Mr Chairman, right at the outset I wish to convey thanks and make certain announcements.

In the first place I wish to thank the Director-General, Dr A B Fourie, and the staff of the department for the friendly way in which they have welcomed me in the department and made me feel at home right away. From the very first day we were engaged in productive work. I also greatly appreciate the friendly way in which they have assisted me thus far.

At the end of the year we shall be saying farewell to one of our Chief Directors, the Rev Greyling. In doing so we shall be taking our leave of a greatly valued and competent member of staff. He has many years of experience in the department and has made a very sound contribution over the years.

Secondly I also wish to mention that another Chief Director, a person who is very well known in South Africa, Mr Jaap Strydom, is at present still suffering from serious health problems and we are greatly missing his contribution in the department. It is our sincere desire that he will recover fully in due course and take his place with us again, particularly in view of certain important projects he was engaged in.

I also wish to convey a message of congratulations to Prof Taljaard, who has in the interim been appointed rector of Medunsa, as well as Prof Crouse, who has been appointed Rector of the Vista University. Since then we have co-operated at the official level, too, and I have great appreciation for the responsible way in which they are handling their new posts.

This is an exceptionally important day for an important body that is involved in the activities of this department. To be specific, this is the first time that the members of the executive committee of the Council for Education and Training is present at the discussion of this Vote. This council is composed of educationists from the various Black communities, and over the years it has made a very important contribution by furnishing the Minister of Education and Training with valuable advice in respect of the handling of the school aspects in his department. In expressing my appreciation I wish to mention that I have met them on several occasions, particularly members of the executive committee. On each occasion I have been deeply impressed by their competence and the value of the advice I have obtained in that way. Unfortunately, some time ago this body lost the services of Dr Cingo due to ill health. He was involved with the activities of this council for many years. I have not yet had the privilege of meeting him, but I wish to place on record here today that the department and my predecessors have had only the highest appreciation for this respected educationist in the Black communities of South Africa. Since he is suffering from ill health it is appropriate to wish him all of the best and a speedy and full recovery. His life-history really reads like a fairy story that has come true. He is one of those people who obtained a teaching diploma and began teaching before he obtained matric. Subsequently he progressed to the highest academic and professional level. Apart from his educational qualifications he has a BA LLB degree and a doctorate in education. He has served the community in a wide variety of fields.

During the time that he was not able to perform his duties, Prof M E R Mathivha, the deputy chairman, acted as chairman. I am grateful to be able to announce today that Prof Mathivha has consented to take over the chairmanship of this council. Like his respected predecessor he, too, is a person who has left his mark in his community, not only as an educationist but in several other fields in which he has made a valuable contribution. He is a literary man of considerable stature and is recognized in his community as an author of books. Prof Mathivha, too, began teaching before passing matric. I mention this because it illustrates the dedication and perseverance that the people who have reached the highest level in those communities have displayed by consistently bettering themselves and, in so doing, providing a better service both to the department and to their communities. Subsequently Prof Mathivha obtained a BA degree, a university teaching diploma at Unisa, a BA Honours, an MA and eventually the degree D.Lit. He also obtained bursaries from Britain and Germany which enabled him to pursue his studies abroad as well. He had a long and outstanding teaching career at various levels until he was eventually appointed Professor in Venda at the University of the North. Like his predecessor he, too, has an exemplary history of service to his community. I want to extend my cordial thanks to him for having consented to accept this major responsibility. From my experience of his council thus far I am convinced that we shall in future be able to enjoy very fruitful co-operation as regards the responsibility vested in him, his council and, in particular, his executive committee.

I also wish to express my thanks to the members of the executive committee for having consented to undertake the journey. Many of them have come a long way to attend the discussion of this Vote today.

I also wish to mention that Dr Laurence McCrystal has consented to become chairman of the State Universities and Technikons Advisory Council which has thus far had the status of an advisory committee but which, in terms of legislation of which notice has already been given, is to become a full-fledged council and statutory body. We were very grateful to obtain his services and those of the other members of the council who will assist him.

I also wish to make honourable mention of the innumberable school committees which are doing valuable work for us in the various school communities and, together with them, the parent-teacher associations and, of course, our principals, to whom I shall refer later and who have an extremely difficult and demanding task to perform. In particular I also wish to point out that the Council for Education and Training, as hon members will hear later, is being supported by seven committees that have been appointed in each of the seven regions into which the activities of this department have been divided. Each of these regional committees consists of 13 members and these committee members, too, have done very good work in providing the Council for Education and Training with advice so that in their contact with the Minister, the Director-General and other senior staff they are able to convey the sentiments and wishes of the communities they serve.

Sir, long before I had the privilege of serving in this particular portfolio, Black education was a matter which I regarded as being of special importance. In several local and overseas contacts with people—often some of the severest critics of the Government— the whole issue of the importance of Black education came to the fore time and again. I am very grateful to be able to say that I am expressing the conviction of the Government when I say that if Black education prospers, that will contribute towards peaceful and prosperous co-existence in South Africa. The contrary is also true. If Black education were really to start faring badly, things could develop which could have a ripple effect and which could do this country tremendous harm. Therefore, in working with this matter one should know that one is dealing not only with a remendous professional task but in many respects with an extremely sensitive political and community matter. I resolved to approach my duties from the outset within the framework of the guidelines of the Government and the party to which I belong— guidelines which are well known—and to do so with the greatest possible degree of objectivity. I further resolved to be available to listen, at all possible and impossible times, because I believe that Black education is a matter that is too sensitive for anyone to decide in advance whether a person who wishes to discuss the matter can make a contribution or not, whether such a person has ulterior motives and whether he really has education in mind or not. Therefore I have thus far been listening—and I intend doing so in future as well—to anyone, both friend and opponent.

Of course, being appointed to a portfolio such as this without having any experience of Black education as such, entails certain disadvantages. However, it places one in a specifically privileged position in that for some time one is permitted to ask many stupid questions. I have already thanked the staff for their assistance in this regard.

The closer one gets to the activities of this department the more one is impressed by their enormous extent. On the one hand there is the tremendous logistical problem entailed by the more administration of the department, which ought to keep any executive officer of a large company busy and concerned until late at night. However, there is another aspect of this department’s activities. The more one examines the department’s activities the more one finds out how extremely sensitive is the matter one is dealing with. One is dealing here with the aspirations of developing people, with the aspirations of communities and individuals. One is also dealing with an education department with a unique and complex history and course of development. Therefore I can assure hon members that it is a fascinating experience to enter from the outside, and an extremely satisfying one when one becomes deeply involved.

I wish to share a few ideas about this matter with hon members today. I wish to approach it on the basis that we should not merely consider it from the point of the solution of problems, but that we should also consider Black education in the light of the many opportunities created by education to make a contribution to the development and unfolding of communities. We should rather approach it from that point of view than constantly to focus on the problems, although they are of course impossible to avoid. In the nature of the matter I shall have something to say about that as well.

To begin with, one interesting fact is that the problems characteristic of this department are not problems limited to our country. The problems characteristic of Black education are indeed problems characteristic of education in any developing country in the world. In adopting this approach I do not seek to disregard the problems we are faced with, viz boycots and poor examination results, as a first priority. However, I wish to emphasize that we in this House, together with the department and informed and well-disposed people—in particular, the members of the communities we serve—can make a considerable contribution to development in South Africa which will be to the benefit of all.

The improvement of socio-economic conditions makes successful education an absolute priority. We all know what a high priority is given to socio-economic development in South Africa. Moreover, the success of this department is directly responsible for the Black man assuming his rightful place in the economy of the country, wherever it affords him the opportunity to do so. Accordingly, community involvement and the dedication of every official concerned is of cardinal importance. What I have just said may perhaps sound idealistic, but I want to ask whether one can speak of education at all without being idealistic. If one loses one’s idealism in life and allows the problems of the day to get one down, one might as well close the school doors, because then one is really without a message and one will not achieve success in the community that one wishes to serve. Moreover, the communities that we must serve here have such a need for education that everyone involved must display the highest possible degree of idealism. However, we must also set in operation the machinery whereby to implement our idealism in this regard as far as is practicable. If perhaps there is still someone in this House—and it is possible that in the course of the debate we may be able to identify one or two such—who thinks that the activities of this department differ from those of other departments in South Africa only in that due to its specific policies the Government has made this department responsible only for the children of the various Black communities; if they think that this is the only difference, viz merely one of children whose skin colour is different, then they are making a very big mistake. As I said earlier, we are dealing here with the teaching, education and training of developing peoples, and the phenomenon we are dealing with here, and concerning which Governments in this country have been criticized since 1948 and have had to endure the most severe criticism, are problems that occur elsewhere in the world as well.

I want to say at once that in that regard I do not wish to adopt the attitude, as Prof Chris Barnard has said on occasion, that if we can say that the people in our hospitals bleed less than they do in other hospitals, our hands are clean. I certainly do not wish to adopt such a standpoint. However, I do wish to plead that if we want to assess the problems and the workings of this department we must do so in the context of problems relating to the education and teaching of developing peoples, problems that are recognized in other countries as well. The problems being experienced in other countries are as little the result of a specific ideology—I am referring now to developing countries—being followed there, as the problems we are experiencing in this department, and which are characteristic of Black education, are the direct or exclusive consequence of the policy and the ideological considerations of the Government which applied in the past and still apply.

The education of developing peoples, with its inevitable sturm und drang, whether in Mexico or in Senegal, and the problems it entails, are certainly not solved by bandying about terminology such as “racist education” and “inferior education”. It is the absolute truth, and it is the experience of all of us, that the use of terms of this nature when referring to the activities of the department only aggravates the problems because it promotes suspicion and contempt and certainly does not help to facilitate our task in any way.

Since 1948 we on this side of the House have tackled the whole issue of Black education with the greatest possible degree of realism and positive idealism. It began with the appointment of the Eiselen Commission, which I do not wish to dwell on at this point. At the beginning of the fifties the vision assumed concrete form, in that from that point on Black education was no longer conducted in the fragmentary fashion characteristic of earlier times. At the time Black education, as an appendage known as “Native education”, fell under each of the provinces. In those years there were only 800 000 Black children at school in South Africa. Today there are more than five million. Today there are more Black children at school in South Africa, including the Black national and self-governing states, than there are White people in South Africa. This is the nature of the explosion that has taken place in respect of Black education since those times. So many people, when referring to Black education, speak about the good old days when it still formed part of provincial education, but if one is to do any justice to the special character of this education— bearing in mind that previously it was linked to the provincial education authorities as an appendage—one is faced with the ridiculous situation that there are today far more children in this educational framework than are dealt with by the four provinces together. Therefore, when one wants to begin to draw comparisons—which is probably inevitable— we should at least compare what is comparable. This department suffers a great deal from the false criteria often applied in comparisons. The truth about the education provided by this department is that it is a type of education with its own character, and a short history. It is not education which is basically an extension of the culture of the community it serves. The people in the schools of this department are people in a stage of transition because in certain respects they have had to accept norms different to those that they have lived by thus far.

We in South Africa must bear in mind— and these are the realities we are working with—that only a little more than 150 years ago there was no such thing as a written Black language. Nor was there a written history in those communities. There was no recorded geography either. At the time all these things were passed down by word of mouth. Of course, this certainly does not mean that there was no order or education. Those who have read books about that period will be acquainted with the order and discipline that prevailed in those communities. It was true order and discipline characteristic of and arising out of the culture of that time. The education needed by those people today to enable them to compete successfully in the economy is a kind of education which in fact is basically an extension of Western culture and customs, and which of course comes naturally and easily to the ear and the hand of the pupils who are taught in today’s White schools. Therefore, when one seeks to draw comparisons, then, apart from the considerations to which I have just referred and other considerations which must also be considered, one must not overlook the characteristic history of Black education in South Africa as it has been affected by specific factors.

We also see in the education community in South Africa the total continuum, the total spectrum of development, as well as the relativity of levels of development of the various communities in South Africa, when those communities are assessed by the criterion of Western standards. If we were to assess them in terms of traditional African standards, which have allowed peoples to survive for thousands of years and in addition have enabled people to live in peace with one another for long periods, that relative scale would simply be inverted. Therefore I contend today that when we seek to compare, we should not confuse the developing world and the First World, which in South Africa come into contact with one another so graphically. In this regard we must be scientific, realistic and practical in our approach.

I now wish to refer to a few demographic factors. When one looks at the age distribution of the various population groups in South Africa one is immediately struck by the fact that graphically speaking, the Black communities in South Africa are young. The population graph in respect of those communities is at its highest in respect of young people, whereas the equivalent graph for the White communities reaches its summit at a far higher age. Relatively speaking, therefore, this department serves a variety of relatively young communities. The result of this is that every year there is a tremendous influx of pupils to the schools of this department.

The truth about the population explosion is the following. For those to whom it was part of their culture to have many babies so that one day they could be cared for by those children—and to thereby ensure their pension—during those times of a high death rate among children it was necessary to have, say, eight children so that ultimately one could retain four. The momentum of that aspect of the culture of developing communities is still visible in South Africa today. Linked to that, of course, is refined medical care which is characteristic of the First World and which is found in South Africa too. Here, of course, we have a formula for a population explosion.

