The key institution in higher education for Africans “luminaries” is in dire straits. <\/p>\n
Fort Hare offered an academic education to blacks from across sub-Saharan Africa, creating a pro-British black African elite. <\/p>\n
The alumni featured prominently in subsequent independence movements and governments of newly independent African countries. <\/p>\n
Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe (of the Pan Africanist Congress), Desmond Tutu, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo all studied there. <\/p>\n
The institution in Alice in the Eastern Cape was initially funded by British missionaries with a political goal.<\/p>\n
Mandela studied at Fort Hare for almost two years in the 1940s, but left the institution without a degree.<\/p>\n
He later wrote in his autobiography that \u201cFor young black South Africans like myself, it was Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, all rolled into one.” <\/p>\n
Fort Hare is currently in such financial distress that it has used student funding to pay staff.<\/p>\n
The revelation is contained in a forensic report by FastTrac Freelance Business Specialists, which paints a picture of a university in financial crisis.<\/p>\n
The document says the university received a R35-million advance payment from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme in December to settle claims.<\/p>\n
Vice-chancellor Dr Mvuyo Tom admitted the university redirected student grants to pay salaries because it “had no choice”.<\/p>\n
He called on students who owed money to pay what was due. “If they don’t, they won’t be allowed to write their exams.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The key institution in higher education for Africans “luminaries” is in dire straits. Fort Hare offered an academic education to blacks from across sub-Saharan Africa, creating a pro-British black African elite. The alumni featured prominently in subsequent independence movements and governments of newly independent African countries. Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe (of the Pan … Continue reading “Institution for African ‘luminaries’ in crisis”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":20174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12312,186,4035,12311,560,10198,8337],"class_list":["post-20172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-black-independence","tag-britain","tag-financial-crisis","tag-fort-hare","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-student-loans","tag-university"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/independence.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20173,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20172\/revisions\/20173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}