Change, continuity and cultural studies: The development of an alternative humanities curriculum for Vista University, Soweto
Abstract
• This article on a proposed undergraduate cultural studies curriculum at Vista University (Soweto, South Africa) reflects also on the potential of the subject to analyse and transform its social and educational contexts. Special attention is paid here to outlining the specific economic, political, social and cultural conditions of the national and institutional contexts for this proposed course. Then the aims and shape of the course itself is outlined. Course-planners hope that the course will provide a crucial and critical space for reflection upon and engagement both by teachers and students with the social and educational transformation of post-apartheid South Africa. The multi-generic epistemologies of cultural studies will, it is proposed, help counter discrete disciplinary teaching hardened under apartheid conditions and enable students to rethink culture and cultural policy. •
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1.
1 Soweto is, in South African socioeconomic parlance, a `township', technically meaning any area designated for urban development. Townships, historically, are areas of dangerously close settlement on (usually inferior) land in unfavourable climates, allocated to black, coloured or Indian people and at a considerable distance from wealthier white suburbs.
2.
2 By way of background to apartheid's geography of higher education, Penny Enslin (1986: 140) has written:
3.
`apartheid education' was first enunciated in 1948 (the first year of the National Party's 42 year rule) as the Christian National Education Policy. Under CNE, Black education was built around these principles: it should be in the mother tongue; it should not be funded at the expense of white education; it should, by implication, not prepare Blacks for equal participation in the economic and social life; it should preserve the `cultural identity' of the Black community (although it [would] nonetheless consist in leading `the native*' to acceptance of Christian and National principles); it must of necessity be organised and administered by whites.
4.
* `Native' was the government's official term for black person until 1953, when `Bantu' replaced it. Given their discriminatory usage, they are regarded as derogatory.
5.
3 In its key document on OBE, the Education Department produced broad, quite vague definitions of its usage of the term `outcomes'. `Outcome' itself is `the results of learning processes [and] refer[s] to knowledge, skills, attitudes and values within particular contexts'. `Critical cross-field outcomes' are taken as `generic, cross-curricular, cross cultural outcomes'; `learning area outcomes' are seen as `outcomes related to specific learning areas'; `specific outcomes' are `contextually demonstrated knowledge, skills and values reflecting critical cross-field outcomes' (see Bellis, 1997: 6).
6.
4 Vista University's alumni organization has established a support network for the many promising graduates in this position. One enterprising Bachelor of Commerce graduate has established a thriving business at the university's gate, selling food to students and staff.
7.
5 (EPU Report, nd: 8) By 1992, 35 percent of staff were located in the arts faculty, and 32 percent in education. In contrast, the faculties of law and science had far smaller staff complements (7 percent and 9 percent of the total staff number respectively). Although this has altered appreciably over the past eight years, the law and science faculties remain smaller than arts and education.
8.
6 Professor Michael Kahn, of the University of Cape Town, part-time science and technology adviser to the Ministry of Education, states that South Africa is `globally ranked among countries with the least skills' in mathematics and science (in Heard, 2000).
9.
7 Lickindorf (2000) indicates that scientific education for scholars in black schools does not prepare them adequately to study science at tertiary level: `Only 19% of African students entering the field of natural sciences, for instance, scored a pass, compared with 38% of Coloured students, 62% of Indian students, 56% of white students'. These statistics are derived from an overall 45 percent pass rate. `Approximately one in four technikon entrants (26%) and two in five university entrants (42%) were assessed as scientifically literate.'
10.
8 I am not here referring to the Vista's Local or National Transformation Fora, which have attempted to address the transformation of apartheid structures in the institution.
References
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Article first published: July 2002
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