Apartheid and Education in South Africa: Select Historical Analyses‪.‬

Introduction Before the arrival of the first European invaders in the South African Cape in 1652, the country was populated by African peoples such as the San and the Khoikhoi, generally known in their derogatory European labeling of Bushmen and Hottentots, respectively (Morris-Hale, 1996). The Dutch settlers, sent by the East India Dutch Company, and religious persecution-fleeing French Huguenots were not the first Europeans to set foot on South African soil, but were the first to permanently reside in the country (Behr, 1971, p. 1). Before the new settlers came, the traditional African society did not have European based systems of learning. What they had, instead, were situationally successful, informal programs of education that were formulated and selectively implemented by the African population. As such, one could objectively say that these programs of learning, not only in South Africa but also elsewhere in pre-colonial traditional Africa, were responsive and responding to the needs of the African environment in which they were being undertaken (Rodney, 1982). Keto (1990, pp. 19-20) describes those indigenous programs of teaching and learning: