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Workers' education for workers' power : a case study of a school for black workers at a white university in South Africa 1988-1996

Workers' education for workers' power : a case study of a school for black workers at a white university in South Africa 1988-1996
Workers' education for workers' power : a case study of a school for black workers at a white university in South Africa 1988-1996

Three research questions are addressed - the relationship between education for liberation and education for certification, the relationship between the radical intellectual, the worker and the university and the relationship between organizational change and social change.

My findings were that the Workers' School functioned for around three years as a democratically run school with the workers being involved in all aspects of decision-making at the school. With funding and with the capacity to employ teaching and administrative staff, the democratic nature of the school changed with less participation by the mass of the workers but increased participation by workers leaders. Gradually the school changed from an oppositional to a normal school and when the democratic structures collapsed the running of school was taken over by a management committee. From 1993 onwards the school staff devoted most of their energies to supporting the fledgling Department of Adult Education of the new ANC government and played a role in the piloting and implementing the new national certified adult education programme. The conclusions were that liberatory education and education for certification were not necessarily in opposition to one another; that there was several things that the radical intellectual could do to mediate the relationship between the workers and the university and that the relationship between organizational change and social change was a complex and contradictory one as people tended to transgress under apartheid only to normalize under parliamentary democracy.

University of Southampton
McKeever, Mary Geraldine
348e595a-330b-4d7d-891b-eb6084a2797d
McKeever, Mary Geraldine
348e595a-330b-4d7d-891b-eb6084a2797d

McKeever, Mary Geraldine (2001) Workers' education for workers' power : a case study of a school for black workers at a white university in South Africa 1988-1996. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

Three research questions are addressed - the relationship between education for liberation and education for certification, the relationship between the radical intellectual, the worker and the university and the relationship between organizational change and social change.

My findings were that the Workers' School functioned for around three years as a democratically run school with the workers being involved in all aspects of decision-making at the school. With funding and with the capacity to employ teaching and administrative staff, the democratic nature of the school changed with less participation by the mass of the workers but increased participation by workers leaders. Gradually the school changed from an oppositional to a normal school and when the democratic structures collapsed the running of school was taken over by a management committee. From 1993 onwards the school staff devoted most of their energies to supporting the fledgling Department of Adult Education of the new ANC government and played a role in the piloting and implementing the new national certified adult education programme. The conclusions were that liberatory education and education for certification were not necessarily in opposition to one another; that there was several things that the radical intellectual could do to mediate the relationship between the workers and the university and that the relationship between organizational change and social change was a complex and contradictory one as people tended to transgress under apartheid only to normalize under parliamentary democracy.

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Published date: 2001

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Local EPrints ID: 464423
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/464423
PURE UUID: 4437b82d-ec5c-4153-8fb1-ad6d786c94f5

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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 23:36
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 19:30

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Contributors

Author: Mary Geraldine McKeever

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