Parents’ grade
his African culture.
She has not yet decided where to enrol her son, but the one currently at the top of her list is a Future Nation School, the brainchild of former FirstRand chief executive and current chair of the National Student Fund Scheme, Sizwe Nxasana, and his wife Dr Judy Dlamini.
Dlephu has decided to send her child to a Nova Pioneer school, a pan-African private school.
The school’s mission is to develop “innovators and leaders who will shape the African century”.
That the school wants to produce innovators and leaders is only one of the reasons she has selected it.
“I’m not convinced that the curriculum in all other [traditional] schools has evolved enough to accommodate what being a young adult would be for him in 15 years time,” she says. “We need to take a page out of the reality where we need to be a country of people who are proactive and doers, people who question systems and not people who comply for whatever reason.”
The Mail & Guardian visited two private schools (see below and right) that are becoming an alternative option for parents such as Dlephu and Muthshekwane, who want their children not only to receive a good education but are also encouraged to be themselves and embrace their cultures.