The role of politics in South Africa's educational system.

University Degree Education and Teaching

The role that politics has played in South Africa’s educational system can be seen as contributing to a majority of the problems that the country is presently facing. Political and educational inequalities were often linked, and the seeds of this problem can be seen operating in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Successive government manipulation directly contributed to gross deficiencies in education through biased reports, political intervention, racist attitudes and, most importantly, the implementation of the Bantu Education Act. In this paper, I will briefly trace the political history of the educational system from the late 19th century to both the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. I will also argue that continued political control and manipulation of the educational system, based mainly on race, was one of the key factors that led to the demise of the apartheid system and ultimately to South Africa’s transition to democracy.

Political concern for the “nature” and development of education in South Africa was not entirely limited to the 20th century. Under British colonial rule, a “civilization” policy was introduced to educate and “Christianize” the “natives. Mission stations were provided educational grant to train Africans in basic industrial and domestic skills to serve the needs of the white settlers. However, in the Natal reserves of Zululand, black resistance to the government’s educational and “civilizing” plans led to a series of rebellions. It is hardly surprising that racist political forces were the cause of continuing rebellions for the next half century.

After the World War I, two important acts were passed: Act #5 of 1922 and Act #41 of 1925 in which two principles were created: Taxation for African education was to be centralized, and expansion beyond any level attained after 1922 would be financed directly by African taxes. These principles remained in force for the next 25 years.

In 1936 the government, after bowing to pressure from representatives of native education, organized a committee to report on African education known as the Welsh Commission, headed by Dr. E. Malherbe. The most salient feature of the resultant report was its criticism of continued racist political attitudes towards the implication of native education along with the question of the “educability” of the African. Most importantly, the commission pointed out the future role for Africans, and recommended that racist segregation within the schooling system, would eventually fail and should no longer be part of the political agenda. The Welsh report pointed towards a more progressive way of understanding race relations within the context of education. It also stressed that a future role for properly educated Africans was of vital importance, and continuing educational constraints would prove politically unwise. Education incentives were recommended through government grants on a per capita basis for each student enrolled in school. Most importantly, the commission recommended that the missions maintain control of the schools, because missionaries rejected the notion of African culture as a basis for political differentiation. Understandably, considerable political criticism followed and the commission’s recommendations were later deliberately manipulated and misinterpreted. Little action was taken, and this had a major impact on the country’s educational principles and practices for the next half-century. The onset of World War II distracted the government from educational issues and the Welsh report was put on hold.

Education remained the basis for African advancement and organizations, such as the African National Congress (ANC), established in 1923. These organizations, made up of missionary educated urban Africans, gained momentum while minority white governments were legislating furiously to limit political and economic opportunities for Africans, “Coloureds”, and Asians. Later, the ANC broadened their appeal to include rural and uneducated Africans. Political protests tended to be ineffective until a younger and more assertive generation of Africans, such as Nelson Mandela, formed the 1943 Congress Youth League (CYL). Most importantly, these organizations represented the younger people who sowed the first seeds of resistance towards the racist government’s educational system.

World War II, a watershed in African history, saw rapid political, social, and economic changes that transformed most of colonial Africa. While African nationalists were in the process of overthrowing European colonial rule through more political demands towards independence, the opposite was happening in South Africa. Afrikaner nationalism intensified, thanks to vast amounts of white capital made possible by racist legislation and exploitation of the poorly uneducated African labour force. The war also brought an economic boom by stimulating industrial, and manufacturing growth. This created two problems, both of which were politically linked. Increasing land restrictions exacerbated the already abject poverty caused by the 1913 Native Lands Act, and increasing labour opportunities led to massive urbanization. Increased militancy and labour strikes combined with demands for social change and better schooling facilities in the poor rural areas continued to plague the government. To quell the protests, The Smuts regime found it necessary to begin implementing reforms including educational concessions to the growing aspirations of Africans. Interestingly, this was one of the first attempts at political liberalization, and due to the change in government, only a few of these proposals were carried out.

