The case for rural education in post-apartheid South Africa: Sharing stories of successful Fulbright grantees for the period 2000 to 2006

This thesis uses Giddens' structuration theory as the theoretical framework to advance this investigation of ten students from rural South Africa. These talented men and women come from areas where approximately forty percent of South Africa's poor live, but as their personal stories reveal, their determination and gutzpah are realized in the quest for education and this quest opens the opportunity for them to participate in a world-wide academic scholarship competition - the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship; the question that comes to mind is how did they do it?. This study is primarily based on the voices of these students and how the structure of the Fulbright program, with all its regulations and rigid procedures and the agency of these students who propelled themselves to leave their homes in the towns and villages of South Africa to pursue their PhD's in the United States, and return home to meet commitments they made, to plough back their new skills and knowledge to their respective communities and to South Africa.