Silikamva High School (City Of Cape Town)

Silikamva High on the Atlantic Seaboard, hey. The Atlantic Seaboard. That's the part of Cape Town where a one-bedroom flat costs more than a farm in the Free State, and here's this school rocking up absolutely free of charge. No fees. Zero rands. The Clifton crowd is parking their Porsches outside and this school is like, "nah we're good, government's got it." Respect honestly, that is a power move. But listen, 919 kids and only 31 teachers. That is nearly 30 learners per teacher, which means your educator is basically a traffic cop at a Noord Street taxi rank, just pointing people in directions and hoping for the best. "Sir can you explain this calculus?" "Ja sit down I've got 28 other problems, literally." The wind coming off that Atlantic is probably doing half the teaching at this point. Now here's the thing though, 94.3% matric pass rate with those numbers and no fees. That is genuinely embarrassing for some of those R50,000-a-year schools up the road who are out here charging for everything including the air con and still watching kids scrape through. Silikamva is doing it with government money, Atlantic gales, and what sounds like one teacher per small village, and nearly everyone is walking out with a certificate. Overall verdict: The school description reads like a Wikipedia stub written during load shedding, but the results hit harder than the south-easter, and that's the whole story really.