This year marks the 35th anniversary of the student uprising of 16 June 1976. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, this day has been commemorated in a number of interesting ways.

Some reflections on 16 June have created the impression that the primary fight of the student activists of 1976 was merely against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, while others perpetuate the absurdity that the events that precipitated this epoch-making uprising were engineered by underground operatives of the African National Congress.

However, besides these contending histories, there are more fundamental philosophical and ideological questions about this uprising, which remain unresolved today. One of them relates to the content and character of the education that our young people were supposed to receive in a liberated Azania (South Africa).

In the era of imperialism, the education systems of both developed and developing countries are part of the broader ideological apparatus of the ruling classes within these countries, and invariably serve the interests of these classes. Therefore, regardless of the ideological orientation that a government claims to follow, or the policies it proclaims, the philosophical basis, relevance and impact of its educational policy should always be questioned.

Today, one of the key questions with which we should pre-occupy ourselves is whether the kind of education we have brings us any closer to the kind of society that was envisioned by Tsietsi Mashinini and his peers.

To come to an objective answer we must first understand the motives of those who designed and maintained the system of Apartheid. In 1945, a senior National Party politician by the name of J.N. le Roux made the statement that:

‘We should not give the Natives any academic education. If we do, who is going to do the manual labour in the community?’

A few years later, the newly appointed Minister of Native Affairs, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, added to Le Roux’s statement, saying:

‘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.’

At a philosophical and ideological level, both Le Roux and Verwoerd believed that blacks represented the lowest form of humanity and that all aspects of black life should therefore reflect this.

Le Roux and Verwoerd also understood that in modern society education is the primary instrument for the development of young people and therefore, to retard the development of current and future generations of young black people, you should deny them education, or make sure their education is of an inferior quality.

Thanks to people like Le Roux and Verwoerd, today the black community has the highest number of people who survive on manual labour and intergenerational poverty continues to be a feature of black life.

Like all systems of oppression, the Bantu education system was designed in such a way that it continues to achieve its objectives even long after its architects have passed on. The irony is that it even retards even the development of those young black people who believe themselves to have been born into freedom.

Because they understood Le Roux and Verwoerd’s motives, the architects of the 1976 student uprising replied with a potent statement: ‘We reject the whole system of Bantu education, which aims to reduce us to “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.’ And although they were only teenagers in 1976, Tsietsi Mashinini, Kgotso Seatlholo and their peers in the Soweto Students Representative Council and South African Students Movement didn’t just understand the structural and policy imperatives of the Bantu education system - they also had a firm grasp of its ideological and philosophical motives.

Sadly, though, one of the deficiencies of the post-1994 education policy discourse and practice is the superficial manner in which it seeks to reverse the legacy of centuries of racist minority white rule. In applying this policy approach, those who have managed our education since 1994 have inadvertently entrenched the outcomes of Le Roux and Verwoerd’s Bantu education policy.

To illustrate this, 17 years into democracy and under a government elected by the majority, the socio-economic situation of young people, especially the black section, is very depressing. According to a survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations published earlier this year, one in two young South Africans - and two out of three young African women - are jobless.

The survey also found that the unemployment rate among all 15 to 24-year-olds is 51 per cent - more than twice the national unemployment rate of 25 per cent. And that an increasing number of South Africans were relying on grants, with the number of beneficiaries increasing by more than 300 per cent in the past nine years.

The survey also reveals that at 63 per cent, unemployment is highest among African women aged 15 to 24 years. The youth unemployment rate varies considerably between the races: it is 57 per cent among Africans, 47 per cent among coloured youths, 23 per cent among Indians, and 21 per cent among young white people.

Equally concerning is the finding that the longer young people were unemployed, the more unemployable they became, and that the average job created by a government programme lasted a mere 46 days.

In addition to this, of the 160,000 South Africans in prison, a staggering 130,000 are black, male and under the age of 35.

Various other studies by credible bodies suggest that not only do a considerable number of learners struggle with basic literacy and numeracy when they enter university, but our learners also rank far below countries with the same development attributes as South Africa, in the learning areas of mathematics and science.

Why is it that the policies of a government that is led by a party that fought against all that Verwoerd stood for have shown results similar to those of Verwoerd’s Nationalist Party?

The reality of our situation is that while education and youth development appear to be top priorities in the key policy documents of our government and the speeches of our country’s ruling elite, in practice this is far from the case.

In fact, if there is one area in which the current government has failed our country’s young black people, it is education. The situation is so dire that it gives credence to the theory that it serves the political interests of the ruling party to keep a huge section of the population uneducated and trapped in poverty and ignorance.

In order to build the kind of society that Tsietsi Mashinini and others fought and died for, we first have to understand that the problems besetting our education system are intricately linked to the problems facing the black community. Therefore, we will have to rethink our entire approach to resolving the education crisis in our country.

Firstly, black parents must realise that the education of their children is not solely the responsibility of the State, but theirs too. At a community level, we must find creative ways of ensuring that parents, community-based organisations and businesses become more involved in local schools. This is particularly urgent in impoverished communities in which most of the adult population has very low levels of education and therefore a limited capacity to help their own children with such basic things as homework.

Secondly, there is a need to increase the number of libraries, science centres and youth and recreation centres in the townships and rural areas, with a view to making education and knowledge acquisition an integral part of community life. The state should provide youth development facilities with the same speed and enthusiasm with which it provides liquor licences in poor areas.

Thirdly, the quality of the infrastructure of many township and rurals schools is far from satisfactory and a deliberate effort should be made to ensure that all our schools resemble the centres of excellence they should be. It may also be prudent to consider amending the state tender policies to state that for every tender of a specific value issued by the State, a certain percentage should go to some kind of an education infrastructure fund. The state tender system has produced many instant millionaires, some of whom contribute nothing to the development of our country.

Fourthly, there is causal link between the quality of teachers in our schools and the quality of learners that emerge. Therefore, the quality of teacher training and the levels of remuneration for teachers should be greatly and urgently improved.

Fifthly, South Africa’s basic education policy wisely emphasises the production of a targeted number of learners who should achieve quality passes in mathematics and science at high school level. This is a progressive policy which, if properly implemented, could ensure that in the long term, our universities produce the number of science, engineering and technology graduates required to enable our country not only to achieve higher economic growth rates, but also to use our knowledge for purposes of social transformation.

Considering the urgent need for a critical mass of black engineers, researchers and scientists, and the arduous progression from an undergraduate degree to PhD, we definitely need to review the current funding model for undergraduate students with the view to ensuring that those from economically needy backgrounds have a seamless transition from undergraduate to postgraduate level.

Lastly, the various Ministers of Education that we have had since 1994 have apparently not tried to build on their predecessors’ work, but have focused more on leaving a personal legacy and inadvertently become entangled in countless policy reviews instead of implementing existing policy. No education system can functional optimally if it is managed in this manner.

To achieve all this, our country needs leaders who truly believe that our youth are indeed our country’s most valuable asset. Leaders who will eschew mediocrity, tenderpreneurism and the wanton looting of state resources. A leadership that will promote excellence, initiative, equal opportunity and the acquisition of knowledge.

16 June was not only a protest against the imposition of Afrikaans and inferior education. At a deeper level, 16 June was also about restoring our humanity as a people and ushering in a society in which all people live a dignified life irrespective of their race, colour or creed.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Veli Mbele is president of the Azanian Youth Organisation.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.