{"id":66070,"date":"2016-03-16T06:47:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T04:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/education-cant-be-for-the-public-good-if-universities-ignore-rural-life-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2016-03-16T06:47:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T04:47:45","slug":"education-cant-be-for-the-public-good-if-universities-ignore-rural-life-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/education-cant-be-for-the-public-good-if-universities-ignore-rural-life-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Education can’t be for \u2018the public good\u2019 if universities ignore rural life | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"
Nearly 20 million South Africans live in rural areas. Why are the country's universities so dismissive of rurality?<\/span> Kim Ludbrook\/EPA<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Education can and should change people\u2019s lives. Education systems ought to operate with the public good in mind. But for many South Africans, this is not the case. I would suggest that part of the reason post-colonial and post-apartheid educational policies are not succeeding is because they are biased towards outcomes that are relevant only for and to urbanised contexts. They exclude rurality.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s rural population is more than 19 million people strong. Yet one must live, work and flourish in cities in order to find fulfilment as an \u201ceducated\u201d individual. People who come from rural areas may however not \u201cfit\u201d or feel comfortable in urban settings, but their degrees may not be easily applied in their own home towns.<\/p>\n

The education an accountant receives, for example, does not instil the desire to return to a rural area and help subsistence farmers manage their businesses and finances. Instead, their education encourages students to place more value on a corporate job managing big companies\u2019 finances. This disconnect between educatedness and rurality may be one reason for the country\u2019s graduate unemployment rate.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, several questions arise: for which \u201cpublic\u201d are South Africa\u2019s universities educating the younger generation? For whose \u201cgood\u201d are they receiving this education? Which \u201cpublic\u201d receives \u201cthe good\u201d out of students\u2019 education?<\/p>\n

Colonialism\u2019s \u201chidden curriculum\u201d<\/h2>\n

Universities\u2019 ideas of \u2018educatedness\u2019, progress, success and relevance are all underscored by a Western definition of what constitutes a good society (one in which an atomised individual rationally pursues his own selfish good). They do not take into account concepts like Ubuntu \u2013 the idea that all people\u2019s well-being is interconnected.<\/p>\n

These definitions mean that the type of education graduates receive does not instil a love for the rural communities and contexts in which many of them grew up. They are not left with a disgust to live and work in these spaces. There are seeds inherent in the education they receive that have the potential, in the long run, to produce a disdain for rurality. Graduates are left with a bigger appetite for city life.<\/p>\n

This, tragically, was exactly what lay at the heart of colonial education\u2019s \u201chidden curriculum\u201d. Professor Ali Abdi writes that colonial education:<\/p>\n

\n

never had, in design or implementation, the interests of the colonised at heart, and even if few of the natives were presumably educated, the objective was, at least at the philosophical point of view, to create a corps \u2026 who were only trained to serve as mediating buffer \u2026 between the interests of the metropolis and the \u201cilliterates\u201d\/\u201cuneducated\u201d colonised millions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
Swayimane, the village in KwaZulu-Natal where the author grew up. Rural areas like these are disparaged by the education system.<\/span> Emmanuel Mgqwashu<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Where the West\u2019s real power lies<\/h2>\n

When colonialism ended, Africa\u2019s education systems were not revised to draw from local philosophies of education and knowledge generation. Post-colonial policies were not designed with an emphasis on restoring pride, confidence and dignity back to local traditional lifestyles, identities and knowledge systems. Their greatest aim was to increase the number of indigenous populations who received colonial education. This included sending people overseas to receive degrees from European universities.<\/p>\n

These practices may seem positive and effective when taken at face value. After all, weren\u2019t they preparing African graduates for the \u201cglobal future\u201d? The problem is that under post-colonial policies, such a future was going to be meaningful, beneficial and fulfilling only to those living in cities. The values underlying such education had no space for rurality, rural lifestyles or contexts.<\/p>\n

This points to the persistent characteristics of Western imperialist and colonial vestiges and power over former colonies. In his book Orientalism, theorist Ziauddin Sardar writes:<\/p>\n

\n

The real power of the West is not located in its economic muscles and technological might. Rather, it resides in the power to define. The West defines what is, for example, freedom, progress and civil behaviour; law, tradition and community; reason, mathematics and science; what is real and what it means to be human. The non-Western civilisations have simply to accept these definitions or be defined out of existence.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Redefinition is crucial<\/h2>\n

South African educationist Professor Jonathan Jansen has blamed what he calls \u201cthe theory of political symbolism\u201d for limited or non-existent policy implementation after apartheid. This theory, Jansen explains, is marked by \u201ca struggle for the achievement of a broad political symbolism to mark the shift from apartheid to post-apartheid society\u201d. In other words, passing many policies that had an anti-apartheid, democratic \u2018flavour\u2019 seems to be an end in itself, as most of them never truly liberate the previously oppressed.<\/p>\n

Decolonisation should be seen as a much deeper project than replacing texts perceived to be colonial with texts seen as carrying a decolonising \u201cflavour\u201d. It\u2019s too simplistic to merely add the work of theorists like Frantz Fanon or activists like Steve Biko to courses. Doing so remains symbolic of nothing more than academics\u2019 desire<\/em> and aspirations<\/em> to decolonise.<\/p>\n

The onus now is on academics in Africa across all fields to take back the power to redefine the purpose for which students are educated. This should involve redefining the concepts of \u201ceducatedness\u201d, \u201cprogress\u201d, \u201csuccess\u201d and \u201crelevance\u201d. What are these concepts\u2019 purposes, functions and the roles they potentially have to play – not just in cities and urban contexts?<\/p>\n

These redefinitions, along with a reimagining of curricula, represent a crucial aspect of decolonising the entire education system from primary school through to university. Academics must strategically bring back what Abdi describes as \u201cintersections of life and learning\u201d. At the moment, values that characterise rurality, rural lifestyles and contexts \u2013 such as the philosophy of Ubuntu \u2013 are absent from our idea of \u201ceducatedness\u201d. This means that talent, resourcefulness, ideas and expertise from these spaces are silenced.<\/p>\n

If the education system does not grapple with this exclusion, there will forever be a large population within the \u201cpublic\u201d for whom education can never be said to be \u201cfor their good\u201d. Educatedness will persistently be for the private good \u2013 for \u201cme\u201d, \u201cmyself\u201d and \u201cI\u201d.<\/p>\n

Academics have a choice<\/h2>\n

Academics in Africa have a choice to take back the power to define. It is up to us to redefine educatedness, and indeed re-imagine an education system that will produce graduates with knowledge and skills that also<\/em> speak to rurality. This system must affirm the uniqueness of rural life and the ever-present yet largely invisible wisdom that rural contexts could provide to South Africa. Such education can confidently be defined as being for the public good.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Emmanuel Mgqwashu receives funding from National Research Foundation. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n Read more on:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Nearly 20 million South Africans live in rural areas. Why are the country's universities so dismissive of rurality? Kim Ludbrook\/EPA Education can and should change people\u2019s lives. Education systems ought to operate with the public good in mind. But for many South Africans, this is not the case. I would suggest that part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[6764,8890,45,4748,11049,2860,2713,2105,6696,7763],"class_list":{"0":"post-66070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-cant","8":"tag-conversation","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-good","11":"tag-ignore","12":"tag-life","13":"tag-public","14":"tag-rural","15":"tag-the","16":"tag-universities","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}