OPPOSITIOO to Apmlheid Ii~ Ftnmibia: Tile F{)Le of Educatictl RELIGIOI~., ~'Ill Tile Cof'itra.CT LAOOR SYS1H1
111 OPPOSITIOO TO APMlHEID Ii~ ftnMIBIA: TilE f{)lE OF EDUCATICtL RELIGIOI~., ~'ill TilE COf'ITRA.CT LAOOR SYS1H1 by Olristopher A. leu Introduction The developirei'lt of fonnal educational systems by the oolonial powers has generally played a rrost significant role in African progress throughout the oontinent. As Janes 0' Con nell puts it It helped leaders to a v~s~on of freedom, provided the skills that enabled colonial ad ministrators to be replaced and animated the agricultural extension work that lay behind the more scientific harvesting of cash crops . Education at one and the same time enhanced human dignity through increasing knowledge, and advanced economic production through developing manpower skills.l In Nand.bia (fonrerly known as South-West Africa), education has been viewed as having a liberating effect, heM ever, it has oonspicuously failed to have any positive irrpact. As a oolony, Namibia's educational system reflects the apartheid philosophy and policy of the occupying power, the Republic of South Africa. Acoording to this theory, the nonwhite Namibian population is to be divided into twelve mutually incorcpatible "nations." 'lhus, education for whites and nonwhites is separ ately administered, and students are physically separated by race and,in the case of nonwhites, further separated by "nations." Depending on "nationality," there are inter alia differences in laws, curriCula, teacher training and salary-scales, teach er/pupil ratios, arrounts spent per pupil on education, attend ance rates, and arrong administering authorities. Whites are in all cases treated differently from nonwhites. For the dominant white population group (100,000) the education of the territory' s African population (900,000) has always been regarded as either superflmus (in the light of the lowest role assigned to the African in the socio-economic system) or harmful, for whites fear a rise in political con- 112 sciousness anong educated Africans.
[Show full text]