From a time of simple racial segregation in the first part of the twentieth century, through the intensified racial regime of the apartheid period and for nearly three decades into post-apartheid democracy, about 6,000 black South Africans graduated from universities, technikons and other tertiary institutions thanks to the bursary programme administered by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Immense hurdles had to be overcome, both by the students themselves as well as funders and administrators.
While unquestionably delivering positive outcomes, the programme was often caught up in the turbulence of the times, especially during the popular resistance from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. If not itself the subject of controversy, it was often linked to controversy and conflict around matters like reform versus revolution, disinvestment versus business influence, and armed struggle versus peaceful resistance. This is the story of that bursary programme and the tumultuous times in which it operated.
The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) is a classically liberal not-for-profit organisation, founded in 1929 with the objective of improving relations between South Africa's race groups. This almost immediately became a matter of opposing racial discrimination and promoting the establishment of a non-racial society in South Africa. While the Institute focused heavily on research and policy advocacy, consistently presenting arguments and evidence against the segregationist and racially discriminatory policies of the South African state, a little-heralded component of its activities was the administration of educational grants for African tertiary education students and scholars.
This activity was later described as the Institute's "development arm"[5] and "the antithesis of white supremacy"[6]. Starting initially with philanthropic donations before and after the Second World War, the bursary programme grew and changed, as did the Institute itself, in response to shifting conditions in South Africa. But the bursary programme continued, through the introduction and implementation of Grand Apartheid from 1948, the popular resistance of the 1970s and 1980s, constitutional negotiations after the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC in 1990 and on, beyond the 1994 democratic election.
A massive surge in foreign funding for bursaries occurred after the Soweto Uprising of 1976. An international community, increasingly sensitive to the iniquities of apartheid, started to look for practical means to shift South Africa's white nationalist regime in a reformist direction. As the period progressed, so the further objective of preparing South African society for a post-apartheid future became more prominent in donor objectives. While the SAIRR was not the sole administrator of international funds, it was one of the primary managers of the biggest single intervention designed to finance study for black students at South African institutions — the internal bursary component of the USD210 million USAID social development programme between 1986 and 2004[7]. SAIRR documents show that the Institute had received and passed on bursary funds worth, in total, (i.e. from all sources) R76 million by 2002[8].
From the outset, the Institute has been an advocate of peaceful, incremental and evolutionary change. Its liberalism was founded on a faith in the decency, abilities and common sense of ordinary people and a deep scepticism of social engineering projects like apartheid and other totalising world views. As the organisation's long-term researcher and research manager, Ellen Hellmann, wrote in 1979:
(The SAIRR) recognised the inherent worth and dignity of every human being and his (sic) right to the full development of his (sic) innate potential. It affirmed the values of a democratic society, with its accepted rights and duties, together with respect for the rule of law and the safeguarding of individual liberty.[9]
The Institute's overarching project might well have taken its logo from the title of John Kane-Berman's 1990 book, South Africa's Silent Revolution, which documents how ordinary South Africans were defeating the objectives of apartheid planners by simply acting to improve their own lives. Unheralded and unsupported, they moved to cities, built homes, sought education, established (often informal) businesses and worked in a multitude of ways to improve their lives and those of their families. The bursary programme was always seen by the Institute as a critical element of this almost invisible but inexorable process.
It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine; that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation.
— Nelson Mandela, letter to his daughter Makaziwe Mandela, 31 May 1970[10]
In 1946 Nelson Mandela faced a personal dilemma. While heavily engaged in the struggle against racist and segregation practices, primarily through the African National Congress Youth League, which he had founded together with Anton Lembede, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu in 1944[11], he also needed to provide for his new wife and young family.
Mandela married Evelyn Mase in 1944 and their first child, Thembi, was born two years later. Mandela's chosen profession was law and, in 1946, he was in the process of simultaneously studying for an LLB degree at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) while also completing his articles at the firm of Sidelsky and Edelman. This was a difficult balancing act. In 1946 he saw no alternative but to return to full-time study to complete his degree. But this would mean sacrificing a salary (£8.10.1 per month) while his anticipated costs (university fees, textbooks and a monthly allowance of £11) made the prospect seem prohibitively expensive.
Fortunately, there was a solution at hand. The South African Institute of Race Relations had been administering bursaries on behalf of the Bantu Welfare Trust (later renamed the Donaldson Trust) since 1936. Mandela had previously received a bursary from this source, for about £120, as acknowledged in his biography A Long Walk to Freedom.[12]
Mandela's letter of application illustrates some of the difficulties facing aspirant African students, not only then but for decades to come. He wrote:
I may well mention sir, that I have faced and am still facing considerable financial difficulties. For the last two years my studies at this university (Wits) have been done under very strenuous and trying circumstances … in view of the high cost of living in this city I have found it almost impossible to make ends meet. I have no father and my mother, whose financial position is very humble indeed, has done her utmost to assist me towards my education and has exhausted all her financial resources and can do nothing more for me. However, I have not been discouraged by these difficulties and I am determined to continue my studies until I complete my course.[13]
Mandela was granted £250, which took the total bursaries he had received from the Bantu Welfare Trust to £362. Although the total sum is given in a hand-written note attached to the 1946 letter of application, there is no surviving record of his earlier application.
In 1946, neither Mandela nor anyone else could read the future. Access to tertiary education was about to become even more difficult for Africans. The election of the National Party and the formal introduction of Grand Apartheid two years later, could not have been predicted at the time. Nor could the massive restrictions the apartheid system would impose on every aspect of the lives of African citizens, including their access to tertiary education.
Mandela's dilemma in 1946 was in many respects as much a developmental matter as a political issue. The five liberal 'white' universities were, at the time, accepting applications from prospective African students, provided they could meet academic standards and raise the finance needed for tuition. There was also a small but highly reputable and exclusively African university in Fort Hare, founded in the Eastern Cape in 1916.[14]
Mandela in fact attended Fort Hare as an undergraduate but was expelled in 1940 for participating in a protest boycott. He had to complete his Bachelor of Arts degree through the correspondence-only University of South Africa, a task which he completed in 1942. Perhaps the standout point is that, in 1946, African university graduates were members of a tiny elite. In fact, according to a landmark in the progressive tightening of international pressure on the apartheid regime, South Africa: Time Running Out, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and published in the US in 1981, there were only 1,400 African graduates in South Africa in 1970, compared to 104,000 whites.[15]
Even in 1989, USAID was able to assert:
Recent statistics show that only about 10,000 black Africans have university degrees, as compared with about 250,000 whites, 4,000 "coloureds", and 9,000 Indians. Few blacks have managed to survive the language barriers, the anti-intellectual bent of the black curriculum, and the great pressures that result in a 50 percent dropout rate by the end of Standard Two (fourth grade). Those who have made the extraordinary effort to go through the system have survived odds that make it 100 times less likely that a black will finish secondary school than a white. For these survivors, about 10,000 per year, the prospect of a fully funded university or technikon education promises entry into a newly emerging dynamic in traditional race relations.[16]
As apartheid was applied after 1948, avenues for African advancement were closed. In 1953, the Bantu Education Act mandated racially segregated education facilities, a requirement which saw the closure of the main channel for African entry into tertiary education, the Christian mission schools. The act saw the withdrawal of state co-funding for these institutions which forced all but a tiny number to close their doors.[17]
The Bantu Education Act forced aspirant African scholars into the despised and under-resourced Bantu education system. In 1953 state expenditure per African scholar was 14 percent of spending for each white child. By 1968 the disparity had widened and each black child received only 6 percent of what was spent on a white child.[18]
Combined with inferior facilities, poorly qualified teachers and a syllabus riddled with Afrikaner nationalist assumptions, it is no wonder that schools were to become a site of struggle in the last two decades of apartheid. At the time however, this simply raised more hurdles to obstruct the education of young Africans with aspirations.
In 1959, the ironically named Extension of University Education Act (no. 45) extended the segregationist principles of apartheid, then being applied throughout society, to higher education. It saw the elimination of independence for the University of Fort Hare, which was placed under state control in an attempt to make it an instrument of tribalist Bantu education.
As the University of Fort Hare's own website argues:
Fort Hare was transformed into an ethnic college for Xhosa speakers. Outspoken staff members were expelled and a new administration, conspicuously loyal to the government and intent on imposing its world-view, was installed. The campus grew over the next three decades, and student numbers increased, but government interventions reduced Fort Hare to the level of "Bush Colleges" that were instituted in many homelands.[19]
The SAIRR was one of many organisations which campaigned against the segregation of both schooling and tertiary education.[20] Access for aspirant black youth was not completely cut off but became dependent on executive state decisions. Africans had to apply for the approval of the Minister of Education for admission to "white" universities and this was more often refused than allowed. In 1983, for example, 1,651 applicants were turned down, 63.4 percent of those who applied[21].
As late in the apartheid era as 1988, the (white) minister of agriculture announced that none of the 293 African students who had applied for places at (white) agricultural colleges had been accepted "because the department is responsible for training white farmers only".[22] This was technically correct under the 1983 Tricameral constitution but has to be considered overly rigid, mean-spirited and evidence of a failure to look at real issues looming ahead.
But ironically, while apartheid reduced the traditional routes into tertiary education followed by Nelson Mandela and some of his contemporaries, it eventually increased the number of university places available to aspirant African students.
This was because, in keeping with the totalising logic of the Grand Apartheid ideology, four new universities were established for ethnically defined groups — The University of the North (Polokwane, established 1959), Zululand (KwaDlungezwa, near Richards Bay, 1960) as well as the University of the Western Cape for "coloureds" (1959) and the University of Durban Westville for "Indians" (1972). These were supplemented with the establishment of the Universities of Transkei (Umtata, 1977) and Venda (Thohoyandou, 1982). The (white) Rand Afrikaans University and the University of Port Elizabeth were established in terms of the same (ethnic) rationale.
The situation presented donors and bursary administrators with a moral dilemma. Should they fund students who had been awarded places at these "apartheid institutions"? The issue was never quite resolved, although the SAIRR attempted to finesse it by trying to channel bursary holders to the traditionally liberal English-speaking universities (Cape Town, Natal, Rhodes and Wits) on the no doubt originally correct grounds that they were likely to receive a better quality of education at these institutions. Black students, too, showed a marked preference for these institutions.
However, the situation changed over time. By the late 1980s, even the Afrikaans language universities became more willing to accept black students in limited numbers while some of the "bush colleges", led by the University of the Western Cape, acquired a new credibility through campus activism.
The implementation of apartheid had massive implications for the award and disbursement of bursaries to those the regime was trying to exclude. But it should not be forgotten that it also had a symbolic resonance that was far from insignificant at the time. Above all, it was a political act, demonstrating opposition to and defiance of apartheid policy. Giving bursaries was a perfect liberal programme, demonstrating both a concern for the individual, an awareness of the texture of social change, and a commitment to gradualism. The act itself constituted a rejection of apartheid both for its racism and its social engineering ambitions. Bursaries were a commitment to an alternative way forward for South Africa.
"I will never forget the call that changed my life. It was around 11 a.m. on a Friday in January 1994 when I received a call on our home landline from a lady who worked for the IRR Bursary. That Sunday, I was meant to travel to Burgersfort to begin my Diploma in Teaching at Dr CN Phatudi Teachers' College — a path I wasn't particularly passionate about, but one I had chosen because my parents couldn't afford university fees. During that call, the IRR representative informed me that I had been awarded a merit bursary. I will forever be grateful to the IRR Bursary for opening such an opportunity for me. My career has grown tremendously, and it all started with that life-changing call."
— Mary Mongalo (Recipient: 1994)
Over years — decades in fact — (a few individuals) formed the backbone of the liberal cause. They sought no reward and usually got none. But they had the strength of character, the tough-mindedness, the staying power and the idealism, to stand up for what is right. The liberal cause is not in power but the liberal tradition in South Africa is nevertheless a strong one, thanks in part to such people and (their generation).[23]
— John Kane-Berman, CEO SAIRR, 2009
The SAIRR began administering bursaries on behalf of the Bantu Welfare Trust in 1936 and continued to do so until 1983. This represented the start of a process which saw the Institute establish a reputation in this field and, eventually, become the bursary manager of choice for some of the most prominent international donors, as well as significant elements of the South African private sector, in the late-apartheid period and beyond.
