The struggle for the resources and labour that generate wealth has been paralleled by the struggle for control of the mind. Formal education, or schooling, is a crucial arena of such In Southern Africa's complex history, education has always been a contested area. contests.
From the mid nineteenth-century African people were incorporated into the different states that went to make up what is now South Africa. During this time, Christian missionaries, generally from Britain, developed schools that served a minority of the indigenous popularity. The products of these schools were in an ambiguous situation. They were formed by a western educational system, yet also, because of their wider vision of the world, in a position to interrogate and challenge the system that oppressed all Africans. At the same time, an educational infrastructure was to be built that would provide, it was hoped, a population just sufficiently educated to labour effectively in the mines, factories and farms of increasingly industrialized South Africa. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was the key instrument in this policy.
The African National Congress (ANC) and other progressive bodies contested the educational policy of the National Party, at first openly, and then, as repression intensified, covertly. The key moment in this struggle came with the uprising of 1976 in Soweto and elsewhere. The protests of schoolchildren against imposition of Afrikaans as a language of instruction quickly broadened into a challenge to the very legitimacy of the state. Brutally suppressed, these uprisings were followed by an exodus from South Africa of many students, eager to fight against the state. The ANC, the main liberation movement in exile, responded to this wave of militancy by strengthening the armed struggle. However, the movement also founded a school in Tanzania which was intended to build cadres for a future liberated South Africa and provide a progressive non-racial educational model that would challenge 'Bantu Education'.
This school was the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO), named after a young freedom fighter executed by the South African regime in 1979. The school existed from 1978 to 1992. It was situated on land donated by Julius Nyerere, President of the Tanzanian government, at Mazimbu, near Morogoro, some two hundred kilometers west of Dar- Es- Salaam. Starting with some secondary school classes in old buildings on an abandoned sisal estate, it grew into an educational undertaking, which included a secondary school, primary school, nursery school and educational centre. Here, an educational system was implemented that in terms both of curriculum and school governance contrasted with the educational system its pupils had fled. There was also a modern farm, medical facilities, and various workshops and small industries. This impressive complex was staffed by members of the ANC and solidarity workers sympathetic to the cause of South African liberation. Funding came from various sources, especially United Nations agencies, the then Eastern Bloc, Scandinavian countries, and even, towards the end of the 1980s, from official and non-official Western sources, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States.
The SOMAFCO papers in the Liberation Archives at the University of Fort Hare Library provide the material for a comprehensive study of the ANC's educational activities in exile.
The SOMAFCO Archive group is comprised of 18 .5 linear metres and 8 series: Subject Files, Education, Correspondence, Individuals, Publications, U.K Institutions, International Relations, and Addenda.
The Subject Files series spans the years 1971-1991. The series consists of various components, which reflect the overall operations and functions of SOMAFCO. The files contain also apart from educational matters, transactions and support that the college received since its inception from a number of formations. Above all, the documents portray the actual participation of the officials, staff and students in the shaping of what was expected of SOMAFCO to be.
The Education series spans the years 1971-1991. This series forms the core of SOMAFCO activities. It has subdivisions like ANC Education Committees formed by the ANC experts who were based in the Southern Africa and abroad to help draft the curriculum\syllabi of the college; Teaching staff, which also played a pivotal role in inculcating new forms and methods of teaching to the previously victims of Bantu Education system; Learners who had assume and pursue a new type of education different to that of Bantu Education; and the subjects taught at SOMAFCO including those that learners were deprived of at home, and those that sought to correct the deliberate distortions as previously existed in the history of the country's syllabus as well as the outside world.
The Correspondence series spans the years 1981-1991. The series shows the lines of communications between the various sections of the college and external relations regarding the needs and wants of the complex.
The Individuals (officials of the college) series spans the years 1981-1991. The series contains documents of SOMAFCO principals who served the college at various and different times. The files reflect how in accordance with the ANC Education Policy the college was run. There were also problems that the college was faced with. There were various ways these problems were resolved.
The Publications series spans the years 1981-1991. The college had had its publications produced by students and workers of the college. It was necessary as a revolutionary complex, to have means to inform itself of events in the college and around the world on cultural and political affairs. In order to realize these goals, the college established the Department of Information and Publicity. In this way, the community of the complex was brought abreast with events in South Africa and around the world. The publications serve as a proof of the community's involvement and participation in such matters.
The U.K Institutions series spans the years 1981-1993. The institutions such as University of London and Cambridge University served for SOMAFCO students' external examinations.
The International Relations series spans the years 1976-1990. This series brings SOMAFCO into the spotlight of international solidarity. The existence of the complex was made possible by support it earned around the globe: from the Non-Governmental Organisations, United Nations agencies, and Governments. These formations rendered both human and material support for the sustainability of SOMAFCO and education for its learners at various fields of study.
This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
The Collection is Open
ANC Archives Committee