100,000 boycott S.A. schools in echo of build-up to Soweto

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 9

100,000 boycott S.A. schools in echo of build-up to Soweto

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg] A teenage rebellion against South Africa’s racially separated educationsystem is building up amid: warnings to the Government: that it must avoid a repeti-i tion of the 1976 Soweto, riots. , An estimated 100,000' mainly Coloured (mixed race) schoolchildren joined, in a classroom boycott; yesterday. The protest began in Cape Town and quickly; spread to several schools in' other big centres including; the Indian Ocean port of Durban, the central diamond town of Kimberley, Pretoria,! and Johannesburg. The police have maintain- ■ ed a low profile during dem-! onstrations and there have 1 befen no serious incidents.'. But Opposition parlia-j mentarians and newspapers: are casting anxious glances, back at the Soweto riots | which started with black:

/student protests andl-ndedi 'with nearly 600 an i orgy of violence /.vhichl • swept the country, i : M An Opposition spofeman, l i Colin Eglin, said: “fe will 7be making a gravepstakej “if we do not realise pat, as '■in the case of So\yb, the iyoung people who fe pro-] • testing reflect a fritration and a simmering: anger '.which goes much wer and /deeper into the oloured 'community.” j So far most of th'demon-j '.strators have been-oloured :: high-school pupils ;ged be-1 • tween 13 and 18. ahough a (few black and Indig '(also have been I ■ They are rotesting: .'against the lack >f funds; for the education: I of Coloured studets which] /they say has suited in] J serious shortages - teachers] ; and textbooks. > The Johannes#!? “Daily: ::Mail” asked in i editorial!

/whether the lesson of Sowi eto had been forgotten. The i]paper called on the Govemiment to face up to the conJsequences of its policies and J promise speedy and funda-1 . I mental remedies. ■j “A glaringly wide gap ■ exists between what is spent ■ ieach year on the education Jof each Coloured child com- • pared with each white child: 11185 rand ($226) as against 1|551 rand ($673) in 1977-78,” the “Mail” said. ! It added as a further “devHastating comparison, the 'figure for blacks was 54 , rand ($66).” JI The Government has said /the standard of Coloured education was receiving urhgent attention. The Minister ■iof Coloured Affairs (Mr /Marais Steyn) told Parlia'lment he hoped that “qutl;siders who are exploiting /the difficulties of young ■children .. . will immedi--ately. drop their nefarious Inactivities.”