Latest news with #BantuEducation
The Herald
20-06-2025
- General
- The Herald
Why can't our children read?
The long shadow of apartheid To understand this crisis, we must first confront our history. Under apartheid's Bantu Education system, black pupils, particularly in rural areas, were deliberately denied quality education. Schools were under-resourced, teachers were underqualified and mother tongue education was politicised and poorly implemented. Though democracy promised change, rural schools remain neglected, lacking libraries, literacy materials and trained language teachers. The legacy of systemic neglect lives on in the crumbling infrastructure and overcrowded classrooms. Even more damaging is the cycle it has created: teachers who were failed by the system now struggle to support the pupils they teach. The mother tongue dilemma IsiXhosa, like all indigenous languages, deserves to be a strong foundation for learning. While the curriculum supports home-language instruction in the foundation phase, implementation is inconsistent and under-resourced. Many pupils speak regional dialects of isiXhosa, and these varieties differ from the standardised form used in textbooks. At home, a child is exposed to isiXhosa that is structurally and phonetically different from what they hear in class. Instead of recognising this as natural linguistic diversity, the education system treats it as a problem. Pupils end up being told, implicitly or explicitly, that the language they speak at home is 'wrong'. Worse still, by grade 4, pupils must abruptly switch to English as the language of learning and teaching. This pedagogically unsound shift occurs before they've developed academic proficiency in either language. Instead of building understanding, they resort to memorising and mimicking. The English illusion There is a dangerous assumption in many rural schools that introducing English earlier, or more aggressively, will improve literacy outcomes. Yet, more English doesn't help if neither pupils nor teachers understand it. English First Additional Language (FAL) is often taught by educators who are not confident in the language themselves. Lessons rely on rote repetition, not meaning making. There is little focus on vocabulary development, reading fluency or comprehension strategies. English then becomes an empty ritual, not a tool for expression or exploration. Pupils become passive receivers of language, not active users. They learn to fear reading instead of enjoying it. The role of teachers This is not to blame teachers, many of whom work in incredibly difficult conditions, but rather to highlight a critical system failure. Initial teacher education programmes do not adequately prepare teachers for multilingual, rural classrooms. Ongoing professional development is rare or irrelevant. Many foundation phase teachers are generalists without specialised training in teaching reading, particularly in isiXhosa or English FAL. Furthermore, large class sizes, often exceeding 40 pupils, and the absence of classroom libraries or storybooks make it almost impossible to implement effective reading instruction. How do you teach 40 children to decode, infer, predict and reflect when you have one textbook and no space to move? What can be done? This crisis is not unsolvable. It only requires political will, targeted investment and a shift in mindset. Extend and improve mother-tongue instruction Pupils should be taught in isiXhosa as a LoLT ( language of learning and teaching) for longer, ideally until grade 6, while gradually building English proficiency. This dual-focus model works in other multilingual countries and aligns with research on language acquisition. However, it must be supported by well-developed isiXhosa materials that reflect the dialects and realities of rural pupils. Professionalise reading instruction Every foundation phase teacher should be a reading specialist. This requires dedicated training on how to teach reading in both isiXhosa and English FAL. In-service teacher support — coaching, mentoring, classroom demonstrations — should be ongoing, not a one-off workshop. Create reading corners in all classrooms Reading cannot flourish in a bookless environment. The government, NGOs and publishers must work together to produce low-cost, high-interest books in isiXhosa and English. These books must be culturally relevant and linguistically accessible. A classroom without storybooks is like a swimming pool without water. Embrace linguistic diversity Dialectal differences in isiXhosa should be embraced, not erased. Teachers need training on linguistic diversity, and pupils must be encouraged to see their home language as a strength. Language is not the barrier; it is the key. Empower parents and communities Parents may not be able to help with English homework, but they can tell stories, sing songs and engage in isiXhosa conversations that build vocabulary and imagination. Community radio, WhatsApp groups and community libraries can all play a role in supporting home literacy. Reading is liberation A child who cannot read is locked out of learning. For rural isiXhosa-speaking pupils in the Eastern Cape, the lock is not just illiteracy, it is inequality, history and neglect. However, the key is within reach. Reading is not a luxury, it is liberation. Until every child can read for meaning both in isiXhosa and English, and establish their own voice, our mission is not complete. Dr Nontsikelelo Ndabeni and Dr Siziwe Dlepu are lecturers in the Department of Humanities and Creative Arts Education at Walter Sisulu University This special report into the state of literacy, a collaborative effort by The Herald, Sowetan, and Daily Dispatch, was made possible by the Henry Nxumalo Foundation
