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DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING
EDUCATION STUDIES 4:
EDUCATION POLICY AND PRACTICE
YEAR 3
R-EDS 324
LEVEL 6
CREDITS 14
CURRICULUM AND LEARNING GUIDE
Copyright ¤ SANTS Private Higher Education Institution (Pty) Ltd

PO Box 72328, Lynnwood Ridge, 0040
2020
¤ All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of research, criticism or
review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, without permission in writing from SANTS.
EDUCATION STUDIES 4: EDUCATION POLICY AND PRACTICE CURRICULUM AND LEARNING GUIDE
2020 Edition
Programme coordinator Prof Ina Joubert

SANTS Private Higher Education Institution
Discipline coordinator Mrs Judite Ferreira-Prévost

Modules coordinator Prof Lesley Wood

North-West University
Author(s) Prof Wayne Hugo

University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
Dr Carin Stoltz-Urban
Vortex Education Solutions
Ms Barbara Louton
Freelance Materials Developer, Researcher,
Writer, Editor
Reviewer Mr Zolile Zungu

University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
Dr Ronel Blom
Regent Business School
Language editor Ms Ali Parry
Trade Matters
Technical editor Mrs Judith Brown

Graphic artist Mr John Bertram

Tangerine Designs
Printing BusinessPrint
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING i

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING PROGRAMME

1. WELCOME TO THE MODULE
Dear SANTS student,
We welcome you to the Education Studies 4: Education Policy and Practice (R-EDS
324) module that forms part of the Diploma in Grade R Teaching programme and wish
you success in your studies.
The purpose of the Diploma in the Grade R Teaching programme is to offer a

curriculum that develops teachers who can acquire and eventually articulate focused
knowledge, skills and general principles appropriate for Grade R teaching, as specified
in the Revised Policy on the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education
Qualifications (Department of Higher Education and Training, 2015).
The diploma qualification requires that teachers develop a depth of specialised

knowledge, practical competencies (skills) and experience in a Grade R context. As
part of the diploma qualification, you will need to gain experience in applying what you
are learning during a period of Workplace Integrated Learning (WIL). This means you
will spend some time teaching Grade R learners in an authentic (real) context.
The Diploma in Grade R Teaching qualification programme is aligned with the Revised
Policy on the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications, in
particular Appendix C of the policy that outlines the Basic Competencies of a Beginner
Teacher (Department of Higher Education and Training, 2015, Government Gazette,
No. 38487, p. 62).
2. OUTCOMES OF THE PROGRAMME

At the end of the three-year Diploma in Grade R Teaching programme, you must
demonstrate the following competencies related to your own academic growth and
potential to work with Grade R learners:
x Read, write and speak the language in ways that facilitate your own academic
learning.
x Read, write, and speak the language/s of instruction related to Grade R in ways
that facilitate teaching and learning during play or instruction in the classroom.
x Demonstrate competence in communicating effectively, in general and in
relation to Grade R specialised knowledge in order to mediate and facilitate
learning.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING ii

x Interpret and use basic mathematics and elementary statistics to facilitate your
own academic learning.
x Use information and communications technology (ICT) in daily life and when
teaching Grade R.
x Explain the contents and purpose of the national curriculum with particular
reference to Grade R.
x Demonstrate skill in planning, designing, and implementing learning
programmes that are developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive to
the Grade R context.
x Demonstrate competence in identifying and accommodating diversity in the
Grade R classroom, and in early identification of learning and social problems.
This includes planning, designing and implementing learning programmes to
accommodate diversity.
x Demonstrate competence in observing, assessing and recording learner
progress regularly.
x Reflect upon and use assessment results to solve problems and to improve
teaching and learning.
x Conduct yourself responsibly, professionally and ethically in the classroom, the
school and the broader community in which the school is located.
x Display a positive work ethic that benefits, enhances and develops the status
of the teaching profession and of early childhood education more broadly.
3. PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The diploma is presented on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) exit level 6
with a minimum total credit of 364, earned over the three years. The table below shows
the curriculum implementation plan of the diploma you are studying. It also tells you
how many credits each module carries. You will also see at which NQF level the study
material has been prepared and which modules you need to pass each year. This
three-year programme has been planned to strengthen the competencies you will
need as a beginner teacher.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING iii

Outline of modules of the Diploma in Grade R Teaching programme

Module name Code NQF L Credits Module name Code NQF L Credits
YEAR 1
SEMESTER 1 SEMESTER 2
Introduction to the Language
Academic Literacy R-ALI 110 5 14 and Literacy Landscape in R-LLL 120 5 12
Grade R
Introduction to Mathematics
Fundamental Mathematics R-FMA 110 5 14 R-MAT 120 5 12
Learning in Grade R
Introduction to Life Skills in
Computer Literacy R-CLI 110 5 14 R-LSK 120 5 12
Grade R
Education Studies 1: Education Studies 2:
Theories of Child R-EDS 111 5 12 Theories of Teaching and R-EDS 122 5 12
Development in Context Learning in Context
C-LCX 120
Language of Conversational
C-LCZ 120
Competence: isiXhosa / 5 10
C-LCS 120
isiZulu / Sepedi / Setswana
C-LCT 120
54 48-58
Workplace Integrated Learning Year 1 R-WIL 101 5 16
Sub-total credits for Year 1: 118 -128
YEAR 2
First Additional Language R-FLA 221
English Home and First
and Literacy Learning in R-FLX 221
Additional Language and
R-EHF 211 6 19 Grade R 1: Afrikaans / R-FLZ 221 5 12
Literacy Learning in Grade
isiXhosa / isiZulu / Sepedi / R-FLS 221
R1
Setswana R-FLT 221
Home Language and R-HLA 211
Literacy Learning in Grade R-HLX 211 English First Additional
R 1: Afrikaans / isiXhosa / R-HLZ 211 6 16 Language and Literacy R-FLE 221 5 12
isiZulu / Sepedi / R-HLS 211 Learning in Grade R 1
Setswana R-HLT 211
Professional Studies 1: Professional Studies 2:
The Teacher and the Child R-PFS 211 5 12 Grade R Curriculum in R-PFS 222 6 14
Friendly Environment Practice
Education Studies 3:
Mathematics Learning in
R-MAT 211 6 16 Curriculum, Pedagogy and R-EDS 223 6 14
Grade R 1
Assessment
Life Skills in Grade R 1 R-LSK 211 6 16
60-79 28-40
Sub-total credits for Year 2: 120 - 127
YEAR 3
First Additional Language R-FLA 322
English Home and First
and Literacy Learning in R-FLX 322
Additional Language and
R-EHF 312 6 19 Grade R 2: Afrikaans / R-FLZ 322 6 14
Literacy Learning in Grade
isiXhosa / isiZulu / Sepedi / R-FLS 322
R2
Setswana R-FLT 322
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING iv

Module name Code NQF L Credits Module name Code NQF L Credits
Home Language and R-HLA 312
Literacy Learning in Grade R-HLX 312 English First Additional
R 2: Afrikaans / isiXhosa / R-HLZ 312 6 16 Language and Literacy R-FLE 322 6 14
isiZulu / Sepedi / R-HLS 312 Learning in Grade R 2
Setswana R-HLT 312
Education Studies 4:
Mathematics Learning in
R-MAT 312 6 16 Education Policy and R-EDS 324 6 14
Grade R 2
Practice
Professional Studies 3:
Professional Studies 4:
Early Years Teacher R-PFS 313 6 14 R-PFS 324 6 14
Critical Issues in Education
Identity and the Profession
Life Skills in Grade R 2 R-LSK 312 6 16
62-81 28-42
Sub-total credits for Year 3: 126 - 131
Total credits for programme 364 - 386
Language competencies will be assessed during the course of your programme.
The modules in the programme can be divided into five broad types of learning
(Department of Higher Education and Training, 2015, pp. 9–11). Each type of learning
develops a combination or mix of specific knowledge, values and attitudes,
competencies and skills to achieve the overall exit level outcomes of the programme.
The different types of learning are:
Fundamental learning, which includes student personal and academic

development
x This type of learning involves academic literacy, critical literacies for teachers,
fundamental mathematics, computer literacy, digital pedagogies for teachers
and the ability to converse competently in a second official language.
Disciplinary learning
x Disciplinary learning refers to disciplinary or subject matter knowledge and

includes the study of education and its foundations as well as the study of
specific specialised (phase specific) subject matter.
Situational learning
x Situational learning refers to knowledge of the varied learning situations of

learners and specifically learning about the context and environments of the
learner and related educational policies.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING v

Pedagogical learning
x This learning incorporates general pedagogical knowledge referring to the study

of principles, practices and methods of teaching; as well as specialised
pedagogical content or subject knowledge which includes how to present
concepts, methods, strategies, approaches and rules of a specific discipline
when teaching.
x It also includes tools for implementing teaching and learning and assessment
in context.
Practical learning
x This learning involves learning from practice, which includes the study of
practice by analysing different practices across contexts e.g. drawing from case
studies, observation of lessons and videos; and learning in practice in authentic
and simulated classroom environments.
x Workplace Integrated Learning takes place in the workplace and can include
aspects of learning from practice and learning in practice.
Depending on the purpose of a qualification, particular mixes of the five types of

learning are made. These mixes are called the knowledge mix of a module
(Department of Higher Education and Training, 2015, p. 11) and are related to the NQF
level and credit value of a module. The NQF level of knowledge for this module is set
at level 6 and it carries 14 credits. For every credit, you should spend approximately
10 hours mastering the content. You will thus have to spend at least 140 hours studying
the R-EDS 324 material and doing the assignments and other assessments.
The knowledge mix of this level 6 module with the related credits is as follows:
x Disciplinary learning (11 credit);

x Pedagogical learning (2 credits); and
x Situational learning (1 credit).
Most modules display an integration of the above-mentioned types of learning. Apart

from the knowledge mix, the programme structure is also based on three broad
organising principles. The modules in this programme have been grouped according
to these principles as illustrated in the following table.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING vi

Organising principles of the programme structure of the Diploma in Grade R

Teaching programme
Organising
Modules in programme
principles
Personal and Academic Literacy
academic Fundamental Mathematics
development Computer Literacy
(Fundamental Language of Conversational Competence
modules)
Theoretical and Education Studies 1: Theories of Child Development in
Conceptual Context
Content Education Studies 2: Theories of Teaching and Learning in
Knowledge Context
(Core modules) Education Studies 3: Curriculum, Pedagogy and
Assessment
Education Studies 4: Education Policy and Practice
Professional Studies 1: The Teacher and the Child Friendly
Environment
Professional Studies 2: Grade R Curriculum in Practice
Professional Studies 3: Early Years Teacher Identity and
the Profession
Professional Studies 4: Critical Issues in Education
Pedagogical Introduction to the Language and Literacy Landscape in
Content Grade R
Knowledge Introduction to Mathematics Learning in Grade R
Mathematics Learning in Grade R 1 and 2
Introduction to Life Skills in Grade R
Life Skills in Grade R 1 and 2
Languages:
Six language options:
English Home and First Additional Language and Literacy

Learning in Grade R 1 and 2
Choose another (additional) language at Home Language
level OR First Additional Language level: Afrikaans,
isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Setswana
Only if Afrikaans is chosen as another language: choose
between isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Setswana as Language
of Conversational Competence (LoCC)
Afrikaans Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade

R 1 and 2
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING vii
Organising
Modules in programme
principles
English First Additional Language 1 and 2
Choose between isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Setswana as
Language of Conversational Competence (LoCC)
isiXhosa Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade

R 1 and 2
isiZulu Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade R

1 and 2
Sepedi Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade R

1 and 2
Setswana Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade

R 1 and 2
Students draw on what they have learnt in the respective (all) modules to learn in and
through practice during Workplace Integrated Learning.
4. PURPOSE OF THIS MODULE
Purpose
This module is aimed at developing students’ knowledge and understanding of the

historical, political, and social forces that have shaped South African society and the
education system over the past three centuries. This knowledge is aimed at enabling
them to situate the current legislative, policy, curriculum, education frameworks and
structures, as well as challenges which exist in education today, empowering them to
respond to the system in their role as teachers in South Africa.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module students should be able to:
x Trace the historical developments of education in South Africa.

x Explain education pre-, during-, and post-apartheid.
x Understand the structure, organisation, and management of education in South
Africa today.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING viii

Content
This is the last of four cognate modules within the field of Education Studies for the
Grade R Diploma. This module, with a specific disciplinary field focus on policy and
practice, comprises the socio-historical and socio-political landscape of South Africa
and the attendant legislative and policy frameworks that shaped education pre and
post the first democratic government of 1994. This module also provides students with
current research that highlights current challenges facing education today and their
role as agents of change. The content in this module comprises:
x Historical developments of education in South Africa:

o Traditional and modern education antecedents.
o Early history of formal education in South African brought by colonists
and missionaries and the implications of this.
o The Effects of the South African Industrial Revolution and Political
Unification on Education (1870 to 1948) and the effects of this on
different groups within South Africa.
x Education during and after apartheid:
o How society and education were restructured by apartheid laws and
policies.
o The pillars of apartheid and their influence on education.
o The inequalities in education for different racial groups played out over
the decades of apartheid.
o The use of education to entrench White power before apartheid:
Education during the first three decades of Apartheid (1948 to
1976).
Education during the final two decades of Apartheid (1976 to
1994).
x Key initiatives to resist apartheid education.
x Post-apartheid Education:
o Transformation of education from a weapon into a tool in post-apartheid
South Africa:
Change in education systems.
Education policy and legislative frameworks.
Curriculum reforms.
Implications for classroom practice, teaching and learning.
o The structure, organisation, and governance of education in democratic
South Africa.
o The financing of education.
x The functioning of the South African education system: a critical examination.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING ix

Competencies
x Interpretation of historical and socio-political influences on education.

x Applied educational legislative, policy, and curriculum frameworks.
x Evaluation of policy and classroom praxis.
5. WORKING THROUGH THE CURRICULUM AND

LEARNING GUIDE
We developed the CLG to help you master the content through a distance education
mode. You will not have full time tutoring or support but the Student Orientation
Booklet, accessible at MySANTS, offers guidelines for distance learning. Aspects such
as plagiarism are also explained in this booklet. Make use of MySANTS as a support
system for any academic queries.
These guidelines will help you:
x Work consistently throughout the semester;

x Manage your time efficiently;
x Complete assignments on time; and
x Prepare for tests and examinations.
As you read the CLG, draw on your own experiences and the knowledge you already
have. The core text (CLG) and recommended reading texts included in the CLG will
also help you to deepen your understanding of the content and concepts you are
working through.
In the CLG, you will find a glossary (wordlist). The word list will help you understand
difficult concepts by providing the definitions (meaning) of such words.
You will also find icons (small pictures). The icons indicate the type of activity you must
do. If you do each activity as suggested, you ought to advance and consolidate your
understanding of the core concepts in the module. You will find a list of the icons used
in this CLG on the next page.
Reading and writing activities have been designed to help you make connections
with what you already know, master the content and reflect on what you have learnt.
Scenarios (situations resembling an authentic (real-life) context) and dialogues
provide background to what you are learning. The review/self-assessment questions
are based on the learning outcomes.
Doing each activity will help you understand the content. Get a book or file in which
you complete all your activities. Write full sentences and always use your own words
to show your understanding. Working systematically through each activity, according
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING x
to the estimated time for each activity as provided, will also help prepare you for
assessments (assignments and the examination).
Try to find other students to work with. It is easier to share ideas and complete activities
when working in a study group. Doing so, may help you to master the content more
easily.
Commentaries appear at the bottom of some activities. Commentaries are not

answers but rather a reflection to guide your understanding of the activity and to assist
you in knowing whether your own answer is appropriate or not. These commentaries
alert you to aspects you need to consider when doing the activity.
WRITING ACTIVITY
An activity is designed to help you assess your progress
and manage your learning. Sometimes you will have to
define, explain, and/or interpret a concept. Scenarios and
dialogues are often used to contextualise an activity. They
will also help you bridge theory and practice by linking the
concept and real-life situations. When responding to the
activities, use your own words to show your
understanding. Do not copy directly from the text of the
CLG. At the end of most activities, you will find
commentary that aims to guide your thinking and assess
how well you have understood the concepts. The activities
are numbered for easy reference.
READING ACTIVITY
Reading activities may require you to read additional
material not printed in the Curriculum and Learning Guide.
These readings will be either the full text or part of a core
or recommended journal article. Journal articles will give
you an expanded or alternative view on a concept. You
might be required to explain the concept from a different
perspective or compare what has been stated in the CLG
with what you read in the journal article.
STUDY GROUP DISCUSSION
All study group discussion or peer activities require
preparation BEFORE the discussion. Preparation includes
reading and completing activities in writing. Study group
discussions are an opportunity for reflection and for you to
apply what you have learnt. Sharing your learning
experiences may help you to learn with and from each
other. Study group discussions can be done in your own
study group or with a peer.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xi

REFLECTION
Reflection means to think deeply or carefully about
something. Reflection activities require you to review
critically what you have learnt and link this with your
personal experiences or what you have observed during
Workplace Integrated Learning (WIL).
REVIEW / SELF-ASSESSMENT
Often questions are provided at the end of each unit to
assist self-assessment. These questions are similar to the
type of questions that you may be asked in assignments
or examinations.
6. SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING
As a distance education student, it is your responsibility to engage with the content

and to direct your own learning by managing your time efficiently and effectively. We
designed the following self-directed learning programme template so that you can plan
your time carefully and manage your independent learning. The template will also help
you to keep to due dates and thus complete the assignments on time. Careful time
management and breaking the work up into manageable chunks will help you work
through the content without feeling too stressed. Once you have worked through the
activities you should be able to contribute to discussions in your study group and
during the non-compulsory student academic support sessions with peers and
academic tutors.
When completing the template, consider the following:
x This module is offered in the second semester of your third year of study.
x The semester is 15 - 20 weeks long.
x The module carries 14 credits and has been developed for NQF level 6. It
should take you about 140 hours to work through this module.
x The 140 hours will be spent reading, studying, and completing the activities in
this CLG, as well as the assignments. You will also spend time preparing and
writing the examination.
x The estimated time to read for and complete each activity has been suggested.
x You will need 5 to 10 hours to complete each assignment. This means you will
need to budget about 20 hours in total.
x You should plan to spend about 10 to 20 hours preparing for the examination
in order to be successful.
Plan your studies and keep pace of your progress by completing the template below.
It is not divided into specific weeks, but into the number of units in the CLG. Depending
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xii

on the nature of the content, it is possible to complete two or more units in one week.
Sometimes, you may only be able to complete one unit in a week. Use the template
as a guide to help you plan and pace yourself as you work through the content, and
activities in each unit.
Add dates to the template indicating when you plan to start working through a particular
unit. In addition, using a SANTS academic calendar will also assist you to pace your
learning. There is also space to indicate the due dates (deadlines) of the assessments.
DATE
UNIT IN CLG CONTENT IN CLG
PLANNED
Traditional education and modern

UNIT 1 western education
THE HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT OF
The introduction of western formal
EDUCATION IN SOUTH
education to South Africa
AFRICA FROM
TRADITIONAL TO The effects of the South African
EARLY MODERN TIMES industrial revolution and political
unification on education (1870 to 1948)
Education during the first three

decades of apartheid (1948 to 1976)
UNIT 2
EDUCATION DURING Education during the final two decades
AND AFTER of apartheid (1976 to 1994)
APARTHEID
Transforming education in post-
apartheid South Africa
Education policy and the legislative

framework
UNIT 3
The organisation and governance of
THE STRUCTURE,
education in South Africa
ORGANISATION AND
MANAGEMENT OF
EDUCATION IN SOUTH The financing of education
AFRICA
The functioning of the South African
education system: A critical
examination
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xiii

DATE
UNIT IN CLG CONTENT IN CLG
PLANNED
ASSIGNMENT 1
ASSIGNMENT 2
EXAMINATION
7. CORE READING
Core readings are an important part of your studies as you need to refer to these
text(s) when answering some of the questions in the activities:
1. African Travel Canvas. (2020). Why We Celebrate Youth Day on 16 June |

Soweto Uprising of 1976. Available online at:
https://africantravelcanvas.com/experiences/history-and-politics/hector-
pieterson-and-the-soweto-uprising-why-we-celebrate-youth-day-on-16-june/
2. Agbemabiese, P. (2012). African centered female education before

colonization: Exploring the physical, socioeconomic, and spiritual content of
girl child educational curriculum. Available online at:
https://www.academia.edu/1483436/African_Traditional_Education_Prior_to
_Colonization
3. World Economic Forum. (2020). Schools of the Future, Defining New

Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Geneva: World
Economic Forum. Available online at:
https://www.weforum.org/reports/schools-of-the-future-defining-new-models-
of-education-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution
The first core text is available on EBSCOhost. To access the core reading text(s) use
the library tab on MySANTS and click on the EBSCOhost link. The second and third
core texts are available at the links provided.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xiv

8. RECOMMENDED READING
As a distance education student, you cannot only rely on your CLG and the reader.
We recommend that you also study the following source so that you have broader
insight into the study material:
Villette, F. (2016). The effects of apartheid’s unequal education system can still
be felt today. 16 June 2016. Available online at:
https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/the-effects-of-apartheids-unequal-
education-system-can-still-be-felt-today-2035295
9. ASSESSMENT OF THE MODULE

The SANTS assessment policy is included in the Student Orientation Booklet and is
also available on MySANTS. The policy provides information regarding the types of
assessment you will need to do. It includes information about progression rules,
perusal of marks, or requests for remarking assessments.
In this module, both formative and summative assessment are done over a period of
time (continuous assessment). The activities in the Curriculum and Learning Guide
(CLG) are varied and are aimed at assisting you with self-directed learning. Reflecting
on what you are learning and discussing it in a study group is always helpful. The
personal reflection is aimed at revision, reinforcement, and self-assessment while
informal peer assessment takes place during the group discussions. The following
table provides a summary of the assessment for this module:
9.1 Summary of assessment
TYPES OF ASSESSMENT FORM OF ASSESSMENT WEIGHTING

Formative assessment 2 Assignments (100 marks each) 60%
Summative Examination (50 marks) 40%
TOTAL 100%
The following conditions are applicable:
9.2 Self-assessment
An activity aimed at self-assessment is included at the end of each unit. Before you
complete the self-assessment activity, reflect on what you have learnt in the unit.
Revise the main concepts and if there is any topic or concept, of which you are unsure,
go back to the relevant unit and revise it.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xv

9.3 Assignments
To support you in your self-directed learning and to keep track of your own progress,
we will provide guidelines or the memoranda on MySANTS after the assignments have
been marked and returned.
In order to demonstrate that you have gained the knowledge, skills, values and
attitudes described in the learning outcomes of the module, you need to do the
following:
x Complete and submit each assignment (100 marks) before the due date.
x Submit both assignments that constitute 60% of your final promotion mark to
qualify for admission to the examination.
The task brief (specific information regarding what to do and how to prepare for each
assignment) will be explained in the assignment itself. These assignments are
provided at the beginning of the first semester together with your CLG for this module.
The assignments are also available on MySANTS.
9.4 Semester examination
At the end of the semester, you have the opportunity to sit for a formal summative
assessment. This includes the following:
x Write a formal examination, out of 50 marks that will constitute 40% of your final
promotion mark. Please read the SANTS Assessment Policy that deals with all
aspects of the general assessment and the examination policy.
x A minimum of 40% in the examination is required to qualify for a supplementary
examination.
x To qualify for examination admission, both assignments must be submitted on
the respective due dates.
10. PLAGIARISM WARNING FOR STUDENTS

Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct that can lead to educational or
disciplinary action and has severe consequences - in some cases civil or criminal
prosecution.
You are guilty of plagiarism if you copy from another person’s work (e.g. a book, an
article, a website or even another student’s assignment) without acknowledging the
source and thereby pretending it is your own work. You would not steal someone’s
purse so why steal his/her work or ideas? Submitting any work that you have written
but have already used elsewhere (thus not “original”), is also a form of plagiarism
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xvi

(auto-plagiarism). An example is when you submit the same assignment or a part of it

for two different modules.
Avoiding plagiarism by being academically honest is not difficult. Here is what you
should do:
x Submit only your own and original work.

x When using another person’s actual words, sentences or paragraphs, Indicate
exactly which parts are not your own (even if presented in the CLG). You must
do this by referencing in accordance with the APA style - a recognised system
specified by SANTS, and you must use quotation marks (“...”).
x You must also reference precisely when using another person’s ideas, opinions
or theory. You must do so even if you have paraphrased using your own words.
x You must acknowledge any information or images that you have downloaded
from the Internet by providing the URL link (web address) and the date on which
the item was accessed (downloaded).
x Never allow any student to use or copy any work from you and then to present
it as their own.
x Never copy what other students have done to present as your own.
x Prepare original assignments for each module and do not submit the same work
for another module.
x Always list any student who contributed to a group assignment. Never submit
the work as if only you worked on the assignment.
The Examination Regulations and Procedures policy contains the following in

Section 7.10:
“Students may not act in a dishonest way with regard to any test or examination
assessment, as well as with regard to the completion and/or submission of any
other academic task or assignment. Dishonest conduct includes, among other
things, plagiarism, as well as the submission of work by a student for the
purpose of assessment, when the work in question is, with the exception of
group work as decided by the Academic Committee, the work of somebody else
either in full or in part, or where the work is the result of collusion between the
student and another person or persons.”
All cases of suspected plagiarism will be investigated and if you are found guilty, there
are serious consequences. Disciplinary action that may result includes:
x You may lose marks for the assignment/activity. Your marks may be reduced by
as much as 50%. You may even be given zero.
x The module may be cancelled and you will have to enrol again. This is a great
waste of time and money.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xvii

x Your registration for that entire year may be cancelled. That means all the marks
you achieved in all the modules you enrolled for will count anything.
x In some cases, prosecutions in courts of law may be instituted.
Plagiarism is considered such a serious academic crime that you are required to sign
the standard document (Declaration of Original Work) to every assignment that you
submit by either using the assignment booklet or electronic submission. The
Declaration of Original Work is printed on the cover of the assignment booklets.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xviii

CONTENT
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING PROGRAMME ............................................... ii

1. WELCOME TO THE MODULE ......................................................................... ii
2. OUTCOMES OF THE PROGRAMME .............................................................. ii
3. PROGRAMME STRUCTURE .......................................................................... iii
4. PURPOSE OF THIS MODULE ....................................................................... viii
5. WORKING THROUGH THE CURRICULUM AND LEARNING GUIDE ............ x
6. SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING ........................................................................ xii
7. CORE READING ........................................................................................... xiv
8. RECOMMENDED READING .......................................................................... xv
9. ASSESSMENT OF THE MODULE ................................................................. xv
9.1 Summary of assessment ...................................................................... xv
9.2 Self-assessment ................................................................................... xv
9.3 Assignments ........................................................................................ xvi
9.4 Semester examination......................................................................... xvi
10. PLAGIARISM WARNING FOR STUDENTS .................................................. xvi
EDUCATION STUDIES 4: EDUCATION POLICY AND PRACTICE ........................ 1
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1
2. STRUCTURE AND OUTCOMES OF THIS MODULE ...................................... 2
3. GLOSSARY ...................................................................................................... 4
UNIT 1: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH
AFRICA FROM TRADITIONAL TO EARLY MODERN TIMES ................................ 8
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 8
2. STRUCTURE AND LEARNING OUTCOMES OF UNIT 1 .............................. 10
SECTION 1: TRADITIONAL EDUCATION AND MODERN WESTERN
EDUCATION ........................................................................................................... 11
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 11
2. TRADITIONAL EDUCATION .......................................................................... 13
2.1 The nature and purpose of traditional education .................................. 13
2.2 Characteristics of African traditional education .................................... 14
3. MODERN FORMAL EDUCATION .................................................................. 17
3.1 The nature and purpose of Western formal education ......................... 18
3.2 Tracing the roots of formal, modern education ..................................... 20
3.3 The expansion of formal, modern education in the west ...................... 21
3.3.1 The effects of the Industrial Revolution on education .............. 22
3.3.2 The effects of the French Revolution on education ................. 25
4. TENSION BETWEEN TRADITIONAL EDUCATION AND MODERN,
WESTERN EDUCATION ................................................................................ 27
5. SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 29
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xix

SECTION 2: THE INTRODUCTION OF WESTERN FORMAL EDUCATION TO

SOUTH AFRICA ..................................................................................................... 30
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 30
2. THE MEETING OF MODERN AND TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES IN SOUTH
AFRICA........................................................................................................... 31
2.1 The Dutch bring religion, slavery and education to the Cape ............... 32
2.2 The role of missionaries in bringing formal education to South Africa .. 37
2.3 The role of the British Colonial authorities in establishing formal
education in South Africa ..................................................................... 39
3. SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 42
SECTION 3: THE EFFECTS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION AND POLITICAL UNIFICATION ON EDUCATION (1870 TO
1948) ....................................................................................................................... 42
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 42
2. GOLD AND DIAMONDS: SOUTH AFRICA’S INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION... 43
2.1 The urbanisation of White families and the fragmentation of Black
families ................................................................................................. 43
2.2 Development of a new social class structure in South Africa ............... 44
3. WAR AND UNION (1877 TO 1910) ................................................................ 45
4. A VISION FOR EDUCATION AS A TOOL TO ENTRENCH WHITE POWER
BEFORE 1910 ................................................................................................ 46
4.1 Land, labour and jobs and the expansion of education for Whites ....... 46
4.2 Educating White children to be skilled .................................................. 47
4.3 English-medium education ................................................................... 47
5. EDUCATION AFTER 1910 ............................................................................. 48
5.1 Educating Black children to be servants............................................... 48
5.2 Funding of Black education .................................................................. 48
5.3 Assessing education for Black children ................................................ 49
6. SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 50
UNIT 2: EDUCATION DURING AND AFTER APARTHEID ................................... 52
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 52
SECTION 1: EDUCATION DURING THE FIRST THREE DECADES OF
APARTHEID (1948 TO 1976) ................................................................................. 54
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 54
2. THE PILLARS OF APARTHEID AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON EDUCATION 54
3. THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON THE EDUCATION OF BLACK
CHILDREN ..................................................................................................... 55
3.1 The Bantu Education Act 1953 ............................................................. 56
3.2 The financing of Black education ......................................................... 56
3.3 The effects of ‘Bantu Education’ on the quality of Black education ...... 57
3.4 Resistance to Bantu Education ............................................................ 59
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xx

