Education as the practice of freedom 35 years after Soweto Uprisings

By Gcobani Qambela

Thursday the 16th June 2011 marks the 35th year since the historic series of student-led Soweto Uprisings which started on the 16th of June 1976. An estimated 20 000 students from most of Soweto’s schools started on this day to protest against Bantu Education and the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974. These policies mandated schools in Black-African communities to use Afrikaans and English as the only mediums of instruction. They also limited the utilisation of indigenous African languages for religious instruction, music studies and ‘physical culture’ studies.

These student led uprisings signified an important moment in the struggle against apartheid and racial discrimination and segregation in South Africa. The level of police brutality against the students affirmed to the international community the violent nature of the apartheid state. Wide reaching international condemnation of the Apartheid government soon followed. The United Nations, for instance, passed Resolution 392 which strongly condemned the apartheid regime. The African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement in exile won the battle to have economic sanctions levelled against South Africa.

The eventual decline of apartheid in the late 1980’s culminated in the first ever democratic elections in 1994. The elections ushered in a new constitution, which is widely regarded as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. Section 29 talks to the right of citizens to basic education and “to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible”. Moreover in rewriting the legacy of Bantu Education, the new section 29 (2) provides that “everyone has the right to receive education in the language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable.”

Having a progressive constitution and applying its provisions substantively to improve the material condition of the citizens has proven to be a tumultuous task in South Africa. 35 years after the Soweto Uprisings, education is still a gatekeeper to opportunity for the majority of South Africans. Most South Africans find themselves unable to benefit from all the rights the post-apartheid era has ushered in for their enjoyment. While undoubtedly many educational opportunities have opened up for young South African’s to spread their intellectual wings post-apartheid, educational statistics and recent findings point to a deeper need to overhaul the South African education system.

This might appear satirical considering the fact that education in South Africa receives the biggest share the budget of the country. The department of basic education and the departments of higher education and basic training was allocated R165 billion in 2010/2011, a budget of R17 billion more than in the 2009/2010 period. Whereas 2011 saw Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan the education budget by 9.7 percent for 2011/2012 to R189-billion.

The 2010 matriculation results released in early 2011 by the South African education department revealed a 67.8 percent pass rate nationally in South Africa. Only reported a 23,5 percent university entrance from the passing matriculants. A large component of these students receiving university pass entrances still primarily constituted by students who have had educational access to English First Language, either through private schools or the former Model C schools.

American author bell hooks in “Teaching to transgress” correctly states that “the academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a local of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labour for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”

We exist in a competitive global framework with decent jobs solely reserved for skilled and educated labour. Our education needs to be seriously refurbished for the needs of the African child. A key tactical approach would be a shift in focus to primary level. Of grave concern is to provide all round, holistic and solid primary education to plant the foundation for high school. To do this, the department of education needs to rethink the current results based focus on Grade 12 pass rates to the provision of quality education from the ground up. At the same time, the social, cultural and structural impediments affecting our peer’s educational performance need to be uprooted.

As we stand in remembrance of the anthologies of the struggles of the youth of 1976 today, we remember their courage and walk in gratitude. We, the privileged few who have enjoyed the fruits of higher education will, working with institutional powers, contribute to the cultivation of seeds of freedom for the less privileged. We do this so that they too can participate and contribute in the exchange and sharing of freedom that comes from the classroom.

Gcobani Qambela is a Master of Social Science in Anthropology Candidate at Rhodes University and a Research Intern with the Centre for AIDS Development Research and Evaluation (CADRE) at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University, Grahamstown.