Special Report Transcript Episode 46, Section 4, Time 09:26

The 1953 Bantu Education Act, separated schools and curricula for white and black, inferior education for black communities. It began with the National Party’s rise to power and the policies this man, Dr Hendrik F Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid. He was determined to deny black people, particularly the African majority, the right to quality education. In 1954 Verwoerd told the senate that it was a waste of time to teach mathematics to a Bantu child. His Bantu Education Act had decided that black people would be trained to be ‘no more than hewers of wood and drawers of water.’ // The government trained black teachers in line with apartheid ideology; Christian National Education government’s spending unequal and racist. During Verwoerd’s day, R17 for an African child, R40 for a coloured child, R40 for an Indian child, a R128 for a white child. For decades students were forced to learn in Afrikaans and fed inferior education. The turning point came in 1976. Students revolted against the use of Afrikaans in their schools. Police crushed the June 16th demonstration in Soweto leaving 23 dead and more than 200 injured, but schools and campuses around the country became battlegrounds. More than 15 000 children were detained between 1985 and the mass Defiance Campaign of 1989.

Notes: Youth uprising; NP cabinet; Verwoerd; Afrikaans taught at school; June 16, ‘76