3.4.1 Teacher action in 1952 ............................................................ 59

3.4.2 The Boycott Campaign of 1955 ............................................... 59
4. THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON COLOURED AND INDIAN
EDUCATION................................................................................................... 61
4.1 Coloured Persons Education Act of 1963............................................. 62
4.2 Indian Education Act of 1965 ............................................................... 62
4.3 The quality of Coloured and Indian education ...................................... 62
5. THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON WHITE EDUCATION ........................... 63
5.1 The National Education Policy Act (1967) ............................................ 63
5.2 The privileged position of White education ........................................... 63
5.3 Resistance to apartheid education in the 1960s ................................... 64
5.3.1 The birth of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) ........ 64
5.3.2 Resistance by Black university students .................................. 65
6. ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CAPITAL ......................................... 66
7. SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 68
SECTION 2: EDUCATION DURING THE FINAL TWO DECADES OF
APARTHEID (1976 TO 1994) ................................................................................. 68
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 68
2. RISING FRUSTRATION WITH LIFE UNDER APARTHEID ........................... 68
3. RESISTANCE AND UPRISINGS AGAINST UNEQUAL EDUCATION
OPPORTUNITIES .......................................................................................... 69
3.1 The Soweto Schools Uprising of June 1976 ......................................... 69
3.2 The 1980 school boycotts .................................................................... 72
3.3 The boycott and People’s Education .................................................... 72
3.4 The Tricameral Parliament and further unrest ...................................... 75
4. THE END OF THE APARTHEID GOVERNMENT .......................................... 76
5. SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 76
SECTION 3: TRANSFORMING EDUCATION IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH
AFRICA................................................................................................................... 77
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 77
2. POST-APARTHEID EDUCATION STRUCTURES AND POLICIES ............... 78
2.1 Establishment of a new education system ........................................... 79
2.1.1 Structure for a single education system ................................... 79
2.1.2 Laws to govern education ........................................................ 80
2.2 The evolution of a new curriculum ........................................................ 80
2.2.1 Curriculum 2005 ...................................................................... 81
2.2.2 The Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) ......... 81
2.2.3 The place of indigenous knowledge in the South African
curriculum ................................................................................ 81
2.3 Change in the funding of schools ......................................................... 84
3. WHAT HAS CHANGED IN EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CONTEXTS FOR
CHILDREN IN SOUTH AFRICA ..................................................................... 89
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xxi

4. IMPLICATIONS OF EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION ON CLASSROOM

PRACTICE, TEACHING AND LEARNING TODAY ........................................ 90
5. SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 92
UNIT 3: THE STRUCTURE, ORGANISATION AND MANAGEMENT OF
EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA .......................................................................... 94
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 94
SECTION 1: EDUCATION POLICY AND THE LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK ..... 96
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 96
2. MAIN PRINCIPLES UNDERPINNING EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA ...... 96
3. EDUCATION POLICIES AND OBJECTIVES ................................................. 97
3.1 Policy documents governing education in South Africa+ ...................... 97
3.1.1 White paper on education and training, 1995 .......................... 97
3.1.2 Education White paper 6, 2001 ............................................... 98
3.1.3 Policy on learner attendance, 2010 ......................................... 98
3.1.4 (GXFDWLRQ:KLWHSDSHURQHDUO\FKLOGKRRGHGXFDWLRQ௅PHHWLQJ
the challenge of early childhood development in South Africa,
2001 ........................................................................................ 98
3.1.5 National policy framework for teacher education and
development in South Africa .................................................... 98
3.1.6 Language in education policy in terms of section 3(4)(m) of the
national education policy act, 1996 (act 27 of 1996)................ 99
3.2 Policy documents governing curriculum delivery in South Africa+ ........ 99
3.2.1 National Curriculum Statement (2002) .................................... 99
3.2.2 Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (2011) ........... 99
3.2.3 National protocol on assessment (2011) ................................. 99
3.2.4 National policy pertaining to programme and promotion
requirements (2011) .............................................................. 100
4. IMPORTANT EDUCATION LAWS ............................................................... 100
4.1 National Education Policy act of 1996 ................................................ 101
4.2 South African Schools act of 1996 ..................................................... 101
4.3 Employment of Educators act of 1998................................................ 101
4.4 South African Council for Educators act of 2000 ................................ 101
5. SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 103
SECTION 2: THE ORGANISATION AND GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION IN
SOUTH AFRICA ................................................................................................... 104
1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 104
2. THE PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE ORGANISATION AND
GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA ................................ 104
3. THE ORGANISATION OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM .............................. 104
3.1 The national organisation of education............................................... 105
3.1.1 The Ministry of Basic Education ............................................ 105
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xxii

3.1.2 The Department of Basic Education ...................................... 105

3.1.3 The National Education Evaluation and Development Unit
(NEEDU)................................................................................ 106
3.1.4 The consultative and advisory bodies .................................... 106
3.2 The provincial organisation of education ............................................ 107
3.2.1 Political leadership ................................................................. 107
3.2.2 The provincial education departments ................................... 107
3.2.3 District and circuit roles.......................................................... 107
3.3 The organisation of education at school level .................................... 108
3.3.1 School Governing Body ......................................................... 108
3.3.2 School Management Team.................................................... 109
4. SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 110
5. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 110
SECTION 3: THE FINANCING OF EDUCATION ................................................. 111
1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 111
2. THE EDUCATION BUDGET......................................................................... 111
2.1 The National Budget........................................................................... 111
2.2 The provincial budget ......................................................................... 112
2.3 The school budget .............................................................................. 113
2.4 Budget sources to finance education ................................................. 113
2.4.1 National government ............................................................. 113
2.4.2 Provincial government ........................................................... 114
2.4.3 Schools .................................................................................. 114
2.5 Education budget expenditure ............................................................ 115
2.5.1 Capital expenditure ................................................................ 115
2.5.2 Salaries.................................................................................. 115
2.5.3 School allocation ................................................................... 115
2.6 Factors that affect the education budget ............................................ 116
2.6.1 The national level .................................................................. 116
2.6.2 The provincial level ................................................................ 116
2.6.3 The school level..................................................................... 117
3. SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 118
4. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 119
SECTION 4: THE FUNCTIONING OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN EDUCATION
SYSTEM: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION ............................................................... 119
1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 119
2. RESEARCH INTO SCHOOLS’ FUNCTIONALITY BY NEEDU .................... 120
3. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 125
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 128
ACTIVITIES 1 TO 36
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xxiii

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Example of first formal school .............................................................. 24

Figure 2: A comparison of the state’s approach to school funding during and
after apartheid ...................................................................................... 90
Figure 3: Structure of the basic education sector in South Africa ...................... 105
Figure 4: Breakdown of South Africa’s education budget for 2017/2018 ........... 112
Figure 5: Breakdown of expected tax revenue for 2017/18 ............................... 114
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xxiv

EDUCATION STUDIES 4: EDUCATION POLICY

AND PRACTICE
1. INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Education Studies 4: Education Policy and Practice (R-EDS 324). This is
the fourth and the last module of the series of Education Studies modules. In the
famous words of former President of South Africa, Mr Nelson Mandela (1990):
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, the
importance of this series of modules is captured.
Because education is so powerful, there has often been conflict over who should
control it and the best ways to educate. Education has been used both as a means of
uplifting people and as a political weapon to oppress people. With regard to uplifting
people, education can help to address the inequality that exists in society. For
example, children from poor families who learn diligently and acquire valuable
knowledge can use this knowledge to gain access to better opportunities in life.
Education can also empower women by giving them opportunities to participate in and
contribute to society beyond parenting and doing domestic work at home. On the
negative side, education can be used to oppress different groups in society. For
example, it has been used at times to give men greater power than women, White
people greater power than Black people, and the rich greater power than the poor.
Families who are already wealthy can use their power to buy the best education
available so as to ensure that their children retain their privileged status.
It is clear that education can be used for good or bad; in particular, it can reduce or
increase inequality. The goal of this module is to enable you to develop a deep
understanding of how education works as a system so that you can use it in your
career as a tool to reduce inequality in our society and improve the chances of our
children having a better life.
Education in South Africa has had a complex Europeans: People from the continent of
Europe. In countries outside of Europe,
history. For more than three centuries education including South Africa, this term can be
was used by Europeans to gain and hold a used as a racial identifier for white people
because their ancestors originated from
powerful position over others in South Africa. Europe.
DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING 1

Dutch and English settlers used education as a Settlers: A settler is a person who comes
to a new country with the intention of
means of establishing European dominance gaining land and establishing the culture of
(Jansen, 1990). This dominance was further his or her native country in that country.
Another word for a settler is a colonist. In
entrenched under the brutal apartheid regime the context of colonisation, settlers arrived
in a new country with a view to taking away
(government). However, throughout the country’s the land and resources of the people who
already lived there and forcing their
troubled history, people have fought back and have language, religion, values and culture on
used education as a powerful tool to free them. A settler is different from an
immigrant, who moves to a new country
themselves. and accepts the language, culture and laws
of that country (even though he or she may
retain his or her own culture at home and
among friends). A missionary is a person
Since the collapse of the apartheid government in who goes to another country for the primary
the early 1990s, South Africans have worked to purpose of spreading his or her faith. He or
she may have other aims as well, such as
transform South Africa into a democratic and just to provide healthcare or education or care
for orphans.
society. The aim of the education system today is to
provide fair and equal education to all learners of every race, class, religion and gender
(Christie, 2008). However, the system is currently falling far short of its goals and is
failing to meet the needs of many disadvantaged children. It is your professional calling
as a teacher to understand the issues surrounding education in the country, how they
have arisen and what attempts have been made to address them, and to join the
struggle for an education system that empowers all South Africans.
2. STRUCTURE AND OUTCOMES OF THIS MODULE
This module consists of three units and the following outcomes:

EDUCATION STUDIES 4: EDUCATION

POLICY AND PRACTICE
UNIT 1 UNIT 2
The historical development of Education during and after apartheid
education in South Africa from
traditional to early modern times Outcomes: At the end of this unit, you
should be able to:
Outcomes: At the end of this unit, you x Explain the education system in use
should be able to: during apartheid.
x Contrast the two different education x Explain the impact of the apartheid
systems in South Africa (traditional laws and system on the quality of
and modern). education.
x Describe the historical development x Describe the resistance to the
of the education system in South apartheid education system.
Africa. x Describe how education changed
x Explain the differences in after the end of apartheid in terms of
approaches to education between management structures, curricula
different population groups and how and funding.
these groups were affected. x Analyse and critically discuss some
x Explain the effects of the industrial of the difficulties encountered during
revolution on education. the restructuring of education.
UNIT 3
The structure, organisation and
management of education in South Africa
Outcomes: At the end of this unit, you should

be able to:
x Explain how education is structured,
managed, and funded at national,
provincial and local levels.
x Critically analyse the functioning of
education in South Africa today.

3. GLOSSARY
Understanding these terms will assist you as you work through this module.
Account -
Describing what happened and explaining why it happened.
Acute - Immediately serious.
Amenities - The things in the community or school that we use, e.g.

playing fields, swimming pools, halls, etc.
Anglicising - To make someone give up their own language and adopt

English.
Annexation - The taking of territory by force.
Assert - To insist upon.
Authoritarian - The people are tightly controlled by the authorities. Not a

lot of freedom allowed. (Top down)
Autocratic - One person rules over others. A monarch is a king or a

monarchs queen. An autocratic monarch is therefore a king or queen
who has all the power.
Catechism - The religious beliefs (doctrines) of a church.
Charter - A document from the authorities giving someone

permission to do something.
Circuit manager - A Department of Basic Education official who is

responsible for the effective running of a group of schools
called a circuit.
Cognitive - Someone who studies how the mind works, especially

psychologist mental processes like thinking, perception and memory.
Coherence - Having a logical structure and making sense.
Cohesion - A bond that holds something together; in this case, the

bond that holds a group of people together.
Commonwealth - In this context: the British Commonwealth, the name given

to the British Empire in 1931.
Competence - Having the qualifications and skills to perform a particular

task or job.
Component - A part of something.

Comprehensive - All inclusive.
Compromised - In this context: reduced or not able to do what it should.
Concept - The underlying idea, essential to understanding a

particular body of knowledge.
Conform - Obey, or follow, a set of rules.
Constituted - How something is put together.
Constraint - Something that is preventing progress. It is something that

ties things up and hinders forward movement.
Critique - Assess or analyse something.
Current - Something happening now, at the present time.
Detained - In this context: during the apartheid years the government

gave the police the power to keep people locked up for as
long as they felt they needed to, without charging them
with an offence or bringing them to court. They were not
arrested, they were just ‘detained’.
Differentiation - Identifying the differences within a group and working

separately with each different sub-group.
Dismantling - Taking something to pieces, taking something down.
Double bind - A situation in which a person is confronted by two choices,

both of which have negative consequences.
Dynamics - Factors that affect the relationships between the various

members of a family, an organisation, or within a system.
Entrenched - Firmly placed in position, difficult to change or remove.
Equal - Everyone gets the same, equal amount or number.
Equitable - Fair, reasonable, but not necessarily equal.
Estimate - Roughly calculate or judge the value or number of

something.
Ethos - The characteristic spirit of a community or institution.
Extended - Made longer. In this context: a piece of writing that is

longer than a sentence – a paragraph, an essay, a story.
Extra- - Not part of the parliamentary process.

parliamentary

Federal - A constitution that divides power between the national

constitution government and the provincial (or state) governments.
Formal - Teaching children at a school using a set curriculum and

education examinations to check that learning has occurred. This is
in contrast to informal education, where children are
taught as part of family and social life without a written
plan and materials.
Graded reader - A series of books that have different levels of difficulty to

help a reader start with simple and easy books and move
on to more difficult books.
Grass-roots - At the level of the ordinary people.
Guillotine - A machine used for executing people by cutting off their

heads.
Habituating - Getting into the habit of doing something to the point

where you no longer notice it.
Impose - To force someone to accept something.
Indigenous - People, animals, plants or anything else that originates in

a certain area or belongs to that place.
Inflation - When prices go up and money loses its value.
Infrastructure - School buildings and other amenities that are needed for
education.
Integration - Taking two different things and putting them together in a

way that shows their similarities and gets them to work
together.
Intended - The set curriculum that is expected to be taught.

curriculum
Interim - Temporary arrangement.
Internalised - To make something an underlying part of a person’s

thought processes and patterns.
Juxtaposed - Put two different things close to each other.
Lapse - In this context: to go back to the old ways of doing things.
Learner-centred - A type of education where the teacher allows the learners

education to make some of the decisions about what, when and how
they learn.

Literacy - The ability to read and write.
Militant - Someone who takes forceful, determined action on behalf

of a cause.
Native - Similar to indigenous. Born in, or belonging to, a place.
NEEDU - National Education Evaluation and Development Unit

constituted to analyse the performance of the South
African education system and suggest ways to improve it.
Non-personnel - In this context, expenses not related to employees’

(personnel) salaries; in other words, money used to
provide more facilities and resources.
Numeracy - The ability to understand and work with numbers.
Patriarchal - Controlled and dominated by men.
Placate - To try to calm someone who is upset or angry.
Prioritisation - A process of listing things in order of importance, from

most important to least important.
Quintiles - One-fifth of something: division into five parts.
Radical - Involving extreme change.
Renaissance - A period of European history from the 16th to the 17th

centuries when there was a rediscovery of the arts,
science and the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans.
This led to major developments in these areas in Europe.
Replicate - To make something the same, or very similar, to

something else.
Republic - A country that has a president as its head of state. South

Africa became a republic in 1961. Before that, the British
Queen was our head of state.
Retaliation - To hit back in response to some sort of attack.
Rote learning - To learn something word-for-word without necessarily

understanding it.
Socio-economic - Social and economic experiences and realities that

factors influence how processes like education work.
Source - Where something comes from or originates.
Sovereign - The person, group, or document that has the highest

power in a country. This could be a king, parliament, or
constitution, for example. In South Africa, it is the

Constitution.
Specialisation - Studying one topic until you are an expert.
State of - A government might declare this in special circumstances,

Emergency such as unrest or violence. The normal laws are
suspended and special powers are given to the police and
army to restore order.
Strategy - An overall plan of how something is to be accomplished.
Teacher-centred - The teacher is in direct control of the class and decides

education what is to be taught, when it is taught and how it is taught.
UNIT 1: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF

EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA FROM
TRADITIONAL TO EARLY MODERN TIMES
1. INTRODUCTION
A country’s education system is usually organised at the highest level by the
government. The education system in every country has developed over time as it has
been shaped by various social, economic and political forces. Within the education
system there may be different institutions and levels, such as a ministry, a department
of education, primary schools, high schools, vocational colleges and universities. In
the different education systems in different countries, these different institutions and
levels might operate and relate to each other differently (emphasis on the word
different intentional).
Academics today divide countries into two groups when they Note on terms for
look at how developed they are: more economically development (MEDCs and
LEDCs): We used to use
developed countries (MEDCs), which tend to have well- the terms ‘developed’ and
‘developing’ to group
functioning education systems, produce educated and trained countries, but this became
unpopular because it
people who are able to make positive contributions to society; suggests that some
and less economically developed countries (LEDCs), which countries have finished
developing (developed)
have systems of education that do not operate as well as they while others have not
(developing), which is not
should and fail to meet the needs of the learners or society accurate nor realistic.
(Hugo, 2016, pp. 14-15).
MEDCs tend to have high levels of economic production, low birth and death rates,
high levels of literacy, and reliable access to water, electricity and sanitation. These
conditions enable good education systems to flourish. LEDCs tend to have low levels

of production, high birth rates, low levels of literacy, and limited access to water,
electricity and sanitation. These conditions tend to work against good education
systems flourishing.
This does not mean that all LEDCs have poorly functioning education systems. There
are good examples of LEDCs that have developed excellent education systems.
Singapore is an example of a country that used good education to transform itself from
a poor and undeveloped country into a flourishing and highly developed country. South
Africa is a modern state that has both less economically developed parts and more
economically developed parts, mainly due to its apartheid past where more was
invested in White urban areas and less in rural and Black areas.
In order to understand the system of education in South Africa today, we need to trace
its historical roots and development. In this unit, we will look at the origins of education
in South Africa, the development of formal education in the country and the impact of
South Africa’s industrial revolution. Later, in Unit 2, we will go on to explore the effects
of apartheid on education and how education has developed post-apartheid. We will
also look at some of the major events in recent South African history and how they
have shaped education. This will give you some understanding of the reasons why
education in South Africa is in the state it is today and the role you could play to
improve it.
You will find, as this module unfolds, that South Africa today has two systems of
education, which are functioning alongside each other. One is a well-functioning,
‘developed’ system which has evolved from the former White system and is delivered
through schools that are mainly in the neighbourhoods once reserved for White people
during apartheid. The other system is a poorly functioning, ‘developing’ system which
has been inherited from the education system that was set up for Black people by the
apartheid government. The quality of education that children receive in these two
systems is vastly different. It is vital that you, as a future teacher, understand how
these two systems have come to exist and how you can contribute to the development
of a single, well-functioning system that delivers a quality education to all children in
South Africa.

2. STRUCTURE AND LEARNING OUTCOMES OF UNIT 1

Unit 1 consists of the following three sections and learning outcomes:
UNIT 1
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA FROM
TRADITIONAL TO EARLY MODERN TIMES
SECTION 1 SECTION 2
Traditional education and modern The introduction of western formal
western education education to South Africa
Learning outcomes: At the end of this Learning outcomes: At the end of
section, you should be able to: this section, you should be able to:
x Contrast the two different education x Discuss the introduction of formal
systems in South Africa (traditional education to indigenous South
and modern). Africans and foreign slaves.
x Discuss the key aspects of traditional x Indicate the key conflicts that arose
education. when modern and traditional
x Outline the conditions that lead to societies met in South Africa.
urbanisation and modernisation, x Analyse the impact of the
including modern, formal education. development of separate, and
x Indicate how the Industrial Revolution unequal, education systems for the
and the French Revolution contributed different population groups.
to the development of modern, formal
education.
x Analyse the tensions between
traditional education and modern,
formal education.
SECTION 3
The effects of the South African industrial revolution and
political unification on education (1870 to 1948)
Learning outcomes: At the end of this section, you should be
able to:
x Describe the social, economic and political effects of the
discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa and its impact
on different population groups.
x Discuss the historical and political events that led to Union in
1910.
x Explain the structuring of education to the benefit of the white
population, at the time.

SECTION 1: TRADITIONAL EDUCATION AND

MODERN WESTERN EDUCATION
1. INTRODUCTION
It is important to understand the two education systems that South Africa has inherited
in order to fully grasp the issues we face in education today. To do so, we need to
unpack the concepts of traditional education and modern western education.
This section begins by looking at some of the characteristics of traditional education.

We will then look at how modern, formal education developed in Europe in response
to the rapidly changing needs of society.
Traditional education, in this context, refers to the age-old practice of the elders of a
society passing on their knowledge, skills, beliefs and customs to the children of the
society. (In other contexts, ‘traditional education’ can refer to the ways things have
been done in schools for a long time, in contrast to new ideas that are being tried.)
Traditional education has existed in human societies, including those in South Africa,
since they began. Terms like ‘indigenous’, ‘local’ or even ‘native’ are sometimes used
instead of traditional.
Tradition refers to the knowledge or customs that a group of people has collected or
developed over its history and passed down through the generations (Omolewa,
2007). Indigenous or native refers to the things that originally came from the place
where they were found, including people (along with their knowledge and customs),
plants and animals. Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and traditional
environmental knowledge (TEK) are terms that have developed alongside concepts
of indigenous knowledge (Hays, 2009). Local refers to something that is currently in a
specific place, whether it came from there originally or not.
In the 16th century, settlers and missionaries from Europe and America began to arrive
in South Africa – and in many other parts of the world – with their western ideas about
education. Their more ‘advanced’ development, their strong religious beliefs, and their
hunger for land and other resources together contributed to a common view of
themselves as superior in terms of their culture, knowledge, religion and, sometimes,
race (Jansen, 1990). From this perspective they justified taking the resources of South
Africa for themselves and imposing their culture, religion and views increasingly on the
indigenous people. While indigenous people in South Africa were open to some extent
to new knowledge from Europe, this was in conflict with their traditional values,
education and way of life. In the next section, we will see how in the centuries that
followed, Europeans in South Africa sharpened education into a weapon to brutally
secure their domination and protect their interests. Traditional versus modern values
– and education – remain sources of tension in our society today.
Western education is also referred to as European, modern and/or formal education.

Therefore, these terms can also be used to mean the same, or similar.
European or Western refers to people, things, or customs that originated in Europe,

even though they may currently be found anywhere in the world. The term West came
to refer to Europe, which lay to the west of Asia, which came to be referred to as the
East. The words West or Western are also used to refer to places like America,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand, even though they are not in the west, because
western culture was brought to these places by European settlers and became
dominant. White people in South Africa or other parts of the world that are far removed
from Europe are still sometimes referred to as Europeans, even if their families have
been in South Africa or other countries for hundreds of years because their ancestors
originally came from Europe. The word modern is often used to refer to the knowledge
and systems that developed in Europe during the period of dramatic change that has
characterised the past few hundred years. Modern education is usually formal and so
it is sometimes called formal education, although traditional education can also be
formal. Western education is no longer the only form of modern education today.
Therefore, in this section, we will talk about the indigenous people who lived in
traditional societies, who passed on their indigenous knowledge through traditional
education, and the westerners or Europeans who lived in modern societies and passed
on modern and scientific knowledge through formal, modern education.
60 minutes
1
Answer the following questions in your learning journal:
1. Define the word ‘tradition’ in your own words.

2. What does indigenuous or native mean?
3. Now look for the following terms on the internet, and write down the definition of
each of the terms:
3.1 Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and
3.2 Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK)
4 What does the term European or Western mean? Explain in two to three
paragraphs.
We will now have a look at traditional education.

2. TRADITIONAL EDUCATION
Traditional education refers to the ways in which people all over the world have actively
passed down their indigenous knowledge over time, generation by generation
(Omolewa, 2007). Traditional education existed before modern education systems
developed. In some places, the arrival of modern education has begun to take the
place of traditional education. In others, traditional education remains strong.
2.1 The nature and purpose of traditional education
In most traditional societies, people have lived with their extended family or clan (or
tribe or community) close to them. Traditional education evolved to ensure that the
skills and knowledge required for the society to survive and maintain its culture are
passed down from one generation to the next (Omolewa, 2007). While there may be
differences depending on specific contexts, traditional education shares a number of
common characteristics, which we will discuss briefly.
Traditional societies often live closely connected to the natural world around them and
– given that the natural world varies across different regions – the way they think, live
and educate their children can be very different from one place Social cohesion: Where
to the next. Traditional societies often have a core set of beliefs people have a strong,
shared identity and work
and values that everyone in the society is expected to follow. By together for the well-
being of everyone in the
individuals thinking and acting in the same way, the group group.
develops strong social cohesion.
Traditional education usually deals with things that are important or needed in the daily
life of the group, as well as their customs and spiritual beliefs. This means it can take
different forms from one place to the next. However, there are some similarities that
can be found in the way traditional societies conduct their traditional education, which
can help us to understand its typical features.
In traditional education, children learn through practical experience about the society
in which they live. They learn from the older members about the different tasks that
have to be performed and they practise the skills required to complete the tasks. This
learning does not happen in a particular place set aside for learning, such as a school.
It happens in the place connected to the task being learned, such as in the home,
around the village, in the field, or in the veld or forest.
Another important aspect of traditional education is that the history of a society is

usually passed down from generation to generation Sacred knowledge: The highly
orally. In the past, many traditional societies did not have valued knowledge and beliefs of a
community dealing with key issues,
a written language, so history was preserved by means such as how the universe came into
existence, the meaning of life and
of songs, poems and stories. Sacred knowledge is also what happens to us when we die.
passed on in this way.
Traditional education is also usually quite gender specific: boys and girls are taught
different things. Girls learn about motherhood and how to prepare food, make clothes
and grow crops. Boys are taught how to look after cattle and goats, make weapons,
and hunt and fight.
Another key feature of traditional education is that Hierarchical systems: Systems that work in
a top-down way, with the many at the bottom
it often emphasises obedience and respect for the level having to listen and obey the few at the
elders. It is a hierarchical system where the top level. Modern schools are hierarchical
systems: many learners have to listen to one
members have less power than the elders, who headmaster. Most tribes are also hierarchical:
many tribal members have to listen to one
are considered to be wise because of their many chief.
years of accumulated experience and learning.
Although most traditional education is informal, it does have a formal component. For
example, there may be initiation practices which take place when the boys are about
to take their place as men in society. For a period (beforehand), the boys are removed
from society and taken to a special place where they undergo instruction in the
requirements of adulthood. After this instruction and an initiation ceremony, they are
regarded as adults. The same is true for girls in some societies.
2.2 Characteristics of African traditional education
Many societies around the world practised (with many still practising) traditional
education. While many share the common features identified above, some societies
emphasise certain features or characteristics more than others.
We will briefly examine the common characteristics and values that underpin African
traditional education.
Kasulwe (2014) describes the common characteristics of African traditional education

in the past as being:
x Authoritarian: learners were regarded as containers which elders had to fill

with knowledge and skills.
x Lineal: learners were required to listen and to internalise what they were taught.
There was no space for dialogue in the system.
x Active: learning was practised in the environments where it would be used (e.g.
in the field).
x Participatory: children learned through watching and joining in as adults
performed tasks; they learned through helping and working. A severe warning
was often given to the learner when he or she was not able to accomplish what
he or she was supposed to do.

x Playful: play was understood as an important learning method; a child was

socialised with others and practised what he or she learned through songs and
dance.
x Formal and informal: informal teaching was most common as children joined
in with what adults were doing. A child was given formal teaching usually after
he or she had made mistakes or when the outcome was found to be
unsatisfactory.
With reference to African societies, Sifuna (2008) identifies some of the values that
drive African traditional education. These include:
x Communalism: The child is brought up within the community by the community

and for the community. A child becomes communal property as soon as he or
she comes out of the womb of his or her mother. The child develops a spirit of
working and living in common.
x Functionalism: Children are trained in the knowledge, skills and attitudes that
will prepare them for their future roles in the community as father or mother and
workers. The purpose of education is therefore to enable them to survive and
contribute socially and economically to the group.
x Holisticism: Children are trained to develop and master multiple skills across
many areas of life.
x Preparedness: Children are trained in the skills and behaviour appropriate to
their gender in preparation for their distinctive roles in society.
x Perennialism: Education is used to keep the life of the group continuing in as
similar a manner as possible, generation after generation. Individuals who
question the group’s beliefs or culture or introduce new ideas may be severely
punished for threatening the unity and stability of the group.
South Africa, with its many different cultural groups, has

Tapestry: A tapestry is a
produced a rich tapestry of traditional education. Many of the thick piece of fabric with
pictures or designs woven
common features already described influence traditional into it. A tapestry of
education in this country. An example is found in the excerpt traditional education is a
weaving together of
below: the traditional Zulu ceremony of umemulo, which different strands of culture
to form a rich picture.
recognises girls when they take their place as women in the
society, is described. (Note that the girl is referred to poetically
as a bride but this ceremony is related to coming of age, not marriage.)
Zulu ceremony of umemulo
“On the eve of the ceremony, all the girls must sleep by the river. They leave home
in the middle of the night in song while completely naked and only covered by a
blanket as they head to the river. They all spend the night there around the fire
singing and dancing. In the early hours of the morning the bride is then taken

privately and tested to find out whether she is still a virgin. When the test is done,
the older women run, singing and shouting as confirmation to all the people left
behind at her home that the ceremony can continue as planned.
The girls then bath and get ready by the river and wait until the father or male
guardian calls for them. The girls are all dressed in Zulu traditional wear and the
bride is presented with a spear – this is a symbol of her victory and strength. When
she gets to the front of her home, she will then throw the spear and wherever it
lands, the father or the head of the home must run shouting words of praise and
dancing to symbolise his gratitude, excitement, love and pride before the whole
community.”
(Makamba Online, 2015)
In the traditional society and education of the San people of South Africa and Namibia,
however, the values are very different from some of the characteristics we have
described so far. Children and adults freely embrace participatory learning rather than
instructional teaching styles; obedience is not emphasised and children do not receive
physical punishment. Children are taught that it is important to be cooperative rather
than competitive, humble rather than self-promoting. Teachers tend to respect the
learner’s individual moods and personalities. Learning occurs when a child watches
the adults and participates to the extent that he or she chooses. Traditional education
can be distinctly different from one clan to another.
240 minutes
2
1. Explain the difference between traditional and modern (western) education in

your own words.
2. What are the characteristics of African traditional education, according to
Kasulwe (2014)? Can you think of any characteristics that describe traditional
education in South Africa which have not been mentioned here? Write these
down.
3. Name the values that underpin African traditional education, and explain each
of them in your own words. Do this in two columns in your learning journal and
keep it for exam purposes.
4. Do you think that one could embrace the values of African traditional education
in the modern education system of South Africa today? Why do you say so?
Which values would still be beneficial in a modern education system?
5. Using your own knowledge of traditional education in South Africa in the present
and past, discuss whether each of the characteristics mentioned above is an

accurate description of the traditional education you have witnessed or

experienced.
6. Ask some of the older people in your community, if they can remember any of
the indigenuous knowledge taught to them by their parents and grandparents.
Make notes of what they tell you. What did you learn about indigenous
knowledge and how it was transferred from one generation to the next?
7. How could you use traditional African values such as Ubuntu, in the way you
teach Grade Rlearners in the modern education system? Name at least two
examples.
Activity 2 deals with the values of a particular society and the differences between
Western and African cultures. In Activity 3, we will focus more on how these
differences impact education.
240 minutes
3
Read the section titled The curriculum and classroom of the indigenous African
education system (from pages 8) of the following core reader:
Agbemabiese, P. (2012). African centered female education before colonization:

Exploring the physical, socioeconomic, and spiritual content of girl child
educational curriculum. Available online at:
https://www.academia.edu/1483436/African_Traditional_Education_Prior_to_Colo
nization
1. Describe the curriculum and the ‘classroom’ of the traditional African system, in
your own words.
2. How did education differ for boys and girls in this system?
3. What do you think, were the main benefits of the traditional African system of
education, for children?
We will discuss modern, formal education next.
3. MODERN FORMAL EDUCATION

We have seen that the main purpose of traditional education is to teach young people
what they need to know in order to complete daily tasks and pass on the culture of the
society in which they live. This is often instilled in a top-down, hierarchical manner
which involves respect for elders and sacred knowledge. What, then, is the purpose
and the nature of modern, formal education?

