History of Education in South Africa Pre and post Aparthied era

1. HISTORY OF
EDUCATION IN
SOUTH AFRICA
HFED 022
BLADE TRINITY
Photo by Wolfgang Sauber / CC BY-SA 3.0

2. WHAT IS HISTORY
OF EDUCATION
• History is the study of education as it manifested itself
through the ages.
• History of education and history under general Is defined
as truth-conforming reconstruction of the past and an
interpretation thereof.
• It focuses particularly in the historical arena and
describing the structural connectedness of education
phenomenon with the aim of clarifying education in the
present and making prognoses for the future.
• The study of history of education first gained a attention
in western countries towards the end of the 18th century.
• It received special attention because of the two
movements which is interest in the past and rationalistic
and revolutionary trends

3. DEVELOPMENT
OF EDUCATION
IN SOUTH
AFRICA
• Colonisation of the Cape marked the beginning of history
of education in south Africa.
• The Europeans colonized the Khoikhoi and the San in the
cape and settled in various parts of the country.
• This resulted in the introduction of new customs, ideas,
religion and the need to provide the community with local
education.
• There was rapid change of governorship in the cape and
it was first governed by the DEIC from 1652 to 1795, the
British government followed in 1795 to 1803 then Batavian
Republic that established in Netherlands from 1803 to
1806.
• The freeholder farmers and settlers of Europeans were
moving into the interior of the country.

4. DEVELOPMENT
OF EDUCATION
IN SOUTH
AFRICA……......
• The church played an important role in the cape in
relation to the curriculum and appointment of teachers.
• In 1658 the first school was established in the Cape with
company-employed sick comforter, appointed as
schoolmaster.
• The Pupils were slaves from Angola, and the founding of
the school had a dual purpose namely to benefit the
company by enabling slaves to speak the Dutch and to
facilitate conversation to Christian faith.
• The sick comforter, Van der Stael, continue to teach slaves
and hottentots the Dutch language and the rudiments of
Christianity.
• He was appointed by Jan Van Riebeek to teach the
company owned slaves,

5. THE TEMPORAL
DIMENTION OF
HISTORY OF
EDUCATION
• History of education has two distinguished aspects, namely
vertical and the horizontal.
• The vertical aspects suggest the time sequence of
educational events, the advancement of education from the
earliest time to present.
• The horizontal aspect is described as historic educational
space . This is because the historical events take place
simultaneously at different place

6. INDIGENOUS
EDUCATION
BEFORE
COLONIAL
DISPENSATION
• This part explains the history of the native people of South
Africa before the arrival of Jan Van Riebeek in 1652.
• Before the Europeans arrived In the cape it was already
occupied by black people, the first people were the
Khoikhoi also known as Hottentots and the second people
were san known as Bushmen. The last group were Bantu-
speaking people currently known as Africans.
• They lived in various parts of Africa while the Khoikhoi and
San lived in the Cape before the arrival Bantu-speaking
people and the Europeans.
• The education of the native people did not have any
records because they did not know how to write.
• Their education involved oral histories of the groups and
skills for survival in changing environment
• Their sources of education consisted of traditions, legends
and tales transmitted from one generation to another.

7. INDIGENOUS
EDUCATION
BEFORE COLONIAL
DISPENSATION………
………….
• Their education was transmitted in two ways ,
namely , informally by parents and elders in the
society through socialisation process and formally
through initiation rites or apprenticeship
• The indigenous people used tales, proverbs and
songs to explain relationship between ancestors
and Gods.
• Music and dance were also involved in the
education of the indigenous people.

8. UNIT 2
DEVELOPMENT OF
EDUCATION IN
SOUTH AFRICA
• The unit focuses on the development of
education is South Africa.
• It explains that it was not the intentions of the
Europeans to settle at the Cape, they were just
passing going to the East indies.
• The terms of the DEIC clearly stated that the place
was just a refreshment station and general
rendezvous (get together) point for the large
shipping.
• They did not intend to colonise the place as it
would require financial and administrative
muscles.

9. SETTLEMENT OF
THE DUTCH
SETTLERS IN THE
CAPE
• Colonisation of the Cape marked the beginning
of history of education in south Africa.
• The Europeans colonized the Khoikhoi and the
San in the cape and settled in various parts of the
country.
• This resulted in the introduction of new customs,
ideas, religion and the need to provide the
community with local education.
• There was rapid change of governorship in the
cape and it was first governed by the DEIC from
1652 to 1795, the British government followed in
1795 to 1803 then Batavian Republic that
established in Netherlands from 1803 to 1806.
• The freeholder farmers and settlers of Europeans
were moving into the interior of the country.

