The country’s top private schools are facing an unprecedented movement calling for an end to systemic racism.
- A wave of protests against systemic racism at the country’s top private schools is forcing the country’s premier educational institutions to look within.
- While individual racist incidents at such elite schools have drawn a backlash in the past, the scale of the current protests is unprecedented.
Cape Town–based diversity trainer Asanda Ngoasheng is no stranger to invitations for one-off workshops and talks from schools. But in the past few weeks, some schools have for the first time signed long-term contracts with her to implement diversity curricula.
That shift has emerged from an eruption of protests at South Africa’s most elite schools against the racism experienced by Black students, teachers and parents. The entire class of final year high school students at Bishops in Cape Town has submitted a petition calling out “systemic oppression.” Parents at St. Mary’s DSG in Pretoria have gathered at the school, holding placards saying things like “I cannot pay for my child to be oppressed.” And an Instagram account, @yousilenceweamplify, has highlighted nearly 300 heart-wrenching testimonials from Black students across the country.
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