There was a time under the apartheid regime when the educational system was controlled with an iron fist.
There was a time under the apartheid regime when the educational system was controlled with an iron fist.
Things were relaxed under the new dispensation to the benefit of everyone. But unfortunately smart operators have taken the gap to con students who are desperate for professional training.
Today we report on a college in Soweto that is run as a pyramid scheme: students may not write their examinations until they produce two fresh recruits for the ramshackle institution.
The victims of this supposed poverty alleviation project are crowded into the rundown premises of a primary school that was closed down in 2000 and appear not to have endured the indignity of any maintenance or cleaning since.
The classrooms are furnished on a catch-as-catch- can basis, with students perching on bricks, empty paint cans or whatever else they can scrounge.
Tutelage at this moneymaking institution can best be described as bizarre, and is accompanied by the thumping strains of kwaito bellowing out from adjoining rooms.
Problem is that like so many similar education mills the joint does not equip its wretched graduates to function in the workplace.
The pendulum has swung too far and these joints must now be reined in.
Education con job
There was a time under the apartheid regime when the educational system was controlled with an iron fist.
There was a time under the apartheid regime when the educational system was controlled with an iron fist.
Things were relaxed under the new dispensation to the benefit of everyone. But unfortunately smart operators have taken the gap to con students who are desperate for professional training.
Today we report on a college in Soweto that is run as a pyramid scheme: students may not write their examinations until they produce two fresh recruits for the ramshackle institution.
The victims of this supposed poverty alleviation project are crowded into the rundown premises of a primary school that was closed down in 2000 and appear not to have endured the indignity of any maintenance or cleaning since.
The classrooms are furnished on a catch-as-catch- can basis, with students perching on bricks, empty paint cans or whatever else they can scrounge.
Tutelage at this moneymaking institution can best be described as bizarre, and is accompanied by the thumping strains of kwaito bellowing out from adjoining rooms.
Problem is that like so many similar education mills the joint does not equip its wretched graduates to function in the workplace.
The pendulum has swung too far and these joints must now be reined in.
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