Phyllis Ntantala: An African Woman’s Leadership in the Struggle against a Pan-Eurocentric Education

Abstract

The years 2021 and 2022 marked a significant period in the Pan-African struggle against the Pan-Eurocentric academy’s destruction of African dignity and freedom. 2021 marked the 70th anniversary of the Eiselen Commission’s report on Bantu Education. 2022 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of Phyllis Ntantala’s autobiographical work, A Life’s Mosaic: The Autobiography of Phyllis Ntantala. Ntantala’s book documents African teachers’ and parents’ resistance to Bantu Education, which culminated in some African teachers being fired for refusing to “poison the minds” of African children. While the “heroism” of resistance to Bantu Education is well-recorded and celebrated, the “sheroism” of the struggle against Bantu Education is less illuminated and appreciated. This article, by examining Ntantala’s intellectual legacy in African people’s struggles for justice—including justice in education in South Africa, as well as in Europe and the United States of America— celebrates African sheroes’ institutional leadership in the struggles associated with education in politics and politics in education. A critical examination of Ntantala’s leadership against Bantu Education gives recognition to an important, yet often overlooked, aspect in decolonisation and re-Africanisation struggles in education, namely, that colonialism did not only express itself through racism, but also sexism.