We are not complaining about that. We are not dissatisfied with the fact that the death rate among children is falling drastically. Moreover it is by no means my intention to state that the Government or the relevant authorities are satisfied with the present death rate among children. It would be a good thing if the death rate among children in all the different population groups were precisely the same, viz the minimum. Moreover, this is undoubtedly an aim of the various health authorities. However, as far as this department is concerned the consequences of this are a reality that we have to deal with now, and that we must also incorporate in the model we adopt with regard to the future education of those children.

Another interesting phenomenon is the fact that the median of school ages, as far as they apply to this department is high in comparison with that of White pupils. I have the table before me which indicates that the median of matriculants in our schools is 19 years and 10 months. I can provide other figures as well. However the interesting phenomenon is that our school population is relatively older than their White fellow pupils, whereas on the other hand, our teachers are young. Half of the teachers in this department today—there are more than 40 000 of them—are below the age of 30 years; in other words, we have young teachers, relatively inexperienced, and an older-than-average school population.

I wish to quote to hon members what Coombs, a world expert in the field of education in developing communities, has to say about this matter:

Therefore we must expect another wave.

†Coombs also noted the development of imbalances, and comments on the fact as follows:

*From this derives one fact of enormous importance, viz that money alone, which is important to us in this Budget debate, cannot solve the education problems of developing communities. Money alone is not the solution. It is true that it is the biggest single input because 80% of the budget of any education department consists of salaries, but simply providing more money is certainly not going to solve our total education problems.

†It is customary in many developing countries for the strictest possible criteria to be applied in regard to admission to secondary and tertiary educational institutions. It is common knowledge that this is not the policy of the South African Government. On the contrary, if the availability of funds for bursaries and so forth is taken into account then clearly quite the opposite policy is followed in South Africa. Coombs has a comment in this regard as well which is worthy of note. He says:

The author further identifies two interesting and contrasting aspects of education. The first he calls “consumption by means of education” where parents send their children to school simply because they believe that the children will receive something in school that they would otherwise not be able to obtain. That, incidentally, is the humanistic aspect of education which to many people becomes an objective in itself.

The other aspect which he identifies he calls “the investment demand dimension of education” in regard to which he says:

If ever there was an important statement, this is it, namely that the social demand for education in developing communities is perceived by those communities themselves as being something completely different from the manpower requirements of those very same communities.

In summary the author tries to tell us:

Do we in the department not face this every day?

He continues:

Although this was written 20 years ago, this virtually to a letter is the conditions which we face in the department today. He continues:

There is another demographic aspect which needs reference, and that is the whole question of urbanization. One of my hon colleagues will deal with this later on after which I shall elaborate on what he has said.

Allow me to say, with reference to the prevailing conditions in our urban areas, that there is a school of thought today which is most interesting and that is that the contribution to the total education of a person by his school, only amounts to approximately 20%. The home as such contributes 50% of the education of the individual and his immediate surroundings and environment the remaining 30%. Even if this statement were only partly true, it obviously places a tremendous obligation on education for developing communities.

The question arises to what extent the dislocating and destabilizing process of urbanization could in effect provide a sound basis for education and to what extent a corellation existed between this psychological and social condition on the one hand and the disturbances which we also experience currently on the other hand.

Let us look at the practical South African situation as far as this statement is concerned the present and prevailing conditions. Without getting into further detail about that now, I venture to say that it is not only on account of certain departmental shortcomings, but also the social and other conditions under which many of our pupils have to study, that proper results are not achieved or a calm atmosphere created.

Allow me to add just this one remark in this regard. Only a small minority of the pupils in the schools of this department have a private desk in a room where they can sit to study with proper lighting. Mostly they come from over-crowded homes. They come from an environment where more often than not, there is not the normal compulsion that one must at least finish matric. In the case of their parents, in most cases both of them are in full-time employment. The communication between child and parent is restricted to a short period of time late at night, and when it does take place, taking into account the average literacy and training and education of the parent, particularly in the case of a senior pupil, I shudder to say it, but I think very little constructive communication can come from that as far as the pure academic school work is concerned. If a mother only has standard one and she does unskilled or semiskilled labour, then certainly she cannot answer her son’s difficult question with regard to the French Revolution or the exports of Madagascar or such matters. Therefore, if we approach Black education from a Government point of view, we are challenged with an overall policy embracing not only educational aspects as such, but also with that which must of necessity refer to socio-economic and other conditions.

There are some interesting experiments under way right now where the private sector has taken a number of pupils to transfer them to a completely foreign environment which they believe is more stimulating. Everybody is awaiting with great interest the results of these experiments. However, as far as the department is concerned, it is imperative that we should provide education for the masses. That is our brief; that is what we have to do. Essentially our problem is to solve a people’s problem through people. We are a labour-intensive endeavour, and in spite of modern aids, we remain by and large restricted to manual labour. You cannot replace a teacher and you cannot increase a teacher’s productivity by increasing the number of pupils in his class. In fact, by doing that you would decrease his productivity. In other words, education as an endeavour will remain labour intensive ad infinitum. There is still another implication, a cost implication. Even if the whole set-up remains static, one will find, and this is the case all over the world, that there will be an increase in the annual budget requirements of education departments on account of the momentum inside an education department to do more.

Coming to our teaching staff, I want to say that we do not have anything but a first team. We only have one team, our best team, our first team. Some people believe or seem to create the impression that we purposely prevent teachers with higher educational qualifications from entering the service of our department. We do not have scores of adequately qualified teachers just sitting in the pavilions waiting for a vacant slot so that they can come onto the field of our department’s activities. It is manifestly untrue to suggest that there is any design with regard to the relatively under-qualified teaching staff we have. I might just add that, through the years, the department has done its level best to look after its own manpower requirenents, but that our manpower has proved to be so attractive to the private sector that very often we find that we cannot compete in their league resulting in the poaching of our staff. Whereas we are a labour intensive endeavour they are more capital intensive and can well afford salaries substantially higher than ours. Currently more than 10 000 of our teachers are doing part-time study courses in order to improve their educational qualifications, and I want to pay tribute to them for that. They are doing a commendable job of work.

If one looks at the early days of this department, 30 years ago, when it came into being, one sees that its first priority was to bring literacy to relatively illiterate masses. The only way it could be done, was to employ people with relatively low academic qualifications, even with only a std 8 qualification and sometimes even a std 6 qualification, and to allow them to qualify as teachers by completing a two-year teacher’s diploma course. We did that to at least get people literate. If you have a basic infrastructure of literacy, people are trainable in the occupational situations they find themselves. To this day thousands of these teachers are still employed in the department. One only needs to see them in action, to see the devotion, the love and the efficiency with which they do their job, to appreciate what they are really doing. It therefore hurts when people refer in a derogatory fashion at seminars and in the media to our under-qualified teachers. One need not be over-qualified to be a good teacher. Some of the best qualified people I have met in my life, do not have any teaching ability whatsoever. It is often much better to have a relatively lower qualified person who is a good teacher and who enjoys the confidence of the child and who can love the child in the fashion that he should be loved as a pupil. Often one achieves much better results that way. I am not implying that we neglect academic qualifications when it comes to incentives, because we are indeed giving attention to that aspect as far as we possibly can.

There are so many good things to say about this department, and other speakers on this side will refer to some of them. At this stage I would like to refer briefly to examination results. If one examines the growth in the number of candidates for the matriculation examination conducted by this department, one sees that it tells a story in itself. I want to say immediately that we are not satisfied with the results that were achieved. Consequently we held an in-depth investigation internally in the department. We multiplied discussions, talks and advice sessions throughout the department. However, there are certain basic constraints outside our area of jurisdiction which also need to be addressed in order to solve the problem.

The pupils in Atteridgeville, even if thay go back to school on Monday and do not miss a single minute of class for the rest of the year, will have an enormous backlog. There is a fundamental responsibility on pupils to learn and study every day. One needs 200 days of 10 hours’ study a day, including school time, in order to pass matric to whichever population group one belongs. In other words, those pupils who missed their classes do not really have a chance of passing unless they try very hard to catch up. In the case of Atteridgeville, and other places, we are prepared to help them. However, it would seem that we are not achieving much success. There are only two days left to see for ourselves whether they respond positively.

This department will spend R709 million in the current year. We have more than 40 000 teachers; more than 7 000 schools and more than 1,6 million pupils. Somewhere, somehow, something can go wrong every day. Somebody who is aggrieved often multiplies his grievance among his friends, and this is often where disturbances originate. My feeling is therefore that when we address ourselves to the problem of boycotts, this should also be kept in mind.

We applied our minds to the problem of community involvement. I am happy to say today that the executive committee of the Council for Education and Training responded, on very short notice, to an invitation to meet me and officials of the department a few days ago after we had completed our investigation into ways and means of addressing the communication problem in the community with the pupils and parents on the one side and the department on the other side. We had a most fruitful session which yielded, I believe, the elements, and in many instances also the details, of a plan about which I will tell the House in a few moments. Following that, I met the executive committee of Atasa—the African Teachers’ Association of South Africa— from whom we again received most valuable advice. The discussion took place in a most amicable and constructive spirit. Lastly, I also met a delegation of the association of School Inspectors. We met the chairman of each of the seven regions of this association and the system was again discussed. I am happy to say that we have complete agreement with the people involved in terms of what I will refer to now. The present communication structure stands on two legs. On the one side is the department and all its various aspects, from the Minister down to the principals and teachers, and the other leg—I am now only referring to primary and secondary school situations—is the Council for Education and Training and its seven regional committees. Both the council and its seven committees are appointed in full by the Minister. There is then a tremendous gap coming down to the school committees at school level. Each school has either a school committee or a governing body. This gap was informally filled in certain instances by chairmen of school committees organizing themselves into informal committees. However, these committees have never been recognized and apparently operate only in troubled times. We have identified the gap and we have now agreed formally to do two things.

First of all, we shall not only acknowledge the committees which already exist, but we shall also encourage the formation of councils of chairmen of school committees for each community, for instance the Atteridgeville or the Mamelodi community. The chairmen of the various school committees in a particular community—and they are elected by that community—will in this way form a council and elect a chairman who will then be the spokesman for the parents in a particular community. As I have said, these councils of chairmen of school committees will be fully elected bodies. We will then— and this is the second aspect—appoint some of them, or give them an opportunity to elect their own representatives, to go through to the regional committees and we will double the number of representatives from the regional committees on the council. In other words, it boils down to a complete democratizing process of that channel of communication coming from the communittees. It will start with school committees, of which there are more than 2 000. Then there will be the councils of chairmen of school committees, of which we presume there will be in the vicinity of 300. They will then elect their representatives to serve on the regional committees and from those regional committees representatives will go to the council. The council and also the regional committees will have to be formally reconstructed, when their term of office expires in 1987. In addition to the elected members, we intend appointing a minority of specialists to both the council and the regional committees; ten to the council and 5 to the original committees. The majority on the council, 14 out of 24, and on the regional committees will therefore be elected people who will filter through the ranks from the level of the community. In other words, we have filled in a gap and, secondly, we have democratized the process of representation while we we still intend to retain the good services of those specialists who have in the past made a tremendous contribution by appointing a number of them to both the council and the regional committees.

The second part of our proposals addresses the main problem. That concerns the pupils themselves. It is silly for pupils’ bodies to agitate to be called student representative councils. The other morning at six o’clock I had 18 Atteridgeville rebels in my house in Pretoria. Sixteen of them had been expelled from school or suspended. They said to me that they wanted to put their demands. I then told them there was no such thing as a demand; that nobody demands anything from anybody else, but that one makes polite and respectful requests. They said: “Okay, fine, Sir; we have some requests to put to you.” There was some humour in that. They said they wanted an SRC. I said: “How many students are there in this room?” No hands went up. I asked: “What is a student?” One of them eventually put up his hand and said a student is an independent person at a university. I said to him he was half right: A student is a person attending a tertiary institution, but he is not independent because he is still costing the taxpayer around R6 000 per year. I then asked again whether there were any students in the room. There were none. So I asked them: “Why do you want to call yourselves something you are not? Do you want to elect a body to represent students?” They got the point. The point is that the difference does not lie in the name—that name is valuable to Cosas and other leftist subversive elements—but the difference lies in the constitution and functions of the body concerned, whether it is recognized, whether it can make itself heard, and what its functions and responsibilities are. In this respect we have agreed to circulate shortly some guidelines, which already exist, for the democratic election as far as possible and where needed— and not all of the schools agitate for this—of what one can call pupils’ councils, prefects or whatever. Those rebels who came to see me did not even know that a prefect was a respected person from Roman times and that in the Afrikaans-speaking community, at any event, the child who is a prefect is a highly respected member of the society. They did not even know that, because they are continually being bombarded with propaganda telling them all kinds of nonsense about the existing system. Anyway, firstly it is the democratizing of the process of the election of prefects; secondly, a proper definition of their responsibilities, and, thirdly, the creation of structures of proper communication between these pupil bodies and the principals.