The Bantu Welfare Trust, renamed the Donaldson Trust in 1977 after its founder, Col. James Donaldson[24], was a classical South African liberal initiative and part of an influential network of liberal organisations which included the SAIRR, like-minded business leaders (like Ian Haggie of Haggie-Rand, later a Donaldson Trustee) and politicians, including Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hofmeyer. Founded with a £50,000 contribution from Col. Donaldson, it focused in the early years on two institutions: the University of Fort Hare and the SAIRR.
Two SAIRR figures, John Lawton Hardy and John David Rheinhallt-Jones (known as R.J.), were among the five original trustees, as was Prof. Davidson Don Tengo (D.D.T.) Jabavu of Fort Hare University[25].
The objectives of the Trust were:
The advancement of the status, the improvement of the conditions, and the removal of the disabilities now suffered by the African population of South Africa, and generally to seek their benefit and betterment.[26]
The Trust, like most of the liberal network in South Africa, had close links with some members of the African National Congress (ANC), which was at the time more inclined to support the liberal perspective on the country and its possibilities, than the Communist view which became dominant later (while the ANC was in exile after 1960[27]). In fact, Dr A.B. Xuma, a former ANC president[28], was nominated as a Donaldson trustee in 1959 and only turned the position down because he wished to demonstrate his rejection of the apartheid government's stance on "racially-mixed" organisations.
Through the SAIRR, Donaldson Trust funding was used to finance the first black engineering students to attend Wits University. Col. Donaldson also had a high regard for vocational education, having benefited from the Scottish Orphans Fund as a child. As a result, the Donaldson Trust funded such diverse types of training as black African sanitary inspectors (at Johannesburg Technical College) and black African article clerks (the Trust canvassed law firms to admit them). It also provided a grant to Adams College at Amanzimtoti in KwaZulu-Natal to establish an African National School of Music.[29]
Through its work with the Donaldson Trust, the SAIRR consolidated its reputation as the pre-eminent bursary administrators for black, especially African, South Africans. Although the archival record is far from comprehensive, it is clear that the Institute was starting to attract bequests, often left for funding African education in the wills of charitable and liberal-minded individuals.
One of the first such bequests was the Robert Shapiro Trust, created in 1945. The Shapiro Trust was intended to finance studies in the fields of medicine, dentistry, general health and related fields. The Trust was to enjoy a long and glorious career. It was still considered a going concern in 2022 when it was handed over to a specialist bursary fund manager. In 2020 it was able to award bursaries to four full-time medical students.[30] In 2016, the Trust's investment portfolio was worth R9 million. It disbursed R611,500 towards "student costs" (bursaries, accommodation and allowances) that year.
It is not possible to say how many medical graduates the Shapiro Trust has funded since 1946[31] but, between 1986 and 2018, it provided finance to 90 medical graduates, the majority qualifying as doctors although there were also a number of dental and medical technology graduates who received bursaries. It should be remembered that these were not once-off annual awards and each MBChB graduate needed to be funded for at least six years of study.
The Shapiro Trust was one of the longest-lived and strongest (in term of total funding disbursed) of all the SAIRR-managed bequests, rivalled only by the Morris Isaacson Trust (see below). The initial bequest to the Shapiro Trust was typical of Trust bequests in that it insisted that bursaries be provided only out of interest accruing from the initial investment. Sensibly, flexibility was built in from the outset through the provision that the Trust could be merged with other Trusts and that once-off donations and other bequests could be added to it.[32]
Such a merger happened in 2011, when the remaining funds of the Gert and Irmgard Brusseau Bursary Trust, which had diminished to the point where it was no longer viable, were transferred to the Shapiro Trust. 'Unviable' in this context meant that there were no longer sufficient funds to guarantee six years of medical study to even one student. The Brusseau Trust dated back to 1970 and was specifically for women who wished to study medicine. It is known to have funded 12 black female medical doctors who qualified after 1986.
In 1954 the Morris Isaacson Education Foundation was established to fund "the provision or improvement" of "general or vocational education facilities" for "non-European" (sic) or underprivileged persons in South Africa. Isaacson's initial bequest was for R3,000 per year for the first three years. This fund, alongside the Shapiro Trust, was to provide one of the basic vehicles for SAIRR-administered bursaries to black South African students for the next almost 70 years.
Unlike the Shapiro Trust, Isaacson Foundation capital could be utilised for bursary grants. While there were many other contributions paid into the Foundation in subsequent years (like the R80,000 Bertha MacKay bequest for the training of black nursery school assistants, teachers and supervisors in 1989[33]), it is a testimony to the efficiency and parsimony of the Isaacson Foundation's SAIRR administrators that it too could be handed over — as a "going proposition" — to independent professional bursary managers in 2022.
The name "Morris Isaacson" is indelibly linked to the Soweto uprising of 1976, as it was at the school established by and named after the Jewish philanthropist that the uprising began. In an article based on an interview with Isaacson's grandson, further context is given:
The work of the (Morris Isaacson) Foundation led to the building of the Morris Isaacson Primary School in 1953 and, two years later, the famous Morris Isaacson Secondary School was opened … Among the foremost anti-apartheid activist leaders who passed through the school's portals, was Murphy Morobe. The learners took their studies seriously, but on June 16, 1976, the school was pivotal in the protest walk from the Naledi School to the Morris Isaacson School.[34]
Nor have Isaacson and his Foundation's contributions been forgotten. Speaking at the high school named for him in 2022, the acting Public Protector at the time, Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka, said:
At the height of the apartheid regime's provision of inferior education for black people under the Bantu Education Act of 1953, Mr Isaacson pushed back against the oppression of the black majority by those who looked like him not just in words but in deeds too. Needless to say, this was back when it was not fashionable for people of European descent to do so. … Notably, Mr Isaacson granted many black students bursaries through the Morris Isaacson Foundation. But his name tends to be invoked more often in reference to this hallowed institution, Morris Isaacson High. This is because it was among the epicentres of the June 16 1976 Soweto Uprisings, which altered the course of this country's rebellion against the apartheid administration.[35]
Projects funded by the Isaacson Trust covered a broad range of activities in education beyond bursaries. As with other early SAIRR-managed Trusts, the full records of early spending are no longer available. But between 1986 and 2018, the Isaacson Trust funded the studies of 117 degrees and technikon diplomas for black South African students. The subjects of study covered a wide range including engineering, science, the arts, law, commerce, education and the built environment. In addition, the Isaacson Trust financed the studies of 32 primary school teachers in this period, as well as 14 matriculants.
Morris Isaacson, like James Donaldson and Robert Shapiro, was embedded in the liberal, reformist network, opposed to apartheid and determined to seek an evolutionary and gradualist, not revolutionary, way out of South Africa's racist history. As state repression proceeded, this network came to increasingly centre on the SAIRR, especially after the banning of the ANC in 1960 and the disbanding of the Liberal Party after the government passed the Prohibition of Improper Interference Act (which banned multiracial political parties) in 1968. Along with the Black Sash, the National Union of South African Students (Nusas) and the tiny Progressive Party, the SAIRR represented one of the last surviving bastions of South Africa liberalism after its long retreat, in the face of a rampant National Party, during the 1950s, 1960s and on into the 1970s.
"This fund really changed my life. They helped me to become who I am. Both my parents were not employed — they were selling chicken feet to survive. This bursary helped me to focus more on my studies than to worry about my financial situation. Two weeks ago I opened toilet facilities for a school. I build toilets for the school in the village that I work in. I will forever be grateful to SAIRR."
— Alfred Maringa (Recipient: 2007)
The Soweto Uprising of 1976 put South Africa and the system of apartheid firmly onto the international political map. Activists, politicians and constituencies in Western Europe and North America, especially, demanded that something be done. One result was that the number of international bursary funds available to black South African students soared.
The SAIRR managed only some of this new funding stream. Donor countries were divided about the appropriate course of action. Some voices demanded the complete isolation of apartheid South Africa, including economic sanctions. In the UK, the Labour Party contested the 1983 elections on a platform which included a promise to support mandatory United Nations sanctions against South Africa.[36]
Thanks partly to pressure from the anti-apartheid movement, the British government did not fund bursaries to finance students at South African institutions. Funding made available through the British government's educational and cultural arm, the British Council, was exclusively for study in the UK. The rationale was, in part, that tertiary education institutions in South Africa, without exception, received subsidies from the apartheid government and were thus considered beholden to the regime.
Other governments took a different view. The much-contested stance of the government of the United States resulted in enormous bursary funding from both the government and business. It will be discussed in a later chapter. Scandinavian governments generally refused to fund domestic bursaries for South Africans (although there was some funding in the early 1980s) but did channel much assistance to the African National Congress in exile. Ultimately, much of the funding for students in South Africa came from the German, Austrian and Canadian governments via intermediary organisations.
One of the biggest sources of bursary support was the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), usually called DAAD. The Service is, as its name implies, dedicated to academic exchanges and it tends to focus on academics and post-graduate students. It is an umbrella body representing 365 German higher education institutions (100 universities and technical universities, 162 general universities of applied sciences, and 52 colleges of music and art).[37]
There was also involvement on the part of another German organisation, the Evangelische Zentralstelle Entwicklungshilfe (EZE) but it is not clear, from the Institute's records, whether this contributed to bursaries or not. EZE is a development agency for Protestant churches in Germany and has run a programme called Brot für die Welt ("Bread for the World") since 1962.
The South African bursaries funded by DAAD and administered by the SAIRR were something of an exception within the German organisation's portfolio. DAAD has, throughout its existence, mostly funded studies in Germany. However, the organisation notes:
We funded underprivileged students at the country's (i.e. South Africa's) own universities by granting so-called "In-Country Scholarships" in order to offset this discrimination to some extent, to open up new opportunities and to support change from within.[38]
DAAD's South African bursary programme started in 1981. The objective, according to DAAD, was to "enhance educational opportunities for members of as many sections of the population as possible".[39] Initially, the programme focused on training and continuing education for teachers. This was not without domestic German political controversy. In 1985, the DAAD discussed its funding programmes for South Africa amid growing international protests against the apartheid regime. The Board of Directors supported the efforts of the German federal government "in concluding a new cultural agreement which aimed to promote stronger participation by South Africa's black population".[40]
It is not clear how many bursaries DAAD funded between 1981 and 1986. However, there are much firmer figures for bursaries after 1986. Between that year and the official end of the programme (1997–99), DAAD provided bursary funding which enabled 126 black South African students to finance, in full, at least a three-year degree or diploma. The DAAD programme was originally run by the German Federal Foreign Office but was handed over to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), responsible for development assistance, in 1997. At that point the SAIRR's involvement ended although some further funding came through to allow students who were only part of the way through their degree or diploma to finish.
Further international bursary funding came from, among others, the Swiss Church Group, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, KFS Austria and World University Services (Canada). World University Services (Canada) is effectively part of the development arm of the Canadian government (the Canadian International Development Agency) and not to be confused with World University Services International from which the Canadian (and Danish) branches split in the 1970s.
In 1984, World University Services (Canada) signed an agreement with the SAIRR to provide bursaries for 58 South African undergraduates and six post-graduates who would study in Canada[41]. But this was obviously a controversial issue within the organisation. It stopped funding bursaries, rather suddenly, in 1988, leaving 12 students stranded part of the way through their studies.[42] The SAIRR was able to find a substitute but at the expense of other bursaries.
The Swiss Church Group funded 20 bursaries in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Gerda Henkel Foundation funded 117 bursaries in the same period, all taken up by high school learners. KFS Austria focused on technical education. 27 of the 44 qualifications funded by this organisation were technikon diplomas, in subjects as diverse as quantity surveying, pharmacy, electrical engineering, IT, motor mechanics, biomedical technology, commerce and chemical engineering.
