Over 700 black South Africans studied at more than 200 American colleges and universities from 1976 to 1990 through the South African Education Program of the Institute of International Education. This study analyzes the South African Education Program through the perceptions, misperceptions, motivations and expectations of both the donors and the recipients.
African students studied at universities in the United States as early as the 1870s. An historical overview of America's role in the education of black South Africans is presented from the 1830s. In 1953, the Nationalist government introduced Bantu Education which set back the academic growth of black South Africans and exploded in student protests in 1976. Refugees from the 1976 revolts were given scholarships in the Soviet Union and other 'Iron Curtain' countries. In the United States, the number of scholarships grew for black South Africans from 1979.
Research at the Institute of International Education and interviews with 70 scholarship students showed a divergence of interests: donors hope to train future black leaders who will be allies of the United States, while students are wary of being co-opted into an elite middle-class which would result in their losing touch with the struggle of the mass of black South Africans. These differences in goals and expectations contribute towards producing tensions and misunderstandings between students and donors--tensions which ultimately led to heated confrontations in 1900 at an annual student conference.
By tracing United States foreign policy towards South Africa from World War II, it is seen that United States interests in South Africa, both strategic and economic, constantly clashed with the image the United States wished to give in regard to its attitude towards apartheid. In presenting the expectations of the donors in the South African Education Program, and giving the opinions of 70 students on that program, the issue examined was: has education been used, wittingly or unwittingly, as a tool or strategy of U.S. policies and interests?
