Education: "a weapon"
The diversity of the new South Africa was clear from the start, as the South African High Commissioner, Cheryl Carolus, was greeted by her national anthem in Xhosa, Afrikaans and English. If there was enthusiasm for a common venture in the crowd dominated by members of the South Africa Society, not everyone could be said to be singing from the same hymn sheet. There were more than a few embarrassed faces, as the singing shifted from one language to another.
Greater bemusement, though, was to be found on the faces of officers of the Link Africa society who were co-hosting the event. Link Africa is a national charity, which sends education consultants to sub-Saharan Africa. Cheryl Carolus is a well-qualified person to speak on the problems of developing world education. A former teacher herself, she has first hand experience of the gulf in educational opportunity that can exist within one country.
In the apartheid era, there were four times as many teachers for white children as for black ones. Since full democratisation, the government in South Africa has aimed to achieve standard class sizes of forty across the board.
That said, with many schools only now being provided with electricity and running water, it is easy to see how South African teachers from all backgrounds have been tempted to work in the UK. This 'poaching' is a major issue for Cheryl Carolus; apparently, she has been informed that the education secretary David Blunkett "shares her concern".
South African educators face tough choices. Should priority go to children's schooling, or is it more important to boost adult literacy to ensure democratic debate? Cheryl Carolus may have initially regarded education as a "weapon of struggle", but this doesn't answer the question of whether priority should go to establishing high quality national primary education, or maintaining Western standard universities.
Cheryl Carolus hopes that South Africa can use advanced technology to leapfrog developing world problems. Video-conferencing, for example, could bring Cape Town teaching hospitals into the bush. Nonetheless, the High Commissioner was realistic enough to note that the biggest social benefits were coming from piping clean water.
South Africa still appears to have an uphill struggle. Abject third world poverty is perpetuated by sluggish Western growth rates. As a former law student and ANC apparatchik, Ms Carolus may be proud of seeing South Africa's "very modern" constitution, but it clearly is only the foundation of a much bigger project.
Though Cheryl Carolus may be right that it is only "a small group of really nasty people" who have given Africa a bad reputation, the thirty years since decolonisation have failed to see much substantial economic improvement elsewhere on the continent. It is doubly ironic that Cheryl Carolus should see globalisation as something that "impacts very negatively on a large part of the world", given that it was apartheid sanctions that previously denied South Africa access to Western investment and markets.
If current trends in globalisation are "purely in the interests of the powerful", as Carolus claims, it looks like it might be a while before Westerners agree that "they cannot be free until the whole world is free of want".
26th Apr 2001