It would be misleading to suggest that there had been no international input into South African bursaries programmes prior to the Soweto uprising. The Carnegie Corporation, which helped finance the establishment of the SAIRR in 1929 (together with the Stokes-Phelps Fund), had supported technical education for 'Coloured' and 'Indian' students since at least 1926.[43] The Ford Foundation had been funding bursaries for African students in South Africa since 1953. Its mission statement also described the work of the SAIRR, with which the Ford Foundation worked closely in South Africa:
South Africa's apartheid system, in place for five years, was increasing the marginalization of the majority of people in a colonially dominated region. We began by providing fellowships for scholars, funding research that rigorously documented and exposed the devastating impact of South Africa's racial policies, and supporting initiatives that gave progressive people the space to discuss the future of their country.[44]
Other than the US government, the biggest international funder of the late-apartheid period was the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, established in 1930 by the breakfast cereal innovator, Will Kellogg. The Kellogg Foundation is a giant in the philanthropy space, its combined endowments valued at US$8.4 billion in 2009.[46] In 1987 it signed a seven-year agreement with the SAIRR to administer a US$1,080,000 bursary programme.[47] This was supplemented by further grants made later. In 1991, the Kellogg Foundation disbursed US$56,331 to the SAIRR for bursaries, bringing its total, at the time, to US$2,343,831.[48]
Provision of bursaries was not the Kellogg Foundation's only business in South Africa. The Foundation funded a wide range of projects including many with an agriculture, health or nutrition focus. These included the well-known Valley Trust, which combined all three of these focus areas and operated at Botha's Hill outside Durban. Other grants were made directly to tertiary education institutions including Medunsa, the University of the Western Cape and Wits University.[49]
The Kellogg Foundation has continued to support philanthropic causes in South Africa, despite having to temporarily close its office in 2008 after funds had been "diverted illegally".[50] In total, it funded 253 university and technikon bursaries administered by the SAIRR.
"The IRR bursary programme is one of the most meaningful interventions I have ever benefited from, and it remains a defining part of my university journey. Beyond covering tuition, the bursary offered me something far more valuable: peace of mind. Coming from a household where my mother worked extremely hard to support me and my siblings, the financial pressure was real. Knowing that my fees, textbooks, and basic needs were taken care of lifted an enormous weight off both of us. I am truly saddened that the bursary programme has been discontinued, as I know first-hand how transformative it can be."
— Mnoneleli Miya (Recipient: 2014–2016)
The SAIRR managed a large number of bequests, donations and memorial trusts over many years. Unfortunately, owing to the varied nature of this funding stream and the complexity of managing a wide variety of bequests and memorial trusts, a full list is not available.
Smaller trusts were amalgamated with larger ones as funds ran low or conditions on the ground changed. In numerous other cases, once-off donations were paid directly into existing trusts. The SAIRR's priority was to ensure that students who had been awarded bursaries and were succeeding in their studies were seen through to graduation. If the funding requirements changed — as a result usually of raised fees and higher costs of living — the student was still supported, even if this required running down a fund.
What can be said with certainty is that between 1986 and 2018, 32 legacy bequest funds were involved in supporting hundreds of black students to graduation. These funds are listed in the appendix to this book. However, correspondence shows many donations and older legacies not captured in this list. Especially in the older records, some funds appear only as names (e.g. the St. Helier Fund, the Emily Hobhouse Fund[51], the Alan Paton Fund, the G.M. Robertson Fund and the Sir Robert Birley Trust), which gives little or no sense of the sums involved, the purpose (beyond "education" generally) or the motives of the donor.
Records suggest that the bursary programme was faltering in the early 1980s at a time when the SAIRR itself faced challenges to its viability. Only eight bursary trusts were listed in the 1981/82 Annual Report.[52] The appointment of John Kane-Berman as CEO in 1983 saw a renewed focus on fundraising for bursaries with almost immediate results. Seven new bursary funds were established in 1983/84 and by 2004, there were 38 functioning.
The legacy funds selected for a short description immediately below were chosen on the basis of available information and the size (and thus impact on student numbers) of the bequest. The purpose is also to offer a cross section of the variety of funding left to the SAIRR for bursary purposes, rather than to present a comprehensive list. Due to gaps in the available documentation, this last objective is unfortunately not possible.
The Luthuli Memorial Trust was originally established in 1973 in order to "perpetuate the memory of Chief Albert John Luthuli and to foster and promote his ideals of fellowship, service and dedication in the quest for human dignity and peace."[53]
Albert Luthuli was of course one of the great figures of his era, president of the ANC from 1952 to 1967, and the Nobel Peace laureate in 1960.[54] A trained teacher and religious leader, he was perhaps the most high-profile anti-apartheid leader in South Africa before Nelson Mandela. He was repeatedly banned and tried for treason by the apartheid government in 1956. He was acquitted and his trial was, itself, evidence of his commitment to peaceful change. Luthuli's values were the same as those espoused by the SAIRR. He supported peaceful means of change, based on individual responsibility.
This was reflected in Luthuli's Nobel lecture:
Although methods of struggle may differ from time to time, the universal human strivings for liberty remain unchanged. We, in our situation, have chosen the path of non-violence of our own volition … all my life and strength, have been given to the pursuance of this method, in an attempt to avert disaster in the interests of South Africa … In the social sphere we will be satisfied with nothing less than the abolition of all racial bars. We do not demand these things for people of African descent alone. We demand them for all South Africans, white and black.[55]
The trustees of the Luthuli Trust approached the SAIRR in 1985. Professor C.L.S. Nyembezi, the secretary of the Trust, told the Institute that the Trust had set out to raise R100,000 for bursaries which it had been dispensing in an ad-hoc and partial fashion (a letter from a bursary recipient at the University of the North[56] shows that she had been receiving R500 per year in 1985 and 1986, which partially covered her tuition costs). Prof. Nyembezi wrote that "the Trust has given help to needy and deserving students while building up the fund to R100,000."[57]
The Luthuli Trust had reached this target after 12 years but at this point, the trustees felt that a more professional level of bursary management was required. Prof. Nyembezi's letter requested that the SAIRR "takes under its wing the administration of the Luthuli Trust in the same way that it administers other scholarship funds". He added:
In the eyes of the board of trustees, the South African Institute of Race Relations is the most suitable body to entrust with this very important task.[58]
The SAIRR made two awards immediately, to an LLB student at the University of Zululand and a B. Admin. student at the University of Durban Westville. Both were to go on to graduate. Up to 2007, the Luthuli Trust had financed 15 graduates across a wide range of degrees and universities. Degrees included science, pharmacy, commerce, arts, social science, social work, law and engineering.
This proved to be a difficult trust to manage as the trustees were spread over a wide geographical range. However, they had to be contacted to approve investments (and changes in investment strategy) and still needed to meet at least once a year to view and approve the Luthuli Trust's annual audit. The selection of bursary recipients was however made by the SAIRR in accordance with the Trust's overall policy.
The Senior Teachers' Trust, registered in 1983, following a donation of R50,000 from Mrs Sheila Pomerans. Mrs Pomerans and her sister, Joyce Brown, served as trustees until the entity was dissolved in 2005.[59] The Trust was intended to fund African students in the field of education.
The teaching profession, at African high schools, was in dire need of professional development in the 1980s. As seen previously, there was a massive expansion in African schooling under the P.W. Botha government, and the skills base available in the teaching profession had not kept up with the growth. In 1988, 54 percent of the 164,000 teachers at African schools did not have a matric. Only about 4,000 had university degrees.[60]
Most students studied at teachers' training colleges although a small proportion did attend universities and complete degrees in education. Correspondence from 1990 names some of the colleges these students attended, including Eshowe College, Mandini College, Lumka College, Esikhawini College, Setotolwane College, Moretele College, Sekhukune College, Mohopane College and Indumisa College.
Around the millennium, the Trust was funding around 70 students at any one time. In 2001, it was funding 74 students, while in 2002, the figure was 68 students. But the Trust was also using other private donations (e.g. R60 from Jimmy Verner of St Stithians College in 1998[61]) as well as monies from Trinity College.[62]
One of the successful teaching college graduates wrote a letter of thanks to the SAIRR in 1990:
My performance became better because the financial problems reduced … I say "long live" to you so you can help more and more South Africans.[63]
Many teachers' training colleges were closed down during the tenure of Kader Asmal as minister of education (1999–2004). Some of these institutions were incorporated into universities and other institutions of further learning[64] but the loss of training capacity was immense. The Senior Teachers' Trust was however dissolved as part of a wider process of consolidation in the face of rising education costs. As the bursary manager at the time wrote: "Income from the capital is no longer sufficient to run viable individual bursary schemes."[65]
On his death in 1982, Horace Coaker left 1,000 shares in the Anglo American Coal Corporation to the SAIRR. The same number of shares in London-listed Anglo American would today be worth GBP2.2 million.[66] Bursary recipients were to be funded solely from dividends earned. This is an example of some of the complications which arose for the SAIRR in bursary management. While the share price of Anglo American Coal was fairly stable, it could not be relied on to produce a constant dividend. The first dividend, R950 in 1983, was enough to pay the tuition costs of two students.
After growing up in the small Free State town of Ladybrand, Horace Coaker built a flourishing nation-wide pharmaceutical business. He became a politically controversial figure "known for his sharp wit and defence of the underdog". A Dale College newsletter notes that "from the early '30s he opposed racialism and injustice. He opposed the pre-war United Party's legislation of 'setting white against black'" and, in 1948, predicted that "segregation would have terrible political and moral consequences for South African if not stopped".[67] Coaker was deprived of his citizenship by the apartheid government in 1967 and forced to move to and operate from Lesotho.
Although almost forgotten today[68], Horace Coaker is an example of the steely character and commitment to principle of many in South Africa's liberal network under apartheid. It is not surprising that he had a close life-long relationship with the SAIRR. Coaker publicly opposed forced removals in the eastern Free State, represented the Associated Chambers of Commerce at international conferences, where he spoke against apartheid, and twice stood as a Liberal candidate for parliament (in Johannesburg), losing his deposit on both occasions.
The Horace Coaker Trust was intended to finance medical studies for black students. There is unfortunately no record of this and it seems likely that the Coaker funding was routed through the Morris Isaacson Trust, which acted as an "umbrella Fund", for reasons of cost saving and administrative simplification.[69] The Horace Coaker Trust also financed black school pupils. There are records reflecting the financing of 14 pupils in the early 1990s, possibly at Dale College, Coaker's alma mater, with which he retained a relationship.
When bursaries still active in 2019 were analysed prior to the handover to an independent bursary administrator, the Horace Coaker fund had a capital value of over R1 million.[70]
The will of Alfred Ernest Glover of Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, dated 6 July 1971, specified that the SAIRR was to be one of two co-beneficiaries of a bequest valued at R1,762,617, a considerable sum at the time. The other beneficiary was GRADA, an education NGO based in Grahamstown (now called Makhanda). Each organisation was entitled to half the income. Glover insisted that his name not be publicly mentioned but that the name "Hungjao Bequest" be used to refer to the SAIRR part of the legacy fund.
Little is known about Mr Glover although his bequest was to provide 57 students with bursary funding for tertiary education to graduation between 1986 and 2018. Figures are not available for the period 1971–85. The initial bequest was "for the education of Bantu children" which covered school pupils in addition to tertiary education. Records show that at least 12 pupils matriculated after receiving Hungjao funding.
One of the achievements of this bequest is that it actually increased in (nominal) value over the years rather than being depleted, as was the case with most bursary trusts. The initial bequest to the SAIRR was for R822,000. The remaining funds were valued at R1,126,000 when it was assessed in 2019 in preparation for handover to a dedicated bursaries manager.
