The June 1976 Soweto uprising was sparked by the government's decision to impose Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in African schools. However, the deteriorating conditions in township schools, including massive overcrowding, a lack of basic facilities and poor standards of teaching all contributed to the mounting discontent among students.Education in Alexandra was in a particularly parlous state due to the virtual absence of investment following the state's decision to remove families from the township. At the time there were thirteen primary schools and just one secondary school (Alexandra Secondary School), which only went up to Standard 8 (or Junior Certificate), now known as Grade 10. Leepile Taunyane, who was the principal of Alexandra Secondary up to 1975, believes one of the reasons for the Department of Education not extending classes at the secondary school to Matric (Grade 12) level was because the Catholic School already catered for matrics. But the Catholic School did not have the capacity to meet the growing demand for matriculation. As a result, Alexandra students were forced to complete their schooling in Soweto and other townships. Only when the Catholic School relocated to Diepkloof did the Department of Education permit Alexandra Secondary to add a Matric class. Therefore, unlike other townships, Alexandra did not experience a surge in the number of high-school students in the early 1970s.

Overcrowding was endemic in Alexandra schools, even as the township was being subjected to removals. When Alexandra Secondary moved into its new premises in 1960, it experienced a massive influx of students. Leepile Taunyane remembers:

‘As soon as we got to the new building in 1960 the school grew phenomenally. It just grew and grew and I suppose even those fellows who have been sitting at home and not getting any accommodation at schools just decided, well there's space now somewhere, there's a school and I am going back.’

By the early 1970s most schools were overflowing. Victor Kgobe was at Mazambane Primary School in the early 1970s and remembers the school being too small to accommodate all the students, which forced them to use other buildings for classes: ‘[T]hey basically had to use a number of satellites sites, in that they basically identified church sites of which some classes would attend at those church sites. In one instance I was attending at 9th Avenue.’