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12 August 2020 | Story Charlene Stanley | Photo Supplied
Dr Rebecca Swartz’s book Education and Empire: Children, Race and Humanitarianism in the British Settler Colonies, 1833-1880 has been honoured with various international awards.

Dr Rebecca Swartz, postdoctoral scholar in the International Studies Group, received glowing international recognition for her publication: Education and Empire: Children, Race and Humanitarianism in the British Settler Colonies, 1833-1880 (Cham: Palgrave, 2019). 

The book has won the prestigious Grace Abbott Book Prize (best book in English) from the Society for the History of Children and Youth (SHCY), which is awarded biannually, as well as the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) First Book Award. It has also been nominated for the Kevin Brehony prize from the History of Education Society (UK).

“It feels wonderful to have my work recognised by the international academic community,” said a delighted Dr Swartz.

Education as tool for oppression

She explains that the book traces the involvement of government in the education of indigenous people across a number of former British colonies.  

“It shows how education was increasingly seen as a government responsibility towards indigenous people during the nineteenth century. However, this does not mean that there was widespread access to education in the colonies; rather, education was provided along racial lines. In the two major sites of my study, KwaZulu-Natal (then Natal) and Western Australia, education for indigenous people was used to train them as workers, rather than to provide a literary education. The book shows that even when education was posed by imperial and colonial governments as a humanitarian intervention – something that would ‘uplift’, ‘improve’ or convert or ‘civilise’ the population – in settler colonial contexts such as South Africa and Australia, it was part of the apparatus of control and dominance over colonised people.”

For her, the most remarkable thing that her research has brought to light, was how the colonial project was full of contradictions. The imperial government provided education to the very same people it dispossessed of land and coerced into settlers’ labour forces.
“It was important for the British imperial government to appear to be humanitarian in outlook. However, they did not consider halting colonial settlement, and continued to violently colonise other parts of the world. As the nineteenth century progressed, they increasingly turned to rigid racial hierarchies to justify their practices,” says Dr Swartz.

International accolades

The SCHY called Dr Swartz’s work “a tour de force and an impressive template for how to do a multi-sited history where childhood is central to questions of imperial, political and educational history.”

The award committee’s commentary also stated: “Drawing on detailed archival research relating to the education of indigenous children in a range of British settler colonies, Rebecca Swartz offers convincing new insights into the centrality of childhood to shifting ideas around race and indigeneity in the British imperial project.”Some of the criteria considered by adjudicators of the ISCHE award were: Excellence and thoroughness of historical research, innovative and rigorous thinking, use of original and primary materials, and impact on history of education. 

Relevance for SA education today

Dr Swartz believes the book shows that education (both schooling and broader social education, such as teaching children good manners and morals, for example) is always reflective of broader political contexts.

“My work shows how in this country, education systems were actually set up to support and sustain forms of colonial rule by keeping certain skills, institutions, and systems of knowledge away from the majority of the population, while simultaneously denigrating their pre-existing knowledge and education systems. We need to understand more about the colonial origins of our education practices if we are to radically shift these in order to make education more equitable and inclusive,” she explains. 

ISG stimulating intellectual excellence

Dr Swartz describes the International Studies Group as “the most stimulating intellectual home that I have had in my research career to date”. She is grateful to be part of a community of brilliant scholars from all over the world, guided by Prof Ian Phimister, ISG Head, sharing ideas in formal seminars and also enjoying informal exchanges of ideas over coffee in the mornings.

“Prof Phimister has been a wonderful host and mentor. He is always available for advice and to read work, but also allows us postdocs to get on with what we do best: research and writing.”

News Archive

UFS takes lead in improving quality of training in economics in schools
2006-06-20

The fourth international workshop for trainers in the National Council on Economic Education’s (NCEE) outreach programme for Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East will be presented in Bloemfontein from 18-24 June 2006.

 “Because of the rapid success we achieved in the Free State with similar workshops in Economics education that were presented by the NCEE the past year, we have now invited representatives from education departments and universities of five other provinces to attend the international workshop for trainers,” said Prof Klopper Oosthuizen, lecturer at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Agricultural Economics and initiator of the cooperative agreement with the NCEE.

 The UFS and the Free State Department of Education are the NCEE’s first partners in Africa who received this training.  “The attendance of the five provinces and universities is the first step in the extension of the programme to the rest of the country,” said Prof Oosthuizen. 

 The NCEE is based in the United States of America (USA) and the workshop forms part of the council’s effort to improve the quality of the training of Economics teachers and lecturers across the world. 

 “South Africa is urgently in need of efforts to improve the integration of black people into the market economy.  An understanding of how markets work is one of the pillars of democracy.  Equipping young people with economic understanding and skills will help empower them for responsible roles as individuals and citizens,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

 According to Prof Oosthuizen representatives from the education departments of the Northern Cape, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and North West will also be attending the international workshop for trainers.  Representatives from the Universities of Rhodes, of KwaZulu-Natal, North West and the Durban University of Technology as well as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology will also attend the workshop.

 During this workshop teachers and lecturers in Economics will receive certificates. 

 Various subjects will be covered during the workshop such as world trade patterns, cost and benefits of free trade, exchange rates and international finance.  The training will be done by representatives from the NCEE by using methods such as direct instruction and role play.

 The NCEE is also in the process of training teachers and learning facilitators in the Free State in an effort to improve the quality of Economics classes in secondary schools. 

 “A group of 84 teachers and learning facilitators were trained in December 2005, 50 were trained in January 2006 and the last group of 40 will be trained at the UFS Main Campus in Bloemfontein from 26 June - 1 July 2006,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

 During this seminar the teachers will be trained in issues such as broad social goals in an economy, economic decision making, government’s role in a market economy and fiscal policy.  The training will also be done by representatives from the NCEE.

 The NCEE has been working together with international partners since 1992 to strengthen their Economics teaching systems.  They have already succeeded in increasing literacy in Economics at schools in the USA and more than 20 East Block countries.  More than 1,5 million learners in the East Block countries have already been served by this initiative.  Since 2004 the NCEE’s focus has moved away from the East Block countries to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

 “Our future plans include strengthening the growing partnership between the UFS, the Free State Department of Education and the NCEE.  We also want to establish a council and centres for economic education which will serve as an umbrella for our joint efforts,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za 
20 June 2006

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