Nelson Mandela Protea series 2014: Education

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Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

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Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1994

1. Qunu Landscape

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“Your son is a clever young fellow,” he said. “He should go to school.” My mother remained silent. No one in my family had ever attended school.

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Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1994

1925

2. Qunu Landscape

Primary School Aged seven and dressed in a pair of his father’s old trousers that were cut off at the knees, little Rolihlahla Mandela entered Qunu Primary on his first day of school. A single room in which Mandela was taught the basics, Qunu provided the foundation for his education before he spent his final year at Qokolweni and then went on to high school. It was also at Qunu that he was given the name Nelson.

In keeping with the tradition at the time, his teacher, Miss Mdingane gave him an English name on his first day of school. No one knows why she chose Nelson.

Clarkebury Boarding Institute After Mandela's father passed away he was sent to live with the Regent of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo, at his home ‘The Great Place’ in Mqhekezweni. As a ward of the Regent he had access to the best education available and in 1934 he entered Clarkebury Boarding Institute in the district of Engcobo. Established by the Methodist Church to which Mandela belonged, Clarkebury was 96 kilometers from home and getting there involved crossing the Mbashe river, a boundary that had hitherto been impenetrable to the boy. High school for the 16-year old was as much an emotional as an educational transition.

3. Clarkebury Boarding Institute

4. Clarkebury print, 1836 by I.M. Boynes.

Printed by C. Hullmanded

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If there is one appeal I could make, it is that young people must take it upon themselves to ensure that they receive the highest education possible so that they can represent us well in future as future leaders.

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Nelson Mandela, Mandela in America documentary, 1990.

5. Sunday morning parade at Healdtown 1937.

6. Nelson Mandela in his first school photograph at Healdtown.

Healdtown High School In 1937, aged 19, Mandela joined his cousin Justice at Healdtown High School, the Wesleyan College in Fort Beaufort. It was at the time the largest African school south of the equator, with more than a thousand students, both male and female.

It was here that Mandela took up long-distance running and boxing; the latter would develop into one of his lifelong passions. It is also here where the first known photograph was taken of the great man – as a prefect in his final year in 1938.

7. University of Fort Hare

Starting at University of Fort Hare When Mandela was 21 years old, he entered the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape.

Mandela’s ambition at the time was to become a Native Administrator and to this end he studied English, Anthropology, Politics, Native Administration and Roman Dutch Law. In his second year he signed up

for a court interpreter’s course. It was while at Fort Hare that he met and befriended Oliver Tambo, who was living in the Anglican hostel.

Mandela was in the Methodist hostel and they both gave their time as Sunday school teachers while at the university.

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The only residential centre of higher education for blacks in South Africa.

Fort Hare was more than that: it was a beacon for African scholars from all over Southern, Central and Eastern Africa. For young black South Africans like myself, it was Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, all rolled into one.

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Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1994.

8. University of Fort Hare

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10 9. Iona House (Presbyterian Hostel) 10. Dining Hall, University of Fort Hare

Ultimatum and expulsion Fort Hare was the site of Mandela’s first major clash with authority. Nominated to stand for one of six places on the Student Representative Council, he took up the grievances the 150-strong student body had over their food. His actions led to a showdown with the principal Dr Alexander Kerr who gave him an ultimatum: toe the line or leave the university. He stood on principle and was duly expelled. He passed his second-year university exams in late 1940 and returned to an angry Regent at Mqhekezweni.

11. A portrait of Nelson Mandela and Bikitsha, circa, 1941.

Moving to Johannesburg His expulsion from Fort Hare created another major run-in with authority. This time it was with the Regent who took him in and educated him from the age of 12. Mandela was given another ultimatum: go back to university or get married to the woman who had been chosen by the Regent to be his wife. A wife had also been chosen for his cousin, Justice, who was home from high school.

