Extract from High Commissioner’s Report No.24 on the education Bill, 7 August 1953, Catalogue Ref: DO 35/6716
Extract from High Commissioner’s Report No.31 on the education Act, November 1954, Catalogue Ref: DO 35/6716
In 1949 Hendrick Verwoerd, Minister for Native Affairs and the Eiselen Commission investigated African education. This formed the basis of the later Bantu Education Act which enforced apartheid and created a limited vocational curriculum for African pupils. It meant complete separation of educational facilities for white, Black, ‘Coloured’ (mixed-race), and Indian populations, creating a huge divergence of opportunity.
African education was now controlled by the Minister for Native Affairs, not the Ministry of Education. Mission schools were no longer state funded and large numbers forced to close.
Transcript
BANTU EDUCATION BILL
- This Bill, which will remove control of Native education from the Provincial Administration and place it completely in the hands of the Ministry of Native Affairs is being roundly condemned in Natal. It is conceded that there is a lot to be said for the Government’s arguments in favour of creating a unified system of local Bantu Government, charged with the administration of all local services, in place of the present multiplicity of uncoordinated development services. But it is widely felt that it would be a great mistake to strengthen the hands of the central Government still further, at the expense of the already weakened Provincial councils and all the missionary bodies, which have done such excellent pioneering work in the field of Native education. This Bill proposes to give arbitrary powers to the Minister, who will be able to ban any Bantu school other than a government school, and who will have power to “make regulations for religious instruction in Bantu schools”; it is felt that this may pave the way for the eventual introduction of the discredited “Christian National” education in Native schools, which would be most undesirable.
BANTU EDUCTION ACT
- The decision of the Bishops of Johannesburg and Pretoria to close all 100 Anglican Mission Schools in the Transvaal because of their reluctance to co-operate with the Government in the administration of the Bantu Education Act, has aroused considerable interest and sympathy in Natal. The excellent training college for African teachers at Adam’s College, Natal, is also to be closed at the end of 1955, because the Minister for Native Affairs has decided to take the training of African teachers out of the hands of the college authorities. The 40 Anglican Mission schools in Natal will however not be closed down although the Episcopal Synod [bishops’ council] has made it very clear that it deplores the Bantu Education Act. The highly respected Roman Catholic Bishop of Durban, Denis Hurley, has also weighed in against the Government over this issue most outspokenly, to the intense annoyance of the Minister of Native Affairs.
(i)
- What are the main criticisms of the Bantu Education Bill according to this document extract?
- How can this bill be regarded as an attempt to reinforce apartheid in education?
- Find out the terms of Extension of Universities Act 1959. How did this impact higher education for Black Africans?
- This extract comments on a ‘bill’. How does a ‘bill’ differ from an ‘Act’?
(ii)
- What are the effects of the Bantu Education Act expressed in this extract?
- What does it reveal about the reception of this law?
- Find out more about the origin and position of mission schools in South Africa.
- Why do you think this report was produced by the High Commissioner in 1954?