Post-war political resistance to the deterioration in education came mainly from the missionary educated African intelligentsia, who sought to raise living standards and to exercise further their political voice regarding the direction and control of education. Resistance also came from parents and political organizations that opposed Native Education in its quality, structure, and content, and they too demanded that educational standards be raised to the same level as their white counterparts.

Afrikaner nationalism gained momentum after the war and the National party saw its popularity increase. On May 26, 1948, a crucial year in South African history, Nazi sympathizer Daniel Malan and Nationalist Party won a surprise victory. Malan’s government, more explicitly white supremacist than its predecessors, focused more on order, economic development, and racial superiority. From an instrumentalist’s viewpoint, the new Afrikaner government, the product of the 17th century Dutch pioneers, viewed themselves isolationists and racially pure, and segregation was the only way in which to maintain this ethnic “purity”. With the notion that a pluralistic society would lead to their ultimate destruction, the Afrikaner Nationalists quickly legislated a web of racial laws aimed at strengthening this system of “self preservation” by weakening African unity and destroying any sense of nationalism. The new regime took immediately steps to fashion a new white South Africa by means of the apartheid system. Because most of the essential elements of this system were already in place, the apartheid regime needed only to “fuse” these elements together to institutionalize racial discrimination, and most importantly, it served to reestablish the Afrikaner’s ethnic identity.

The 1950 Population Registration Act worked to classify people into four racial groups: White, Black, Coloureds, and Asians. In the same year, the Group Areas Act enforced residential segregation through home expropriations and massive forced removals into selected areas. These two acts formed the cornerstone of the apartheid system thereby affecting every aspect of South African social, economic, and political life. Most importantly, these laws were to intentionally break the political will of the African majority while guaranteeing accessibility and exploitation of their labour.

The apartheid regime’s political “ideologies” also brought to government a new racial emphasis on African ...

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The apartheid regime’s political “ideologies” also brought to government a new racial emphasis on African schooling by restructuring the educational system. Initially, little was done to intervene in the operation of schools. However, due to impending changes in South Africa’s political and racial climate, educational institutions began to experience significant upheavals, marked by student rebellions, violence, boycotts and intertribal tensions. When analyzing South Africa’s democratic transition four decades later, it is important to understand how these various forms of rebellion also contained the seeds of future social protests by generations of angry and frustrated school children, born under this repressive political regime. The state’s solution was to forcibly take control of the missions and curb the growth of the disgruntled African elite and their potential militant nationalism. Minister of Native Affairs Dr. H. Verwoerd, a “Calvinistic” white supremacist and active member of the Dutch Reformed Church, audaciously inferred that the missions had brought about the state’s intervention on themselves. In one of Dr. Verwoerd’s senate speeches on black education he proclaimed, “blacks should be educated for their opportunities in life”.

Verwoerd, one of the pre-eminent architects of apartheid, in keeping with the new Afrikaner government’s “God ordained” political concept of racial inequality, introduced a new ideology into South African schooling by taking steps to restructure the educational system. In 1949, the government set up a Commission on Native Education under the chairmanship of Dr. W. Eiselen. The commission was asked by Verwoerd to make recommendations towards “education for Natives as an independent race”, taking into account “their inherent racial qualities, their distinctive characteristics and aptitude, and their needs under ever changing social conditions”. By 1951, the Eiselen Commission recommended that black education should be an integral part of a “carefully” planned policy of segregated socioeconomic development, and beneficial for the transmission and development of black cultural heritage. The Eiselen report maintained that racial separation within the educational system be kept, and “Bantu education should have a separate existence”. Like the Welsh report over a decade earlier, the Eiselen commission also recommended that funding for African schooling, including higher-level education be increased. This recommendation, however, was flatly rejected. If the state was to remain an engine of patronage for Afrikaner economic gain, additional funding for African education certainly did not fit within their political agenda.

By following only a few recommendations of the Eiselen report, Verwoerd introduced the 1953 Bantu Education Act, an ill-conceived blueprint for the black schooling system. This bill was to completely change the course of education for blacks in South Africa during the following four decades. Furthermore, the Bantu Education Act, strictly controlled by Verwoerdian ideologies, laid the ground for further rebellions. Most importantly, apartheid education created the angriest and most violent generation of youths in South Africa’s history.

