Some of these problems that you are posing here are discussed by Paulo Freire and by Peter McLaren and Gustavo Fischman, in documents that I have posted to this forum as recently as yesterday, so I hope you have been reading those documents, and my supporting remarks, Cde Tshegofatso.
Let me just say that when I wrote today that “There is a flow of propaganda of huge proportions, supporting very large attempts to subordinate, or re-subordinate, the entire field of education to the interests of the Imperialists,” I was not expecting people to dispute this factual statement, or that they have noticed the mantra of “maths, science and technology” as part of the propaganda. The science of which they speak is by no means intended to refer to the works of Karl Marx Frederick Engels or V I Lenin. The institutionalisation of education as schooling – a recent historical phenomenon as compared with the long communist pre-history of people – has been discussed in our course by Michael Cole. Schooling has always been a means of class control. The institution of universal compulsory education was a bourgeois innovation, as was the enormous expansion of tertiary education that followed. These institutions do not as a rule produce class suicide. On the contrary, they provide recruits for the ruling class, and willing servants of the working class. They produce propagandists for the ruling class, the better to enable it to fool the working class. The class suicides are the exception. The universities are not failures in their bourgeois mission. They serve the ruling class just as they are intended to do. Revolution is not taught in universities. You have posed the problem quite well Cde Tshegofatso. You understand that education as we find it is not suitable for our needs, but we have to have it, and if we are going to be revolutionaries, then we also have to escape from it again. Thank you for referring to Amilcar Cabral’s “The Weapon of Theory”. It is also part of our course. VC From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tshegofatso Mogaladi Sent: 08 February 2016 19:18 To: YCL SA Discussion Blog; [email protected] Subject: Re: [YCLSA Discussion] RE: [Sadtu Pol Ed Forum] SACP congratulates the University of Fort Hare, Statement Cde VC Would you expound on your assertion "the entire field of education to the interests of the Imperialists". I find your view in this regard extremely removed from the praxis of societal evolution. if the entire field is to the interest of imperialist, would it the suffice that imperialism will never be defeated as it is being entrenched inadvertently in the whole including philosophers from which our ideological perspective are derived? Marxism, whose bedrock is historical materialism; has one of its laws - negation of negation having strong foundations on maths. Lenin made strong emphasis on education and physical education in particular. Chairman Mao implored the youth of China to take keen interest in education, in Africa Cabral in his article entitled : Political theory as a weapon ( not exact quote), underlines that the education is important, yet once having accomplished a form of education which will elevate one to an upper class status; progressive young revolutionaries should 'commit class suicide' and identify with the downtrodden masses and lead revolutionary discourses for there cannot be a revolution lest and educated you progressive- intelligentsia meets up with the mass, conscientious it and provide leadership guidance to it ! it remains inconceivable to me how you intend to "problematise education" when over 40% of the population are still languishing in illiteracy, lack understanding of the very education system, its pedagogical firms, its finding framework - evidenced by recent up-rise in the demand for wholesale free education without understanding class contradiction inherent in this demand. Shouldn't people understand something before they are mobilized to 'problematise' it? is you suggested approach not likely to cause the detractors of the revolutionary movement to piggy-back on such position and thus negatively project us as if we are anti-progress- something which if it was to happen will be more alienating? Cde George On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 6:16 PM, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> wrote: Cde Alex, you are taking for granted that we will stand to attention and salute the word “science”, but the “science” that I salute is not the same one that, say, Leon Louw of the Free Market Foundation salutes. We cannot afford to enter this discussion like babes and sucklings. There is a flow of propaganda of huge proportions, supporting very large attempts to subordinate, or re-subordinate, the entire field of education to the interests of the Imperialists. Part of this is the mantra aobut “maths, science and technology”, and another part is the DBE’s attempt to stream children not two, but three ways. This is one reason why I have made a site this past weekend, called People’s Education for People’s Power, where documents having to do with one way the struggle manifests itself, as privatisation, can be archived in one place. But the struggle is bigger than privatisation, of course. It has to do with the nature of education, which has historically been institutionalised to serve the ruling class. So privatisation is only the latest in many rounds of reconquest, by the ruling class, of its own creation. It is necessary to say something about these things. Fort Hare is not class neutral and it has never been class neutral. The SACP does not do enough to problematise education. It cannot be limited to a “rights” matter. It is a class matter. I pause. VC From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alex MOHUBETSWANE Mashilo Sent: 08 February 2016 17:34 To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] RE: [Sadtu Pol Ed Forum] SACP congratulates the University of Fort Hare, Statement Dear Cde VC, For the purpose of the reader, I would like to include in your quotation of the Party statement those parts that you left out. The “…” do not capture of represent those parts – which are important for one to engage with the statement of the Party from a well-informed and comprehensive point of view with a clear appreciation of the Party’s statement. The three “…” in my view leaves out an important context. Once the context is removed, the debate will not be on the issue raised in the statement. The statement reads, and I quote: The defining challenge facing South Africa as the University of Fort Hare begins the journey of its second centenary, is that of placing our democratic transition on to a second, more radical phase. This requires an intellectual cadre who is capable of developing and running advanced production, thus contributing in solving the problems of unemployment, poverty, inequality and untransformed ownership. Such a cadre has the capacity to break new, scientific and technological grounds through research and development, including discoveries and inventions, product and production process design and innovation. This are the basic attributes of an intellectual cadre South Africa needs to transform its vast mineral resources and primary goods into finished products, to diversify production and expand productive work. I deliberately underlined the word scientific. This is a call for us to develop a cadre who approaches all questions scientifically and aims at going beyond the status quo or simply regurgitating it. The word does not apply to natural science only. Lastly, the statement does not, as you say: “encourage us to think that if the universities are preserved, then all will be well, but this cannot be taken for granted”. I’m highlighting all these in order that I will come back in the course of this important debate. Ta!! Comrade A. