A psycho-pedagogical study of differentiated secondary education and its significance for education in Kwa-Zulu.
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Date
1975
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Abstract
A Chinese adage has it that if you are planning for a year buy
rice, if for ten years plant rice, but if for 100 years educate
your people. Educatron is a vital long-term investment for any
forward-looking community. As Bozzoli (1972: 2) puts it,
"education is as vital to a nation as is sufficient food and a
proper diet". The major purpose of planned education should be
to induct the individual into the societal pattern in such a way
that his individuality and creativeness is enhanced, not dampened
(cf. Stenhouse, 1967).
We note that today in all parts of Africa education plays a
crucial role in national planning because the future of every independent
state depends more than anything else on the rapid and
effective development of its educational system. When a metropolitan
power relinquishes control, the former subject peoples
invariably reorganize the system of education bequeathed to them
in accordance with their genuine needs and aspirations. Hopes of
achieving higher standards of living and even of attaining viable
independence seem to depend almost entirely upon the ability of
each budding state to train the human material it requires for
service at various levels in the administration. For this to
happen there must be statesmen, administrators, scientists, technicians,
engineers, doctors, artisans, educationists, and, above
all, teachers. These educators are faced with a gigantic task:
they are cal.led upon to provide an education which, ori the one
hand, will take notice of the essential humanity of the people for
whom it is designed and. on the other. enable them to take their full place in a modern scientific-technological world (cf. Duminy,
1968) ~
It is the indigenous educationist who plays a leading role in
bringing about a Black-oriented education to satisfy the authentic
needs and aspirations of the African. Needless to say, a Black
educationist whose outlook is foreign-oriented will find that his
services are not required by his newly independent community. He
becomes a "foreign native", a sort of a bat that is useful neither
to his community nor to the non-Black expatriates.
In recent times in South Africa there has come about a political
dispensation under which Africans are promised eventual
sovereign independence in their own areas referred to as Homelands.
The vexed question 0& land consoli~ation has become a formidable
bone of contention with some Homeland leaders (Ilanga, 23.7.75).
Whether political independence will become a reality or not is
neither here nor there. What interests the educationist is that
his Homeland at this stage is given some latitude to design and
plan its educational system from the nursery school to the postprimary
level except for higher education which remains under the
control of the Central Government. Soon after attaining partial
self-government in 1963 South Africa's first Homeland, the Transkei.
commenced reorganizing its educational system. Kwazulu is following
suit. She attained legislative assembly status in 1972.
Before tbat date the territory was referred to as Zululand. It
was an integral part of the Natal Province as was the case at one
time with the Transkei and the Cape Province. As such it was
subject to the jurisdiction of the Natal Provincial Administration
and the Central Government. On attaining partial self-government
in 1972, the territory's name changed to KwaZulu.
Description
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of
.DOCTOR EDUCATIONIS
in the
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
In the
UNlVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 1975.
Keywords
Educational psychology.