Jun 17, South Africa: Youth Day (observed). Previously known as Soweto Day, Youth Day marks the start of the Soweto riots of 1976. The riots where ignited by a government ruling that all teaching in black schools would be held in Afrikaans. The issue was not so much the teaching in Afrikaans, but rather the whole system of education which was characterised by separate schools and universities, poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms and inadequately trained teachers for the black majority. On 16th June 1976 nearly 30,000 pupils from Soweto joined a protest march. After several clashes with the police and sporadic violence over the next few weeks, approximately 700 hundred people, many of them youths, had been killed and there was widespread destruction of property. Read more at bit.ly/19cdmNd
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:24:05 +0000