Answer to Question #321062 in English for NASH

Question

Distinguish between colonialism and apartheid, looking at how they have both impacted on or influenced ECE.

Answer 1

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘separation’ and was the name given to the system of racial segregation and subjugation of the African and other non-white population of South Africa by white settlers from 1948 to 1994. Colonialism is defined as “control by one power over a dependent area or people.” It occurs when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people.

South African apartheid was characterised by settler colonialism and the forced displacement of the indigenous population, the division of the colonised into different groups with different rights, severe restrictions on movement and violent suppression of resistance.

Colonial education influenced African formations by attempting to create a more European or civilized land through the suppression of local culture for example at the colonial and missionary schools local traditions were vilified as pagan or uncivilized. Colonial education was used to remove the colonized people from their indigenous learning. Colonizers wanted the African people to be useful and qualified personnel for their economic development. Moreover, for colonizers education was a means to win converts to their religion.

With South Africa's Apartheid regime implementing Bantu Education in its education sector, it led to low funding and expenditures to black schools, a lack of numbers and training of black school teachers, impoverished black school conditions and resources, and a poor education curriculum. Overall enrolments in higher education have more than doubled since the end of the apartheid system in South Africa in 1994, when a reported 495,000 students were enrolled in higher education.