Initiation School Amongst the Southern Ndebele People of South Africa: Depreciating Tradition or Appreciating Treasure?

ABSTRACT

The concept “initiation school” refers to a type of school that was initially established as a secret rite, which, in a symbolic sense, serves as the teenager's “transit education” or “passport” to adulthood. Currently, in South Africa, many opinions are voiced against initiation, mainly because it prevents children from attending formal school for up to ten weeks to attend the initiation schools, and, a rising number of youngsters lose their lives as a direct result of the unprofessional circumcisions that are executed. The matter has become so serious that a new Bill to monitor registration and control of initiation schools was approved in Parliament in 2003. Despite this controversy and the control measures that have been put in place, initiation schools still forms the backbone of traditional education.

This research aimed to determine what the initiation schools of the Southern Ndebele people of South Africa entails and what value the Southern Ndebele people attach to this type of traditional education. The study revealed that their initiation, when viewed against the work of Arnold van Gennep (1909, 1969) consists of three significant phases, i.e., the phase of severance, separation and isolation, the phase of thresholding, restoration, preparation and entrance and the phase of inclusion, absorption and incorporation. The study also revealed that initiation, as it is performed today, is consistent with community values and, to a large extent, serves to contribute to the education of the young people of the Southern Ndebele Tribe in that it supports and assists the parents with the difficult task of disciplining their children and transferring the norms and values of the Southern Ndebele, such as respect for others, the observation of their traditions, caring for and affirmation of their cultural identity and the stabilization and perpetuation of their cultural temperospatialtiy.