There is also another aspect to this. The pupils want themselves to be heard outside of the school. They want to be recognized. I told the House earlier that we have a higher median of age in our classes. In other words, in a sense we are dealing with relatively underqualified young adults at school. It is necessary that we hear them. After I had listened for some three hours to those 18 pupils that morning we came to some very constructive agreements. Afterwards one of the pupils was approach by the regional director about something and was told that he does not speak to regional directors, but only to the Minister! [Interjections.] That also happens. It was quite a revealing exercise to listen to these pupils. They want to be heard, and we must create a platform for them from where they can be heard.

We have decided to institute a system of liaison committees which are to be established at every secondary school in our department. This liaison committee will consist of four elements, the four interested parties. First of all, there will be two representatives from the school. I presume that will be the principal and the advisory teacher responsible for the prefects, or whatever they are called. There will also be two representatives from the school committee, representing the parents, as well as two representatives from the parent teachers association, also representing the parents. Finally, there will also be six members from the pupils’ council. They will be elected by the pupils themselves to represent them on this liaison committee. The ward inspector of necessity will be present and the meeting will most probably be chaired by a person who will be specially appointed and trained for this purpose.

We hereby confirmed a long-felt need to appoint at least a small number of liaison officers in each of our seven regions. They will carry out various tasks, of which one will be the handling of this liaison meeting, which must be held every term and in accordance with a particular structured formula. This meeting will have a two-fold purpose. Firstly, to establish contact between the four interested parties. Very often there is a clash between the pupils and teachers, between the pupils and the community or parents, or any permutation or combination thereof. We do not only want to structure these liaison committees for the purpose of solving problems. Very often good ideas come from these communities. We therefore want to create this instrument primarily for the purpose of, firstly, meeting each other and, secondly, submitting suggestions and positive and constructive ideas for sending through directly for the attention of the Minister. Obviously there will be officials helping the Minister to weed out the ordinary run-of-the-mill matters which can be handled at a lower level. Primarily, however, the idea is to have direct communication to the Minister. In other words, if any of these four interested parties has something to convey to the Minister it can be brought to this quarterly compulsory meeting, after which it will be chanelled right through to the highest level where it will receive the necessary attention. I believe in this fashion we are addressing the fundamental problem of communication and contact, and I believe a positive contribution can in this way be made towards timeously identifying and addressing problem areas and arriving at solutions.

As a last thought before I sit down, I know, and everyone else knows, that it is a risky step that we are taking because it is open to abuse. We will have to watch it carefully, but my department and I have enough faith in positive and constructive people in all the various communities to use this opportunity to the benefit of the children and to the benefit of the communities themselves.

Mr Chairman, I ask for the privilege of the half-hour.

I should like to join the hon the Minister in welcoming the members from the Council for Education and Training who are present here today. I am sure that they will have found, as we did, a great deal of interest in the hon the Minister’s speech, and that they can support it. I should like to congratulate the hon the Minister on his appointment. This is the first time that he is handling this Vote. What he has said today has been rather like a breath of fresh air and I think it bodes well for the future. [Interjections.] It is an important and sensitive portfolio, a fact which the hon the Minister recognizes, and I am also pleased that he recognizes the need for idealism in education. We must remember that in this regard the ideals and the idealism of the receivers are more important than the idealism of the providers. I also welcome his recognition of the fact that the role of schools in the education of a child is only part of his education and that his home and environment are also important. Children who struggle under extramural difficulties will encounter difficulties in school as well. However, most important of what the Minister said, were his comments about the democratization process at virtually all levels. This matter of communication is absolutely critical, and I will return to it later in my speech.

The annual report was, as usual, comprehensive and very valuable. It is unfortunate that it arrived late in relation to this debate because to wade through some 300 or 400 pages takes some doing. It is a pity that, as in the past, it is incomplete in the sense that it does not specifically address or even mention the problems of boycotts and disturbances. That aspect is left out altogether and I think it is a pity, although I do not think it needs lengthy comment. I just want to record it as a fact. The extent of that problem should have been outlined in the report.

Mr Chairman, we not only have a new Minister. Very shortly we are going to have a new constitution. Within that constitution Black education is to be a general affair, but the Blacks themselves will not be there to bargain for a fair share of the financial cake. The norms and standards provided for in Schedule 1 of the constitution will create enormous pressures on the Government to equalize the quality of education of the Whites, Coloureds and Indians. However, there will be no equivalent pressure to advance Black education at the same rate. I should like to ask the hon the Minister to have a look at Schedule 1 where inter alia the following is stated:

1. (a) norms and standards for the financing of running and capital costs of education;
2. (b) salaries and conditions of employment of staff and professional registration of teachers;

I hope that he will today be able to give us the assurance that whatever norms and standards that are set by general law for Whites, Coloureds and Indians will also be applied to Blacks in the field of education.

I fear that we already face a very serious situation in Black education and the new constitution will make matters worse, certainly emotionally, and possibly in reality as well.

I should like to examine some of the causes for what, I believe, has been a worsening of the situation recently. The first is the Government’s White Paper on the De Lange report. In this regard I should like to quote Dr Ken Hartshorne, who was a member of the De Lange Commission as well as a man with long experience in Black education. He has this to say about the White Paper:

One cannot achieve improvement in quality of any significance in a system which is not accepted by pupils and teachers: unless both “believe in what they are doing”, unless the climate of learning is conducive to commitment, there will be a grave waste of human potential. South Africa cannot afford this.

A second reason, I believe, for the problems we are facing at present are the matric results. The hon the Minister has also referred to these. If we look only at schools under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education and Training, and at full time pupils of those schools, it appears that only 52% of those pupils passed matric at the end of last year. Of those pupils only 12% obtained matric exemption. This, I submit, represents a crisis situation. It was the fourth successive year in which about 50% of the pupils had failed their matriculation exams. The official response, I believe, is far too casual. Statistics are quoted to indicate correctly the rapid increase in the number of matriculants. This, however, is not good enough. The hon the Minister said investigations were being undertaken. We should like to know, however, what changes are to be made as a result of those investigations.

For the individual students and their families failure often comes as a nasty shock after enormous financial and other sacrifices have been made. I fail to understand how only 50% of the students, all of whom were capable of passing standard 9, were indeed unable to get through standard 10. I believe we should bear in mind that these were not merely students following correspondence courses and who had, of their own free will, entered for the exams. These were all students who had passed standard 9, and yet only 50% of them were able to get through standard 10. Last year 10 348 of the 19 869 standard 10 pupils achieved success in their matriculation exams. There must surely be something seriously wrong, which requires urgent investigation. That investigation has apparently been undertaken. It also, however, requires urgent action, about which we should like to hear more from the hon the Minister. Whites would not put up with such a situation. Therefore I do not believe that Black people should be made to put up with it either.

Thirdly, there is the question of inequalities. In the most recent year for which figures are available—1982-83—the per capita expenditure on Black education amounted to only 13,8% of that in respect of Whites. The schooling is manifestly inferior. I know the hon the Minister asked us not to use the word “inferior”. I believe, however, that until we recognize the fact that it is indeed inferior—whether it is designed to be inferior or not is purely incidental …

Inferior in what respect?

Inferior in the quality of the teaching and in the quality of the people put out.

What do you mean when you refer to “quality of teaching”? Tell us, please.

Mr Chairman, even successful matriculants are nothing like White matriculants, on the whole. Disappointment and frustration often face them when they seek work, and even when they go to university. One can speak to employers and also to university authorities, and they will tell one that a student coming out of the Black education system is not nearly as well-qualified as a White or even a Coloured student with theoretically the same qualifications.

Fourthly, there is the question of departmental inefficiencies. Here we think for example of the late arrival of books and of problems in respect of matriculation results, which occur frequently. Then there is also of course the late payment of teachers’ salaries. All these factors cause a lack of confidence in the department, and are therefore worthy of attention.

Fifthly, there is the question of communication breakdowns. This is an aspect which, I am pleased, the hon the Minister has addressed at length today. Communication breakdowns occur among pupils, teachers, the community and the authorities, and such breakdowns cause endless problems. These, I believe, are some of the causes of the unrest that has occurred over the last 18 months or so. Numerous schools in many areas have been involved.

I suspect that—prior to the measures announced by the hon the Minister today being introduced—the position has in recent months deteriorated rather than improved. I hope I am wrong but I do want to make an urgent appeal to the hon the Minister to take, as he is evidently planning to do, actions aimed at improving communications. Action should be taken in other spheres too in order to prevent the unrest in schools from developing into a major national problem. We could otherwise be facing, I believe, a crisis of major proportions in the near future if speedy corrective action is not taken.

I should now like to suggest some steps which the hon the Minister may consider to take. First of all I should like to suggest some steps to be taken in order to remove inequalities. Surely, Mr Chairman, we can get the pupils to write a common National Senior Certificate examination. It is called by the same name and there is also a moderating body. Qualified educationists, however, have said time and again that the examination papers are not of the same quality. Whether they are or not, I believe that it is of symbolic importance that people should write literally the same examination in the same subjects so that they can feel that their certificates are of the same value.

Secondly, there is the provision of free stationery and exercise books to all schools and not simply to those which currently have compulsory education.

There is also the question of moving towards closing the White/Black expenditure gap on education. I accept the fact that this cannot be done overnight but let us take a look at the position in recent years. In 1978-79 the Black per capita figure was 9,8% of the White figure and the difference in money terms was R653. In 1980-81 the situation had improved to the extent that the figure for Blacks was 17,2% of that for the Whites. However, in 1982-83 it had dropped back to 13,8% and the gap in cash terms had grown to R1 193. I believe that we have to move towards closing this gap as fast as we can. A further point to remember is that the utilization of the surplus resources of White education including the services of teachers and physical resources when available, will be of great assistance to Black education.

I welcome the fact that the Budget for 1984-85 is R709 million, an increase of 26% over last year’s figure. However, I am concerned about two particular items which I believe to be key indicators, namely classrooms and teachers. In 1982, 2 879 new classrooms were provided. In 1983 that figure had dropped right down to 672. As far as 1984 is concerned, to judge from the memorandum, it would appear that about 1 800 new classrooms will be built. I do not know the reason for the fall-off over the past three years but I feel that it is important that it be addressed.

As far as teacher training is concerned, the expenditure has fallen because of reduced expenditure in connection with new buildings and in respect of in-service training. Once again, I would like the hon the Minister to give us an assurance that we are going to have a faster rate of growth in the number of teachers and not a slower rate.

In the second place, there is the question of flexibility in dealing with pupils. I think that the hon the Minister has addressed this problem in many respects, and I am very pleased about it. The hon the Minister recognizes the fact that economic circumstances often prolong the schooling of a Black child. Moreover, there is a very different relationship between the teacher and a high school pupil in a Black school compared with the position in a White school. The hon the Minister mentioned the fact that 29% of the pupils in Black schools are over the age of 18 years. For example, in 1983 there were 21 000 pupils in Std 10, and at secondary schools generally—not necessarily all in Std 10—there were 19 000 pupils who were 20 years of age or older. At the same time, 53% of the teachers are 29 years of age or younger. Furthermore, without wishing to insult the teachers who are not fully qualified, the problem also arises that 80% of the teachers—not necessarily the ones in that age group—overall are not fully qualified to teach the subjects they are in fact teaching. The recognition of the different parent/child, community/pupil and teacher/pupil relationship is very important, and I also think that the hon the Minister has addressed this problem most satisfactorily as far as I have been able to ascertain.

In the third instance I want to suggest that the hon the Minister and his department stick to education which hopefully they are going to be good at. They must not do the dirty work of other departments. I do not have time to elaborate in this regard, but the hon the Minister knows as well as I do and the people of Cradock know as well as I do that the first and basic cause of the problem at Cradock—and it is an on-going problem— is the fact that his department was pressurised by other departments to take action against a teacher in regard to matters that had nothing to do with education whatsoever.

In the fourth instance, I want to ask the hon the Minister to remove race discrimination and, where it still remains, the patronizing Bantu education mentality that may exist at some lower levels in his department. I believe that it does in fact exist at those levels. I do not think he has it, but it has to be routed out if we are going to have a good future. Things like separate toilets for White teachers in Black schools, the fact they get different pay and the fact that Blacks feel that the minute there is a White teacher in a school that school gets lots of equipment whereas the Black teachers do not—these are all causes of problems. They may be due to communication problems, but nevertheless that is the position.

Fifthly, do not entrench inequalities by segregating education financing. For the new dispensation the idea of minimum basic finance has been mooted which is then to be supplemented by the community and the parents. We know very well that the Black community has different capabilities of supplementing and we also know that they start from different starting points.

Coming to the question of improving communications, I heartily endorse what the Minister has said in this regard today. Problems will still occur, but to minimize and resolve them there is at least one additional thing the hon the Minister can do, and that is to assist principals to develop conflict-regulation in schools. This is a recognized practice in the labour and other fields. The 1982 and 1983 reports refer to school management courses for principals, many of whom lack experience, and these could include expert instruction in conflict management and resolution. I suggest that the hon the Minister give this serious consideration.

