As a consequence of the dual evolution of the European colonization of South Africa, both English and Afrikaans have served as the primary language of instruction in South African universities. Among the historically white universities, which were established first and continue today to be the best funded, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town, the University of Natal, Rhodes University, and the University of Port Elizabeth conduct classes in English. Potchefstroom, the University of Pretoria, Stellenbosch University, the University of the Orange Free State, and Rand Afrikaans Universitat conduct classes in Afrikaans. The same division appears among the Technikons, some of which, like Cape Technikon, were established to conduct classes in Afrikaans [although Cape Tech now uses English as its official language.

In the 1940’s, after the Afrikaaner segment of the White minority took control of the state in a Whites-only election, a policy was adopted of separating Whites from Blacks – the policy that came to be known, after its Afrikaaner word, as apartheid. The non-White population was sorted by language, skin color, hair character, facial features, and other supposed indicators of racial identity, into what the state considered discrete physical/cultural groupings, which were then required to separate themselves from the White cities, either into townships reserved for persons of one grouping, or into rural Homelands, one for each of the major segments of the African population. This so-called Homelands policy resulted in the creation of ten Bantustans, each of which was set up with a puppet government and a completely separate Ministry of Education. The fiction was promulgated that each of these Homelands was a separate state.

Within what was now considered officially South Africa – i.e., the White areas together with the non-White townships – four separate governmental bodies were created to oversee education, one for the Whites, one for the mixed race or Coulored population, mostly located in the Western Cape, one for the Indian population, mostly along the East coast in the province of Natal, and one for those Africans who were permitted to remain in White South Africa. Thus, with the Homeland ministries as well, there came to be no fewer than fourteen distinct governmental bodies of one sort or another responsible for education at all levels.

There had been one college, Fort Hare, in the province of the Transkei, that had educated the handful of African students who managed to make it through the miserable elementary and secondary Bantu education system with results sufficient to qualify them for admission to university. Nelson Mandela and a number of other young men who eventually became leaders throughout Southern Africa went through Fort Hare. After the creation of the Homeland system, several of the Homeland governments set up universities in their territories, reserved for their African students. Thus the University of the Transkei, the University of Venda, the University of Bophutatswana, and the University of the North were established.

At the same time, a number of Technikons were opened to serve non-White students. For example, across the road from the University of the Western Cape, Peninsula Technikon was established to teach Coloured students. In Durban, M. L. Sultan Technikon was opened for Indian students, and Mangosuthu Technikon was set up for African students in the Natal area.

Despite the elaborate, rather hysterical efforts to maintain the separateness, or apartheid, of each racial group from each other group, the actual educational practices of all of these institutions were identical. University education was, and remains to this day, a somewhat awkward mixture of English and Continental traditions. The standard undergraduate Bachelor’s degree is a three year degree, with a fourth Honours year available to students who do well enough. The Master’s Degree typically requires a combination of post-graduate courses and seminars and a Master’s Thesis. The doctorates presuppose a Master’s Degree and tend to require only a doctoral dissertation, not further course work. As in England, it was quite common until very recently for university lecturers to have only Master’s Degrees, although more and more often universities are attempting to impose the requirement that a doctorate be a precondition for teaching at the University level.

In one respect, South African higher education is very different from the American practice: there is little or no flexibility in the system for students who wish to accumulate credits slowly, or who seek to transfer from one institution to another. Traditionally, South African university courses are a year long, with all or most of the grade determined by one final examination. Students either pass or fail at the end of the year. Since the failure rate is, by American standards, astonishingly high, reaching more than fifty percent in many courses, this can impose a crippling burden on students, especially if they have difficulty coming up with the money to pay for tuition costs. What is more, it is virtually impossible to transfer credits even between universities, let alone between universities and technikons. Thus, a student who starts his or her undergraduate degree at the University of Capetown or the University of the Western Cape could not, after a successful year, transfer to the University of Natal or the University of Durban-Westville and be given credit for the work already completed.

The first of these problems has begun to be addressed by the reorganization of year-long courses into modules lasting as little as four or six weeks. But transferability of credits is still essentially impossible.

Another striking difference between South African and American universities – although in this regard South Africa is following the European pattern – is that an first year undergraduate student enters what Americans would call a Major, without any time being spent in an array of General Education courses through which the student might come to decide on a field of specialization. The Freshman, as we would call the first year student, immediately signs up for law or medicine or business administration or physics or history. This style of undergraduate education is obviously intended for a student who has been well-prepared at the secondary level and already knows what career he or she wishes to pursue.

One last special feature of South African higher education needs to be explained, inasmuch as it so dramatically shapes the opportunities of young Black secondary school students. Admission to university education is determined not by a student’s accumulated secondary school performance, but by his or her scores on a nationally administered set of school leaving examinations called “Matriculation examinations” or Matrics. Under the apartheid system, four entirely separate sets of examinations were given each year – one each for the White, Coulored, Indian, and African populations. Although the fourteen education bureaucracies have now been merged into one national Ministry of Education, it remains the case that under normal circumstances, admission to university requires a certain level of performance on the Matrics.

A shockingly small proportion of each age cohort of Black students actually finishes secondary school and earns a good enough grade on the Matrics to be eligible for university. That still leaves the problem of coming up with the money for registration, without which a student is not even eligible for the financial aid scheme of loans that is administered by the state. Ever since its founding in 1990, USSAS has sought to address this problem by awarding scholarships [not loans] to first year students who would otherwise find it impossible even to enroll at universities.

There is one loophole in the Matric barrier that stands between high school seniors and a university education. The governing body of a university – the Senate – has the authority to admit students who do not “have Matrics,” if it chooses to do so. The hitch is that even today, all these years after liberation, the national Ministry of Education still does not give a university credit in its national funding formula for students enrolled through this loophole without the standard Matric results.

Nevertheless, in a daring break with tradition and common practice, the University of the Western Cape began several years ago to admit as many as several hundred applicants each year through the “Senate Discretionary” exception. USSAS has for the past three years been helping that initiative through a series of major grants to UWC. Thus far, more than two hundred non-Matric students have been enabled to register and enter UWC with the help of USSAS.

The year 2004 is a time of major changes in South African higher education. A series of institutional mergers and reorganizations has been ordered by the Ministry of Education in an attempt to rationalize the national system and break down some of the barriers between Whites and Blacks. The Minister, Kadar Asmal, is a man of great energy and vision, trying to transform South African education at all levels in the face of considerable entrenched opposition. Although USSAS is a very small organization, it has the opportunity to place itself on the cutting edge of educational change in South Africa. With continuing support from generous American donors, USSAS will be able to make a measurable difference in the life chances of young Black men and women who seek to prepare themselves for the twenty-first century.