Neither of the young men were happy about the situation and decided there was only one course of action: to run as far away as possible from their home and their problems, and the only place to run to was the bright and glittering big city, Johannesburg.

Work and study in Johannesburg The two young men arrived in Johannesburg in 1941 and through their connections began work on a gold mine. The wrath of the Regent caught up with them and he demanded that they return home. Again they defied him and Mandela immersed himself in the big city life, moving to Alexandra township and completing his BA through correspondence at Unisa.

In 1943 he entered into articles of clerkship with a Johannesburg law firm, Witkin, Eidelman and Sidelsky and began studying for his LLB at the University of the Witwatersrand.

12.Opposite page: Nelson Mandela at work in the Johannesburg office where he and Oliver Tambo practised law together.

By his own admission Mandela was a bad student and he officially left Wits University in 1952 after consistently failing and not completing his degree. In those days one was permitted to practice law after completing a diploma, which he did, and in that same year he opened the first black law firm with his old friend Oliver Tambo.

13. Mandela in Umtata, in his first suit, presented to him by the regent.

14. Nelson Mandela (top row, second from left) on the steps of the University of the Witwatersrand.

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Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.

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Speech delivered by Nelson Mandela at the launch of Mindset Network, July 16, 2003.

Studying as a prisoner Mandela resumed his LLB with the University of London after he was captured in 1962, and sentenced to five years for leaving the country illegally and inciting workers to strike. He began his studies while an inmate at Pretoria Local Prison and continued while on Robben Island after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage on June 12, 1964. His studies were suspended in the late 1970s after it was discovered that he had been writing his autobiography. Mandela finally graduated in absentia with an LLB through Unisa while being held at Victor Verster Prison. He was 70 years old.

15. Nelson Mandela’s prison cell on Robben Island.

obben Island dated 80

16. Prisoner studies, Robben Island, 29 September 1980.

Memories, Transformation and Africanisation 117

NM request to Ju dated 11 August 1

17. Order to Juta for stationery, 11 August 1981.

Honorary degrees On 16 September 1995, Unisa honored Nelson Mandela for the excellence in leading South Africa by awarding him an honorary doctorate in Law. Nelson Mandela received over 48 honorary degrees from universities all over the world.

18. Nelson Mandela at the ceremony where he was honored with a Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) in 1995 at Unisa.

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No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated

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Nelson Mandela, Interview with Oprah Winfrey for O Magazine, 2001.

19. Nelson Mandela at the ceremony where he was honored with a Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) in 1995 at Unisa.

20. A school library developed by Breadline Africa, a project initiated by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

21. Nelson Mandela and Albertina Sisulu meeting winners of an essay writing competition organised by the Department of Education and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The picture was taken at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on 23 September 2008.

22. Nelson Mandela reading to a group of children.

“It is not beyond our

power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education.

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Nelson Mandela, at the launch of the Nelson Mandela Institute for Education and Rural Development, 2007.

1. Copyrights Nelson

14. Copyrights Wits University Archives

Mandela Foundation 15. Paul Mannix 2. Peter McKenzie 16. The University of South Africa: 3. Peter McKenzie

Memories, Transformation and Africanisation Vol 1. Copyrights the

4. Museum Africa

National Archives and Records Service of South Africa

5. Courtesy Trevor Webster 17. The University of South Africa: 6. Courtesy Luyolo Stengile

Memories, Transformation and Africanisation Vol 1. Copyrights the

7. Copyrights University of Fort Hare

National Archives and Records Service of South Africa

8. Museum Africa 18. Copyrights Unisa 9. Copyrights University of Fort Hare 19. Copyrights Unisa 10. Copyrights University of Fort Hare 20. Courtesy of Breadline Africa 11. Courtesy Professor Charles van Onselen

21. Copyrights Nelson Mandela Foundation/Debbie Yazbek

12. J端rgen Schadeberg 22. Copyrights READ Educational Trust 13. Copyrights PKA Gaeshwe/Black Star

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