Then there is the necessity for authorities to act quickly and sensibly to eliminate legitimate grievances and not to let them develop. I hope the new procedures he has announced will provide for that. We must find a way out of the familiar pattern of grievance, boycott, threats, incidents, police involvement, more incidents and then endemic unrest. Here again I hope that the system of communication that has been suggested is going to work.

Mr Chairman, I hope the steps I have suggested and the steps the hon the Minister is going to take will improve a serious and unhappy situation. But until the Government recognizes that the Black people of this country reject apartheid in education and do something about it, our Black schools and universities will be plagued with problems and unrest. In practice separate education will always mean unequal and inferior education for Blacks. I believe that the Minister wants to make a success of his job and will do everything he can to improve the quality of Black education, but without a change in philosophy on the part of the Government, South Africa will remain saddled with one crisis after the other in Black education.

Mr Chairman, I shall, by degrees, be coming round to certain statements made by the hon member for Cape Town Gardens. As far as the per capita expenditure on education is concerned, he tried to draw a comparison between White and Black education. At a later stage in my speech I shall deal with this fully. He also referred to the latest examination results, and I shall also be making a few remarks about that.

Here at the beginning of my speech I should like to convey our heart-felt congratulations to the hon the Minister on his appointment to this post. The challenges with which the department is faced, and will even more increasingly be faced in the future, require the political head of the department to display vision, an ability to negotiate, the will to dialogue and—perhaps the most important of all—the ability to listen. Like his predecessor, this hon Minister is also capable of meeting these requirements. His passion for work and his willingness to face challenges is highly valued by this side of the House.

Then I also want to take this opportunity of conveying our thanks and appreciation to the Director General and his staff. Today high demands are made on the department. The demands are great and clamour for solutions and for the correct action to be taken. We do, however, have the assurance that the Director General and his officials are preeminently succeeding in meeting the demands.

South Africa is a country of diversity. That is what makes this country so challenging, so stimulating. The presence of a diversity of peoples and population groups is, in itself, already a unique challenge. To handle this diversity, in the various spheres in which we experience it in South Africa, and to meet the challenges and solve the problems, is the task and responsibility of every inhabitant of this country. Any inhabitant who tries to detach himself from this responsibility, tries to shake it off, is not part of South Africa. In my humble opinion such a person is, at most, an adjunct, of nuisance value in our society.

In this diversity there are various component problems that are constantly in the limelight and clamour to be solved. One of these is definitely Black education in South Africa. I have, on occasion, stated that it is a fact, the reality of the situation, that here in South Africa we have First-World and Third-World components. This is a fact of reality that we cannot escape from, and that is why the Government is quite blunt in stating—and it is clearly endorsed in the White Paper on the HSRC report—that it is the Government’s endeavour to pursue equal educational opportunities for all population groups, and hand in hand with that, equal standards of education too.

I do not think that in future we should try to shy away from the fact that here in South Africa there are two worlds trying to find each other. We should rather accept it as a given fact and then try to work out how to solve the problems. It is surely a fact that, historically speaking, Black education does lag behind. We are not denying this; we accept it. Education, however, is the right of every people, of every group—and this includes the Black peoples in South Africa. Therefore they can rightly demand that their claims to a proper standard of education be met. I accept their right to claim their full share. In the process of obtaining these rights or having these demands met, however, one must guard against a kind of mushrooming effect in the development of Black education.

This brings me to the per capita expenditure on Black education and the comparison that is so easily made between Black education and White education. Firstly I want to deal with the criticism, expressed by the hon member for Bryanston in the discussion of the National Education Vote, in regard to the backlog in per capita expenditure, and also with the reference made to this by the hon member for Cape Town Gardens.

It is such a popular picture to present in an attempt to gain a political advantage that one should actually ignore it, but the hon member for Bryanston broadcasts these reports to the world at large, giving the impression that Black education is being completely neglected. Let us, for a moment, look at the realities of this situation. I have previously said that there is an historic backlog even when it comes to financial expenditure. If the Government, however, were to be as foolish as to establish immediate parity in regard to per capita expenditure, do hon members know what this would mean in rands and cents? In order to give expenditure on Black education immediate parity with that on White education …

No one is asking for that.

I know, but I am trying to reply to the question the hon member for Bryanston asked during the discussion of the National Education Vote. At a later stage I shall come to the statement he then made. If there were to be immediate parity with the Whites, this would mean that approximately 1,7 million Black school children would have to receive an additional R2 040 million from the Exchequer. It would also mean that Coloured education and Indian education would have to receive additional amounts of R616 million and R115 million respectively. This would mean a total of R2 770 million that would have to be found at once. The increase in expenditure during the current year under review, capital expenditure and universities excluded, increased by 16%. If one were to establish this parity over a period of let us say 10 years—I think the hon member for Bryanston and the hon member for Cape Town Gardens would concede that in terms of their request this is a reasonable period—we would need an additional amount of R350 million for Black education, over and above the normal increase in expenditure. This would therefore mean a total annual increase of approximately R500 million. The question that now arises is where that money is to come from. Those funds would first have to be found before we would be in a position to give attention to this avenue of thought expressed by the hon member for Bryanston.

Order! I am sorry, but the hon member’s time is expired.

Mr Chairman, I rise merely to give the hon member an opportunity to complete his speech.

Mr Chairman, I thank the hon Whip for his friendliness.

I also want to state that it would be reckless or hazardous to forget that education is not something that takes place overnight, but an evolutionary process, a process of growth, of unfolding. That means that it is dangerous to try to draw an analogy between White education and Black education. Certain specific, different criteria that must necessarily be employed could cause confusion and give the appearance of an unwillingness to give Black education the best deal possible. Unrealistic demands, in conflict with the normal process by which education must grow, could and would simply harm education. The PFP’s demands to have Black education placed on an equal footing with White education in South Africa immediately, or in a very short space of time, and the demand for one department, to which the hon member for Cape Town Gardens referred, are calculated efforts to achieve any one of two objectives, ie, firstly a lowering of standards in White education in South Africa or, secondly, the overnight upgrading of Black education to such an extent that only a limited number of Blacks would be able to participate. Is that what the PFP wants? Is that what they are looking for in education? Whilst this side of the House is willing to strive for equal education for all, we accept that there are different methods of achieving that objective, without damaging education as a whole. This matter must be handled with a sense of realism, an attitude of goodwill and an urge to give only of one’s best; then we would be serving the cause and getting away from petty politicking. The PFP should not, with its distorted demands, squeeze the Blacks out of education completely.

Then I briefly want to dwell on the recent and ever-increasing unrest at some schools. The hon the Minister has already referred to this in broad terms, but I just want to say that those who want to exploit children for short-term political gain are not only abusing such children or groups of children or pupils, but are also guilty of extremely reprehensible and irresponsible conduct. Activists and radicals who come from outside and interfere with these children, implanting artificial and, I concede, warranted grievances in the minds of the pupils, with a view to creating chaos, are playing a reckless game with the survival of the various population groups in South Africa.

I have just dealt with the historic background to Black education. These so-called boycotts or recalcitrance we are experiencing at present merely have a boomerang effect, ie that of increasing the existing backlog even further. One asks oneself who is responsible for this backlog. The only ones who suffer in the long run are the children, the pupils themselves. Instead of co-operating in eliminating the backlog, this conduct is merely increasing it.

The hon member for Cape Town Gardens referred to the poor senior certificate results, and I ask myself to what extent the unwillingness to attend classes, the intimidation of teachers, turning water hoses on teachers, damaging books—I read about that again this morning—and stone-throwing with a view to intimidation, have an affect on examination results? It must have a considerable influence. In this connection I want to appeal to students and pupils, for their own sake and for the sake of sound relations in South Africa, to stop that cowardly conduct. We on this side of the House want to express our appreciation to the school committees, the parent-teacher associations and the parents themselves for their role in defusing the situation. They have played a very important role, and still are, in keeping this problem in check. I think parents have the bounden duty, in the interests of their children, to apply firm and strict discipline so as to restore conditions to normal.

On this occasion I also want to express my appreciation to the school principals and the teachers who act with great responsibility in handling this situation. The pressure and intimidation to which they find themselves subjected and their sterling education-orientated conduct attest to a sense of responsibility and exude a spirit of the true educator. We want to thank them for that today.

At the beginning of my speech I spoke of the pressure to which the hon the Minister and his Department find themselves subject in regard to this matter. I again want to thank him and his Department for all the patience and understanding they have displayed. We also want to record out thanks here to the hon the Minister of Law and Order for the assurance that they will not hesitate to act, in terms of the Internal Security Act, against the troublemakers who make such reckless use of students and pupils to achieve their activist goals. I briefly want to refer to the new approach of the Department to guidance and guidance projects. In view of the manpower position in South Africa, the Department has identified a need for proper guidance being provided to pupils when it comes to choosing their subjects. Obtaining a St 10 certificate, a senior certificate or a matriculation exemption certificate does not necessarily open all doors to all Blacks, allowing them to be economically active. When a student who has completed his studies finds that he cannot effectively be accommodated in the work situation, this must inevitably lead to absolute frustration. The guidance programme is aimed at enabling pupils to choose the subjects that will make it possible for them to obtain favourable appointments. Some of my hon colleagues on this side of the House will expand further on that issue.

In conclusion I want to refer to a project which a school in Mamelodi launched about six of seven months ago. Dr Savage Road in Pretoria falls in my constituency. In the relevant street there are various bus terminuses for Black commuters. Under the guidance of their principal and teachers at the Motsweddy Combinate School it was decided that they and the pupils would, on occasion, clear up the rubbish strewn all around the area. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, at the outset I want to associate myself with what the hon the Minister said and express a word of thanks to Ds Greyling who successfully served this department for many years; wish Mr Strydom a speedy recovery and congratulate Prof Taljaard and Prof Crouse on their appointment to the two previously mentioned universities. Since the hon the Minister is dealing with this Vote for the first time, I also want to take this opportunity of congratulating him on his appointment and of expressing the hope that he will successfully manage this very important Government department. I also want to give the hon the Minister the assurance that it is my intention, in the few minutes at my disposal—as was the case last year—to make as constructive and positive a contribution as possible. I do not intend to be unnecessarily criticasterish or negative.

On that basis I want to link up with what the hon the Minister said this morning. I listened with great attention to his speech and appreciate almost all the standpoints he adopted, and I want to endorse this, because I think it is in the interests of Black education in the Republic of South Africa. I do just want to tell the hon the Minister, however, that his problem involving the social conditions of Black families, conditions in which Black pupils must live at home, is in my view part and parcel of the development of the Black people in the Republic of South Africa. We as Whites also lived in such conditions decades ago when our forebearers did not have such a tremendously high level of scholastic development. They also struggled with low standards and the children also had the problem of not really having had parents with enough knowledge to whom they could go with the tremendous problems with which they were confronted at school. I therefore believe that this problem Black pupils are experiencing today will be phased out in succeeding generations, as was the case with the Whites. From the present generation there will be parents who will have the necessary knowledge to be able to help their children, too, as is the case today in regard to the Whites. In this connection we must simply apply the motto festina lente, that we make haste slowly. In that lies our success.

Just as the hon the Minister has problems with people who simply fling accusations hither and thither, let me say that we in the CP are sometimes accused of begrudging Black people what we claim for ourselves. As was the case last year, I want to state very pointedly that we reject that accusation, because it is untrue. I also said that last year. As far as that was concerned, the hon member for Vryheid and the hon the Minister conceded the point. [Interjections.] We do not begrudge Black pupils a good system of education. It is in everyone’s personal interest and it is also essential for the people of which a specific individual is a member and the society of which he, as an adult, will be a member. Nor do we begrudge the Blacks having whatever means they need, in the form of money or facilities, made available for a full-fledged system of education. It is also our standpoint—I think one could have deduced the same standpoint from the hon the Minister’s speech—that this education can best take place on the basis of separate development, within the framework of separateness. The idea of one educational system, which hon members of the PFP proclaim, if I understand them correctly, we cannot agree with. We believe that education can best grow and blossom on the basis of separateness. [Interjections.] Sir, I am now trying to be positive and constructive, but look at how these people are carrying on. It is so unnecessary.

In this connection the necessity of having well-qualified teachers is of fundamental importance. The hon the Minister also pointed to that aspect. If we want to create a higher standard of education for Black people, if we want to increase the standard of their education so that it is, in all respects, a fully-fledged system of education, it is essential for us to have the necessary teaching staff to transmit the desired standard of education to the pupils. If the teachers do not come up to those standards, they cannot be effective purveyors of education. That is why I welcome the Departments efforts in this regard.

I also want to say thank you for the very interesting annual report. I struggled until late yesterday evening to read through the voluminous report, because one’s time is very limited. I did, however, come across a few things I have found to be of great importance. Let me refer, firstly, to paragraph 3.4: “Personnel development and utilization”, on page 39, and I quote the following paragraph:

As I understand it, it is a process of in-service training. I also want to refer to paragraph 6.4 on page 65 of the report, where specific reference is made to teacher training and an indication is given of how the standard of teacher training has been increased. We welcome it. I want to refer in particular, however, to one of the five factors that have to be taken into account, ie the upgrading of underqualified teachers. I would appreciate the hon the Minister giving us futher particulars in this connection. I accept the fact that those underqualified teachers could, by way of in-service training or through private study, improve their standards and qualifications to such a degree that they would be able to adapt to the gradings in which they are placed. In my view, however, it would be no use simply upgrading people if the standard of the teachers’ competence were not upgraded at one and the same time. I trust that this is being borne in mind.

