Education in exile: the African National Congress's Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) and Dakawa Development Centre in Tanzania: 1978-1992

Abstract

This chapter looks at ANC education in exile, and, specifically, at the movement's educational experiments in Tanzania at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO), at Mazimbu, near Morogoro, and at Dakawa, sixty kilometers to the North. It notes the movement's breadth of vision and humanitarianism as reflected in its concern with education in the midst of a revolutionary struggle. However, it also describes the warping effect of exile and of a necessary but confining militancy, where ANC schooling in Tanzania was used for propaganda as well as educational purposes. This, in turn, impacted on educational practice, making it difficult to admit problems or wrong turnings; it bred, it might be said, an element of duplicity in a number of fields.