Education is a lifelong concern for former president Nelson Mandela and much of his time is spent trying to redress the imbalances of the past.
Nelson Mandela was born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela on July 18 1918 at Mvezo rural village, 35kms north of Umtata. Mandela’s given name Rolihlahla, in his Xhosa home-language, means ‘stirring up troubleâ€. He was given the English name Nelson by his first teacher. This was a common practice in mission schools at that time.
Mandela’s father was a Thembu chief of the Mvezo region. As a descendant of the Ixhiba, a minor royal house, he was an adviser to the Thembu tribal rulers. Mandela’s father died when Mandela was only nine, and Paramount Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo became the young boy’s guardian.
Mandela grew up in the village of Qunu. Like other village boys, he worked as a herdboy on the veld looking after goats, sheep and cattle.
He received his early primary education at Qunu village school. The school buildings have since vanished, but a depression in the ground with some scattered stones still remain.
A new Qunu Junior Secondary School has been built nearby on a larger stretch of ground. Mandela helped organise R1.2-million in corporate donations to renovate the school and to build a new laboratory and administration block.
A senior secondary school worth R2.5-million has also been built near the junior school and, as a result of financial aid from the government of Norway, even boasts electricity.
The school has a borehole, which supplies water to the community and a clinic situated next to the school.
The second phase construction of the Mandela Museum at the Qunu Community Exhibition and Youth Centre near the site of the old school has started. Qunu Junior Secondary School principal, Zwelethemba Mki, says the school has benefited a lot from Mandela’s efforts and has also received funding from foreign donors because of its location in Mandela’s birthplace.
From his early childhood, Mandela wanted to be a lawyer. Unlike most others who sought work on the gold mines during those times, Mandela chose to pursue his educational aims.
Dalindyebo sent him to Clarkebury Boarding Institute in Engcobo to further his primary education. In 1937, at age 19, Mandela was sent to Healdtown, a privileged Wesleyan College in Fort Beaufort. After Healdtown, Mandela enrolled at the University of Fort Hare for a Bachelor of Arts degree.
At university Mandela was elected to the Students’ Representative Council (SRC). It was during his term on the SRC that he started to live up to his given name Rolihlahla. He joined a student boycott that led to his suspension from the college.
Mandela then went to Johannesburg where he completed his BA by correspondence and took articles of clerkship. In 1943 he commenced studies towards an LLB degree at the University of Witwatersrand.
The rest, as they say, is history. But no matter that the great man is due to turn 84 this month, he still finds the time and energy to invest in securing opportunities for as many South Africans as possible. One key way, as Mandela constantly demonstrates, is to improve educational facilities, especially for the disadvantaged. To date, Mandela has single-handedly coaxed more than R250-million from donors to build schools.