Blog 3: South Africa: Refugee Children Miss Out On School

The city of Johannesburg is a temporary home to many refugees from Zimbabwe. Many of the refugee children are unable to go to the schools there for various reasons. Some schools ask the students for their documents which most families cannot produce. These schools are not typically required by the government to request these documents. Also, there are schools that require fees from the parents but these schools are supposed to be free of charge for the refugees. Even when a refugee child gets in a school, many times they are bullied for being "foreign". In 2011, some unemployed teachers banded together for the refugee and migrant children and started the iTemba Study Centre. The centre teaches preschoolers in the morning and grades 1-8 in the afternoon. There is another similar program nearby called Three2Six Project. In both programs, the refugee children end up staying at the schools as long as they can past the eighth grade because the parents can not afford "regular" schools. The future of these two schools does not look promising. The government does not help with funding and the funds received from European churches is not enough to last for 2012.

This article is important in that it tells the story of the global social problem of children in desperate need of good education. Even though this takes place in Johannesburg, Africa, the message is universal. All children have a desire to learn and all children have the right to an education. These refugees endure many hardships as it is and to be turned away from school or bullied if they do get in is an atrocity.


 http://allafrica.com/stories/201202010191.html