2.

3 South Africa's Conundrum

On 10 May 1994, climaxing his journey from a political prisoner to a builder of a young

nation, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first democratically elected President of

South Africa. In the joyous ceremony that marked the end of the country’s pariah

apartheid status and celebrated the nation’s transformation into a beacon of racial

reconciliation, Mandela proclaimed: “Let freedom reign.” In his inaugural address, the

seventy five year old Mandela, urged South Africans to forget past bitterness and unite to

end poverty, suffering and discrimination. But, fiery rhetoric aside, he faced a mountain

of a task pulling together the fractured nation.

Education in South Africa is governed by two national departments, namely

the department of Basic Education (DBE), which is responsible for primary and

secondary schools, and the department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), which

is responsible for tertiary education and vocational training.

The DBE department deals with public and private schools, early childhood development

(ECD) centers, and special needs schools. The public and private schools are collectively

known as ordinary schools, and comprise roughly 97% of schools in South Africa.

The DHET department deals with further education and training (FET) colleges, adult

basic education and training (ABET) centers, and higher education (HE) institutions. The

nine provinces in South Africa also have their own education departments that are

responsible for implementing the policies of the national department, as well as dealing

with local issues.

In 2013, the South African government would have spent about 21% of its national

budget on education, with about ten percent of the education budget was allocated for

higher education. The Departments of Basic Education and Higher Education and

Training is headed each by a Director General and the policies are made at the Ministerial

level. Both of these departments are funded from central government taxes.

Twenty five years on, South Africa has changed a lot since Mandela was first elected

president and much of this change has been for the better. Many more people now have

access to electricity and clean water, institutionalized racism is outlawed, and South

Africa has joined the global economy. These successes have made South Africa a beacon

of light for other countries in Africa that are struggling to develop. But the nation’s

educational system has not undergone necessary development.

During the Apartheid regime, South Africa’s educational system existed in total favor of

the minority white population. Schools for black and colored children either did not exist

at all or were in the poorest of conditions. Schools for white children, on the other hand,

were given all of the advantages.

Today apartheid was all but over but its wounds is still felt on South Africa’s education

system which is ranked as one of the worst-performing in the world. One of the most

vivid examples of the perpetuation of racist ideologies through an extensive process of

social engineering in the history of South Africa is the schooling system and the

implementation of the Bantu Education Act of 1953 which was rooted in the systematic
underdevelopment of black people and the differential access to education based on race.

During apartheid there were four racial classifications for South Africans, which were

White, African, Asian and Colored.

Even today, the majority of the public schools in South Africa that were available to non-

whites, remain as dysfunctional as they were during the height of the Apartheid era.

Predominantly located in South Africa’s townships, the suburbs of cities that were

formerly designated for non-whites habitation by apartheid legislation, these schools

suffer from poor conditions, ineffective national examinations, and exceedingly low

teaching standards. These deplorable physical conditions of township schools inhibit

students from fully engaging in their educational experience: libraries are sparsely filled

with books, plumbing systems are improperly constructed and school environments are

unsanitary and unsafe

Until the early 20th century, virtually all non-whites were subjected to missionary

schooling. This, in contrast to the whites who received schooling directly provided for or

subsidized by local governments. By 1923 it was compulsory for all children of

‘European descent’ to undergo a minimum of seven years of schooling, while it remained

optional, and often exceptionally challenging, for non-whites to pursue an education.

In 1948, the National Party was elected to power with a strong apartheid agenda which

included the system of white supremacy and the systematic marginalization and

exclusion of blacks. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was aimed at providing the labor

market with unskilled workers. The rationale for an inferior education for blacks was

articulated by the Minister of Native Affairs, Hendrik Verwoerd, who became known as
the chief architect of apartheid when he explained the intention of the Act: “There is no

place (for the Bantu) in the European community above the level of certain forms of

labor. Until now he has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from

his own community and misled him by showing him the green pastures of European

society in which he was not allowed to graze.” The Bantu Education system had robbed

the largest section of the population of basic skills such as critical thinking and problem-

solving and instead, equipped them with a substandard education that effectively

confined them and, in all likelihood, the following generation to a life deprived of the

most basic of human rights.

