British author to pen Van Rensburg�s bio
Galebolae Ngakane | Friday February 24, 2017 17:29
His mission now, is to write the biography of Patrick van Rensburg, a South African anti-apartheid Afrikaner who turned Botswana into his home in the 1960s and hence brought a new and potentially fruitful dimension in children’s upper education and training with a concept of education with production.
He was exiled by the South African apartheid regime for his opposition to their policies of separate development, based on racial lines, and his active support of black South Africans’ struggle for emancipation.
Van Rensburg, now in his dotage, or precisely, sunset of his life, at the ripe old age of 80, introduced the concept in Serowe when he spearheaded the building of Swaneng Hill School, using labour from the students to construct classroom structures.
The concept spread to Tonota and subsequently Mahalapye, where respectively, Shashe River School and Madiba Secondary School were established, also in the 1960s.
Brigades for students who had not done well in their Standard Seven results and those wanting to venture into handiwork, were also established alongside the secondary schools.
The concept, however was stifled by Government’s reluctance to fully support it, such that the Government ended up taking over the running of the brigades when they were now becoming unsustainable on their own.
Shillington is an expert in African history who has authored many books, including biographies of former Ghanaian president, Jerry Rawlings, and recently Albert Rene, the former president of Seychelles. Another book he wrote was the critically acclaimed ‘Luka Jantie: Resistance Hero of the South African Frontier’.
He said this time he was in the country to conduct further research on the tireless icon.
He actually started his research in 2016 with interviews and archival work. He is now going to interview family, friends, colleagues and informed sources from all phases of van Rensburg’s life, according to a document prepared by Foundation For Education With Production, a think-tank organisation aspiring to revive the concept for the benefit of the education system.
Shillington said he is left with finding a reputable publishing company in the United Kingdom to print and publish the book, which he hopes could be out by July this year.
Paying tribute to van Rensburg, the Foundation said he was a man “concerned with developing pedagogical models that combined education with production for development”.
It added: “Working in contexts where resources were scarce and job opportunities negligible, he drew on the ideas of Paulo Friere and other radical thinkers from Marx to Mao Zedong.
“His projects in Botswana influenced successive generations of people in southern Africa and beyond, encompassing not only Botswana, but also Zimbabwean and South African exiles and volunteers who came from the US and Europe and worked with him.”
Continuing with the quote, the Foundation said of the man who has adopted Serowe as his home, that he was an independent thinker who was also a prolific writer who disseminated his ideas in papers, articles and books. His final book entitled, ‘Making Education Work’, came out in 2001.
This is the man who started the Mmegi newspaper, way back when days were dark, with employees sometimes going for months without their salaries, but sticking around, not just because of the potential they saw in the project, but also their own commitment to the profession of journalism and its advancement.
The Foundation made the announcement about the author of van Rensburg's biography at an impromptu ceremony held at the former offices of both van Rensburg and Mmegi, in Maruapula recently.
The meeting also saw the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the Foundation and Swaneng Hill School Alumni Association, where former chairman, Rebana Mmereki performed the signing on behalf of the association, while Professor Frank Youngman signed for the Foundation.
The duo acknowledged the fact that the two organisations were like-minded, kindred spirits in a way, and hence vowed to cooperate in terms of exchanging of ideas and conducting activities jointly where appropriate.