George Shan

Michel Foucault is a renowned French philosopher, and those who are familiar with his analysis of disciplinary power elucidate the complex and subtle ways in which power relations are established and maintained through disciplinary techniques in various institutional settings, of which school is a prime example. 

These techniques shape the bodies, minds and behaviour of learners who spend the better part of their youth in a classroom.

Thirty-three years after independence, Namibia is still a society of high socio-economic contrasts, which stem from the apartheid era. 

The Bantu education policy had been implemented in a way that severely disadvantaged the black majority while favouring the white minority. 

The consensus view at independence was that the state quo in education had to change, but ideas on how to go about that change were mostly derived from outside of Namibia, with little critical appraisal. 

One of the central ideas was the introduction of mass schooling. Within Africa, mass schooling has become a key strategy for signalling modern institutional change, particularly the coming of Western ideals and the arrival of mass opportunity. 

As access to education became more democratised in independent Namibia, the school classroom had also become the locus of disciplinary power over the collective body of teachers and learners. However, addressing the challenges inherent in the Namibian schooling model, which rests on disciplinary power introduced right after apartheid ended in Namibia has never really been confronted. 

Therefore, analysing post-apartheid education in Namibia through this lens exposes the pitfalls of rationality, which props up disciplinary power.

Foucault mentions that discipline influences the formation of learners’ identities, aspirations and self-perceptions, and it leaves insufficient space for autonomy, creativity and critical thinking. 

Teachers, on the other hand, are under a huge administrative burden that surveillance places them. They are so preoccupied with acting in their role as assessors that they can hardly act as pedagogues.

Why does measuring learner and teacher attendance as well as academic performance take precedence over taking care of their well-being? 

Why do most school administrators and teachers dedicate the bulk of their time-on-task on the infinite exercise of discipline, leaving precious little time for critical reflection in class? 

Why is classroom pedagogy centred on memorising study materials and rewarding, not those who think critically but those who recite bits of textbook knowledge?

Answering these admittedly complex questions requires a multidisciplinary effort. 

Such Foucauldian reading of schooling could arguably be applied to most education systems worldwide. 

On the one side, the appeal of rationality in shaping contemporary education policies and practices stems is linked to the notion of objectivity.

How we think about education has its roots in common sense, which favours discipline, ritualised forms of learning and acquisition of knowledge through rigid examination systems. 

Power creates forms of reality. 

These forms of rationality are appealing because they provide a sense of order and control over individuals. 

How else is one to run a school, much less an entire education system, without order? 

The underlying rationality is multilayered.

However, these very same learners who ‘graduate’ from this process lack many of the critical thinking skills which, ironically, the curriculum prescribes as the ultimate goal of education in knowledge-based Namibia. 

Empirical evidence is ample. Namibian educators must therefore be cognizant of both the opportunities and pitfalls that ‘disciplinarian’ and commonsensical rationality affords. It is crucial to critically assess the limitations of a disciplinary classroom from a learner-centred perspective. Normative judgments routinely disadvantage certain groups (such as San, Damara and Nama), perpetuating inequalities based on socioeconomic status, ethnicity, language or other intersectional factors. 

Balancing efficiency with social justice and maintaining order while promoting agency in schools are complex, but they are urgent tasks facing Namibia’s education system. Therefore, Foucault's theory provides pointers for how to achieve them.

*George Shan is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Sociology at Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Germany.