The successive South African governments since 1953 had essentially institutionalized

this underdevelopment of black people through the education system. What followed was

a 40 year period of developing a system of education that in effect exercised social

control over the political and economic aspirations of black people. This served to

reinforce social notions of superiority and inferiority between white and black, male or

female.

It has been said that one of the biggest tragedies of democratic South Africa is the lack of

real reform within the education system. Post-1994 many public schools had recruited

black teachers, many of whom were themselves products of the Bantu Education System.

The administration at the time, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, followed by

Thabo Mbeki, unfortunately did little to eradicate unequal access to quality education in

democratic South Africa.

A poor education drastically decreases prospects of upwards social mobility and many

youth are condemned to lives of fewer opportunities and a lowered sense of self-

determination.

The positive economic implications of an improved education system are important but it

is the social implications that have the potential to fundamentally transform the South

African society. The purpose of education should ultimately be towards the enhancement

of individual capacities, capabilities and ways of being in the world with the aim of

contributing to the building of inclusive societies. An enhancement of individual

capabilities through quality education and the social awareness that comes with it, has the

potential to increase the individuals’ capacity for engaging with others and the

environment critically.

Almost twenty five years into the democracy of South Africa and there is a new

generation of politically active youth who have not lived through experience or memory

of the atrocities of the past. Yet, they face increasing challenges in the form of escalating

violent crimes, some levels of enduring poverty, inequality and unemployment. For a

large sector of the population material change is yet to come. For a small minority,

opportunities of attending former model C (previously whites only) schools or formerly

white universities offer an escape route from the vicious cycle of poverty. Although it is

recognized that education and transformation within the education infrastructure might

not be the solution for all the social problems in the country, calls for equality and justice

within the education system is particularly compelling given the potentially

transformative power it yields if implemented.

Reconciliation is a difficult concept to pin down to a single definition, largely because

people attach too many meanings to the concept. It has been pointed out that

reconciliation must be conceptualized as a multi-dimensional program, incorporating the

psychological, philosophical, and geo-political and materiel elements. In an attempt to

provide an operational definition of reconciliation, the concept of reconciliation had been

extended beyond the interpersonal to incorporate constitutional principles, and

institutions of South African democracy. Other theorists had distinguished between two

levels at which reconciliation operates – the individual and national level. Individual

reconciliation places emphasis on the relationship between individual victims and

perpetrators and is typically reflected in processes such as South Africa’s Truth and

Reconciliation Commission. It is underpinned by the assumption that truth-telling and

remorse by perpetrators will lead to forgiveness from their victims.

National reconciliation on the other hand is concerned with the interpersonal and

redressing broader structural issues that have previously shaped power relations and may

continue to do so if not adequately addressed. From this view, reconciliation must go

beyond the psychological, especially in countries like South Africa that have enduring

socio-economic and psychological legacies.

Education can play a crucial role in radically transforming structural inequality and the

unequal power relations. Its potential extends beyond providing avenues for social

mobility and breaking the vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty. It has a significant

contribution to make in terms of unravelling the apartheid-era social structure and create

a more cohesive and less polarized society.

However, the prospects for radically transforming social structures through education are

continually hindered by poorly conceived reforms and continuing disparities in South

Africa’s school system. While post-apartheid South Africa has made significant

improvements in terms of education attainment this has not reduced racial income

inequality due to inefficiencies and continuing disparities in the education system.

The post-1994 education system was designed to promote nation building, inculcate

democratic values, and address material and social exclusion of the poor. As a result, a

number of reforms were introduced at the various levels of the education system.

The reality of generational woundedness has not been adequately taken into account

when the challenges that faced by the education sector in South Africa were interrogated.

