Last week in Cape Town, South Africa thousands of children took to the streets to protest for better schools. After apartheid ended in South Africa, leaders have tried to create a better education system for the children of the country. Unfortunately, they have not taken the most effective measures. The current protest movement takes precedence from a 1976 uprising against apartheid. One of the leaders of the current movement, led by an organization called Equal Education, is Zackie Achmat- one of South Africa's main advocates for AIDS treatment.

The main premise of the movement is to work for educational equity and to empower students to work with teachers and government officials to promote change. The importance of education in the development process in any country is overwhelming. By empowering individuals to think for themselves and question what is going on around them, a diverse civil society can be created. As Achmat has said in an article in the New York Times, "In building a citizens' movement, the most important element is giving people the sense of their own power to change things with little victories." The achievements of Equal Education (which began in 2008) thus far include: installing windows in a school whose windows were shattered, and providing a science teacher for a high school that did not have one for its seniors. According to the article, the protest that occurred last week was to rally for libraries and librarians in these schools, and is their first attempt to take on a national issue.

Among other problems facing South Africa's educational system, teachers very often do not show up for school. When they do show up, the hours that they teach for are much below the national standards. Not only do South African children have to grapple with poorly conditioned schools, they also have to deal with the chance of their own teachers, the most fundamental source of education, not even showing up to class. The schools are still subject to the legacy of apartheid, where in the Western Cape, 2 out of 1000 sixth graders in mostly black schools pass the math test at their grade level, while 2 in 3 children in schools once maintained for whites pass that same test. Education is not only important for fostering a lively civil society, but also to lead individuals out of poverty. With education comes better jobs, more trained individuals, and hopefully economic development for the country. The importance of education is not singular to South Africa; it should be recognized in all developing counties in the world.

For more information on South Africa's education system click here.