10. SETTLEMENT OF
THE DUTCH
SETTLERS IN THE
CAPE……
• The church played an important role in the cape
in relation to the curriculum and appointment of
teachers.
• In 1658 the first school was established in the
Cape with company-employed sick comforter,
appointed as schoolmaster.
• The Pupils were slaves from Angola, and the
founding of the school had a dual purpose
namely to benefit the company by enabling
slaves to speak the Dutch and to facilitate
conversation to Christian faith.
• The sick comforter, Van der Stael, continue to
teach slaves and Hottentots the Dutch language
and the rudiments of Christianity.
• He was appointed by Jan Van Riebeek to teach
the company owned slaves,

11. EDUCATION
UNDER THE DEIC
• The church played an important role in the cape
in relation to the curriculum and appointment of
teachers.
• In 1658 the first school was established in the
Cape with company-employed sick comforter,
appointed as schoolmaster.
• The Pupils were slaves from Angola, and the
founding of the school had a dual purpose
namely to benefit the company by enabling
slaves to speak the Dutch and to facilitate
conversation to Christian faith.
• The sick comforter, Van der Stael, continue to
teach slaves and Hottentots the Dutch language
and the rudiments of Christianity.
• He was appointed by Jan Van Riebeek to teach
the company owned slaves,

12. EDUCATION
UNDER THE
BRITISH
OCCUPATION
• In 1795 the cape passed from Dutch control to
Britain.
• The cape reverted to Dutch rule under the
Batavian Commissioner General De Mist.
• The British had no desire to interfere in the
domestic concerns of the people and the
scholarchs retained control of educational
matters.
• British had no intention of developing the system
of education
• During British occupation the DEIC developed
many schools e.g. charity school for orphan
children and slave school.
• British government established a young ladies’
seminary for settlers daughters.

13. EDUCATION
UNDER BATAVIAN
REPUBLIC
• By the year of 1803 the British government was willing to
relinquish(give up) control of the cape.
• The High Commissioner Jacobus Abraham De Mist and
Governor Jan Willem Janssens were appointed to rule
the colony.
• Di mist proposed the establishment of schools in the
cape.
• He proposed the introduction of secular schooling that
provide for mother tongue instruction, a modern
curriculum extending to secondary education and
training of teachers.
• He suggested an standardised education that would be
supported by the state.

14. EDUCATION
UNDER BATAVIAN
REPUBLIC………..
• According to him there were three types of parents
according to their ability to educate their children
Parents who were able to afford basic education
and education in foreign languages, art and science
and whose children had mental capacity to benefit
from that education
Parents of the middle social class who could only
afford basic education for their education.
Poor parents who could not afford education for
their children whose children’s education was
catered for by the Church and Orphanage through
charity schools.
• Because of this it was suggested that a number of
trained teachers be recruited from the Netherlands
to assist in this venture.

15. EDUCATION
UNDER BATAVIAN
REPUBLIC………..
• De mist brought about quite a number of
appropriate improvements in the education in the
cape colony.
He proposed the establishment of a select school
in Cape Town which would be taught by trained
teachers from the Netherlands.
He proposed the establishment of a hotels and
day for girls on the outskirts.
Parents had to pay for the education of their
children.

16. CHRISTIAN
MISSION
EDUCATION
• In 1790s there was keen interest (enthusiasm) for
mission work from Europe to various of the world.
• Education became a vehicle for spreading
Christianity in the world.
• In 1737 Moravian brothers started their missionary
among the Khoikhoi under the guidance of
George Schmidt. His school provided education to
70 children, 70 women and 30 men. He did not
stay long and went back to Moravia.
• In 1795 the London Mission Society, an
international organisation, sent missionaries to the
Cape. Because of unfriendliness of the Khoikhoi
and Xhosas, the first settlement was abandoned.
• In 1806 they relocated to port Elizabeth and
established schools as well as training institutions.

17. CHRISTIAN
MISSION
EDUCATION……..
• The Rhenish Mission society from Germany
worked among slaves, Khoikhoi, the coloured and
the San.
• Besides establishing schools they also established
agricultural villages so that the communities
became self-sufficient
• The Parish Evangelical Mission Society worked
among the coloured in 1828 and also worked
among the Tswana.
• In 1834 the Berlin mission society worked among
the Korannas and Bechuana in the OFS among
the Sotho and Venda.
• Anglican Church worked among the Zulu and by
1948 missionaries had brought Christianity to
almost every tribe in the Subcontinent of Africa.

