The fears of crime and gang violence in the notorious township on the outskirts of the South African city of Cape Town are forcing some parents to take difficult decisions to send their children to white-keval schools for a long time.

Sibahle Mabasana told the BBC about the school, “The thugs went to the school to carry guns threatening, forcibly take their laptops to the learners,” Sibahle Mabasana told the BBC about the school that her son used to participate in Cape Town’s biggest township Kharalitsha.

“Imagine to experience your child regularly. There is hardly any protection in school and even if there, they are powerless to do anything.”

It exceeds three decades since the end of the white-paralyzed rule in South Africa, but still black students who have to bear huge inequalities that were the basis of the racist system of apartheid.

Mrs. Mabasana feels that three of her children are the successors of this legacy – especially her oldest son Lifalethu, who was in a township school between the ages of six and 10 years.

One of the main laws of the apartheid era was the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which aims to prevent black children from reaching their full potential. It created separate schools with low money and low resources for those in poor areas, which are congested to date and often suffer from high crime, drug use and consequences of violence.

Mrs. Mabasana, who grew up in the eastern Cape Province and when she was 18 years old, went to Kharalitsha, she decided that she has no option but to transfer Lifalethu, which is now 12 years old, and her other son Aneley, 11, A few km (25 miles) in a state school in a state school, which is located on a few 40 km (25 miles), which is the best for South Africa.

Boys are included in their seven -year -old sister Buhle in school, with better facilities and small class sizes.

“I told myself [that] Buhle was not going on it [local] School because I had already finished a lot of things with two boys when they were in that school, “ Said 34 -year -old clothes designer.

She and her husband would like to take their family away from Kharalitsha.

“We don’t want to live in the township, but we have to stay here because we can’t take the risk of going out,” he said.

“Talk to anyone in the township and they will tell you that they will go out on the first occasion if they can.”

There is no doubt that there are township schools under the leadership of visionary principals and hard -working teachers, who have performed miracles despite poor infrastructure and large class sizes.

However, security and security have proved inaccessible for some time for some, for example, gangs demand safety fees from teachers.

The Groundup News website has reported that teachers of Zenmfundo Primary School in the Philippi East near Kharalitsha were allegedly asked to pay 10% of their salary to those who used to work with impurities.

“This is not safe at all. We are in extreme danger,” a teacher told the groundup.

“These gangs come to school to fill guns. Our lives are at risk. Teachers in school are asking for transfer as they do not feel safe.”

According to the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), a private security company is now to be deployed in the school and the police is patrolling nearby.

But similar incidents have allegedly taken place in five other schools in areas around Nyanga, Philippi and Samora Machel.

Mrs. Mabasana said, “My husband works in the Navy in the city of Cypho Simon and he travels there, so I felt that it would be safe and more comfortable for my children to go to that school.”

But for a long time, often by bus or minibus taxi, safe schools come with their own threats and stresses.

Mrs. Mabasana said, “My children get up at around 4.30 am and leave at 5.50 am when the sipho is carrying them. When they go by bus, because the Sipho can work elsewhere, they leave from 5.30 and reach home by 4.30 pm,” Sikh said.

“They always get tired and want to sleep. They are strong because they do their homework, but they sleep long ago than other children.”

Lifalethu made national headlines last year, when he was forced to go home from the city of Simon to Kharalitsha, he had a heroic discovery as he regularly refused to enter him as he could not get his ticket.

The driver involved was later suspended to violate the company’s policy, which requires employees to assist school children in uniforms who have lost their tickets.

With the fall of darkness, it was from Mrs. Mabasana The worst dream when Anneley asked to say that his elder brother was not allowed to ride.

But after a large -scale social media frenzy and by many strokes of good luck, he was found – at a level the boy was given a lift by a good equity, which left him about 5 km from his house at a petrol station.

From there he was on foot with a security guard, who lived in his area before being picked up and was taken home to his relief family by police officers who joined the search for him.

His case highlighted the plight of thousands of students from the township, some of whom offered a goal up to 80 km per day with a minibus taxi to go to school in the suburban areas of the city either public transport or pre -maintained trips – which used to accept only white students in the era of apartheid.

The rich residents of these suburbs often opt for a private education for their children, which means that the state schools there have spaces for further people.

Donovan Williams, Vice -Principal of State Primary School at the Trendy Observatory District of Cape Town, says that about 85% of his school’s intake comes from the township from about 830 students – many of whom have been tired for their long days.

“Some parents work in the field, while mostly spend a lot of money on transportation to reach schools with better infrastructure for their children,” he told the BBC.

“Sometimes they sleep in the classroom.”

According to Amnesty International, one of the most uneven school systems in the world in South Africa is much dependent on their birthplace, wealth and their skin color with the result of a child.

The 2020 report states, “In the top 200 schools, children find more difference in mathematics than children in the next 6,600 schools. The playground must be leveled.”

State schools are subsidized, but parents still have to pay school fees, which can be $ 60 (£ 45) and $ 4,500 (£ 3,350) per year in western cape.

Out of about 1,700 schools across the province, there are more than 100 no-fees institutions, nominated by the government for learners living in economically depressed areas.

The education department of the province states that it often has to cover the lack of funds from the government – and in the more middle class areas, the school turns to the parents to cover the cost.

WCED said that recently 2,407 teaching posts were lost in the province as the government had allocated only 64% of the cost of the wage agreement that was negotiated with the teachers.

Reduction in posts means that some contract teachers were not re -signed when their contracts ended in December, while some permanent teachers have been asked to transfer schools.

“We are in an impossible situation, and it is not our creation, and the western cape is not the only province affected,” WCED said.

The National Professional Teachers Organization of South Africa (Naptosa) says that the decision has been particularly disastrous for schools in poor and crime-affected areas.

“Schools that are feeling the real impact of this are your specific township school. They cannot take the risk of changing teachers with governing-body appointments, which is a case with better renovated schools where parents can pay additional fees,” Neptosa Executive Director, Neptosa, told the BBC.

“They feel cut, they will have large square sizes, they will have teachers who are more stressed.

“Children, especially those who are not academically interested, will slip through the crack.”

In 1994, experts inherited Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) government’s continuous educational inequalities from the desired rule.

“ANC faced the fact that it could not distribute in the way that it would say,” Research Professor at Aslam Poter, Steelbosh University, Told BBC.

Facing with fiscal austerities “poor schools were never given the opportunity to develop a permanent platform for teaching and learning”, he said.

“Whatever happens in township schools, political interest has been lost 20 years ago. When it comes to teacher expenditure and pupil-teacher ratio, you can see how that area has been ignored. There is a brunt of cuts in the number of teachers in those schools.”

Professor Fatters are equally foggy about the future: “I can’t see, stop a miracle, how can we increase finance for poor schools.”

Parents, such as Mbasanas, got stuck in the township and often ran out of patience, on the mercy of gangs.