3.1 The nature and purpose of Western formal education
Formal education is needed when people move to towns and cities instead of living on
farms. As towns and cities grow in size, society becomes more complex, with people
specialising in different skills and products instead of each
Urbanisation: Refers to the
family providing everything they need for themselves. This is process of people moving
increasingly away from farms
referred to as urbanisation. Eventually formal education and rural areas into towns and
begins to develop to pass on the skills and knowledge cities.
needed for these specialised tasks.
In traditional societies, there is strong pressure to think in the same way and do things
collectively (sharing work and benefits). In modern societies, individuals begin to move
away from an identity that is based on how their beliefs and actions are the same as
others in their community, to an identity that is based on how their skills are different
from those of others in their community.
In modern societies, people tend to specialise in a particular area of expertise which

allows them to produce something for other people that is different from what they
themselves are being offered. Individuals perform a variety of tasks and often have
different values and interests, but it is these differences that result in a mutual need.
For example, a farmer specialises in producing food but relies on the factory workers
to make the tractor he needs to produce the food, and both rely on specialist doctors
when they get sick.
What this means for education in a modern society is that it must also shift from a
traditional, informal process of making sure that everyone learns the same cultural
traditions and rules of the group to a modern process where different people are
trained formally in different contents in order to follow different career paths. You, as a
student teacher, are currently engaged in the process of specialisation that will make
you different from other students studying for other degrees. You are becoming a
teacher; others are becoming doctors, mechanics, engineers, accountants, farmers
and entrepreneurs. You will have to rely on them to do their jobs; they will have to rely
on you to do your job. You will have to go to them when you are sick and need a doctor,
when you wish to build a house and need an architect and builder, when your lights do
not work and you need an electrician. They will have to rely on you, in turn, to educate
their children while they are working.
The focus of formal education is on teaching, reading and writing (literacy), and
mathematics (numeracy). It focuses on teaching knowledge from books which goes
far beyond the daily life experience of the learners. Formal education generally takes
place in a specific location, such as a school, and is provided by a person who has
been formally trained to teach. This is very different from the traditional education
which usually deals with things in people’s daily lives, takes place in and around the
village and is provided by elders.
180 minutes
4
1. Why do you think, did the South African society move from traditional to modern
education in the last 100 years?
2. Read the following statements and indicate (in the column to the right) whether
they refer to traditional society or modern society:
Statement Traditional Modern
People aim to have the same beliefs and values in

order to live in harmony.
Individuals aim to develop their own skills so that

they can be independent and in demand.
People spend their time on activities that are

different from what their grandparents did, and do
not have much time for social and communal
activities.
People respect customs and do things in ways that

are similar to how they were done in the past.
When someone in the community dies, normal life

stops, the community mourns, and those who knew
the person are invited to their funeral.
When someone in the community dies, normal life

continues and those who knew the person are
invited to their funeral.
When a person gets old they are looked after by their

family in their home.
When a person gets old they live in a specialised old

age home.
The purpose of education is to develop into an adult

who respects traditions and contributes to communal
life.
The purpose of education is to develop your

individual skills so that you can get a good job.

3. Now summarise the main differences between traditional and modern education
in your own words. Do this in your learning journal and keep it for examination
preparation purposes.
We will trace the roots of formal, modern education next.
3.2 Tracing the roots of formal, modern education
Our earliest records of world history provide evidence that the process of urbanisation
started in societies in the Middle East and China thousands of years ago (long before
it began to occur in Europe), producing systems of writing and formal education,
including examinations.
In Europe, the first records of formal education date from the time of the Greeks, about
3 000 years ago (1000 BCE), and the Roman Empire, around 2 000 years ago. The
Roman Empire controlled most of the land around the Mediterranean Sea and large
parts of Western Europe until the 6th century CE.
CE: This stands for ‘Common Era’ with year
A formal education was provided to many young 1 starting with the birth of Jesus. When we
have a date like 2010 (CE), we are saying
boys and men to prepare them for jobs such as 2010 years after Jesus was born. Times
clerks or administrators in the government, officers before the birth of Jesus are referred to as
‘Before Common Era’ (BCE). Therefore,
or engineers in the army, or jobs in business. when we say 500 (BCE), we are saying 500
years before Jesus was born.
These jobs required numeracy and literacy skills.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 6th century CE, formal education in
Europe declined. For almost the next thousand years, the little education that existed
was controlled by the Catholic Church, which provided training to young men preparing
to become priests or monks. Because there were few other people who could read or
write, they often ended up doing work not only in the church but also in the government.
The sons of wealthy nobles and merchants were the only other people to be educated
in schools run by the church. The formal education provided by the church was
patriarchal (favoured males), and was only offered to boys and men.
This period between the 6th century (CE) and the 16th century (CE) is known as the
medieval period. It is also known as the Dark Ages because there was general decline,
loss of knowledge and poverty in Europe. The period came to an end at the beginning
of the 16th century, with a new flowering interest in education, art, knowledge and
science, and was known as the Renaissance.

th
After the Renaissance, which began in the 16 century, it Renaissance: This means
became more common for wealthy families to have their sons ‘rebirth’ or a renewed
interest in something. In the
educated at church schools. As a result of the growth of larger 16th century, there was a
renewed interest in art,
and more powerful states in Europe (like Spain, Germany, literature and science. This
resulted in rich families
Great Britain and France), from the 18th century onwards, more wanting their children to
and more educated men were needed in order to run have a better education.
government, trade, armies and navies. However, until the 19th
century, education was restricted to the wealthier middle and upper classes
(Cubberley, 1920).
Let us examine the expansion of formal, modern education in the West.
3.3 The expansion of formal, modern education in the west
In the West – especially in Germany, France and Great Britain – formal education
began to expand to include all children, not just boys or the children of the rich. This
process continued until, by 1900, almost all boys and girls across Europe and the USA
were enrolled in primary school. This shift from the traditional education that children
had received in the past, was massive. The change from Radical: To have a far-
traditional to formal education was brought about by two major reaching effect, to change
the fundamental way
developments in Europe – one economic and the other political. things work, to make
sweeping changes.
Both had radical effects, not only on European society but
eventually on people throughout the world.
These two developments were:
x The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the mid-1700s.

x The French Revolution, which began in France in 1789.
90 minutes
5
1. Let us have a look at the terms used in this discussion, again:
1.1 Define the term ‘Renaissance’ in your own words and explain the effect
that the Renaissance had on education.
1.2 Explain the term ‘urbanisation’ and its effect on education.
2. Now think carefully about who was included and excluded in education – did you
note that only boys and young men received a formal education during the
Common Era? Why did that happen? How is that different from today? Do you
know of any countries or instances where women are still excluded from
education?

3. What do you know about the Industrial Revolution? Just write a sentence or two
about what you think you know, before you move on to the next paragraph. If
you are not sure what it means, look it up on the internet before you answer the
question.
We will now discuss the Industrial Revolution. .
3.3.1 The effects of the Industrial Revolution on education
The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid change which began in Europe around
250 years ago and continued for approximately 100 years. It transformed what was
mainly an agricultural society into a largely industrial society. New technologies
developed very quickly, which enabled products to be produced in large numbers in
factories by workers instead of being made one by one by hand by craftsmen. Greater
numbers of skilled workers were required to operate the machinery as well as
managers to run the factories. Industrial growth also led to the growth of large
businesses and trading companies which needed a steady supply of people educated
in numeracy and literacy to work as bookkeepers and clerks, as well as professionals
such as engineers, architects, lawyers, accountants and teachers, to name a few.
The process of urbanisation was accelerated as more and more people moved to the
cities to find jobs in the many factories. This meant that increasing numbers of more
educated people were required to run the expanding cities. Urbanisation brought with
it many social and political problems. Educated people were needed who had the
capacity to address these problems.
As Britain’s industries developed and more products were

Trade: This is the act of buying
manufactured, it became possible to sell these products to or selling goods and services.
There is normally some kind of
other countries. Consequently, British trade with other parts market place where these
of the world grew. This in turn resulted in a need for new and goods can be bought and sold
– this could be a downtown
different ways to transport goods, and modern transport sidewalk, a mall, or today, the
internet.
systems such as railways and steamships were developed to
meet this need. Even more educated people were needed to plan, build and run these
transport systems.
The growing complexity of society gave rise to a need for more complex government
systems to regulate society. Before the Industrial Revolution, the functions of
government were very limited. By the beginning of the 20th century, the British
government had developed into a structure with numerous departments employing
many people. All these government employees had to have an appropriate education.
In response to this intense period of growth and development, the education system
had to expand dramatically in order to educate enough people to fill all these different

th
positions. By the middle of the 19 century (1850s), it was obvious that education could
no longer be left to the churches and the elders, and that the state would have to take
on the responsibility of providing mass, formal education. By the late 19th century, it
was accepted that the state should provide at least primary education for the people.
In order to do this, it became necessary to formally train and certify teachers
(Cubberley, 1920).
Although the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, other European countries –

particularly Germany and France – soon followed the same path of change. By the
end of the 19th century, similar industrial developments were taking place throughout
Europe and in America. During the 20th century, industrialisation spread beyond
Europe and the USA to Russia, China, India and many other countries around the
world (Ness & Lin, 2015). This is one of the major reasons why formal schooling is
provided across the world today. Schools were needed to educate and then specialise
people for all the different jobs demanded by the modern world.
Notice that the Industrial Revolution affected education in two key ways. Firstly, it
required more complex forms of education and secondly it required that more people
be educated.
180 minutes
6
Discuss the following questions in your study group or with a peer:
1. Why did the First Industrial Revolution necessitate more people to be educated,
and how did that influence education?
2. What is meant by the statement the Industrial Revolution (talking about the first
revolution) necessitated more complex forms of education? How is that different
from education before the Industrial Revolution? What new skills were required?
3. Now consider the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which we find ourselves today.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution has much to do with the fact that technology
enables us to do things better and faster than before, and in the process
replacing the former ‘manual’ worker to a large extent. How should we approach
education differently as a result?
Commentary:
If you may want to read more about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, please type
the phrase into your search engine. You will be surprised about how much have
already been written about this topic!
Next, we will examine what the first formal, modern schools in Britain looked like.

The first formal schools in Britain
Remember that there were no schools like those we now have in South Africa when
the Industrial Revolution started in Britain. It is not as if the government in Britain just
needed to build more schools to meet the demand for skills. It was not obvious how to
shift from the situation of church schools for the rich to mass schools for all children. If
we were to go back to the early 1800s, we would find plenty of debate around what a
school should actually look like. Western industrialising countries had not settled on
what a school should be; the classrooms, desks, chairs, and writing and teaching
equipment we know today did not exist.
Take the blackboard we find in many classrooms around the world today, for example.
When blackboards were first invented and introduced into schools, most teachers
resisted them, found them impossible to understand and could not see the use for
them. Many teachers were upset by the introduction of blackboards and struggled to
work out how to use them. In the early 19th century England it was not even clear that
there should be classrooms in a school. Here is what a typical Lancasterian school
looked like at the beginning of the 1800s. There were no classrooms; only one large
schoolroom for all of the children, with no separation by age (Hugo, 2016).
Figure 1: Example of first formal school
(Graves, 2019)
A monitorial school, with three hundred pupils and one teacher
The system worked like this: The boys were divided into rows with long benches and
tables. Once you had learned the curriculum for your row, you were moved back a row.
This process continued until you reached the back row. When you finished that row,
you were finished with school. Around 300 boys at different levels could be taught in
one big room at the same time (Hugo, 2016).
It is important to realise that formal education can be provided in different ways. Formal
education took a very different form in Britain 200 years ago. There were very different
ideas about how children should be educated. Similarly, in the future, it is possible that
formal education could take very different forms. Is it essential that teaching happens
in classrooms, with a teacher for every class? Why do we need big schools with
hundreds of learners? Do we need information to be broken into different subjects? It
is possible that in the future we could have a very different kind of education system
which does not involve classrooms or schools or subjects.
The Industrial Revolution brought about the need for increased specialisation of skills
and jobs. We will discuss this briefly next.
The shift toward specialisation
As people’s occupations became more specialised, society became more complex.

This created a massive need and demand for education. As specialised knowledge
grew, it began to take longer and longer to master all of the specialised knowledge
required for a particular field. This resulted in a need not only for formal education, but
for higher education.
3.3.2 The effects of the French Revolution on education
The Industrial Revolution was the first major event in history that began the shift from
traditional education to modern education. The second big historical event that we
need to explore is the French Revolution.
Before the French Revolution, democracy existed in Europe only in very limited forms.
Britain had an elected parliament but the wealthy, land-owning classes held all the
political power and very few people had the vote.
Most countries in Europe were ruled by autocratic Autocratic monarch: Unlimited authority,
monarchs. In 1789, the French people rose up power, group.
or influence of one person in any
against their king, who, in 1791, was beheaded on Guillotine: A machine use for executing
the guillotine. This revolution resulted in a series of people by cutting off their heads.
wars called the Revolutionary Wars. These wars
took place between revolutionary France and the other European monarchs who
wished to prevent the spread of revolution to their own countries. In 1799, the
ambitious Napoleon Bonaparte became ruler of France and the wars continued as
Napoleon attempted to build up a French Empire in Europe.

The slogan of the French Revolution was ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’. Liberty
meant that all citizens had the right to be free to live their personal lives as they saw
fit as long as they stayed within the law. Equality meant that all citizens had equal
rights before the law. Fraternity meant that all citizens in a country should stand
together and support each other. As a result of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars, these ideas were spread throughout Europe by the armies of France. Although
Napoleon was eventually defeated, the ideas had taken root across Europe and
eventually spread throughout the world.
These democratic ideals, combined with the social, economic and political forces
arising from industrialisation and urbanisation, gave rise to new views about society,
according to which everyone needs to be, and has the right to be, educated.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the most important philosophers of education, lived
at the time of the French Revolution. He wrote a book in 1762 called Emile which was
about teaching a boy, using the principles of freedom,
Critique: To assess or analyse
equality, and brotherhood. Rousseau critiqued an something.
education system based on tradition where it was the task
of a school to transfer existing knowledge into the minds of children through
memorisation and imitation. Rousseau suggested that it was important to allow
children the freedom to explore the world and learn from it in their own individual and
unique ways, giving rise to a child-centred form of education that was very different
from the traditional teacher-centred education. (The differences between these two
approaches were explored in Education Studies Module 2: Theories of Learning and
Teaching.) He argued that children are naturally curious and will explore and learn on
their own, adjusting to their mistakes, and learning to become strong and free in ways
that can contribute to a vibrant democracy.
The Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution helped bring about two dramatic
changes in education. The Industrial Revolution began the process of economic
growth and expansion which resulted in the demand for specialised jobs. Education
responded by shifting from a simple and traditional form of educating to a more modern
form that trained different learners for different jobs. Education system started to
differentiate between learners to allow for specialisation. The French Revolution made
freedom and equality key values that had to be worked with, and resulted in schools
trying to develop these values by developing child-centred forms of education.
240 minutes
7
You have been asked to speak at the SANTS graduation. The theme of the
graduation is. ‘The education system of the future’.

Read the following core reader before you start preparing your speech:
World Economic Forum. (2020). Schools of the Future, Defining New Models of
Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Geneva: World Economic Forum.
Available online at: WEF_Schools_of_the_Future Report_2019.pdf (weforum.org)
Prepare your speech. In your speech, build on the ideas you developed in the
previous reading activity and discussion group. Imagine what kind of education
system could best suit South Africa 50 years from now.
Be sure to cover the following aspects in your speech:
1. Think about the impact that technology has on the way learners would learn and
interact with each other.
2. Take the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic into account. Did that change the
way we learn? Why do you say so?
3. Do you think the way that Grade Rs are taught will change at all? Refer to what
you have learnt in Education Studies 3: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
(R-EDS 223) and motivate your answer. If you believe that it will change, think
about the following:
3.1 How would you organise learners and knowledge in a Grade R
classroom?
3.2 What form would learning spaces and materials take in Grade R
classroom?
3.3 What would teaching look like?
Commentary:
A good speech has an introduction, a strong middle or main message, and a
conclusion. The message must be clear and to the point and there should be a
golden thread between the introduction, main message and conclusion of the
speech.
In the next section, we will look at what happened when modern, industrial European
society met traditional societies such as those in southern Africa in the 1600s. The
consequences of this meeting for education can still be seen today.
4. TENSION BETWEEN TRADITIONAL EDUCATION AND

MODERN, WESTERN EDUCATION
In general, as observed over the past few centuries, people from traditional societies
have been exposed increasingly to modernisation and urbanisation, and traditional
education has weakened. As traditional ways of living become less common, children
have fewer opportunities to learn the old songs and stories of their ancestors and these
traditions are being lost. Some indigenous knowledge relates specifically to rural life
and people living in the cities no longer use it. Other aspects of traditional education
remain important to people.
For example, the practice of umemulo in South Africa, which was described earlier in
this section, is still common. As people practising traditional customs are exposed to
modern ideas, sometimes the customs change to incorporate some of the new ideas.
For example, it is now more acceptable for women over the age of 21 to participate in
the ritual if they are still virgins. But what begins to happen is that customs start to be
questioned and challenged. Or, as people begin to mix both old and new values they
begin to challenge or critique their traditions in different ways (Mhlongo, 2009). For
example, the practice of checking that the young woman is physically a virgin is
challenged by some who feel this is a violation of her rights or is a double standard
(i.e. boys are not treated in the same way).
Today, most societies in which traditional life and traditional education are still strong
also value their children receiving a modern, formal education so that they have the
knowledge and skills needed to operate in the modern world.
In his novel Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones (2006) tells a story of native children on the island
of Papua New Guinea (near Australia) who are receiving a formal, western education
from Mr Watts, the only European on the island. The children’s parents did not have
any formal education and so the children bombard (attack) Mr Watts with their many
questions relating to scientific knowledge. Mr Watts, however, doesn’t have much of
this knowledge himself. He eventually invites the children’s mothers to come into the
classroom to share their indigenous knowledge. In the following excerpt from the book,
the children are apprehensive that their mothers might appear foolish when they share
their indigenous knowledge in the context of the formal classroom. First Mabel’s
mother shared:
“ ‘What if I was to tell you that some gardens begin their lives in oceans.’ Again
she looked around the class, her gaze skipping over the desk where her
daughter sat. Her smile was for us all. ‘I am here today to talk about the heart
seed.’ She told us that one day a heart seed floats in the water. The next day it
has washed up on the beach… ‘Why am I telling you this, children? Because
its stamen makes a fierce flame and keeps away the mosquitoes.’
…Mabel clapped her hands the loudest and for the longest. Her mother bent at
the hips and dropped her head. She came up laughing. Everyone was pleased.
No one had suffered embarrassment or shame” (Jones, 2006, p. 27).
Then it was Gilbert’s mother’s turn:
“The boy with the big woolly head who sat in front of me was Gilbert. Today I
could see right over the top of him because he was slumped over his desk,
ashamed to see his mother in class … Gilbert’s mum turned to face us. She
closed her eyes and recited: ‘To kill an octopus bite it above the eyes. When
cooking a turtle place it shell down first …To kill a pig, get two fat uncles to place
a board across its throat.’ … After the pig recipe she opened her eyes and
looked to Mr Watts. He tried to make a joke and asked how big those uncles
should be. Mrs Masoi answered, ‘Fat ones. Fat is good. Skinny no bloody good.’
Poor Gilbert. He was wincing, and shuffling his big behind in the desk in front of
me” (Jones, 2006, p. 33).
240 minutes
8
Read the excerpts above again to complete this activity. Then answer the questions
in your learning journal:
1. Why do you think Mabel felt proud of her mother, but Gilbert felt ashamed when
his mother shared her indigenous knowledge in the excerpt above?
2. Mabel’s mother recited indigenous knowledge which she had memorised. Does
this indicate formal or informal traditional education?
3. Have you ever been in a situation where you experienced discomfort when
traditional education in your culture met modern, western education? What do
you think was the source of the discomfort? Write a paragraph of about 70 words
to describe the incident and a second paragraph of about 90 words to explain
why.
4. Have you witnessed your parents, guardian, grandparents or any other family
member experiencing a situation when traditional education in your culture met
modern, western education? Write a short essay of about 500 words:
4.1 Describe the experience.
4.2 Write how you felt being a witness to this incident.
4.3 Discuss how you would have handled the same situation.
5. Write a paragraph of about 150 words reflecting on what you have learned
about the tension between traditional and formal, modern education.
5. SUMMARY
The following are salient (important) points from this section:
x Modern education is usually formal, with schools, books, formally trained

teachers and exams. Traditional education is usually informal, conducted in the
places where the skills which are learned are used and taught by elders.
x Traditional education to some extent focuses on members of the group being

the same (sharing a strong, shared set of beliefs and practices) while modern
education, to some extent, focuses on members of the group being different

(learning specialised skills that will enable them to contribute different things).
All societies have developed traditional education. Modern, formal education begins to
occur when a society urbanises and modernises, requiring people to specialise in
different skills. The Industrial Revolution and French Revolution sparked a rapid
process of modernisation. One of the outcomes was that Europe was able to travel
and trade on a bigger scale, bringing Europeans into contact with traditional societies
around the world, including South Africa.
When Europeans came to South Africa, they lacked an understanding of what had
caused their society to modernise before South African society had. Many of them
interpreted this to mean that their culture, religion, and sometimes race, were superior.
Tension still exists between traditional and modern forms of education.
In summary, the values of people from traditional societies may influence their views
of how modern education should be handled. For example, the emphasis on respect
for elders is still deeply embedded in the values of many South Africans from Zulu,
Sotho and Xhosa traditional backgrounds.This can result in a preference for teacher-
centred education where the teacher has strict control and learners are expected to
obey the teacher (elder) without question and debate is not encouraged. The move
toward more learner-centred education in the west, which emphasises group work and
discussion and where the teacher becomes a facilitator, can feel strange and
uncomfortable to people from some traditional backgrounds. However, traditional
education practised by the San people of South Africa and Namibia, as discussed,
works with different values, which can lead to extreme discomfort for San children if
they are placed in modern, formal schools.
Against this backdrop, in Section 2 we will explore how the arrival of modern, formal
education and the dynamics we have explored in this section
Trajectory: The direction
played out specifically in the South African context and how this of the path forward.
set the trajectory for education in our country over the past 300
years.
SECTION 2: THE INTRODUCTION OF WESTERN

FORMAL EDUCATION TO SOUTH AFRICA
1. INTRODUCTION
In this section, we will look at the role that Dutch and British settlers and various
missionary groups played in bringing modern, formal education to South Africa, the

ideas and values that drove them, and the impact of these developments on
indigenous South Africans and foreign slaves.
2. THE MEETING OF MODERN AND TRADITIONAL

SOCIETIES IN SOUTH AFRICA
It was in the 17th and 18th centuries, as the sudden explosion of development in Europe
prompted European countries to begin exploring the world, that sudden and shocking
encounters occurred between the two very different types of societies (Kallaway &
Swartz, 2017).
European development had not yet reached the point where Europeans had the
analytical tools to properly understand the differences between their modern society
and the traditional societies that they encountered. When they saw that their culture
was, in terms of development, more ‘advanced’ than the societies with which they
came into contact, they interpreted this as meaning that they were superior to the other
groups of people. They did not fully understand that rapid and dramatic development
in Europe had resulted from urbanisation and would eventually happen in other
societies too.
Europeans described their sense of superiority in different Savages: A term used by

Europeans to describe people
ways. In terms of believing their culture was better, they groups in other lands whom they
called themselves ‘civilised’ and the people in the societies considered wild, cruel and
uncivilised.
they encountered savages. Some felt that if they could
Civilise: To bring people to a
civilise the ‘savages’ through education, they could raise more developed social, cultural,
and moral state. What
them to a level of equality. Others believed that the reason Europeans often meant by this
was to get the people in other
western society was more advanced was that Europeans countries who they considered
were racially superior – i.e. that White people were savages to think and act like
Europeans.
genetically more intelligent than Africans or others.
According to this view, it was impossible to ever be equals. The goal of education in
this case was to teach them skills that would be useful to a society governed by
superior White people.
As Europeans came across other societies’ beliefs and traditions, they often found
them frightening and strange. On this basis they judged many things as evil, and
believed that if these ‘heathen’ societies could be converted to what they considered
to be the one true religion, Christianity, they could be brought up to a level of equality.
The goal of education in this case was to Christianise people in order to eliminate
behaviours that the Europeans found threatening as well as to save their souls
(Kallaway & Swartz, 2017).

Europeans used these incorrect ideas about traditional societies to justify taking other
people’s land, enslaving them and aggressively trying to convert them – and often
killing them if they resisted. The settlers and missionaries (people spreading
Christianity) from Western Europe and America who brought formal education to Africa
held the misconceptions (wrong ideas) described above to varying degrees.
Because urbanisation had not yet caused traditional education in Africa and other
places to evolve naturally into more modern forms when the European settlers and
missionaries arrived, the ideas about modern education which the Europeans brought
with them were dramatically different from the traditional educational practices that
were evident in Africa at the time. While Europe had experienced a slow, natural shift
from traditional, informal education to more modern, formal education over a long
period of time, and in ways that were in harmony with the existing culture and religion
(Christianity), the societies they encountered found themselves suddenly forced by the
European colonisers to accept educational practices that were not only completely
foreign to them but were also in conflict with their cultural and religious values and
practices. In many cases this drew a mixed response from the indigenous people.
Many recognised the usefulness of the knowledge that had been generated in Europe
and embraced it, sometimes accepting the western cultural trappings that came with it
without resistance. Of these, some retained a sense of the worth of their own culture.
Others began to accept the Europeans’ view that their culture was inferior. Some saw
that mastering the Europeans’ culture and knowledge base would give them insights
that would give them an advantage when dealing with them. Others saw the threat that
the Europeans’ rejection of their way of life posed to their identity and community life,
and rejected the Europeans along with their knowledge (Kallaway & Swartz, 2017).
Over time, as western, scientific knowledge continued to develop, it became clear that
the White race was not genetically superior and that Europe’s advanced development
was due to other factors. Gradually, Europeans began to realise that their negative
reactions to other people’s indigenous knowledge were based on ignorance and
acknowledged the value and importance of the expert knowledge transmitted through
traditional education. Similarly, they began to recognise that other religious systems
or cultural practices could not simply be condemned as ‘evil’ but contained valuable
insights and wisdom that were critical for modern life.
2.1 The Dutch bring religion, slavery and education to the Cape
The Dutch East India Company (VOC), which belonged to the Dutch government,
began to establish a base at the Cape in 1652. With them, they brought two things that
were central to life in the colony: the Dutch Reformed Church and the practice of
slavery (Jansen, 1990).

