Patrick van Rensburg

Patrick van Rensburg (1931ΓÇô2017) was an anti-apartheid activist and self-made ΓÇÿalternative educationistΓÇÖ whose work received international recognition with the Right Livelihood Award in 1981.
Born in KwaZulu-Natal into what he described as a ΓÇÿvery ordinary South African family that believed in the virtue of racismΓÇÖ, Van Rensburg became a self-styled rebel who tirelessly pursued his own vision of a brighter future for emerging societies in post-colonial southern Africa.
His emotional and intellectual struggle against his upbringing and cultural roots led him to reject his life of white privilege in South Africa. Determined to prevent the emergence of a privileged black elite in post-colonial society, he devoted his life to implementing an alternative, egalitarian approach to education, focusing on quality and functional schooling for the majority. Rewarded with the internationally prestigious Right Livelihood Award for his unique contribution to education, he saw this work as a ΓÇÿnecessary tool of developmentΓÇÖ.
Exiled from South Africa in 1960 because of his involvement in the London boycott campaign that gave birth to the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Van Rensburg moved to Botswana (then Bechuanaland). There he founded cooperatives, provided vocational training and was among the earliest educationists to espouse the discipline of development studies.
Perhaps his best-known legacy is the Swaneng Hill School, which he founded to provide an educational home for primary school ΓÇÿdropoutsΓÇÖ through a curriculum that combined theory and practice, and academic and manual labour. He involved his pupils in building their school, running it, providing their own food, and making their own equipment and furniture.
Van Rensburg was an innovative and charismatic visionary who captured the zeitgeist of the late twentieth century, and whose work and vision still have resonance for debates in educational policy today.