Dr Moosa Mohamed Patel left R10,000 to the SAIRR in 1974, specifying that it should be used for "African primary education". The terms of the bequest were that bursaries should be provided from interest accrued only and that the primary focus should be on primary schooling.[71]
However, the administration of bursaries for primary schooling only was likely to prove onerous. The SAIRR thus engaged with the Trustees to see if the monies could be redirected into tertiary scholarships and it was agreed that the bequest would be paid into the SAIRR National Education Trust, one of the "umbrella trusts" administered by the Institute. Students were however informed that the funding came from the Dr Patel bequest. Between 1986 and 1995, this source produced 18 university graduates in fields as diverse as architecture, medicine, commerce, engineering and science.
The Kilchberg Fund, as it is referred to in correspondence between the Institute and the donor, Max Kirchhofer, was never a trust fund but rather an annual donation. It was reviewed annually and an explicit order for transfer was placed by Mr Kirchhofer.
Max Kirchhofer was a long-time member of the SAIRR who retired to his native Switzerland in the 1980s. He passed away in 2011 at the age of 101. In 1991 he initiated an annual donation, pegged initially at R20,000 per year and dedicated to technical education. The Kilchberg donation was intended to fund only technikon students in accordance with Mr Kirchhofer's commitment to the development of this sector.
In 1999, Max Kirchhofer wrote:
[There is] a dire need for the development of technical brain power and technical skills for the development of the economy of the New South Africa.[72]
Mr Kirchhofer was entirely correct in this respect. The Institute wrote, in 1992, that "the National Party's corporatist reform programme over the previous decade, produced numbers which made it quite clear that more black South Africans had to be skilled to a 'high level'".[73] It pointed out that "white manpower" would meet less than half the demand for skills if the economy was to grow at the then current rate of 2.4 percent. Despite the demand, in 1988, SAIRR researcher Monic Bot observed that 60 percent of South Africa's workforce was effectively unskilled.[74]
The Kilchberg donations were worth at least R335,000 over the period 1991–2011. Despite the donation growing in size (R35,000 in 2008), it financed a diminishing number of students every year, due to soaring tuition and living costs. From three students in 1991, it dropped to one in 2010. In what was a sign of changing times, in that last year (2010), the bursary recipient dropped the Kilchberg funding in favour of a more lucrative corporate sponsorship which also came with the promise of a job.
Between 1991 and 2008, the Kilchberg donation funded 5 electrical engineering diplomas and one in each of environmental health, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, analytic chemistry and education, to completion, between 1991 and 2005. It funded a further four students between 2008 and 2011. These may not be huge numbers but Mr Kirchhofer knew that individuals were important. In 1996 he wrote:
It is good to know that six young people have been enabled to face the future with confidence for their own well-being and the good of the country.[75]
This was an extremely small trust, included here because it illustrates both the range of the SAIRR Bursary programme and also because a full set of correspondence is extant. The Rabbow Award was established as a result of a donation of R14,829 by the Institute's former head librarian Ellen Potter in 1988. It appears to have been named in memory of the late Ulster Orchestra violinist, Yvonne Rabbow.
The trust was intended to fund students studying music but it was insufficient to fund the full-time studies of more than three students during its existence. However, it also made provision for the funding of books, travel grants and other funding to those who wished to make a career in classical music. This saw small grants disbursed to The Solid Brass Quartet, the Genesis Project and Free State Musicon, each of which received at least two grants.
The 2002 grant (for R1,000, following a R2,500 donation in 2000) was one of several (from other donors), used by Free State Musicon to purchase instruments for the Bochabela Strings Orchestra. The Orchestra was a developmental project for young black people from underprivileged backgrounds. A letter for Free State Musicon informed the Institute that it had played at the Free State Youth Symphony Orchestra's annual concert ("Symphonic Mania") at the Sand du Plessis theatre in Bloemfontein.[76]
With the administrative costs of this small trust running far beyond its disbursements, a decision was taken in 2005 to dissolve it. Mrs Potter, the original donor who served throughout as a trustee, was in agreement. That year the trust was wound up and the residual capital (R14,500) used to finance the studies of a final year music student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban).
"When I received the bursary, I had been on the edge of dropping out due to not having funding. The bursary removed so much stress of having to worry about how to pay for my qualification and I got to focus on my studies where I graduated cum laude. The regular check ins to ensure I was settling well were always a welcome relief."
— Didintle Matlhare (Recipient: 2013–2014)
The most high-profile face of the SAIRR, the Johannesburg head office which conducted and published research and ran the various campaigns against salient aspects of the apartheid system, was only the apex of a much larger liberal system. The SAIRR was structured along federal lines and much of the practical work was done in the Regional Offices.
All the Regions — Border, Natal Coastal, Natal Inland, Transvaal and Western Cape — ran their own bursary programmes. They were largely responsible for raising the funds that supplied these bursaries. A primary focus on bursaries for tertiary studies only emerged in the 1980s. Prior to that, much of the funding provided a supplement for school-going children. Under apartheid, black parents were expected to pay for textbooks, school uniforms and examination fees.[77] A survey in Port Elizabeth in 1970 found that black parents were devoting between a quarter and a third of their monthly income to their children's schooling.
The SAIRR's regions attempted to make some contribution to alleviating this burden, with the Johannesburg head office supporting the Transvaal region especially. An overall record of these schooling contributions does not exist but some indication of the scale is shown by figures from 1981. That year, the Natal Coastal Region funded 600 mostly schooling bursaries at a total cost of R76,000. Natal Inland funded 175 bursaries made up of 62 junior school, 85 high school, 15 trainee teachers and 13 university students. The Border Region awarded 60 bursaries to high- and trade-school scholars.[78]
By the late 1970s, there was already a pattern where the Johannesburg head office tended to manage a greater proportion of the bursaries for tertiary study while regions tended to focus more on schooling. Perhaps the biggest exception was the strongest Region of the SAIRR, the Western Cape, which managed eleven educational trusts itself, including the Higher Education Trust, the Cape Times Bursary Fund, the Gregoire Boonzaaier Fund and the Eskolen Trust. In 1984, it funded 390 bursaries, worth R249,000, compared to the Johannesburg head office's 450 bursary recipients.[79]
One of the outstanding regional bursary programmes was the Durban-Ethekwini Educational Trust, established in 1967 and originally called the Race Relations Education Trust (Natal). This was for students from KwaZulu-Natal who wished to study at a tertiary institution in their home province.
The Durban-Ethekwini Educational Trust was originally capitalised with a donation of R21,000, raised by the Rotary Club of Durban, an organisation of local business and professional leaders. Many group and individual donations supplemented the Trust over the years, including a R1.5 million bequest left in the will of Inger Cohen in 2004.[80]
Patchy records mean that it is not possible to say how much the Durban-Ethekwini Educational Trust raised over the years. However, correspondence suggests that between 1983 and 2004, a sum of R160 million was raised.[81] In 2004, bursaries to the value of R8.9 million were awarded. The same limitation means it is not possible to account for the number of graduates supported by the Trust. There were seven bursary recipients on the programme in 2010, shortly before the SAIRR handed it over to independent specialist bursary managers. The figure for 2005 was 13. In 2010, four bursary recipients were expected to finish their degrees that year.[82]
While the state's education programme remained massively underfunded until the end of the apartheid period, spending on black schools did increase considerably in response to the Soweto uprising, other resistance in the late 1970s and 1980s, and a growing awareness of the skills shortages in the economy. New York Times correspondent Joseph Lelyveld was able to report at the end of 1982 that:
In five years the number of black high school students in South Africa has shot up by nearly 350,000, a 60 percent increase. This year 12 new classrooms for blacks were reportedly added each working day.[83]
By 1987 more was being spent annually on black education — R3.4 billion — than was being spent on white education, namely R3.3 billion.[84] This data should not in any way be interpreted to suggest that black students were any less alienated from the schooling system as the immense disruptions at both schools and tertiary education campuses in the 1980s were to illustrate. But it did signal a shift in bursary demands made on the Institute and its regions in significant ways.
With greater spending on especially African schooling, the need for school bursaries was reduced, while demand for tertiary study surged. By 1987, some 40,000 African students were qualifying annually for university study by obtaining matric exemptions.[85] Tertiary bursaries covered university degrees, technikon diplomas and teacher training colleges. There was demand for two other areas of spending: "enrichment" or "bridging" courses, intended to prepare students for tertiary study and make up for some of the deficiencies of apartheid schooling; and specialised training for both teachers and university lecturers.
Bridging programmes ran in all regions. In Southern Transvaal (Gauteng), an "education support programme", funded by US companies active in South Africa, reached 1,200 aspirant matric students in 1984. It had a pass rate of 63 percent, well above the national average (which was below 50 percent).[86]
In the Western Cape, the Headstart Programme ran from 1990. It was a one year "upgrading" course in maths, science and English, designed to allow participants to write matric. Headstart was clear that tertiary education was now necessary for individual African advancement:
[The Department of Education and Training] pass rate for 1993 was 38 percent (exemption rate was 8 percent). Dismal as these figures are, they do not tell the full story … the fact is that for most students, the matric certificate is worthless in that it neither opens the door to employment nor to further study.[87]
There was a wide push behind the bridging programme movement. Headstart was eventually co-funded by the Kagiso Trust, the DG Murray Trust and the German government (which provided a once-off "emergency payment" of R550,000 in 1992).
Also in the Western Cape, the Langa Enrichment Programme ran from 1982 to 1992 and was funded by German Evangelical Church body the Evangelische Zentralstelle Entwicklungshilfe (EZE) and later the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), with some later assistance from the German Embassy. It had a strong focus on maths and science tuition. Formal classes were held on Saturdays and during school holidays and were run by volunteers, many of them students at local universities.
Servicing all Cape Town's black townships, the programme became increasingly popular. The numbers enrolled soared from 150 in 1983 to 2,000 in 1993.[88] "Success" is difficult to measure in programmes of this sort but in 1997, of the students who attended 70% of the time, 98% passed and 45% obtained matriculation exemption.[89] By comparison, the national exemption rate for African students in South Africa, in the same year, was 16.5 percent.[90]
The full history of enrichment and bridging programmes in which the SAIRR was involved has unfortunately proved inaccessible. However, programmes mentioned in Institute correspondence include the Southern Transvaal Region's "education support programme", funded by the Sullivan Code Signatories, the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Teach-Test-Teach programme (funded by USAID), the Learning Support Programme (University of the Western Cape), the Science Foundation Programme (University of KwaZulu-Natal) as well as co-funding of Headstart College, Funda Centre Community College and Khanya College.
"Coming from an impoverished background, my first year at varsity in 2010 was hard. I was studying hard every day while having to travel by train from Scottburgh to Durban every day. I was applying for bursaries almost every week, and when I got the IRR bursary, it changed my life forever. During my second and final year, I had accommodation, food allowance, and book allowance; these benefits helped me to focus on my studies. I graduated top of my class and will forever be grateful to IRR."
— Zamani Khwela (Recipient: 2011)
Apartheid became a major US political issue in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The urge to 'do something' to change the South African system had older roots in the US civil rights and trade union movements but really took off, especially on campuses, during this period. At the centre of the phenomenon was the issue of US companies which had subsidiaries or investments in South Africa. Beyond this issue, the debate turned out to have implications for South African bursaries on a large scale.
The matter of whether to isolate the South African economy or whether to use existing investment as leverage for change divided US politics. In 1979, there were something of the order of 300 US companies active in South Africa, including global giants like Ford, General Motors, IBM, International Harvester, Citibank, Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer. Calls for disinvestment went back to at least the early 1960s when the United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution calling for economic and other sanctions against the apartheid regime.[91]
The SAIRR was entirely opposed to sanctions, believing that there was considerable scope to use investment as a lever for incremental reforms in South Africa. Sanctions, by contrast, it saw as an example of what years later would be called "virtue signalling", in other words an empty moral gesture, which, in this case, was likely to do more harm than good. Nevertheless, the issue divided not only Americans but also South Africans, with the ANC in exile and radical internal opponents of apartheid advocating as complete an isolation of the South African economy as possible. This stand was provided some sort of moral cover when adopted by the South African Council of Churches, eventually to be headed up by Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu.
