EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA: Racism and Sexism Still Rife

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Gumisai Mutume

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 17 1997 (IPS) - Three years after independence, nine- year-old Grace Chiloane continues to go through an education system that belittles people of her colour and her sex.

While changes have occurred in South Africa’s school curriculum as it rids itself of the legacy of apartheid, the textbooks that extol the virtues of whiteness and uphold male domination remain on classroom desks, influencing yet another generation.

For instance Chiloane says she does not know of any great African in history except perhaps “Shaka the Zulu warrior”. But she does know David Livingstone, “the first man to discover the Victoria Falls,” she says, and a host of other missionaries who brought education to Africa.

Succinct, but effective denigration weaves itself in both primary and high school texts in a country that three years ago attained independence from the apartheid regime led by Frederik De Klerk. Under apartheid, education was designed to train Blacks for servitude.

In many stories, the bad and the evil is always represented by Africans or Indians. Black children trying to identify with the victor, find themselves extolling white explorers.

‘English can be fun’, a grade three textbook, for instance, features a conversation between a black girl Daisy and Mary who is white.

Although Daisy claims she can run faster and kick a ball further, Mary comes out as cleverer, re-enforcing common stereotypes that Blacks are stronger and more athletic, while Whites are smart. Daisy can also pull faces and stretch her tongue as far as possible.

Another reader, ‘English is Easy, 6’, illustrates how David Livingstone came to civilise the ‘Dark Continent’ and how “he did more than anyone else to bring slavery in Africa to an end”.

When he eventually died, “his African servants who loved him like a father, carried his body on a nine-month journey to the coast to be taken to England,” goes the story.

In many of the books surveyed, traditional gender roles are also re-enforced. Women are seen more often in the kitchen. When they work, they are either primary school teachers under male headmasters or they are social workers. Professional positions are the preserve of white males.

The Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to which South Africa is a signatory, notes that any stereotyped concepts of the roles of women and men need to be broken down, “… in particular, by the revision of textbooks and school programmes, and the adaptation of teaching methods.”

John Pampallis, director of the Centre for Education Policy Development, told IPS that while the government works on reforming the educational system, racism and sexism continues in the majority of schools.

“It goes through the whole school system,” says Pampallis. “Government is trying to make a fundamental change in the whole curriculum, but what we need is a short-term change in order to deal with urgent problems. While government tries to work on a new curriculum, schools continue in the same way.”

Immediately after the 1994 elections, government asked for a review of the curriculum to get rid of all elements of racism. “They removed racists elements from the curriculum, but the problem is, textbooks still have them,” Pampallis says.

Psychologists have documented that trauma occurs during these childhood periods when black children read about nothing but white heroes. They identify with the adventurers and explorers such as Robert Moffat on a civilising mission into Africa.

“Their experience as black children is not recognised, because the norm is to be white,” says psychologist Claire Alderton who works at the Trauma Clinic of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

When eventually these children grow and realise they are Black, a serious identity crisis occurs, for they too are the very ‘evil’ they have read about. Many of the books on offer here are still written by Whites, and Blacks are forced to look at themselves through the eyes of white people.

Frantz Fanon, the psychiatrist and writer wrote that: “The black schoolboy in the Antilles, who in his lessons is forever talking about ‘our ancestors the Gauls’, identifies himself with the explorer, the bringer of civilisation, the white man who carries truth to the savages — an all white truth.”

Although Fanon was documenting findings of his work in the French Caribbean Islands in his book ‘Black Skin, White Masks,’ he brings to the fore realities South Africans also encounter.

Noreen Kallaghan a peace educator who deals with children, says the literature will have an effect on children, especially at the crucial, impressionable age below nine. “This is the period when they are trained on how to look at gender roles,” she says. “The literature re-enforces roles children see in the family if they come from such families. Mothers are given a nurturing role and women do not have many alternatives.”

“Kids really take things at face value. They cannot see deeper than the literal picture they see in front of them. They are very trusting of what we give them.”

In very basic reading books, usually there is a boy and a girl and both carry out actions that are considered most appropriate for them. “The boy is the most active physically and mentally. The girl is less active and more concerned with cooking and looking after dolls,” says Alderton.

Education Minister Sibusiso Bengu, however, announced earlier this year a radical shift in the curriculum to outcomes-based education. Scheduled to begin in 1998, it aims to move away from rote learning and encourage critical, flexible thinking and innovative teaching.

But poorly qualified teachers, inadequate teaching materials and financial resources continue to hold up what is potentially a revolutionary programme.