IOL News
18-06-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Uitenhage High School contributed immensely to June 16 uprisings
About 40 Uitenhage High School students and adults were arrested and charged under the 'Riotous Assembly Act'. As students marched to Orlando stadium to present a petition, the police opened fire with live ammunition. Hector Peterson would be the first student killed. Soweto started burning and South Africa would never be the same again. The spark that ignited what became known all over the world as the 'Soweto uprising', started out as a peaceful protest by students in Soweto against the compulsory instruction in Afrikaans of a minimum number of subjects in African schools, then under the department of Bantu Education. All it needed was a spark to ignite the rage that bubbled just below the surface. On June 16, 1976, the long simmering frustration, discord and opposition to apartheid was smouldering in South Africa. About 40 Uitenhage High School students and adults were arrested and charged under the 'Riotous Assembly Act'. The 'Soweto' uprising spread throughout the country and amongst all black ('Coloured', African and Indian) communities, becoming a 'National Uprising'. 'Coloured schools would join in this uprising upon return from their June holidays in July and onwards. In Cape Town, protests spread throughout the Cape Flats, including Stellenbosch and Paarl with the Grand Parade serving as a gathering place. Industries were brought to a standstill. In Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth students started agitating to make their voices heard. At Uitenhage High School, a number of meetings were held with Std 9 and 10 students wanting to protest. Our principal, Mr HCC Hendricks, a strict disciplinarian and educationist, was initially opposed to a boycott, fearing that we would be forfeiting the day's schooling. On Wednesday, the 18th August 1976, Mr Hendricks was taken in for questioning and upon his return after a second break called a few of us to tell us we could go ahead with our protest. That afternoon I got a number of charts and school art paints from Mr Haupht, principal of Dower Practising School. Late that afternoon, we gathered in the basement of Falderico café in Livingstone Circle where we proceeded to make our placards for the next day. We used the bush path between Falderico and Uitenhage High school to go and hide our posters in the ceiling of the Std 9 Bio class. The next day, August 19, we started the day with an assembly led by the principal, in which he explained our protest to the junior classes. After this, the Std 9s and 10s went out to the yard to commence our demonstration, thereby giving vent to much frustration. Students were militant, determined and prepared to face the police should they come on to the school grounds. Friday morning appeared calm and classes continued. Little were we to know it was the calm before the storm. On August 26, my dad, Rev Allan Hendrickse, was detained. He would be held in solitary confinement at Grahamstown prison. People gathered in their hundreds every evening for the following two weeks at the Hendrickse hall demanding his and other detainees' release. Once again students from Uitenhage High and others met at Aunty Cathy Scharnick's house in Gamble. We prepared posters for a protest the next day (Saturday) at the Market square (taking our lead from Cape Town students who had gathered at the Parade). About 40 students and adults were arrested that day, charged under the 'Riotous Assembly Act'. They were held at Uitenhage Police station. This was a time of great excitement, anxiety, nervousness and determination. Everyone seemed high on adrenaline. Many stories were recounted that afternoon as people gathered after the town demonstration, giving account of who was arrested, who escaped, etc. On September 7, I was detained, followed by Joey Naika on the 8th and Eugene 'Gussie' Zealand on the 9th. Father Muller of the local Anglican church was also detained on the 7th. I was held at Walmer police station, Joey at Kirkwood and Gussie at Uitenhage. All hell broke loose and protest flared, from Dower College to Uitenhage High, Paterson High, St Thomas, Gelvandale High, in Port Elizabeth and including as far as Graaff Reinet, where Spandau High students were joined by African students demanding the release of Hendrickse and other detainees. The National Uprising changed South Africa forever. The protest would continue at different times and places across the country and across the years, with different issues acting as catalysts, building in momentum. Uitenhage High proudly took its place, with many of its students continuing the Struggle in various terrains and forms. We remain indebted to our parents, teachers, principals, priests and imams for their unwavering support. In conclusion, I wish to pay tribute to the late Michael Coetzee (class of 77) who sacrificed so much and went on to serve South Africa as Secretary to Parliament. Amandhla Ngawethu!
