Friday, September 20, 2013

How did the Buntu Education Act affect people's lives?

The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was an apartheid law that effectively created separate educational systems for white and black South Africans. In doing so, this law placed educational institutions under the direct control of the state. For the black population, it created a sub-standard system of schools and universities. Many facilities lacked proper utilities like electricity and plumbing. The salaries of black teachers and their training standards lagged far behind their white counterparts. The majority of educational resources were funneled to the white schools at the expense of the black and schools.
An obvious effect of this law was that non-white South Africans received a poor formal education. Literacy rates were much lower and their job prospects were limited as a result. Much of the black educational system was designed to train students for semi-skilled factory jobs. It also served to drive a deeper racial wedge in society, further highlighting the inequities and disparities between the different populations of the country.
Psychologically, it led many black South Africans to feel inferior to the white population in their country. The law also required that schools teach a majority of the coursework in Afrikaans, despite South Africa always having been a multi-lingual country. By forcing children to forego their native language in favor of the language of their oppressors, many black South Africans felt that this system was eroding their ethnic identity.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/48615514.pdf

https://web.stanford.edu/~jbaugh/saw/Chloe_Bantu_Education.html

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