The Dutch government required its employees in the Company to convert the
indigenous people at the Cape to Christianity. The Company controlled the Dutch
Reformed Church and all Dutch settlers were expected to be
Catechism: The
members of the church. To become a member, one had to be religious beliefs
able to write one’s own name, read the Bible, and recite the (doctrines) of a church;
this term is used
Catechism. This meant that all colonists had to learn to read especially by the
Catholic Church.
and write. During the approximately 150 years that the Dutch
controlled the Cape, the education they provided was almost exclusively devoted to
teaching people to read and write so that they could read the Bible and gain church
membership.
The Dutch used slaves for labour on their ships and, as they began to settle at the
Cape, on their farms. Many American and European slave ships stopped at the Cape,
and men, women and children who had been taken by force from their homes and
lives in Ghana, Angola, Batavia, Madagascar, Mozambique, India, Malay;a, Indonesia
and other countries found themselves at the Cape. Between 1652 and the end of the
slave trade in 1807, about 60 000 slaves were brought to the colony at the Cape. Many
South Africans today are connected to this diverse group of slaves through their
ancestry.
The indigenous Khoekhoe people who had been living at the Cape for approximately
1000 years when the Dutch arrived, proved impossible for the Dutch to enslave initially.
As the Dutch took more and more of their land and means of existence, however, their
way of life began to collapse. Eventually many of them were forced into slavery in their
native land.
The following excerpt describes the process by which Dutch farmers enslaved
Khoekhoe and San people, and the facade (pretence) of education and
‘apprenticeship’ which they provided to the children they enslaved:
Dutch farmers enslaved Khoekhoe and San people
The majority of [the Dutch farmers] lacked the financial means to buy slaves
imported all the way from Indonesia, but since they were already in the process of
dispossessing the indigenous population of their land, it seemed logical to take both
the land and the people by force.
In the wars which they fought against the Khoi and the San, the Boers frequently
followed a policy of exterminating the mature adults, but capturing the children and
raising them on the farms. These children were taught to speak Dutch and to
practise the Christian religion. This system was hypocritically known as
“apprenticeship”, but in fact it was nothing better than slavery because normal
human and family rights were not respected, and children were bought and sold
separately from their parents.
(South African History Online, 2019b)
Child slaves of the Dutch settlers were extremely vulnerable as their parents had no
power to protect them from abuse. The following excerpt is taken from a testimony in
court about a child named Sabina made on 9 January 1749 by her mother, a slave
named Manika of Bengal:
Testimony about Sabina
“Sabina had diligently performed much work for her master’s wife, but without
knowing the reason why, she had been much beaten and abused by the woman; so
much so that her [father] Reijnier had earnestly asked his master to sell the child to
someone else, for she could stand it no longer.
…on a certain Saturday the aforesaid wife took Sabina into a back room after she
had laid the table and stripped her naked and tied her to a post and the whole
afternoon beat her with a sjambok and rubbed salt onto her. After she untied her
she left her in the room, but the witness understands that the girl climbed out of the
window and went and hid herself in the straw in the farmyard.”
(Worden, 1996 p. 69)
The Dutch government required its employees to convert the non-Christian population
at the Cape to Christianity (i.e. membership of the Dutch Reformed Church) wherever
possible. The following excerpt gives a sense of how this was carried out. The Slave
Lodge that is mentioned was built in 1679 to house the slaves of the Dutch East India
Company.
Conversion to Christianity
It was generally understood amongst owners at the Cape that the Church expected
that slave children should be baptised and that baptised slaves should not be sold.
However, in practice, relatively few slaves were baptised.
…All the slaves in the Slave Lodge were baptised in 1666. Thereafter, all children
were baptised within seven days of their birth whether their parents were Christian
or not. The [Company] considered themselves to be the head of the household, and
not the child’s parents. By 1795, a total of 1715 children from the Lodge were
baptised. Approximately two thirds of all the slave children who were baptised during
the VOC period (1652௅1795) lived in the Lodge.
…. The adults also received Christian instruction. They were taught Christian
prayers in Dutch every evening and had to attend church twice on a Sunday.
(Iziko Museums of South Africa, 2017)

In 1658, Jan Pieter van Stael, who was the brother-in-law of Jan van Riebeeck, the
first Dutch commander of the colony, attempted to start the first school for slave
children in order to teach them Dutch and the Christian religion. However, this school
soon failed.
In 1685, a school was started at the Slave Lodge, which is described in the following
excerpt:
The Slave Lodge School
Children younger than 12 from the Lodge attended the school while children
between the ages of 12 and 16 attended school two afternoons a week for religious
instruction.
The boys and girls were taught separately. Religious instruction was heavily
emphasised, but the children also learned to read and write Dutch. Teaching the
qualities of a good slave from the owner’s perspective such as obedience and
respect, were not neglected either. All the children in the Lodge attended school
during its 110 year existence. In stark contrast, according to the 1778 census, only
11.1% of free children and 5.3% of enslaved children in private ownership received
formal education.
The teachers at the school were slaves, convicts and “free Blacks” (a term used for
Black people who were neither enslaved nor of indigenous origin). The first two
teachers were Jan Pasqual for the boys and Margaret, a freed slave, for the girls.
Jan was exiled to Mauritius less than two years later after being found guilty of
immoral acts with the boys. The appointment of Daniel of Batavia as school principal
in 1706 also ruffled a few feathers as he was a convict and Black.
Several school teachers applied with success to be [freed]. It seems as if the position
of school teacher was a profitable occupation as they were the only group of slaves
that were willing to stay on in the Lodge after being [freed]. All teachers, including
those who were slaves, received a salary.
[The conditions under which children lived at the Slave Lodge are described as
follows.]
The Slave Lodge was dark, wet and dirty. A subterranean stream flowed under the
Slave Lodge and this stream flooded the cellar of the Lodge during winter. The roof
also leaked which led to hardship in the wet winter months. The slaves only received
blankets after 1685. Before then, they had nothing to cover themselves against the
cold. However, Höhne, the Slave Overseer, reported in 1793 that the bedding stayed
wet in winter and that the slaves never had time to properly wash and clean their

belongings. Statistics show that the death rate was higher during winter than in
summer. The building was very dark and without adequate air circulation. There
were no windows in the building, only slits in the walls with bars. Only a few of these
slits faced the outside of the building. Louis Michel Thibault, the building inspector,
reported in 1803 that the building was so dark inside that one needed a lantern even
in the day.
In the 19th century, people began to campaign against slavery in Europe. In the Cape,
however, very few settlers questioned the practice as being wrong. Some felt that it
was damaging to the settlers themselves. But the White settler colony had become
completely dependent on slave labour and most people could not imagine a life without
slaves. The quote below expresses the view of W.S. van Ryneveld, a senior
government official, who put it this way:
“However injurious slavery of itself may be to the morals and industry of the
inhabitants, still keeping of slaves is now become, as it is styled, a necessary
evil.” (Iziko Museums of South Africa, 2017)
Now complete the next activity.
180 minutes
9
You have been invited to participate in a radio programme as an education expert.
You have to answer the following three questions live on air. Make notes in your
learning journal, preparing your response to these questions:
1. Describe the history of education in South Africa. Start with indigenuous

education and then how European or Westen Education first started. Give a
timeline and explain each concept (indigenous and Western) in such a way that
the listeners will understand it clearly.
2. How do you think the settlers whose main education was in Christianity – which
taught that all people are created in the image of God, are loved by God as his
children and are equal before God – reconciled (to bring two things or people
which are in conflict peacefully together) their faith and their practice of slavery?
3. How do you think many South Africans, who were introduced to formal education
which focused on Christianity by people who oppressed them and treated them
as inferior, were able to engage with Christianity in a way that strengthened their
sense of dignity and their will to resist?
Next, we will examine the role of missionaries in bringing formal education to South
Africa.

2.2 The role of missionaries in bringing formal education to South

Africa
Beginning in the 1800s, a number of missionary organisations in South Africa started
schools for the indigenous people in various parts of South Africa (Kallaway & Swartz,
2017). The United Brethren missionaries (also known as Moravians) targeted the
Khoekhoe people in the Western Cape and the London Missionary Society targeted
the Khoekhoe and Griqua people in the Northern Cape for their mission activities.
American and Anglican missionaries came to Natal. These and other missionary
groups established numerous bases (which they called mission stations) throughout
South Africa during the 19th century.
The primary aim of the missionaries was to spread the Christian faith. As described in
Section 1, the missionaries tended to view the spiritual and religious practices of
indigenous South Africans as evil and did not consider alternatives to their attempts to
convert them. The following quotes demonstrate some of these views:
“Their bottomless superstitions, their vile habits and heathen customs - their
system of polygamy and witchcraft - their incessant beer-drinks and heathen
dances which are attended by unspeakable abominations - these present a
terrible barrier to the spread of Christianity and civilization.”
(Wilkinson, 1898, in South African History Online, 2019a)

and:
“Missionary stations are surrounded by moral atmospheres, or have a moral
and civilizing influence to a considerable distance around, beyond which it is
extremely hazardous for White men to go.”
(Campbell, 1815, in South African History Online, 2019a)
In addition to converting indigenous South Africans to the Christian faith, missionaries

also saw it as their duty to convince them to adopt the European values and lifestyle.
Particularly, the missionaries were critical of the homes that indigenous people built
for themselves. This view is explained in the next excerpt. The German academic and
theologian, Gustav Warneck, wrote in 1879:
“It is not only that the requirement of modesty necessitates the providing of
some sort of clothing, however simple; but Christian morality desires also a
dwelling corresponding to human dignity, decency and purity. Building plays an
important part in the mission. First the missionary builds a simple small house
for himself, to which he soon adds a school and a church…Gradually his word
and his example produce their effect, and the converts from heathenism begin
to build new and more decent dwellings for themselves.”
(Warneck, in South African History Online, 2019a)

Casalis wrote at Thaba Bosiu, Lesotho, in about 1833:
“.... Our buildings and plantations would also serve as a model for the Basutos,
whom we regretted to see dwelling in huts, and living in a manner so precarious
and so little worthy of the intelligence with which they were gifted.”
(Casalis, in South African History Online, 2019a)

The French ‘missionary artisan’ Gosselin was tasked as follows:
“... to train the (South Sotho) to erect proper and comfortable homes for their
own families, while gaining their affection by teaching them diverse handicrafts.”
(Germond 1967, in South African History Online, 2019a)
Consequently, in addition to teaching Christianity and skills such as reading, writing

and basic mathematics, the basic education provided at mission schools included
some training in trades such as carpentry, masonry, wagon-building and agriculture.
The missionaries also established several colleges to train Black teachers and
evangelists, such as the Lovedale Institute in the Eastern Cape and Adams College in
Natal. Lovedale later became the University of Fort Hare (Kallaway & Swartz, 2017).
Owing to the strong condemnation and hostility which many missionaries

demonstrated toward traditional life, they were regarded with a great deal of suspicion
by many Black people. The chiefs, in particular, often rejected the religion and
education offered by the missionaries as it led to the breakdown of traditional society
and culture and, consequently, undermined the chiefs’ authority. The following excerpt
provides some detail:
“… although some groups such as the Basotho and the Tswana openly welcomed
missionaries, others like the Pedi, the Zulu and the Pondo vehemently rejected
their presence as a matter of national policy. They had strong objections to a
missionary presence and often took appropriate action. Whole populations moved
away from stations; individuals suspected of Christian leanings were administered
magic and emetics; and converts were ostracised and quarantined to missionary
settlements, thus being effectively purged from the group's polity and its social
functions. Despite the continuing spread of a missionary presence into southern
Africa during the 19th Century, by the time of the Anglo-Zulu conflict of 1879 very
few converts had been won over to Christianity.”
(Etherington, 1977, in South African History Online, 2019a)

180 minutes
10
First answer the questions on your own, then discuss the attitudes and the actions
of the missionaries in this section and of Dutch Christians in the previous section in
your study group or with a peer. Make notes of what you learn from your peers.
1. Based on your prior knowledge of indigenous cultures in South Africa, where do

you see evidence that their attitudes and actions showed ignorance of the values
and way of life of the people they encountered in South Africa?
2. How do you think these attitudes and actions have impacted South Africa over
the longer term?
3. Although we do not have a detailed record of indigenous South Africans’
perceptions of the Europeans, how do you think they might have perceived their
values and way of life, in terms of their religious beliefs, homes, social
interactions, etc.?
Next, we will examine the role of the British colonial authorities in establishing formal,
modern education in South Arica.
2.3 The role of the British Colonial authorities in establishing

formal education in South Africa
In 1814, Britain took the Cape away from the Dutch. The Dutch had controlled the
Cape for a century; the British were the new rulers of the Cape but most of the settlers
spoke Dutch. The British began to use education as a tool to force the Dutch to speak
English in order to strengthen British control of the Cape. A system of state- subsidised
education was to be used to encourage the use of English. Nonetheless, until 1839,
education remained primarily in the hands of religious organisations.
In 1839, the Cape Education Department was established. The first Superintendent-
General, James Rose-Innes, set out to extend and modernise the education system
provided to White learners. Separate primary and secondary schools were
established. The primary schools were free, but fees were charged for secondary
education. A new curriculum was introduced for primary schools which included
mathematics, English, geography, history, drawing, nature-study, physical science and
the principles of mechanics.
Although the government schools in the Cape were supposed to be open to all, very
few Black children attended them and Black children became increasingly dependent
on missionary schools for formal education. In 1841, the British government began to

provide funding to the mission schools on condition that English was taught and that
the Cape Education Department would inspect them.
In 1854, Sir George Grey was appointed Governor of the Cape. He saw the potential
for education to be used as a tool to give White people control over Black people and
shut down dissent. He used this argument to persuade the British government to
provide additional funds for Black education at the mission schools. A curriculum was
designed for Black schools that aimed to prepare Black children to work as labourers
on the farms of White settlers or in low-skilled industrial jobs.
Some people’s vision of an education for Black children that focused on trade skills is
revealed in the words of Matthew Blyth, Chief Magistrate for the Division of Transkei,
in his report to the Cape Parliament in 1879:
“More large schools with European masters, where trades could be learnt and
discipline enforced, are wanted in every district, so that there may be more
thoroughness about the education. The expense would be large, but it is a
matter of vital importance to the Colony that the young may be so trained that
they can take their places worthily as members of a civilised and industrious
community.”
(South African History Online, 2019)
In the following message to Parliament in 1884, Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of the Cape
Colony, stressed the value of industrial training as a means of directing the energy of
native people in a ‘useful’ direction to prevent resentment from building up which could
threaten colonial interests:
“Nothing can more surely prevent future (border) wars than the multiplication of
Institutions like those of Lovedale and Blythswood, especially if they extend their
industrial training so as to include agriculture.”
(Warneck, as cited South African History Online, 2019)
The attitude of the British colonial rulers towards the Zulu people in Natal was similar,
as shown in the following excerpts from the book Empire and Education (Kallaway &
Swartz, 2017):
British colonial rulers
Natal was annexed by the British in 1842 with the condition that the British
government had two main responsibilities towards the African population: first, to
slowly bring the ‘natives’ under British law, and second, to use part of the colony’s
annual revenue for the ‘religious, moral, and industrial training’ of the natives, to
allow them to ‘attain a higher social position, and emulate ourselves in the arts of
civilised life.’ (p. 56)
[Examples of the attitudes of the British towards formal education for indigenous
people in South Africa:]
One newspaper article [published in the Natal Witness] considered the Ordinance,
saying:
“… If the education of the people be the duty of a Government—What will education

be worth without religious truth? … Or, is secular education calculated to dispel
superstition, break down native customs, and render the mind better fitted to
apprehend religion, and so become her handmaiden?” (p. 53)
“…The Kafir [sic], like all other races, must work out its own improvement, but as
there is no probability that the Kafir will ever voluntarily take the initiative,
Government must do this for him, by legislating in such a manner as to induce him
to betake himself to the pursuits of industry.” (p. 67)
“In the opinion of the Commissioners it is cheaper, it is infinitely preferable, to train

the young Kafir now, than to exterminate him hereafter; one or other must be done.”
(p. 67)
The relationship between morality, order, labour and industry was clear here.
Civilisation of the African population was essential to the economic progress of the
colony and ‘labour and exertion’ offered the best means of imparting this civilisation.
The Commissioners suggested compulsory attendance at government industrial
schools for boys and girls between the ages of seven and twelve years of age. (p.
67)
Industrial education was promoted by the local government as the best means of
educating the African population of Natal. John Scott, Lieutenant-Governor from
1856 to 1865, was an advocate of industrial training:
“Experience has proved and it is now almost universally admitted that Religious and
industrial training must be combined in order to produce a lasting beneficial effect
on a savage, and really to draw him out of barbarism, and place him in a higher
social position.” (p. 58).
(Kallaway & Swartz, 2017)
Let us reflect on what you have learnt so far.

120 minutes
11
Write down your responses to the following:
1. How might early South African schools have looked had missionaries and other
Europeans approached the traditional ways of life and indigenous knowledge
they encountered in South Africa with respect rather than superiority?
2. How might South African society look today had indigenous South Africans had
the opportunity to explore the modern ideas of the Europeans they met on their
own terms, rather than having European values and cultural patterns forced on
them?
3. Do you think the attitudes of the early European colonists still affect the lives of
South Africans today? Give reasons for your answer.
3. SUMMARY
The Dutch colonial administration at the Cape required basic reading and writing and
knowledge of Christianity in order for someone to be a member of the church. This
extended to the slaves they brought from many countries. Various missionary societies
started schools for Black students from the end of the 18th century onwards. The main
aim of the missionaries was to spread the Christian faith and European values. The
British colonial authorities envisioned a technical education for indigenous South
Africans in order to ‘civilise’ them and prevent them from resisting colonisation. From
1841, Britain began to give funds to mission schools in order to ensure a lower form
of education for Black children which would prepare them for a life working for White
employers.
Next, we will examine the impact (effects) of the Industrial Revolution and the political
unification on education in South Africa.
SECTION 3: THE EFFECTS OF THE SOUTH

AFRICAN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND
POLITICAL UNIFICATION ON EDUCATION (1870
TO 1948)
1. INTRODUCTION
In this section, we will explore the changes that took place in

Tumultuous:
education in South Africa during a tumultuous period in the Eventful, sometimes
with conflict.
country’s history which started approximately 150 years ago. Huge
deposits of diamonds and gold were discovered in South Africa. As a result, the
country experienced its own industrial revolution but as a result of racist policies, with
tragically different outcomes for South Africans of different races. In less than a
century, the country changed from being a collection of rather poor British colonies,
Boer republics and African kingdoms, to becoming a potentially wealthy country under
the rule of the White minority. This triggered huge political, economic and social
changes, along with considerable conflict.
These events had a significant and long-lasting impact on education in South Africa.
Just as the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the west had a massive
transformative effect on education due to the increased demand for specialised labour,
so the Industrial Revolution in South Africa too resulted in a massive demand for
specialised labour. However, in South Africa, there was a racial struggle that resulted
in White people reserving specialised jobs for themselves and leaving unspecialised
labour to Black workers. This had a dramatic effect on education where White children
increasingly received a high quality education to develop specialisations and Black
education was purposefully directed towards building a manual labour force.
We will examine South Africa’s own industrial revolution next.
2. GOLD AND DIAMONDS: SOUTH AFRICA’S

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The discovery of diamonds in the 1870s and gold in the 1880s brought about
enormous changes in South Africa. The wealth generated by mining these resources
sparked an industrial revolution in the country. Tens of thousands of people from all
over the world, but mainly from Britain, flocked to South Africa to make their fortunes
on the diamond fields and gold fields. This had a major impact on families – but a very
different impact for White families compared with Black families. As had happened in
Europe with the Industrial Revolution, the new industries demanded a different kind of
education. In the South African context of White domination, this took the form of
educating White children for specialised work (as managers, technicians, office clerks)
and educating Black children for non-specialised work (primarily manual labour).
2.1 The urbanisation of White families and the fragmentation of

Black families
Thousands of Black men from around southern Africa left their homes hoping to find
jobs on the mines so that they could pay taxes and buy goods which, until then, only
White people had possessed. These Black miners were not allowed to bring their
families with them to the towns or mines where they worked. They were given short-
term labour contracts on the mines. As a result, while White people settled
permanently in the White-dominated towns that sprang up near the mines, Black
families were separated as, year after year, men worked far from their families who
remained in the rural areas, returning often only once a year to visit them. This
‘migratory’ (moving back and forth) labour system, which became a key feature of the
South African industrial revolution, was very different from the way the Industrial
Revolution had given rise to urbanisation in England and Europe, where rural families
moved permanently to the growing cities to take up jobs in industry.
Many new industries and businesses developed to provide for the needs of the mines
and the White communities in the growing towns. The town of Kimberley sprang up as
the centre of the diamond-mining industry and Johannesburg developed as the centre
of the gold-mining industry. More towns then appeared to the east and west of
Johannesburg along the gold ‘reef’. Together,these towns, became known as the
Witwatersrand.
2.2 Development of a new social class structure in South Africa
New social classes developed in these towns. At the top was the Social class: a group
upper class of wealthy White mine owners and financers. Next was within society whose
members have
the middle class, made up of White engineers, lawyers, similar social
positions and levels
shopkeepers and businessmen. After this came the White working of wealth.
class, made up of White skilled workers. And at the bottom was
the vast majority: the Black working class, made up of unskilled workers.
It is important to see that it was an enormous advantage for White families to live in
urban areas near the mines where there were more and more jobs and services, and
an enormous disadvantage for Black families to be split up, with the father living in a
temporary work position with no integration into the urban life around the mine, and
the rest of the family remaining far away in rural areas, also excluded from the benefits
of urbanisation.
The situation for people of other cultural or ethnic backgrounds other than White
Europeans or indigenous Black Africans was complex at this time. During the 1860s,
Indians began to arrive on the east coast to work as indentured labourers (working for
a fixed term) in the sugarcane plantations of the Natal Colony. Later they also worked
as indentured coal miners and railway workers. Those who did not return to India after
their term of labour found employment in industry, growing vegetable produce, fishing,
and working as clerks in the postal service or as court interpreters. In 1885, the
government began to introduce laws that limited the rights of Indians (who were
considered British subjects by Britain). Indians were banned from working in the mines,
and were required to live in certain areas in the Transvaal and were not permitted to
walk on pavements in town. From 1888, they were required to carry passes in Natal.
In 1891, Indians were banned from living in the Orange Free State and had to obtain
special permission to even enter the province. By 1904, Indians outnumbered the
White minority in Natal.
People who were identified as Coloured under apartheid, had diverse cultural and
ethnic identities. In some cases – such as with the ‘Cape Coloureds’ – they had distinct
and cohesive cultural and social identities. However, many of the people later identified
as Coloured did not see themselves as a unified group or did not necessarily see
themselves as separate from other racial or cultural groups with which they identified.
The growing complexity of the new towns meant that the education system was no
longer adequate to provide for the needs of an urbanised and industrialised society.
As with the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the growth of industry and trade created a
new demand for workers who had specialised skills.
120 minutes
12
1. What does ‘unionisation’ mean in the context of the South African history?
2. Write a short essay (2 pages) in which you describe the impact that you think the
mines had on families and on the education system in South Africa. Think of the
impact on White as well as Black families. What was different for these two
groups? Why? How was your own family affected? Do you know?
3. Do you think urbanisation still influences the quality of education? Why do you
say so?
4. How does the demand for specialised skills still impact education today? Name
examples in basic as well as higher education.
The political context of South Africa also had an effect on education and the type of
education system.
3. WAR AND UNION (1877 TO 1910)

The last quarter of the 19th century was full of conflict in South Africa. There were wars
between the British and the Xhosa, between the British and the Zulu Kingdom,
between the British and the Boers of the Transvaal, between the Boers of the Orange
Free State and the Basotho Kingdom, and between the Transvaal Boers and the
Bapedi Kingdom.
The primary cause of these conflicts was the efforts by both the British and the Boers
to establish White domination over the whole country. Conflict also arose between the
British authorities and the Boer republics over ownership of the diamond fields.
Britain came out victorious in all of these wars and the remaining African kingdoms,
along with the Boer republics, lost their independence. With all of the territories now
under British rule, the way was cleared to unite them as one country. In 1910, the
Union of South Africa was established as a dominion of the British Empire.
The constitution of the new Union of South Africa placed all Sovereign: Having the highest
power in the hands of a White-dominated sovereign authority in the country, i.e. not
having to answer to anyone
parliament and a central government. Before the colonies higher.
were brought together in the Union, the Transvaal and Orange Free State
governments allowed only White people to vote, while in the Cape a few Black people
with money and property were allowed to vote.
After Union, a compromise was reached where each Placate: To try to calm someone
who is upset or angry.
province was allowed to keep the system it had before
Federal constitution: A
Union. To placate those who had wanted a federal constitution that divides power
constitution, provincial councils were established to run between the national government
and the provincial (or state)
certain affairs in each province. This included education. governments.
4. A VISION FOR EDUCATION AS A TOOL TO ENTRENCH

WHITE POWER BEFORE 1910
Before the discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa, most Black children did not
go to school. Those who did received a very basic education provided by missionaries,
as described in the previous section. There was only one high school for Black learners
in the whole country: Healdtown Methodist Boarding School in the Eastern Cape.
By the 1860s, a number of high schools had been established for White children.
These high schools usually only accepted boys. Some private schools accepted the
daughters from wealthy White families. Many White children, particularly those in the
rural areas of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, did not attend school, however,
some received some instruction from travelling teachers who would stop at their farms.
4.1 Land, labour and jobs and the expansion of education for
Whites
As the industrialisation of the country progressed, and the urban populations grew
following the discovery of diamonds and gold, different White groups called upon the
government to protect their interests. Many White farmers wanted more land to feed
the growing populations of the towns and cities. White workers became concerned
about protecting their jobs in the cities against competition from cheap Black labour.
White farmers, businessmen and mine owners became concerned about ensuring a
steady supply of cheap labour for their farms, factories and mines.
In response to these interests of the White minority, the White-dominated parliament

passed a number of laws that put most of the country’s land under White ownership
and forced the majority of Black people to become a vast pool of cheap labour for the
mines and for White-owned farms and factories. The most far-reaching of these laws
was the Land Act of 1913, which allocated just 7% of the country’s land to Black South
Africans and forced many Black people living on White-owned farms to leave the farms
and move to the land reserves that had been established. Legislation was also
introduced that closed skilled and semi-skilled jobs to Black people and reserved them
for White people.
4.2 Educating White children to be skilled
When the British defeated the Boer republics in 1902 and annexed them, the new
territories came with two problems. Firstly, many of the Boers were poor. They had lost
their farms due to drought and war and had moved to the mining towns to find work
but had no industrial skills. This placed them in direct competition with unskilled Black
workers for jobs. Secondly, they were fiercely loyal to their own cultural identity and
language. This prevented the White population from being united as loyal British
subjects. Britain saw that education could address both problems, i.e. providing the
Boers with an education that skilled them for industry, while forcing them to learn in
English.
4.3 English-medium education
Regarding the matter of the Boer identity, in 1902 Sir Alfred Milner began to establish
free, English-medium, primary and high schools for White children in the Transvaal.
The rest of the country soon followed suit.
Many Boers, however, resented and resisted the British attempts Anglicise: An attempt
to anglicise their children. In order to protect their language and to have someone adopt
the English language or
culture they established their own schools, known as Christian culture.
National Education (CNE) schools, to provide education in Dutch
and Afrikaans. These CNE schools tried to oppose the Milner schools. Following the
National Party victory in 1948 and the introduction of apartheid, CNE principles
became the basis for the entire system of education in South Africa.
The privileged White high schools that Milner established around Johannesburg and
Pretoria are open to all races today. These include Pretoria High School for Girls,
Pretoria Boys High School, Jeppe High School, King Edward VII School and
Potchefstroom High School for Boys.
To solve the employment problem, the British government decided to provide an

education for White children that would equip them with the skills that were required
for the semi-skilled and skilled work on the mines and in the industries serving the
mines. A different education would be provided to Black children which would ensure
that they were not qualified for the more skilled positions, thus reserving these
positions for White people. Private institutions such as Lovedale, which were training
Black students in trade skills, were seen as a threat to this plan.

120 minutes
13
Answer the following question in your learning journal:
1. Write a short essay (one page) in which you explain the vision for education
before 1910 in South Africa, in your own words.
2. Think about the impact that this had on the various components (groups) of
society.
3. Is the impact still visible today? Give a motivation for your answer.
4. What can government do to address the impact of the past on the present
education system? Name at least five things that you would do.
Let us look at education after 1910.
5. EDUCATION AFTER 1910
After South Africa was unified in 1910, the government adopted an education policy
designed to entrench White dominion (power and control) in the evolving social,
economic and political landscape of the country. This included making education
compulsory for White children, developing a more formal curriculum, extending
technical education for White children, and introducing industrial and agricultural
training programmes for the White working class. The government shifted from the
former policy of the British government forcing Afrikaans children to learn in English
and adopted a bilingual policy placing English and Afrikaans on an equal footing in
White education. In the Cape and Natal where integrated schooling was still the official
policy, although it was uncommon, racial separation in education was instituted. The
policy of separate schooling for White, Indian and Coloured pupils was being enforced
throughout the country by 1930.
5.1 Educating Black children to be servants
Between 1915 and 1926, new curricula were introduced which were designed to
prepare Black children for lives as industrial, agricultural and domestic workers into
Black schools. White children were educated for skilled employment; Black children
were either not educated at all, or taught to become low-skilled workers.
5.2 Funding of Black education
By looking at the funding that was given to White schools in contrast to the funding of
Black schools, we can get a clearer idea of the impacts of these policies in terms of
how biased they were against Black learners. In 1925, the government began to fund
education for Black children through a fixed grant of R680 000 from general
government funds and a proportion of the R2 tax levied on every adult Black male.
The implication was that any extension of Black education Implication: What was
meant, but not said
would have to be financed by Black people themselves. outright.
White schools benefitted from extensive investment by the

Union government, whereas Black schools were mostly financed by the tax on Black
males. White children received a quality education funded by the government; Black
children received an inferior education that was funded mainly by a specific tax on
Black men. This resulted in an enormous difference between the quality of Black
schools and White schools. It is important to realise that discrimination against Black
people was government policy long before apartheid.
5.3 Assessing education for Black children
In 1935, the government appointed a high-ranking committee to investigate the state

of Black education. The committee found that less than 30% of Black children were at
school; 20% of children who started Grade 1 dropped out before completing Grade 5.
In addition, while the material taught was about two grade levels lower than that taught
in the same grade in White schools, Black learners were, on average, 2 to 3 years
older than learners in the same grade in White schools.
The committee recommended that public schools be established for Black children
and administrated by the national department of education. The committee believed it
was unrealistic to recommend that education for Black children be made compulsory
due to ‘practical difficulties’, such as the inadequate number of schools and teachers
available to teach Black children.
There was increasing tension in South Africa and Europe at this time as Adolf Hitler
rose to power in Germany. White, English-speaking South Africans supported Britain
while many Afrikaners (descendants of settlers who speak Afrikaans) did not. These
problems dominated the attention of the government, which failed to act on any of the
committee’s recommendations.
However, by 1945 the crisis in Black education was so serious that the government
was forced to abandon the principle that Black education be largely financed from the
Black male tax. Between 1945 and 1950, the government doubled its budget for Black
schools.
South Africa had also been going through a period of accelerated industrial growth,
largely as a result of World War 2 (1939௅1945), and it was recognised that there was
a need for more skilled and semi-skilled Black workers. However, in 1948, the National
Party (NP) narrowly won the general election and came to power with its policy of
apartheid. This new government was to take a very different view of Black education
to that which was beginning to emerge under the old government.

90 minutes
14
Read the following summary and answer the questions that follow:
Jansen (1990, p. 196) states that a curriculum cannot be neutral, as it is a “product

and expression of the political interests, values, and knowledge of the dominant
social group”.
Jansen (1990) further indicates that South Africa transformed a rural-agricultural to

a more industrial, urban-based economy in the late 1800’s due to the discovery of
gold and diamonds. The industrialisation of the country placed Whites and non-
Whites in a situation where they were directly competing against each other for work
(which Jansen calls a “competitive situation” (p. 196)). This resulted in the
introduction of a ‘”differentiated curriculum” (which means White and Black children
were taught according to different curricula) (Jansen, 1990).
This was done to advantage White people and place Black people at a
disadvantage, so that they would not be able to compete equally for jobs.
1. What does Jansen mean with a ‘competitive situation’?

