Post-colonial education, not just any eduction, to end apartheid in South Africa... It is time we addressed standing lies: education holds key to your future! Black townships and rural areas are vast islands of poverty because of restricted economic activity. Yet many people from these areas graduate on a daily basis but disappear. And government continues to build schools and provide teachers and other necessities to these areas. What does education really do help create sustainable economies in black areas? What does education do to break the cycle of poverty in black families? At present, education does not bring economic freedom and true emancipation to those who are still troubled by ills of life. Attaining a higher number of PhDs, as it is often argued, will be proof that our education is amongst the best in world. And then what? Education maybe brings a better salary compared to Sipho or Lerato next door, who unfortunately did not complete school (short-termism). It has not changed the status of Mamelodi, for example, to becoming a top-end residential area like Waterkloof,Silver Lakes and Brooklyn, or a manufacturing hub such as Rosslyn and Kempton Park. There is no evidence, therefore, that in our South African context that it is education alone that will solve all our problems. Panacea! Education alone cannot eradicate remnants of apartheid. Education alone is not powerful enough to deal with unforgiving brute of white liberal framework in South Africa. Education alone cannot change our dependent status and accelerate us to becoming co-pilots in the neoliberal world. Education brings you a nice office job. Hence, everyone talks about job creation and unemployment as if that will have a direct influence on unscrambling economic ownership in post-Apartheid South Africa. Since you sit in the office with a heap of paper, telephone and a PC we call you middle class. Maybe that office is a cage. Maybe education itself is a shackle we need to break. Humans have an in-built or default system to survive and deal with problems that face them. This explains why Ntate Mofokeng is more successful in the taxi rank than you, even without education. Also, Bhambatha and Cetshwayo, amongst others, did not need books on Ancient Greek war strategies or Karl Marxs Das Kapital to understand and appreciate that European invasion was not bringing good news to Africans. Education brings us unhappy and heavily indebted souls, society pressurizes educated ones to behave in a funny way. We often link education with quick success in life. We think education breaks systematic racism and all other forms of discrimination. Education has potential to create problems than create opportunities if not properly crafted and managed. Perhaps we need to re-focus our energies and build a truly post-colonial, modern education. I feel running arguments on supposedly non-deserving people who occupy senior positions in the national broadcaster is neither here or there. But it is a necessary distraction to conceal the failure to change South Africa for the better. The problem maybe does not lie with education but the type of education we provide or receive.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 07:45:36 +0000