Housing of South Africa
Traditional housing varied according to ethnic group. The Nguni and the Swazi lived in dispersed households governed by chiefs, while the Sotho lived in villages and farmed on land outside the villages. The Xhosa built their houses near the tops of ridges that overlooked local rivers, and the Ndebele decorated their homesteads with colourful pictures and symbols. Zulu housing was centred around the imizi (kraal), which consisted of a fence that enclosed a number of beehive-shaped one-room houses.
Local authorities have been responsible for public housing since the 1920s, although control over Black housing reverted to the central government in 1971. A housing shortage existed and was somewhat addressed through a massive program of township development in Black areas begun in the 1950s but diminished in the 1970s. During the 1980s “site-and-service” schemes emerged to provide land equipped with basic infrastructure for poorer, usually Black people around the cities to build upon, but the housing crisis remained severe in the face of rapid population growth and urban migration. Housing policy since the early 1990s has emphasized the joint roles of the public and private sectors; the government launched an ambitious program of capital subsidies and loan guarantees in an effort to upgrade housing conditions and assist all citizens in acquiring title to some form of shelter.
Education
Primary and secondary schools
School education is compulsory for all children between 7 and 16 years of age or through ninth grade, whichever is reached first, and begins in one of the country’s official languages. After second grade, students begin learning another language.
The right to a basic education is guaranteed in the constitution. The country has a national educational system, which oversees the education implemented in the provinces. The school system contains both private and public schools. During the apartheid era, schools run by white education departments had the best resources in the public school system, and white-oriented private schools received substantial public subsidies. Although some of these schools began to admit Black pupils after 1990, informal white resistance, capacity limitations, and fees (often newly imposed with apparent exclusionary intent) generally have kept Blacks out of historically white public schools. Private schools, many of which offer superior educational programs, remain largely inaccessible to most Blacks because of the high cost. In an effort to rectify past inequalities, the government has pledged significant resources toward improving the physical and learning environment of the school system. To that end, the government implemented a new national curriculum in the early 21st century.
Literacy rates in South Africa are high by African standards. Since 1970, literacy rates have grown from one-half to four-fifths of the population.
Higher education
South Africa is home to many institutions of higher education. The oldest and largest of the universities is the University of South Africa (UNISA), which was established in Cape Town but is now based in Pretoria and offers correspondence courses in both English and Afrikaans. The oldest of the residential universities are those of Cape Town, Fort Hare, Stellenbosch, and the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg); of these, Stellenbosch began as an Afrikaans-language institution, while Fort Hare was originally established to serve Blacks only. Other institutions in South Africa include the University of Pretoria, North-West University, the University of Johannesburg, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. Historically, most Blacks with postsecondary degrees earned them through UNISA or Fort Hare, but the English-language institutions—including the University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg and Durban) and Rhodes University—admitted a few Black students until 1959, when their ability to do so was restricted by apartheid legislation that they fiercely opposed. The government then established several new institutions (the Universities of the North, Zululand, Western Cape, Durban-Westville, and Vista and the Medical University) for various Black groups and increased the number of Black-oriented technikons, schools designed to teach technical industrial skills. The officially independent homelands of Bophuthatswana, Transkei, and Venda also established their own universities.
Even after apartheid-era restrictions were removed, many postsecondary institutions remained influenced by their historically dominant racial and ethnic character. Coloured and Indian students were integrated into historically white universities more rapidly than Blacks. Professional and postgraduate courses were still concentrated at the formerly white universities until an ambitious restructuring program was undertaken in the early 21st century. Under the government’s plan, several universities and technikons were consolidated in an effort to improve the access to and quality of education available to all students regardless of race, to eliminate duplication of services, and to better meet the country’s projected workforce requirements.