m - DISA

strategies can only prow out of analysis of local
conditions, needs and Interests. The teachers*
position is intimately bound up with the expectations
of their role-SBt. Therefore, the development of
strategies needs to take into account the expectations
and the roles of pupils, parents, col leagues and
authorities. Teachers can undertake to increase the
communlcations between oil members of the role-set In
order to de-escalata the levels of conflict end than
encourage co-operation. A working criteria could be
to open up communications between all members of the
role—sat.
2. The slat of education for transformation must be
that of helping pupils, other teachers, parents
and themselves to understand the material and social
world around them. As many educationalists believe,
it Is not the content but the educational process
which is aost important. The organisation of the
school and of the clsssrooa should therefore proaote
critical understanding. Participation in tha
educational process should be encouraged. Gelpi, the
current head of UNESCO's Lifelong Education unit,
believes that self-directed learning by Individuals
and groups should be promoted as 'it is s danger for
every repressive force, and it's upon self-direct ion
that we aust insist*. He goes on, '(r)adlcel change
in social, aorel, aesthetic and political affairs is
often the out COM of a process of self directed
learning in opposition to tha educational message
imposed f rcai el thout * *
Several writers who are concerned with education­
al transformation insist that the development of
critical thinking Is fundamental to the task. This
means that trying to indoctrinate pupils with an
alternative Ideology is the worst way of progressing•
A dialectical educational philosophy needs to farm tiie
cornerstone for change. Education needs to enhance the
chances for a genuinely democratic and participatory
society. Tha second working criteria could therefore
be a ooaatltSKsnt to the development of e critical and
dlalectlcel educational philosophy.
If criteria like the above were accepted as key
principles in the strategies adoptmd'by teachers.
perhaps a constructive start could be made to the
building of a unified community of teachers, where
"divergant-typ*< thinking is encouraged and teachers
are able to play an important role In facilitating
positive educational developments, which both begins
to meat the present needs and can also contribute to
the foundations Qr * future, more desirable education
system.
CONCLUSION
THE teacher in this article is treated as one in
opposition. Therefore strategies which are projected
need to be concerned with "re-def inition• , relatively
small-scale, low-cost, and ones which draw primarily
on teachers' Own resources.
Shirley "alters
Note: The author of this article has developed ideas
that serve as background to the strategies discussed
in the erticla above, in an U Ed dissertation at the
University of Manchester. Readers who might be
interested in this dissertation are asked to
contact Shirley Baiters through the editors of IP
(address on the index page of this publication).
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ETHNICITY
AND CLASS
IN GAZANKULU
IF there is agreement about anything regarding
Gazankulu, it is a sense of surprise at the
bantustan's very existence. Cos Desmond, who
visited the Northern Transvaal in 1969, wrote that
the Tswanastan belles the idea of a nation*
state In that its sections are often hundreds
of miles apart. But the Vendastan and
T&ongastan woke the idea of creating a viable
nation-state even less plausible.
Vet only three years later. Commissioner-
General EF Potgieter ems able to tell the Gazankulu
legislative assembly that
I very much realise that there was a time when
you were grouped together with the Bavende on
the one side and with the Besutho on the other
and that you eere not a people as you are today
in this meeting hall.
The decision to create Gerankuiu as a separate
political entity for the Tsonga/9*angoen ethnic
group was almost an afterthought in the South
African state's grand scheme of 'separate development'
Ihus, the problem which this article addresses Itself
to can be stated quite simply: how is it that in
little over a decade, ethnic consciousness has been
aroused to the extent thet Gazankulu is nom well on
the way to bentustan * independence*?
as an analytical category, ethnicity or
nationalism has always presented a massive problem
to materialist writers. In an important article,
John Saul writes that 'progressive writers on Africa
generally approach the Issue of "tribalism* as one
mould approach a minefield - and with good reason'.
Saul makes the point that It Is useless to slogenisa
ethnit consciousness away as 'false consciousness** •
The vary fact that ethnic consciousness has so often
been mobilised into e powerful political platform
demands an explanation of the availability of
t*xje «V