Dutch Reformed Church mission education and its secular reconstruction/transformation by the Bakgatla ba Kgafela African community of Rustenburg, South Africa, c.1903 – 1930s

Abstract

The paper analyses the nature of Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) mission education among the Bakgatla ba Kgafela of the Rustenburg District, South Africa. The emphasis of education was religious. A senior DRC missionary expressed the aim of education succinctly: “The purpose of education is to develop understanding, empathy and to win the children for Jesus Christ” (Maree, 1966: 65-66). The Bakgatla resented this racist policy, calling for the broadening of the curriculum, but unsuccessfully. Consequently, they built their own school. Teachers were recruited from some of the then prestigious educational institutions in South Africa, e.g. Tiger Kloof. The community funded teachers’ salaries and other expenses. The new school, named ‘Ramolope,’ after a local family patriarch who spearheaded its building, opened in the early 1920s. Radically different from the DRC school, it emphasised English, Mathematics and Science. It became enormously popular in the region. Some of the DRC mission pupils were leaving, to join the new school!  Neighbouring communities began to copy the Bakgatla’s successful transformational model. This competition so upset the DRC missionaries that they excommunicated all the adult (DRC) Christian members of the Ramolope family. Eventually, the government took over the funding of the school.