As early as 1971, the then SAIRR director, J. Fred Van Wyk, presented recommendations for actions by US companies, to "give African workers a better deal and more and more human dignity and reach across the colour line".[92] Van Wyk's call, prepared at the request of US business leaders, called for equal pay across race lines, the desegregation of facilities, and the upskilling of African employees.
Despite the SAIRR overtly favouring education and upskilling of black workers, Van Wyk's call did not immediately see a big upsurge in the number of bursaries offered by American organisations. Some of the companies invested in South Africa did what they could but mostly in the workplace. Big philanthropy continued but, as with still limited US government support, the focus was mostly on black South Africans studying in the US. However, the SAIRR's advocacy played a role in raising the profile of the bursaries issue and suggesting that it was simultaneously an anti-apartheid measure and something which could change the lives of black South Africans for the better.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Ford Foundation offered the Black Faculty Fellowship Programme. The Southern African Scholarship Programme was administered by the African American Institute while the South Africa International Educational Foundation, the American African Educational Foundation and Aurora Associates managed US government-funded grants for black South African students in the US from 1981 onward.[93] At any one moment in the early 1980s, there were probably about 200 student beneficiaries of these programmes, all studying in the US.
The Sullivan Principles were introduced in 1977 in response to criticism of American economic activity in South Africa and growing calls for sanctions and disinvestment. At the time, there were estimated to be about 300 US firms with operations in South Africa. The Principles were essentially a code of conduct which committed US firms to the promotion of social and economic improvements in the lives of black South Africans. These measures included bursaries, although this only became a prominent aspect of the programme after South Africa's democratisation.
Reverend Leon Sullivan was a Baptist preacher from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who had become involved in social impact programmes through his church. He engaged initially with companies located in the area, including one of the biggest local employers, General Motors. Sullivan was a forceful advocate of preferential employment for local black communities, training and career advancement, and local social impact programmes.
As a result of his highly successful activism, conducted under the slogan "Don't Buy Where You Don't Work" (which Sullivan described as "Selective Patronage"), the reverend was invited to join the board of General Motors in 1971.[94] He became the first black board member of a Fortune 500 company in the US and carried his activism into the corporate sector.
As a director of General Motors, Sullivan brought his philosophy and experience to bear on the problem of South Africa and apartheid. At a meeting in 1977, Sullivan shocked his boardroom peers by voting in favour of a motion to divest from South Africa. At the time, GM was the largest American employer in the country. Amidst the ensuing uproar, Sullivan was invited to draw up the code of conduct that bore his name. It must be remembered that this was a time of extreme opinions (about South Africa) in America. As a South African corporate leader of the time recalls:
If you weren't in favour of sanctions, you were likely to be accused of being a supporter of apartheid and segregation. US politics was incredibly sensitive to race issues.[95]
The outcome was a set of principles (see below) which American companies active in South Africa were invited to subscribe to. The primary focus was localised, practical (usually workplace) benefit. This suited American companies, which were generally not willing to risk the wrath of the apartheid government by taking an overtly political stand, while at the same time attempting to accommodate political and investor pressure back home in the US. This was a consistent pattern across the history of almost all the private sector bursary programmes. Bursaries were a "less confrontational" way of "doing good" and were thus favoured by most companies over more clamorous alternatives.
| The Sullivan Principles |
|---|
| Non-segregation of the races in all eating, comfort, and work facilities. |
| Equal and fair employment practices for all employees. |
| Equal pay for all employees doing equal or comparable work for the same period of time. |
| Initiation of and development of training programs that will prepare, in substantial numbers, blacks and other nonwhites for supervisory, administrative, clerical, and technical jobs. |
| Increasing the number of blacks and other nonwhites in management and supervisory positions. |
| Improving the quality of life for blacks and other nonwhites outside the work environment in such areas as housing, transportation, school, recreation, and health facilities. |
| Working to eliminate laws and customs that impede social, economic, and political justice. (added in 1984) |
Of the American companies active in South Africa, 146 had formally adopted the Sullivan Principles by 1983, spending US$78 million in pursuit of the programme's goals.[96] Implementation of the Principles was audited by a highly respected firm, Arthur D. Little, which gave its annually published outcomes report credibility. In 1984 the US House of Representatives amended its version of the Export Administration Act to make conformity with the Sullivan Principles compulsory for American firms with investments in South Africa.
However, pressure from Congress and institutional stakeholders, especially US universities, did not relent and about 100 signatory companies subsequently withdrew from South Africa. Sullivan himself felt that this channel of pressure had inadequate impact and, in 1987, disavowed the Principles and called for full-scale disinvestment of US firms from South Africa.[97] Many American activists and academics agreed that the Sullivan Principles were not confrontational enough.[98]
An executive with a US firm in South Africa at the time observes that "US corporates were reluctant to raise their heads above the parapet and oppose the apartheid government directly. They preferred to donate money to liberal anti-apartheid organisations and to get on with Sullivan-aligned activities without making a fuss." General Motors sold its South African subsidiary (rebranded Delta) in 1986.[99]
This did not mean, however, that there were no critical voices in the private sector. In 1986, British Petroleum (BP) announced a donation of R50 million to government schools which "wished to admit pupils of all races". This flew directly in the face of government policy, which was to apply the principle of "own affairs" (i.e. racial segregation) in education.[100] In July 1986, the Sullivan Signatories published a report saying that "education reform needs to be accompanied by meaningful political change, bringing all South Africans into the decision-making process at all levels".[101]
The primary implementing body for the Sullivan Principles in South Africa was the local chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). The programme was locally branded as "The Sullivan Signatories Association".[102] The implementation architecture was to establish a sub-committee for every Sullivan principle, including education.
While there were cases of US companies funding tertiary studies for staff and dependents of staff, the main thrust of the Signatories Association was schooling. There was a bursaries sub-committee. Its activities took primarily two forms. Some private schools in South Africa were already admitting black pupils. American companies chose to either pay for the education of employees' children or make donations directly to such schools. Additionally, local educational enrichment programmes were established; an example is the Alexandra Schools Association. At the time (1980s), there were 8 schools in Alexandra, a township located adjacent to Sandton in Johannesburg. A different US company became a donor for each (the term, then current in the US, "adopt", was not favoured).
When apartheid was formally ended with the democratic general election of 1994, the need for the Sullivan Principles fell away. However, the signatories in South Africa had accumulated a R1.2 million "war chest"[103] against unforeseen future eventualities. There was already a Signatories Bursary Fund (later rebranded the AmCham Bursary Fund) and it was decided to turn the surplus funds over to this organisation. The SAIRR, which had developed a close working relationship with AmCham during the long fight against sanctions and disinvestment, was an obvious choice as bursaries manager.
It was intended that bursaries be provided only out of interest earned by the capital amount and that the capital be left untouched. This was done and in 2024 the capital was still untouched. The capital amount available was increased by later donations from member companies. In 2005, the capital was R2.8 million.[104]
The objective of the AmCham Bursary Fund was to finance "business-related studies for black South African students".[105] Some years into the programme, after the South African government had introduced free university education, it was decided to shift the focus to post-graduate education. The purpose throughout was to provide bursaries in "business-relevant fields", including commerce, law and engineering, but, in practice, bursaries were provided across the full range of possible university degrees, including health and the arts.
During the period where the SAIRR administered the AmCham bursaries (1993–2007), 56 black South African students graduated from universities and technikons in the country. The first graduate finished in 1996 with a diploma in analytic chemistry. The 55 graduates who followed achieved 10 degrees in medicine, 10 qualifications in education, 11 commerce degrees or business studies diplomas, 4 arts degrees, 2 qualifications in dentistry, 7 health science diplomas, 5 engineering qualifications, 4 science degrees, 2 law degrees and 1 degree in architecture.
I am prepared to sign an expanded Executive Order that strongly signals our rejection of apartheid and our desire to actively promote rapid positive change in South Africa. My new Executive order will add … a requirement to provide at least $25 million in assistance for scholarships, education, community development, and legal aid to disadvantaged South Africans … and a requirement for all US firms to apply fair labour standards based on the Sullivan principles.
— Presidential Statement: Reagan's Letter on South Africa Executive Order, 1986
Initiatives like the Sullivan Principles did little to reduce the pressure on American companies and lawmakers. In fact, as the struggle against apartheid became more widely known, pressure increased. The Reagan administration's "constructive engagement" — which urged political reform while refusing to enact economic sanctions — was seen by many US activists as a "cop out". For those with the loudest voices in America, there was no neutral position on apartheid South Africa.
Nevertheless, the Reagan administration attempted to take such a position. In 1981, Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker declared:
It is not our task to choose between black and white. We do not lend our voice to support those dedicated to seizing or holding power through violence.[106]
Internal South African "reforms" like P.W. Botha's tricameral constitution, which provided limited representation for coloureds and Indians at national level, while Africans were expected to exercise their political ambitions through still-segregated local government, simply opened more space for local anti-apartheid activists. Institutions like Black Local Authorities became an intensely contested space, as did workplaces, universities, colleges and schools.
Proponents of "the struggle" responded to Grand Apartheid by insisting that every available space be contested. A totalising ideology (apartheid) had spawned an equally totalitarian response (the struggle), which treated nuance, private space and gradualism as enemies. Ironically, this ensued as the apartheid government was desperately trying to find ways to relieve the pressure. The labyrinthine institutional manoeuvring of the 1980s was accompanied by reformist rhetoric. Even then President P.W. Botha went so far as to say, in 1986, that "South Africa has outgrown the colonial system of paternalism and the outdated concept of apartheid".[107] Needless to say, such rhetorical flourishes did nothing to appease the regime's many opponents.
With hindsight, measures like recognising that Africans were permanent urban residents[108], rather than temporary sojourners, and the abolition of influx control laws in 1986, were in fact landmarks in the move away from Grand Apartheid. But at the time, as the SAIRR pointed out, such measures were inadequate. Indeed, opponents of apartheid often condemned them as an attempt to politically divide South Africa's African population into "insiders" and "outsiders".[109]
The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA) was introduced to Congress in 1985. The proposed legislation was, as its name implied, deep and wide-ranging, impacting almost every aspect of trade and investment, from a ban on loans to the South African government to the banning of sales of Krugerrands in America and almost every conceivable aspect of economic engagement in between.[110] It included a ban on American imports of iron, steel and agricultural products, uranium, coal and textiles, all new American investment in South Africa as well as the withdrawal of landing rights on US soil for South African airlines.
Title II of the Act promised to earmark a specified amount for education and human resources for the next three years. Among other things, Title II authorised the US head of mission in South Africa to allocate up to USD1 million a year, for the next three years, to scholarship recipients. But this was only a small fraction of the American aid that was to flow over the next decade and a half.
The CAAA was vetoed by President Reagan in 1985. However, such was the political pressure for this sort of initiative that the following year both Houses of Congress united to override the veto. The political pressure culminated in an extended sit-in at the South African embassy in Washington in 1984. This attracted "continuing publicity" as prominent congressmen, senators and other public figures joined the protests and found themselves arrested as a result.
This was the only time such an override was exercised on a foreign policy issue in the twentieth century.[111] The vote was overwhelming, with the House of Representatives voting to override the President by 313 to 83 and the Senate voting 78 to 21 for the same.[112] The stage was set for a massive American foreign aid programme, which was to include a substantial bursary component.
"I remember getting the telegram to call the SAIRR, the person behind the call letting me know I have been awarded a bursary for my studies … The awarding of this bursary changed my life and made my learning experience simpler. I was already focused and this made me super-focused, becoming a top achiever in both 2004 and 2005 in my studies. I truly stand on the shoulders of SAIRR as a recipient of the bursary."
