Free Fall

Synopsis

Malcolm Ray, a former finance magazine editor and journalist, exposes how and why education has become a flashpoint for black university students in South Africa. Probing deep beneath the surface of the present crisis, Ray reveals uncomfortable truths about colonial- and apartheid-era education, and traces the tangled web of connections between foreign and South African business interests, the apartheid government, and the role of universities in propping up a white elite and co-opting a subservient black class to their cause.

Combining intellectual and historical rigour with the intimacy of personal stories, the book brings to life the people and ideas that, over a century-and-a-half, have created a perfect storm in higher education. Tracing their role in the developing crisis, readers are introduced to protagonists from the end of slavery in 1834, through the rise of missionary education, and into the apartheid era.

As apartheid collapsed, the book details how policy blunders by the democratic government since 1994 conspired with the past to fuel South Africa’s slide into increasing economic and social disarray. This is the saga of the failure of the democratic government to deal with major fault lines in higher education, the untold story of perhaps unrepeatable circumstances that led to the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements in 2015.

The book ends on a high note, answering the question: ‘What now?’ in the search for an education solution for South Africa.


Copyright:

2016

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781928257288

Publisher:

Bookstorm Publishers

Date of Addition:

01/28/25

Copyrighted By:

Malcolm Ray

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.