In Johannesburg’s poorest township, a private school plants seeds of freedom and future

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Student Banele Phaladi arrives at the Kgololo Academy in Alexandra, near Johannesburg, on May 8, 2025. The Kgololo Academy is an elite school in the destitute township of Alexandra. — AFP pic

ALEXANDRA (South Africa), May 16 — Banele Phaladi wolfed down a thin slice of bread and kissed his mother goodbye before walking through the dilapidated streets of Alexandra township to his colourful classroom at the Kgololo Academy.

At this elite primary school in one of the most destitute areas of Johannesburg, classes are small, teachers enthusiastic, and every child is known by name — a learning environment miles away from the under-resourced local state school marred with overcrowding and discipline issues.

Jumping between potholes and puddles, twelve-year-old Phaladi passed the gates at dawn, welcomed with a cheerful greeting of hugs and high-fives from the school’s staff and his fellow classmates.

The daily greeting “allows us to make sure everyone is seen, who’s in a good or bad mood, but also who has been injured, sick or has a bruise,” said Waahida Tolbert-Mbatha, the 45-year-old American founder of the Kgololo Academy — meaning “to set free” in the local Setswana language.

With only 173 students — an average of 25 per class — the independent school says it aims to provide children with “a world-class education, within their community”.

“In the public school next door where classes have more than 50 pupils, the teachers have to focus on the few more advanced kids,” said math teacher Portia Mamba, 32.

“Here we are able to focus on the ones who are struggling. Any child can learn when given the right platform,” she said.

Tolbert-Mbatha co-founded the school ten years ago with her husband Thulani Mbatha, a native of the poverty-stricken township that borders the affluent neighbourhood of Sandton, known as Africa’s richest square mile.

When Mbatha was a child, a visiting American teacher spotted him writing his homework in an abandoned bus. The teacher tutored him and his friends and eventually funded their university education.

“This completely changed the trajectory for him — but it is problematic that all the people who made it were ‘discovered’ because they happened to be at the right place at the right time,” Tolbert-Mbatha, who has a teaching background, told AFP.

“We wanted to create an environment where everyone gets discovered,” she said.

Eva Phaladi (right), the mother of Banele Phaladi (left), a student at the Kgololo Academy, opens the gate as he prepares to walk to school in Alexandra, near Johannesburg, on May 8, 2025. — AFP pic

Quality education at home

To achieve academic success, Alexandra’s best pupils usually rely on scholarships to private schools in more affluent areas. South Africa’s ongoing legacy of racial segregation, even 30 years after the end of apartheid, means the children often stand out in rich, white-majority schools.

Kgololo Academy aims to give them — at least at primary school level — access to “high-quality education that doesn’t focus on academics only” without having to leave their community, said the school’s principal, Nelly Mhlongo.

“It brings a new, fresh air in our community to have a private school in a township,” said Phaladi’s mother, Eva, who raises her son as a single mother in a house shared with his uncle, aunt and cousins.

The fees of about 30,000 rands (RM6,980) per year, a fortune in one of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods, are covered more than halfway by NGOs and private donors. Parents and grandparents scrape pennies together to afford the rest.

To support the children, who face a myriad of challenges in a community plagued with unemployment and crime, the school has hired two psychologists and a social worker.

“It has been a game-changer” and many pupils now see the counsellors even for everyday issues, said Tolbert-Mbatha, whose own children are also enrolled at the school.

Unlike other prestigious private schools, the key to admission at Kgololo Academy is not the child’s academic prowess but rather the parents’ involvement.

“We can take any student, we cannot take any parent,” the founder said. “They must create habits to help their kids be successful.”

Before heading to their first-period isiZulu language lesson, Phaladi and his classmates warmed up with a lively game of musical chairs in the courtyard.

The teachers here know how to make learning “interesting and fun”, the good-natured pre-teen said.

Next year, Phaladi’s commute to school will be very different: like 90 per cent of Kgololo’s learners, he has just been awarded a fully-funded ride to a prestigious high school. — AFP