— Kabelo Jacob Mashishi (Recipient: 2004–2005)
With the passing of the CAAA, the scene was set for the machinery of the official American overseas development aid machine, USAID, to go into action. Total USAID funding to South Africa was to soar from USD13.8 million in 1986 to USD212 million in 1994. Nearly forty percent of the USD540 million spent in South Africa between 1986 and 1994 was to go into the education sector.[113] In 1993, the year before South Africa's first democratic election, the CAAA was repealed and replaced by the South African Democratic Transition Support Act.[114]
It would be a mistake to think that most of this aid to the education sector was channelled through the SAIRR. In 2003, the Institute calculated that it had received a total of USD28.5 million[115] from USAID for student bursaries since 1986, approximately one-eighth of the American government funding provided for education in South Africa. Nevertheless, this was to have a considerable impact on the lives of many black South Africans. By 2011/12, it had financed, to completion, 3,672 tertiary qualifications, mostly university degrees.[116]
The bursary programme mandated by Title II of the CAAA differed from all other American foreign aid programmes. The 1995 USAID Programme Evaluation described it as "a unique experiment in American foreign policy … with a focus on the role foreign assistance can play as a tool of foreign policy".[117] It was a "new type of programme" with a "subversive intent ('to bring an end to apartheid and lead to the establishment of a non-racial, democratic form of government')".
The conditions laid out in the CAAA had an important implication. It prohibited the usual foreign development aid pattern where the donor engaged first with the government of the recipient country (indeed, it prohibited dealing with any organisation with links to the government). Instead, USAID was required to channel funds through the NGO sector. It was this provision that enabled the SAIRR to approach USAID.
South Africa was a violent and politically divided society by this time. The apartheid government first proclaimed a state of emergency in 1985 (in certain districts), extending this to blanket national coverage in 1986.[118] It was only lifted in 1989, after literally tens of thousands had been detained without trial. The SAIRR reported in 1988 that the government admitted to having detained nearly 19,000 people in the first two years of the state of emergency, while some observers believed the true figure was closer to 30,000.[119]
Under these circumstances, there was considerable scepticism towards the US aid package within South Africa's internal activist circles, particularly among elements within the United Democratic Front (UDF). The 1995 USAID Programme Evaluation notes that "in this climate there was considerable reluctance to accept US aid or even be identified with US funded programmes, which were characterised in some circles as a tactic to create division within South Africa's black community".[120]
The SAIRR approached the newly opened USAID office in Pretoria in 1985 with a proposal that it use its bursary administration and existing infrastructure to administer a portion of the American grants intended for tertiary bursaries.[121] The proposal was accepted and an agreement signed on 28 October 1985 "to provide scholarships to academically qualified black South Africans to pursue degree programmes in South Africa".[122]
The SAIRR became one of two South African non-governmental organisations initially appointed to administer the bursaries. The other was the Education Opportunities Council which administered mostly bursaries for overseas study (in the US). The SAIRR, by contrast, focused exclusively on bursaries for study at domestic (South African) institutions.
It was by no means certain that the SAIRR's proposal would be accepted. Despite the Institute's long track record, there was opposition to it playing a significant role of bursary management, and this reached Capitol Hill through informal channels probably associated with "struggle" interests in South Africa. This produced a powerful response from Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the black opposition party Inkatha.
Buthelezi wrote:
If political wrangling on Capitol Hill results in this programme being dropped, Americans could justifiably be accused of joining in with the National Party of South Africa in inhibiting the development of black education.[123]
Buthelezi went on to defend the role of the SAIRR:
I understand that some of the opposition to entrusting the Institute of Race Relations with the responsibility of administering the proposed bursary fund, can be traced to political quarters which are opposed to the Reagan Administration's constructive engagement towards South Africa.[124]
Buthelezi argued that America's reputation as a force for democracy and human rights was at stake. He added:
The Institute of Race Relations is unique as an organisation which has shown viability and consistency of purpose over more than half a century … Pressure groups in South Africa emerge and disappear; spokesmen (sic) come and go and it is rare indeed [to find] any organisation with the commitment and longevity of the Institute.[125]
The bursary funding had various conditions attached too, although these tended to be treated more as administrative guidelines than hard-and-fast rules. Bursary recipients had to be black, broadly defined, 40 percent were to be female and, where possible, students of rural origin were to be preferred. As bursary manager, the SAIRR was required to report quarterly against these targets. Within these constraints, the Institute selected students based solely on merit which meant, in practice, their matric results.
In the first year of operation, 1986, the SAIRR was able to award USAID bursaries to 38 students at a cost (to USAID) of R915,000. This was a small start to what was to become a very large programme. It peaked in 1995 with the award of 1,004 bursaries. Despite campus disruptions, the pass rate for 1986 was 61 percent for first-year students on SAIRR administered bursaries while the second-year pass rate was 76 percent. Two bursary recipients were detained under emergency regulations. The SAIRR arranged for them to write their examinations in detention.[126]
The 1985 bursary agreement between the SAIRR and USAID was valued at US$18.8 million, intended to initially fund 289 students. Although the initial contract specified "degree programmes", the SAIRR interpreted the concept of a "degree" to include tertiary diplomas, especially in technical subjects. Not only did USAID accept this interpretation but a programme evaluation stated approvingly that of the various organisations involved in (student) placement, "only the SAIRR publicises the availability of placements in institutions other than universities".[127]
Both educators and business leaders (and even students themselves) recognise the important role of technical and specialised education, and programmes available through Technikons and similar institutions should be encouraged and supported through bursary assistance.[128]
The terms of the USAID contract were changed in 1988 to include bursaries for technikons.[129]
Rising tuition costs were an on-going concern throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1989, the SAIRR issued a press statement saying that donor cut-backs and rising tuition fees had forced an 11 percent reduction in the number of bursaries awarded. It noted however that other donors had "stepped forward to fill the gap". These included the Dutch government, First National Bank, "a Swiss church group", a Dominican convent in Johannesburg as well as USAID.[130]
By the end of the 1980s, word about the USAID-funded bursaries was getting out, mostly through universities which had been notified by the SAIRR that finance was available. The Institute's records however amalgamate all bursaries for the purposes of statistical analysis. In 1987, the number of applicants increased from 5,900 to 8,000. In 1988, this figure was to rise to 34,000 requests for application forms. This figure was to increase to 42,000 in 1991, 46,425 in 1993[131] and peak at 47,747 in 1995.[132]
The number of bursary applicants thus far exceeded the number of bursaries available. The bottleneck was a matter of funding, not the quality of applicants. In 1993, the Institute's bursaries director, Dennis Venter, remarked:
It is gratifying that the bursaries programme is so well known but it is unfortunate that only a fraction of applicants can be supported. The quality of applicants is such that up to four times the number could be accepted were funds available.[133]
The second major component of USAID funding came through in 1990, when a further contract between the Institute and the American aid organisation was signed for US$15 million.[134] This agreement, known as STEP (Tertiary Education Support Project), was effectively a funding extension and took the form of an amendment to the original contract. February 1990 marked the start of South Africa's democratic transition, with the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations, and also saw a shift in USAID's goals.
| Year | University | Technikon | Teacher Training | High School | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 374 | 9 | 24 | 70 | 477 |
| 1987 | 562 | 23 | 68 | 69 | 722 |
| 1988 | 624 | 27 | 22 | 98 | 771 |
| 1989 | 704 | 42 | 44 | 107 | 897 |
| 1990 | 689 | 74 | 91 | 63 | 917 |
| 1991 | 721 | 76 | 81 | 44 | 922 |
| 1992 | 860 | 139 | 70 | 42 | 1,111 |
| 1993 | 881 | 133 | 54 | 69 | 1,137 |
| 1994 | 885 | 323 | 24 | 11 | 1,243 |
| 1995 | 757 | 240 | 19 | 59 | 1,075 |
| 1996 | 611 | 176 | 11 | 29 | 827 |
| Source: SAIRR 1996[135] | |||||
In a 1993 programme extension agreement, USAID wrote:
The goal of STEP is to ensure that black South Africans are full contributors to and participants in the political, social, economic and intellectual life of their nation. To support the realization of the program's goal, the purpose of STEP is to prepare and empower black South Africans and selected institutions for positions of leadership and importance in order to promote peaceful change and transition to a non-racial democracy that is envisioned in the nation's future.[136]
In other words, after 1990, a greater emphasis was placed on making up the skills deficit among black South Africans, especially among the anticipated post-apartheid leadership cadre. STEP was neither the first nor the last such extension. There were in fact 12 extensions over the lifespan of the USAID funding. Not all of these were intended for straightforward undergraduate bursaries, however. Some went to "bridging" programmes such as the science-oriented Test-Teach-Test programme run at the University of Natal, and the Science Foundation Programme, while others were not for new bursaries but to see those already on USAID bursaries through to graduation. Other programmes focused on the development of junior teaching staff at universities.
The main components of USAID funding occurred during the period 1985–95 and officially ended on 31 December 2003. Figures in official SAIRR documentation are ambiguous but it would seem, according to the 2018 graduate list, that 2,250 bursary recipients completed a USAID-funded degree between 1986 and 2003. The average time to graduate was four-and-a-half years and the annual pass rate varied between 61 percent[137] and 91 percent[138]. Between 1986 and 2003, approximately 46 percent of graduates from SAIRR-supported studies received USAID funds.[139]
"This bursary wasn't just about money being paid toward my fees or allowance — it was about having a home. A place that was always just a call away. I looked forward to the semester check-in meetings, to submitting my results, and to having a community that genuinely cheered me on. I'm so deeply grateful. I often think about how this bursary changed my life, not only through education, but through the people and purpose it connected me to."
— Nombulelo Mgabadeli (Recipient: 2011–2018)
By the time South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994, the SAIRR had built a powerful bursary administration machine. The first full-time bursaries administrator was appointed only in the 1970s. Prior to that, bursaries had been administered by the finance department with the help of secretarial staff. But, with the increasing flow of international bursary funding, expansion was rapid. Staff were increased from two part-time to three full-time in 1982.[140]
This was only the start of what the Institute described as a "massive task" which simultaneously required a huge increase in human resources. The following year, bursaries, with the exceptions of the Mobil and Donaldson Trusts, were separated from the Institute's books and given their own accounts.[141] The bursaries department expanded as more bursary funding became available, to eight full-time staff in 1986 and 12 in 1989. It was to remain staffed by about 12 people until 1996/97, whereafter there was a gradual contraction, in line with falling foreign aid for bursaries, to six staff in 2007. After that, as the SAIRR disentangled itself from bursary administration, staff numbers dedicated to managing the programme fell to two in 2008.
In 1989, a decision was taken to house the bursaries department in a separate building. MagicPrint House, adjacent to the Institute's head office in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, was purchased for R535,000 that year. This was only possible thanks to the generosity of corporate members of the Institute. Nevertheless, the Institute was forced to take out a bond of R350,000 in 1989, which forced the bursaries department into loss for the financial year.
During the 1980s, a pattern of bursary management was established. This was referred to by the Institute as "the Standard Model" and applied across all bursaries whether international aid, legacy or corporate funded. The Institute's practice was to meet students face-to-face on campus at least twice every academic year, to establish how they felt they were doing and identify areas where they needed support. One student counsellor described this as an effort "to establish the progress each student was making, not only academically but also emotionally". This also required engagement with university officials and staff. In this pre-mobile device age, communications could be difficult and, to partially fill the gap, students were encouraged to make reverse charges calls to the Institute's counsellors.
