Rural Transitions to Higher Education in South Africa

Decolonial Perspectives

Sue Timmis, Thea de Wet, Kibashini Naidoo, Sheila Trahar, Lisa Lucas, Emmanuel Mfanafuthi Mgqwashu, Patricia Muhuro, Gina Wisker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000410440
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This unique and timely book focuses on research conducted into the experiences of students from rural backgrounds in South Africa: foregrounding decolonial perspectives on their negotiation of access and transitions to higher education.

This book highlights not only the challenges of coming from a rural background against the historical backdrop of apartheid and ongoing colonialism, but also shows the immense assets that students from rural areas bring into higher education. Through detailed narratives created by student co-researchers, the book charts early experiences in rural communities, negotiations of transitions to university and, in many cases, to urban life and students' subsequent journeys through higher education spaces and curricula.

The book will be of significant interest and value to those engaged in rurality research across diverse settings, those interested in the South African higher education context and higher education more widely. Its innovative, participatory methodology will be invaluable to researchers seeking to conduct collaborative research that draws on decolonising approaches.

1

The historical context of higher education in South Africa

DOI: 10.4324/9780429356490-1

Introduction

Chapter One provides an overview of the historical context of rurality in higher education in South Africa. It examines the extent to which South Africa addressed the apartheid legacy of unequal participation, curricula injustice, a racially skewed workforce and fragmentation in the higher education system. In the absence of specific policies and legal frameworks that address equity, group-based asymmetries in an education system inevitably shape other forms of socioeconomic inequalities in the larger society, for example, income, gender-based and racial inequalities in society (McKeever, 2017). This observation is particularly relevant to South Africa, where successive colonial and apartheid governments sustained an elaborate system of unequal participation in and access to education, in order to entrench the ideology of separate development and racial segregation. Despite continuous equity promoting interventions, which sought to dismantle apartheid injustices and expand access, South Africa’s higher education remains a highly segmented and unequal system. The data from student co-researchers confirm in this in Chapters Five, Six, Seven and Eight.

Imperatives for transformation

Historically, the South African education system was at the heart of segregation strategies. Separate development – a system by which the four different racial categories (African, White, Coloured and Asian/Indian)¹ evolved into disparate and complete societies (McKeever, 2017) – at once creating race-based inequalities while entrenching White privilege. In South Africa, the ‘racial’ category Coloured refers to people from mixed ancestry. As Ellison and de Wet (2020) point out, the official population group category is people of ‘mixed’ descent, but this has also acted as a catch-all for anyone not in the White, African, Asian/Indian population categories. The role of education in the creation of the apartheid society before 1994, when the first majority government was elected cannot be over-emphasised. Colonial and apartheid education was uniquely instrumental in the creation, justification and legitimisation of White supremacy in South Africa. Furthermore, to undo this decades-long legacy of racial disparities and fractures in the nation and transform post-apartheid South Africa into a truly democratic society, an entirely new education system free of racial inequalities was required (Fiske and Ladd, 2004).

Undoubtedly, apartheid education was complicit in the creation, justification and maintenance of the very foundations of apartheid. Three main functions of apartheid education, all of which ensured White racial domination, can be isolated to provide a brief background to higher education reforms in 1994. First, separate educational institutions were created for each racial group and second, unequal policy attention and funding commitments were accorded to the different racial groups. Lastly, the architecture of apartheid education was aligned with both the legal regime which alienated Black people from the land and land-based resources and those laws that created a racially based migrant labour system (Hart and Padayachee, 2013).

Educational instruments in apartheid South Africa, for example, the Bantu Education Act of 1953, worked hand in glove with the legal and policy frameworks that dispossessed Africans of the land and other resources, leading to impoverishment. Among the oppressive legislation and policies were the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936, which established the Bantustan system where the majority of Africans lived in ethnic ‘homelands’ on only 14 per cent of the land compared to the 86 per cent set aside for White occupation, parks, military ranges and other state uses (Fiske and Ladd, 2004; HSRC, 2005). In addition to racial dispossession, the apartheid government neglected the homelands with respect to infrastructure and basic amenities. Subsequently, the homelands became zones of deprivation, plagued by socioeconomic problems such as food insecurity, malnutrition, lack of adequate employment opportunities and insufficient areas for play, exercise and entertainment (Fiske and Ladd, 2004). The majority of the student co-researchers in our study grew up and went to school in these areas; their narratives (discussed in subsequent chapters) suggest that these conditions continue to prevail.

Perhaps, the Bantu Education Act of 1953 had the most deleterious effects on the equity of access to education among African, Coloured and Asian/Indian populations. It created a system of separate education for the different racial groups, with the institutions for Black people, especially those in the ‘homelands’, receiving the least policy attention and funding (Johnson, 1982). Whereas per student funding ratios shifted throughout minority rule, White schools were, by far the biggest beneficiaries. In 1910, the ratio of government expenditures for White and African education, per capita, was 333 Rand to 1 Rand (Johnson, 1982). Although these vast disparities in funding contracted in subsequent years, equality was never achieved. For example, a White child was getting 15 times more a Black child in 1975, compared to a ratio of 20 to 1 in 1946 (McKeever, 2017). To further depreciate the quality of Black education, following the promulgation of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, the apartheid government strengthened centralised control of the schools in non-White areas particularly in terms of control over the curriculum (CHE, 2016). At the same time, the responsibility to run the schools was placed in the hands of homelands authorities (Fiske and Ladd, 2004; HSRC, 2005).