Another matter that I regard as very important in this connection is, of course, the question of teachers being drawn from the particular ranks of each individual population group. I think that we must aim at making these people able to serve themselves; in other words, that from their own ranks there should be sufficient qualified teachers to give instruction to the children in their own respective population group, ie ethnic education. In the process cognisance must also be taken of cultural and language difference, habits and customs. In spite of the fact that we want to make First-World education available to them, I think that this should take place within their cultural milieu and that their unique circumstances should continually be borne in mind. Teachers from that specific milieu are undoubtedly best able to teach the respective pupils.

In the brief space of time remaining to me I should like to broach a second matter. It is a fact that in this country we do everything in our power to give each and every Black pupil the best education possible. We must remember, however, that the amount of money that the State votes for that purpose each year is such that we cannot, all at once, give everything that is expected in this connection. It is a slow process, and each year increasingly more facilities and educational opportunities will have to be created for the steadily growing number of Black pupils. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Koedoespoort said nothing to which I need to react, and he will therefore pardon me for not replying any further to his speech.

As far as the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is concerned, I want to tell him in the best possible spirit that when one is the chief spokesman on your side of the house, particularly when one is on the opposition side, it would at least be polite to listen to the chief spokesman on the opposite side of the house after one has made one’s speech. Immediately after the hon member for Cape Town Gardens had made his speech he went to sit with and talk to his colleagues for the duration of my colleague’s speech. [Interjections.] I hope the hon member accepts this remark in the spirit in which it is meant. If we want to discuss matters with one another we should at least be prepared to listen to one another’s arguments, even if we do not want to react to them.

The hon member for Bryanston made a few statements to which I unfortunately cannot react due to the limited amount of time. However, what I do want to say to the hon member is that he cannot make unqualified statements. Firstly, the hon member said—if I understood him correctly—that there was a so-called surplus of teachers in White education. However he cannot make such a statement if he cannot prove it. After all, it is not true. It is not true that there is a surplus of White teachers in White education. On the contrary. There is a shortage of teachers as far as certain subjects are concerned, whilst there may in fact be a so-called surplus in other subjects. Apart from that, the question is whether or not they are fully qualified teachers, or are they married women teachers who are qualified, but who are perhaps not available to teach? This is therefore a complicated matter, but a random statement is now being made, viz that there is a surplus of White teahers, and I say that this is not necessarily true.

Another statement the hon member made was that separate education is inferior education, in the sense that we do not have one Department of Education. However, that is not necessarily true, and in the circumstances in the Republic of South Africa, it is of course true—I concede that at the outset—that when one makes a direct comparison between White education and Black education, it will naturally become apparent that the two are not equal at present. However, there are circumstances in this regard—and I shall refer to this again at a later stage—which have to be taken into account. However, it is not a valid argument simply to say that separate education necessarily has to be the cause of inferior education, and that the only solution to this would supposedly be the establishment of a single education department.

My final reference in this regard is to the statement of the hon member for Cape Town Gardens about the standard of matriculation papers in the case of both Black and White pupils. The hon member claims that they are not equal, in the sense that the papers for Black pupils are supposedly of a lower standard than those for White pupils. However, the Joint Matriculation Board is responsible for approving the standard of all those papers. Therefore, what the hon member for Cape Town Gardens alleged here really amounts to criticism of the Joint Matriculation Board. He is therefore really telling the Joint Matriculation Board that they are dishonest; that they allow a lower standard to apply for Black pupils than is the case for White pupils. That is simply not true. I want to leave the matter at that, however.

The hon the Minister has already indicated that we are dealing with an extremely important department, a department which extends over a very wide field, and which is of an extremely sensitive nature. I support that view wholeheartedly. It is indeed true. To assess education for Blacks, and the problems linked to it, purely on the strength of a comparison with White education, is indicative of a basic error of reasoning. Nor is it to the benefit of the education of Black people. This, then, is my problem with the hon member for Cape Town Gardens as well. The norm he applies is White education. One cannot do this because these two education systems have their own specific problems. Of course, there is also a common field shared by both. We would therefore be able to say that there are, if fact, education principle which apply throughout. However, when we wish to address the problem with regard to Black education in the Republic of South Africa, we first have to get away from the simplified approach of simply comparing it with education for Whites.

The fact is that White education has a specific history, just as Black education has its specific history. In any case, education is very closely linked to the social structure and to the historical development of the particular population group being served. Just as the Whites have their own particular historical cultural development, the Blacks have theirs. At present we are dealing on the one hand with a developed community, whilst we are dealing with a developing community on the other, a community with its own particular problems as regards education. If we lose sight of this, we cannot reason meaningfully about the problems of Black education. Education for Black people has a unique character, with unique challenges and unique problems. We must address those problems. We cannot run away from them, as the hon the Minister very clearly indicated this morning. He made it clear that he is prepared to accept those challenges.

I wish to emphasize in all earnestness that this unique character of Black education has nothing whatsoever to do with apartheid. It has nothing to do with it. It is a cultural historical fact that Black education has developed its own character. Similarly, the education of each separate population group, of every people throughout the world, has its own particular character.

You are doing your own mathematics now.

Please just listen, Marius. Perhaps you can learn something from this. [Interjections.]

Black education has a totally different historical development from that of the Whites. Unfortunately, time does not permit me to go into this in detail. I am therefore simply making this statement. However, I want to point out that in assessing the problems, we have to take certain factors into account. These factors are often not taken into account, particularly by critical politicians.

The first factor is the vast numbers we are dealing with. It is true that these particularly large numbers cause problems in education. In 1983 we had a little more than 4 million pupils in Black schools, as opposed to approximately 980 000 pupils in White schools. Projections indicate that by the end of the century there will be between 7 million and 8 million Black pupils at school in South Africa, whilst the number of White pupils will not even have reached 1 million by that time. We are therefore dealing with a tremendous problem as far as the vast number of people who have to be educated is concerned. I think that by the end of this century there will be between 180 000 and 200 000 Black pupils in matric alone. This in itself contains tremendous challenges. Consequently, we cannot simply compare the situation in Black education with that in White education.

There is another matter that is extremely important. That is the question of the increase in population. Other hon members have already pointed to this, however, and I shall therefore leave it at that. Furthermore, there is also the social and economic level of development of the Black people. Another very important factor is the involvement of parents in education. I maintain that the quality of education is determined solely by the contributions made by parents, teachers, pupils and the entire community involved in education, as well as the planning factors, and so on, of course.

Mr Chairman, in all fairness, I want to say that the hon member for Cape Town Gardens has apologized to me. There were certain circumstances which prevented him from being as attentive as he normally would have been.

I was discussing the problems in Black education, particularly as a result of urbanization. Due to a lack of time, allow me to say very briefly that if we consider the problem of urbanization, it makes a tremendous impact on the problems surrounding education, particularly if one considers that 38% of Black people are urbanized, and that in real terms this means that 6,5 million Black people find themselves in the cities. To this figure must be added the 5,3 million migrant workers, and then one realizes that the problem of urbanization is an enormous one which leads to the loosening of family ties, the disintegration of traditions, the disappearance of normal power structures, the decline of parental authority, and so on.

As a result of urbanization we also have to contend with the problem of children being influenced by drug addiction, the formation of gangs, and so on, influences which impede them in the education process and in their studies. Furthermore, there is the particular ambivalence which prevails in the minds of these children due to modernization on the one hand, and traditional cultural ties on the other. I shall leave the matter at that, however.

With regard to parental involvement I just want to say this: The Black parent will also have to realize that he has a particular responsibility in the sense that he has to show the necessary interest in his child’s activities and that he will also have to show the necessary interest in the activities of his child’s school.

All I want to say regarding the language problem is this: It creates tremendous problems for the Black pupil when he has to be taught through the medium of the official languages at high school. It is so different from the mother tongue, and for many of the Black pupils it is a major problem. I think the hon the Minister will also have to give this matter his attention. I think that this is also one of the major causes of the poor matriculation results.

I shall conclude by saying just this with regard to the one education department—and I reiterate what the hon the Minister said— that although it is a very important component, money is not the only problem in relation to the larger problems surrounding Black education. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, in the first place, this party identifies itself with the good wishes conveyed by the hon the Minister and other hon members to Mr Greyling on his retirement, to Messrs Taljaard and Crouse on their appointment at the respective universities and to the chief director, Mr Strydom, wishing him everything of the best and good health in the future. I want to congratulate the hon the Minister on his appointment as Minister of this portfolio. He is the fourth Minister in this portfolio since 1981, and this actually proves what a difficult and controversial portfolio it is. I also want to congratulate the Government on the appointment of a Minister such as the present hon Minister. [Interjections.] We were really surprised today. When one thinks of the attitude which used to be adopted towards this portfolio in the past, and when one listens to the present hon Minister, one must agree with the hon member for Cape Town Gardens that it is really a refreshing breeze which we have felt in education today. I am sure that this positive attitude and approach and this insight on the part of the person who is sensitive to this portfolio will also have its effect on the people who for years have been under the impression that this educational system has not worked in their favour.

†We listened very intently and with great interest to what the hon the Minister said here. I can only confirm that the hon the Minister probably has the most complex portfolio here. He has a very costly portfolio and he has a highly critical portfolio. The hon the Minister has told us today about the complexity—it is in fact a multidisciplinary approach which is required towards finding solutions to Black educational problems. They are sociological, economic, political and pedagogical. It is a highly complex situation.

When I speak of being critical, as the hon the Minister himself told us today, unless we can solve the problems of Black education in South Africa we have no hope at all of solving any of our political, social and economic problems because education is the gateway to peace and prosperity on this southern tip of the African continent. This is probably also true in any other country but it is more so in a plural society where one has the interface of First and Third World values. We appreciate the complexity of the matter.

When I say that it is also a costly portfolio, I am not referring to purely monetary values. We are looking at approximately R700 million today, and in the near future we shall probably be looking at an additional amount of some R500 million per annum, as the hon member for Gezina said. However, the cost of under-educating our population is going to be greater than the cost of providing the infrastructure and the cash for that education. In every attitude survey that I have seen, in Soweto, kwaMashu, Alexandra and Guguletu, by any institution whether from overseas or in South Africa, the indication has been that education is the top priority of urban Blacks in South Africa and, I dare say, this will hold good for their rural counterparts as well. Just like the Afrikaner “volk” and every other civilization in the past, they also recognize that if one wishes to compete with others on an equal basis there has to be equality of education. When I say equality of education I mean equality of opportunity within the optimum available resources of the country. The Blacks of South Africa have recognized this because there are sacrifices being made by parents in Soweto today that are unbelievable. The hardships those parents are prepared to endure on behalf of their children is a fine example to every White. They recognize the need for education.

However, as education rises so does the complexity of the problem and its solution. There is a certain psychologist in Europe who has determined that the higher the level of education the greater the feeling of deprivation on the part of people who feel that they have been treated unequally—unequally in terms of their own perception and criterion. That theory of relative deprivation means that we in South Africa will have to move faster in the economic and political spheres than in the education sphere. The hon the Minister himself referred to this earlier on when he said that education and the need for higher education is a reflection of two motivational factors, firstly, the need as perceived by the individual and secondly, the supply and demand factor in the society itself. I should like to say in passing that I listened very attentively to the hon the Minister and I want to tell him that it was a pleasure to be able to listen to a Minister who has developed such an insight into the complexity of and critical variables involved in this portfolio. That is certainly a refreshing approach to education whether it be Black, White, Coloured or Indian.

As the relative standard of education increases so will the demands of that population group increase as well. I believe, therefore, that it is imperative that our constitutional redesign should actually move at a pace faster than that of education. When one looks at the annual report one sees that education is certainly moving apace. It is certainly going ahead by leaps and bounds despite the fiscal limitations imposed upon it. Although we have not had the opportunity to read the annual report of the department in full—we have only been able to skip through it over the past week—it will become an important source of reference in the coming year. I believe that that is also a very important aspect of an annual report. It should have adequate qualitative and quantitative statements in it. I think hon members will agree that as far as quantitative information is concerned, this report will prove to be a very adequate source of reference in the coming year.

I also want to say that great minds think alike because I want to tell the hon the Minister that he stole my speech from me this morning. I was going to petition the hon the Minister here today to examine the organizational structure of his department in order to set up an institutionalized or formal organization or committee to deal with the grievances of pupils and staff. And, lo and behold, the hon the Minister comes today and announces, before I could make my speech, that he has already implemented this. Let me say that we agree with the measures which he has announced here today. We hope that they will be very successful. If there is sincerity to improve the education of Blacks in South Africa among parents, teachers and pupils, they will make use of these structures. If there is a lack of sincerity, no structure will adequately satisfy their needs.

