Apartheid System and its impact on Education in South Africa - Essay Example

?Apartheid System and its impact on Education in South Africa Introduction South Africa is one of those countries in the world which has excellent scenic beauty, superb weather and is blessed in every way. It is a country with abundance of natural resources, a good network of transport system, proper education and law structure and enough fertile land for agriculture. The population of the country is talented and hard working. In spite of these factors, the country faces hard core racism. The oppression of the white population over the blacks resulted in forced slavery and exploitation of land and human beings (Abdi, 2002, p. vii). The apartheid period continued for over four decades in South Africa and in that period race discrimination was ruthlessly implemented in schools and they were highly effective. It is a monumental task for the government to undo the effects of apartheid from the education system (Fiske and Ladd, 2005, p.14). This paper focuses on the apartheid system in South Africa and its impact on the education policies. Background History of Apartheid in South Africa In the seventeenth century the Dutch descendants who were knows as Boers or Afrikaners were dominated by the English. This was followed by establishment by the Dutch of new colonies like Orange Free State and Transvaal. In the year1900, diamonds were excavated in these regions. This led to the Boer war when the English invaded these lands. The conflict centering on power sharing between the English and the Boers remained till the 1940s when the Afrikaners National Party became stronger. To control the economic and social system, the National party invented the apartheid system. Initially the goal of apartheid was to maintain the minority rule of the white and curtailing the rights of the black population. Racial discrimination was given a formal shape when the apartheid laws were enacted in 1948. In 1950, the South African people were classified into three racial groups which were white, black (African) or colored (mixed decent). The colored group mainly contained the Indians and the Asians. Apartheid laws led to segregation of every aspect of social life which included education and medical care. Public services provided to the black people were inferior to those provided to the white people. Marriage was prohibited between the whites and the non-white groups. Residential areas were segregated by forceful removal of the black population. These laws were strongly implemented and anyone who did not abide by the laws was given harsh punishments. The Blacks were required to carry identity proof to enter into the non-black areas (The History of Apartheid in South Africa, n.d.). In 1953, Bantu Education Act was passed to segregate the education system of South Africa by which the Blacks were denied education leading to certain positions in the society. The Blacks were prepared to lead the lives of labour class (O’Malley, n.d.). Analysis Impact of Apartheid system on Education One of the most oppressive laws of apartheid was the Bantu Education Act of 1953. Before the Act was implemented most schools in Africa were missionary schools and were partly funded by the State. Under this Act education system was segregated and most schools began to be controlled by the government. Governments began to put forward conditions to schools to start racially discriminatory curriculum before agreeing to provide financial aid. As protest many missionary schools did not allow extension of apartheid system in their education system and chose to close down. This system of bringing all schools under the control of the new government was faced opposition from school organisers, parents and students. The major subject of the protests was to ban the separate education system for the Black and promote a common education system for the entire population of South Africa. The government which was controlled by the whites declared that the structure of Bantu education was such that the blacks will be trained to become labours ignoring what other abilities and aspirations they have. Separate schools were formed for the whites, blacks and the colored. This system of segregation was a disadvantage for all the Blacks and specially the Africans. Bantu education system provided the whites to maintain supremacy over the Blacks. The Blacks were not allowed to enter the educational institutions of the whites and were not allowed to use the resources that were enjoyed by the whites. Bantu education gave rise to degrading views of the cultural history of the Blacks. It promoted racial stereotypes among the black students and they were taught the existence of a separate “Bantu society”. They were made to believe that African people were traditional and cannot adapt to modernization. Bantu education implemented in the minds of the Black children that they were always to be under parental supervision by the whites. This limited the views of the Blacks regarding their own position in the South African society. Schools under the system of Bantu education suffered badly as they were neglected by the governments. There was huge difference in funding of the government between the black schools and the white schools. The meager funding received by the black schools in addition to the student-teacher ratio led to poor quality of education among the blacks. In 1955 it was made compulsory that all funding of black schools will be collected from the Africans by the general poll tax whereas the white schools were funded by the General Revenue Account. There were other factors like the school buildings of the blacks had very poor maintenance, the black teachers were not adequately trained, the classrooms were always overcrowded and textbooks were not sufficiently available. It was an ordeal for the black student to get any proper education under such limited conditions. Even in the field of sports, the white schools enjoyed supremacy over the black school. The white schools had vast stretches of green fields whereas the black schools did not have any space for sports. Racism in education system perpetuated the relation between skin color and class. Under Bantu education more students attended