Rebuild+mass+fronts+for+educational+transformation,+Blade+Nzimande

**Rebuild mass fronts for educational transformation: Keynote Address to the Stakeholders’ Forum of the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers**

 * Blade Nzimande**

(Cape Town International Convention Centre, 11 December 2006)


 * Introduction**

I would like to start by thanking the organisers for inviting me to address this conference. It is indeed a pleasure and an honour. The concept of “common wealth” is one that I have always supported and admired, and one that has motivated me my entire life. There is no doubt in my mind that the holding of the world’s wealth in common is the way forward, and I am pleased that the Commonwealth of Nations has initiated this dialogue among all its member states and people. I am also pleased that the theme (Access to Quality Education: For the Good of All) focuses on the needs of the poorest citizens in this organisation which is made up largely of developing countries.

I would like to congratulate the organisers of this event – I should in fact acknowledge that it is more than one event, as it is a number of powerful processes taking place – on the focus of the debate. Education is an issue dear to my heart. I have had the privilege of being part of a team of people who helped shape post-apartheid education in this country, and have seen at first hand the complexity of the challenges. I am fortunate that I can comment on the current state of South African education from the perspective of shared responsibility for what we have created. I can empathise with policy makers of all countries as they grapple with unintended consequences and unforeseen implementation challenges.

It is also particularly pleasing that the dialogue is between stakeholders, not just policy makers and professional educationalists. For me, the term ‘stakeholder’ includes teachers, trade unions, principals, learners, parents, communities, non-governmental organisations, as well as employers, universities broadly and in particular faculties of education. I am advised that the organisers have gone the extra mile to ensure a very broad representation and engagement. Really, that is very important and I wish to acknowledge the serious way in which the Commonwealth Secretariat and the South African Department of Education have addressed this.

I would like to note the fact that this conference takes place in South Africa in a year of special significance in our history. The number of anniversaries we are commemorating is impressive, and I hope that some of you will learn more about the great Miners’ Strike of 1946, adoption of the Freedom Charter and the March of 20,000 women on the government offices in Pretoria in 1956, and the Soweto uprising of 1976. The most significant in my mind as I prepared for today was 1976, when the children of Soweto rose up to reject the oppressive system of Bantu Education and indeed the whole apartheid system which kept the majority of people in this country in a state of subjugation in their native land. 50 years ago there was no separating education from the broader social and political struggles. In some ways, we face similar challenges in our education struggles within the context of the exigencies of globalisation. History has much to teach us.

So it gives me great pleasure to speak today about the ongoing challenges of building an education system in a post-colonial era – and I should add here that I see South Africa as also in the category of a post-colonial state, having recently thrown off the shackles of segregation and apartheid which we in the South African Communist Party saw as a form of internal colonialism – or ‘colonialism of a special kind’.

The challenges facing our education systems in the developing world today are very great and it would be easy to fall into the trap of overstating the problems, seeing them as insurmountable obstacles. When we look at the empirical evidence in relation to – for example – the poor literacy and numeracy levels amongst children leaving primary schools, the temptation is to simply accept that the poor will always be disadvantaged in terms of education and that this is just an inevitable reality of the modern world. As a person from a poor family, as a parent, and as a citizen I cannot accept that the poor will forever be excluded from the advantages of a good education. As a communist leader I am in the fortunate position to be able to advocate positive solutions to these complex challenges. I hope that my analysis of the current challenges and the questions that I raise will be helpful to you in your deliberations.

The post-colonial state and its contemporary global location

Proceeding from the assumption that there are deeper links between education and broader social, economic and political struggles, both domestically and globally, it is important to anchor my address around some of the general features of post-colonial states and their location in the global division of labour. In doing so I want also to challenge some myths about what we refer to as ‘globalisation’ today. This is an important background in order to understand some of the observations made about education below.[1]


 * //Globalisation is imperialism//**

Whilst this may sound obvious to some, it is important to understand that globalisation is not some neutral, objective and inevitable phenomenon as we are sometimes told. There is an argument that all that developing countries have to do is to follow the logic of globalisation, create conditions for their harmonious integration, and they will benefit.