We in this party believe that one should move on an evolutionary basis but that the key to successful education, irrespective of the population group you are looking at, is adequate communication and joint decision making. We have looked critically at what the hon the Minister has announced and whether it will fulfil those two criteria. In Black education, the conflict and confrontation which can arise have the potential for flash conflict, which is like a match set to tinder, as we saw in Soweto in 1976, because of the concern of Blacks about education. The slightest confrontation, in a flash, can lead to conflict, which then requires Police intervention, and ultimately you have a riot and greater Police intervention. The educational motive is eventually lost and it spills over into political discontent. We believe that one can pre-empt that sort of flash conflict if there is adequate communication between the people who are being educated, the educators and the authorities. Listening to the democratization which the hon the Minister has announced, I believe that the framework within which that committee is going to be established, will be adequate for the intended purpose. Provided these people are prepared to talk, provided the Government is prepared to listen—this is my message to the hon the Minister, namely that we must not only talk to each other, but must listen to each other to really understand what the problem is … [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I have no swords to cross with the hon member for Durban North, and he will therefore understand if I do not react to what he said.

Shortsighted or plain stupid people are inclined to measure the success of an education system by the percentage of failures or passes in the highest school examination, which is the Std 10 examination in our case. This is particularly the case with regard to education for Black pupils. The critics of our education for Blacks can so easily provide clear-cut reasons for the high failure rate of our Black matriculants, without taking the true facts into account at all. In the midst of this uproar it is necessary for us to be very clear about what the true facts are, with regard to our matriculation exams and results as well.

Firstly, it is important to remember that the same core syllabuses that are drawn up by the Joint Matriculation Board are followed by all the education departments, by the Department of Education and Training as well. No education department is permitted to deviate from the contents of these core svllabuses. Secondly, the Joint Matriculation Board requires the same standard from Black pupils in respect of admission to universities as from any other pupil in South Africa. Furthermore, the JMB ensures equal standards by moderating all examination question and answer papers. Departmental examination statistics with regard to the Senior Certificate Examination must be presented to the JMB for approval annually. Statistical adjustments can be made only within the limit of clearly defined conditions laid down by the JMB. These restrictions are the same for all examining bodies. The involvement of the JMB in all examinations is therefore the guarantee which ensures that there can be no deviation from standards. Having indicated how the JMB is involved in moderating question and answer papers, and in making adjustments, it is clear how ridiculous and totally unfounded the accusation is that the matric results of Black pupils are manipulated, ie that examination marks are adjusted downwards so that only a certain number of Black pupils pass the Std ten examination each year so as not to flood the labour market with matriculants. Ignorant and malicious people often make the most ridiculous allegations.

I have indicated how the same standard is maintained in schools for Black pupils through the involvement of JMB. An explanation for the high failure rate must still be found. I maintain that the high percentage of failures can be ascribed mainly to the quality of education. This is determined by what happens in the classroom, the qualifications of the teachers and the motivation they display and the reaction of the pupil to what he is being taught. This reaction takes place through effort, self-discipline and by the pupil studying on his own. In turn, the reaction of the pupil is determined by the unfamiliar cultural environment and unfamiliar socio-economic circumstances from which the subject matter is derived.

I want to refer to the qualifications of teachers. I do not wish to burden hon members with a list of statistics, but I only want to refer to a few figures. At the end of 1983, 49,5%, ie 20 835 out of a total of 41 460 of all teachers attached to Black schools had a junior certificate plus a teaching certificate. There are 178 secondary schools in which pupils from Std 6 to Std 10 are taught, whilst 784 teachers are studying for degrees, and 1 014 already have a degree. There is therefore an average of fewer than six fully graduated teachers for every high school. Having said that with regard to the qualifications of teachers, this merely emphasizes the tremendous work these people are doing, even though they are underqualified. If one looks at the matric results, one finds that 106 of the secondary schools had a 50% to 100% pass rate. If this is compared with the qualifications of the teachers, I maintain that the matric results at the end of 1983 were a tremendous achievement.

It could be argued that the lack of qualified teachers is the fault of the Government and of apartheid. What are the facts, however? In 1953 there were fewer than 500 fulltime Std 10 candidates, and in 1983 there were 76 000. Consequently, as a result of the small number of Std 10 candidates, there were very few possible candidates for teaching who had at least a Std 10 certificate. With the increase in the number of Std 10 candidates, it was possible to admit only candidates with a Std 10 certificate to education colleges from 1982, with three years’ professional training as a requirement. Apart from the improved admission requirements for teacher training, the department is taking other active steps to improve the quality of education. Firstly, practising teachers are being given the opportunity to improve their professional and academic qualifications by way of in-service training courses, centres for adult education and the Vista University. At present there are 4 500 teachers engaged in further training through adult education, and there are 4 700 teachers at the Vista University. In addition, the department is in the process of introducing a system of subject guidance as a compulsory subject from standard five to standard 10. There is also the introduction of technical orientation courses from standard 5. At the junior primary level there are also class libraries in approximately 12 000 classrooms that have suitable books in all the home languages. These books serve to enrich the pupils and to develop their reading ability. Continuous attention to in-service training with centralized and decentralized courses, which are offered on a regular basis, is another method being used by the department to improve qualifications of teachers, as well as the quality of education.

All the officials of this department, from the Director-General to the lowest paid person in the service, every teacher, every inspector, in fact, all those involved, deserve our heartfelt appreciation and praise. I should like to convey this message to our Black youth from Mr Nyati, the mayor of Galeshewe in Kimberley: “Make use of the opportunities you are being given. Africa is starving and people are dying of disease in Africa. Africa urgently needs your services, the services of the Black youth of South Africa.”

Mr Chairman, I share the concern and interest of the hon member for Kimberley North in the pass rate of matriculants. However, I want to discuss another matter and he will forgive me if I do not pursue that argument. I want to joint those who have congratulated the hon the Minister on his appointment. In the limited contact I have had with him, I have found him a caring person and I am sure he is going to have an impact on this department. We, too, found his remarks this morning of interest, particularly his observation that there are more Black children at school in South Africa than there are White people in the country. There are enormous implications and consequences to that, and I am sure they will not be lost on hon members of the House.

In the limited time available to me, I want to focus my attention on the situation in Atteridgeville. During the course of the past few weeks I visited the area on two occasions to bring myself up to date on what is happening there. After comprehensive discussions with a wide range of people, including students, headmasters, ministers of religion and civic leaders, it is obvious to me that there are a number of major points underlying the unrest in the township. In addition, it is clear that the school principals are lacking in the area of negotiating skills. That is not a criticism; it is simply a fact. A situation has developed with which they are not familiar and, as they are not able to cope with it, they often adopt an unbending attitude towards the students. It is of vital importance that crash courses in communications be arranged for the staff of the department and I hope that the hon the Minister will attend to this as soon as he possibly can. The major demand at present in Atteridgeville is the release of the two students currently being held in custody by the SA Police. This is a police matter and a very serious situation is developing there almost hour by hour. I have urged the hon the Minister of Law and Order to bring those two persons to court as soon as possible, and I hope he will do that, because I believe we should concentrate our efforts, and the students in Atteridgeville should concentrate their efforts and their attention, on educational matters.

As far as education is concerned, there appear to be four main points of grievance. The first of these is the need for the appointment of a student representative council. I believe that the hon the Minister dealt with that adequately this morning. He announced that the name is not acceptable to him, and one can, of course, understand why not. I am pleased, however, that he has agreed to the setting up of the pupil committee because to all intents and purposes that will have the same effect, and that is what is important. During the course of my visit to that area, I had contact with people who attended a meeting last Sunday in the Anglican Church in Atteridgeville where there were approximately 500 students present. They were asked to set out what they considered to be the duties of a SRC or a pupil committee. I have a copy here of what they drew up. I am going to send it to the hon the Minister because I think the points are reasonable. I hope he eill give the points his earnest consideration. Amongst other things they talke about representing students at school, to articulate grievances and aspirations of students, to create a good working relationship among students, staff and parents and to help students understand and expand their knowledge of school affairs. These are all reasonable requests.

Are you talking about students or pupils?

It does not really matter what one calls the committees. The important thing is to have them established. I am glad that this is going to happen. The problems in Atteridgeville are a fact and whether one likes it or not it is essential that we should get to the root causes.

The second grievance that has been raised on a number of occasions concerns excessive corporal punishment, particularly to girls. The third grievance was that school-teachers were allegedly interfering with some of the schoolgirls. The fourth grievance concerns the question of the age limit. On the second, third and fourth grievance the hon the Minister has acted swiftly in attempting to meet the reasonable requests of the students in Atteridgeville. He issued a statement announcing that corporal punishment limitations would be adhered to. With regard to teachers alledgedly interfering with schoolgirls he has, I understand, also issued a statement saying that he will deal with teachers in the appropriate manner. He has also lifted the age limit. These are all good actions which ought to be welcomed. They show a pragmatic attitude towards the problems of Atteridgeville.

However, there still remains a problem, namely that decisions have not filtered through to the citizens of Atteridgeville. Shortly after he took over this department he took the unusual action for a Cabinet Minister of the NP by negotiating with Bishop Desmond Tutu. This proved highly successful and I congratulate him on having done that. I hope he will not hesitate to use the negotiating skills of Bishop Tutu, should he have to, or anyone else who is able to assist him in assuring that the township returns to normal as soon as possible. My recommendation to the hon the Minister is that he should return to Atteridgeville and set up some form of communication as urgently as possible. In fact, I would recommend that he should address the people of Atterridgeville himself. What I have discovered is that there is a high regard for him in that township. I believe he can further enhance his position and contribute to the solving of the problems by visiting the township himself and meeting with the people. That will be a short-term solution to the problem. However, there are long-term problems, including the whole system of Bantu education. There is a feeling that we simply have to get away from the basic problems surrounding Bantu education. Other hon members of my party will deal with that. I therefore leave the matter there.

Mr Chairman, I think the hon the Minister can feel very flattered about the low emotional content of the debate, as well as the substantial measure of agreement between the various political parties with regard to the questions that affect this department. There are still certain ideological differences between us and the PFP in particular, but in general the matter is really being discussed in a very good spirit. I think the hon the Minister can accept this as a personal compliment. He heads the constituency next to mine. I expected great things from him when he was appointed to this portfolio, but even I have been pleasantly surprised.

Today I should like to discuss—and, to a lesser extent, associate myself with previous hon speakers in that regard—the nature of the unrest at schools. The hon the Minister, as well as other hon speakers have referred on various occasions to the nature and extent of the unrest and I therefore do not wish to repeat what is common knowledge. Suffice it to say that incidents of unrest are still occurring. Although at this stage they are limited in their extent, and fortunately in intensity as well, they are still cause for concern. I think that they also keep the hon the Minister quite busy. Suffice it to say, too, that this unrest is centred around real and imagined grievances. The hon member for Johannesburg North has in fact just made a list. Amongst other things, he referred to the age restriction, the high failure rate, etcetera. I do not want to repeat everything. However, there are usually additional claims which are not based on true grievances and which are more generalized. Then we come to things like one umbrella education authority which is now being demanded. Those demands are often wilful and are politically inspired. The demand for one umbrella education department is becoming very political in the sense that, inter alia, it finds expression in the slogan “There can be no normal education in an abnormal society”. The nature of this slogan is linked to slogans one hears from other sources.

What is striking is that in particular these more generalized demands are orchestrated from outside the schools, and the organizations that are involved are, inter alia, the Council of SA Students, the Azanian Students’ Organization (Azaso), the Azanian Students’ Movement (Azasom), and, more recently, the United Democratic Front (UDF). The general pattern which is now emerging from this whole situation of demands which is adopted, taken further and spread from place to place by organizations outside the schools inevitably reminds one of the situation which arose in the early ’seventies. Since I have made a study of that situation, I briefly want to go back to those circumstances and compare them with the present situation.

A former student organization, the SA Students’ organization (Saso) was established at the beginning of the ’seventies. Basically, it was a student organization and it later played a role in the establishment of a broader organization, viz the Black People’s Convention (BPC). Amongst other things, they strove to establish committees on the various campuses and at schools. For example, there was movement similar to the present one to get representative student bodies established at the universities as well as the schools. The technique was to control those student bodies and to use imagined and other grievances to organize, politicize and mobilize students. These two organizations, Saso and the BPC, as well as the SA Students’ Movement, became increasingly radical and revolutionary as time went by. Although they were basically Black Consciousness organizations, it later came to light that the ANC had also infiltrated them. This was the prelude to the unrest of 1976, since the grievances that did in fact exist at the schools and which could be ascribed to perceivable poor conditions, conditions which, in a Third World situation, will still exist at schools for a very long time, were used by these organizations as points of departure to lend credibility to the other imaginary grievances which they built up around them. In this way they aroused feelings at schools and universities, which, in turn, created an explosive situation, and all that was really necessary was to find the spark, and that spark was to be found in the language question in 1976, and when that spark was added, the fire spread like methane in a coal mine.