the primary and secondary schools. In 1976 black students protested when Afrikaan language was made compulsory for some subjects among the higher primary and junior secondary students. This led to youth uprising in Soweto which spread all over the South African nation and became a major turning point in the struggle against apartheid. (South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid Building Democracy, n.d.) Education in Post Apartheid Period Black students entered the post apartheid period with almost no formal education. The task of starting a combined system of learning was quite challenging. The liberal initiatives to set up an education system more suitable for the black students were not efficient. Although changes were made in the school system, still it was not easy to make modifications because of curricula was dominated by the ideology of white supremacy. The African government emphasised to instill in the people of Africa that they own everything that would strengthen the self esteem among them. The textbooks began to emphasize on themes like the Afrikaners are militarily stronger and that the country belongs to them and they are the messengers of God. To establish effective system of education to all the people of Africa, the government and also the other parties who want to spread education must focus on equality and equity in education. In 1994 the government set up a program called Reconstruction and Development Program. The first goal of the program is to meet the primary needs of the African people by restructuring the systems of health, housing, electricity and education. In the field of education the program aims at and has already started a combined system of education that provides proper needs based training and education to all rural and urban people irrespective of age and financial status. The focus of the education is to give adequate training to all people so that they gain the ability to produce goods and services of high quality so as to enhance the development of culture, society and economy of South Africa. There are other measures too that have been proposed in the program for the betterment of the society. Importance is being given to education for girls and women, education is provided to the students from early childhood, basic education to adults is provided and schooling has been made compulsory till the seventh grade. Higher education has also been reorganized (Abdi, 2002, pp.111-116). In the late 1990s which is the post apartheid period many privately owned schools which are known as independent schools cropped up in large numbers. The growth in private schools occurred to formalize the education system which so far has been disorganized and unregulated in the apartheid period. Many private schools were formed to raise voice again the apartheid system of education and also as a result of political unrests that occurred in the black schools as protest against inequality of education in the apartheid period. Many such schools were unregistered and they got registered when the South African Schools Act was passed in 1996 (Toit, 2004, pp.3, 4). In the post apartheid period the government focused on making amendments in the policies of equity and democracy in the education system. Between 2000 and 2005, the government emphasised on the efficiency of education rather than on the quality of education. Education system in the post apartheid period lacked support and in this period it was aggravated by decline in enrolments and also decline in financial aids to the institutions which lacked proper educational facilities. As a result these institutions gave the worst performances and lacked any sort of credibility. In the post apartheid higher education system, discrimination among races no longer existed. In spite of that, only a few black graduates were produced for the labour market. This proved that the employment equity policies adopted in the post apartheid period were not fully effective on the black population (Brown, 2007, pp.29, 30). Progress in Education till Date The progress of education system in South Africa can be evaluated using three concepts like equal treatment, equal educational opportunity and educational adequacy. As far as racial equality is concerned, it has been successfully achieved through state fund policies which are indifferent to races. In the other two criteria, there has been not much progress because of the existing apartheid system in the past. There have been poor facilities in schools and inefficient people serving the black students in schools. The apartheid era came to an end in 1994. After the 1994 election the first step taken by the new government which was controlled by the Blacks was to abolish the racial discrimination existing in all departments of education and to implement an integrated system of non-racial education. The national government took the responsibility to reform the higher education system. Nine provinces were established to take responsibility of primary and secondary education and they were provided lump sums by the government. These provinces then allocated necessary funds to various sectors like education, health and social welfare services. This system of provincial fund allocation resulted in equal distribution of funds among wealthy and poor provinces. Salary structures of teachers were decided in the national level and equal salaries were given to all teachers irrespective of their races. Although under new education policies racial discrimination has been completely removed in regard to enrollment of students in schools, but in reality African students are still in African schools. This is because most African students live in rural areas or in townships which are isolated from urban areas. They continue to be in financially poor state and so the transportation cost in urban areas forces them to remain in the schools to which there were in during apartheid period. Since majority of student population in Africa is Black, so it is not plausible to expect substantial proportion of blacks in race blind schools with the whites. For the black students the key issue is the equal distribution of funds in the schools which they attend relative to the formerly white schools. Although great