18. UNIT 3
DEVELOPMENT OF
EDUCATION IN
SOUTH AFRICA
DURING THE
NATIONAL PARTY
RULE AND
APARTHEID ERA,
1948-1993
• The unit focus on the origin of the Bantu Education
and the long-standing struggle for democracy in
South Africa.
• World war ll created the conditions that benefited
South African economy and the need for military
equipment such as armoured vehicles and
ammunition gave rise to the establishment of many
local industries.
• The growth of the industries created a greater
demand for labour which caused a drift of people of
all races to the towns and cities. As a result of this
drift, a large scale of of urbanasation took place.

19. EISELEN COMMISSION
UNIT 3

20. 3.1.1 TERMS OF
REFERENCE
• Dr WWM Eiselen was appointed as chairperson
of this commission.
• The following was the terms of reference:
The aim of education for natives as an
independent race, in which their past and present,
their inherent racial qualities, their distinctive
characteristics and aptitude and their needs ever
changing social conditions are taken into
consideration.
The commission started its work with the promise
that a distinction(difference) should be drawn
between Whites, Coloured, Indian and African
education.
The commission had to suggest how the existing
system of education had to be reformed to
conform to these aims, and how the natives could
be prepared “more effectively for the future
occupation”

21. INFLUENCE OF
CHRISTIAN
NATIONAL
EDUCATION(CNE)

22. RECOMMENDATIO
NS OF THE
EISELEN
COMMISSION
• The following are the recommendations of the
Eisen commission.
 That all education, excepting foreign languages,
should be taught through the medium of the
mother tongue for the first eight years
That both official languages ( English and
Afrikaans( should be taught from the earliest
school days so that the Bantu child should find
understand instructions and converse with the
Europeans
That blacks should be allowed to attend white
institution only to study such subjects as where
temporarily not provided for at their own
institution.
That Black education be intergraded
(desegregated) with all other state efforts designed
to raise the level of black life.
 That black education should be removed from
provincial control and be administered by the
“Department of Bantu Education”

23. RECOMMENDATIO
NS OF THE
EISELEN
COMMISSION………
..
Blacks should find proportion of the necessary
funds themselves
The recommendations of the Eiselen Commission
report served as the aims of Bantu Education.

24. BANTU
EDUCATION ACT,
NO. 47 OF 1953
• On the basis of the Eiselen commission report,
the Bantu education Act NO. 47 of 1953 was
passed and promoted in 1954.
• The act provided for the transfer of control of
Bantu education from the provincial
administration to UNION government

25. REACTIONS TO
BANTU
EDUCATION
SYSTEM
• Bantu Education system was seen as a separatist
education system that was in the interest of the
ruling party’s ideology of apartheid and not in the
interests of the recipients
• The Bantu Education Act, based on the policy of
apartheid was opposed right from the outset.
• In the 1952 the national conference called by the
institute for Race Relations rejected the
recommendations of the Eiselen commission. The
conference stated that Africans are not culturally ,
economically and politically independent.
• In 1954 the ANC launched a Resist Apartheid
Campaign and education was one of the six
issues addressed in the campaign. The issue of
Bantu education was handed over to women’s
League and Congress of youth age.

26. REACTIONS TO
BANTU
EDUCATION
SYSTEM…………………
…
• During the boycott of Bantu Education the
African Education Movement organised an
alternative programmes for children who were
out of school. It was against the law to set up
schools that were independent from government.

27. SOWETO
UPRISINGS
• The Soweto uprisings were never known
(unprecedented) in the history of the struggle
against apartheid policy by the African youth.
• THE CAUSES OF SOWETO UPRISING
• The causes of Soweto uprising was remote or
underlying and immediate or surface

28. SOWETO
UPRISINGS
• THE REMOTE CAUSES
• The refusal of pupils and students to attend classes.
• Among the black community, there was great
dissatisfaction with Bantu education.
• The objection of the use of Afrikaans as a medium of
instruction in secondary schools with few teachers
competent to teach in Afrikaans.
• Dissatisfaction with the standard of education, quality of
teaching, the school building and equipment

29. SOWETO
UPRISINGS
THE IMMEDIATE OR SURFACE CAUSES
The immediate causes are not always the real
causes.
• a major immediate cause of the uprisings was
indisputably( in a way that cannot be denied) the
blatant (done openly) insensitivity of Bantu
education Department in particular

30. THE IMPORTANCE
OF THE SOWETO
UPRISINGS
• Black resistance managed to abolish government
apartheid policy in education
• Soweto uprisings led to collapse of a powerful
apartheid structure, namely the URBAN bantu
Council.
• Soweto uprising also showed the common
liberation objectives of the PAC, BCM and the
ANC.
• Soweto uprisings demonstrated the spirit of
solidarity (unity)