What is alarming about the whole situation is that practically all these elements are present again today. Their presence lies in the fact that we have all those outside organizations, which are trying to mobilize the students, and which are also trying to exploit grievances.

I now want to dwell for a moment on the specific organizations that are involved. Firstly, when we look at the Council of South African Students, it appears that in a court case in Springs last year, prominent members of Cosas were charged. They were eventually found guilty of furthering the aims of the ANC. It was therefore prominent members of Cosas who were found guilty of furthering the aims of the ANC. Azasu is a sister-organization of Cosas. If fact, they have already held joint congresses. On the other hand, Azasim and Azapu are Black consciousness organizations. All kinds of evidence is now coming to light which points to these organizations being used as recruiting instruments for the ANC. Then there is the UDF, which is still a young organization, which really consists of a federation of a number of organizations and which was established specifically to oppose the constitution. Their influence is now increasingly to be seen in the field of school boycotts, however. On its part, the ANC claims this organization for itself.

In pronouncements made by the ANC it is clearly stated that that organization consists of the ANC’s own people. Although the members of the UDF have not yet admitted this themselves as such, increasingly more evidence is coming to light which provides proof of the influence of the ANC in that organization.

My time is running out. I really just wanted to explain this onslaught and point out that the Department of Education and Training is a department which is meant to provide education and schooling. It is not a department which is meant to be a political instrument. Consequently, the department is in itself not equipped to stave off that political onslaught. Consequently, the Governemnt will have to investigate this problem over a wider field in order to work out a broader strategy against the onslaught.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Helderkruin dealt with the political aspects of the schools unrest. This is an important topic, and one which hon members on this side of the House will deal with more fully later in this debate.

For my part I wish to use the very limited time at my disposal to shift the focus away from the towns to the country. I wish to raise the vexed question of education for Black children in White rural areas. I know that this is a hardy annual; it is raised almost every year in this debate. The reason, however, why it keeps recurring is because previous Ministers have failed to address themselves to the problem. We have had as yet no answer to this matter.

This year we have a new hon Minister, an hon Minister who, it would appear, has a feel and concern for his portfolio; qualities that were apparently lacking in his predecessors. I therefore wish to raise these matters once again in the hope that this time our pleas will fall on sympathetic ears.

The Black farm child is severely disadvantaged, for the following reasons. Firstly, no provision is made in farm schools for education beyond standard 5. This is departmental policy. Secondly, it is also departmental policy to give town children preference to the allocation of vacent places at senior schools in towns. Thirdly, there are no boarding facilities whatsoever for Black rural schoolchildren at town schools.

There is one in the Northern Cape.

There may perhaps be one. I stand corrected.

I agree with you.

This means that it is extraordinarily difficult for a farm child to continue his schooling beyond Std 5. Town schools are always full to overflowing with town children, and vacancies for farm children seldom if ever exist. Even in the highly unlikely event of a farm child being admitted to a secondary school in a town he is still severely disadvantaged because he has nowhere to stay. Unless he has friends or relations with whom he can board, he finds himself in trouble. One man on my farm who was absolutely desperate after having had numerous problems in regard to boarding his children had actually to buy himself a backyard shack in the township where his children could stay.

I am sure the hon the Minister will agree that this is a highly unsatisfactory situation. How many White farmers would accept a system that discriminated against their children’s acceptance at town schools and failed to provide their children with boarding facilities at those schools?

The Unit for Futures Research at the University of Stellenbosch has pointed out that although impressive numbers of Black children attend school, more than 50% of them leave school without having attained functional literacy. I want to submit that the problems I have outlined which affect large numbers of Black children make a significant contribution to this unsatisfactory state of affairs.

My appeal then to the hon the Minister is that farm children should be given equal access to educational facilities in towns. It should not be necessary for them to stand at the back of the queue where they have very little chance of acceptance. I also want to make a very strong appeal that the possibility of providing boarding facilities in towns for Black schoolchildren be investigated as a matter of urgency. For too long farm children have been a Cinderella group in education and training. I am appealing to the hon the Minister to bring them into the mainstream of the educational system.

Mr Chairman, I take pleasure in speaking after the previous speaker, since I must admit that unfortunately I have a certain amount of sympathy with what he had to say. I also come from a farm, and the Black farm school has been there ever since I can remember.

Facilities at the Black farm school are relatively poor, and I recall very well the first farm school I ever visited. It was a little thatched hut, and the desks were fashioned out of sods which were plastered with mud. If we compare this with our present farm schools, we know that there has been a considerable improvement as far as the situation of the farm school pupil is concerned.

The pupil at a farm school has real problems as regards his school-readiness, however. As far as the Black farm school pupil is concerned, there is no provision for toys, for example, with which to learn hand-eye co-ordination. He has no perception of the things that are standard practice in Western society. Today I want to tell the hon the Minister that I am very grateful to see that his department has tackled this specific problem during the past year by commencing with school readiness classes. This will mean that the Black children will be able to utilize the facilities at schools much better. There will be a very low failure rate and this will mean that the children will move through the classes much quicker.

As regards the education of children on farms, we are aware that they receive purely academic training. There is a total lack of any training in skills. The child is prepared to enter a life where the chances of his being able to use his academic qualifications in the present environment, as well as in the next 20 to 30 years, are very slim. We will have to look into providing these children with qualifications in skills in order to prepare them for industry and the various kinds of business. I do not know what the hon the Minister is going to do about this, but I think it is a very difficult matter, particularly if one looks at the kind of numbers the hon the Minister is dealing with. The hon the Minister is dealing with 5 200 farm schools. How one should incorporate the kind of skills I have spoken about at these farm schools, is an open question, of course.

The hon the Minister, as well as previous Ministers who have been in charge of this portfolio, have nevertheless shown a remarkable record of improvement. Over the past 10 years the number of children in farm schools has increased by 34%. Despite the increase of 34% in the number of children attending farm schools, there was an improvement of 20% in the ratio between the number of teachers and pupils, whilst the ratio between the number of classrooms and the number of pupils also improved by 20%. We must continue to build on this foundation. This gives us the assurance that the hon the Minister and his department will be able to tackle this matter actively in the future.

Before we do anything in this regard, it is essential for us to decide on and plan the future of the Black population in the rural areas. When I say this, I mean that it must be determined what direction the increase in population in the rural areas will take. What do we think the growth in the rural population is going to be? I will tell you why I am focusing attention on this. In my home town there is a White school with 300 pupils from grade 1 to matric. In the same catchment area of that little town school of mine there are 18 farm schools with an average of 100 pupils per school.

In this regard I want to mention the name of Oom Nick Prinsloo, a Dutch Reformed missionary, who has built 17 of these schools over a period of three years. I think it is fitting to take note of the dedication of a man like Nick Prinsloo.

He must be a member of the PFP.

As usual, the hon member is quite wrong, but we know that that is his custom.

If we want more children to be taught in the rural areas, if we want more children to attend rural schools, it will mean that we will have to have a school with 1 700 pupils at a place like Villiers just for a start. We will have to see whether we cannot let the farm schools go further than standard five. There are tremendous socio-economic and political implications attached to this. In contrast, consideration must be given to what the implications are and what kind of activity takes place when one has very large schools. Is it not so much easier for intimidation to occur? Is it not so much easier to incite the children? These are matters that will have to be weighed up against one another by the hon the Minister and his department. I am very pleased that I do not have to make that decision.

I now want to refer to the problem that is being experienced with teachers in general, and with Black teachers in the rural areas in particular. According to the De Lange report, 230 000 additional Black teachers have to be trained until the year 2010. Because like the Whites, young Black people would also like to go to the cities, we must assume that the quality of the young Black teachers will be at the lowest level in the rural areas. What I mean by this is that it will be lower than in the case of the urban areas. Having said that, we must ask ourselves how we should approach the upgrading of the education of Black children in the rural areas. I think the department should undertake an investigation into programmes that it could work out with the aid of modern teaching techniques. Computers and video machines must play an important role in this regard. These new systems can be used to balance out the lower qualification of the teacher available in the rural areas and who is still going to be available for a long time. It is of the utmost importance that an in-depth study be made of this.

I wish to conclude by saying that in dealing with the Black child on the farm we are dealing with a special person. When I was a little boy, the Black child on the farm was presented to me as an example worth following. My people told me that I must look at the Black child who has to run three, four, five or six kilometres to school and that that should encourage me to do my share in life. I am pleased to be able to say that my little boy came home sulking the other day because his teacher had hit him and told him: “You are a disgrace. You should see what the Black child does in order to obtain an education.”

Mr Chairman, I would like to follow on what the hon member for Heilbron has said in connection with two matters. The first is in connection with the provision of non-academic education. I agree with him wholeheartedly and I think the Ministers concerned with education should sort out the entire matter of the public image of vocational and agricultural education in this country. It is no good saying that 98% of all Black students are following an academic career in schools, and 80% of Whites, until we ourselves are prepared to acknowledge that vocational education in our schools has as high a priority as academic education.

Secondly, I would like to compliment the hon member on his criticism of over-large schools. I believe that this is a severe criticism that could be levelled at other departments in this country.

I would like to commend the hon the Minister on the structure for communication that he announced earlier today, particularly the democratization of student affairs in schools. I would particularly like to commend to him the work of professors Cawood and Swarts and Dr Gibbon who work in White schools in this area of prefect councils. I want to quote from the formers book If you are elected aimed at student leaders, as follows:

I think it is that direction we should be aiming at, and that the officials of the hon the Minister’s department, in particular the people at school level, should be aware of this. I would also like to say how pleased I was to hear that the hon the Minister is a listening Minister and that he was meeting with scholars at six o’clock in the morning to hear what they have to say. I believe this is a signally good example of what some of his colleagues in the Cabinet can do. Possibly he could pass on his ability to listen, particularly to his senior colleague, the hon the Minister of Finance, who I believe a little earlier today during the discussion of another Vote announced a considerable increase in GST. Possibly he could ask that GST be removed on another essential item in education, namely educational books. I have no doubt that this Minister of Education and Training will strenuously object to the words used by one of his predecessors to describe his future task, and I quote:

This was said by Dr Verwoerd.

Today we are far from that, or I at least hope so. Unfortunately, history will dog the idealistic Minister of Education and Training whom we have at the moment. Let us never forget that a major responsibility for the backlog in Black education is vested in the National Party. I wish to state quite clearly that the burial of apartheid when it comes will be carried out by this department. If this department has turned to providing education in its schools, it is creating in the minds of hundreds of thousands of South Africans a questioning of their conditions; a refusal to be satisfied with bland complacency and a yearning, a striving to create better conditions for themselves and their families, including political rights. This is what true education should be achieving in their minds. Education is not prescriptive, but open-ended, a showing of how to ask rather than only what to know.

However, if the hon the Minister’s skills are not producing that kind of young person, they are not involved with education but with mere training. Either way, apartheid cannot win. Educate, and the young will reject apartheid. Don’t educate and our industrial society is heading for collapse. The hon the Minister’s responsibilities and duties are awesome. He, finally, more than any other will be the one to bring apartheid down. I only pray that he has—he indicated that he does this morning—the wit and wisdom to stand back occasionally from the details to ensure that education is going on in his schools.

The words of Disraeli on the introduction of the first comprehensive public education act in Britain are here very apposite:

I am not one of those who believe that schooling and education are synonymous. Far too often parents and children believe that the school is a promised land which leads to success and employment. But schools—and I am afraid this is true of all departments—sometimes do not educate. Pupils become inefficient memory machines, parroting back what is required. It is quality which we should be looking at rather, as we are at times in this House, only looking at quantity.

Examinations are a mere indicator of possible future success. This was mentioned earlier, particularly by the hon member for Kimberley North. I believe that an independent inquiry should be carried out into all the senior certificate examinations in this country, their question papers, their marking norms and their comparability. The public and pupils of this country deserve to be told the truth if these examinations are non-comparable. The hon member for Kimberley North said that they are, that the Joint Matriculation Board assures us that they are. That is all very well, but I am horrified by cases where employers, when taking on a White matriculant and turning away a Black matriculant, say “But surely you know your matric is inferior”. I urge that we be as completely honest as we can in this.

I would now like to refer to some of the significant problems which have been brought about. I would like to quote from a report which appeared in The Argus in the middle of April:

I call on the hon the Minister to explain this. The money may have been channeled through the Department of Co-operation and Development, but the devising of the formula for funding is surely done by the hon Ministers together. Why then is there this dispute? Is there a difference in the funding procedures for Black peoples under his control and those in the national states? Generalized figures appear to show this. According to the 1983 annual report the Department of Education and Training had R303 million available for 1,7 million pupils while the national states had R289 million available for 2,2 million pupils. There is therefore a disparity. As I say, these figures are from the hon the Minister’s report. These macro-financial considerations are naturally of considerable concern to the respective Ministers of Education of the national states. They want to know how this money-cake is going to be cut and particularly whether it will be cut more equitably under the new deal.

I want to appeal to the hon the Minister to draw up a program for creating comparability and compatibility of expenditure in areas not relating to teachers’ salaries. I particularly cite the supply of school books. If one puts in more money, one can get more books. That cannot be done with teachers’ qualifications and experience. Pupils and teachers in South Africa want to be assured that they are on the right path. When is that going to come about? In the areas of hostels and transport and also in other areas of expenditure comparability needs to be achieved.