Daily Maverick
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Our school curriculum still treats black African identity as a problem to be managed
Each June 16, we reprise our remembrance of the Soweto Uprising. We return to the haunting images of 1976 not only to honour the courage of the youth who rose up against injustice, but also to ask difficult, often uncomfortable questions about the state of education and social justice in South Africa today. We bow our heads, quote Steve Biko, remember Hector Pieterson, and speak in solemn tones about freedom. But beneath this ritualised remembrance, in classrooms across the country – the very battlegrounds of 1976 – the foundations of injustice remain disturbingly intact. Nearly 50 years after the Soweto Uprising, we must confront a hard truth: South Africa's education system remains structurally rooted in colonial and apartheid logic. Yes, the signage of apartheid has been removed. The language of the curriculum has shifted. The word transformation appears prominently in policy documents. But the philosophical architecture, the very logic that shaped and continues to shape our schooling, remains steeped in coloniality. We did not rebuild the system from the ground up. Instead, we covered the cracks with cosmetic reforms, while ignoring the deep rot at its core. The post-apartheid state has invested billions in education: building schools, training teachers, and integrating technology. Yet educational outcomes remain starkly unequal. Literacy levels are declining. Socioeconomic disparities persist. And increasingly, learners feel alienated from what they are taught. The question is no longer 'how much are we spending?' but rather, 'what vision is guiding our investment?' As the late Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o reminds us, 'Education is never neutral. It is always a function of the kind of society we want.' And therein lies our dilemma. We have failed to ask, in genuinely African terms: What kind of society are we trying to build? What kind of human being are we trying to cultivate? Had we asked these questions honestly, we would have to acknowledge that the system was never designed to affirm the African child – instead, it was designed to alienate them. Hendrik Verwoerd, the chief architect of Bantu Education, made this explicit: the aim was not ignorance, but subordination. The goal was to mould black African learners into instruments of an anti-black economy: obedient, decontextualised and denied full human dignity. Today, this process continues under different guises. The dominance of English, and the language of 'access', 'efficiency' and 'standardisation' serve as smokescreens for an untransformed system. As Lwazi Lushaba argues, transformation is not about inviting the oppressed into colonial structures, it is about dismantling those structures entirely. Simphiwe Sesanti puts it more plainly: education in Africa must be rooted in African knowledge systems, not superficially adorned with cultural symbols, but fundamentally reimagined. The current curriculum still treats black African identity as a problem to be managed. Learners encounter themselves through distorted lenses: as passive victims of history, as poor but resilient, or as cultural artefacts within a globalised world. This creates a disconnection from learning because the deeper assumptions shaping education in South Africa continue to reflect Western paradigms. The late Kwasi Wiredu offered an alternative: conceptual decolonisation. This is not about token changes, but a radical shift in the frameworks we use to think. We cannot decolonise the curriculum while maintaining the very ideologies that diminish African ways of knowing. We must ask: What counts as knowledge? What is truth? Who is allowed to speak and in what language? Language remains one of the most visible failures of the democratic era. Despite official commitments to multilingualism, English remains the gatekeeper. Learners are often subtly, or even overtly, rewarded for distancing themselves from their mother tongues. Yet, as Mamokgethi Setati and Jill Adler have shown in their work on mathematics classrooms, language is more than a communication tool, it is a way of seeing, knowing, and being. Teaching mathematics or science in a foreign language does not merely slow comprehension; it fragments learners' cognitive and cultural identity. It teaches them that their home languages are suitable for jokes and prayers, but not for physics or philosophy. This is the silent work of coloniality. It does not need to outlaw isiXhosa or Sesotho. It only needs to convince children that these languages are unfit for serious intellectual thought. And in doing so, it teaches them to doubt the value of their own minds. That is why Molefi Kete Asante's call for Afrocentricity is so urgent. Afrocentricity is not nostalgia. It is a reorientation of knowledge production. It demands that African learners are not peripheral observers, but central agents in shaping what knowledge is and how it should be taught. This echoes economist Samir Amin's call for economic delinking from the Global North. In education, we need a similar form of epistemic delinking, a refusal to accept European thought as the universal standard. This also means taking seriously the warnings of J Ndlovu-Gatsheni, who speaks of the 'coloniality of being': the lingering effects of colonialism on how we imagine ourselves and each other long after the colonisers have left. So what are we really commemorating this Youth Day? If we are still schooling our youth into silence, into shame, into intellectual subjugation, then we are not honouring the legacy of 1976, we are betraying it. This moment calls for more than memorial lectures, themed assemblies and hashtags. It calls for rupture. For refusal. For a radical reimagining of education not as a pathway into someone else's world, but as a means of reclaiming our own. We must summon the courage to set aside borrowed tools and begin building with the raw materials of our own histories, languages, and philosophies. Only then, when we begin to rebuild education from the ground up on foundations that affirm African life and thought, can we truly say that we remember. DM