2. How did the industrialisation of South Africa result in White and Black workers
coming into a ‘competitive situation’? Explain in your own words.
3. What is meant with the term ‘differentiated curriculum’?
4. How was education used from 1860 to 1948 to differentiate Blacks from Whites?
Summarise the five major periods of Black Education in South Africa.
5. What do you understand from the following terms: ‘the curriculum as a political
phenomenon’ and ‘the hidden curriculum’?
6. SUMMARY
The discovery of diamonds and gold brought about an industrial revolution in South
Africa with a number of social, economic and political effects. These included
increased urbanisation of White people, while Black families became fragmented –
with men in temporary jobs in cities and mines and families remaining in impoverished,
rural areas.
After several wars, the British defeated the Zulus, Xhosa and Boers and, with control
over all of South Africa’s territory, established the Union of South Africa in 1910 as part
of the British Empire. Education was increasingly developed in different directions for
different groups of South Africans, based on race, with the intention of solidifying White
wealth and power over the country and training the Black majority as a labour force to
fulfil the White vision.
Before you go on, reflect on what you have learnt so far and complete the self-
assessment activity.
120 minutes
15
Self-assessment activity: Unit 1
If your answer is UNSURE or NO on any of the criteria, go back to the relevant
section to study it again.
Now that I have worked through this unit, I YES UNSURE NO

can:
Contrast the two different education systems in
South Africa (traditional and modern).
Discuss the key aspects of traditional

education.
Outline the conditions that lead to urbanisation

and modernisation, including modern, formal
education.
Indicate how the Industrial Revolution and the

French Revolution contributed to the
development of modern, formal education.
Analyse the tensions between traditional

education and modern, formal education.
Discuss the introduction of formal education to

indigenous South Africans and foreign slaves.
Indicate the key conflicts that arose when

modern and traditional societies met in South
Africa.
Analyse the impact of the development of

separate, and unequal, education systems for
the different population groups.
Describe the social, economic and political

effects of the discovery of diamonds and gold

in South Africa and its impact on different

population groups.
Discuss the historical and political events that

led to Union in 1910.
Explain the structuring of education to the

benefit of the white population, at the time.
Next, we will examine education during apartheid.
UNIT 2: EDUCATION DURING AND AFTER

APARTHEID
1. INTRODUCTION
In this unit, we will explore the Apartheid government’s use of education to
maintainwhite privilege and consolidate (connecting more strongly together) its power.
Specifically, we will look at how education was restructured through apartheid laws
and policies and how the inequalities in education for different racial groups played out
over the decades spanning the apartheid era. We will look at key initiatives that people
– including learners – undertook to resist apartheid education. We will then examine
how education was restructured after the end of apartheid in terms of management
structures, curricula and funding, and analyse some of the difficulties that have been
encountered along the way.
Throughout our discussion on education during apartheid, we will use the terms Black,
Coloured, Indian and White – beginning with capital letters – to indicate people,
schools or other things that were forcefully assigned to these artificial categories by
the apartheid government.
It is important to note that while these terms seem similar to the use of Black, White,
Indian or Coloured which people may choose to describe themselves today, their
meaning during apartheid was very different: everyone (even foreigners, such as
Chinese people) was forced into one of these categories regardless of whether he or
she had ever identified with any one of them or whether family members were assigned
to the same category.


Unit 2 consists of the following three sections and learning outcomes:
UNIT 2
EDUCATION DURING AND AFTER APARTHEID
SECTION 1 SECTION 2
Education during the first three Education during the Final Two
decades of apartheid (1948 to 1976) Decades of Apartheid (1976 to 1994)
Learning outcomes: At the end of this
Learning outcomes: At the end of this
section, you should be able to:
x Discuss the role and experience of
x Describe the key aspects of
learners in the events giving rise to
apartheid that affected education.
the June 1976 Uprising.
x Indicate how education was
x Analyse and engage with the
structured for different racial groups
events around the 1980 school
under apartheid.
boycotts and ideas of People’s
x Explain the major effects of Education.
apartheid on the education of Black
x Outline the Tricameral Parliament
and White learners.
and how this contributed to
x Discuss key initiatives by Black
increased resistance and the 1985
people to resist apartheid education.
state of emergency.
x Describe the key concepts of
concrete and symbolic violence,
habitus, and political and cultural
capital and use these to analyse the
effects of apartheid.
SECTION 3
Transforming education in post-apartheid South Africa
Learning outcomes: At the end of this section, you should be able

to:
x Discuss how South Africa restructured education after apartheid.
x Describe the implications of transformation of education on
classroom practice, teaching and learning today.
x Analyse the current state of education and consider ways to
address challenges in education.

SECTION 1: EDUCATION DURING THE FIRST

THREE DECADES OF APARTHEID (1948 TO 1976)
1. INTRODUCTION
Following its win in the 1948 elections, the National Party wasted no time in making its
apartheid vision a reality. The apartheid programme was supported by a wide range
of laws, but five laws in particular became known as the ‘pillars of apartheid,’ which
brutally separated South Africans into four racial categories as devised by the
government.
2. THE PILLARS OF APARTHEID AND THEIR INFLUENCE

ON EDUCATION
Five laws were the legal weapons of apartheid. The first was the Prohibition of Mixed
Marriages Act (1949), which made it illegal for White people and other races to marry
each other. This was followed the next year by the Immorality Amendment Act (1950)
which made sexual relations between White people and
people of any other race or group illegal. In the same year, Promulgated: To make
known by open declaration;
the third law was promulgated, namely, the Group Areas Act publish; proclaim formally or
which created separate residential and business areas for put into operation.
each of the four racial groups: White, Indian, Coloured and
Black.
To overcome the problem that not all South Africans fitted neatly into one of the four
categories, the government passed the fourth law, the Population Registration Act
(1950), giving itself the power to assign a person to a particular race/group. The fifth
‘pillar’ of this oppressive system was the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1952)
which enabled the government to allocate public facilities to a particular group.
The primary aim of apartheid, again, was to ensure that White people – and in
particular, the Afrikaners – remained in control of the country. The National Party made
some attempts to appear democratic, but at the same time it did all it could to ensure
that there was no serious opposition to its policies or its hold on power. In 1950,
Parliament passed the Suppression of Communism Act. This became a tool for
silencing anyone of any race who disagreed with the government’s policy by accusing
him or her of being a communist. In 1954, the last token of the government including
anyone other than White people in decision-making processes disappeared: Coloured
voters in the Cape Province were stripped of their right to vote in parliamentary
elections.

Education, which as we have seen had already been used to the detriment of Blacks
and other ‘non-White’ groups in South Africa, became an even more powerful tool for
destruction in the hands of the apartheid government. As had been done before, the
government used education to keep economic and political power in White hands by
providing a quality education to White children and a vastly inferior education to all
other children in South Africa.
The government argued that Black people did not need a high level academic
education in their rural, village lives but White people did because they were living in
the wealthier urban areas. Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the Minister of Native Affairs (and
later, Prime Minister from 1958 to 1966), speaking about his government's education
policies in the 1950s, stated:
“There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level
of certain forms of labour ... What is the use of teaching the Bantu child
mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd. Education
must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the
sphere in which they live.”
(Boddy-Evans, 2019)
A politician, J.N. le Roux, stated in 1945 that: “We should not give the Natives any
academic education. If we do, who is going to do the manual labour in the community?”
(Christie, 1991, p. 12).
Next we will examine the effects of apartheid on education for Black children in
particular.
3. THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON THE EDUCATION

OF BLACK CHILDREN
In 1951, a commission appointed by the government released a report on the state of

education for Black children. The commission recommended the following:
x A separate department should be established to oversee Black education at the

national level.
x Black local authorities should be created to take over the control of Black
schools.
x Primary schools should be divided into lower primary (Grade 1 to Grade 4), and
higher primary (Grade 5 to Grade 8).
x Black schools should provide 13 years of schooling, compared to the 12 years
provided at White schools.

x Private Black schools (church and mission schools) were undesirable as the
education they provided led Black children to expect that they could achieve
equality with White people. These schools should be more strictly controlled by
the government.
Based on these recommendations, in 1953 the Bantu Education Act came into effect.
A Bantu Education section was set up within the Department of Native Affairs to control
all aspects of Black education.
3.1 The Bantu Education Act 1953
The Bantu Education Act of 1953 ensured that ‘Black education' was restructured in
terms of the apartheid policy which gave Black people no permanent status in White
South Africa. Outside the Black homelands (the 7% of the country allocated to Black
people), Black people could only expect to find employment as unskilled labourers.
‘Bantu Education’, as it came to be called, was designed to give Black children only
the limited kind of education which would fit them for this role. For example,
mathematics and physical science would not be offered in Black schools.
3.2 The financing of Black education
During apartheid, the government spent four times as much on every White learner as
it did on every Black learner. The government returned to the pre-1945 policy of placing
the burden of funding of Black education on Black people themselves. The state’s
contribution was fixed at R13 000 000 annually and expected the rest to come from
Black taxpayers and parents.
In addition, Black communities had to contribute half the costs of erecting school
buildings and Black parents had to pay for most of their children’s books and
stationery.
In contrast to this, the amount available for White education was vastly superior. White
communities did not have to contribute towards school buildings. Books and stationery
were provided free. This resulted in a situation where Black schools were poorly
resourced, teachers were poorly trained, and rote-learning and chanting of basic
knowledge was the most common way of teaching. White schools were far better
resourced, and had properly trained teachers who knew their subjects well. They were
able to teach for meaning and understanding and ensure that the emotional and
intellectual well-being of White children was looked after.

3.3 The effects of ‘Bantu Education’ on the quality of Black

education
‘Bantu Education’ was a major contributor to the crisis in Black education which
occurred from the 1970s onwards, and its effects are still evident in the second decade
of the 21st century. The low levels of finance had a particularly damaging effect. Black
schools were characterised by over-crowded classrooms, poor facilities and a lack of
books and stationery. Teaching methods also suffered as teachers were forced to rely
on rote-learning and harsh discipline to achieve anything at all. Teachers were badly
trained in teacher colleges which did not expose Black student teachers to good
methods of teaching and learning. Instead, Black student teachers had to learn their
courses off by heart. There was no emphasis on teaching for meaning. Black teachers
were taught to drill and chant.
Another disturbing feature was the high drop-out rate. In the 1970s, more than half the
Black children who began school in Grade 1 had dropped out by Grade 5. Of those
who remained, half again dropped out by Grade 8. In the 1980s, it was estimated that
2 million Black children were not attending school at all.
The following concepts developed in the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1984), a French
theorist, are useful for analysing education in South African during the period of Bantu
Education:
Concrete violence. 'Concrete' means something you can touch and see. Apartheid
education committed concrete violence against Black learners by forcing on them
concrete conditions that were intentionally destructive to them: school buildings,
equipment and resources which were vastly inferior to those given to White learners,
depriving them of libraries, sports grounds, safe toilets and other resources ௅ the
reason being given that they were inferior as human beings.
Symbolic violence. This refers to the practice of actively making a person or group
feel degraded or inferior. Symbolic violence was committed against Black learners by
making sure that the methods of teaching and learning in Black schools were inferior
to those practised in White schools.
Habitus. This refers to a deep pattern of habits. Apartheid used concrete and symbolic
violence to try to make inequality such a repeated experience at every level of daily
life that superiority became the habitus of White people and inferiority the habitus of
everyone else. In other words, the aim was that both oppressor and oppressed would
internalise the status that the government gave them in society and eventually the
status would feel natural and normal to both Black and White people.

Bourdieu argued that once a habitus was internalised it was hard to break because
the dominant group gets better resources which makes it seem natural for them to be
dominant. Being White meant getting a good education and a good job, resulting in a
sense of success and power. Being Black meant getting a poor education and a low-
skilled job, resulting in a sense of failure and disempowerment.
180 minutes
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Read the following extracts from Jansen (1990) and analyse which statements refer
to concrete violence and which ones refer to symbolic violence. Remember that
symbolic violence refers to the use of culture and meanings to discriminate; concrete
violence refers to the use of actual things to discriminate.
1. “Much of the curriculum cannot be taught for lack of equipment.”
Is ‘lack of equipment’ symbolic violence or concrete violence? Justify your

answer.
2. “Institutionalised inequality built into Black schools as a result of racially

discriminatory funding, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated buildings,
inadequate facilities, and unqualified teachers.”
Is the above quote about symbolic violence or concrete violence? Justify your
answer.
3. “White supremacy was justified by glorifying White nationalism and excluding

Black nationalist history or mention of the ANC.”
Is the above statement about symbolic violence or concrete violence? Justify

your answer.
4. “Distortion of history through ‘the falsification of South African History to favour

Whites and discredit Blacks’.”
Is the above quote about symbolic violence or concrete violence? Justify your
answer.
Bantu Education was met with resistance, as we will examine next.

3.4 Resistance to Bantu Education
Resistence to Bantu Education took many different forms. We will focus on two here:
teacher action in 1952 and the boycott campaign in 1955.
3.4.1 Teacher action in 1952
The first mass organised resistance to ‘Bantu Education’ came in 1952 from Black
teacher organisations. The Cape African Teachers Association (CATA), the Teachers’
League of South Africa and the Transvaal African Teachers Association condemned
the findings of the Eiselen Commission (1953), held protest meetings and called upon
teachers and parents to oppose the new system. The government responded by
withdrawing its recognition of CATA, which had been the most outspoken organisation.
It also dismissed militant teachers.
3.4.2 The Boycott Campaign of 1955
The next round of organised resistance came in 1954 when the African National
Congress (ANC) launched the ‘Resist Apartheid’ campaign.
The following is an excerpt of a statement by Chief Albert Luthuli urging South Africans
to join the campaign. He was banned by the apartheid government and so could not
deliver the message in public.
Statement by Chief Albert Luthuli
“We are met here to express our utter resentment at the claim made by South Africa
through its governments and parliaments since Union to determine and shape our
destiny without ourselves, and arrogantly assign us a position of permanent
inferiority in our land. Contrary to the plan and purpose of God our Creator, who
‘created all men equal’, and to us too, not to White people only, He breathed the
divine spirit of human dignity. And so we have all the human and moral rights to
resist laws and policies, which create a climate inimical to the full development of
our human personalities as individuals, and our development as a people…We may
be voteless, but we are not necessarily voiceless; it is our determination more than
ever before in the life of our Congress, to have our voice not only heard but heeded
too.”
(Luthuli, in South African History Online, 2016)
Bantu Education was one of the issues targeted by the campaign. An indefinite school
boycott began in April 1955. This boycott was widely supported on the East Rand and
in the Eastern Cape where thousands of parents kept their children out of school. The

authorities responded by expelling 7 000 learners and removing 116 teachers from
their posts. Within months, the boycott organisers had set up a network of alternative
schools, along with training facilities for leaders and a supply of educational materials.
These schools were referred to as ‘cultural clubs’ to avoid detection, as police were
ordered to shut down these schools wherever they could find them. Some of the
alternative schools were quite successful and continued to operate until 1960 despite
a lack of funds, a lack of teachers and regular police harassment. The following excerpt
describes the network of clubs. Note the choices made by the organisers in terms of
structure (formal/informal):
Network of cultural clubs
ANC members, and also members of the White Congress of Democrats, provided
co-ordination and support for these projects. The best of the Cultural Clubs were
well run …In New Brighton an effective club was run for about 1000 children which
boasted a well-trained choir. At Veeplaats 900 children were in the cultural club and
at Brakpan 800 (Berman, 1955). At Kleinskool the club was so effective that even
after a year 75% of the children in the area were attending its programme of 'games,
bible studies, singing...’ A timetable and guidelines for club leaders were provided.
Training groups for the club leaders were held once a fortnight (Berman, 1955) and
larger-scale training courses were also run occasionally, especially during 1956. At
these training courses talks were given by prominent figures ... The AEM also
supplied clubs with good quality educational material … covering games, stories,
history, geography, maths and English. Most of the material did not have a
specifically political orientation, and was broad in its scope…. Culturally the material
drew on both Western and African traditions. The material for the most part was
directed to the passing on of real skills, and to the transmission of moral precepts of
the type: “We must not think of the present only, but we must always prepare
ourselves for the future”. However, some of the material did address social and
political issues. A well-written history lesson sought to make quite complex points.
Cultural club leaders were advised to explain the Bantu Education Act and the
campaign against it to their students, and to teach them the Freedom Charter.
(Hyslop, in Transformation, Online 2017)
The ANC in 1955 defined ‘People’s Education’ as Democratic-Liberatory education:
“It will be Democratic in control, organisation and purpose ... It will be Liberatory
in object because its main objective will be to equip the people and the youth to
fulfil their historic task of liberating themselves” (Hyslop, 1987, p. 11).
As you will see later on in this unit, the aims of those supporting a People’s Education
– raising the popular literacy level, politicising the masses, creating an attitude of
service to the people – were similar to those that organisers would articulate 30 years
later in the 1985 boycott.
180 minutes
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Re-read the above sections before you complete this activity.
1. Identify someone in your community who may have experienced the resistance
to Bantu Education in the 1950s, or resistence to apartheid education.
2. Ask him/her to recall the events and how they were affected. Write down their
account of events. Keep the person’s name confidential.
3. In the light of what you have learnt in the module so far, how do you feel about
the recall of events? Write down your own ideas.
Share your account with your fellow students who form part of your study group or with
peers.
180 minutes
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1. In your study group, take turns to read each account. Compare the stories,
looking for similarities and differences.
2. Discuss what you think makes people’s stories similar. What factors make some
stories different?
Commentary:
Share the information you gathered with your study group. Make notes of what you
learn from your peers. You will learn more about the effects of education under
apartheid on the next paragraph.
Education during apartheid also affected other groups in South Africa, as we will
discuss next.
4. THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON COLOURED AND

INDIAN EDUCATION
In this module we have focused strongly on the struggle between Black and White to
show the impact of colonialism and apartheid on our country. Apartheid used the terms

White and ‘non-White’, and included Indians and Coloureds as belonging to ‘non-
Whites’. There are complex, fascinating and rich historical accounts of both groups
(Adhikari, 2005; Desai & Vahed, 2010) and the roles they played in South Africa.
In this section we will provide only the briefest of accounts of the educational policies
for Coloureds and Indians. In terms of the National Party’s policy of ‘separate
development’, the Coloured and Indian communities were given a measure of self-
government in matters such as social welfare, health, local government and education.
In the 1960s, separate departments of education were established for Coloured and
Indian education.
4.1 Coloured Persons Education Act of 1963
In 1963, Parliament passed the Coloured Persons Education Act which placed
Coloured education under the Department of Coloured Affairs. In 1968, Coloured
education became the responsibility of the newly created Coloured Persons
Representative Council. However, final control lay with the national government as all
laws passed by this Council had to be approved by the Minister of Coloured Affairs,
who was a White member of the ruling party.
4.2 Indian Education Act of 1965
In 1965, the Indian Education Act was passed. This put Indian education under the
control of the Department of Indian Affairs. In 1976, the South African Indian Council
was given responsibility for certain matters relating to Indian education, but again, final
control remained with the central apartheid government.
4.3 The quality of Coloured and Indian education
The Coloured Persons and Indian Education Acts also made education for Coloured
and Indian children compulsory. The quality of Coloured and Indian education, though
not as bad as that of Black education, was not as good as that of White education, as
Coloured and Indian education was funded at lower levels than White education. For
example, in 1975/6, the apartheid state spent R644 annually on each White learner,
R189 on each Indian learner, R139 on a Coloured learner, and only R42 on a Black
learner. This unequal spending resulted in unequal educational results. (You can read
an account of how that continues to affect people today in Francesca Villette’s article
from 16 June 2016, The effects of apartheid’s unequal education system can still be
felt today, at https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/the-effects-of-apartheids-unequal-
education-system-can-still-be-felt-today-2035295
We will look at the effects of apartheid on White education next.

5. THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON WHITE EDUCATION
Under apartheid, White people enjoyed many benefits in terms of education that the
other groups, particularly Black people, could only dream of. We will discuss these
briefly below.
5.1 The National Education Policy Act (1967)
This act required White education in all four provinces to conform to the requirements
of Christian National Education. One of the most important aspects of this was that
White children were required to be educated in their mother tongue. The main purpose
of this requirement was to ensure that all Afrikaans children received an education that
promoted the Afrikaans language and culture as well as Afrikaner unity, as a means
of ensuring that the National Party’s control over South Africa would continue.
5.2 The privileged position of White education
White schools enjoyed high levels of funding, small classes, well-qualified teachers,
well-stocked laboratories and libraries, beautiful assembly halls and well-tended sports
fields and swimming pools. In addition, White schools took for granted the availability
of such things as electricity, running water, telephones, duplicating machines, audio-
visual equipment, staff to maintain the grounds and secretaries to handle the typing
and administrative work. Indian schools had some of these, Coloured schools not as
many, and Black schools virtually none at all.
White schools had good teachers who had been trained in well-resourced teacher-
training colleges or universities. These teachers knew their subjects well, were able to
teach for meaning and understanding, and were able to experiment with their own
lesson designs. White learners, both English and Afrikaans-speaking, had the further
advantage of being taught in their home language, which Black learners did not.
As a result of the many advantages enjoyed by White learners, their academic

performance was generally superior to that of Black learners. This tended to reinforce
notions (beliefs) of White superiority and Black inferiority in the minds of South Africans
of all groups. Because White children performed better, it could appear that they were
more intelligent which explained why they were given better facilities and equipment,
while in fact they performed better because they had better facilities and equipment.
You are now ready to complete the next activity.

180 minutes
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Education in South Africa was structured differently for each of the government’s
racial categories, with White schools receiving far better resources and treatment
generally.
1. What was the difference in funding between learners of different races?

2. How do you think, did that impact the quality of education?
3. Some non-White families whose children had light skin applied to have their
children reclassified as White. Why do you think some people resorted to such
measures? Give reasons for your answer.
4. How was your own family affected by the differentiation based on race? Write
the story of your family and how it was affected, in your learning journal (around
200 words)
5. Is it possible to address the inequalities of the past, in our education system? If
yes, what will it take? If you are voted Minister of Basic Educaiton, which three
issues would you tackle first?
Privilege for one sector of the population made access to Unequitable: Unfair;
education unequal and unequitable and led to further favouring one group more
than another.
resistance by different sectors of the population in South
Africa.
5.3 Resistance to apartheid education in the 1960s
In 1959, the apartheid government passed the Extension of University Education Act,
which imposed apartheid education on the universities. Protests erupted. As the 1960s
began, school learners and university students joined protests against the pass law,
the Sharpeville Massacre, and the government’s decision to leave the British
Commonwealth and declare South Africa a republic.
5.3.1 The birth of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM)
The 1960s saw the birth of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). This
movement aimed at uniting all the oppressed people of South Africa – Africans,
Coloureds and Indians of all classes – in the struggle against White domination in all
its forms – political, economic, social and psychological.

5.3.2 Resistance by Black university students
In 1968, Black university students, led by Steve Biko and others, formed the South
African Students’ Organisation (SASO) for Black university students. This organisation
inspired the growth of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Black
Consciousness was not specifically a students’ movement but Black students played
a leading role in it. In 1972, the South African Students’ Movement (SASM) was formed
for Black high school pupils. SASO and SASM played a prominent role in the
continuing resistance to Bantu Education in the 1970s.
Steve Biko was a central figure in South African education because of his conviction
that education could free the mind from oppression. In one of his famous quotes he
said:
“At the heart of Black Consciousness is the realisation by Blacks that the most
potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. If
one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude but if one’s
mind is so manipulated and controlled by the oppressor then there will be
nothing the oppressed can do to scare his powerful masters” (Biko, 1978, p.
93).
One of the issues Biko raised was the inequality that resulted from the use of English
as the language of instruction in South African universities. (In Module 4, Unit 1, we
will explore how the dominant position of English in South Africa reinforces unequal
education for Black learners). Biko stated:
“Unfortunately the books you read at university are in English, a second

language to you. As a result you never quite catch everything that is in a book.
You certainly understand the paragraph but you are not quite adept at
reproducing an argument that was in a particular book. This makes you less
articulate as a Black man, and more inward looking” (Biko, 1979, p. 201).
Biko insisted that oppressed people had to take control of their own liberation. He
wrote:
“We are oppressed not as Zulus, Xhosas, Venda or Indians. We are oppressed
because we are Black. We must use that very concept to unite ourselves and
to respond as a cohesive group. We must cling to each other with a tenacity
that will shock the perpetrators of evil. This is where the SASO message and
cry ‘Black man, you are on your own!’ becomes relevant” (Biko, 1978, p. 97).

Although the White student organisation NUSAS was deeply critical of apartheid and
wished to fight for Black freedom, Biko opposed the idea of White students joining the
movement:
“Nowhere is the arrogance of the liberal ideology demonstrated so well as their

insistence that the problems of the country can only be solved by an approach
involving both Black and White…it is like expecting a slave to work together with
the slave master’s son to remove all the conditions leading to the former’s
enslavement” (Biko, 1978, p. 20).
Biko’s reasons for excluding White people from the Agency: Feeling that you have the
right, the power and the confidence
movement had to do with the fact that White people had to speak or take action.
agency due to their economic and cultural capital.
Pierre Bourdieu, who was introduced earlier, provides explanations of the terms
economic and cultural capital. While he developed the ideas of economic and cultural
capital in his analysis of French society, they have relevance for understanding South
Africa under apartheid. Each of the terms is explained below.
6. ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CAPITAL
Some people have just what they need (or not even that), so they spend their
resources trying to survive, and never build up anything extra (capital). Those who
have more than they need (capital) can use it to make more, and then use that to make
even more, thus becoming wealthier and wealthier.
Economic capital refers to having excess money which you can use to get more
wealth and power. During apartheid, White people typically had economic capital
which others did not. This enabled them to have their own cars, travel or make phone
calls freely.
Cultural capital refers to having the kind of academic and cultural knowledge that
gives you power to get the things you want in society. In South Africa, White people
had cultural capital because they shared the same academic and cultural knowledge
as the ruling class. This could mean knowing how to dress to be accepted at a certain
function, having the right suit, having an English accent, and so on.
Social capital refers to having the kind of relationship networks that give you power
to get the things you want in society. Because White people ruled South Africa, if you
were White, you had social capital because you were in the same middle or upper
class as those in power and probably worked with, lived near or were related to people
in key roles or to people who had these kinds of connections with people in key roles
(Bordieu, 1984).

The aim of the Black Consciousness Movement of the 1970s, as we will see later in
this unit, was to persuade Black people to break out of the habit of seeing themselves
as inferior – their habitus. Although White members might wish to use their economic
and cultural capital to help the liberation struggle and might actively try to free
themselves from their habitus of superiority, apartheid society would continue to award
them the economic, cultural and social capital that would reinforce their habitus of
superiority and others’ habitus of inferiority. This would interfere with the aim of the
Black Consciousness Movement of Blacks (all ‘non-Whites’) to free themselves
psychologically and take the lead in their struggle.
The Black Consciousness Movement was attacked

Detained: In this context – during
brutally by the South African government. Many of its the apartheid years the government
gave the police the power to keep
leaders were arrested, detained and banned. Steve people locked up for as long as they
Biko was arrested and tortured for an extended period felt they needed to, without charging
them with an offence or bringing
by the South African government. He died in 1977 as a them to court. They were not
arrested; they were ‘detained’.
result of the brain injuries he received while being
tortured.
120 minutes
20
1. In a 2002 cartoon by Zapiro (https://www.zapiro.com/020912so), an adult Black

man is standing with a younger Black boy looking at the gravestone of the
activitist, Steve Biko. The adult man is saying “Apartheid killed him, but they
couldn’t kill his ideas.” If you can, try to see what this cartoon looks like at the link
given before.
1.1 Assess the cartoon (described above) regarding the Black Consciousness
Movement.
1.2 Mention at least two reasons why you agree or disagree with the statement
made by the adult man.
1.3 Motivate your answer by providing an example of each of the two reasons.
2. Now consider the recent ‘#Fees must Fall’ movement (2016 onwards) at public
universities in South Africa. Write down your ideas about this movement – focus
on the following:
2.1 Do you think that the same applies to this protest? Explain your answer.
2.2 What did this movement achieve?
2.3 How will history remember the movement?

7. SUMMARY
In this section, we looked at how apartheid created four separate racial groups and
assigned all South Africans to one of these: Black, White, Indian or Coloured. The
government created separate education systems for each racial group and restricted
everyone to living and going to school in the areas assigned to their racial group. The
Black majority was allocated only 7% of the country. White education was vastly
superior to Black education in terms of school facilities, teacher training and teaching
materials; Coloured and Indian education was better than Black education but worse
than White education.
Apartheid education committed concrete and symbolic violence against Black,

Coloured and Indian learners. The lived experience of inequality created a habitus of
superiority for Whites and a habitus of inferiority for Blacks, Indians and Coloureds.
Resistance to apartheid education took many forms, including protests by teacher
organisations, parents boycotting government schools, and learner and student
protests. The Black Consciousness Movement, which was an important part of the
resistance movement, believed that Black people could only free themselves from the
habitus of inferiority by doing it themselves.
In Section 2 you will learn more about education during the final decades of Apartheid.
SECTION 2: EDUCATION DURING THE FINAL

TWO DECADES OF APARTHEID (1976 TO 1994)
1. INTRODUCTION
In 1974, Angola and Mozambique finally gained their independence from Portugal. The
victory of their resistance movements injected in South African youth the vision of
freedom and equality, with a new spirit of militancy and confidence that they
themselves could bring about change (De Braganca & Wallerstein, 1982).
We will examine resistance movements and developments in South Africa next.
2. RISING FRUSTRATION WITH LIFE UNDER APARTHEID

The conditions under apartheid had become more and more unbearable. The
townships, where people in urban areas were forced to live in racially designated
areas, were terribly managed. There were not enough jobs, not enough houses and
not enough transport. This placed growing pressure on people in every area of their
lives.