The deliberate underfunding of schools in impoverished homelands, overcrowded classrooms, an inferior curriculum delivered by under-qualified teachers had a negative impact on learners’ educational outcomes (HSRC, 2005; Roscigno and Crowley, 2009; Statistics South Africa, 2011; Mestry and Ndhlovu, 2014; McKeever, 2017; Naidoo et al., 2020). Furthermore, compulsory levels of education varied according to racial groups; the Bantu Education Act of 1953 introduced notoriously low requirements, regulations, curriculum and standards for Black schools (McKeever, 2017). In fact, for the most part, the curriculum for African children emphasised practical subjects that would prepare them for blue-collar jobs (Manik and Ramrathan, 2018). The Department of Education (DoE) (DoE, 2005) points out that Black learners have been precluded from participation in university education because of their precarious experiences in the educational system leading to poor educational outcomes (Fiske and Ladd, 2004; HSRC, 2005). Inevitably the fragmented apartheid education system produced ‘spatial variation[s] in educational outcomes, generally, and for rural achievement in particular’ (Roscigno and Crowley, 2009) while deepening race-based disparities regarding the equity of economic opportunities and outcomes (Badat, 2011).

Alongside the deliberate neglect and impoverishment of the African homeland areas, unequal education also resulted in the creation and maintenance of a racially segmented labour market, which promoted White social mobility at the expense of other racial groups. The deprivation in the homelands ensured that Africans maintained an impoverished socioeconomic status and disorganised family life throughout minority rule, orienting them towards blue-collar waged labour in a segmented labour system, rather than towards economically rewarding jobs (Fiske and Ladd, 2004; HSRC, 2005; Hart and Padayachee, 2013; McKeever, 2017). Such jobs were reserved for White workers.

Combined, the interplay of inferior education, alienation from the land, marginalisation of the homelands and a racially segmented labour market worked to ensure the ongoing outmigration of uneducated cheap labour from the Bantustans towards urban areas, mining industries and White-owned farms. Apartheid education is therefore strongly implicated in the creation of a racially segmented migrant labour market in which white-collar jobs were reserved for White people and socioeconomic mobility for all other groups was restricted.

Apartheid legacies in higher education

The challenges which confronted South Africa’s higher education system since independence in 1994 are at once ‘historical and contemporary, practical and ideological’ (HSRC, 2017, p. 7). The fragmentation of the higher education system, with its institutions historically configured to serve the aspirations of a minority elite, was the most intractable problem facing post-apartheid South Africa. The higher education system had been fragmented along racial lines with far fewer higher education institutions for Africans, Coloureds and Indians/Asians who made up most of the population (CHE, 2016; Manik and Ramrathan, 2018). By 1994, 17 historically White institutions comprising 10 universities and 7 technikons² overwhelmingly served the White minority. On the contrary, there were only six universities and five technikons for African, Coloured and Asian/Indian students (HSRC, 2005). The participation rates of students from the different racial groups in higher education reflected very little, if any, similarities with the populations in different racial groups. Two years before the majority government took over at independence in 1994, White students made up only 12 per cent of the school population yet they represented 60 per cent and 50 per cent of the students in technikons and universities, respectively.

Social and political fault lines also existed in the category of historically White universities, between those institutions that used English as the language of instruction and those that used Afrikaans as the language of instruction. Another division was the categorisation of higher education institutions which separated universities from technikons. By and large, technikons offered diploma courses in technical subjects while universities awarded degree qualifications. In this context, integration presented a considerable challenge.

By 1994, government funding in higher education was skewed in favour of historically White universities. What is more, historically White universities exploited their links with businesses to access considerable resources. Consequently, they enjoyed world-class resource endowments, quality of facilities and capacity, while historically Black universities remained ‘appallingly neglected’ (Manik and Ramrathan, 2018). Typically, the senior managers of historically Black institutions were Afrikaners who were loyal to the apartheid government and subscribed to the ideology of separate development (Fiske and Ladd, 2004). Consequently, the curriculum at historically Black institutions reflected those of Afrikaans universities except that the teaching was inferior (Fiske and Ladd, 2004); again because Black people were ‘politically certified for low skilled jobs’ in a higher education system that was ‘strategically contrived to discriminate and sustain White privileges by dominating Black [people]’ (Manik and Ramrathan, 2018, p. 237). While they were designed for political and ideological expediency in the apartheid era, these contrivances embedded curricula injustices, an issue around which access to the higher education will be contested decades after the advent of majority rule in 1994.

In what ways, and to what extent did South Africa’s higher education system deal with the apartheid legacy in higher education? This question is considered, with reference to legal and policy reforms that were designed to promote equity and expand access. However, since the transformation of the legal and policy framew...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The historical context of higher education in South Africa
• 2. Coloniality, decoloniality, epistemicide and curricular justice
• 3. Transitioning into and through higher education in South Africa: Contexts and concepts
• 4. Towards a participatory and decolonising methodology
• 5. Negotiations of transitions to university: Figured worlds and identity transformations
• 6. Cultural values and practices: From rural communities to higher education
• 7. Place, funds of knowledge and investment in language
• 8. Experiencing higher education learning, teaching and curricula
• 9. The dimensions and complexities of ruralities
• 10. International collaborations: Opportunities and tensions
• 11. ‘Sankofa’: Looking back, moving forward
• Index