With the introduction of the Bantu Education Act in 1953, the state sought to destroy the potentially growing nationalism of the African elite and their educational institutions, by implementing draconian measures and more stringent controls. Verwoerd’s ultimatum to the mission schools was to either hand over control to the state, or face cuts in government subsidies. With little choice and inadequate funding from Europe, the missions capitulated and their buildings were handed over. Government schools were also affected. Verwoerd abolished the Smut’s school feeding scheme, and measures such as stricter student quota systems were introduced whereby pupils who were forced to walk great distances to school were excluded. Language instruction from primary to level eight was provided in the vernacular, followed by Afrikaans, which became mandatory in secondary school. This dual medium of instruction was introduced so that eventually, students could serve the needs of white society, by enabling them to follow oral and or written instructions. When analyzing the politics of Bantu education, language represented a key ideological element of the apartheid regime. The system of Bantu education was specifically created to educate Blacks to fit into the apartheid system and these children were not to be educated beyond their “assigned station in life”. It could also be argued that the Afrikaner state, and in particular Verwoerd, used the act to prevent the widespread use of English in African schools, which could later lead to a more culturally English environment. Understandably, such as scenario would have severely handicapped the Afrikaner’s struggle against “Anglicization” among Africans. When the act came into effect in April 1955, the first of many rebellions followed and thousands of students and hundreds of teachers were dismissed. Later similar laws were passed to control Coloured and Indian schooling.

University level education was also affected by the apartheid regime. The 1959 Extension of University Education Act ended the admissions criteria originally exercised by traditionally white universities where “academic non-segregation” was practiced. Although several new colleges and universities came into existence in terms of the apartheid framework such as the University of the North, the University of Zululand, and the University of the Western Cape. The irony was that due to a lack of properly educated matriculants at the secondary school level, many aspiring students lacked the scholastic requirements for university level studies. Unlike other African states, such as Uganda and Kenya, little attention was paid to the expansion and quality of South Africa’s secondary education.

During the two decades South Africa underwent considerable economic expansion. Political economists and businessmen argued that the country’s economic potential was being hampered by a shortage of trained and skilled manpower. Previous laws limiting African labour and the Bantu Education systems restrictions on black training were frequently blamed, and these arguments continued well into the seventies.

Further rebellions and student protests continued throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s by students and teachers from all educational levels. The impact of Bantu Education can be seen as being felt most deeply almost a decade after its implementation, when students began to rise in revolt and these rebellions led to the formation of political organizations such as Black Consciousness. On March 21, 1960, a protest movement in the town of Sharpville was organized and proved the first turning point in a new phase of resistance when a 67 people were killed and 186 injured. Anger and frustration continued among students and youths resulting in further political protests and demands for social, economic, and political change. By 1976, Africans faced a serious shortage of educational facilities, with the township of Soweto requiring 70 schools alone. Due to the deficiencies of the educational system a lack of employment opportunities was created and this situation was further exacerbated by a worsening economic situation. Against this backdrop, another watershed event in South African history took place. On June 16, 1976, thousands Soweto schoolchildren, under the non-violent philosophy of Black Consciousness, began a protest triggered by tensions over the government’s decision to enforce the decree that Afrikaans must be the medium of instruction in secondary schools. Owing to a particularly brutal police response, children were indiscriminately killed, and during the ensuing “ghost town” operation protests, which continued until the mid 1970’s, over 600 people were killed, of which almost 200 were children. Soweto was a political catalyst that captured the attention of the worldwide media and became one of South Africa’s most important historical events that irreversibly transformed the political landscape. Two years later, the Inkatha Freedom Party, funded by the apartheid regime and headed by Nelson Mandela’s chief antagonist, Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, introduced Ubuntu Botho or good citizenship into the mandatory curriculum of all KwaZulu schools. Understandably, these politically motivated texts, written in Zulu and mainly for Inkatha’ s gain, were severely criticized.

