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Cashstrapped parents are prepared to sell their homes and cancel annual holidays to get children into quality schools, say principals of the province\u2019s top public and independent schools. <\/p>\n
Some cost only R300 a year, others have fees that are more than R100 000, but, no matter where they are, good schools are in demand. <\/p>\n
Durban parent Jennifer Andrews, whose youngest son is in matric at the R80 000-a-year independent Clifton School in Morningside, said that family holidays had been sacrificed and many of her friends with children had downgraded their vehicles and were running lift clubs to cut costs. <\/p>\n
\u201cSchool fees are through the roof. That is our biggest sacrifice each month. Any extras the school asks us to pay \u2013 like the R3 000 development levy, which is compulsory, or overseas tours I deeply resent,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut parents are so paranoid about high school education, we just can\u2019t think of any other alternative.\u201d <\/p>\n
Yvonne Johnstone, principal of the century-old public school Gordon Road Girls\u2019 School, which costs more than R20 000 a year, said the available places for next year had been filled by April. <\/p>\n
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From left, Matthew Watson, Luke Versfeld, Likhona Camane and Matthew Armstrong chat to Michaelhouse outgoing headmaster, Guy Pearson, who they say not only are they going to miss, but that he was always friendly and ” quite cool” .<\/p>\n
INLSA<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn the state schools we are not allowed to have waiting lists, but the demand for our education is very high,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Lynne Neilson of Durban Girls\u2019 College said the R70 000-a-year school had waiting lists for most grades. A number of children had been enrolled by parents \u2013 particularly those who were past pupils \u2013 when they were born. <\/p>\n Guy Pearson, rector at the R170 000-a-year Michaelhouse, said they had two applications for each bed in the boarding school near Nottingham Road. <\/p>\n \u201cParents are making huge sacrifices; they are liquidating assets to keep boys at the school. Also, paying school fees has become a family affair. <\/p>\n \u201cNowadays parents are calling on grandparents to help. Unfortunately, the demise of some of our state-run schools is pushing demand for private schools,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Mbongeni Mtshali, head of the highly regarded Velabahleke School in Umlazi, which costs R300 a year, said demand for good schooling was the same no matter how much parents earned. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have parents here who will give their last cent; they will go without food to make sure their children can come to our school,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have extra maths classes on Saturdays which cost R50 a term. Parents are having cake sales to afford these classes,\u201d Mtshali said. <\/p>\n He said he put up notices advertising that there was no space. <\/p>\n \u201cBut they still come, saying they want to present their case. \u2018This is the school I have chosen for my child,\u2019 they say.\u201d <\/p>\n And with school fee increases for next year going up by between 7 percent and 10 percent and uniforms by between 5 percent and 7 percent, Trevor Kershaw, head of Glenwood High School, said parents were feeling the pressure. <\/p>\n \u201cYes, things are tight, and I know parents are making big sacrifices, but somehow they are paying as we have collected the same percentage of our school fees as last year and our bad debts have not increased,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cashstrapped parents are prepared to sell their homes and cancel annual holidays to get children into quality schools, say principals of the province\u2019s top public and independent schools. Some cost only R300 a year, others have fees that are more than R100 000, but, no matter where they are, good schools are in demand. Durban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-16667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}