The wounds inflicted by centuries of denial of quality education cannot be erased by a

presidential decree of equal education as was done in the euphoric aftermath of the dawn

of democracy in South Africa. The new democratic government was overwhelmed by the

enormity of the task of addressing high levels of inequality, forging a nation out of

disparate and warring groups and kick-starting an almost bankrupt economy. In the

process, South Africa had neglected the fact that the work needed to reverse the serious

educational challenges

However, instead of starting with small, fundamental changes, starting with early

childhood development and working incrementally through the system, we opted for

wholesale experimental changes which further entrenched the inequalities. One of these
experiments was the introduction of Curriculum 2005 which sought to introduce

Outcomes Based Education (OBE) in all schools in 1997. The objective of OBE was to

“enable all learners to achieve their maximum ability” by encouraging “a learner-

centered and activity based approach to education.” (Dept. of Education, 2002)

Advocates for an improved education system in South Africa, critique OBE, predicting

that it will fail because it was ill-conceived and entirely unsuitable. It has been suggested

that OBE was technically flawed because the fundamental changes needed to transition

apartheid education were not in place. Some of these fundamental changes that would

have to be included are infrastructural adjustments to create classrooms that are

conducive to learner-centered and activity based approaches, an aggressive teacher

retraining program and generous resource allocation. Other issues, such as the lack of

resources in most schools, the weak culture of teaching and learning and the shedding of

teaching posts through a rationalization process, rendered the OBE quite toothless.

Moreover, the politicians were under enormous pressure to show transformation progress

before the second democratic election of 1999

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), which was founded in the year 2000, is

a non-governmental organization that was forged during South Africa’s Truth and

Reconciliation process. The IJR works with education officials and teachers, exploring

two aspects, the impact of the past on teaching and teachers, as well as on how to teach

the challenging past in classrooms. It had been discovered that the wounds inflicted by

the ineffective education system, both past and present, feature prominently whenever the
blockages in education are discussed. After a workshop with senior education officials in

November 2013 for example, the group found that the majority of South Africans,

including education officials were suffering from unconscious woundedness. Most of the

teachers in the system at the dawn of a democratic era had been victims of inferior

resource allocation as well as carrying memories of trauma, in the form of beatings,

persecution and in many cases even imprisonment as a result of fighting the apartheid

system. It became evident that the risk of transferring this systemic and personal

woundedness to subsequent generations is real and requires conscious efforts to address.

As an outcome, the group suggested practical ways of redressing the issue.

The first step would be a conscious acknowledgement that woundedness that needs to be

addressed on an institutional level. It needs to be reflected in policies and strategies to

ensure that it is not perpetuated in future. The Education Ministry should have been more

proactive in ensuring that every policy is underpinned by an acknowledgement of

woundedness and commitment to address and reverse the psychological damage of

apartheid. This commitment should then be operationalized by including therapeutic

components in teacher training, retraining and enrichment. It will however not be enough

to make it a matter for the Department of Education alone, but nationwide awareness and

advocacy are required. A wide array of stakeholders would have to be included in

addressing the matter, not only education officials but also other officials, parents and the

broader community. This can be done by strengthening the school, parent and community

partnership and getting professionals from the community to contribute their skills,

particularly in the psycho-social area.

Besides the institutional level, there are also some very practical ideas for teachers to

implement. Capacity building and support for teachers, making them aware of the issue

of woundedness and how to avoid it, become present in the classroom through their own

teaching.

Considering the history of South Africa’s education system and the legacy of apartheid,

education plays a pivotal role in transformation and change. Policy decisions in education

but also for economic development since 1994 have often perpetuated racial divides and

indirectly contributed to the widening gap between rich and poor that in many instances

still runs across racial lines.

Exploring the concept of woundedness showed that even the work of day to day teaching

is still very much impacted by the past and that concerted effort by policy makers, civil

society and ordinary citizens are needed to firstly surface the issues, and then to find

ways to work through and overcome them. An organization such as the Institute for

Justice and Reconciliation is but one role player among many to assist in this regard.

Working on the concept of woundedness supports the need for reconciliation for

education. Reconciliation in education is both a catalyst and an outcome for society. A

strong drive to acknowledge the importance of reconciliation in a society such as South

Africa seems key for sustainable growth and development. Even though reconciliation is

often intangible and difficult to operationalize, not dealing with the past and the

perpetuation of inequality will in the long run be more explosive and disruptive for any

society. There is no doubt that South Africa needs to address education issues on various

levels to bring it into full effect.