IOL News
16-06-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Youth Resistance: The Psychological Impact from Apartheid to Today
Awam Mavimbela is a registered social worker, former Walter Sisulu University Lecturer, PhD candidate with University of the Free State, and a published author Image: Supplied BOTH the youth of 1976 and today's generation in South Africa face similar challenges, including oppression and poverty, which have contributed to widespread instability and a sense of mental suffocation. This psychological doldrum stems from the harsh conditions they endure—such as dilapidated housing, inadequate education that leads to poverty, unemployment, poor mental health, and more. The death of Hector Pieterson occurred on a peaceful decolonial turn in 1976. One key argument of this historic epoch was that the Bantu Education curriculum by design aims not to liberate Black South Africans from the socio-economic margins imposed by colonialism. Instead, it institutionalised poverty and produced labourers rather than individuals equipped with political and economic awareness. Poverty brings with it profound psychological impacts—depression, frustration, suicidal ideation, and despair. Today's youth also suffer from mental suffocation, and their resistance—from the #FeesMustFall movement to the present day—has come at great cost, with the deaths of young people such as Sisonke Mbolekwa, Benjamin Phehla, Mthokozisi Ntumba, and Mlungisi Madonsela. Fees Must Fall was not only a call for free education, but also for a decolonised curriculum. This was predicated on the observation that, the colonial legacy of apartheid education curriculum still sidelines vulnerable groups, reducing them to labourers rather than ideological independent, critically engaged, politically and economically conscious individuals. Therefore, this continued colonial education system partly explains the low youth voter turnout. All those who have died—from Hector Pieterson to today's student activists—were casualties of state-led systems. The dominant narrative around the 1976 uprising often simplifies it to a rejection of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. However, Tsietsi McDonald Mashinini and his collective were rejecting a broader system of economic exclusion. Their peaceful protest sought to collapse the economy by urging the oppressed to stay in their domiciles, highlighting how the oppressed were being used to sustain an economy they did not benefit from. Afrikaans, in that context, was merely the breaking point. The youth resistance was not about replacing Afrikaans with English—it was about dismantling a system designed to marginalise them. Similarly, Fees Must Fall was not only about tuition fees, but about the ongoing struggle that Mashinini and others had begun. Today, the education system continues to suffocate youth through debt, exclusion, unemployment, and a curriculum that perpetuates alienating narratives, further marginalising vulnerable groups. A concrete example is the overlooked history of the Xhosa nation's 100-year legacy—stories that could foster pride, patriotism, civic responsibility, and an understanding that issues like marginalisation are a legacy of apartheid and demand radical redress. The inability of many Black South Africans to afford university fees is rooted in the colonial institutionalisation of poverty. Decolonising the curriculum would highlight these historical truths and support the push for free, accessible education that tackles systemic oppression. Undoubtedly, Hector Pieterson, Sisonke Mbolekwa, Benjamin Phehla, Mthokozisi Ntumba, and Mlungisi Madonsela would not have died if oppressive conditions did not exist. Today, the nature of oppression has shifted—from overt brutality to systemic economic exclusion. The oppressor has changed form, moving from a white-led apartheid regime to a predominantly white-controlled economic system, with one agenda. Any society becomes unstable when a portion of its population is deeply marginalised. We see this reflected in 'global' unrest, such as the riots in Los Angeles. In South Africa, today's youth appear mentally suffocated, which may contribute to instability. While many may not be fully politically or socially conscientised, events such as the gender-based violence cases involving Cwecwe and Namhla demonstrate that the youth can be mobilised at any moment. Therefore, the South African government must reflect deeply—especially during June 16 commemorations—on the state of the nation's youth. Are they celebrating June 16 as a historic event, or living its continued struggle? This day and its surrounding month mark a decolonial turning point, a time when young people sought to collapse an economy from which they were excluded. With today's high youth unemployment, that struggle persists. The only difference is that the government is now led by a former liberation movement that has, perhaps unconsciously, continued many aspects of the apartheid agenda. *The opinions expressed in this article does not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper. DAILY NEWS
IOL News
15-06-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Emulating the 1976 generation will require resilience, innovation
