From: mark@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: Absence of black posters from SA
Date: 12 Nov 92 19:06:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: uctvax.1992Nov12.170607.203261
Organization: University of Cape Town

Perhaps we can dispense with all the fantasies in this topic.

PAUL MWEENE, I enjoyed that fictitious conversation with the
two black students from UCT.  It somehow combines the
repression that black students have faced at the "black"
universities such as the University of Zululand, or
University of the North (where progressive organisation and
activity is severly repressed by the university authorities)
with elements of problems that black students face at UCT,
such as alienation, racism, etc.  Unfortunately life in SA
is not that simple or humorous, things are not black and white, 
good or bad.  There is a complexity to oppression in this country
that people from outside don't grasp.  I suggest you speak
to some REAL black students from UCT.

RIEL SMIT, I am glad to hear that the computer science
department is doing something about addressing inequalities
amoung the schools.  Yes computers may be a scarce resource
for any school, black or white, but we cannot deny the
fundemental inequities in education in this country.  We
have seperate education departments on a regional/ethnic
basis.  Whereas white education has enjoyed vast (now
shrinking) resources, black students have sufferred a lack
of even basic resources.  Some students who are sitting to write
their final exams this year were only issued with set books,
etc after June.  The average class size in the black schools
is treble that of the white schools; it is over 60 per
students per class.  In this context (I know you didn't
bring it up!) to talk of net access and a few computers
here and there is a bit trite.

Without degrading the actual work of bodies such as the
Computer Society (or yourself) I became slightly cynical
since you seem to have the name of one of the schools mixed
up (it is Alexander Sinton High School), and the location of
the school confused (it is in Athlone, not District Six -
unless you were thinking of Harold Cressy or Trafalgar High
Schools, which are in District Six).  I immediately ask the
following questions: How deep are these programs?  When did
they begin?  Is it simply a paternalistic liberal exercise
(Company X or Y publically donating equipment and getting
exposure out of it) or are the students and their
communities being empowered by the process?

Again, I know there is genuine work being done out there by 
bodies such as CECS, and the Computer Society.

The situation at UCT:

Because it is easy to deny that UCT is a facist campus, it
is obviously a liberal one, it does not mean that it is a
"bed of roses" for its black students.  The alienation
experienced by a significant number of black students was
apparent during the workers' strike last year, as Archbishop
Tutu put it at the time.

It is openly acknowledged by the Vice Chancellor and others,
in annual reports etc, that there are difficulties faced by
black students at UCT.  There are still a disproportionate
number of black students at UCT and they face unique
difficulties, due to their disadvantaged educational
background.  We know why this is; only 1710 students passed
the "black" DET matriculation exams for example.  UCT does
actually admit a significant proportion of these, and
conducts independant admissions tests (in mathematics and
english) due to the unreliability of the DET exams.

The staff at UCT are predominantly white males, and this
compounds the difficulties of black students.  It also
demonstrates that UCT bears a legacy of apartheid the same
as any other institution in this country.  Academic ideals
did not free her.

I include details of UCT's enrollment figures below (from
the Vice-Chancellor's Report, 1992).  As someone else
mentioned in only a few departments is access to the
computer networks a neccessary component of the course.  In
the other departments, the students (black and white) do not
access the networks as they have other needs and priorities.
If you look at the Computer Science department there is
probably a slightly higher ratio of black students in the
department than the whole university.  As an educated guess
I would say that about a third of their students are black;
that about a third of their final-year students are black
(from what Riel says); and that less than one twentieth of
their current postgraduate students are black (from the
faces and photos I see in the hallways). [Racial
classification can be difficult, and I don't have the
expertise of the government :-) ].

There are probably between 800 and 900 students studying in
the department, so there are about 300 black students in the
department.  Since we don't hear from the other 600 white
students very much (its really only a few very vocal
students), we can't be suprised that there are not many
black students on the net.  The students seem to have better
things to do, particularly those who have to catch up on a bad
school education.  However I am convinced that if there were
more black post-graduate students and staff in the Computer
Science department we would hear more from them, since this
is where the voices mainly come from.  Perhaps someone from
the department could advise us what measures they are taking
to ensure that there is not such a high drop-out rate amoung
black students going from undergraduate to postgraduate
levels.  I would be interested to know whether the "black
third" of the final-year class just doesn't have good enough
marks to continue, or whether this is due to other pressures
(such as finances).

Let us acknowledge our problems openly and confront them,
rather than pretend UCT is what it is not.

What follows are some statistics extraced from the VC's
report for 1992:

---------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE1:   ENROLMENT BY RACE
---------------------------------------------------------------
               % of      % of      % of      % of      % of
               total     total     total     total     total
 Category      1991      1990      1989      1988      1987
---------------------------------------------------------------
 White         70,9      72,8      75,3      77,7      80,0
 Coloured      13,5      13,7      13,5      12,6      12,0
 Indian         3,9       3,4       3,1       3,0       2,6
 African       11,9      10,1       8,1       6,7       5,4
---------------------------------------------------------------
 Totals        14467     13729     13143     11848     12149
---------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------
FIGURE 2: COMPOSITION OF STUDENT BODY
Trends in the 10 years 1981 - 1991
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 Category 1981      1983      1985      1987      1989      1991
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 Men      63,4      62,1      60,9      59,8      59,2      58,5
 Women    36,6      37,9      39,1      40,2      40,8      41,4
 Postgrad 17,3      20,1      24,1      28,1      28,3      29,1
 Black    11,7      13,8      15,0      20,0      24,7      28,6
-----------------------------------------------------------------



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