In addition, South Africa was moving ahead with its programme of cutting off the Black
homelands, declaring them ‘independent’ countries and taking away the citizenship of
the people who were forced to live there. This brutal programme fuelled people’s anger
even more.
In 1975, the apartheid government decided to restructure Black education. The 13-
year curriculum would be reduced to 12. Grade 7s and Grade 8s were combined into
one grade, producing an enormous bulge in the Black high schools with an intake
double the normal size in 1976.
At the same time, the government decided to make changes to the language of
instruction at Black schools. The home language would be used as the language of
instruction up to Grade 4.
For the higher grades, half the subjects were to be taught in Fertile: Capable of
producing a large crop of
English and half in Afrikaans. This caused massive resentment. vegetables or fruit; in this
Very few of the teachers or pupils could speak Afrikaans. In context, it means that the
level of frustration made it
addition, Afrikaans was seen as the language of the oppressor very easy for protest
actions to spread quickly.
which they did not want to have forced upon them. Such
conditions created fertile ground for further resistance and
protest (Ndlovu, 1998).
3. RESISTANCE AND UPRISINGS AGAINST UNEQUAL

EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
In 1976, Grade 8 learners and their teachers found themselves Maddening: Intensely
in a maddening situation. Their classes were far too large due frustrating.
to combining of two grades into one. Many classes had to meet
in makeshift classrooms. In addition, the new English-Afrikaans policy had been put
into effect. Protests against the situation spread from school to school.
3.1 The Soweto Schools Uprising of June 1976
On 13 June, 1976, the Soweto chapter of the South African Hewers: Workers who
Students’ Movement decided to hold a mass demonstration chop or cut (hew)
something – usually wood.
against the enforced use of Afrikaans and to demand the end In this context, the
expression refers to the
of Bantu Education. In a statement, the Soweto Students apartheid government’s
intention of using education
Representative Council (1976) stated, “We shall reject the to confine Black people to
whole system of Bantu Education whose aim is to reduce us, working as manual
labourers.
mentally and physically, into 'hewers of wood and drawers of
water'.” (Boddy-Evans, 2019).
On 16 June, 20 000 learners from schools marched through Soweto in protest. The
police opened fire on them, killing some and wounding others. Learners responded
with violence. They attacked and destroyed township offices, beer halls, liquor stores,
post offices, a bank and a hotel, as well as buses and taxis. From Soweto, the uprising
spread to other areas and by August, a full-scale uprising was in progress.
The response of the authorities was even more violent. Harsh action was used to
suppress the uprising. Hundreds of people were killed and many more wounded in
clashes with the police. Many thousands were detained – arrested and held in police
cells, sometimes for months, without being charged with any crime. By October 1977,
most of the leaders of the uprising had been arrested or detained but the uprising
continued into 1978.
The uprising was a turning point in many ways. More than 1000 people had been killed
and many more injured. Schooling in most Black areas came almost to a standstill. It
was a tipping point for education in South Africa. Many young Radicalised: Had
Black people were radicalised further by the experience, and developed ideas and
positions that opposed
found ways out of the country to join the armed struggle against the mainstream, or
dominant, system.
apartheid.
The resistance from within South Africa grew stronger and so did the pressure from
other governments on the apartheid government to end its brutal policies. Many
people, including members of the government, knew that it was the beginning of the
end for apartheid.
The government responded by trying to make symbolic changes in order to calm the
situation. Afrikaans was scrapped as a medium of instruction in Black schools. The
Department of Bantu Education was renamed the Department of Education and
Training. More money was put into Black education and attempts were made to
improve the conditions in the schools.
Some ‘showpiece’ schools and colleges were built. In 1979, the Superficial: Appearing to
Education and Training Act replaced the Bantu Education Act. be real but actually just
existing on the surface
Despite these relatively superficial changes, little real change and masking a different
reality.
took place and the reality in Black schools remained much as it
had been.
240 minutes
21
Read the following core reader and then answer the questions.
African Travel Canvas. (2020). Why We Celebrate Youth Day on 16 June |

Soweto Uprising of 1976. Available online at:
https://africantravelcanvas.com/experiences/history-and-politics/hector-
pieterson-and-the-soweto-uprising-why-we-celebrate-youth-day-on-16-june/
After the fall of apartheid, Youth Day was established as a national holiday to
commemorate the suffering of children and the sacrifices they made in order to rid
(free) South Africa of apartheid. In 2011, a debate arose around how it was being
celebrated, with concern expressed that modern youth was
Juxtapose: To place
forgetting the importance and the struggle of 1976. Njabulo two things next to each
other in order to create
Mkhize, a student teacher at Wits School of Education, a relationship between
demonstrated how far youth has veered from an appreciation them.
of what had happened by juxtaposing the two photos next.
The photo on the left shows the body of Hector Pieterson, a Soweto learner, in the
arms of his friend and accompanied by his sister after he had been shot dead by
apartheid police. This photo, taken by Sam Nzima, has become an iconic image of
the sacrifice the youth of South Africa have made for the struggle. The photo on the
right shows students laughing as they imitate the scene of Hector Pieterson’s death.
(Mkhize in Glanvill, 2012)
Ponder on these photos and on what Njabulo Mkhize commented about them (Is
this commemoration?).
1. Do you feel that the events of 1976 have, or should have, meaning for South
African students today beyond the commemoration of a historical event? Why
do you say so? Explain your answer in approximately 80-100 words.
2. In the context of the difficulties that Black South African students face today, do
you believe that there are things from the historical struggle of students against
apartheid that can be useful, or is the current context new and different?
Substantiate your answer.
3. You have to make a speech at the WITS University, in which you explain the
significance of Youth Day. Make notes for your speech, in which you include:
3.1 What is the meaning of Youth Day and why we commemorate the day?
3.2 What is its significance to us as the next generation of young people?
3.3 How can we make the best use of the day to also create something
meaningful for generations to come?
3.2 The 1980 school boycotts
By 1980, the issues that Black people were facing in terms of

Inflation: When prices
economics and education were even more intense. In terms of go up and money
loses its value.
the economy, the on-going unrest was taking a toll. Inflation was
rising steadily which put extra financial pressure on many Black
people who were already poor. Black unemployment was also rising making it difficult
for young people leaving school to find jobs (South African Democracy Education
Trust, 2004, p. 310).
In terms of education, the issues of classes that were too large, too few qualified
teachers, and inadequate and run-down facilities continued to Corporal
frustrate learners. Learners resented the presence of apartheid punishment: Physical
punishment, such as
security police in their schools. They also resented the use of caning by the
headmaster.
corporal punishment by their schools. They began to demand
independent Student Representative Councils.
3.3 The boycott and People’s Education
In April 1980, a well-organised boycott was launched. The boycott was supported by
about 140 000 pupils in the Cape, the Transvaal and Natal, as well as hundreds of
teachers. It brought Black, Indian and Coloured schools to a standstill in many areas
(Badat, 1999).
School boycotts originated in the Western Cape in April 1980 and spread to several
other regions in South Africa. Grievances initially concerned the standard and quality
of education but these grew into wider political protest. Street protests and police
actions resulted in widespread violence (SABC, 2020).
As in 1955, the boycott became an opportunity for students, teachers and parents to
begin thinking about what a different education system could be like. Student
organisations and progressive teacher organisations began to campaign for the
Education Charter, which provided a blueprint for democratic education that would
replace the hated Bantu Education system. By September 1985, during the State of
Emergency, Soweto parents formed the Soweto Parents' Crisis Committee. The
National Education Crisis Committee was launched in December 1985 as a parent-

teacher-student alliance to build education, and over the Easter weekend of 1986, it
held a conference in Durban to chart a way forward.
The basic values of People’s Education were identified. These included:
x Apartheid education must be understood to be designed for White domination.

x People’s Education should be both educational AND political: The struggle for
education is part of the political struggle for democracy.
x People’s Education should prepare people for full participation in a democratic
society and build their organisations for liberation.
x Unity is key: parents, teachers, students and communities need to work
together in education.
x People’s Education should be democratically controlled: And in the interests of
the majority of the people.
x People’s Education must extend beyond formal school and university
education. It should address the needs of all South Africans – young or old,
urban or rural – for education and empowerment.
x The values of People’s Education are cooperation, solidarity, creativity, critical
thinking, and active participation.
x People’s Education is dynamic ௅ changing according to the needs of the people
and the conditions of the time.
x People’s Education should not serve the interests of the rich.
x People’s Education should be rooted in the cultural heritage and experiences
of the people of South Africa.
After the 1985 conference, commissions were set up to explore the development of
alternative curricula. These included commissions for People’s English, People’s
History and People’s Mathematics (SAHA, n.d.).
The government responded to the boycott by addressing some

Grievances: Complaints;
of the protestors’ grievances with regard to education. For things believed to be
wrong by someone who
example, more text books were provided and some school is asking or demanding
buildings were repaired. In 1981, the government appointed the that they be addressed.
De Lange Commission to investigate the entire system of
education in the country. The commission made a number of recommendations; the
most important one was that all the race-based education systems should be brought
together under a single ministry of education. The government refused to act on this
recommendation, however.
The 1980 boycotts failed, as had the 1976 uprising, to bring about the end of apartheid
education. However, they had raised the profile of education as one of the most urgent
reasons for the need to transition to a democratic government.

240 minutes
22
1. In your learning journal summarise the values of the ‘People’s Education’ in your
own words.
2. Do you think that the values of the ‘People’s Education’ are reasonable?
Motivate your answer.
3. Read the following extract and then answer the questions that follow. The terms
in bold are explained in the column on the right.
In 1992, the National Education Policy Investigation Report (NECC, 1992)

characterised classrooms in South Africa as follows:
South African teachers work in authoritarian Characterized: Described with key

features.
and bureaucratic departments which largely
Authoritarian: A system characterized
exclude them from curriculum decision-making. by very strict rules and regulations.
The teachers are the receivers, not the creators, Bureaucratic: Using complicated and
of the curriculum. Overloaded syllabuses and inflexible rules and regulations
prescribed texts further restrict their autonomy. Autonomy: Freedom to decide what
one will do.
This in turn has discouraged classroom
Classroom initiatives: Teachers
initiatives. Black teachers in particular work in a deciding for themselves what they will
teach and how they will teach it.
highly politicised environment, and face large
Politicized: Everything is interpreted
classes with poor resources. Authority as having political meaning.
relations have broken down in many schools, Authority relations:
with the result that relations between teachers The willingness of learners to allow
teachers to have power over them.
and students are often hostile.
Hostile: Unfriendly and distrustful.
Visible indicators of success (or failure), such Indicator: Something that shows that
as examination results, offer little something has happened. Passing a
test shows that you have learned the
encouragement to teachers and their students. material.
Other indicators of assessing effective learning Predominate: Happen most of the
time. Learner-centred activities would
and teaching have not developed under these have been very unusual.
circumstances. Such a situation means that Adherence: Stick to something. In this
teacher-centred classroom activities context, follow the syllabus.
predominate. Though there are, of course, accepted Received knowledge: Knowledge
and provided by the
exceptions, South African classrooms show authorities, which teachers may not
question.
strict adherence to prescribed syllabuses, a
heavy reliance on textbooks and other forms of ‘received knowledge’, and an
emphasis on factual information and rote learning.
Answer the following questions:

3.1 Is the kind of education described in the above extract learner-centred or
teacher-centred? Give reasons for your answer.

3.2 Why was there a highly politicised environment in Black schools during
apartheid?
3.3 Why was there in 1993, a hostile relationship between teachers and
students (learners)?
3.4 Why did examination results offer little encouragement to the learners?
3.5 Why, do you think, was there such a strong emphasis on the prescribed
syllabus?.
We will discuss the Tricameral Parliament and further unrest next.
3.4 The Tricameral Parliament and further unrest
The widespread and sustained resistance to the government’s policies from the mid-
1970s onwards increasingly threatened the position of the National Party as the ruling
power. With the aim of keeping itself in power, it decided to extend political rights to
Coloured and Indian people with the hope that this would buy their loyalty and halt their
active support of the resistance. This was an attempt at the familiar ‘divide and
conquer’ tactic again; if some of those who were oppressed by apartheid were given
some of what they wanted, they would no longer have the same frustrations as the
rest and might not be willing to risk as much to achieve liberation – thereby weakening
the resistance (Welsh, 2009).
In 1983, a Tricameral Parliament was established. This was a parliament that was
made up of three components: the House of Assembly (comprising Whites), the House
of Representatives (comprising Coloureds) and the House of Delegates (comprising
Indians). For the first time in South Africa’s history, some people who were not White
people were allowed direct representation in Parliament. The provincial councils that
had controlled White education were abolished and control of White education was
placed under the Department of Education and Culture in the House of Assembly,
which represented Whites in Parliament. Coloured and Indian education fell under
similar departments in the Houses of Representatives and Delegates, respectively.
The Constitution, however, made no provision for Black representation in the

Tricameral Parliament – a fact that led to on-going protests and violence throughout
the 1980s. The National Party continued to insist that Black people must find their
political future in one of the 10 Black homelands. Four of these – Transkei, Venda,
Bophuthatswana and Ciskei – had been given ‘independence’ by the apartheid regime
in the 1970s.
No other country recognised these ‘bantustans’ as independent

states, though: it was clear that they depended totally on South Facade: This is a false
outer surface which
Africa for infrastructure and services and that the only reason for hides the reality behind.
their existence was to create the facade of South Africa as a
democratic country as required by the global community.
Whites, Indians and Coloureds could be voting citizens of South Africa, while Blacks
could be voting citizens in their various rural, undeveloped homelands. The truth was
that approximately half of the Black population was urbanised and lived in the areas
the apartheid government intended for White people. Many of these people felt little or
no attachment to the homelands. Had they moved to the homelands they would still
have been dependent on jobs in South Africa, giving the apartheid government
complete control over their lives and forcing them to continue to be separated from
their families under a permanent system of short-term permits or visas.
Control of Black education fell under two systems:
x Schools in the 10 Black homelands fell under the education departments of their
respective administrations; and
x Schools in townships felt under the Department of Education and Training,
which had replaced the Department of Bantu Education in 1979.
The establishment of the new parliament, which included South Africa’s minorities and
excluded its Black majority, evoked a strong reaction Retaliation: Harming someone
from Black South Africans, which took the form of because they have harmed you;
revenge.
stayaways, strikes and rent boycotts. Black learners and
State of Emergency: A situation
students protested as well. The government responded where, because a country is facing
danger or disaster, the government
with harsh retaliation but without success. In 1985, it suspends normal constitutional
declared a State of Emergency and detained large procedures
control.
in order to regain
numbers of people, but its back had been broken. The

decades of struggle, aided by international boycotts and
sanctions and divestment by South Africa’s trading partners, finally brought the
apartheid system to an end (Welsh, 2009).
4. THE END OF THE APARTHEID GOVERNMENT
In 1990, the parties representing all the people of South Africa entered into lengthy
negotiations to begin to move the country forward towards democracy. In 1994, the
first completely democratic election in South Africa’s history took place based on an
interim constitution that had been agreed upon by the negotiating parties. Following
the election, Parliament began to draw up a new, permanent, constitution, in which all
South Africans enjoyed equal rights. By 1998, this new constitution was in place. On
paper, at least, a new South Africa was born.
5. SUMMARY
Motivators that led to the 16 June 1976 uprising included: worsening conditions in all
areas of life (including education), being forced to learn in Afrikaans – the language of
the oppressor ௅and witnessing the success of resistance movements in neighbouring

countries. Police attacked learners violently on 16 June; learners responded with
violence and the police retaliated with more violence. As a result, more people joined
the resistance against apartheid inside and outside of South Africa.
The 1980 school boycotts were carefully organised. Schooling was disrupted for a
year. It sparked a new level of organising around the idea of People’s Education. There
were few gains from the boycotts, however.
The apartheid government restructured Parliament in 1983 to include other minorities

(Indians and Coloureds) with the hope that this would weaken the resistance. It told
the world that Black people could be voting citizens in the ‘homelands’. The struggle
intensified after the creation of the Tricameral Parliament, and finally the apartheid
government declared a State of Emergency in 1985. In 1990, it was over: the struggle
had won.
In 1994, South Africa’s first democratic elections were held. A new constitution was
drawn up which supported the equality of all South Africans. In the next section we will
look at how this impacted on the transformation of education.
SECTION 3: TRANSFORMING EDUCATION IN

POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
1. INTRODUCTION
Have you ever heard the expression, taken from the Bible, of ‘beating swords into
plowshares’? The idea is that when conflict has ended, the very tools that were used
for violence are reshaped into tools for productive purposes for everyone’s good. This
is in many ways the task of those who have been involved with education in South
Africa since the formal end of apartheid. Since the arrival of modern, formal education
in South Africa so many centuries ago, which we traced in Section 2, there have always
been elements that have used it as a weapon of destruction.
Even those who saw themselves as having good intentions towards the indigenous
people of South Africa still largely tried to use education to change or erase their
traditional way of life (Kallaway & Swartz, 2017). So, can this weapon of destruction
be turned into a tool that can at last give all South Africans an equal opportunity in life?
South Africa’s new constitution incorporates a Bill of Rights which Comprehensive:

Covering or including
sets out a comprehensive list of basic human rights guaranteed everything.
to all people in South Africa. Included among these is the right to
a basic education.
As the apartheid system was dismantled, apartheid education – with its many
structures designed to ensure racial separation and protect White supremacy – was
replaced with a single national department of education designed to support
democracy and equality. The racial division, inequality, oppression and conflict of the
apartheid era left behind numerous social and structural challenges for the new
department of education to face (Christie, 1991). This section will introduce you to the
new structures, the challenges and some of the questions that remain – which you, as
a new professional entering this complex field – may play a role in answering.
2. POST-APARTHEID EDUCATION STRUCTURES AND

POLICIES
As we saw in the previous sections, apartheid had produced 18 different education

departments: one national and four provincial departments for Whites, one national
and 10 homeland departments for Blacks, and a national department each for
Coloureds and Indians. Each had its own governance structures, curriculum and
funding formulas for learners.
Education was one the key tools for achieving apartheid’s vision – a racially divided
population in which the White minority were equipped with the skills and beliefs to be
‘masters’ while the ‘non-White’ majority were trained to be ‘servants’ and indoctrinated
into belief systems that would encourage them to accept this role. This political agenda
driving the education system resulted in vastly different types of engagement with
knowledge at schools.
Teacher/learner ratios were so high that many of the most effective teaching methods
were impossible for teachers to use. In addition to this, teachers were often
underqualified and did not have even basic training in traditional methods. The
apartheid government’s efforts to restrict the access of Black learners and teachers to
English further isolated them from ideas and methods that were circulating
internationally.
The vastly unequal spending on schools across the four racial categories resulted in
vastly unequal infrastructure at schools. White schools typically had assembly halls,
libraries and science laboratories as well as swimming pools, tennis and netball courts,
neatly maintained sportsfields and flush toilets – to give just a few examples – while
Black schools typically had none of these. The same was true of electricity, textbooks
and other resources that facilitated learning.
With the dawn of a new democratic government, radical change was therefore needed
at every level of the education system – from governance structures to curriculum and
the funding allocated to learners and schools. This led to the establishment of a new
education system.
2.1 Establishment of a new education system
After apartheid, the 18 education departments all had to be restructured into a single
national department with nine provincial departments. A National Qualifications
Framework (NQF) was established to improve the quality of education as well as
access to education and to speed up the redress (setting right) of the effects of the
unequal education system under apartheid. While we discuss the structure briefly
below, the organisation, role and functions of each level of the education system is
discussed in Unit 2 of this module.
We discussed key ideas that began to develop around a People’s Education during
the 1955 and 1985 boycotts in this module. Some of the key values that were identified
in terms of what education should look like in the new democratic society (in contrast
to the apartheid education that was forced on people) were that it should:
x Encourage critical thinking and active participation;

x Not serve the interests of the rich;
x Address the educational needs of all South Africans (not just school goers); and
x Be grounded in cultural heritage.
After 1994, the new South African government was finally in a position to build
education around a democratic value system that supported the interests of all South
Africans. This required a different education structure and system built on different
values to those that had underpinned the apartheid education system. A new
curriculum also had to be established which supported the development of citizens
who were able to function and contribute to a society built on democratic values.
2.1.1 Structure for a single education system
The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was established in 2008 but had its
roots in the learner protests and struggles of labourers in the early 1970s. On the part
of workers, employers’ refusal to increase their wages because they were ‘unskilled,’
created the motivation for training that would lead to skills that would fetch higher pay.
With regard to education, the government was unresponsive to protestors’ demands
and by the 1980s the apartheid education system had been completely discredited
(considered worthless). As a result, the National Education Policy Initiative (NEPI) was
set up to develop ideas for restructuring education. As apartheid began to crumble,
these ideas advanced.
The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was set up as a single, integrated

system that is organised into 10 levels of learning achievement. It comprises three
sub-frameworks: General and Further Education and Training Sub-Framework

(GFETQSF), Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF) and

Occupational Qualifications Sub-Framework (OQSF). The aims of the NQF are to
contribute to the full personal development of each learner and the social and
economic development of the nation at large. Its objectives are to integrate all
formalised learning in South Africa into one framework; to facilitate
learners/students/trainees moving through education and training programmes to job
opportunities; to improve the quality of education and training; and to speed up efforts
to overcome the unfair effects of apartheid in education, training and employment
opportunities.
2.1.2 Laws to govern education
After 1994, a number of laws were put into place to structure the new vision of
education, which will be discussed in Unit 2. In 1996, the new government passed the
South African Schools Act (SASA) which laid out an ambitious policy for post-apartheid
education. SASA focused on creating a system of high-quality education for all the
country’s learners. It mandated nine years of compulsory schooling for all learners. In
addition, it gave School Governing Bodies the right to determine their own policies in
terms of admissions, language, code of conduct for learners and finances – including
the setting of school fees, for some schools. This created the potential for far more
involvement of parents and the community in ensuring that their school met their
needs. As you will see in Unit 3, however, the structures for accountability and
participation have not always worked as well as hoped.
Next, we will examine how the new curriculum developed or evolved.
2.2 The evolution of a new curriculum
As discussed in the earlier sections of this unit, education under apartheid was actively
designed to discourage critical thinking. The idea was Critique: This means to analyse the
that children who did not ask questions or critique the good and bad of something.
status quo would more easily accept the inferior place Status quo: The way things
currently are.
given to them in a system designed to uphold White
power and privilege.
The new ANC-led government set out to reorient education radically away from this so
that learners and teachers would be empowered to become independent, engaged
and critical in their thinking as citizens in an equal and democratic society (Christie,
2008). You can also read your Education Studies 3: Curriculum, Pedagogy and
Assessment (R-EDS 223) module for an account of how South Africa’s curriculum
changed from C2005 to its current Curriculum and Assessment Statements (CAPS).

2.2.1 Curriculum 2005
A new curriculum, known as Curriculum 2005, was adopted in 1999 which aimed to
move away from the old rote-learning style and instead foster independent and critical
thinking. It used the principles of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) which
emphasised assessing what learners could do after being taught rather than only what
they knew or could recite, while also aiming to foster independent and critical thinking.
It gave teachers considerable freedom to design and choose their own teaching
content. This curriculum had similarities to the child-centred education that Rousseau
proposed at the time of the French Revolution. In many ways the French people,
seeking liberation from the undemocratic medieval system, and the South African
people, seeking liberation from the undemocratic apartheid system, had similar ideas
about making radical changes to education so that it would be more free, democratic
and open.
Unfortunately, implementation of Curriculum 2005 (or OBE, as it was also known)

proved to be challenging for educators. The gap between where the majority of
teachers were in South Africa, in terms of their knowledge and teaching methods, and
where they were expected to be, according to Curriculum 2005, was too big for them
to make the jump. The documents that the teachers had to work with were so complex
and contained so much new terminology that they were difficult to understand. In the
third Education Studies Module: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment, you learnt
more about the criticism that Curriculum 2005 came under and how it was eventually
replaced by the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS).
2.2.2 The Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS)
The OBE curriculum was then revised. A more prescriptive Prescriptive: This means
syllabus was developed with the adoption of the Revised telling you exactly how and
when to do things.
National Curriculum Statement (RNCS). However, this also
proved to be unsuitable and another new curriculum was
adopted in 2009, titled Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) (DBE,
2011).. This is a skills-based curriculum rather than an outcomes-based one and the
content – and, to some extent, the methodology – is fully prescribed. It tells teachers
what to teach and when to teach it. The syllabus is given for every subject and every
grade. It also outlines an assessment programme and provides teachers with model
examination papers and assessment tasks.
2.2.3 The place of indigenous knowledge in the South African

curriculum
In Section 1, we looked at indigenous knowledge and traditional education and in

Section 2 we looked at how the Europeans who brought formal, modern education to

South Africa frequently considered indigenous knowledge and traditional education to

be inferior, or even evil, and so actively worked to wipe it out.
There is greater recognition today of the value of indigenous knowledge and traditional
education. Traditional environmental knowledge, in particular, is increasingly seen as
important ௅ not only to the particular cultural group that possesses it, but potentially to
all of humanity, in the context of climate change.
Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) can be defined as:
“A body of knowledge built up by a group of people through generations of living

in close contact with nature. It includes a system of classification, a set of
empirical observations about the local environment and a system of self-
management that governs resource use… With its roots firmly in the past,
traditional environmental knowledge is both cumulative and dynamic, building
upon the experience of earlier generations and adapting to the new
technological and socioeconomic changes of the present” (McGregor, 2004, in
Hays, 2009)
In 2004, the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) introduced
its policy on indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), which takes a strong position. The
policy states that:
“[Indigenous knowledge] has always been and continues to be the primary

factor in the survival and welfare of the majority of South Africans” (Department
of Science and Technology, 2004)
However, over the centuries of European domination in South Africa, formal, modern
education has become entrenched and it is not obvious where or how – or if – the two
should meet. In the excerpt below, Jennifer Hays (2009) comments on this challenge:
Comments on challenge in education
The South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) policy on

indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), introduced in 2004, is a major step forward in
the recognition of the legitimacy of systems of knowledge other than ‘Western’ or
‘scientific’ knowledge, and reflects a growing shift in consciousness among
academics, policy-makers and practitioners in a number of fields as to the value and
the legitimacy of IKS.
… The policy discusses the need to integrate IKS into the

Impetus: Energy that
education system but does not propose how this can be done, moves something
forward, or moves it
although the policy does discuss the transformation of a forward more quickly.
‘content-driven’ syllabus into a ‘problem-solving’ one as creating
impetus for the recognition of IKS (DST, 2004, p.7).

… Training and qualifications authorities across Southern Africa Legitimacy: Having a

are working to develop ways to recognise informal skills in a way respected and
accepted place.
that will bestow on them the recognition and legitimacy that
formal qualifications do. There are two general aspects to this:
integrating IKS into existing formal structures and recognising the legitimacy of
informal structures.
… How can IKS be integrated into the formal curriculum? How can someone who
has gained extensive knowledge and skills but who has no formal education be
recognised? In order to fully integrate IKS into any education system, it is critical to
involve the elders who are the bearers of the knowledge. However, integrating
experiential, orally transmitted knowledge – usually held by someone who has little
or no formal education – into an education system that privileges easily
compartmentalised and written information and formal qualifications presents many
challenges…
… A persistent problem with – and potential pitfall for – Persistent: Continuing;

education projects seeking to incorporate ‘indigenous isn’t easy to get rid of.
knowledge’ into the curriculum is that they tend to focus on the
information itself rather than on the forms of knowledge transmission. However …
the information that forms the basis of IKS cannot be divided into discrete units and
taught for segmented time periods; rather it must be communicated over sustained
periods of close contact with the environment and with the community made up of
the bearers of this knowledge.
… What is needed is a deep restructuring of our conception of ‘knowledge,’ and

how it is communicated, in order for us to recognise the legitimacy of IKS.
… New directions in science are revealing that many indigenous cultures and
philosophies are based on deep understandings about the interconnectedness of
life that modern science is only now beginning to grasp. Many indigenous people
today live in marginal environments such as the Arctic and the Kalahari that are
among the first to experience the effects of climate change. The keen observational
skills and deep environmental awareness of indigenous peoples can provide an
insight and an angle on problems that modern science could not achieve.
(Hays, 2009, pp.194–207)
Now that you know more about the evolution of the curriculum in South Africa, you are
ready to complete the next activity.

180 minutes
23
Reflect on the questions below and make notes in your learning journal about each
topic:
1. Do you think that indigenous knowledge should be included within formal, modern
education, or addressed separately and kept out of our curriculum? Provide your
reasons.
2. If indigenous knowledge should be included inside our curriculum, how would you
do this in your Grade R classroom?
3. If indigenous knowledge should be kept outside our curriculum, should the
government ensure that it is protected and nurtured, or should it be up to families
or communities to do it in their own way? Explain your answer.
4. How do you think South African indigenous knowledge could contribute to solving
the social and environmental problems we are facing today?
We saw how South Africans began to envision new ways of providing education,
called People’s Education, during the 1955 and 1985 boycotts. Reread Section 2
and complete the following:
5. In what ways has the new government incorporated these ideas of People’s
Education into education in South Africa today?
6. Which values from People’s Education are not represented in our education
system today? Do you think they should be included? Motivate your answer.
2.3 Change in the funding of schools
Under apartheid, White schools had been given the highest levels of funding and Black
schools the lowest levels. As there were far more Black learners than White learners
in the country, it was not possible when apartheid was dismantled for the new
government simply to increase the funding of all schools to the level that White schools
had enjoyed in order to provide all children with a quality education.
However, distributing the funds equally among all schools did not raise the standard
of the Black schools very much. And allocating the same amount of funds for each
South African child did not address the fact that the school facilities themselves were
completely unequal: schools that had been built for White Vandalism: Damaging
learners typically had libraries, science laboratories, sports property intentionally; for
example, breaking into
courts and fields, swimming pools and assembly halls, as well as the school on the
weekend and smashing
an adequate number of classrooms, safe toilets and fences to windows.
protect the facilities from vandalism. Black schools often had
none of these resources; Coloured and Indian schools had better resources than the
Black schools but they were still inadequate.

Zones of privilege
While the former White schools were no longer provided with more government
funding than other schools after apartheid, the government allowed these schools to
charge high school fees which replaced the government funding they had lost. In this
way they maintained their high standards in terms of school facilities, well-trained
teachers and teaching materials. This opened up the possibility for children of all races
to obtain a high-quality education at one of these ‘Model C’ schools.
However, these schools were not only small in number because they had been built
for the White minority, but under apartheid schools for White learners had been built
in White residential areas. They were therefore located in the suburbs where most
White people still lived which was far from the areas where the vast
Economic capital:
majority of South Africans still lived. As a result, despite the fact that The power you
have in society
there was no legal discrimination giving White South Africans a through your
better education than Black South Africans, the greater economic money.
capital of White South Africans in terms of having skilled jobs that
enabled them to pay school fees, own their own transport and live in relatively wealthy
suburbs continued to privilege them in terms of access to education.
As a result, the racial profile of learners at these schools has

Racial profile: The
changed gradually and at most schools today still does not presence and number of
people of different races
reflect the racial makeup of South Africa. Although there is more within the group.
diversity at these formerly White schools, White families at the Social capital: The
schools are still often privileged by their social capital. This power you have in
society through your
social capital can take many forms in the school environment, culture, language, status,
networks, etc.
and the benefits of these can be subtle. For example, living in
Subtle: Not standing out
the same community as the school results in supportive social in an obvious way.
networks with neighbours and friends who can share lifts and
make it easier for parents to attend and support their children’s sports and other
events.
Being of the same background and from the same community as teachers creates a
sense of agency and facilitates communication (one parent may be the doctor of his
child’s teacher’s son, for example), while having the language of instruction as one’s
mother tongue makes instruction and materials more accessible. Furthermore, coming
from a family with generations of exposure to quality education means that parents
can more easily support their children with homework.