‘Globalisation’ is not some neutral phenomenon, but is a structured pattern of unequal power relations dominated by the powerful ‘Western’ countries, at the expense of underdeveloped countries. Because globalisation reproduces these unequal power relations, it is therefore imperialist.

Whilst it is true that there are many positive features with current globalisation, perhaps singularly represented by the internet, these tend to benefit the imperialist countries at the direct expense of poor countries. This necessitates that as we look into education we simultaneously ask the question, to what extent is the Commonwealth really ‘common wealth’, rather than continuing to reproduce the very same inequalities as under apartheid?

Having said the above, it is important to recognise that this system is also under challenge and there are some crisis points opening up, including the impending impasse for US militarism especially in Iraq. There are also new emerging powers, notably China, which according to the CIA is likely to be the biggest world economy in 20 years from now; as well as the leftist shifts taking place in Latin America.


 * //Globalisation is the simultaneous integration and marginalisation of developing countries//**

The one defining feature of imperialism is that of forever drawing all the countries of the world into its economic orbit, but under terms and conditions that favour the advanced capitalist countries at the expense of developing countries. This constitutes one of the major contradictions of globalisation.

This simultaneous integration and marginalisation captures the reality that to be integrated does not in itself translate to benefits because of the imperialist character of globalisation. Integration also means the narrowing of progressive developmental options for the developing countries, thus with no opportunity to experiment with progressive policy choices for these countries.

The most significant expression of this phenomenon of simultaneous integration and marginalisation are the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the IMF and World Bank on many developing countries. The process of simultaneous integration and marginalisation throws many developing countries into an even deeper cycle of contradictions. The more they open their economies, the more they get marginalised from the mainstream global economic dividend – ‘top-down’ marginalisation, but the governments in those countries also get marginalised from their own mass base – a ‘bottom up’ marginalisation.


 * //Globalisation simultaneously weakens and strengthens the contemporary nation-state//**

Although it is true that, overall, globalisation weakens the contemporary nation-state, this argument needs to be nuanced to properly grasp the effects of globalisation on the nation-state, especially in developing countries.

It is incorrect to simply argue that globalisation weakens nation-states, without at the same time recognising that developed countries, if weakened at all, are weakened differently to developing countries. The other dimension of this simultaneous strengthening and weakening of nation-states is more of an internal dynamic. We must not overlook the reality that whilst nation-states in developing countries are weakened seriously, some of the functions of the state are strengthened. For instance globalisation weakens in the main the developmental role of the state in economic development or in provision of quality education for the poor. At the same time, some of its capacity is strengthened to drive neo-liberal, structural adjustment programmes. These latter include the repressive capacity of the state to deal effectively with any resistance to these policies from their populations.

In fact globalisation, rather than just weakening the nation-state, actually transforms the contemporary nation-state from being a custodian of the interests of the mass of the people into being an instrument for implementation and policing of neo-liberal policies, which includes radical cut-back on spending on social services, including education.


 * //Globalisation undermines the capacity of post-colonial states to address the national question//**

One of the key objectives of all national liberation and anti-colonial struggles was to address the national question. Whilst the national question takes different forms in different contexts, it normally incorporates a struggle for national sovereignty, the struggle against class, racial and gender contradictions, and the struggle for national reconstruction and economic emancipation of the majority of the population. Education is a very integral component in addressing the national question in post-colonial societies.

The reproduction of domestic economic inequalities, and the problematic location of post colonial states in contemporary imperialism, tends to reproduce the very same national inequalities as found during the colonial era. In South Africa, and this is possibly the case in most post-colonial societies, whilst former liberation movements have accessed state power, economic power remains in the same old (usually white) capitalist classes, either domestically or in the metropole. This is a fundamental contradiction characteristic of post-colonial societies and it has enormous implications for educational transformation.

