Complete Coverage

Critics Say School Fees In South Africa Widen Inequities

By Karla Scoon Reid

Johannesburg, South Africa

There's no lathe or router in Altmont Technical High School's woodshop. Nor any other equipment for that matter. So students here sit in a barren Soweto classroom drawing models they hope to build one day in another school's woodshop.

International Page Stoves and sinks fill Eldoraigne High School's classroom kitchen about 45 miles north of Soweto. Students wearing white chef hats and aprons beat eggs in a bowl, practicing to become cooks in the school's campus restaurant in Centurion one day.

Here in South Africa, the parents of students at both schools must pay a price for their children's public education—annual fees set by each school. To many, that price is too high and is harmful to this...