This Unlock Apartheid's Jails campaign mailing explains the continued inequalities and segregation in education, the cornerstone of any society, despite many reports that most apartheid legislation has been scrapped. The mailing says the government spends $1,429 per capita on white students and $370 per capita on African students ($259 in rural areas). The mailing says education is compulsory only for white children; there is one teacher for every 14 white children and one for every 70 in African schools. More than five million South African (black) children between the ages of 6 and 16 are not in school at all. The mailing says there are 14 separate school systems in South Africa - one each...
This Unlock Apartheid's Jails campaign mailing explains the continued inequalities and segregation in education, the cornerstone of any society, despite many reports that most apartheid legislation has been scrapped. The mailing says the government spends $1,429 per capita on white students and $370 per capita on African students ($259 in rural areas). The mailing says education is compulsory only for white children; there is one teacher for every 14 white children and one for every 70 in African schools. More than five million South African (black) children between the ages of 6 and 16 are not in school at all. The mailing says there are 14 separate school systems in South Africa - one each for whites, Africans, Asians and people of mixed race - and 11 for Africans including the Department of Education and Training (DET) for Africans in the white designated areas and ten different departments for teach of the "homelands"; the continued existence of these "Own Affairs" education departments perpetuates apartheid education. The mailing says last year the South African government enacted a few reforms; one policy allowed white public schools to integrate if 72% of the white parents vote for integration; as of June, 1991, only 100 schools had done so while some 2,000 schools remained all white. Due to a decline in the numbers of white students, dozens of whites-only schools have been closed and five teacher training colleges have been shut down, despite a severe shortage of both classrooms and teachers for Africans. A multiracial democracy necessitates an educated citizenry, and, in 1989, the people of South Africa launched a campaign aimed at a single education system for all - "All schools for all people." The government responded by arresting and shooting students trying to take over empty school buildings and prohibiting peaceful marches and demonstrations in support of the campaign. If the de Klerk regime is really committed to a new South Africa, let it open the doors of learning to everyone now. The mailing includes a chart SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES 1989.
