Joburg city kids get a direct line to space

While the International Space Station was over the United States last week, pupils at CityKidz, a school in the inner city of Johannesburg, were able to ask astronaut Chris Williams their most burning questions. 

CityKidz – a primary school started as a housing project and whose academic performance has since surpassed many top private schools – was the only school in Africa that took part in this exciting experience. 

“There was the link-up, and then each kid had a chance to come up and ask a question of the astronaut, and then the astronaut would reply and explain it to them”, said one of the founders of CityKidz, Renney Plit. 

He explained that this experience brought tears to his eyes as the pupils asked such genuine and innocent questions. They would go up to the microphone and ask their questions and get their answers from the astronaut. For example, one girl called Dudu asked what happens when Williams cries in space. The astronaut explained that when he cries, his tears stay on the eye, but because of zero gravity, they will shake off when he shakes his head. 

“Another child, Tshepo, asked how astronauts exercise while in space, and the astronaut explained that they use rubber bands because of zero gravity,” said Plit. 

“When you think about it, CityKidz was the only school in the whole of Africa that was selected to speak to these astronauts in space. And watching all the other kids sitting there in awe, that kind of thing is spectacular,” he said. 

CityKidz was started by Plit and his brother Wayne through their former company AFHCO, after they started developing the inner city of Johannesburg due to the rapid influx and the growing need for affordable housing in 1996. 

In 2007, AFHCO was offered the opportunity to purchase a building on Mooi Street in Johannesburg to turn into an apartment block. Originally constructed in the 1920s as an Indian school under the apartheid-era system, the property was modest but full of potential. The company decided to turn this old school in Mooi Street not into apartments, but rather a not-for-profit school for disadvantaged children living in buildings owned by AFHCO. At the time, it consisted of just nine classrooms, a small hall, a tiny administration block, and two toilets — a far cry from what it would eventually become, a space with 35 state-of-the-art classrooms. 

“We decided to try to address the lack of educational facilities in the inner city for disadvantaged children. So basically at that point, the private sector, ourselves leading the way, had developed maybe 40 000 new housing units in the inner city,” Plit said. “If you take 40 000 housing units, you put one child in each apartment; some have no children, some have three children, which means you’ve got 40 000 new kids in the inner city. Which means you need 40 new schools. Then you say how many schools the department or educational government has established in the city to date, zero? So they haven’t addressed the change in the demographics of the inner city at all. They haven’t adjusted, or they haven’t done anything about it.” CityKidz opened in 2008 with only 85 pupils, and has grown into one of the top primary schools in Johannesburg, with more than 900 pupils walking through the doors of its Early Childhood Development (Grade RR) and pre-primary and primary school (Grades 0-7), with a high school planned to open next year. 

“It’s the absolute centre of excellence in the inter-school competitions,” said Plit. “In all the inter-school competitions, we are typically coming first or in the top three, and we’d include beating the likes of King David, St David’s Marist Inanda, St John’s, Redham, and Curro. We beat all these very expensive private schools in our academic achievements.” 

CityKidz pupils have consistently distinguished themselves in maths, science, literacy, and general knowledge competitions at district, provincial, and national levels. The school has placed third in the ANA external maths assessment, won the Mathematics Cluster Challenge, achieved top-three provincial results in the Gauteng Science Olympiad, and produced national top achievers in the SAASTA Science Olympiad. More recently, its pupils secured consecutive third-place finishes in the Matific Olympiad across southern Africa. 

In literacy, CityKidz pupils have excelled in the Wits Spelling Bee and Gauteng South District competitions, earning finalist positions and multiple wins. The school’s strength extends to general knowledge and academic Olympiads, with first and second-place finishes in inter-school quizzes, provincial recognition in the Astro Quiz, top district placements in the Technology Olympiad and Life Skills competition, and platinum and diamond results in the Conquesta Olympiad. 

One of the major successes of CityKidz has been its extremely low school fees. Parents pay only R1 500 per month, which covers not only the school fees but all their stationery, textbooks, and any outings they may go on. 

“In addition, we receive a government subsidy of about R500 per pupil. When we sold AFHCO to the listed property fund SA Corporate, it continued as a major financial supporter of the school, particularly assisting with capital projects and expansion. A great deal of credit for our growth goes to its sustained backing,” Plit said. 

“We keep classes to about 28 pupils and operate a dedicated bursary fund. A small portion of the monthly school fees, not the government subsidy, is set aside in a separate account to assist families who cannot afford the full amount. This allows us to offer partial and full bursaries, especially in cases of hardship or sudden tragedy. The R1 500 fee is comprehensive, covering textbooks, stationery, and annual school trips, so aside from uniforms, there are no additional costs to parents.” 

He said that school fees are intentionally kept this low because “we established the school specifically to address the need for decent, well-disciplined education in a nurturing environment for inner-city children. That’s what the whole school was set up for. Trying to keep the fees as low as we possibly can is fundamental,” said Plit. 

He said that there are several children who come to school from Soweto every day because of the level of education. “The school is there to address poor pupils coming out of the inner city. Having said that, we’re not selective in who we take. About 20% of our kids are being taxied every day from Soweto by their parents,” said Plit, “So parents spend probably R1 200 or R1 500 a month to send the kids all the way to town every day. And it’s because every parent wants their kids to be well-educated and in a good environment. It doesn’t matter what race or what colour you are.”