Mbasana’s daughter, 7, also attends the same school, which has better facilities and smaller class sizes.
She feels for her children, who sees as victims of inheriting a legacy of Black students facing racial bias and inequalities embedded due to the laws of apartheid. One law was the Bantu Education Act of 1953, targeting the prevention of Black children being able to be educated the way they should. The law resulted in schools being segregated—the way American schools were during the Jim Crow era—with fewer resources and diminished funding for underprivileged communities.
South Africa still suffers from the legislation, causing a domino effect of schools being overcrowded and plagued with high rates of crime, drug use, and violence.
While families like the Mbasanas admit they would like to move to the areas where their children are forced to go to school for a better life, they admit to it not being financially feasible.
However, some of these “white-only” schools, often state schools, come with a cost. Although they are subsidized, parents have to pay school fees, which range between $60 (£45) and $4,500 (£3,350) a year in the Western Cape area.
Teachers are also victims of the growing violence in Cape Town. Teachers at Zanemfundo Primary School in Philippi East were allegedly extorted out of 10% of their salaries from gang members.
“It is not safe at all. We are in extreme danger,” one teacher mentioned on the website GroundUp. “These gangs come to the school gun-wielding. Our lives are at risk. Teachers at the school are asking for transfers because they don’t feel safe.”
A number of similar incidents took place at five other schools in the surrounding areas of Nyanga, Philippi, and Samora Machel. However, administrators with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) are working to make things better— and safer—by providing private security decals at schools in addition to police patrolling the targeted areas.
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