It is therefore against this background that we should locate the challenge of access to quality education for the good of all.


 * Education and global developments**

The theme of this entire conference is Access to Quality Education: For the Good of All. It is encouraging that a major international organisation such as the Commonwealth should be setting itself the goal of achieving universal access to education. In this it is indeed echoing calls by organisations such as Unesco and other UN agencies. I see that even the World Bank has recently joined with Unesco in launching the School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFAI) about which I believe a paper will be presented at this Stakeholders Forum. But I must say that it is a bit rich for the World Bank now to busy itself with giving advice to poor countries about how to best go about providing universal access to schooling when not so long ago it was one of the main forces pressurising African countries to abandon their efforts to establish systems of universal free access to education.

At this point a little historical reflection may be worthwhile. I hope that those of you from outside of Africa will indulge me if a focus for a moment on this continent. It is instructive to look back at the period from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, when most African countries gained their independence. With the coming of independence, African states faced the challenge of growth and development, but colonialism had left them in a woefully inadequate state as far as education and human resource development were concerned.

The meagre efforts of missionaries and the colonial states had left the overwhelming majority of people unschooled and illiterate and higher-level training in industrial skills was virtually non-existent. For example, in Zambia at independence in 1964, there were only 107 university graduates and less than 2000 Africans had completed secondary schooling. A similar situation existed in many other countries on the continent (Chisholm et al, 1998). When most of the Portuguese colonists left Angola and Mozambique abruptly in the mid-1970s, they left with most of the technical and managerial skills base of the two countries. The educational inheritance of colonialism was clearly of little assistance in meeting the development needs of the newly independent countries.

African countries have been sometimes criticised in recent years for not giving enough emphasis to education, and this is cited as one of the reasons for Africa’s underdevelopment (e.g. Govender and Farlam, 2004). Such arguments do Africa a great disservice by failing to recognise the extremely high priority that newly independent African countries placed on education.

In most countries the state took control over education and provided it free of charge. In the sixties and early seventies this took place against a backdrop of economies sustained by buoyant commodity prices. New schools and universities were opened, teachers trained and enrolments grew. From 1961 to 1980 primary school enrolments throughout Africa expanded at the exceptionally high rate of 6.2% per annum. In most countries, secondary school enrolment growth was even more impressive. Higher Education also grew rapidly as new universities and colleges were established and enrolments for the continent as a whole grew from 140 000 in 1960 to 1 169 000 in 1980 (Chisholm et al, 1998:10-11; Habte and Wagaw, 2003:687-690).

In some countries experimental forms of education were tried out as the new systems contemplated the possibility of making their offerings more relevant to the needs of their students and their new democracies. In Botswana and later in Zimbabwe, for example, a number of schools were established to combine education with production. West African countries in particular, but also others, began to rediscover their own rich history and to teach it in their schools and universities. Perhaps the boldest attempt to re-conceive the purpose and practice of education, was in Tanzania where the ideas and writing of President Julius Nyerere led to the concept of ‘education for self-reliance’. Universal primary education and adult literacy became major priorities and schools were required to engage in productive activities, particularly agriculture.

An international economic crisis, triggered in 1973-74 by a four-fold increase in the price of oil had a devastating impact on most African economies, especially the poorest. Most of the independent countries of Africa were then importers of oil which was their main source of transport fuel and, in some cases, of electricity production. The need to spend large amounts of foreign exchange on oil imports began to drain their foreign reserves and to undermine their ability to import other necessities, including machinery, spare parts, certain raw materials, consumer goods and even educational necessities like books, journals and other educational supplies.

From the 1970s onwards, this left many African nations in a precarious economic position and most plunged deeply into debt to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private financial institutions. Most countries struggled to repay these loans and had to borrow more in order to do so. Further borrowings were invariably tied to strenuous conditions, often associated to Structural Adjustment Programmes. These included cutbacks in spending on social services such as education and healthcare, in addition to various provisions requiring economic ‘liberalisation’ (e.g. decreases in tariff protection for local industries and cuts in food subsidies). The very independence of the poorer African countries came under pressure as they became more and more dependent on foreign creditors and donors whose economic leverage put them in a position to influence policies in a decisive manner – the simultaneous integration and marginalisation!