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dominic Tweedie Sent: Monday, February 8, 2016 3:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Sadtu Pol Ed Forum] SACP congratulates the University of Fort Hare, Statement In response to this statement of the Party, because of its coincidence with the current CU course on Education <http://studycircle.wikispaces.com/23+Education> , being serialised on the YCLSA Discussion Forum <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/yclsa-eom-forum> , I offer the following compilation, with my own remarks at the end: Writing for the SACP’s Umsebenzi Online, in August 2012, and seeing a deep crisis, the distinguished, now late, South African History Professor, Jeff Guy, began as follows: “We are confronted by it daily: the failure of education at every level: attempts to remove the stifling legacy of our educational past brought to nothing by inflexible pedagogies, inadequate teaching, stifling bureaucracy, and inefficient administration all contributing to the waste of the funds and material upon which young peoples' futures depend. In the press, at conferences and workshops, this contemporary crisis is in the public view. Open comment and criticism of this kind are essential attributes of the democratic approach, and will lead, one has to hope, in the direction of radical improvement. But in the past fortnight I have been confronted by another dimension of the crisis in education. While it might appear to be very different I believe it is one that also has its roots in our history, and is as difficult to solve.” In January 2013 the SACP used the occasion of the ANC Secretary-General’s short-lived “essentialisation” campaign to issue a press release that said that Cde Mantashe’s campaign was a waste of time, but that there is a necessary debate to be had about the nature and purpose of education. That SACP statement said: “The SACP is further of the view that we should not just provide an education that produces readily made goods for absorption by the labour market but that our education, an education that must be essential, must be underpinned by the vision of People’s Education for People’s Power! This vision requires that our schooling and post schooling education systems do not just produce skilled individuals but individuals who are able to interpret and make sense of their political, ideological and socio‐economic conditions and thus be actors to radically alter those conditions.” One month earlier, the well-respected educationalist Michael Rice, in an article prominently published by the Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, used the occasion of the announcement of the Matric examination results to argue: “Our obsession with exam results has devalued education to little more than a means of obtaining a certificate to gain entrance to some sort of professional training or a job. The cultivation of values, critical thought, cultural sensitivity and the wide spectrum of opportunities for personal, intellectual and moral development have become irrelevant in the pursuit of marks.” “What is needed is a complete revisioning of education; what it is, what it is meant for, who it is meant to serve and how, and how to assess its worth. The abolition of the present public exam system would go a long way to making such a paradigm shift possible.” ... “Sticking with the present system is not an option.” In the ANC’s statement <http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=11909> , issued today (8 February 2016) by the same Secretary-General, Cde Gde Gwede Mantashe, and just prior to a curious quotation from the late PAC leader Rober Sobukwe, Mantashe says: “Universities should be engines of progress, not ivory towers. It is a role they have played throughout history and as recent events in South Africa have shown, they are forces of social change. The ANC once again calls on students and academia to use their learning for the betterment of all South Africans.” In my opinion the SACP’s latest statement, as well as that of the ANC, comes a little too close to utilitarianism, and I would ask: Are “the basic attributes of an intellectual cadre South Africa needs” (Cde Alex Mashilo’s words) having more to do with: “an intellectual cadre who is capable of... discoveries and inventions, product and production process design and innovation,”? or with: “individuals who are able to interpret and make sense of their political, ideological and socio‐economic conditions and thus be actors to radically alter those conditions”? It may well be true that these two aspects are not in themselves dichotomous – i.e. they are not mutually exclusive. But the corporate bourgeoisie sanctifies a trio of “maths, science and technology”, or appears to do so. It encourages the splitting of education into two cultures. It does so in a paradoxical way, whereby the end result would resemble the situation in the “advanced capitalist countries” whereby the humanities are only taught to the ruling class, and technology is made available to the masses. This corporate, dichotomised vision of education is being executed through all kinds of “partnerships,” up to and including outright privatisation of education, whereby People’s Education for People’s Power is expected never to raise its head again. There are all sorts of problems with this. The immediate problem is that the SACP’s statement on the centenary of Fort Hare (and the ANC one by Cde Mantashe) sails past these actual problems of today. It fails to take into account or remark upon the actual struggles of now, which are about the hollowing out of the political content and the imposition of a dominant utilitarian / commodification model. Cde Mantashe and Cde Mashilo encourage us to think that if the universities are preserved, then all will be well, but this cannot be taken for granted. Amaaaaaandla! VC __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 12995 (20160208) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/sadtu-political-education-forum. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SADTU Political Education Forum" group. 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