d people. White South Africans make up about 12% of the population in South Africa while blacks make up nearly 80%. Of the 40 million blacks in South Africa, 33% percent consider themselves illiterate and 66% of the working black population have only had primary school education or less (“Social Conditions” 1). In the midst of the change of governments many white schools were being closed due to a lack of students to fill the classrooms, while black schools were suffering from extreme overcrowding and a lack of funding. Additionally, only about one third of the black population that was in school were actually passing their graduation exams. This coupled with the fact that “many thousands of black children were un-enrolled” created a massive problem for the new government to deal with (“Social Conditions” 2). According to Willie Esterhuyse, South Africa’s transition to democracy was hindered by its need to improve the schooling and general level of education. Revival of South Africa’s economy was crucial to its transition into democracy, and this could not have been fully achieved without the “restructuring of the educational system and the development of a partnership between government and business on skills oriented education and training” (Esterhuyse 26). Mozambique faced similar problems during its transition to democracy. Portuguese colonialism used the country for cheap labor as opposed to a site for investment and thus left it in ruins when the Mozambican Liberation Front finally gained control. During colonialism there were three divisions of schools, public and private school for colonists, and then assimilados for the “natives.” Coupling the fact that there were too few assimilados to accommodate the natives with the fact that the teachers at the assimilados had inadequate training, meant that natives were not receiving a proper education. The average pas...