progress have been made in equal funding, but disparities are still in existence and spending in poor provinces like in Eastern Cape and Limpopo fall short of the national average by 25% or more. In the apartheid period there was inequality in the quality of teachers for different school groups and in 1994 one in every three teachers was under qualified. Between 1996 and 2002, most provinces took steps to add to the number of existing classrooms especially in the poor provinces. However, there is still lack of school amenities. In 2000, 40% schools in Cape Town were not provided with basic amenities like telephone, water or electricity, in 19% schools there was no toilet and almost 90-95% schools did not have access to libraries and computers. On the other hand, much progress has been made as far as quality of teachers is concerned. In spite of this, in 2001, the average qualification of teachers was below the standard required for a qualified teacher. This is because most black teachers received training during the apartheid period in the low quality training schools. As a result many black students continue to study in schools which have under qualified teachers, lack of basic amenities and shortage of teaching materials including books. In the apartheid period, the Parliament was not represented by the Africans and as such they were not required to acquire skills and knowledge beyond labour class. In the post apartheid period every citizen requires skill for independent thinking to participate in the democracy. The education level of the Blacks have been so poor in the apartheid period that they have been improving but showing poor outcomes in the post apartheid period. (Fiske and Ladd, 2005, pp. 6, 9-12) Impact of External Influences on Education In the 1990s trade and fiscal policies were adjusted to make South Africa competitive in the world trade market. This brought in a change in the demand and supply of labour which in turn altered the patterns of migration. With migration demand for skilled labours increased. This increased the level of unemployment especially among the unskilled and semi-skilled labours. The relation between migration and education is reflected in the employment structure. Rural areas have high level of unemployment because of lack of skilled labours due to low education rates. On the other hands in these areas which have low employment rates, there is tendency among the better educated residents to become urbanized. This interconnectivity between education and employment reflects on the structure of migration. Areas which have high level of employment due to high standard of education attract more people to migrate and this in turn paves the way for urbanization. It is also seen that areas which attract less number of immigrants because of low education and low employment rates, have more female population. From economic perspective it is seen that people from areas of high unemployment rates tend to migrate towards areas with lower unemployment levels. Such migration can have no positive results. People who are jobless are unskilled or semi-skilled with low level of education and it is unlikely that they can get into the formal economy of the country. Thus it is seen that people who migrate from areas of low education levels cannot improve their social position by migrating to urban areas. (Kok, O’Donovan, Bouare and Zyl, 2003, pp. 57-60) Conclusion In 1994 elections the apartheid period came to an end in South Africa and the government began to be dominated by the blacks. The country’s official view of the country changed overnight in all sectors of life including education where class distinction had the most glaring and long lasting effects. Due to poor school maintenance, lack of facilities and substandard teachers, the black students could not pursue their aspirations. Although a small section of middle class blacks were able to develop in that period, but mostly the black community received no education to help them obtain jobs. Although the education system in the post apartheid period needs to be completely reformed, but the policy makers cannot bring in a new breed of teachers and have to depend upon existing teachers who are inadequately trained. This situation needs to be sensitively handles as most teachers do not favour authority. It is also difficult to keep the students in school due to extensive poverty, malnutrition and devastation of families by HIV/AIDS. In the post apartheid period it was time consuming for the government to eradicate racism from schools and significant funding was required. Due to pressure from domestic and foreign investors the government could not provide additional funding in education sector and as a result the blacks continue to study in poorly maintained schools (Fiske and Ladd, 2005, pp.14, 15). Although the future picture of education system is not clear, but certain structures have been implemented to pursue racial indiscrimination and to provide additional funding to schools. References 1. Abdi, A. A. (2002) Culture, Education and Development in South Africa:Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group 2. Brown, S. (2007) Leadership and Legitimacy, Cape Town: African Minds. 3. Fiske, E. B. and H. F. Ladd. (2005) “Racial Equality in Education: How Far Has South Africa Come”, January, available at: http://sanford.duke.edu/research/papers/SAN05-03.pdf (accessed on August 15, 2011) 4. Kok, P., O’Donovan, M., Bouare, O. and J. V. Zyl, (2003), Post-Apartheid Patterns of Internal Immigration in South Africa, Cape Town: HSRC Press. 5. O’Malley, P. (n.d.) 1953. Bantu Education Act, Nelson Mandela, 14th August, 2011 from: http://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01859.htm 6. South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid Building Democracy. (n.d.), overcomingapartheid.msu.edu, 14th August, 2011 from: http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/sidebar.php?id=3 7. The History of Apartheid in South Africa, (n.d.) cs-students.stanford.edu, 14th August, 2011 from: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html 8. Toit, J. D. (2004) Independent Schooling in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Quantitative Review, Cape Town: HSRC Press Read More