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On 30 Oct 2015, at 1:39 PM, "modise" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: this is hogwash article by Sandile Memela not worth the paper printed on! On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 11:54 AM, VC <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: <image001.jpg> The contradictions of education Sandile Memela, The New Age, Johannesburg, 30 October 2015 A critical examination of student upheavals soon reveals a lack of focus, strategy and political confusion with neither clear nor well-defined objectives. The history of the student upheavals teach us clearly that perhaps a struggle waged by students does not lead to total liberation, whatever that is. Too many say 1976 marked a turning point where the student and youth of this country were in the forefront of the struggle to end oppression and exploitation in South Africa. <image002.jpg> This was repeated in 1985 when, again, students and youth pushed hard against poor education, injustice and inequality. But a critical examination of the gains, if any, soon reveals loss of focus, lack of strategy and political confusion with neither clear and well-defined objectives of the desires and aspirations. There seems to be something fleeting and shallow about student and youth power that lacks a coherent and consistent political strategy. Instead, the end results are not what students fought for, that is, trained and effective teachers, state-of-the-art learning facilities and unconditional access to good education, let alone economic equality and social justice. Perhaps it needs to be said that the vanguard of the struggle is not the students but their parents who are the workers. Student power, with all its energy and enthusiasm, is riddled with inherent faults that will ultimately see young people ultimately assimilated into the economy . Those of us who were participants in the deep rumbles of 1976 have, at the end, become part of the very system we fought against. Exactly four years after June 16, 1976 – a semblance of normality returned to schools and thus small groups started to graduate from high school. By 1980 the fortunate few joined other students with ambitions to use education as a tool to escape poverty. Coming mostly from poor working class backgrounds, our parents were the domestic helpers, gardeners, messengers, cleaners and other menial workers. They never owned cars to drive us to university campuses or witness as we settled comfortably into residences at bush colleges like Fort Hare, Turfloop and Ongoye. The few parents who could afford it only accompanied us to the train station to bid us farewell in our ambitions to escape our condemned backgrounds of poverty and hopelessness. Looking back, it would seem that our oppressed and exploited parents knew that only education would free us from the hell on earth of hopeless township life. Very few of my colleagues and friends came from privileged backgrounds. There would be the odd one or two whose parents were schoolteachers, principals or nurses but the rest of our parents were underpaid workers. Many of them worked up to 18 hours a day which saw them leave home at 4am only to return around 9pm due to transport problems, long working hours and the distances they had to travel. Ironically, these black mothers and fathers were our heroes who did what they had to do to keep us well fed with leftovers and well clothed with shabby garb from second-hand shops. It was only when we graduated from high schools that we realised we were poor, condemned and had little hope in life – except when we went to school. A few years earlier, which was in 1976, a growing number had been radicalised by this experience and became freedom fighters who went into exile, jail and died in the face of apartheid repression. But I suppose those of us who got bursaries and sponsorship to go to universities represented both a betrayal and a fulfilment of African people’s dreams for freedom. The primary aim of education is to train and prepare you for a working life that will promote and perpetuate the economic system with its injustice and inequality. We were willing to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps and whether we knew it or not then, this was going to alienate us from what we came to know as “our people” and disconnect us from our communities. Usually, progress for educated blacks is a giant leap that takes them away from their traditions, languages, communities, families and other ties that bind, to adopt new ways that co-opts them. The university graduates become the movers and shakers quick to integrate corporate culture in the name of individual self-determination. This is always rationalised as the result of hard work, self-discipline, focus and, ultimately, success and achievement. It should be said that in 1976, for instance, we already understood that getting a university education would give us access to becoming part of the black middle class. We understood the middle class was created to be a buffer zone between the black poor and the exploitative white-controlled economic system. In the pursuit of our student ambitions and dreams, many of us have found ourselves in a strange situation where we have become part of what is derogatorily called the oppressor class. In short, we have become part of the history and system that we not only fought against but condemned some of our mates to poverty and hopelessness. We were products of oppression and exploitation, of course, but as we progressed and matured through finishing our university education, we escaped into the freedom guaranteed by education and self-determination. We did not have any extra qualities or abilities that our peers and contemporaries lacked except that we understood and were willing to listen to our parents and teachers. Even today as the Fees Must Fall campaign falters, it is the voice of the parents that tells students to return to class. Yes, education will not only liberate students from material need but provide jobs, meaning, purpose, relative comfort and security. To speak truthfully about the link between this history and liberation, some of us are fortunate to occupy middle-management positions in the government, the corporate world and in NGOs. There will always be a sense of betrayal threatening to overwhelm students who will have made it because of the untransformed economic system and corporate culture. Essentially, student struggles won’t always result in transformation the youth wish to see. • Sandile Memela is a journalist, writer, culture critic and civil servant From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/ __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 12488 (20151030) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. 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