A NEW CHALLENGE

Sir,

Every country has a class-system, the stratification of the have and have-nots, it is the natural consequence of a capitalist market, but when that class-system becomes rigid, intra-generationally exclusive and self-fulfilling then we have a problem.

That very often this exclusivity begins to manifest itself in the upper-class is the reason why the class-system has been subject to numerous attempts at annihilation by those it has yoked into oppression, but alas, every effort has proven futile, because man, though abhorring those who would hold him down in his place,  nevertheless hungers for and is ill at ease without a distinctive place in society, indeed this duality in man can be summed up in a simple axiom, man and the class-system are inexplicable without each other.

This principle of Homo-stratification, has thrown up a new challenge; how do we maintain the class-system without forfeiting the right of the individual to prosper according to his or her ability? A suggestion, not surprisingly, was quickly posited; institutions that ensured social mobility, the fluid movement of individuals from one strata of the class-system to the next.

What, you might ask, are these `god-sent` instruments of social mobility? They, dear friends, are schools. Schools are how one born into poverty and squalor can ascend the rungs of the class ladder until they reach the starry heights of the upper-classes, but again, I must disappoint, for this is not a Disney fairy-tale, where good intentions beget good results.

Real-life, I’m afraid, is less rosy and man far less benevolent. What should provide social mobility has become the vehicle for the systematic protection of elitist interests. These rapacious architects, swathed in a frenzy of fear, desperately searching for a way to maintain their ever precarious grasp on the means of prosperity, came up with a system so diabolical and so subtle that the people take it for granted that it should be so.

It is true that prosperity is open to those who have a college education, but the crux of the matter is that true prosperity is only open to those who have attended a latter-order college-and this is where the fix occurs and to attend these colleges it is often important that your school be affiliated with these colleges. These affiliations can be achieved in a number of ways, chief among them being the obscure point system.

The Machiavellian genius of this scheme is also apparent in the exorbitant fees charged by these schools, ensuring that only the most prosperous can attend and therefore neatly shutting out the lower classes before they even have the chance to play. That these schools occasionally condescend enough to pay for the education of a few token individuals without the financial strength to attend is only a further example of just how self-righteous this system is. So, we are then forced to ask ourselves, is prosperity possible?

M Sithole

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