Education and Independence

Public education can be one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of a government wanting to maintain power as it is the realm in which children are taught the social values and norms that will sustain the culture when they become adults. In South Africa education was kept separate unequal and decidedly undemocratic and as Hlatshwayo explains it was used specifically to preserve and perpetuate inequality. In a work designed for historians and education professionals alike he examines the tumultuous and highly politicized history of South African education and evaluates the prospects for its hopefully nonracialized future.Hlatshwayo begins with a look at the socioeconomic and political structure (dating back as far as 1658) that allowed for South Africa''s use of education as a tool of hegemony and follows this with a critical analysis of the educational systemits goals objectives organizational structure and resistance thereto. Finally drawing from the educational policy statements of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the African National Congress (ANC) he proposes a democratic educational system for South Africasomething that as he makes clear in this provocative and challenging work has been an anathema for centuries to a government that had as its primary goal the subjugation of the majority of its citizens. Using an array of sociological and economic models Hlatshwayo reveals the ways in which a society''s educational system and its struggle toward freedom are inextricable.