Patrick van Rensburg
Kevin Shillington
3h11min15
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255 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 3h11min.
This sensitive and compelling biography of Patrick van Rensburg does justice to a giant of a man, controversial throughout his life but undeniably a hero.Patrick van Rensburg (1931–2017) was an anti-apartheid activist and self-made ‘alternative educationist’ whose work received international recognition with the Right Livelihood Award in 1981.
Born into a broken home and raised as an Anglophone in KwaZulu-Natal, Van Rensburg only discovered his Afrikaner heritage when applying for his first job in 1948, the year the Afrikaner National Party came to power with its programme of apartheid. His Damascene conversion to an opponent of apartheid occurred in the Belgian Congo eight years later, when he dramatically resigned as South Africa’s youngest vice-consul. Forced into exile from South Africa in 1960, Van Rensburg settled in Bechuanaland (Botswana), where he challenged conventional educational wisdom, founded three self-built schools, and established vocational training ‘brigades’ which offered a second chance to primary school ‘drop-outs’. Regrettably, his ideas failed to gain traction in liberated South Africa, but the strong network of self-reliant community trusts throughout Botswana represents an enduring testament to his unfailing commitment to justice and equality.
Van Rensburg was an energetic, innovative and charismatic visionary who captured the zeitgeist of the late twentieth century, and whose work and vision still have resonance for debates in educational policy today.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and acronyms
List of illustrations
Maps
Introduction
Chapter 1 Origins and Identity in South Africa
Chapter 2 An Anglophone South African, 1936–1948
Chapter 3 The Making of an Afrikaner, 1949–1953
Chapter 4 Diplomat and Rebel, 1953–1957
Chapter 5 Anti-Apartheid Activist, 1957–1959
Chapter 6 Boycott, 1959–1960
Chapter 7 Into Exile, 1960–1961
Chapter 8 Return to Africa, 1961–1962
Chapter 9 The Founding of Swaneng Hill School, 1962–1963
Chapter 10 Challenging ‘the Ladder to Privilege’, 1963–1965
Chapter 11 The Alternative Educationist, 1965–1967
Chapter 12 Expansion and Replication, 1967–1969
Chapter 13 Time of Crisis, 1969–1971
Chapter 14 Education with Production, the 1970s
Chapter 15 Foundation for Education with Production and Spreading the Word, the 1980s
Chapter 16 Education with Production and South Africa, the 1990s
Chapter 17 Return to Botswana
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