Under the "Standard Model", those selected were notified by letter. They were promised tuition, accommodation, books and meals. They were also informed who their sponsor was (i.e. which source was paying their bursary). The only monies paid directly to students were allowances. Tuition and residence fees were paid directly to the universities. The SAIRR insisted that allowances be standardised across all bursary recipients irrespective of donor. This changed later in the programme during the corporate era from mid-1990 to 2008 (see next chapter), when some companies decided to offer a "top up" to "their" students' accounts. Donors were generally happy to take guidance on this matter from the Institute's counsellors who were aware, usually through experience, of the potential pitfalls.[142]
It is a great pity that no comprehensive record was kept of these sometimes fraught engagements. Students sometimes found themselves caught up in the political turmoil of the time. There is no record of how many were detained without trial by the apartheid government's security apparatus but the written record does contain a number of suggestive anecdotes. The SAIRR had to intervene to allow detained students to continue their studies or write examinations. One student bursary recipient was detained without trial, escaped and sought refuge at the offices of the British Consulate in Johannesburg. The SAIRR Annual Report for 1988/89 refers to a student bursary recipient who was released that year after two-and-a-half years in detention.[143]
The SAIRR bursary programme allowed black students to choose their tertiary institution but they also had to make all application arrangements. This included ministerial permission where they wanted to study at institutions outside their designated ethnic group. Although SAIRR student counsellors did provide some ad hoc assistance, and engaged widely with university administrations throughout the country (which in some cases also provided support), much was left to the aspirant students.
A USAID programme reviewer who visited South Africa in 1985, and attempted to make contact with university students, detailed anecdotal evidence of the difficulties faced by black students at South African universities at the time. These tended to vary depending on the political nature of the institution. Ethnic black universities ("Bush Colleges") were in a state of constant turmoil for much of the 1980s.
The reviewer wrote:
The newspapers carried accounts of student boycotts and campus conflicts almost daily. Instruction for thousands of blacks had ceased. Secondary and tertiary educational institutions for blacks had been abandoned with only a few weeks remaining in the academic year.[144]
The same reviewer found that two of the universities she attempted to visit (Zululand and University of the Western Cape) were either closed or had recently been shut down for a period as a result of "police versus student battles". Although the disruption to study was immense, it has to be pointed out that even at "Bush Colleges", many of the usual processes of student life did continue. Students studied, socialised and formed the networks which were to provide post-education support. There was much less disruption to teaching at the five liberal (white) English-speaking universities and almost none at the (white) Afrikaans universities. But the predominantly coloured University of the Western Cape (in which instruction was dual medium, i.e. English and Afrikaans) was a standout site of struggle.
There were complaints about tuition standards and teaching methods, especially at the "Bush Colleges". The 1994 USAID review contains stories about being required to rote-learn, often directly from textbooks, and regurgitate material in examinations. Alienation from teaching staff (the majority of lecturers at ethnic universities were white Afrikaners) was a common complaint.
Students said:
They use a single textbook. The lecturer is regarded as the authority. You are tested on lectures and the text … You were never free, not even to ask questions … Everybody expected us to memorise. You were not free to speak with the lecturer if you had problems … We studied to pass, not to understand. We looked at lecturers as the enemy. They looked at us as a threat. It was tense …[145]
Black students at the open English-language universities often referred to a different sense of alienation, rooted in being a small (racial) minority at the institution. Some found themselves socially isolated and others found the attitude of liberal white lecturers and students "patronising". In addition to these issues were all the practical problems of sometimes being instructed in a language other than one's mother tongue, bridging the gap between apartheid and tertiary education, finding accommodation, long and often costly commutes, and trying to engage with a supposed peer group with far more disposable income.
An account of student life in the 1980s gives a sense of some of the issues facing black students in the late apartheid era:
In general, black students are hard put to manage the logistics of commuting to white universities. At Witwatersrand the Black Student Society rents a bus to serve Indian townships 40 miles outside Johannesburg. A few black students are quietly accommodated at or near open universities. Yet despite vacancies in residences at the University of Cape Town (UCT) the government has consistently refused to permit blacks to occupy them. Frustrated UCT administrators decided to risk the construction of special hostel facilities. Student informers, political arrests, interracial tensions — all linked to intense government interest in and disapproval of multiracial education — also serve to discourage blacks from attending open English-medium universities.[146]
The 1980s were a time of violent insurrection and repression. There were limits to what institutions could do but many administrators at the open (liberal English-speaking) universities pushed right up to these. Their actions included protests against and never implementing the notorious 1983 "Quota Bill" (the South African Universities Amendment Bill), the apartheid government's attempt to restrict university admissions on the basis of race.
The demands made by students on their counsellors were many and varied. The records show a number of requests for part-time or vacation employment within the technical or professional discipline studied. At times this was an onerous addition to the day-to-day tasks of student counsellors. The one donor organisation which stood out in facilitating these requests was the American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa, which made an effort to provide "vac jobs" even in the early days, when it was still the Signatories Fund.[147] Later, when funding from South African corporates was flowing freely, many of these companies were able to participate too.
The SAIRR bursaries department derived its revenue from a surcharge (usually 15 percent) levied on bursary funds spent.[148] This was hard-earned income. The Institute's back-office records demonstrate just how much correspondence each bursary award absorbed, involving applicants (successful and unsuccessful), trustees, universities, funders, support staff and other NGOs as well as staff within the SAIRR's own management and administrative structures. Throughout the bursaries programme, the Institute provided annual feedback to each funder, detailing student progress and results. Some funders, especially those who had provided once-off donations, insisted on meeting student beneficiaries and this was something the SAIRR had to facilitate too.
Legacy bequests were especially complicated. Applications, awards, results, funds investment administration and annual audits all had to be dealt with as well as communicated to a board of trustees in every case. Many of the legacies had very specific conditions attached — restrictions on subjects studied (e.g. medicine, technical, teaching, music) or place of origin of the students. Some specified a particular town or province of origin. The Shirley Simons Trust, for instance, specified bursaries only for students who came from Pietermaritzburg. Variations were often possible but needed the consent of the trustees.
The restriction on using capital donations for annual bursary costs seems to have proved problematic. The Institute's commitment was that once a student had been awarded a bursary, they would be funded through to graduation if they passed every year. This was defined as passing at least half their subjects and being allowed by the educational institution to proceed to the next year. A calculation done for USAID after the millennium suggests that it took the average student four-and-a-half years to achieve a three-year qualification.
It is no wonder then that the Institute attempted to consolidate legacies and bequests into general purpose funds. The role played by the Shapiro Trust and the Isaacson Foundation were explored in Chapter 2. Among the later Trusts to fulfil this role, the first of these on record was the Race Relations National Education Trust, established in 1979 with the consent of the heirs of the original donor (D.S. Leech). Its assets appear to have been transferred to another generalist education trust, the Morris Isaacson Educational Foundation, in 2012.[149] Later, after the millennium, a similar consolidation role was played by the Raymond Tucker Fund, named after the Institute's long-time legal counsellor. The final consolidation was the establishment of the SAIRR Education Fund, registered in its own right as a Public Benefit Organisation on 12 October 2005.[150]
A bursary manager remarked that the purpose of the bursary programme since the 1980s was not to identify and fund "A-Grade students". He pointed out that top matriculants could invariably access funding from elsewhere, often from corporate businesses and the tertiary institutions themselves, as well as a range of other competitive bursaries. The purpose of the Institute's programme was to "identify potential" and "make choices based on financial need".[151]
The premise running through all student bursary awards from the mid-1930s onward was that beneficiaries would be black, broadly defined. Of course, within this category were a small number of applicants who came from relatively affluent families. There is no evidence that they were excluded. In fact, until the 1980s, it would seem that a concern was attracting sufficient numbers of students to match the bursaries available. By the 1990s the issue had turned around completely with applicants exceeding available bursaries some 40-fold.
The student counsellor reports contain mini-sketches of students' backgrounds. A sample reveals the sort of poverty and unskilled background from which most emerged:
Both parents are pensioners … Father is a casual labourer … both parents are unemployed … his mother is a domestic worker.
These descriptions, taken from a report by the bursaries department to the American Chamber of Commerce, are typical of the sort of background of students in the 1980s and 1990s. But there are others whose parents are described as school teachers, a radiographer, nurses and other medical professionals, alongside more common descriptions of parents as pensioners, labourers, housewives and unemployed.
The actual selection of bursary recipients was a laborious task in many instances. The bursary selection committees tended to meet outside normal working hours (e.g. Saturday mornings). Again, the legacy trusts, with their specific conditions, were more onerous than the big international donor programmes. Some specified face-to-face interviews whereas all the international donors required only a written application with decisions made on the basis of matric results and socio-economic need. In the 1990s, with the adoption of the "Standard Model", the process became more streamlined and less onerous. A consolidated selection committee met under the chairmanship of Dr Bethuel Sehlapelo, himself a bursary holder in the early 1990s.
"It was a privilege to have received the bursary; it assisted me quite a lot in pursuing my studies without having to worry about finances, coming from a poor background. I have been a top achiever at varsity level and even won the budget speech competition in 2017. I now hold a masters degree in financial economics and am employed at Legacy Fund Managers in the finance sector as an Equity Research Analyst. I'm very appreciative of the assistance from the IRR funding."
— Xolani Mazomba (Recipient: 2010–2013)
While there are many factors that contribute to economic prosperity and social wellbeing, it has long been recognised that the citizens of countries that invest heavily in the advancement of human knowledge and technology are generally far better off than their peers. Such investment is a key ingredient in driving economic growth, enhancing productivity, creating jobs and improving the overall competitiveness of a country.
— Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, 2015[152]
The SAIRR was deeply committed to supporting the new democracy for which it had fought over more than 60 years. But at the same time, it was aware that totalising ideologies were still as much a danger as they had been in 1948. It feared that an attempt would be made to centralise all power in Pretoria, with negative consequences for the diversity and new-found openness of South African society.
The SAIRR had recognised for some years that international bursary funding would dry up once South Africa had become a democracy. After the 1994 elections, programmes like those run by the Institute were squeezed from two sides. On the one hand, international donors could feel that they had accomplished the wider mission of undermining apartheid and that the issue of inequitable access to education funding was a matter for the new democratic government. On the other, the new government, dominated by the ANC, was determined that it be the dominant channel through which tertiary education funding was dispensed.
In 1995, the new education minister, Sibusiso Bengu, requested USAID to "make the transition" to "working directly with government".[153] USAID informed the Institute that the transition would be "gradual" — in other words that no bursary recipient would be left stranded — but that it was inevitable.
In its 1995/96 Annual Report, the Institute writes:
Foreign funding for our bursary programme has now peaked and is now winding down, rapidly. This is deeply regrettable. The Institute has tried to argue the case for continuing support for its bursary programme by foreign governments, but with little success. We have been told that the international practice is for governments to fund other governments. This did not apply to South Africa because the previous government was an international pariah.[154]
The SAIRR did have an alternative. It decided to make greater efforts to tap into its unparalleled corporate network to access funding for bursaries. In 1996 it wrote that it would "endeavour to replace foreign funding with local funding".[155] It also decided, the same year, that it was willing to accept government (Reconstruction and Development) funding but would only do so for education projects and provided the terms were acceptable.[156] In the event, it turned out that the government was not prepared to finance the sort of support programme the Institute had developed over the years (the bursaries department) and this potential avenue was never opened.
The SAIRR had a massive network of corporate members with most prominent JSE-listed companies signed up. Anglo American, for example, mostly through the Anglo American Chairman's Fund, had provided funding and other resources for many years across most of the range of the Institute's activities. It funded, at different times, university bursaries (at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels), policy work, publications, high school learners and "bridging programmes".
After 2004, Anglo American bursary funding was primarily the responsibility of the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. The trust, originally established by the late Anglo American chairman and liberal-minded former United Party Member of Parliament, Harry Oppenheimer, was intended for:
… the advancement of science or art or of an educational, charitable or ecclesiastical nature … wholly for purposes which are in the public interest … primarily for the benefit of the people … irrespective of race, colour or creed …[157]
There were many projects involving a wide variety of institutions which were to benefit from this trust, including the SAIRR bursary programme. Between 2004 and 2018, the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust funded 81 degrees and diplomas to completion, through the Institute's bursary programme. It still funds student bursaries administered by the SAIRR.
