Education as a pedagogy of the oppressed: South African education as envisaged by John Langalibalele Dube

Abstract

Colonialism compressed the colonised people into living a borrowed and colonised cultural existence. It consigned them to the peripheries of the mainstream quality education and economic systems. The main purpose of Western education in the colonial era was not to advance the quality of the lives of the indigenous people, but to create useful tools of production that could easily take instruction from the masters. John Langalibalele Dube was a firm believer in the value of education in the emancipation of the oppressed. The oppressed classes could challenge the status quo and break the chains of oppression with quality education. It is on this basis that he established the African Industrial School to equip Africans with vocational skills. In the 1890s, the school produced African artisans who could compete with white workers in the job market. These vocational skills economically emancipated the recipients. Using the available newspaper reports and other relevant secondary sources, this article explores education as a pedagogy of emancipation as envisaged by John Dube. It aims at determining the relevancy of the vocational training approach in ushering liberatory objective of education in South African. Furthermore, it examines the South African educational system from the colonial era to current times, arguing that, whilst education played a pivotal role in collapsing colonialism, it has failed to wholly free the colonised minds. Dube’s industrial education coupled with experiential education is a double- edged sword that can mentally and economically liberate the former colonised people.