As our education system grapples with its many challenges, it is worth considering that all schools are sites of struggle, thanks to the interplay of value systems that must necessarily co-exist within them. These play a profound role in the education our children receive.
One of the schools reported that their chapel was “the heart of the school” – but the building boasted memorial tablets to British regiments from the days of the 19th-century Zulu wars in Natal. We have to consider what this colonial remnant means: as Prof Precious Simba writes, “coloniality outlives colonialism”.
“Ubuntu is a broadly African value system which emphasises human dignity, human rights and human relationships.is just a notion that makes us feel good – something everyone supports but no one practices – or whether its values really can be integrated into the national lifestyle without being entrenched in law.
How are we transforming the dysfunctional national system of the past? Where to begin? As good a historic marker as any is the Bantu Education system that was imposed in 1953. The key landmark in this regard was the Native Administration Act of 1927, passed against the background of rising demands for job protection for whites.
In Hendrik Verwoerd’s words to the Senate: “The school must equip to meet the demands which the economic life of South Africa will impose upon him… there is no place for the native in European society above certain levels of labour.” Anyone who has watched footage of the Hitler Youth at rallies and wondered how they became so intoxicated with falsehood should pause here; something can happen in the inner spaces of people which is not only more than logic or even philosophy and psychology, but invades the inner sanctum of the soul where worship and devotion dwell.
Attacking the foundations of their faith was far more challenging than any political statement from the English or anyone else.Against this background, we must ask: how are we getting on with transforming our education system? But perhaps the scale of the problem – the vicious grip of the old system and the splintered nature of the adult cohort who are supposed to be bringing change – is simply too strong for the current approach to achieve the level of transformation we need.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: allafrica - 🏆 1. / 99 Read more »
Source: ewnupdates - 🏆 30. / 53 Read more »
Source: mybroadband - 🏆 11. / 67 Read more »
Source: TheSAnews - 🏆 25. / 59 Read more »
Source: ewnupdates - 🏆 30. / 53 Read more »
Source: BusinessTechSA - 🏆 24. / 61 Read more »