Free, compulsory education for Black children

The government announces that its aim, is to provide all Black children with free and compulsory education as soon as possible. Teachers and scholars rejected the education provided because it was deliberately made inferior to White education. Moreover, there was growing shortage of schools in rural and township areas for Black education. The government had a policy of separate development that ruled that each community should raise funds for the actual building of schools. These funds were called school building funds. The subsidy received by Black schools was still lower than that given to White schools. The ratio of Black youths in schools was smaller than the ratio of Black youths outside the informal education system. However, school boycotts that marked the introduction of Bantu Education were slowly beginning to impact heavily on government and businesses in South Africa. As a result, the government was in search of a strategy that would undermine the struggle against apartheid by creating disunity. This strategy was created by ensuring limited opportunities for Black people in the economy of South Africa. These Blacks would in turn be against sanctions and socialism and prefer the free market system. Educational reforms were designed to serve this purpose by creating a new educated Black middle class opposed to the African National Congress and other liberation movements. Source: Davies, J. (1984). Capital, State, and Educational Reform, in Kallaway, P. (ed) Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans, Johannesburg: Ravan.