2.5 Education and the Skill Levels of Car Guards
2.5.2 Perception of the Education Level of Car Guards
According to Christie (2009) in a preliminary study of car guards in Cape Town it was observed that most of the car guards were Congolese, male, in their twenties or thirties and the majority from Kinshasa. Additionally, all the car guards that Christie interviewed had studied further but due to circumstances, had their studies interrupted whilst they were all in their late twenties or early thirties. Furthermore, there seems to be an unofficial dictum regarding foreign car guards as being “the doctor on the street corner”. This perception relates specifically to foreign car guards as well as foreigners from African states. This perception of foreigners being highly educated may be related to the fact that these migrants arrived in South Africa in three separate waves. The first wave was during the eighties when South Africa had unrest and required specialists in rural area, where local South African professionals
Nelson Mandela in the early nineties and consisted of migration mainly to Johannesburg. The third wave consists of foreigners that are still entering South Africa post 1994. These immigrants often come to South Africa due to unrest and war in their home countries, and are not necessarily highly educated.
Bernstein (2003) noted that in Cape Town one Congolese informal parking attendant was in his third year of studying medicine, but due to unreasonable increased in enrolment fees, he and his fellow classmates protested, resulting in clashes with the military police. Being one of the main protest organisers, he had to flee to South Africa and is now guarding cars on the streets of Cape Town.
According to Bernstein, this type of situation is not the exception as according to the author other studies have concurred.
McEwen & Leiman (2008) noted that the barriers to entering car guarding are relatively low thus allowing more people to work as car guards, when access to other labour markets may be denied. Many foreigners enter South Africa with relatively high qualifications, but cannot trade or enter the job market due to legal regulations, or misunderstanding with their potential employers. The authors noted a startling difference in the level of education between local and foreign car guards in Cape Town. None of the local car guards interviewed had any undergraduate qualifications and few had even completed school. In contrast, most of the foreign car guards had completed a tertiary qualification or at the very least had been to university but had not completed their studies. There is a stark contrast between local car guards who enter car guarding because they lack the skills that are required to enter the formal market and the foreign car guards who may have qualifications but who face other barriers of entry into formal employment. The study revealed that; of the local respondents (native South Africans), one had a diploma (M6 level in management assistance) and two had finished high school. Four of the five remaining had not completed high school, while one only had primary school education.
Of the foreigners, five had been to university (studying law, economics, English, electrical engineering and informatics), one had a diploma, five had finished high school and one had only completed primary school. While some locals had artisanal skills like painting, welding, brick-laying and truck driving, many of the foreigners had professional skills including teaching, mechanics, informatics, law, physiotherapy and electrical engineering. More than half (seven out of twelve) of the foreign car guards interviewed planned to improve their circumstances by studying further while the majority of locals (five out of eight) expressed no such intentions (McEwen &
Leiman, 2008)
In addition to McEwen & Leiman (2008), Steyn et al., (2015) noted from a study of car guards in Tshwane that the level of education between locals and immigrants car guards varied noticeably. Most South Africa car guards had not completed their secondary schooling while many migrant car guards had at the least completed secondary schooling, and had possibly also studied at a university. The study found that the majority of migrant car guards had obtained a schooling level of grade 8 to 10 (24%) and that 38% of the foreign respondents had a schooling level of grade 11 to 12 and close to a third of the respondents held a post-school qualification.
The study concluded that immigrant workers working as car guards where significantly more likely to have tertiary qualifications than their South Africa counterparts. The non-South African car guards faced numerous other challenges and obstacles when attempting to enter the formal South African work market, with the main challenge been obtaining a valid work visa. This further highlighted the plight of local car guards to get into the formal market often due to lack of suitable education. Additionally the majority of car guards do have work experience that may be wide ranging with some having previously held formal positions in the service sector (Steyn et al., 2015).
Christie (2009) concluded by noting that car guards admitted they wanted to study English in order to better their chances of emigrating once again to more First World countries. Yet, Christie noted that the notion that migrant car guards were always
studying and were highly educated was at odds with reality. Even with the long hours spent studying them, Christie never once saw any car guards reading a book or even a newspaper.