Education is the key to reconciliation

BY FR RAYMOND MWANGALA OMI

Since 1994, both basic and higher education in South Africa have undergone several processes of restructuring; rightly so. Education is a key to social reconciliation and development.

Education should balance theoretical facts with character formation and life skills.

After the tragic experience of the past, South Africa needed to reorganise the education sector to bring it in line with the new democratic dispensation.

Almost two decades later, the results of the restructuring are less than satisfactory. The state of education in South Africa is a cause of grave concern. Urgent action needs to be taken by all stakeholders: government, private sector, churches and NGOs, local communities, parents, learners, educators and so on to prevent what could turn out to be a major national catastrophe.

The education system as designed and implemented by the apartheid government, beginning with the Bantu Education Act of 1953, was intended more at manipulating the consciousness of the different racial groups to serve the benefits of the regime and a powerful minority. Blacks were subjected to an inferior Bantu Education as a means of keeping them second-class citizens, while whites were given the best facilities and trained at levels which were meant to make them feel and seem superior.

What this system of Bantu Education and “Christian National Education” achieved can hardly be called education. It created men and women filled with preconceived and dangerous ideas; men and women who were largely incapable of independent thinking. Education was used as a tool of the oppressive regime.

With the advent of democracy the education system had to be transformed in a radical way so that it could become a tool for personal and national development. The government of Nelson Mandela and subsequent administrations have been faced with the daunting challenge of reviewing the nature and purpose of education in South Africa and of choosing a specific path among various competing systems of education.

One of the major challenges faced by post-1994 governments has been that of broadening access to education for previously disadvantaged groups.

Thousands, if not millions, of young people of school-going age had previously been denied access to education facilities such as schools.

This meant that they were unable to benefit from an environment which would stimulate intellectual growth and development. Government has responded by building schools in rural areas and by providing greater access to other facilities by adopting policies that favour the previously disadvantaged. All things being equal, government is to be applauded in this area. However, more still needs to be done.

Access to education facilities is only one element in a complex reality. Teacher-learner interaction is another important element in the education process that needs careful attention. There is no doubt that many teachers are not adequately prepared for the tasks that they have to perform, nor are they adequately compensated for the work they do. The nearly annual strikes by teachers is an indicator of the dissatisfaction with conditions of service in the education sector.

More schools and better prepared teachers are still not enough to transform the sector; what is taught and how it is taught is the other crucial element of the process.

Education should not be just about teaching learners the most elaborate scientific theories and procedures or about filling their minds with facts that are only remotely related to their life and experience. It should balance this with character formation and life-skills.

There are many sad cases of highly qualified individuals who are maladapted in society. The education system seems to have failed them.

As  the Kenyan religious philosopher John Mbiti noted  more than 40 years ago: “Sometimes schools spend more time teaching young people about dissecting frogs and about colonial history than they do on teaching them how to establish happy homes and family lives. Unless the structure and system of education is changed, we are heading for tragic social, moral and family chaos whose harvest is not far away.”

At present, it is still unclear what the priorities in the education sector are. Access to basic and higher education is important, but weaker students and others from previously disadvantaged communities need support to enable them to adapt to and benefit from the discipline of academic teaching and learning.

With more than five years of experience in teaching at an institution with students from various backgrounds, I have become more aware how the background of learners influences their learning. Those from backgrounds which exposed them to the disciplines of formal education find it relatively easy to learn new and complex theories while others find it hard, if not impossible. Every educator knows the frustration of trying to remedy years of poor training while at the same time teaching new things.

In attempting to assist learners from previously disadvantaged communities, however, care must be taken to avoid turning them in second-class learners as this would perpetuate an inferiority complex. Quality of education must be balanced with extra assistance offered to weaker learners. This requires that extra resources be made available.

Rev Mbiti offers an important insight when he observes that, increasingly the responsibility for education has been passed on from parents and the community to teachers and schools where it has become more of book learning as an end in itself than an education which prepares the young for mature life and future careers.

The sole purpose of education should not be to produce more qualified people, who are less educated. Both are required and important. To deal with the challenges from the past in a meaningful way we must urgently give the education sector the attention and resources required.

Fr Raymond M Mwangala OMI is the academic dean of St Joseph’s Theological Institute in Cedara, KwaZulu-Natal.