On June 16, 1976, thousands of students in Soweto took to the streets to demonstrate against Bantu Education and the imposition of Afrikaans in their schools. We owe the 1976 generation not silence, but succession. Not nostalgia, but nation-building, says the writer. Zamikhaya Maseti As we mark June 16, 2025, forty-nine years since the uprising, we must ask not for the sake of ritual but for the sake of our republic: Where is the youth of today? What are they confronting? Do they carry the same fire, and crucially, do they have control over their economic destiny as the 1976 generation had over the political one? On June 16, 1976, the youth of this land, armed with nothing but conviction and the matchbox of defiance, took to the streets and declared war against the Apartheid state. They confronted tanks with chants. Today's youth stand at a different frontline. It is not one patrolled by army vehicles and tear gas but by unemployment, under-skilling, digital exclusion, and economic marginalisation. The war is no longer for votes but for value. And make no mistake, it is no less urgent. Recent QLFS data from Stats SA (Q1 2025) reveal that out of 8.2 million officially unemployed South Africans, 4.8 million youths aged 15–34 remain jobless, pushing the youth unemployment rate to 46.1 per cent, a yawning gap compared to the 32.9 per cent general rate. Moreover, 58.7 per cent of these unemployed youths are first-time seekers, indicating acute structural unemployment and a stalling of labour market entry. The NEET rate (Not in Employment, Education or Training) stands at 45.1 per cent, signifying profound cyclical and frictional unemployment constraints. In macroeconomic terms, this cohort's participation inertia and underabsorption exacerbate the natural rate of unemployment and depress potential GDP growth, a symptom of underleveraged human capital and insufficient aggregate demand. This is not merely a labour market problem; it is a national emergency. While the youth of 1976 wielded placards and songs as instruments of change, today's youth grips smartphones and Wi-Fi logins, but to what end? The digital economy, the new battlefield of production and innovation, has found them mostly on the periphery. They scroll. They consume. They swipe through innovations imported from elsewhere, yet their fingerprints are absent from the circuitry of invention. This is not participation; it is passive absorption. There lies a pressing obligation on the Ministry of Science and Technology, indeed, on the entire State apparatus, to respond not with speeches but with strategy. The young must be repositioned from being spectators in the Fourth Industrial Revolution to being its architects. We must ask, urgently and boldly: Where is our National Youth Tech Incubator? Where is our State-funded Digital Skills Academy, open to township youth, free at the point of use, and rich in ambition? A well-articulated and cross-sectoral Country Youth Employment Strategy is not a luxury; it is a lifeline. This strategy must locate and activate the engines of growth where youth can insert themselves, not as interns but as innovators, not as job seekers but as job creators. We must also interrogate the voluntaristic landscape of Youth employment interventions, particularly the much-lauded Youth Employment Service (YES), a Presidentially endorsed mechanism aimed at integrating first-time job seekers into the formal economy. At the surface level, YES presents as a visionary model: private sector collaboration, placement targets, and experiential learning. But scratch beneath the glossy annual reports and you find a structure held up by corporate voluntarism, not sovereign will. The State applauds from the sidelines but does not fund from the centre. There is no budget line in the National Treasury with YES's name in lights. This is the central contradiction: a government that rhetorically champions the program but refuses to place fiscal muscle behind it. Without direct state investment, YES remains a charity model in a crisis economy, admirable, but insufficient. It cannot absorb the millions locked out of labour markets, nor can it scale against systemic constraints without an injection of public capital, regulatory certainty, and structural alignment with industrial policy. Voluntarism without velocity breeds stagnation. And the youth are tired of waiting. Our macroeconomic data whispers a truth we must listen to: agriculture and manufacturing remain the pillars of our GDP, yet they stand like old factories, functional, but underutilised. These sectors require not only revitalisation but also infusion of young blood. In agriculture, particularly, the crisis is grave and immediate. The post-1994 public sector cohort of agricultural bureaucrats is now ageing, and with them, the institutional memory of land and food security is fading. We are sleepwalking toward a nutritional catastrophe. Shockingly, we have 49 South African farmers, yes, forty-nine, now refugees in the United States. They are not coming back. The Minister of Land Reform must act decisively and distribute those abandoned farms, not tomorrow, not after another feasibility study, but now, as part of a radical agrarian reset. Land is not only a historical grievance; it is a living resource. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is not merely a diplomatic trophy; it is an economic corridor. But who walks through its gates? If our youth do not take up the challenge of intra-African trade, someone else will. Already, the machinery of cross-border commerce is moving, but our youth remain untrained in the languages of export regulation, fintech, and customs compliance. This is where the State must intervene with scholarships, borderless internships, with youth-led export hubs. To shape the economy, the youth must first be armed with skills. Yes, the youth of 1976 defined their destiny. They defied an oppressive order and offered themselves to history's altar. The youth of today must do the same, except their struggle is not to enter the political system but to redesign the economic one. They must ask themselves not 'What is to be done?' but 'What must we build? 'June 16, 2025, must not pass like a calendar commemoration. It must sting. It must summon. It must stir our policymakers from their slumber and our Young people from their scrolls. We owe the 1976 generation not silence, but succession. Not nostalgia, but nation-building. * Zamikhaya Maseti is a Political Economy Analyst with a Magister Philosophiae (M. PHIL) in South African Politics and Political Economy from the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), now known as the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
