South Africa

Street Talk

Rampant racism on campus at CPUT (Video)

Student teachers at CPUT decry the overt racism at their college. Some lecturers speak Afrikaans and only recognise white or coloured kids, coloured students constantly insult black ones, white learners get preferential treatment and are never assigned to schools in the townships.


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Street Talk is a groundbreaking television series aired weekly on community television. From grassroots to the establishment, our engaging programmes expose the lived realities and uncensored views of ordinary South Africans.

Street Talk was launched in 2008 and is a non-profit organisation – visit us www.streettalktv.com. DM

 

UPDATE (6pm, September 14 September, 2018): CPUT, via its Marketing & Communication Department,  has responded to the video as follows:

“While uncomfortable to watch, the Street Talk video is an opportunity for the university to reflect on how crucial it is for students to feel heard, understood and valued in academic spaces and beyond. The video’s producers must also, however, be challenged for its lack of representation, blatant stereotyping of certain races and disregard for institutional opinion. Reporting of this nature shuts down dialogue instead of engaging it which is unfortunate.

Responding after the video has already been released is not ideal since we believe that there are many interventions already in place in the Education Faculty and beyond that may assist some of the students in the video with the issues they raise. Some of these include the First Year Experience Project which is aimed at preparing learners for the rigours of university life (related to complaints about black students repeating multiple years) and digital storytelling, used in classrooms to encourage students to connect in ways that extend beyond race and class (related to complaints about race groupings in class).

“Finally, as young teachers, the students already shoulder an obligation to the young minds they shape. While some of the opinions were concerning we hope the students have grown from the experience of participating in the video and we would hope to engage with them even more on the matter.”

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