The growing economic crisis throughout the seventies and eighties affected every aspect of life in these countries, not least the education system.

The World Bank, which had invested in building its own institutional expertise in education policy research and advocacy and which, through its influence on donor nations, had begun to dictate education policies to developing countries, argued that investments in higher education were less valuable than those in primary schooling. It argued that primary education offered greater returns to both individuals and societies than secondary or higher education. Although the Bank began to shift from this position in the 1990s, one effect of this thesis had been to further undermine investment in higher education and thus to increase Africa’s capacity for independent knowledge production and to make it increasingly intellectually dependent on the developed world. And despite the Bank’s arguments, primary schooling did not exactly experience a resurgence – on the contrary it too continued to deteriorate. In order to meet the popular demand for education, many African governments were now forced to allow a massive expansion of private education at all levels – something they had invariably opposed in the post independence period. Most governments did not have the capacity to regulate this growth of private institutions – many of which offered very poor quality education – and began to lose control of their education systems.

African countries have over the last three decades fallen ever deeper into dependence on foreign financial institutions and countries. Today many countries on this continent receive large proportions of their education budgets (and other budgets) from foreign donors. It is obvious what this does to the independence of countries and their ability to set their own agendas. It is to be hoped that this conference – and particularly those sessions on globalisation and education – will give serious thought to this issue.

While South Africa has been fortunate not to have fallen into this deep state of powerlessness and dependence, we too are in a post colonial period and have many very serious problems with our education system and with development more generally.

Unfair and unjust educational systems in the developing world have, as I have been saying, resulted from an unfair and unjust world order. But we in the developing world should not make the mistake of assuming that all our troubles come from abroad. We live in class-divided societies which are structured and operate in such a way that the rich benefit more than the poor. And we must also not spare from serious critique of the manner in which sections of domestic elites in our countries collaborated with, and benefited from, many of the initiatives of imperialism.


 * Some challenges for educational transformation**

Perhaps the best way to characterise and locate the educational challenge in the developing countries is that of the completion of the national liberation and anti-colonial struggles.

Education should be an instrument for forging an alternative development path, one which benefits most of the people. One of the challenges we face is building a common understanding of education’s purpose – the “Education for what?” discussion. I think we have a real challenge in the formerly colonised countries. Clearly, unemployment is a terrible inheritance and one that is endemic to nearly all post colonial societies. Now education and skills are critical to expanding employment opportunities and sustainable development.

The following are therefore some of the challenges to achieve our educational objectives:

