Black Students' Perceptions of Factors Related to Academic Performance in a Rural Area of Natal Province, South Africa

Abstract

Since the Nationalist government came into power in South Africa in 1948, provision of for black Africans in that country has been deliberately and systematically inadequate. In 1949, W. M. Eiselen, a broederbonder (the secret Afrikaner society responsible for much of the policy of the Nationalists), was instructed to plan for blacks as a separate race. He recommended that most blacks receive only the first four years of schooling, as this was sufficient to enable them to communicate with whites. Eiselen also recommended that black be tailored to white economic development plans. Eiselen's proposals were implemented by the Bantu Education Act No. 47 of 1953, which, according to Christie and Collins, signifies education for subservience and cultural domination,' in other words, apartheid. Referring to this act, the then prime minister, Dr. H. F. Verwoerd said it would empower him to teach natives in departments which would assure them that equality with whites was not for them. On June 7, 1954, Verwoerd outlined in the Senate his further ideas for black children: There is no place for him [blacks] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour.... Until now he has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from his own community and misled him by showing him the green pastures of European society in which he was not