It can be seen that South Africa’s democratic transition process officially began in the form of school related protests, boycotts and political demonstrations, resulting in violent police confrontations. The state adopted a few political reforms, one of which was the rescinding of the language law, however, this was a matter of too little, too late. Due to the tremendous media coverage that followed the Soweto uprising and the killing of hundreds of schoolchildren, the state, in its first bid to counter the “total onslaught” from the international community, adopted a series of reforms known as “total strategy” as a means of countering the various political, economic, and social, sanctions imposed by the international community. This was employed by the state to assure the outside world that social reform was taking place, while still maintaining authority. An integral component of these new social designs, and in response to pressure from the business community, was educational reform and the promise of improved dispensation for black school children and students.

By 1982, however, internal factions within P. W. Botha’s Afrikaner party caused a critical split in Afrikaner ideology between reformists and the hard-liners such as Andries Treurnicht who continued to support “Verwoerdian style” politics. By treading a delicate balance, some improvement in education was provided through the 1984 National Policy for General Affairs, in which funding between racial groups narrowed, and penalties were lifted on those defying Bantu Education Laws. However, the ultimate responsibility for implementing many of these new policies remained deeply divided among the verkrampte and verligte political factions. A new breed of Afrikaner, also known as “technocrats”, began to seriously challenge the racist Afrikaner nationalism and the political ideologies of Verwoerdian education. It became clear that serious institutional changes were required to ensure South Africa’s global position within the increasing technologically oriented global economy. Furthermore, between 1984 and 1988 the state faced unprecedented violence and revolts, and the apartheid regime’s economy was reeling from the effects of international sanctions. Botha finally conceded in 1989 that apartheid was no longer viable, and negotiations began between government officials and the imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela. That same year, F. W. de Klerk, minister of national education, succeeded Botha and after successful pre-negotiations, Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. It can be seen that the politics of negotiation shaped South African society from then until 1994 and, as apartheid laws were gradually lifted, educational reforms took place as part of de Klerk’s continued political liberalization. One the most challenging tasks was eliminating the archaic and racist educational laws.

The defeat of the apartheid system was marked by South Africa’s first democratic election on April 27-29, 1994, won by the multiracial ANC party of Nelson Mandela. The ANC government had as educational priorities, implementing integration and equity policies. As seen against the old Verwoerdian apartheid priorities, these objectives represented a monumental shift from the past. The impact of such policies was mediated by historically embedded organizational practices and approaches developed during the apartheid era. Educational reforms require significant capital expenditures, but economic growth requires a highly skilled workforce and educational reforms . The post-apartheid polity under Mbeki continues to maintain a cautious position within the ANC as to not trigger any internal factions. Furthermore. South Africa’s main resources are still controlled by the white minority, and any increase in taxation to fund educational deficiencies caused by the previous white regime’s rule could result in considerable currency flight.

Among black students, the outcomes of the 1994 election created enormous expectations in the form of equal access to universities and, increasingly, equal employment opportunities. English universities have dramatically increased black enrollment. Conversely, the racial profiles of Afrikaans universities have shown few changes and are still virtually closed to African students. These institutions are still known as “islands of white privilege”, such as the university of Stellenbosch, that still hide behind their Afrikaans language policies as a means of excluding African students.

Education continues to play a critically central role in contributing to the development of South African society. The vision of a reformed educational framework intended to meet the need of South Africa’s future needs and new democratic order was articulated in the 1997 Education White Paper 3: “A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education”. Today, South Africa’s democratic government is striving to redress the legacies of past racist regimes that continue to haunt Africans. The deliberate withholding of decent education to maintain racial superiority and dominance remains one of the legacies of apartheid. The insufficient education of the majority of black Africans and the backlog of deficiencies within the school system will present a challenge to future governments for decades, or perhaps generations, to come.

A complete discussion on Gov. Grey’s role in education during the late period of 19th century is discussed by Rose, Brian and Raymond Tunmer, Eds. in Documents in South African Education. Johannesburg, SA: AD Donker publishing, 1975, pp 204-207.