· The major challenge is to decommodify education. Education is a basic human right, not a commodity. If education is a commodity, it is only those with money who can access it. So decommodifying education is crucial. · We need to undertake studies of both past and present educational successes in the developing world. For instance we need to closely study the initial successes made in many of our countries in the first decade or so after independence. I would like to recognise in this context the work of one of the keynote speakers at the Commonwealth Conference of Education Ministers in Edinburgh three years ago, Amartya Sen. He and Jean Dreze at Delhi University have done some wonderful work. They have shown how education has played a critical role in some of the poorest parts of India. Education has an impact on health – and therefore the quality of life – on life expectancy, on birth rates and therefore population growth, on the independence of women, on teenage pregnancies, and on other important development indicators. We also need to look at successes in a country like Cuba. Cuba has developed an education system which is far more successful than those in the rest of Latin America, including in much wealthier countries. This is possible largely because the social structure as a whole is supportive of educational excellence. · As part of the above effort we need to promote more direct people to people contact and exchange of experiences, and get our governments to support these efforts, rather than leaving everything to governmental exchanges. · We need to locate education within our overall economic policy objectives, especially the need to invest in developmental infrastructure, including the struggle to wipe out infrastructural inequalities and backlogs in our education system. However provision of infrastructure is a necessary but not sufficient condition for access to quality education. In addition what is needed is guarantee for quality education. In South Africa, for instance, we estimate that we have about 200 000 children of school-going age who are not in school. While this is a big problem, we do still have a net enrolment ratio of 92% in and a gross enrolment ratio of 105% in the primary school phase [2]. Our biggest problem is not access to school but access to quality education. The majority of our children – i.e. those in schools in poor, black communities – are failing to gain basic numeracy and literacy skills in schools. · The question of curriculum transformation in line with our own developmental needs is of vital importance. In many instances we have either by choice or through impositions been forced to emulate and reproduce the many features of colonial education we had sought to defeat. For instance in many of our countries we have vibrant credit union movements, but to what extent is our education system reinforcing this movement as a crucial component in building sustainable livelihoods. · A key challenge to achieving access to quality education by all, is that of mass mobilisation of the people themselves, around campaigns for free and compulsory education for all. One of the biggest weaknesses in many of our countries after independence is that the mass alliances that were formed to fight against colonialism in many instances collapsed immediately after independence. If there is one lesson we need to learn is that from our own mass mobilisation prior to independence, as is shown in the advances being made in Latin America today, is the fundamental importance of mobilising the mass of our people for developmental transformation and in the struggle against the simultaneous integration and marginalisation of our countries.

I hope this Conference will be able to reflect on these and many other challenges. This event is itself an example of how stakeholders can come together on an international basis. I very much hope people here today will take the opportunity to make contact with teachers and parents on the Cape Flats, and try to understand some of the challenges they face. I know there are some excellent twinning arrangements between schools here and in the South West of England, with pupils even linking up on the Internet. Sports teams visit here and make connections that are beneficial to all involved. These are powerful means of establishing common goals and benchmarks. However, we also need to recognise the importance of changing the context within which we are trying to build quality education. The struggle to change the approach of the IMF and World Bank must go on. The struggle to change trade and aid relationships must continue. In short, working class solidarity and internationalism must continue until we genuinely hold the wealth of the world in common.

I thank you and wish you a successful conference.


 * Bibliography**

Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) and Social Surveys (SS). 2006. National Survey on Barriers of Access to Education in South Africa: Baseline Review and Conceptual Framework Document. Unpublished.

Chisholm, L, Makwati, G.J.T., Marope, P.T.M. and Dumba-Safuli, S.D. (1998) SADC Initiative in Education Policy Development, Planning and Management: Report of a Needs Assessment Study.

Department of Education (DOE). July 2002. //Grade 3 Systemic Evaluation 2001 (Mainstream), National Report.// Chief Directorate: Quality Assurance, Department of Education, Pretoria

Department of Education (DOE). 2005. //Grade 6 Systemic Evaluation 2004 (Mainstream), National Report.// Compiled by HSRC and not as yet released publicly by the Department of Education.

Govender, Peroshni and Farlam, Peter. 2004. Special Feature: The Tragedy of Africa’s Education, in eAfrica: //The Electronic Journal of Governance and Innovation, Vol 2, August 2004//. Harare and Mbabane: Unesco and SADC.

Habte, Aklilu and Wagaw, Teshome. Education and Social Change. In Mazrui, A. and Wondji (eds). 2004. //General History of Africa, Vol VIII: Africa since 1935.// Glosderry, South Africa: UNESCO and New Africa Books.

Nzimande, B (2001) ‘Draft Theses on some key strategic issues and consideration in the current international conjuncture’ in //African Communist//, 1st Quarter, no. 156

[1] The text that follows below is largely taken from B Nzimande (2001) ‘Draft theses on some key strategic issues and considerations in the current international conjuncture’ in African Communist, 1st Quarter, no.156, 2001 [2] The gross enrolment ratio measures the number of children actually enrolled in a particular grade range, irrespective of their age, as a proportion of children appropriately aged for that range.

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