Segregation of education Notes

Segregation of Education

1. Before the implementation of apartheid, most African children received their education in schools managed by Christian missions, which operated thousands of facilities across South Africa.
2. These institutions focused on Western academic subjects like mathematics and English and were instrumental in shaping many future African professionals and political figures, including leaders in the ANC like Mandela.
3. Despite receiving some government support, mission schools suffered from severe underfunding, especially compared to white schools.
4. Financial shortages, aging infrastructure, and overcrowding—exacerbated by rising urban populations—meant many African students were turned away, and educational quality was declining rapidly.
5. By 1948, fewer than one in three African children were enrolled in any form of schooling, and only a small percentage progressed to intermediate levels.
6. These problems prompted the government to launch a formal review of African education to recommend a more centralized approach.
7. Education laws enforced school attendance for white children but not for Africans.
8. As a result, many African youths roamed urban streets unsupervised during the day, leading to public anxiety about juvenile delinquency.
9. These idle youths were often labeled "tsotsis", a slang term that came to represent young gang members associated with rising crime in urban townships.

The Bantu Education Act (1953)

1. In 1953, a crucial apartheid law called the Bantu Education Act was introduced to take full control of Black education away from the existing national education system.
2. From this point forward, schools would be segregated by race, with Black learners placed under the direct oversight of the Department of Native Affairs, headed by apartheid ideologue Hendrik Verwoerd.
3. This move excluded Black South Africans from the general Ministry of Education and institutionalized racially customized curricula via separate school boards.

Education for Black Children

1. The education provided to Black children was deliberately substandard, focused only on functional literacy and manual skills deemed necessary for labor or domestic service.
2. Academic content was nearly absent, and the aim was clear: to prepare Black youth for a life of subordination and economic servitude.
3. Black students were often subjected to part-time schooling in short shifts, with little to no access to textbooks or basic classroom materials.
4. The stark inequality was reflected in funding: for every 1 Rand spent on a Black child, 7 were spent on a White child, and most Black teachers lacked formal qualifications.
5. The result was a brain drain in the teaching profession, as many capable Black educators left due to low wages and poor working conditions.
6. The state also used Bantu Education to push tribal identity as a central part of Black learning, replacing English with African mother tongues in early years, later transitioning to Afrikaans and English.
7. This cultural engineering caused widespread resentment, especially among parents who associated English with opportunity and progress.
8. This also conspired against Black unity, as different languages and traditions were being taught in the Bantu schools, and no common tongue was presented for the different groups of Black South African children.
9. The Act also dismantled long-standing mission schools, many of which had previously provided quality education to Black children with partial government support.
   1. Mission schools were ordered to adopt the Bantu system or forfeit their funding and most chose to shut down rather than comply.
10. One of the strongest denunciations of Bantu Education came from Steve Biko, who saw it as a tool of psychological oppression and countered it through the Black Consciousness Movement.

Policy Effects

1. The policy had far-reaching effects: educational decline, youth disillusionment, rising crime, and a fractured sense of identity among the Black population.
2. In the long run, Bantu Education contributed to social unrest, political fragmentation, and even township violence, as it thwarted the development of a unified Black political

The Extension of University Education Act (1959)

1. In 1959, apartheid policies were extended to higher education through legislation that barred multi-racial admissions at universities, each institution was now designated for a single race or, in the case of Africans, a specific ethnic group.
2. Prestigious universities like Fort Hare (where Mandela had been educated) were restructured to admit only Xhosa students, while new segregated institutions were built for Indian and Coloured communities, prompting outrage and resignations from academic figures who opposed this racial segregation in higher learning.
3. It is important to note that in 1948, roughly 400 Black students were enrolled at White universities, mostly at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town.
   1. By the mid-1950s, that number had grown to around 900 to 1,000 Black students, still a tiny percentage of the population.
4. Nevertheless, the University Education Act had a profound symbolic impact, as higher education was one of the very few pockets of interracial interaction that had not been cut off by apartheid policies.
5. Both the South African and international academic community condemned the Act.