Conscientising education is black young people's only hope

Like all young black people who have consciously made an attempt to improve their lives, I now live in an area previously reserved for whites. Not far from where I am staying, there is one primary school and two high schools. Each time I walk past them I always take some time to stop and marvel at how well-looked- after these schools appear. This is perhaps a sub-conscious comparison with the dilapidated condition of the township schools I attended.

Not only is the role of the surrounding businesses made obvious by the plethora of advertising boards on their premises, but this dazzling picture is completed by the presence, on any given day, of a significant number of parents who are business people in and around the school premises during school hours.

However, what amazes me most about these schools is the sheer abundance and quality of infrastructure in and around them, and how well these are maintained. And if I must confess, I always find myself saying, ‘How I wish our schools in the townships and rural areas could have the same dignified appearance’.

In my view, however, there are deeper messages we as blacks can discern from the physical state of former white schools 16 years into democracy. First, they tell us that white people as a group have long accepted that the education of their children is their business, and theirs alone. And that they are not prepared to outsource this crucial role to any institution or group-something, which we as blacks have done without flinching.

Second, as part of the white community, white businesses have made it their duty to ensure that the schools in their communities receive the necessary support. This is even more evident in those schools that have produced some of those who are considered to be high achievers in the white community. While we as blacks have over the past 16 years produced countless millionaires through state resources, the only return we seem to be deriving from them are regular juvenile displays of wealth.

Third, when it comes to the education of their children, white people are willing to put their political and other affiliations aside and work together to ensure that the education of their children doesn’t suffer. This is one of the glaring weaknesses of the current crop of blacks’ leaders.

Fourth, whites have perhaps also realised that one of the ways of maintaining their dominance over us is by ensuring that their children continue to produce most of the academic distinctions at high school level and dominate the graduate output at university, particularly in the fields of science and commerce. And given all that has happened in our public schools this year, the 2010 Matric results are likely to reflect this disturbing trend.

These heavy resource investments by whites in their schools make a lot of sense because the calibre of students that our tertiary institutions produce is highly dependent on the calibre of learners that they are supplied with by the primary and secondary school sector. Therefore, in a much broader sense, this strong emphasis on the education of their young and group solidarity amongst whites is largely responsible for the continued dominance of the minority races over blacks in such critical areas such as education, science and the economy.

Now, blacks might be wondering why it is that their children, who are the majority both in our schools and universities, continue to perform far below their white counterparts. And this is despite the fact that blacks now control the state and keep on allocating the biggest portion of the national budget to education. Why is this the case 16 years into democracy?

There are obviously a number of variables that account for this anomaly. But the most decisive one is the fact that blacks have a poor sense of solidarity, and instead of working together they are more often than not obsessed with working against each other.

This slave mentality is a remnant of our colonial past. And until we confront it openly and honestly, we will continue to be an economically powerless group whose survival is largely dependent on the consumption of the ideas and inventions of the minority races. And therefore – despite our 16 years of political freedom, levels of education and newly created millionaires and billionaires – we blacks are essentially nothing else but a bunch of sophisticated slaves.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Veli Mbele is president of the Azanian Youth Organisation.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.