Johannesburg – “The winter season is approaching and the state of school infrastructure in South Africa is alarmingly poor,” writes Latita Development Trust founder and CEO, Asanda Madikane Poor families face the same dilemma every winter, to provide heat and food.
If you add to that the need for winter school uniforms to keep the kids warm while they are away from home studying, this becomes a three-way deadlock.
Just like those parents or guardians, we are also faced with a choice: to either glorify the magnitude of the problem at the start of each academic year, or to propose practical solutions.
The Competition Commission intervenes to regulate fair competitive behaviour and enforces guidelines such as the accessibility of school uniforms through competitive and trans-bidding measures.
However, the anti-competitiveness in the textile and manufacturing industry persists and parents who are especially from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds continue to struggle.
According to recent statistics from Statistics SA, the unemployment rate increased by 1.7 percentage points to 32.5% this year, and the rate is particularly higher among black Africans (36.5%) compared to other population groups.
Moreover, StatsSA also reported that more than six out of 10 children are multi-dimensionally poor. These statistics highlight the grim reality that many South Africans are facing, and how they are affected by the alarming rate of unemployment.
Although parents have an option of taking their children to state schools, they cannot afford the ever-increasing cost of uniforms each year because their incomes afford them a basic living standard.
Amnesty International, a non-government organisation focussing on human rights, released a report last year addressing education in South Africa.
The schools in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng were specifically singled out as having the worst conditions.
In an attempt to address poor conditions in schools, it is important that corporates, philanthropists and non-profit organisations come together and donate especially winter school uniforms to disadvantaged schools.
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