Our Education Is Not The Key
Unless Your/You’re High School Cool
Due to how outstanding the grades I got in my final year in high school were I would say I was high school cool. Maybe not cool enough to get in the club without showing ID. But cool enough to get funding towards studying a bachelors degree at a tertiary institution of my choice, almost certain that the institution and funding was very welcoming to me or at least to my grades. Even though my grades were considered cool academically I later learnt that my high school (Phateng Secondary School) and other public schools like it were not given that much regard of cool kids to fund. Hence the title, Our Education Is Not The Key, Unless Your High School Cool or Unless You’re High School Cool. Yes, the subtitle was specifically written targeting Grammar Nazis.
What I learnt is that an outstanding student from any high school could be giving a bursary anywhere, but most high school just didn’t have enough activities to initiate their learners in the world of extra curricular activities. The extra curricular activities of a kid in most Government could either be soccer, netball, and … that’s about it. My high school didn’t even have perfects, if I wasn’t a rapper/DJ/graphic designer in my later years in high school I would have no extra curricular activities to mention in interviews or bursary/job applications.
This is relevant because when you are applying for a nice bursary or for a job you are competing for the spot against God knows how many other students from what level of school. And logically speaking the spot should go to the most qualifying student. Which means the average student from a better off school only has to walk towards bursaries/jobs the top student from public schools have to sprint towards. Imagine what the average student from a public school has to do. They would have to sacrifice a cow to their ancestors just to ask them to talk to Goku and ask him the favour of asking all the species of the universe to borrow him their strength just so Goku could turn the borrowed strength of the universe into a Spirit Bomb and pass it to the average student from a public school just so the student has a chance to get that nice job/bursary.
I remember someone who had to go through the very disadvantaged process of applying for a bursary/job in the 90s telling me some of the tricks to nullify the disadvantages of coming from an not so cool/renowned high school. Some of the tricks are as follows.
Get Your Teacher To Drop You Off At The Interview.
Due to the education and career limitations imposed on the majority of the South African population during apartheid the educated black person would commonly via for a career as a teacher or a nurse. And as a result the opinion of teachers in our communities was taking with high regard. The effect that a teacher dropping you off at an interview would have raised the impression you made as a student from a public school. And some of the teachers knew the effect they had and would maximize it further by also walking in with you to reception and only leaving after they introduced you and how great of a student you were in the same manner I would imagine Zolani Mkiva performs his praises Madiba. But of course this was usually a privilege reserved for the top students in the high schools, so the average students from an average high school would have to go a different route. The route of “I come from a good family”. Which is the segue to the next step.
In the Interview Tell Them Your Parents Are Nurses/Teachers
Keep in mind this was the 90s. The effects of apartheid were warmer the cup of tea I’m almost done drinking. When applying for a job, average students from poor families had a lot more obstacles then one can imagine. Since most townships and rurals were in locations excluding them from optimal economic participation traveling to university or work costs a lot of time and money, a cost which a poor family would probably not afford. Some of the students who did manage to travel daily either had to travel very early or very late, and muggings and fatigue was the name of the game.
Even companies that wanted to give hard working students a chance finally got around to understanding this fact, and knew that a student would involuntary become anti-punctual due to the means of transport (slow and crowded train, old and rusted bus, plus the long queues to catch the taxi). And lost time to a business means lost money. So the companies and institutions had two requirements for students their would accept 1) kids from good schools or 2) families to not risk their welfare of their business. Which meant that the average student in a public school from a better off black family ticked one of these two boxes. And to tick the second box they only had to do the following.
If your family can afford to get you in a good high school for one year, let that year be your final year of high school.
I’m told this was done a lot, so much so that some of the good schools started having a requirement that they only accept new learners in grade 8 to maintain enough facilities for their learners. I was very skeptical when I heard this requirement but hey, TIA!
I don’t think that the average student will ever flourish as long as we don’t pay as much attention to the shortcomings of the high schools as when we celebrate our few successes. Matter fact, I believe that it will get to a point where the top students in average high school feel alienated from the very communities they grew up in. They will later get a job and move closer to where ever it is they work for whatever reason they deem fit (shorter travel times, lesser crime rate, more reliable network coverage, more reliable electricity/water supply). Leaving the less economically emancipated individuals to fight for basic living conditions and low paying jobs. An immediate increase in protest.
In conclusion I don’t think our education will unlock good fortunes for our communities, but rather our education will lock out the fortunate from our (soon to be (even more)) unfortunate communities.
I could be wrong. Feel free to add your thoughts to the conversation.