‘Add Blacks and stir’
In the excerpt below, Panashe Chigumadzi, founder and editor of Vanguard Magazine,
speaks of the internal conflict she experiences as a Black woman who was educated
at a private, predominantly (mostly) White school. She calls the current situation the
‘add Blacks and stir’ model.
Internal conflict of a Black women
Towards the end of 1997, the year before I turned seven and went to big school, I
asked, “Mama, at big school next year, can they call me Gloria?” Gloria is my second
name. My mother looked at me, a little confused, and simply said, “No. Your name
is Panashe, so they will call you that.” Without the words to explain why I preferred
Gloria, I went along with the name that had been so badly
mangled in the mouths of my White teachers at my Mangled: Damaged and torn.
predominantly White pre-school – everything from

Pinashe, Panache to Spinasie. At the age of six I had already begun the dance that
many Black people in South Africa know too well, with our names just one of the
many important sites of struggle as we manoeuvre in spaces that do not truly
accommodate our blackness.
I had already taken my first steps on the road to becoming a fully-fledged coconut,
that particular category of “born-free” Black youth hailed as torchbearers for Nelson
Mandela’s “rainbow nation” after the fall of apartheid; the same category of Black
youth that are now at the forefront of new student movements calling for statues of
coloniser Cecil John Rhodes to fall, and for the decolonisation of the post-apartheid
socio-economic order.
We all know what a coconut is, don’t we? It’s a person

who is “Black on the outside” but “White on the inside”. Uncle Tom: This was a
This term came into popular South African usage in character in a book called
Uncle Tom’s Cabin who was a
apartheid’s dying days as Black children entered formerly slave in the United States. The
term refers to a Black person
White schools. At best, coconuts can be seen as “non- who is always trying hard to
get accepted by Whites.
White”. At worst, they’re “Uncle Toms” or “agents of
whiteness”…
… The fantasy of a colour-blind, post-racial South Africa has been projected onto us
coconuts, but our lived experiences are far from free of racism.
… the coconut experience is not new. For example, University of Cape Town (UCT)
professor Xolela Mangcu playfully suggests that Tiyo Soga, prominent anti-colonial
figure who was the first Black graduate of the famed Lovedale Mission School, might
have been “the very first coconut”.

[She speaks about experiences of racism at her predominantly White private

school.]
… I saw how invites to “the farm” from White childhood friends started to disappear
once we were in high school, and how we tacitly accepted
Articulate: Put an idea or
that we didn’t date each other. In the economic sense, it feeling into words.
was seeing that White university mates with similar
academic performance found jobs faster than Black
students did. Importantly, much of this racism was not recognised or articulated
until we found the anti-racist vocabulary to name it.
… I began to see just how alienated I was from myself as Alienated: Feeling cut off and
that you don’t belong.
an African. I felt that I was the very embodiment of a
Embodiment: An idea made
colonised European ideal. The question that stuck in my real.
mind was: “What would I have been like had it not been Ideal: A person’s idea of how
for colonialism?” something would be if it was
perfect.
Manifestation: Making an idea

As a symbolic act of change, after chemically relaxing my visible.
hair from pre-school, I shaved my head bald for the first
time. This was the external manifestation of the internal rejection of what was White
or colonised within me.
… The language of Black consciousness is both a form a self-defence and of relief

from the nervous conditions of being Black in a White world.
… Formerly White schools include Black children under the same assumptions
despite the different names, different bodies, different hair, different socio-economic
backgrounds. I call it the “add Blacks and stir” model. Stir, while continuing with the
same structure, same rules.
And this of course is symbolic of the wider rainbow nation project: include Black
people but don’t touch the underlying structures of inequality that rely on racism.
Coconuts are of course privileged socio-economically by this very proximity to
whiteness. And yet, it is those experiences of whiteness as a system that causes us
pain.
(Chigumadzi, in The Guardian, 2015)

240 minutes
24
Complete the following task. Write down your responses for each question. Feel free
to express yourself as clearly as possible - no word count is specified for the
responses. Write in paragraphs each time.
1. What do you think of Panashe’s experience?

2. In your experience, how do Black learners or university students who attended
poorer township or rural schools see and feel about a “coconut” like Panashe?
3. Express your opinion on whether the negative aspects of her experience are
worth the benefits she received by going to a more privileged White school.
Substantiate your answer.
In Section 1 of this unit, we looked at how the apartheid government used concrete
and symbolic violence against all South Africans other than Whites, and how this
resulted in political or cultural capital – or the lack of it – which led to a habitus of
superiority among White people and a habitus of inferiority among Black, Coloured
and Indian South Africans. With this in mind, answer the following questions:
4. What evidence do you see in Panashe’s account – and in your own experience
– that the habitus of superiority and habitus of inferiority still exist?
5. Do you see any evidence that these habitus are breaking down? Give reasons
for your response.
6. Do you think that if the more privileged (former White) schools change their
school culture, they can become places where learners of all racial and
cultural backgrounds experience each other as social equals?
6.1 If you think that changing the school culture can lead to these schools
becoming places of equality, how do you think the schools should go
about realising this change? What should change?
6.2 If you do not think that changing the school culture can lead to these
schools becoming places of equality, what do you think should change
instead? What other suggestions do you have?
The ideas were noble, but have these been realised? Next, we will examine whether
anything has changed for the majority of children in South Africa.

3. WHAT HAS CHANGED IN EDUCATION AND SOCIAL

CONTEXTS FOR CHILDREN IN SOUTH AFRICA
The majority of South African children whose families do not have the economic capital
to send them to these well-resourced schools continue to attend the formerly Black,
Coloured or Indian schools. The formerly Black schools are usually located in rural
areas or former townships and continue to be desperately under-resourced. Since
many people in the communities that they serve cannot afford to pay school fees, the
schools themselves cannot increase the standard of the school by, for example,
offering higher salaries in order to secure well-trained teachers. As a result of the lower
standard of most of these schools, they have not attracted families from other racial
backgrounds and so these schools typically have not become more racially diverse
since the end of apartheid.
The former Coloured and Indian schools, which have inherited better infrastructure
than the former Black schools and can raise some school fees, have attracted Black
learners who can afford to pay school fees that are not as high as those of the former
White schools. Because of the economic inequalities that have been carried over from
apartheid and fall sharply along racial lines, the face of South Legacy: Something
African schools in terms of their racial makeup still reflects the handed down or left over
from the past.
damaging legacy of apartheid to a very great extent, although
there are areas where transformation is happening.
There is clearly still a long road ahead before South Africa will see an education system
where access to quality education is no longer linked to economic and cultural capital.
180 minutes
25
The graphic image below outlines some of the differences between how apartheid
education worked compared to post-apartheid education.
The left-hand side of the graphic shows how apartheid education funded White
learners far more highly than ‘non-White’ learners, with funding based on racial
categories. The right-hand side of the graphic shows how post-apartheid education
funding of learners is based on the quintile system, with learners coming from the
poorest quintiles receiving the most funding. Quintile means five parts. Therefore,
schools in South Africa are divided into five parts, ranging from schools in the
poorest areas (Quintile 1) to schools in the richest areas (Quintile 5).

Figure 2: A comparison of the state’s approach to school funding during

and after apartheid
(Veriava, Thom & Hodgson, 2017)
1. Why is the Black learner drawn much smaller than the White learner in the
graphic image above?
2. Why is the Indian learner drawn larger than the Coloured learner?
3. Why is WKHJLUOUHSUHVHQWLQJTXLQWLOHV௅GUDZQVRPXFKODUJHUWKDQWKH girl
representing quintile 5?
4. What are the differences between apartheid education funding and post-
apartheid education funding in 2016/2017?
5. Do you think the shift from racial funding of education under apartheid to a
quintile system of funding in post-apartheid South Africa is a good idea?
Justify your answer.
In the next paragrapgh you will learn more about the implications of education
transformation on classroom practice as well as teaching and learning.
4. IMPLICATIONS OF EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION

ON CLASSROOM PRACTICE, TEACHING AND
LEARNING TODAY
While our education system still faces many challenges, we should not lose sight of
the positive changes that have taken place and the potential opportunities created by
these changes. Arguably curriculum transformation is the change that has the most
significant influence on classroom practice, teaching and learning today. Grade R was
first included in the curriculum in 1998, which encouraged equal education in this year
of schooling for the first time, even though implementation thereof developed over a
number of years. As you learnt in Education Studies 3: Curriculum, Pedagogy and

Assessment, the CAPS curriculum is designed to support all teachers – irrespective of
their qualification level – to offer quality education for the learners in their classroom.
Different to the situation before transformation, all learners therefore now have access
to the same curriculum content. It is up to teachers to deliver the curriculum efficiently.
Grade R teachers are in the fortunate position that their curriculum can be
implemented with basic resources. In under-resourced areas there may be a greater
burden on teachers to create their own resources, though it is certainly possible to do
so.
The introduction of qualifications on the NQF that allow teachers who were previously
under-qualified to improve their qualifications have created significant opportunities for
the improvement of teaching and learning. Examples of these qualifications are the
National Professional Diploma in Education (currently being phased out), Advanced
Certificates in Teaching and this Diploma in Grade R Teaching for which you are
enrolled.
It is therefore not a case of accepting that there is a long road ahead to achieving equal
education for all and not doing anything about inequalities about it. Just as parents all
want only the best for their children and work hard to provide access to the best
possible education, teachers should have the best interests of the learners in mind and
do everything in their power to ensure they offer quality education, however limited the
resources they currently have access to.
120 minutes
26
1. Based on your own experiences and what you have learnt in this module so far,
summarise in a table what you think the differences are before and after
transformation with regard to classroom practices, teaching and learning in
Grade R today.
Before transformation After transformation

Classroom
practices
Teaching
Learning

2. What can you do, as a Grade R teacher, to enhance access to equal education
in Grade R? Think mainly about the impact you will be able to have in your own
classroom.
3. Share your answers to the questions above at the meeting of your study group
or with a peer. Compare your answers and make notes of what you learn from
your peers.
5. SUMMARY
After apartheid, education was restructured from 18 different bodies dealing with the
four racial classifications at different levels, into one national department addressing
basic education for all. Laws were passed to support a new vision of education.
The government first brought in Curriculum 2005, which was very learner-centred and
left many choices up to teachers. It proved too radical a shift for teachers and ultimately
the CAPS curriculum that we have today was brought in, which spells out exactly what
should be taught when.
Education today must look beyond the zone of the school and consider how adults and
out-of-school youth who do not have an adequate education can be served. The place
of indigenous knowledge and traditional education must also be worked out.
There are still massive inequalities in education and in school facilities. Attempts to
create equality have brought some improvements at poor rural or township schools,
but the highest quality education available in the public school system is still at the
formerly White schools. South Africans of all races can therefore ‘buy’ a quality
education now, but this privileges the rich. European school culture still dominates at
the formerly White schools, and sometimes the habitus of superiority or inferiority still
reinforces inequalities.
There are a number of key challenges preventing education from improving. A major
problem is that many teachers do not have adequate knowledge of their subject areas
or how to teach them, waste learning time and are frequently absent from the
classroom. Yet significant progress has been made in many ways. The CAPS
curriculum and opportunities to improve teaching qualifications support the continuous
improvements in the offering of equal education to all learners, irrespective of the
school in which it takes place.
Before you go on, reflect on what you have learnt so far and complete the self-

120 minutes
27


can:
Describe the key aspects of apartheid that
affected education.
Indicate how education was structured for

different racial groups under apartheid.
Explain the major effects of apartheid on the

education of Black and White learners.
Discuss key initiatives by Black people to resist

apartheid education.
Describe the key concepts of concrete and

symbolic violence, habitus, and political and
cultural capital and use these to analyse the
effects of apartheid.
Discuss the role and experience of learners in

the events giving rise to the June 1976
Uprising.
Analyse and engage with the events around

the 1980 school boycotts and ideas of People’s
Education.
Outline the Tricameral Parliament and how this

contributed to increased resistance and the
1985 state of emergency.
Discuss how South Africa restructured

education after apartheid.

Describe the implications of transformation of

education on classroom practice, teaching and
learning today.
Analyse the current state of education and

consider ways to address challenges in
education.
In Unit 3 we will examine the current organisation, structure and management of

education in South Africa. From your engagement with Unit 1 and Unit 2, you should
now have some historical insight into why education is the way it is in South Africa
today. We must now explore what South African education looks like NOW.
UNIT 3: THE STRUCTURE, ORGANISATION AND

MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH
AFRICA
1. INTRODUCTION
Education is the biggest item in South Africa’s national budget. Not all countries of the
world make education the largest budget item. The USA, for example, spends more of
its budget on the military than education. Nevertheless, the organisation and provision
of education is the most important service provided by the state in South Africa.
The successful implementation of the education strategy is dependent upon having a

highly organised structure and system in place. This system is built on a set of
principles (key values) which determine the educational policies which make it
possible to identify policy objectives that need to be achieved. These principles and
policies are then written into laws which are passed to give legal force to the policies.
Following this, there are the actual structures of education at the national, provincial
and school levels. These operate according to the laws and policies set down by
Parliament and the national Department of Basic Education (DBE). Finally, there are
the ways in which education is funded in South Africa, which are also based on
principles and processes.
As a future teacher in this country it is necessary that you have some knowledge of
these policies, structures and processes, so that you have an understanding of the
system in which you will be working and know what will be expected of you as a
teacher.
Unit 3 consists of the following four sections and learning outcomes:
UNIT 3
THE STRUCTURE, ORGANISATION AND
MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
SECTION 1 SECTION 2
Education policy and the legislative The organisation and governance of
framework education in South Africa
Learning outcomes: At the end of this Learning outcomes: At the end of this
section, you should be able to: section, you should be able to:
x Outline the principles that underpin x Describe the organisation and
South Africa’s current education governance of education in South
policies. Africa at national, provincial and
x Discuss South African education district levels.
policies and objectives. x Analyse and discuss the structures
x Describe key laws impacting South for the organisation and
African education. governance of education at school
level.
SECTION 3 SECTION 4
The financing of education The functioning of the South African
education system: A critical
Learning outcomes: At the end of this examination
x Describe what the education Learning outcomes: At the end of this
budget is, where the money comes section, you should be able to:
from and how it is allocated. x Reflect on and describe research
x Explain the factors that affect the findings on the functioning of the
education budget. South African education system.
x Critically analyse and discuss
ways to enhance the functioning of
the South African education
system.

SECTION 1: EDUCATION POLICY AND THE

LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK
1. INTRODUCTION
Managing education in South Africa is a huge task. To ensure that the system operates
smoothly and achieves its purpose, there have to be policies and laws in place to guide
what actually happens.
The foundation of it all is a set of principles. From these principles, policies are
formulated (developed). To implement the policies, goals are set and objectives are
developed to indicate how the goals will be achieved. Finally, laws are passed to
ensure that the policies are followed. This section will look at this process of
formulating educational policies.
2. MAIN PRINCIPLES UNDERPINNING EDUCATION IN

SOUTH AFRICA
A principle is a fundamental truth, rule or standard which guides actions or behaviour.
If someone is very dishonest or corrupt, we say that he or she has no principles. On
the other hand, if someone has integrity and good moral values we say that he or she
is a ‘person of principle’. In this context we use the term ‘principle’ to refer to rules for
good educational practice in South Africa.
The principles that the government has adopted which underpin education in South
Africa are as follows:
x The rights guaranteed in the Constitution must be protected and advanced.

Some rights that are specifically stated in the National Education and Policy Act
are the rights to:
o protection against unfair discrimination on any grounds whatsoever;
o basic education and equal access to education;
o be taught in the official language of one’s choice;
o freedom of conscience, religion, belief, expression and association;
o establish an educational institution based on a common language or
religion; and
o use the language and participate in the cultural activities of one’s choice
in an educational institution.
x Education is crucial for the future growth and development of South Africa and
its people.
x The state has the central responsibility for the provision of education and
training.
x Broad public participation in education must be promoted.

x Respect for teaching and learning must be cultivated.
x The full potential of each learner must be developed.
x Lifelong learning must be encouraged.
x The skills necessary for reconstruction and development must be cultivated.
x Prior learning and experience must be recognised.
x Independent, critical thinking must be encouraged.
These are the main principles that guide the formulation of education policy in South
Africa. We will now look at the main education policies.
3. EDUCATION POLICIES AND OBJECTIVES
A policy is a statement setting out a plan of action. Education policy, therefore, is a

statement setting out what the government plans to do in order to build a system of
education based on the fundamental principles it has adopted. To implement education
policy, specific objectives have to be identified.
When one has a goal, there often are different aspects or components that have to be
completed before the overall goal is achieved. When a goal is broken down into
smaller, measurable steps, these steps are called objectives. Educational objectives
are various practical results the government aims to achieve through its policies within
a certain time frame.
There are numerous policies relating to different aspects of education. We cannot

discuss every aspect of government education policy in this section. Rather, we will
highlight some of the main objectives of key policies and policy documents.
+
Note that all policies mentioned below can be accessed at www.education.gov.za
(under resources) or on www.gov.za which has a search function on several drop-
down menus where you could indicate your search. You could also type the name of
the policy in your browser, click search and you will find results.
3.1 Policy documents governing education in South Africa+
A number of policies govern education in South Africa. The most important policies
will be discussed next.
3.1.1 White paper on education and training, 1995
Objective:
This is achieved by having a three-level structure of organisation. At the national level,
the Department of Basic Education (DBE) determines overall education policy. At the
provincial level, each province’s Department of Education (DoE) is responsible for the
implementation of policy. At the local level, each school delivers education to the
learners, while the School Governing Body (SGBs) are given considerable autonomy
(freedom) to make decisions about how the school operates.
3.1.2 Education White paper 6, 2001
Objective:
All schools should have access to basic facilities and be given the finance necessary
to deliver the national curriculum at a meaningful level so that all learners may receive
a sound education. Learners with special needs should have access to inclusive
learning environments.
3.1.3 Policy on learner attendance, 2010
Objective:
It is a legal requirement that all children attend school from the age of seven to the age
of fifteen. It is estimated that 90% of all children who should be enrolled in school are
now in school.
3.1.4 Education WhitHSDSHURQHDUO\FKLOGKRRGHGXFDWLRQ௅PHHWLQJ

the challenge of early childhood development in South Africa,
2001
Objective:
Issues of inequality, quality and provision as they relate to Grade R must be
addressed. It is important to provide quality Reception Year programmes in a poverty-
targeting, phased manner and to invest in the future human capital of the country.
3.1.5 National policy framework for teacher education and development

in South Africa
Objective:
The South African Council for Educators (SACE) was established in 2000. All teachers
in the country must be registered with SACE, have the appropriate qualifications and
adhere to a code of ethics.

3.1.6 Language in education policy in terms of section 3(4)(m) of the

national education policy act, 1996 (act 27 of 1996)
Objective:
School Governing Bodies must take responsibility for deciding on the Language of
Learning and Teaching (LoLT) to be used in their schools. There are 11 official
languages and any of them may be used as the LoLT in any school. In practice, only
English and Afrikaans are used beyond Grade 4. In the historically Black schools the
language spoken in the community in which the school is located is used until Grade
3, but thereafter all those schools have to use English as the LoLT.
3.2 Policy documents governing curriculum delivery in South

Africa+
The following policy documents relate to the curriculum.
3.2.1 National Curriculum Statement (2002)
The National Curriculum Statement (NCS) set out a policy aimed at developing the full
potential of all learners as citizens of a democratic South Africa. It sought to develop
lifelong learners who are confident, independent, literate, numerate and multi-skilled.
This policy was replaced by the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements -
CAPS (2011).
3.2.2 Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (2011)
The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) was incorporated into the
NCS in 2011. You already learnt about these in Education Studies 3: Curriculum,
Pedagogy and Assessment (R-EDS 223). The CAPS for the different subjects and
grades sets out subject content and teaching guidelines for subjects in all phases from
Grade R to Grade 12. This policy shapes what teachers should do in South African
classrooms and thus forms an integral part of your pedagogy modules. You will
examine the curriculum requirements as outlined in the CAPS documents for each
subject in the relevant modules of your programme. The CAPS for each phase, grade
and subject are available online on the education website at: www.education.gov.za.
3.2.3 National protocol on assessment (2011)

This policy also forms part of the NCS. Its purpose is to regulate and standardise
assessment procedures and protocols for all grades including recording and reporting
on assessment. It provides a policy framework for the management of school
assessment.

3.2.4 National policy pertaining to programme and promotion

requirements (2011)
This policy is also part of the NCS. It sets out the policy and provides requirements
and guidelines for promotion in all academic and assessment programmes for all
grades.
For more information on the policies that govern curriculum delivery, please feel free
to download them at www.education.gov.za. You may also find them at your WIL
school as they are applicable to all South African schools.
240 minutes
28
The facilities that learners have access to at school are still very unequal between
schools that were built for different racial groups under apartheid. By facilities, we
mean classrooms, toilets, change rooms, sports fields, tennis courts, swimming
pools, gardens for learners to play in, computer rooms, science laboratories, or any
other spaces used to facilitate learning and teaching. Besides that, there are also
other inequalities.
1. Identify at least ten facilities that are typically inadequate or absent at formerly
Black schools and make a list, prioritising them in order of importance. Give a
reason next to each item as to why you believe such facilities are important.
2. If you have only one million rand in funding, to address the issues, mentioned in
question 1, which would you address? (Check costs on the internet if possible
so you have an idea of what these things would cost). Motivate your choice of
issues you choose to address.
3. Do you think gender equality has been achieved in education? Give reasons for
your answer. Where could it be strengthened?
4. What is your opinion of the policy that all learners have a right to be taught in
their home language, and the fact that many schools choose not to do that? What
are the pros and cons for a learner of learning in his or her home language versus
learning in English?
The following are laws that govern education in South Africa.
4. IMPORTANT EDUCATION LAWS
While policies are very important, they cannot be enforced. To achieve this, policies
must be incorporated into laws which are passed by Parliament. Laws have to be

obeyed, so the government has passed a number of education laws to enforce its
policies. The following are some of the important education laws that enforce
government policy on education. To follow are short summaries indicating the gist of
each of the applicabel laws. All South African promulgated laws can be accessed
online at www.gov.za.
4.1 National Education Policy act of 1996
This act states that the Minister of Basic Education, working with the Members of the
Executive Council of each of the provinces, determines the national norms and
standards for education planning, provision, governance, monitoring and evaluation.
4.2 South African Schools act of 1996
The South African Schools Act sets out the rules and regulations for a uniform system
of education throughout the country. This act, among other things, regulates the:
x provision of public schools by the provinces;

x governance of schools – in particular, the establishment and operation of
School Governing Bodies (SGBs);
x funding of schools, including the state’s responsibilities, school budgets, school
fees and the framework for funding rules; and
x establishment and funding of independent (private) schools.
4.3 Employment of Educators act of 1998
Although all Grade R teachers are currently not yet employed in permanent teaching
posts by the Department of Education, it is important to take note of the employment
of educator’s act. This act regulates the terms and conditions of employment of all
public school teachers. You already learnt about this act in the Professional Studies 3:
Early Years Teacher Identity and the Profession (R-PFS 313) module. You can access
the Employment of Educators Act, 1998 (Act 76 of 1998) online at the following link:
https://www.education.gov.za/Resources/Legislation/Acts.aspx
4.4 South African Council for Educators act of 2000
The South African Council for Educators (SACE) is responsible for the registration and
professional development of all teachers. It also maintains ethical standards for all
teachers. The South African Council for Educators act (Act 31 of 2000) is, like the
employment of educators act, also available online at:
https://www.education.gov.za/Resources/Legislation/Acts.aspx

300 minutes
29
1. Redraw and complete the following table according to the instructions given
under 1.1 to 1.5 below:
Principles Policies Objectives Laws
1.1 Using keywords and abbreviations, in the column headed PRINCIPLES,

list the principles on which education is based. It would be good to leave a
few lines in between each one or list each one in a new line/row as shown
in the table.
1.2 Now read through the policies discussed in the text and match them to the
principles. Put these in the second column (POLICIES) next to the
appropriate principles.
1.3 Now read through the objectives discussed in the text. Match these with
the principles and policies and put them in the third column (OBJECTIVES).
1.4 Do the same with the laws and policy statements. Put these in the fourth
column (LAWS). Some of them may appear more than once.
1.5 When you have completed this, you should have a table showing which
principles are the foundation of which policies, objectives, laws and policy
statements.
2. Unfortunately not all Grade R teachers are currently permanently employed by

the Department of Education in South African schools as yet:
2.1 What could be the reasons for this?
2.2 Prepare arguments which could be included in a letter to the Minister of
Education to plead for or against the permanent employment of Grade R
teachers.
Commentary:
The skill you have used no answer question 1 is called INFORMATION
PROCESSING. You have been given information in the form of text. You have to
read it carefully, mentally process it and then convert the text to a table. This is a
valuable way of getting to understand and process (take in) information.
When you answer question 2 do not only think of personal or professional reasons
but also think of possible historical or financial reasons. You will learn more about
the financing of education in Section 3 of this unit.

5. SUMMARY
Managing education in South Africa is a huge task. In this unit we have discussed the
structures that have been put into place to achieve this. We have discussed important
policies – which are guided by principles – and are implemented through objectives
which must be achieved. We have also discussed the laws that have been passed to
enforce the policies.
Some of the important laws we have discussed are the:
x National Education Policy Act, 1996.

x South African Schools Act, 1996.
x Employment of Educators Act, 1998.
x South African Council for Educators Act, 2000.
Some of the important points we have discussed are:
x There should be centralised policy making and local implementation.

x Equitable education for all must be provided to redress the inequalities of the
past.
x All children should receive a basic education.
x Every person has the right to the best education that can be provided.
x There must be well-defined teaching and learning plans to ensure that
education is delivered at the same standard in all the provinces.
x The professional status of teachers must be enhanced and maintained.
x The right of all learners to be taught in their own language must be respected.
The National Curriculum Statement includes the:
x Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS);

x National Protocol on Assessment; and
x National Policy Pertaining to Programme and Promotion Requirements.
Next we will examine the organisation and governance of education in South Africa.

SECTION 2: THE ORGANISATION AND

GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
1. INTRODUCTION
In the previous section, we discussed the policies and laws that give direction to
education in South Africa. In order to implement these policies, appropriate
organisational structures at national, provincial and school levels are required. In this
section we will examine those structures and the principles on which they are based.
2. THE PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE ORGANISATION

AND GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
We saw previously that it is government policy that there should be centralised policy-
making and local implementation with regard to education. In accordance with this
policy, there is a three-level system of education management. In addition, there are
some important principles underlying the organisation and governance of education.
These principles give coherence to the system. The most important of these principles
are the following:
x the system should have national coherence and common purpose, but be
flexible and diverse.
x the system should be disciplined and purposeful.
x there should be local stakeholder responsibility.
x there should be minimal central authority involvement.
x the schools should determine their own mission statement, character and
ethos.
3. THE ORGANISATION OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
In accordance with the policy and principles, the central (national) government
provides a national policy framework. The provinces have the responsibility of
implementing national policy and administering education in each of the provinces.
Delivery of education is the responsibility of the schools. Control of delivery is passed
down to grassroots (local) level, to elected School Governing Bodies which have a
significant amount of say in the running of their schools.

3.1 The national organisation of education
At the national level there are two key bodies. These are the Ministry of Basic
Education and the Department of Basic Education (DBE). These two represent the
political (ministry) and professional (DBE) arms of education management. On the
political side (ministry) are the elected representatives of the people. They make the
overall policy decisions. The professional arm (DBE) represents the professional
educators responsible for carrying out policy.
3.1.1 The Ministry of Basic Education
The Ministry is the political arm of the national structure. At its head is the Minister of
Basic Education. The Ministry is responsible for policy decisions and the Minister is
accountable to the President, the Cabinet and Parliament for the performance of the
national and provincial education departments.
3.1.2 The Department of Basic Education
The image below (Figure 3) provides you with the size and shape of the basic
education sector in 2015. South Africa has nine provincial departments, 81 districts
and about 26 000 schools. Notice that there are far more public schools than
independent, private schools. There are approximately 13 million learners and 416 000
teachers. (DBE, 2016).
Provincial Education Department (9)
Education Districts (81)

Circuit Offices
Schools (± 26 000)
Public schools (24 060) Independent (Private) schools (1 681)
Section 20 Public schools Section 21 Public Schools Registered independent Unregistered independent
(former Model C) schools schools (illegal)
Non-subsidised Subsidised
Greater financial autonomy
independent schools independent schools
Figure 3: Structure of the basic education sector in South Africa
(DBE, 2016)
The Department of Basic Education is the professional arm of the national structure. It
is responsible for implementing the decisions of the Ministry. It is headed by a Director-
General who is also responsible for monitoring the performance of the provincial
education departments.
There are eight different portfolios, each under a Deputy Director-General. These are:
x The office of the Director-General.

x Planning and delivery oversight.
x Strategy, research and communication.
x Teachers, education, human resources and institutional development.
x Information and assessments.
x Social mobilisation and support services.
x Curriculum policy, support and monitoring.
x Finance and administration.
3.1.3 The National Education Evaluation and Development Unit

(NEEDU)
NEEDU also falls under the Ministry. It provides the Minister with independent analysis
and information regarding the state of schools, teaching and learning in South Africa.
3.1.4 The consultative and advisory bodies
There are also a number of consultative and advisory bodies influencing education at
a national level. The most important of these are the:
Council of education ministers
This is a political body. It is made up of the political heads of education in the country:
the Minister of Basic Education, the Education MECs (see below) from the nine
provinces and the chairperson of the portfolio committee on education in Parliament.
Heads of education departments committee
This is a professional body made up of the Director-General and Deputy Directors-

General from the national department and the heads of the provincial departments.
Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC)
The ELRC oversees employer-employee relations in education, such as collective

bargaining over salaries and conditions of service for teachers.