There was also precedent for corporate-funded bursary programmes going back to the disinvestment era of the 1980s. When UK-based Barclays Bank, then the biggest high street bank in South Africa, succumbed to pressure and disinvested in 1986, it was already supporting a number of black students. Barclays' local successor, First National Bank, provided funding necessary to take 16 students through full degrees or technikon diplomas over the next 10 years.
Clive Beck was the son of renowned winemaker and retired mining magnate Graham Beck. He passed away in 1995 at the age of 35 and a bursary programme was established by his parents (Graham and Rhona) in 1997 in his memory. From that year, a large sum was transferred every year for bursaries for black students at South African tertiary institutions. The first transfer was for R500,000 and the amount seems to have been adjusted upward on an annual basis as tuition and cost-of-living expenses increased. There were 4,000 applicants for Clive Beck bursaries in 2004, although only 40 awards could be made.[158]
One of the earliest and most significant corporate moves into tertiary education was made by oil company Mobil in 1986, when it established a US$20 million foundation dedicated to black upliftment. The foundation set out to work in three areas: black education, black small business development, and rural development. The SAIRR managed its tertiary bursary programme from the outset.
The Mobil Foundation has been created to give impetus and sustained progress to black education and also to create opportunities in the fields of small business and agriculture … (the foundation has been formed) at a time when the lack of adequate education for black people in South Africa has become a cause of tension and violence.
— Mobil Oil Southern African Chairman Georges Racines, 1986[159]
Under political pressure back home in America, Mobil disinvested from South Africa in 1989. The company's local holdings, a share in a major refinery and a chain of filling stations, were sold to local corporate Gencor for US$125 million. But the foundation, now called the Energos Foundation, was to continue under the new owner. It later became the Engen Foundation. In its various iterations, the Mobil/Energos/Engen Foundation financed the studies of 115 black South Africans to completion in subsequent years.
The SAIRR Education Trust functioned as an "umbrella body", which, in addition to its own funds, administered funding from companies and individuals who required tax exemption certificates. This tax exemption status (in terms of Section 10 (1) (f) of the Income Tax Act) was of course an incentive for corporate donors. But the exemption did not apply where the dependants of company employees were the beneficiaries (i.e. the bursary recipients). Some of the bursaries administered by the SAIRR did go to such individuals but this appears to be a minority of awards.
The SAIRR Education Trust appears to go back to the Leach bequest of 1979, although the fund itself was established only in 1987 and started operating in 1989.[160] The reason for the delay was the need to register it with Inland Revenue (later SARS) as an "educational fund" as defined by Section 18A of the Income Tax Act.[161] The driving force behind its establishment was an honorary life member of the SAIRR, Harold Bernstein.
Bernstein served the SAIRR in many positions, as an employee and member of the Federal Council. He was an extraordinarily active and well-connected fundraiser for education. His total contribution is impossible to quantify but in 1989 he raised R300,000 from 21 different contributors, mostly individuals, in a single year.[162] He was the primary fundraiser for the SAIRR Education Trust, through which corporate donations were funnelled.[163] Bernstein only stepped down as one of the SAIRR's 15 honorary life members in 2008, the year before his passing.[164] When he celebrated his 90th birthday in 2005 he suggested his guests make donations to the Institute in lieu of presents to himself.[165]
The Institute administered more than one fund of this sort. But towards the end of the bursaries programme, it seems to have been the main avenue for corporate funding. In 2005, the decision was taken to fold the remaining assets of a similar "umbrella" body, the Raymond Tucker Fund, into the SAIRR Education Trust.[166] The Isaacson Trust, discussed in Chapter 2, was the best established of these generalist funds. It differed from the SAIRR Education Trust in that it did not issue tax exemptions.
The range and amounts of corporate bursary funding are obscure in the Institute's records. Perhaps the best way of capturing the achievement is to list the tertiary education graduates by donor, as reflected in the Institute's 2018 composite list.[167] This should not be regarded as a definitive list of corporate contributions to the SAIRR bursary programme, although most of the major donors are mentioned.
3M South Africa is a science-based health-care products company, established in the early 1950s. Starting in 1992, it had funded 78 students to the completion of tertiary qualifications by 2018. There was some emphasis on health and health science fields. Among these graduates were 19 who qualified as medical doctors (MBChB).
African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) funded 51 degrees and diplomas. Discount supermarket Boxer, later part of the Pick 'n Pay group, funded seven bursaries. John Deere, the agricultural equipment supplier, funded 15 bursaries directly in addition to its contributions to the AmCham Bursary Fund. Johnson & Johnson, another AmCham contributor, also funded 25 bursaries administered directly by the SAIRR. Construction company Murray & Roberts funded eleven. Cellular telephony's MTN funded nine. One of the biggest contributors was packaging company Nampak, which funded 132 bursaries. Pick 'n Pay funded 62 bursaries. The Rennies Group funded 22 bursaries. Clothing and fashion company Foschini funded 53 bursaries.
In every case the numbers reflect students funded throughout their studies to graduation. The record of the number of annual awards made is impossible to piece together but it is clearly several times the total of 4,900 graduates contained in the composite list, given the USAID research finding that each bursary recipient who graduated with a three-year qualification took, on average, four-and-a-half years to complete their degree or diploma. There were also an unquantified number of cases where students started their studies on a SAIRR-administered diploma but switched later to what they found to be a more attractive offering. In some cases, these were state bursaries.
At about the time that USAID funding came to an end on the last day of 2003, it had become apparent to the Institute that its bursary programme would have to be scaled back. Resources coming through from the private sector, while gratefully welcomed, were not sufficient to fill the gap. The situation became critical when the Institute faced a cashflow crisis in 2006, forcing it to consider liquidating investments or taking an overdraft.[168]
Although the diminishing flow of donor funds was the main factor in the Institute's decision to exit the bursaries business, other factors were relevant too. Bursaries were no longer compatible with the SAIRR's main thrust of operation, which had come to centre on policy, analysis and advocacy. Furthermore, there were signs that the state was stepping into the funding gap, especially regarding undergraduate funding. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was established in 1996 and became the main channel for student loans and grants in 1999. Its funds grew from R733 million in 2002 to R6.97 billion in 2014.[169] After (then) President Jacob Zuma announced effectively free undergraduate education, except for a middle income group excluded by reason of family income, in what was his last major act in office, in December 2017, the space for private sponsorship of students closed dramatically.
This appears to be when the Institute decided to exit the business of bursaries. The tapering off period had to allow students who had already started their studies to finish and thus took some years. There were also legacy trusts where the conditions of bequest made a handover difficult and the process took several years. In addition, there were funds (including the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the Clive Beck Trust and the Isaacson Trust) which were "contractual obligations" and this continued.[170] These were to be managed by the bursary manager and later the Institute's finance department once the bursaries department had closed down. The Institute was finally able to end the bursary programme only in 2022.
A number of bursary funds were handed over to an independent specialist bursaries management agency, the Study Trust, starting in 2008. The Study Trust has operated in the field since 1974 and was originally grounded in a similar anti-apartheid attitude to the SAIRR. The funds managed by the Western Cape Region were handed over to the Association for Educational Transformation (ASSET), a body founded by the Institute in the early 1970s and which was registered as a not-for-profit company in 2003.[171]
The SAIRR communicated with all corporate donors, saying it would no longer be managing bursaries on the same scale as previously. It offered them the option of having the current capital accumulated from their past donations transferred to another Institute-managed fund or refunded to them. Most appear to have opted for the second course of action.[172]
Although the SAIRR started administering its bursary programme more than a decade before Grand Apartheid was introduced in 1948, and continued for 28 years into South Africa's democratic era, the programme's greatest achievements occurred during the late apartheid, transitional and early democratic eras. This period, from about 1985 to 2004, saw the Institute assist literally thousands of students through to graduation at South African universities, technikons and teacher training colleges. Institute records suggest that more than 4,000 students completed their studies in this period.
For the first 50 years of the bursary programme, it was supported almost entirely by private, mostly South African donations, supplemented by international philanthropists like the Ford and Kellogg Foundations. The Institute was at the centre of a network of South Africans, of all races, who believed in a future where race did not determine life opportunities and were prepared to take a public stand on social and political issues.
The nature of the challenge shifted in the 1980s, when the struggle against apartheid became an international cause and large amounts of foreign aid were made available by governments in the developed world, notably the US, Germany, Canada and Austria as well as Christian aid organisations in Europe.
The US contribution was especially notable for its scale. The Institute stood out as a channel for bursary funding, for a number of reasons. Its beneficiaries all studied at South African institutions which could themselves be regarded as having been strengthened by the process. During the early part of the foreign funding era, with the apartheid government still in power, the Institute kept one eye on the looming needs, possibilities and threats of the democratic era. It was thus also almost unique in channelling funding towards vocational and technical education as well as the support programme it offered bursary recipients. Finally, the Institute and its allies had to actively intervene in the debate in the US to have internal bursaries recognised as a legitimate aspect of the alternative to economic sanctions.
The period of reliance on corporate funding in the democratic era was not able to make up for the withdrawal of foreign government from bursary support. It did, however, illustrate the willingness of business to do something to build a new post-apartheid society. The roots of this process go back a lot further, with the US-based Sullivan Signatories standing out as companies which were willing to act to undermine apartheid.
Throughout the 97 years that the SAIRR bursary programme existed, the central impetus was a liberal vision of South African society and its possibilities. Liberalism, as practised by the Institute, was never founded on a fixed set of rules nor a predetermined method. Its fundamental assumption was that individuals can be trusted to work out their own destinies. The role of interventions, like bursary programmes, is simply to widen the horizon of possibilities, for both individuals and society.
This was above all a programme of optimism and hope. Where students, from Nelson Mandela and his contemporaries onwards, were able to advance their education through the provision of something as straightforward as a bursary grant, the goal of a better society comes a little closer, even while liberals acknowledge that utopia is unattainable. The defeat of apartheid and the emergence of a democratic society in South Africa are proof that the cause is a worthy one.
3M Bursary Programme · African Rainbow Minerals · Alan Paton · Alumni Fund · American Chamber of Commerce · ASA Educational Trust · Auerbach · B & E Koch Education Fund · Berkowitz Family Scholarship Fund · Bertha MacKay · Bo Parfet · Bona People's Fund · Boxer · Clayton Bequest · Clive Beck Education Trust · Dominican Sisters Bursary Fund · Dorothy Glauber Bursary Fund · Dr Patel and His Parents · Durban Ethekwini Educational · Edinburgh · Ellen Hellman Fund · Energos · Engen Bursary Fund · Esrael Lazarus Education Fund · Eva Dickhuth-Bauman · First National Bank · Fluor Daniel · Foschini Group Bursary Scheme · Fulton Trust · George Gianopolus · German Academic Exchange Service · Gert and Irmgard Brusseau · Goban Moahloli Keeve Steyn · Haggie Limited · Henkel SA · Horace Coaker Trust · Hungjao Bequest · John Deere · Johnson & Johnson Medical Education Fund · Joy Abelson Bursary Fund · KFS Austria · Kilchberg Fund · Liberty Life Educational Foundation · Luthuli Memorial Trust · M & R Engineering · MaAfrica Tikkum Jewish Community Scholarship · MacKenzie Foundation · Mampu Bursary Trust · Margaret Ballinger Welfare Fund · Morris Isaacson · MTN Bursary Connection · Nampak Social Upliftment · National Brands Bursary Scheme · Nedcor · Oppenheimer Memorial Trust · Orbicom Mandela · Pick 'n Pay Corporate Services · Rand Merchant Bank · Raymond Tucker Fund · RCS Personal Finance · Reginald H Smith Bursary Fund · Rennies Group · Robert Birley · Robert Shapiro Trust · Sasol · Segwick Noble Lownds · Senior Teacher Training Fund · Sentrachem Tertiary · Shirley Simons · Sonae Novabord · Still Gosnel Bursary Trust · Swiss Church Group · Trinity College · USAID · Uti Empowerment Trust · Victor Daitz Foundation · W.K. Kellogg Foundation · Yvonne Rabbow Memorial Trust · Zurich Bursary Fund
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