MERLE MANSFIELD | The right to learn in SA: Why denial stifles belonging

South Africa’sxenophobiais no longer only a political or social crisis. It is becoming an educational one. The rhetoric heard in communities is finding its way into classrooms, where children are learning foreigners are to be feared, blamed and excluded.

Not only are anti-immigration groups rallying to displace schoolchildren because of the documents they may or may not carry, but as we saw in Kraaifontein a few months ago when protests turned violent, pupils are increasingly calling for the exclusion of other pupils from schools because of where they were born. They’re upset about overcrowding, strained resources and alleged safety concerns. The education system is undeniably under pressure, and every year many parents struggle to secure school placements.

Their frustrations are real. However, frustration should not be confused with facts. According to the department of basic education’s 2025 pupil enrolment data, about 250,000 foreign pupils are enrolled in public schools.

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This is about 1.8% of more than 13-million pupils nationwide. Whether all these pupils are documented or undocumented is often conflated in public debate, but the figures do not support the claim that foreigners are the primary cause of overcrowding or school admission pressures. The real pressures on schools stem from longstanding structural challenges such as unequal funding, uneven infrastructure development, demographic shifts, teacher shortages and persistentpoverty.

It is the pupils from different backgrounds who bear the brunt of the inequalities. The policies of exclusion do not begin when a child is denied entry at the school gate or expelled. It often begins much earlier: in classrooms, playgrounds and communities where children learn, explicitly or implicitly, that they do not belong.

This is what Delice Lumbu, a coach working with at-risk pupils in Cape Town, experienced growing up. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she arrived in South Africa as a toddler. Our research has repeatedly revealed dropouts are the culmination of many interacting risks rather than a single event. Poverty, discrimination, weak school belonging, violence and limited psychosocial support combine over time to push pupils out of education.

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