The exact words
What Mandela meant
Mandela retired from the presidency of South Africa in 1999 but remained hugely active, especially in causes involving children, health and education. In July 2003 he spoke at the launch of the Mindset Network, a project to deliver educational content to South African schools and homes through satellite television and the internet. In that setting, his sentence was both a compliment to the project and a statement of belief: education changes not only individual lives but whole societies.
The choice of the word “weapon” is striking from a man who had once led the armed wing of the African National Congress and spent twenty-seven years in prison. Mandela had come to see education as the deepest kind of power, the one apartheid had most feared giving to Black South Africans.
Why education mattered so much
Under the Bantu Education Act of 1953, the apartheid government created a separate school system for Black children that was designed, in the words of its architect Hendrik Verwoerd, to prepare them only for labor. In 1976, students in Soweto rose up against the imposition of Afrikaans as a language of instruction, and police opened fire. Mandela himself had studied at Fort Hare University and the University of the Witwatersrand, and completed his law degree by correspondence while imprisoned. For him, schooling was never neutral; it was a battlefield.
How to quote it
This is one of the Mandela quotes that checks out, so you can use it with confidence. Use the full wording, “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” and, if you can, mention the context of apartheid education; it gives the line the weight Mandela meant it to have.
What people get wrong
A slogan from Mandela's years in prison or the anti-apartheid struggle.
A line from a 2003 speech at the launch of an educational project, given nine years after the end of apartheid by a man who had seen education used as a tool of oppression.
Timeline
- 1953South Africa's Bantu Education Act creates a separate, deliberately inferior school system for Black South Africans.
- 1976The Soweto uprising begins as students protest against being taught in Afrikaans.
- July 16, 2003Mandela, then retired from the presidency, speaks at the launch of the Mindset Network, an educational television and online project.
- TodayOne of the most quoted lines about education in the world, printed on school walls and in commencement speeches.
Use it in a speech
Questions people ask
When did Nelson Mandela say “education is the most powerful weapon”?
At the launch of the Mindset Network, an educational broadcasting initiative, in Johannesburg on July 16, 2003.
What is the exact wording?
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Many versions shorten it to “education is the most powerful weapon to change the world.”
Why did Mandela care so much about education?
Under apartheid, the Bantu Education Act of 1953 gave Black South Africans a deliberately inferior education. Mandela himself studied law, and later earned his law degree by correspondence while in prison.
Cite this quote
These cite the original source directly, so you can use them in an essay or paper. Always check your teacher's required style.