Berkley Center

When someone thinks about the “rainbow nation,” and Nelson Mandela’s triumphant fight to bring equality and justice to a country fragmented by a prejudiced and violent past, they might forget that apartheid and everything that apartheid entails legally ended less than 19 years ago in 1994. Many strides towards fairness and equality can be taken within 20 years’ time; however, mindsets can be hardwired and not easily changed.

The South African government has attempted to make this change happen from the top down—instituting laws that allow for those previously disadvantaged under apartheid to prosper along with the rest of the country. There are varying opinions about the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and its moral status in South Africa. All opinions aside, these laws and regulations instated in businesses and varsities (colleges) have created a bit of a stir and negative consequences for all races across the country.

In my "Business Ethics" class we have been talking about affirmative action and South Africa’s proactive plans to reverse the obstacles put in the way of blacks achieving in business and school. Many of the policies of the BEE do not focus on fixing the foundation, but rather the strategy of the current regime is to allow blacks to have equal opportunity in varsity and management level careers. They encourage matric (secondary) students around the country to apply for university. They then instill their policies of black advancement into the system to allow for these students to attend the schools to which they applied. There is currently little regard for the academic level of each student when leaving their matriculation.

I was talking with my international orientation advisor before classes began about the difficulty of the classes at the University of Cape Town (UCT, where I am studying abroad). She told me that classes were actually extremely tough for most of the student body; and as many as 30 percent of students do not continue after their first year. My first impression was this was attributed to the inherent difficulty of the classes. This could be a contributing factor; but I no longer believe this is the driving force of the rather high dropout rate of the student body.

When you actually investigate the cause of the relatively low retention rate you will realize that is not the fault of the students who drop out. It could very well be the system that the students are in. For instance, the students at UCT are expected to use the internet and computer as much as any other college student around the world. However, some of the students have never seen a computer, much less used one, until they got to the university. This would cause a student to not only have to keep up with schoolwork, but master using a computer at the same time. It may sound like a minimal task to do, but that is because we have grown up with computers and have used them our entire life.

A group of people cannot be helped from the top down. A way to combat this problem is for the government to reform the primary schools around the country. This reform needs to be focused more on the primary schools in the townships (the blocks of poor neighborhoods around South Africa). It does someone no good to be given a chance to do something for which they are not adequately prepared.

It makes sense to put in place procedures and policies that help those that were wrongly treated or are incapable of getting over their first obstacle; however, this needs to be done more sensibly (many of the people I have spoken with on this issue have told me) than the ANC is doing it.

South Africa has great potential to be a legitimate part of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China: countries growing exponentially in social and economic areas) countries and become a great nation in the international market, while at the same time increasing the quality of life for all South Africans. However, most things done correctly are done in due time. This is an exciting time for South Africa as many people are starting to demand change in order for the nation to lower the astronomically high Gini Coefficient that hurts a large portion of the people.