During a social justice panel we got to learn about some of the problems that have been happening with the schools in Cape Town. Amanda is an attorney who works with the cape flats. She discussed about an initiative called Equal Education that started in 2008. It provides clinical and advocacy services. Equal Education focuses mainly in the western cape and fights for safe schools and better school infrastructure.

Many schools do not have the resources needed to provide an adequate education to its students. The lack in resources and supplies hinders what and how the students are learning. Twenty-two thousand schools or ninety percent do not have a computer lab. Three thousand five hundred and forty-four schools have no electricity supply and eleven percent of those schools have an unreliable water supply. In 2009, it was reported that only seven percent of schools have libraries. Students do not have enough resources to be in a learning environment even if they wish to learn. The books are outdated and the students do not have the access to read more books without a library inside the school.

The school system works in schools zones. Unfortunately, students are denied access to better schools because they live in a poor neighborhood. Many good students plea to go to a better school where they know they will get better educational opportunities, but their background limits them. The resources exist, but there is a limit in the resources when it comes to redistributing them in the city. The rich get all the resources and the poor get stuck with very few to no resources.

Schools are a way out of poverty for many young children living in poor neighborhoods. Students face barriers at a very young age that prevents them from getting the best education possible. They have no choice but to attend a school with very few resources and they get stuck where they lose interest in school and eventually start causing trouble. Schools in poor areas should be providing the opportunities to all its students that a school in a richer area is. Education is a right all children should be entitled regardless of where they live.