Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

YASMINE SOOKA: Mr Montsisi we would like to welcome you and we are very grateful that you have made the time to come and give your evidence to the Commission.  However, before you do so I would like you to stand and take the oath please.

DAN MONTSISI: (sworn states)

YASMINE SOOKA: As is customary with the Commission we have assigned Mr Tom Manthata, a Committee member to assist you.  Thank you.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Dan just relax and we would like you to tell us, just briefly, what your school life was before June 16 1976.

DAN MONTSISI: I was just a student at Skonagone High School and I used to play football, I used to debate and I used to belong to a student organisation called Suzon(?).  We used to organise outings, for instance during that period and go to Welgespruit and sometimes it was just ordinary outings of young people you know, but most of those were organised by the then student organisation, Suzon.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Could you then lead us into the change that followed that kind of peaceful life if one can call it that.

DAN MONTSISI: What I would like to indicate is that the students then were like the students now, they were not much different.  The only thing is that at that time you had a culture of learning and teaching.  Students were students and teachers were teachers and we used to get to school at
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about 7:30.  I remember quite well the last time I was late and you are standing at the gate waiting for me and I had to apologise because that time the taxis were a little bit late, but that quarter to eight instead of 7:30.  So what I would like to indicate is that we were able to get to school at 8 o'clock on time and then at 4 o'clock we were able to dismiss.  It was exciting during that period to be a student.  We had athletics and I played in the B football squad at school and there were not really very seriously problems except now when one looks at the curriculum that students were studying at that point in time.  
 Now just a glimpse at the manner the education structure was like then, you had for instance in one visit that we had in Turfloop University, the students there were telling us that the Afrikaner lecturers made it very, very clear to them that there is no African child who can pass maths on the first year.  So what it meant in essence is that most of these lecturers ensured that subjects like mathematics, economics and science should not be the type of subjects in which African students ventured. 
 There was a young fellow for instance called Terence Dube in Diepkloof.  He was in Madibane High School.  We used to call him Marconi.  Terence manufactured a radio and he was able during parents' day to demonstrate a very small station that we actually created inside the hall, in Diepkloof Hall, there were two radios, the one that Marconi made and the other radio which was bought.  The two radios were playing the same station, they were on the same station and this gives you a glimpse of the type of potential talent we had amongst students who were African in the schools at that time.  But there was no way in which Terence could be 
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able to pursue his career.  
 So the manner in which education was devised at that time, it was actually intended to relegate the African students to a slave as Mama Kuzwayo said, but unfortunately they created the "hardekop" and we were able to defeat them at a later stage.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Okay.  Let's then come to the change that came about as a result of the 1976 happenings.