ABSTRACT
The paper sets out to challenge the notions of ‘affordable’ private schools in the context of South Africa. It is guided by one main question: ‘affordable private schools for whom?’ It argues that, contrary to claims by its public and private proponents, affordable private schools in South Africa do not cater for poor children. Their rise has coincided with the emergence, in the post-apartheid period, of a—mostly black—middle class. However, despite its imprecision, the ‘affordable’ terminology can also be interpreted as a discursive device that obscures the class interests and distributional choices that actually shape South Africa’s education system. It allows the social forces in favour of the expansion of private education—segments of the state and pro-market lobbyists—to frame their project in social justice terms. The paper concludes that the state’s ambiguous position towards the so-called ‘affordable’ or ‘low-fee’ private schools reflects national leaders’ delicate balancing act between contradictory objectives, which is overly determined by their embrace of an orthodox macro-economic model that constrains the fiscal space for public education.
