Mandela began his secondary education shortly after his 16th birthday. Besides, age was a chapter that would open and shape his aspirations and dreams to save his people from the yokes of the colonial masters.
Clarkebury Boarding Institute, situated in the nearby district of Engcobo was Mandela's first secondary school which quite elite. It was “elite” because it was thought to be catering for the educated black stratum, but without political or democratic right as well increased restricted possession and access to wealth and land. Besides, black educational facilities, even for the elite, were inferior to that of whites.
On January 1935, Mandela enrolled at Clarkebury once more. He drove his Ford V8, which was a symbol of a greater status among blacks back then.
The white-dominated government embarked on administration of a set of discriminatory laws that would further snatch away the few electoral rights of Africans. These in essence further complicated things, for black Africans make their lives more unbearably hard.
Africans had to endure nearly two decades of the Native Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the Native Administration Act of 1927 had followed the Act of Union in 1910, which were deemed as harsh, segregate and discriminatory laws. Clarkebury was a Methodist Wesleyan mission school under the administration of the school principal Reverend Cecil C. Harris, who was strict and standoffish from the students.
Clarkebury mission station was initially founded by Wesleyan missionaries in 1830 with a land grant from the Thembu King Ngubencuka.
When Nelson was 17 years old at Clarkebury, he got his “first true female friend,” a fellow student called Mathona, although the relationship was a bit casual.
Mandela studied assiduously for two years at Clarkebury and successfully managed to get his Junior Certificate in two years, instead of the mandated three years.
In January 1937, he graduated Wesleyan College, a prep school, to study for the university-entrance examination known as matriculation in his nineteenth year.
In 1937, when Mandela joined the school, the Principal of Healdtown was the Reverend A. Arthur Wellington, served as president of the Methodist Conference of South Africa the same year.
Quite notably, the school operated on a rigid basis, which may have contributed to Mandela’s later great self-discipline. According to Mandela’s own confession, he had been a solid rather than brilliant student up until then, but a deep manifestation of brightness emerged when he won a Healdtown prize in 1938 for the best Xhosa essay. He also expressed interests in sports, especially boxing, and long-distance running while in school.
In February 1939, Mandela joined a very select group of African students who had qualified to be enrolled at the South African Native College (later known as today as the University of Fort Hare). This was after completing his secondary education and matriculated a year ahead of schedule.
Fort Hare was an up starting small college with approximately 150 to 200 students and Mandela made many new friends, some of whom would become very close lifetime friends.
Oliver Tambo, for instance, was a friend who later partnered with Mandela in the formation of the first African legal firm and also to lead the ANC in exile was a year older. He hailed from a humble peasant background in Pondoland but was educated in urban Johannesburg.
During the debate, Mandela was seen as always cautious and calculative with a very sensitive demeanor to insults or racism.
Mandela enrolled at University of Hare to study, Native Administration and Law, English, Roman and Dutch, Law, Social Anthropology. While in second year at college, he showed interest in becoming an interpreter in the civil service and studied this subject. Back then, interpreting was a career of high status, good remuneration and generally high-prized among Africans. Mandela probably saw opportunities here for assisting his clan and fellow rural Africans who could not easily understand the legal proceedings of the day, which were done largely in English or Afrikaans languages.
In November 1940, Mandela’s formal education came to a prompt and unexpected end when he was expelled for refusing to serve in the Student Representative Council (SRC) and directed to apply for following academic year admissions suppose he would change his mind.
Mandela later returns to school alter in the year only to meet another fresh hurdle; arranged Marriage by the then regent Jongintaba. He escapes to Johannesburg with the regent’s son Justice to avoid the arranged marriage.
In 1941, Mandela resumes his studies again keen to avoid precarious position of his class under the patronage of the regent but still is touched by the plight of his people against the repressive colonial master's rule.