After the Bell: School fees, Springboks and the shifting shape of South Africa

I remember once, years ago, as a new parent to a government primary school in northern Joburg, just being astounded by how different it was to my school, which was also a government primary school in Joburg.

In those days everyone looked the same. It was not just that they were of the same race, but they wore the same clothes. The dads wore what their sons wore, a jacket and tie.

I’ve tried pretty hard to imagine this today, but I just cannot see my headmaster from that time sitting face-to-face with a parent wearing a nose ring. 

It’s so different now. Our diversity, along the lines of facial jewellery, race, language and sexuality, is on full display.

When I mentioned this at the time to my older and wiser colleague, David O’Sullivan, he looked at me and said: “Do you want to know what the best part of it is?”

“What?” I asked.

“It will never go back,” he said.

Wonderfully, he was 100% correct.

But our schools also tell us a lot about our economy, and what our priorities are, and where we are going as a society.

Last week, the private schooling group Curro reported that for the second year in a row the total number of pupils at its schools was down, albeit slightly, by 1.4%.

This morning (25 August), News24 published a story explaining how King David Victory Park is closing. There are many difficult dynamics in the Jewish community at the moment, so this is not just about money.

But that same story mentioned that Sacred Heart in Observatory (just across a massive valley from where I grew up) recently cut its fees. Like the Curro group, it thinks that people just can’t afford these schools. 

Which, of course, links rather neatly to what was perhaps the middle-class theme of last week: that life has become very, very tough, even for those with means, in the past 15 years.

Read more: Why SA's middle class is allowed to grumble 

But another education group, ADvTech, has reported “robust” enrolment. Its South African schools increased their profits by 4% for the six months to the end of June. It also says that because demand at one of its schools was so high it had accelerated the construction of another nearby.

This does make you wonder whether different things are happening in different markets served by Curro and ADvTech, or whether one is simply eating the other’s lunch.

What is absolutely true is that the higher end of the education market is not suffering at all.

The head at Hilton College recently had the unfortunate experience of having to lecture his customers, who are likely to be much richer than he is, about their behaviour.

He told them their displays of opulence, in providing hospitality during a rugby match between no particularly serious teams, were sending the wrong message to their sons.

Now, you might be wondering if there was some kind of cook-off involving Cadacs and boerewors and camping chairs that come with a built-in coldpack for the beer. And whether perhaps someone had cheated by smuggling in Woolies restaurant-quality briquettes carefully hidden in a Shoprite bag.

But I suspect we are talking about personal chefs, marquees and champagne.

Only in KZN. 

Seriously, who else would drink champagne while watching rugby?

Meanwhile, on our other coastline, where they play real rugby, Paarl Gim’s annual derby against Paarl Boys High saw about 25,000 coming to watch.

The economics of this must be insane. Someone must be making a packet just by charging R10 for parking.

What’s really going on here is the brutal economics of rugby.

Schools spend a fortune on rugby facilities, coaches and, in some cases, players, because they’re the best possible marketing. Northcliff High got a huge amount of free press (excuse the old-fashioned word) just because it recently had its first Springbok player.

These schools don’t need to worry about enrolment figures and profit stats. They just let rugby do it for them.

But this also tells you two important things.

The first is how our economy and our society are being hollowed out. Yes, there is a lot of money at the top. But the middle classes of our society are battling and declining.

It also tells you that schools and our society are changing dramatically. David is right, they’ll never go back to what they were. But when it comes to money and influence, nothing beats the economics of schoolboy rugby. DM