Ibid. Rose and Tunmer also provide complete details of these important acts that affected African education for the next 25 years. Pp 226-241.

Complete details of the Welsh report are discussed by Sue Krige in: “Segregation, Science and Commissions of Enquiry: the Contestation over Native Education Policy in South Africa, 1930-36”. Journal of Southern African Studies. Vol. 23, No. 3, September 1997, pp 491-505.

Ibid. Rose and Tunmer, pp 233-235. Also outlined are the key issues of the Walsh report, including ill-formed answers posed by the commission, including the “educability of the African”. Two important factors determined educational achievement, the extent to which the African could be educated and the quality of education.

. After the war, only a few recommendations of the Welch commission were implemented, the most important of these were ignored.

Within South Africa, a number of organizations opposed to the European minority rule over Africans, were formed, the most important was the African National Congress (ANC), established in 1923.

Coloureds were characterized as people of mixed race and Asians, some of whose ancestors arrived in South Africa in the 17th century.

Nelson Mandela give a full account of the formation of the ANC and the CYL and the challenges they faced when protesting the minority white governments, in particular the Nationalist Party in: Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom. Little, Brown & Company Ltd., Boston. 1994.

Ibid. p. 162.

Unlike other countries in the continent, South Africa was completely self-sufficient in food production, clothing, chemicals, and machinery, and not affected by wartime import shortages.

The 1913 Native Lands Act separated whites and blacks in rural areas, whereby giving blacks ownership rights to only 7 percent of land. However as more territory in the rural periphery was required for reserves, this restriction was increased to thirteen percent by the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act.

This was not a phenomenon of South Africa, but these demands were also taking place in the rest of colonial Africa.

The Smuts government’s introduced school feeding programs in 1943, syllabus in all cases were the same in white as well as in African schools, instruction in mother tongue, more technical and vocational training, more per capita spending on Africans, and further admittance of non-whites into universities.

Muriel Horrell discusses these encouraging features of the previous system in: Bantu Education to 1968. SAIRR, Johannesburg, 1968 pp 1-3.

Missionary run schools produced over half the African matriculants in South Africa, by exporting professionals and skilled workers to mainly serve the emerging industrial sectors.

Ann Kelk Mager discusses how these groups such as the Cape African Parents Association (CAPA), were forms and how they sought to bring together parents and give them a voice in educating their children

in: Gender & the Making of a South African Bantustan: A social History of the Ciskei, 1945-1959. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999. pp 198-199.

The primary appeal for those who supported the National Party was the party’s determination in maintaining white dominance in the face of rising African resistance, to give Afrikaners a sense of pride by challenging English speaking whites, and most importantly the promise of abolishing all imperialistic ties.

Interestingly, the National Party began the longest uninterrupted reign of any political party in power in the Western word.

In Afrikaans, apartheid means “apartness” or “separateness”

Pam Christie and Colin Collins discuss the role of racism and religion in education in: “Bantu Education: Apartheid Ideology and Labour Reproduction”. Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans, Edited by Peter Kallaway. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984, pp 161-182.

Timothy D. Sisk discusses these earlier apartheid laws in Democratization in South Africa: The Elusive Social Contract. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Chapter two pp 56-87

Ibid. Mike Mason also details the Nationalist government’s agenda. Pp 234-235.

Ibid. Ann Kelk Mager describes these student rebellions. Pp 197-199.

The self-righteous Verwoerd, a religious fundamentalist, felt himself incapable of any error and was driven by his beliefs that South Africa was a white man’s country. Later when Verwoerd became South Africa’s prime minister from 1958-1966, many believe that he brought to politics the same gifts that the Ayatollah Khomeini brought to politics in Iran.

Muriel Horrell outlines more of Dr. Verwoerd’s senate statements in: A Decade of Bantu Education. South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), Johannesburg. 1964. Pp 5-6.

A complete description of the Eiselen report and its effect on education is outlined by Brian Rose and Raymond Tunmer, Eds. in: Documents in South African Education. Johannesburg, SA: AD Donker publishing, 1975, pp 244-280.

