A Harbinger of Bantu Education

Having just finished a book edited by Shula Marks entitled Not Either an Experimental Doll: The Separate Worlds of Three South African Women, I thought that, though the book deals with three specific individuals rather than the South African population as a whole, the book reveals quite a bit of information pertinent to understanding South Africa during the 1940s and 1950s--the Africans' struggle for education, the limitations placed upon African girls, the prevalent poverty in the Native Reserves.

This epistolary book documents a teenage black girl named Lily Moya and her desire to seek higher education. She contacts a white "liberal philanthropist," Mabel Palmer, who agrees to sponsor her secondary education. Nevertheless, as the letters prove, Palmer exposes Lily to all of the limitations of her sex and race. For example, Palmer mentions Lily taking on a position as a domestic servant and continually speaks of her career as a teacher. But as for being a doctor or a professor, Lily is afforded no such encouragement.

Also of interest is the way in which the book previsions the even stricter codes of Bantu Education, laws which were enforced with the Bantu Education Act of 1953. This act restricted education to Africans in that they were taught what was necessary, to wit, skills necessary for menial labor (e.g. domestic servitude). The Bantu Education Act also demanded that Afrikaans, rather than English, would be taught in all schools to Africans; Afrikaans was a language with connotations of poverty, restriction, social inferiority, and a general lack of opportunity. In summary, the act defined and/or restricted ideas of language, upward mobility, higher education, and vocational skills for all Africans living in South Africa.

For more information on the theory of Bantu Education, its implementation, and its consequent protests, especially the Soweto Uprising of 1976:

http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/sidebar.php?id=3
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/june16/bantu-edu.htm
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/pohlandt-mccormick/searchframe.html

And a special link pertaining to the role of women in apartheid and the few opportunities afforded them: http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/womens-struggle/struggle.htm