Worth the Fight

Jonathan Jansen goes back to school: to the Cape Flats high school next door to where he grew up.

After learning that the school got the worst matric results in the Western Cape in 2023, Jansen signed up to help out. He spent two years in the principals office, teaching some of the science subjects and getting to the bottom of extreme pressures bearing down on teachers and learners, for whom it was impossible to leave the trauma of broken families and violent crime at the school gate.

With his characteristic warmth and insight, Jansen takes readers inside chaotic classrooms as he works alongside teachers to reverse years of decline. While setting in motion practical shifts that spark real change, he exposes the complex web of low expectations, dysfunctional organisational culture and bureaucratic interference that keeps underperforming schools trapped in failure.

Part memoir, part case study and part call to action, this is essential reading for parents, educators, policymakers and anyone who cares about the future of South Africas children. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Worth the Fight is about what it takes to turn a working-class school – and the South African education system – around.