South African safety fears force parents in Cape Town to seek former white-only schools

A legacy of apartheid means some black students have to go the extra mile to get a decent education.

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"Thugs would go into the school carrying guns threatening teachers, forcefully taking their laptops in front of the learners," Sibahle Mbasana told the BBC about the school her sons used to attend in Khayelitsha, Cape Town's largest township.

"Imagine your child experiencing this regularly. There's hardly any security at the school and even if there is, they are powerless to do anything."

It is more than three decades since the end of white-minority rule in South Africa, but there are still black students who have to endure the vast inequalities that were the bedrock of the racist system of apartheid.

Mrs Mbasana feels her three children are the inheritors of this legacy - particularly affecting her oldest son Lifalethu who was at a township school between the ages of six and 10.