The aims of education for Africans, formulated by the Afrikaner government are discussed in: Bantu Education to 1968. Compiled by Muriel Horrell. South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, 1968, pp 4-5.

Timothy Sisk discusses this in: Democratization in South Africa: The Elusive Social Contract. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, chapter 2 p. 60.

Ibid. Nelson Mandela, p 148.

Ibid. Muriel Horrell details the measures arbitrarily taken by Verwoerd, in the 1953 Bantu Education Act in both: A Decade of Bantu Education and Bantu Education to 1968. SAIRR, Johannesburg, SA. 1968

Verwoerd also attacked the liberalism of the mission schools because they gave black children the notion of growing up in a world of equal opportunities between black and white.

Ibid. Anne Kelk Mager also describes how students who were involved in agricultural activities such as ploughing, or other “subsistence” work were either excluded or restricted from entering school.

Ibid. Brian Rose and Raymond Tunmer provide complete details of the Nationalist government’s language stipulations in the 1953 Bantu Education Act. Pp 193-200.

The act was later amended in 1956, 1959 and 1961and discussed by Muriel Horrell in Bantu Education to 1968.

Ibid. Muriel Horrell discusses the steps taken by the government in limiting enrollment in traditionally white universities. Horrell also discusses and outlines the establishment of several new universities and colleges for Black, Coloured, and Indian students. Bantu Education to 1968. Pp 113-132

Ibid. Muriel Horrell discusses these problems in detail in: Bantu Education to 1968. Pp 160-162.

Mervyn Hartwig and Rachel Sharp discuss the controversial issues of the government’s racially motivated politics of education and its predictable effect on the labour force in: “The State and the Reproduction of Labour Power in South Africa” in: Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans. Edited by Peter Kallaway, Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Pp 296-335.

Mike Mason discusses the Sharpville incident in Development and Disorder: A History of the Third World since 1945, Chapter 5, Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 1997, pp 236-237.

Martin West discusses the shortage of schools, in particular Soweto, in: “The Urban African Population of South Africa”. The Apartheid Regime: Political Power and Racial Domination. Eds., Robert Price and Carl Rosberg. UCLA, Berkely, 1980, pp. 146-147.

Ibid. Pp 146-147.

Daphna Golan discusses the effects of the Ubuntu Botho syllabus in: Inventing Shaka: Using History in the Construction of Zulu Nationalism, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994. Pp 28-31.

Lecture by Cedric Jourde, October 4, 2002.

Violence erupted in response to the limited reforms in the 1984 legislation, which continued to exclude blacks from most white educational institutions.

Peter Buckland discusses the changing of political attitudes towards education within the context of the HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council) report in: “Technicism and de Lange: Reflections on the Process of the HSRC Investigation”. Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans. Ed. By Peter Kallaway. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984. Pp. 371-384.

Timothy Sisk details the affects of international sanctions on the South African economy, one of the many reasons which led to constitutional changes in: Democratization in South Africa: The Elusive Social Contract. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Chapter 2, pp 61-67.

Ibid. Timothy details these historical negotiations.

Linda Chisholm discusses African education after apartheid in: “Change and Continuity in South African Education: The Impact of Policy” in African Studies, Vol.58, No. 1 July 1999.

Ibid. Linda Chisholm discusses these difficulties at length.

During the apartheid era, each school’s character was formally rooted in a specific ethnic culture, and politically administered as Asian, Coloured or Black. Although these systems have been abolished, ANC government remains challenged because, due to apartheid, the unequal and different points of entry between black and white schoolchildren have not been fully taken into account. Most importantly, the challenges of economic recovery and revenue shortfalls have presented the new government with a dilemma.

Before the 1994 elections, many of the Afrikaans universities privatized their universities and instituted language barriers.

Pierre Hugo discusses the changing face of South African universities in “Transformation: The Changing Context of Academia in Post-Apartheid South Africa”. African Affairs. The Journal of the Royal African Society. Vol. 97 No. 386, January 1998. Pp 5-27.

Complete details of the government’s White Paper 3 on higher education, can be obtain from . Accessed on November 18, 2002.