ABSTRACT
I do not, in this chapter, wish merely to retell the history of inequality and systematic impoverishment associated with four centuries of colonial history in South Africa. The consequences of this legacy are now being visited upon educationists, pupils and teachers as they struggle with the effects of inequality, unequal opportunity and differential access to resources, even in the years following the 1994 election. Although these issues are both ethical and historical by nature, it is the ethical nature of a particular historical issue – language teaching and policy for schools – which forms the basis of this discussion. I shall attempt to describe the ethical and religious framework of the Christian National Education (CNE), as an education system devised by successive apartheid governments from 1948–80, with reference to its manifestation in language policy in education.