31. UNIT 4
POST-1994
EDUCATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
• The post 1994 era was the period of construction
of a new society in South Africa.
• The new education system was to be build on
principles mostly opposite from those which
determined education before 1994
• A new education policy, in the form of White
papers, acts and policy documents appeared

32. REFORM OF
EDUCATION
• Before 1994 racially and ethically based
departments of education were collapsed into
one national departments
• Each of the nine provinces of South Africa, too
established a provincial department of education

33. REFORM OF
EDUCATION
• THE RELEASED WHITE PAPER OF 1995
• In 1995 the White Paper on Education and Training
was released, specifying the guidelines for
education policy in South Africa.
• All South Africans should be granted the
opportunity to develop their potential and to
contribute to the development of society.
• Parents have the responsibility for the education of
their children and they have the rights to choose
the form of education for their children.
• Education policy should enable all individuals to
value, to have access and succeed in lifelong
education and training of good quality
• Historical inequalities must be redressed.
• The state resources must be used to provide the
same quality of learning opportunities for all,.
• The right of learners and education should be
protected

34. REFORM OF
EDUCATION……..
• THE RELEASED WHITE PAPER OF 1995
• Communities must accept ownership of their
schools and legitimate representative bodies
should be instituted
• The goal of education and training should be to
establish a democratic , free, equal and peaceful
society in South Africa.
• The diverse religious, cultural and language
traditions should be respected and encouraged.
• Education should promote independent and critical
thinking.
• Education should promote the importance of due
process of law.

35. PRINCIPLE OF A
NEW
DISPENSATION
• After taking the government in 1994, the ANC spelled out
an education policy based upon ideals. The principle of this
policy were the following.
• Democratisation: The new government accepted the
principle of democratisation in education, this means that all
stakeholders(teachers, parents workers, learners, and the
community) would participate in decision making on
education.
• Equal educational opportunities: The quest(search) for equal
educational opportunities was an important reality in socio-
political turmoil(state of great confusion) in the runup to
1994.
• Decentralisation: Democratisation implies the dismantling of
structure concentrating power in one spot(centralisation)
• Desegregation: This was a prerequisite for the creation of
equal education opportunities in order to eradicate school
segregation of the past.
• Multicultural education: South African school Act state that
the country’s education system must strive to cultivate
respect for different cultural, religious and language

36. THE CHANGING
CONTEXT OF
TEACHING
• When there was changes of policies even
teachers were making changes in classrooms.
• South Africa has to change the old ways of
teachings into new ones.
• The first step to change teaching is to look back
and understand how history has shaped our
present thought and practices
• The second step is to look forward, this means we
must understand what is important in the mass of
our ideas that come our way.

37. THE CHANGING
CONTEXT OF
TEACHING………..
• The following are the crucial in bringing about
change in teaching: Teachers are expected to:
• Design classrooms and use methods which are
learner-centred
• Teach learners how to solve problems and think
critically.
• Teach learners how to use the knowledge we teach
them(learner competence)
• Plan lessons guided by learner outcomes.

38. THE CHANGING
ROLES OF SOUTH
AFRICAN
TEACHERS
• With the educational dispensation in the
democratic South Africa, the role of a teacher has
changed from chalk- and talk –teacher to learner-
centred approach.
• According to the policy document, there are
seven roles of a teacher. They are:
Specialist teacher
Leader administrator and manager
Citizenship, community and pastoral role
Designer of learning programmes
Mediator of learning
Assessor
Lifelong learner and scholar

39. A TEACHER AS A
REFLECTIVE
PRACTITIONER
• 1. UNDERSTANDING AND BEING ABLE TO EXPLAIN
WHY A PARTICLAR METHOD WAS CHOSEN
• This means that the teacher needs to consider
different teaching
• If a teacher decides to use story instead of practical
demonstration, the teacher must be able to justify
why they chose that particular method
• ACTING EFFECTIVELY ON DECISION: CARRYING
OUT BASIC TEACHING FUNCTION
• Teachers need to know the knowledge relevant to
their subject or learning area, and be able to
communicate these ideas to learners in a manner
appropriate to their level.
• Teachers must be able to use knowledge they know
and implement the teaching method they have learnt.
• REFLECTING ON ACTIONS AND ADJUSTING THESE
IN THE LIGHT OF REFLECTIONS
• Teachers and learners, learn in a teaching process.
• Teaching is about trying a formula and implementing
it if is working