South African Council for Educators (SACE)
You have learnt about SACE in Professional Studies 3: Early Years Teacher Identity
and the Profession (R-PFS 313). SACE also advises the Minister on matters related
to the teaching profession.
3.2 The provincial organisation of education
In the same way that the national structure is divided into political and professional
functions, so too are the provincial structures.
3.2.1 Political leadership
The Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education is the political head of the
Department of Education in the province. The MEC is responsible for ensuring that the
provincial department implements the policies as set out by the national Ministry of
Basic Education and Department of Basic Education. The MEC is responsible for
education in the province and is accountable to the provincial Premier and the
Provincial Legislature and also to the national Minister of Basic Education.
3.2.2 The provincial education departments
There are nine provincial Departments of Education (DoEs) that are responsible for
the professional running of schools in the province. Each DoE is headed by a Head of
Department (HoD) who is responsible for the functioning of schools in the province.
The DoEs also provide support services to schools. These include education
management, planning and programme management, and human resource
management. The DoEs are divided into a number of branches, directorates and sub-
directorates which vary from province to province, but generally cover the same areas
as the national department portfolios.
Each province is also divided up into districts which are further divided up into circuits.
The districts and circuits are the link between the DoE and the schools.
3.2.3 District and circuit roles
There are 81 education districts. The task of the district and circuit officials is to work
together with principals and schools. They provide professional and management
support in areas such as curriculum planning and professional development. District
officials are also responsible for monitoring the performance of principals and teachers.
They also provide support services to learners who are experiencing problems.

3.3 The organisation of education at school level
At the end of it all, it is what happens in the classroom that counts. To ensure that
teaching and learning happen as effectively as possible, structures have been put in
place in the schools. There are two bodies that, in certain ways, replicate the
political/professional divide at the higher levels. These two bodies are the School
Governing Body – the members of which are mostly elected – and the School
Management Team, which actually runs the school. Working together, their job is to
make sure that the school runs as smoothly as possible.
3.3.1 School Governing Body
Each school has a School Governing Body (SGB) whose constitution, composition and
function we examine briefly next.
Constitution of the SGB
The SGB is constituted and operates according to a constitution drawn up by the

school community. The constitution sets out the composition, powers and
responsibilities of the SGB.
Composition of the SGB
The SGB will usually include the following members:
x The principal and deputy-principals;

x Elected representatives of the parents, teachers, non-teaching staff and
learners;
x Co-opted members who do not have a vote but who have been invited onto the
SGB because of their role in the community or their special skills or knowledge;
and
x A chairperson who is elected from among and by the voting members.
Functions of the SGB
The SGB is required to support the school management, but should not involve itself
in the day-to-day running of the school. The SGB has fairly wide powers to make
decisions relating to what happens in the school. The SGB (among other things):
x Sets the character and ethos of the school by adopting a mission statement
setting out the values and beliefs on which education at the school is based. It
also determines policies for admissions, language and religious practice at the
school.

x Makes recommendations to the DoE regarding the appointment of staff at the

school. The SGB can also employ staff paid for out of school funds.
x Manages the finances of the school (certain schools only – see below) and
recommends the school fees to be paid.
x Administers the school property, buildings and grounds and pays for insurance
for school property and municipal services.
x Makes decisions regarding the teaching and extramural programmes, and buys
resources for these programmes.
3.3.2 School Management Team
The School Management Team (SMT) is responsible for the day-to-day running of the
school. It is made up of the principal, deputy principal/s and the heads of department.
The SMT, through the principal and deputy principal/s, will give guidance to the SGB
with regard to matters on which the SGB has to make decisions. Each member of the
SMT will usually be responsible for a particular portfolio – for example, a school grade,
extramural activities, subjects or subject groups, to name a few.
120 minutes
30
1. Draw a mindmap/organogram structure in which you indicate the governance
and management structures of education in South Africa. Explain each of the
structures and their role and functions, in the notes below your picture.
2. Indicate how you think the structures at the different levels (national, provincial
and school) conform to a set of guiding principles.
3. Discuss the functioning of the SGB and SMT with your mentor teacher at your
WIL school. Do they experience any challenges with these structures at school
level?
3.1 If so, ask your mentor teacher to identify the challenges. Ask for and discuss
possible solutions. Make notes of these.
3.2 If the school do not experience challenges with the organisation of the
school, ask the mentor teacher to substantiate (motivate) this. Jot down the
arguments and reasoning for your own reference.
4. If you could suggest some changes in the organisation and governance of
schools to the Minister of education, identify and discuss:
4.1 What you would change; and
4.2 Why you would like to make the suggested changes.
Commentary:
When answering question 4, keep in mind that your suggested changes should lead
to an improvement in the functioning and governance of schools.

4. SUMMARY
The Basic Education sector is based on a set of guiding principles. The main principle
is that the national government is responsible for policy-making and the provinces and
schools are responsible for implementation and delivery. The structure of the basic
education sector at these three levels is as follows:
National level:
x Ministry of Basic Education – political arm.

x Department of Basic Education (DBE) – professional arm ௅ different portfolios
x NEEDU.
x Consultative and advisory bodies.
Provincial level:
x MEC – political head.

x Provincial Department of Education (DoE) – professional arm – different
directorates.
x Districts – support and monitor the schools.
School level:
x School Governing Body (SGB) – represents the school community; makes

bigger policy decisions.
x School Management Team (SMT) – responsible for the day-to-day running of
the school.
5. CONCLUSION
The principles on which the governance of education is based are quite specific and
when one looks at the education management structures it is quite clear how they have
come about.
At every level there is input from two sides: the people or community, on the one hand
(political), and professional educators, on the other hand. There is also input at every
level: policy-making at the highest level (national) and implementation of policy and
delivery at the lower levels (province and schools). Put together, this makes for a
coherent structure throughout and, while allowing for flexibility and diversity, it also
ensures a common purpose as a whole.
Next we will discuss the financing of education.

SECTION 3: THE FINANCING OF EDUCATION
1. INTRODUCTION
The Constitution of South Africa states that every child has the right to a basic
education. The South African Schools Act states that it is compulsory for every child
to attend school from the age of seven to the age of fifteen. It follows, therefore, that
the state is responsible for funding this compulsory education. It is also expected that
the state will finance education beyond the compulsory stage. However, this section
will deal with the funding of basic education. Funding education is a very complex
process. The main process involved is the drawing up of budgets. This is carried out
at all the levels we discussed in the previous section.
2. THE EDUCATION BUDGET

A budget is an estimate (rough calculation) of income or revenue (money received)
and expenses or expenditure (money paid out) over a certain period of time. You might
be familiar with this concept from managing your own finances. You receive a certain
amount of money every month and there are certain things you have to spend money
on every month. You then have to work out how much you can afford for each of the
items you have to spend money on, such as rent, food, transport, and so on. If you
were to spend all your money on non-essential items at the Prioritise: To decide the
beginning of the month, you would soon find yourself in order of importance of
different things, with the most
trouble. Therefore, it is essential to prioritise your spending important one being the top
priority.
and budget carefully to make sure you have money to see
you through the month.
The budgeting process is crucial to proper financial management. It is therefore carried

out at every level in education management, from the national budget to the school
subject department, from the Minister of Finance down to the subject head in a school.
Without careful financial planning and proper budgeting, nothing else is really possible.
We will examine the budget process at the different levels next.
2.1 The National Budget
The National Budget, drawn up by the Minister of Finance, who is in charge of the
National Treasury, is no different in principle from your personal budget – but, of
course, it is a lot more complex. It involves much greater sums of money and is drawn
up for a year. The Minister of Finance has to estimate what the government revenue
for the year will be and then work out what can be spent on all the things government
has to provide – education being but one of them. Other essential items will be health,
social welfare, roads, police, defence, justice, and many more. The minister
responsible for each of these has to put in a budget request which will be considered
by the Minister of Finance in terms of the government’s priorities. Basic Education will
then be allocated a certain amount of money.
Basic Education has top priority and receives the largest amount of the national
budget. About 80% of the budget for Basic Education is spent on salaries of teachers
and other personnel. This does not leave much for capital expenditure on school
infrastructure, textbooks, computers and other needs. In 2017, the Finance Minister
allocated R320 billion to education overall, of which R240 billion was allocated to Basic
Education. If 80% of the Basic Education budget is spent on personnel, then only R48
billion is left over for capital expenditure (20% of R240 billion is R48 billion). The small
amount of money left over in the education budget, once salaries for personnel have
been taken out, has resulted in the provincial departments struggling to find enough
money to build new schools and fix old ones. This is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Breakdown of South Africa’s education budget for 2017/2018
(National Treasury, Republic of South Africa, 2017)
2.2 The provincial budget
The MEC for Finance in each province will, likewise, have to draw up a budget for the
province. A large part of the national budget is passed on to the provincial governments
which actually provide the services.

The MECs in each province have to decide exactly how the money allocated to the
province is going to be spent. For example, in 2017, Gauteng province had an overall
budget of R108 billion (for education, health, infrastructure, social development, etc.).
R40 billion of this budget went to education, making it the single largest budget item.
2.3 The school budget
A large part of the money for education allocated to the province is passed on to the
schools as their allocated amount. This money is to finance their day-to-day
operations, and is not for salaries. Each school has to draw up a budget to plan how
the money allocated to it is to be spent. It is the responsibility of the SGB to approve
the budget and monitor the spending of money by the school. Schools known as
‘Section 21’ schools (referring to Section 21 of the Schools Act) have the authority to
manage their own finances and draw up their own budgets. Other schools, known as
‘Section 20’ schools, do not have this authority. Their finances are managed by the
provincial Department of Education. In large schools, subject departments have to
present a budget request to the school management so as to be allocated an amount
to run their department for the year.
Schools receive funding per learner which is allocated in a way that ensures the poorer
schools get more funding per learner than richer schools. In 2017, Quintile 1, 2 and 3
schools received just over R1 000 per learner, Quintile 4 schools just over R500 per
learner and Quintile 5 schools just over R200 per learner. The richest schools receive
the least funding because they receive extra funding from school fees.
2.4 Budget sources to finance education
Financing education is complex. Funds come from different sources at the different
levels of governance. We will discuss each briefly next.
2.4.1 National government
The national government acquires money for all of these activities by imposing taxes
of various kinds. These include:
x Every wage and salary earner who earns above a certain amount has to pay
income tax on an annual basis. Most people have this deducted from their wage
or salary by their employer and it is paid directly to the South African Revenue
Service (SARS).
x Value-added tax (VAT) is another important source of revenue for the
government: 15% is added to the price of everything, except essential food
items, as VAT.
x Every company or business in the country has to pay company tax.
x Import duties are paid on many goods imported into the country.
x Levies are a form of tax added to certain things, such as petrol.
The amount that each of these types of taxes is expected to contribute to the national
tax revenue for 2017/2018 is shown in the figure below.
Figure 5: Breakdown of expected tax revenue for 2017/18
(SAPeople, 2017)
2.4.2 Provincial government
Provincial governments have limited powers to impose taxes. Motor vehicle licences
and gambling taxes are two important sources of income for provincial governments.
2.4.3 Schools
Schools have two main sources of income. The one is the provincial allocation to the
school. We saw that the 2017 budget amounts allocated different amounts based on
whether the schools were from poorer areas (Quintiles 1, 2 and 3) or richer areas
(Quintiles 4 and 5). Quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools received just over R1000 per learner,
Quintile 4 schools just over R500 per learner and Quintile 5 schools just over R200 per
learner. The other source of funding is school fees. However, 60% of all schools in the
country have been declared as ‘no-fee’ schools, meaning that they are not allowed to
charge school fees. These are schools from Quintiles 1, 2 and 3. The communities
served by these schools are deemed (considered) to be too poor to afford school fees.

Those schools receive a much larger allocation per learner from the DoE than the ’fee-
paying’ schools.
2.5 Education budget expenditure
The South African Schools Act, the National Norms and Standards for School Funding
(NNSSF), the Employment of Educators Act and the Department of Basic Education
all set down detailed principles and formulae for the calculation of funding amounts for
the three main areas of expenditure. These areas are:
x Capital funding. This is funding for items that will last a long time; for example,
school buildings, furniture and equipment;
x Salaries for teachers and office staff; and
x School allocation.
We will discuss each briefly below.
2.5.1 Capital expenditure
Capital expenditure is the money spent on infrastructure. This

Infrastructure:
includes new schools, additional classrooms for existing schools, School buildings and
other amenities which
classroom and office furniture, computers and other equipment, are needed for
and so on. The DoEs are responsible for building new schools and education.
upgrading existing ones. SASA and the NNSSF require that each
province draft a plan for infrastructure development.
2.5.2 Salaries
Salaries are the biggest item in the education budget. These are the salaries of all
state-employed teachers, departmental officials and support staff. The number of
teachers required in a province is worked out according to a detailed set of criteria.
2.5.3 School allocation
The money allocated to each school is intended to be used for non-personnel

expenditure (expenses other than salaries). This would be for monthly expenses such
as municipal services, less expensive equipment and repairs and maintenance of the
school buildings. This allocation may not be used for any salaries or for new buildings.

2.6 Factors that affect the education budget
There are many factors that affect the education budget. Obviously, there is neither
the space nor the need to deal with them all, but we will discuss some of them to give
an idea of what they are.
We will discuss factors at the national level, provincial level and school level.
2.6.1 The national level
We will discuss two main factors: education for the economic growth of the country
and teacher salaries.
Education and economic growth
At this level the main factor is the strategic necessity of education. Education is crucial
for the growth and development of the country in every respect. There are millions of
poor people in South Africa and education is seen as the key to lifting them out of their
poverty. Education also provides the country with the skilled people that it desperately
needs. Consequently, education features as the biggest item in the national budget.
Teacher salaries
Teachers’ salaries are a huge item in the education budget. The issue at this level is
the size of the salary packages. The challenge is to balance the money required for
salaries against what is needed in other areas. If teachers’ salaries are too low, people
will not be attracted to, or remain in, the teaching profession. If teachers’ salaries are
too high, there will not be enough money to fund other areas.
2.6.2 The provincial level
At this level, three main factors influence the budget. These are the need for equal
opportunities for all learners, capital expenditure and teacher salaries. Each is
discussed in briefly below.
Equal opportunities for all learners
The Schools Act is quite clear that all learners must have equal opportunities. Public
schools must be funded on an equitable basis to help redress the past inequalities in
education. In practice this means that schools serving poor communities are given
bigger allocations than those in wealthier communities.

Capital expenditure
Drawing up a provincial education budget is far from a straightforward exercise. Under-

spending on new schools means that existing schools will remain, or become even
more, overcrowded. Over-spending means that new schools are under-utilised.
Therefore, careful planning is required for the budgeting of capital items.
Salaries
Salaries also represent a problem for the DoEs. Here the problem is not the size of the
salary packages, but the numbers of teachers employed by the DoE. Too few teachers
leads to classes that are too large and poor delivery of education. Too many teachers
leads to too big a salary bill and not enough money for the other areas.
2.6.3 The school level
The main factor affecting school budgets is the question of school fees. Every year the
SGB has to decide whether to increase school fees for the following year and by how
much. Too small an increase means there will not be enough money for the school to
maintain its standards of delivery. Too large an increase might mean that fewer people
will be able to afford to pay the fees and will apply for exemption from paying fees. The
school itself is always faced with cost increases in terms of salaries, services,
equipment and cleaning materials, to give a few examples. Without the fee increase,
the school will have to make do with less and lower its standards in terms of resources
and equipment.
120 minutes
31
First complete the questions on your own. Then discuss your responses with your
study group or with a peer.
1. Where does the money to finance education come from? Explain in detail.
2. Do you agree that 80% of the budget for education must be spent on salaries?
Motivate your answer. If you do not agree, what do you suggest as an
alternative?
3. Imagine that you are the principal of a school. Due to the economic position in
the country many parents cannot afford to pay school fees. The school is in need
of funds for services, equipment and cleaning materials. How would you involve
the following groups in raising funds for the school?
3.1 The business sector

3.2 The parents and community where the school is situated
Be creative and make specific practical sugessions when answering this
question.
4. Choose two of the suggestions from question 2 (one with reference to the
business sector and one with reference to the parents and school community).
Discuss in detail how your suggestions can be implemented at school level to
raise funds for the school.
Commentary:
Add what you learn from your group to your own responses. Keep these suggestions
as ideas for future impementation in your own teaching career. Your creative ideas
CAN make a difference in a school.
3. SUMMARY
The following are salient points from this section:
x A budget is an estimation of expenses and income over a certain period.

x Expenses need to be prioritised.
x The National Budget is drawn up by the Minister of Finance and the Treasury.
x Education gets the largest share of the National Budget.
x Most of the money is allocated to the provincial governments that actually
provide the services.
x Each province and the MEC for Finance in the province have to draw up a
budget to decide how the money allocated by the national government to the
province will be spent.
x Each school has to draw up a budget to decide how its money will be spent.
This includes allocated funds and the money collected from school fees.
x The government raises money by collecting taxes and duties:
o Individual tax.
o Company tax.
o VAT.
o Import duties.
o Levies.
x Provincial governments have limited ability to collect taxes. Provinces get most
of their money from the National Treasury.
x Schools are given allocations by the Provincial Education Department (PED)
and raise money by charging school fees.
x There are three main areas of expenditure:
o Capital expenditure.

o Salaries.
o Operating costs.
x There are a number of factors affecting the budget at various levels:
o Education – a national priority.
o The need to provide equal opportunities for all learners.
o Balancing salaries against other budget requirements.
o Schools have to determine what they can realistically/reasonably charge
for school fees.
4. CONCLUSION
At every level of expenditure, the basic challenges remain the same:
x balancing income and expenditure to make sure that there is sufficient money
to cover the essential items.
x prioritising the items on which money is spent to ensure that essential items are
covered and hoping that there will be some money left to cover the less
essential but desirable items.
Next, we will look at research into education provisioning to understand the functioning
of schools in South Africa and to see whether changes have been effected as planned.
SECTION 4: THE FUNCTIONING OF THE SOUTH

AFRICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM: A CRITICAL
EXAMINATION
1. INTRODUCTION
Unit 3 has introduced you to the organisation, structure and management of the South
African education system. This forms the basic knowledge base a teacher needs in
order to understand how the whole system of education works and not just how a
school works. Once a teacher enters the profession, there are many career paths and
promotion possibilities. One path is to go from teacher to head of department to deputy
principal and then to principal. But the possibilities do not stop there. An experienced
and effective teacher can also move up to the district level and become a subject
advisor or a ward manager. If a teacher is really ambitious, it is possible to get
promoted into provincial or national education structures. This unit has introduced
these organisational structures.
Experienced teachers who have been promoted all the way up to national positions
have to deal with issues relating to the improvement of education for all South Africans,
not just one school. In this section, we provide an example of how national reports on
improving the organisation and functioning of South African schools work. We will use
the NEEDU 2012 National Report as our example (DBE, 2109).
2. RESEARCH INTO SCHOOLS’ FUNCTIONALITY BY

NEEDU
NEEDU, as you learned in Section 2, stands for the National Education Evaluation and
Development Unit and is part of the national Department of Basic Education. Its
function is to evaluate the functioning of the school system at national, provincial,
district and school level and to make proposals for improving school quality as well as
to publish reports on the state of the system. In its 2012 report, NEEDU focused on
three areas:
1. Teaching and Learning in the Foundation Phase;

2. How districts, provinces and the national Department of Basic Education (DBE)
direct, monitor and support curriculum delivery; and
3. Primary schools in areas that are becoming highly populated.
The report asks a key question: Why are schools not doing what is expected of them?
Two possible responses are given:
1. It is because they will not do it (lack of discipline?); and

2. It is because they cannot do it (lack of knowledge?).
The report concludes that both responses have an element of truth, as will be shown
next.
The case for ‘will not do it’
When NEEDU researchers were visiting schools in South Africa to evaluate their
performance, they noted significant problems with regard to time management in one-
third of the schools visited.
Time was wasted due to:
x learners arriving late for school;

x sick leave abuse by teachers;
x departmental workshops and meetings held during school time;
x union meetings held during school time;
x memorial services taking place during school time;
x sports meetings and choir practices held during teaching time and not in the
afternoons.
The NEEDU report made the following recommendations to address time wastage:
x make principals accountable for time use in schools.

x get circuit managers to check on schools’ time use and work with principals who
are struggling with time wastage.
x train principals in the rules of employment of teachers so they can discipline
teachers who are wasting time.
x the DBE needs to investigate the abuse of sick leave and put procedures in
place to discipline those teachers found abusing the system.
120 minutes
32
Imagine you have been appointed as the head of all the Grade R classes at your
school, and you have found considerable time wastage in the Grade R classes.
You have to address these issues and turn the Grade R offering of your school
around, as the time wastage impacts the performance of the school and learners
negatively.
You have to make a presentation to the School Governing Body to show how you
plan to address the issues. Draft your presentation (either create the slides on
PowerPoint or draw them on paper). Be sure to address the following questions in
your presentation:
1. What are the first ten steps that you would take to turn the Grade R teaching
around?
2. List them in order of priority and explain WHY you would take each step.
3. How would you go about getting buy-in from teachers?
4. How would you involve parents in your turnaround strategy?
The case for ‘cannot do it’
The NEEDU report notes that there are many problems within the South African
schooling system that do not have to do with ill-discipline or laziness but with serious
difficulties. These include the low level of teachers’ subject content knowledge,
language, reading fluency, writing, and professional civil service. We will discuss each
briefly below.
Subject content knowledge
The NEEDU report notes that the subject knowledge base of most Grade 6 teachers
is not adequate to enable them to teach their learners the basics in their subjects –

especially in the case of Mathematics and English. This observation was based on the
results of tests done with Grade 6 teachers on Grade 6 topics. The teachers only
scored 63% for English and 52% for Mathematics. If teachers cannot do well in the
subjects they are teaching, then how can we expect the learners they teach to do well?
The lack of subject content knowledge within South Africa’s teacher population is a
serious problem and addressing it requires interventions at all levels of the system.
Note how NEEDU makes recommendations that go all the way through the system.
NEEDU made the following recommendations:
x NATIONAL LEVEL: The DBE needs to research better ways to improve the
knowledge base of South African teachers.
x PROVINCIAL AND DISTRICT LEVEL: Officials need to develop the capacity of

principals to provide in-school professional development.
x SCHOOL MANAGEMENT TEAM (SMT) LEVEL: There is a need to structure

and lead systematic opportunities for teachers to learn their subjects.
Language
The NEEDU report notes that (within the school system) there are major difficulties
relating to issues of language. In the schools which the researchers visited they noted
that there were many learners with different home languages in many classes. This is
a serious issue in the urban areas. As a result of strong migration patterns across
South Africa and Africa, some urban schools have to deal with as many as 10 different
home languages in one class, making it very hard to teach in any other language but
English. NEEDU notes that many schools are increasingly opting for English as the
Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) in the Foundation Phase, even in rural
areas. The regulations state that the home language must be used in the Foundation
Phase.
NEEDU made the following recommendation:
To deal with the issue of language, NEEDU recommends the writing of graded readers
for all eleven official languages so that learners have access to good reading materials
in their home language which take them through the stages of learning to read.

210 minutes
33
1. Think about your own situation first and write a paragraph on each of the
following:
1.1 Were you taught in your home language when you were at school?
Why or why not?
1.2 How did this impact your own education:
x What was the impact for you in the Foundation Phase?
x What was the impact in the Intermediate and FET Phases?
x What is the impact in your own studies?
Now imagine you are a NEEDU official who has found that schools are increasingly
using English as their Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) at the Foundation
Phase, then answer questions 2 to 6.
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages to using English as the LoLT in
schools? Refect on these and tabulate your answer as follows:
Advantages of using Engish as LoLT Disadvantages of using Engish as LoLT
3. How would it affect learners if they are not taught in their Home Language?
4. What recommendations would you make to address the issue?
5. Would you encourage the use of English as LoLT at Foundation Phase across
all schools? Substantiate your answer.
6. What would you do about the increasing use of English as LoLT?
Reading
When NEEDU visited primary schools, they tested the reading fluency of the three best
readers in Grade 2 classes. It found that more than 70% of these best readers were
reading at below the national average for that grade and that 22% were below the poor
level. NEEDU also found that most classes had hardly any reading books. They also
found that almost none of the schools used Mathematics textbooks in the Foundation
Phase.
NEEDU recommended the setting of national norms for reading levels for each grade
so that subject advisors and ward managers could test learner reading levels when
they visit the school, as could principals when they visit a class. This would encourage
a better understanding of what reading levels are demanded for each grade. NEEDU
also recommended that adequate reading materials be provided to schools, along with
ways to manage looking after the books.
Writing
When NEEDU visited schools they found that in 10 of the 15 districts visited there was
hardly any writing at Grade 3 level that went beyond single sentences. There was no
writing at Grade 1 level in many of these schools.
NEEDU recommended that clear writing norms be set at a national level that state both
the quantity and quality of independent writing needed in learner exercise books.
Professional civil service
Finally, NEEDU noted that all levels of employment within the education sector civil
service should have clear competencies set out to ensure that the right people get into
the right positions and to eradicate nepotism (giving jobs to friends or relatives or to
those who are prepared to pay a bribe). Heads of department, principals, circuit
managers and subject advisors should all have clear job descriptions detailing the
competencies needed for the job.
NEEDU made the following recommendations:
x To be a Head of Department a requirement should be several years’ experience

as a successful teacher with good subject knowledge.
x To be a principal the requirement should be several years’ experience as a
good HoD.
x To be a circuit manager the requirement should be to have first been a good
principal.
This would ensure that excellence gets rewarded within the civil service and that those
who deserve to get promoted are promoted.
120 minutes
34
Imagine that it is ten years from now. You have graduated, have been a teacher,
and now, 10 years later, you are the principal of a formerly Black township school
that is one of the schools NEEDU visited all the way back in 2012.
NEEDU visits your school again to see if its recommendations have been
implemented and, if so, to what extent your school has resolved the problems.
NEEDU finds that your school is one of the schools that has shown dramatic
progress and has really improved! NEEDU decides to do a case study (a close,
detailed study of all aspects) of your school to identify the keys to your success.

Is it because you followed their recommendations closely? Or have you discovered

other keys which are responsible for your success and could help other schools to
succeed?
As the headmaster, you are asked to write a report about what you did to help your
school improve so much, especially in the areas of time wastage, subject content
knowledge, language, reading, writing and professional civil service.
Draft the outline of the report that you would write. What are the actions that you
would take as a principal to improve your school? Make sure to cover all the areas
named above (time wastage, subject content knowledge, etc).
3. CONCLUSION
As a new teacher entering the profession, you have to make an individual commitment
to do the best you can in your classroom. But at the same time you have to start and
continue learning about how the system of education works in South Africa, all the way
from national, to provincial, to district and circuit levels, in order to gain knowledge and
understanding of the policies and laws of our country. You are not simply an individual
teacher in the classroom: you are part of a far bigger system that will give you
opportunities for growth and promotion as you get more experienced.
At the end of this unit, reflect on what you have learnt so far and complete the self-
120 minutes
35


can:
Outline the principles that underpin South
Africa’s current education policies.
Discuss South African education policies and

objectives.

Describe key laws impacting South African

education.
Describe the organisation and governance of

education in South Africa at national, provincial
and district levels.
Analyse and discuss the structures for the

organisation and governance of education at
school level.
Describe what the education budget is, where

the money comes from and how it is allocated.
Explain the factors that affect the education

budget.
Reflect on and describe research findings on

the functioning of the South African education
system.
Critically analyse and discuss ways to enhance

the functioning of the South African education
system.
You have come to the end of this module. This module equipped you with the
necessary knowledge to understand the history of education before and after
apartheid. Importantly, this module helped you understand the legislative and policy
structure, organisation and management of education in South Africa.
You will find it useful to refer to this module when you study the Professional Studies
Module: Critical Issues in Education. This will help you to understand that while South
Africa has made major strides, there is still much to do to improve the quality of
education for all children in this country.
Let us reflect one last time, on the significance of this module, and how it fits in with
everything else you have learned in your Diploma studies so far:

120 minutes
36
Think about the content of this module, and specifically what you have learned about
the impact of Apartheid and how history has shaped our education system as it is
today.
1. Do you think it is important for you as a student teacher to understand the history
of education? Why do you say so?
2. Did this module provide you with better insight into our education system and its
weaknesses?
3. What can you do as a future teacher, to impact the history of your own generation
and that of the Grade R that you will teach?
4. How can you inspire your Grade R learners to strive for a better future?
We hope that you have learnt a lot from this module and wish you success with your
study and future teaching career.

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CURRICULUM AND LEARNING GUIDE

Copyright ¤ SANTS Private Higher Education Institution (Pty) Ltd

Programme coordinator Prof Ina Joubert

Discipline coordinator Mrs Judite Ferreira-Prévost

Modules coordinator Prof Lesley Wood

Author(s) Prof Wayne Hugo

Reviewer Mr Zolile Zungu

Technical editor Mrs Judith Brown

Graphic artist Mr John Bertram

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING i

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING PROGRAMME

Dear SANTS student,

The purpose of the Diploma in the Grade R Teaching programme is to offer a

The diploma qualification requires that teachers develop a depth of specialised

2. OUTCOMES OF THE PROGRAMME

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING ii

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING iii

Outline of modules of the Diploma in Grade R Teaching programme

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING iv

Language competencies will be assessed during the course of your programme.

The different types of learning are:

Fundamental learning, which includes student personal and academic

x Disciplinary learning refers to disciplinary or subject matter knowledge and

x Situational learning refers to knowledge of the varied learning situations of

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING v

x This learning incorporates general pedagogical knowledge referring to the study

Depending on the purpose of a qualification, particular mixes of the five types of

x Disciplinary learning (11 credit);

Most modules display an integration of the above-mentioned types of learning. Apart

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING vi

Organising principles of the programme structure of the Diploma in Grade R

English Home and First Additional Language and Literacy

Afrikaans Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade

isiXhosa Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade

isiZulu Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade R

Sepedi Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade R

Setswana Home Language and Literacy Learning in Grade

4. PURPOSE OF THIS MODULE

This module is aimed at developing students’ knowledge and understanding of the

By the end of this module students should be able to:

x Trace the historical developments of education in South Africa.

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING viii

x Historical developments of education in South Africa:

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING ix

x Interpretation of historical and socio-political influences on education.

5. WORKING THROUGH THE CURRICULUM AND

These guidelines will help you:

x Work consistently throughout the semester;

Commentaries appear at the bottom of some activities. Commentaries are not

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xi

As a distance education student, it is your responsibility to engage with the content

When completing the template, consider the following:

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xii

Traditional education and modern

Education during the first three

Education policy and the legislative

DIPLOMA IN GRADE R TEACHING xiii

5('6