Finally, I believe that the Government needs to give the assurance that it will follow the precept: “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs”.

Mr Chairman, I should like to react at this stage to what some of the hon members have said. I want to say right at the outset that I am very grateful for the excellent spirit in which it has been possible to conduct this very positive discussion up to now. I am saying this not only because we certainly welcome the opportunity of discussing in depth a complex and comprehensive matter such as education for Black children, but also because the attitude and concern which are apparent from these discussions will certainly help to create the confidence, in the communities for which this education is intended, that this Parliament cares about their education and will take every possible step to place the education of these people at the highest possible level, as far as it is able to do so. I think this attitude achieves much more than just to encourage good debate. Therefore I also want to congratulate hon members on the very high level of the debate so far. I am sure hon members will forgive me if I do not reply in detail at this stage to each one of the very solid speeches that have been made. However, I can give hon members the assurance that if there is anything to which I do not react, the department will give it the attention that it merits.

Before referring to hon members individually, I want to convey my sincere thanks to all the hon members who have congratulated me. I appreciate their kind remarks, as well as the measure of assistance which I have received from both sides of the House with regard to the problems we have experienced up to now. I specifically want to mention the fact that I have discussed several aspects with members of Opposition parties—naturally, I have experienced this among my own colleagues as well—and that this has also led to positive results which I am very grateful for. I am also grateful for the information which I obtained in this way, information which I would otherwise not have obtained, perhaps.

†I want to begin by referring to the hon member for Cape Town Gardens, who is his party’s chief spokesman on this subject. He made the remark that the idealism of the receiver is more important than the idealism of the giver. In that connection I want to say to him that I believe that the structures we spoke of this morning, structures already in existence in the department and structures we are in the process of creating, will ensure that we will be able to attune our respective ideals, as we perceive them, all the better for the benefit of the children whom we serve.

I want to apologize to hon members for the fact that the annual report was late. I do not personally know exactly what the problem was. I just know that from our side we submitted our memoranda in good time. I am very sorry that hon members were put in an embarrassing situation with regard to their available time for the perusal of the report.

Another point which the hon member raised was the fact that in the new dispensation Blacks will not personally be in a position to “fight for their fair share”, as he put it, since Black education will be a general affair. I want to ask in all fairness whether that is a fair comment in the light of the fact that the budget for this department increased by 26% over the last year, compared to the average for the entire Budget of only 18%. As far as this particular point is concerned I think we have a proud record. The increases over the past number of years of the department’s budget over the previous year’s budget clearly reflects the commitment of this Government to put education for Black children on as sound a footing as possible in as short a period of time as possible. We could hardly have expected to get an increase of more than 26% this year over the amount of last year. In the determination of the needs we are in constant contact with various authorities in various Black communities in order to evaluate and quantify those needs to enable us to go to the Cabinet to fight for a fair share of the Budget. I can give the hon member the assurance that the norms and standards generally applicable also apply to this department. However, we must accept that in spite of our best efforts we will still be restricted by a particular rate of growth. There are certain minimum constraints which bog us down. First of all, if it were possible to construct 5 000 classrooms overnight we would still not be able to recruit 5 000 properly qualified teachers overnight. That is a problem. In other words, we look seriously to our own ability to produce the number of teachers that we require. In this respect I have some figures available which we can discuss in detail if need be.

I should like to make a general comment about the credibility of the department. Here I want to address the hon member for Cape Town Gardens. Towards the end of his speech he said that teaching in this department was manifestly inferior. I think I clearly analysed earlier the specific problems which we face in this department. Together with my predecessors I am not so blind as not to see the shortcomings of the department, and particularly the inadequate training of many of our teachers.

I said the schooling was inferior. I referred to class sizes, etc.

I want specifically to refer to the quality of education. That is why I asked the hon member by way of interjection to define more clearly what he meant by quality of education. As far as physical facilities are concerned, that we are continuously reviewing and we are doing our best in order to improve that. However, if we get the kind of terminology, as used by the hon member, in this House, the highest authority in South Africa, then certainly we cannot expect— since this is also carried forward by the media—the communities and the children in the classrooms to believe, contrary to people who should know, that their education is not inferior. I want to make a plea today to hon members on the other side to stop calling this department and its rule “Bantu education”. Shortly after accepting office the hon the Prime Minister committed himself to certain improvements as far as Black education is concerned. Flowing from that we had a revision of the relevant Act. He also said that he would change the name of the department, and we have changed the name. We all know that there were certain connotations attaching to the term “Bantu education”. I want to appeal to hon members on behalf of all our thousands of teachers, White and Black, to stop talking of “Bantu education”. I call on the media as well not to do this. Also, if hon members want to criticize us, let them. We welcome criticism. I am sure we make thousands of mistakes every day. We are aware of this and are big enough to accept criticism. However, if hon members wish to highlight the mistakes in our department, they should also be prepared to acknowledge the more positive aspects of the work of the department. We expect this especially from those hon members of the Opposition who are respected for their opinions by members of the Black community. This will enable us to develop the more credible aspects of the department, as the slightest tinge of incredibility destroys so much of what is good and so much of the goodwill and motivation. I am not asking hon members not to criticize, but I appeal to them not to use denigrating and humiliating terminology.

Mr Chairman, the hon member said, very correctly, that all matriculants who failed had passed Std 9. We are still investigating this matter in detail but I really do not want to discuss it across the floor today. However, I invite the hon member and any other hon members to come and visit the department so that they can see and hear for themselves what we have done in this regard, and avail themselves of all the information that we have. There are certain things which, in my view, we should not discuss in public and I consider it not to be appropriate for me to talk about this now.

The next point I wish to refer to also has a bearing on statements made by the other hon members. The hon member said that a matriculation certificate from this department is not of the same value to an employee as that of his White counterpart. I am not disputing that, because a matriculation certificate in the hands of two White pupils coming from two different schools also do not mean the same thing. There may be a good mathematics teacher in one school and an appalling one in the other. Yet both candidates pass and both are in possession of a matriculation certificate. I am not suggesting that the matriculation certificates from the two departments are in all respects of the same value as far as the applicability of those qualifications is concerned; other factors come into play at the same time. In other words, when one presents one’s certificate to an employer, he also asks a lot of questions about one’s background because that could give him a definite indication of the extent to which one will be able to apply the strict academic knowledge and the standard which one can testify to as far as that certificate is concerned.

In the case of the average White pupil and the average Black pupil with a matriculation certificate, I think we can identify certain differences but in my view that also relates to certain socio-economic conditions for which I as the responsible Minister for this department am not accountable. I believe this calls for a total strategy on the part of the Government to address that particular problem. May I with all due respect quote an example. Take a raw English-speaking person with very little knowledge of Afrikaans and Afrikaans-speaking people and put him slap-bang in the middle of the Sanlam offices, I think it will take him a considerable time to adapt. One can also take the converse. Take an ordinary Afrikaner-boereseun and put him in the midst of a very Scottish insurance firm.

Horace!

I do not think that is fair. Put this young man in the midst of a Scottish insurance firm, and I can assure hon members that it will take him some time to adapt. Then we must also appreciate the fact that a Black matriculant presenting his matriculation certificate can rightfully expect his future employer to value that certificate in its strict academic sense to be of the same value as that of his White counterpart. That very same employer, however, must then understand that the Black candidate comes from some cultural background which differs in significant respects from that of his White counterpart. Therefore, I believe, we can rightfully make a plea to employers to use their in-service training facilities, for which the Government also pays dearly by way of tax concessions, in order to attune that Black matriculant to the specific job situation in which he will find himself.

Furthermore, Mr Chairman, I should like to refer to some examination results. This also has a bearing on what certain hon members have said in this debate. I want to give hon members some idea of the results of the analyses we have done. In order to improve our matriculation results—apart from what we will show the hon member for Cape Town-Gardens and other hon members privately—I believe that the very first thing which is important is that a pupil should attend school regularly. That is of fundamental importance. Secondly, in his school situation he must be given the correct tuition, and he must also be led into the world of regular study. Going home after school the pupil should attend to his studies on a regular basis and review his work conscientiously. In this respect we have a special program which is in operation right now; a program geared at motivating both pupils and their parents to adopting these positive attitudes. Then, returning now to the teacher himself, I believe a desperate need exists for the teacher to test the skills of his pupils regularly. He must also continuously provide his pupils with a feedback in respect of their standard of work and their level of achievement in order that pupils may timeously identify any shortcomings in their knowledge and methods of study. This will enable pupils to make the necessary amends before examination time comes along.

Furthermore, the pupil also needs the understanding and the support of his parents and of his community. In this regard we also have a special motivation program going. Unfortunately this program is currently suffering as a result of the absence of Mr Jaap Strydom.

Referring now to last year’s examination results specifically, I should like to make a few remarks. We have two educationists from a well known South African university, who did what they call a scientific analysis of our examination results of last year. They came to the startling conclusion that this department, in collaboration with other departments, is actually manipulating examination results, that is “fixing” them. Following in the wake of that finding a rumour developed to the effect that the reason why this department resorted to that sort of modus operandi was because we had a lack of facilities at our tertiary institutions. According to the rumour we opted to solve that problem by stopping pupils from passing their matriculation exams to prevent them from applying for access to tertiary education institutions, which would in turn enable us to solve our problems in respect of our tertiary institutions.

Is that not an absolutely ridiculous statement to make?

Yes, is that not an absolutely ridiculous statement to make? What is more, Mr Chairman, is that this allegation was taken seriously in many circles. This is the kind of rumour which badly injures our department, and which also causes the kind of credibility problem which we are experiencing at the present time. Is it not obvious to any reasonable person that if that were really the problem, that if we had really been suffering owing to a lack of accommodation at our tertiary institutions, it would have been much better for us to address that problem directly?

Just one last thought, Mr Chairman. This is in relation to the number of pupils in matric during the last few years. 1978 was only six years ago. What is six years in the cycle of a nation, looked at from that perspective? What has happened, however, in this regard between 1978 and the present time? The number of candidates rose from 9 800 to over 70 000 last year. When one seeks to handle this sort of figure merely from the point of view of logistics it causes tremendous problems. We are certainly not complacent about this whole situation. I have said this before. However, instead of our saying that the pass rate was only 52% we prefer to say that in the circumstances we are very pleased that we achieved at least that pass figure. We had in excess of a 60% pass rate in 80 schools which to us was gratifying indeed.

The hon member also referred to a possible surplus of White teachers. In this regard I should like to quote from the record of a discussion that we had with the executive committee of Atasa. This is the sort of communication that we are enjoying at the moment. I quote from the record:

That is precisely what is happening, and I am grateful to these people for their efforts. The record goes on to state:

We are addressing this problem according to a specific programme and, in doing so, we are in continuous consultation with all interested parties.

I also wish to refer to the point the hon member raised in quoting a person who is a consultant on educational matters. This revolves around the whole question of why we have a separate Department of Education for Black children. I want to remind the hon member that the White Paper makes mention of the fact that a macro-planning department is envisaged which will prescribe norms. We will therefore in future be an executive department and we will be responsible for doing the job where the rubber meets the road. That will be our job in terms of broadly defined norms and in line with requirements of the economy as a whole.

I should like to make three quotations for the benefit of the hon member. I want to point out to him that we as a Government are not out of step with some very important and noted educationists in regard to our approach to have education for Black children under a separate department so as to address their specific needs.

The first person I wish to quote in this regard is Prof Mpahlele, who in making an appeal for the establishment of a separate college in Soweto, had this to say on 23 April 1980:

The second person I should like to quote is Dr Thomas Lambo, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, in an analysis of this problem of education in developing countries. This gentleman is from Nigeria and he had the following to say in 1975:

I can continue with another very appropriate quotation from the Education Ministers of the Organization for African Unity, but will leave it for the moment.

I think we and the official Opposition should accept that on this score we must differ with each other. We believe that we have shown enough good results with our approach, and until such time as we have really been proven completely wrong and we have the support of the entire community, only then will we be able to consider anything else.

I shall answer the hon member’s points about classrooms and the expenditure on teachers by way of a private letter because there are very definite reasons why these things are as at present. This can definitely not be ascribed to an alteration in our policy; it is merely the result of the method adopted to report.

As far as pay is concerned, I do not know where discrimination exists in the department, except under the M plus 3 qualification line, but that is also being looked into.

*I sincerely thank my colleague, the hon member for Gezina. I cannot deal with everything in detail now, but I think he made a very useful contribution.

I can assure the hon member for Koedoespoort that when we talk about upgrading, we are not talking about the salary. We are talking primarily about the training of a person to qualify him to handle his present position more satisfactorily. In addition, there is in-service training. So there is not only academic training, but also in-service training to qualify him for appointment to higher positions in which it is naturally possible to earn higher salaries. I am grateful for the other remarks made by the hon member. I think he made a constructive contribution.

I referred earlier to the White teachers in the department, concerning whom he also made a remark. We have the greatest appreciation for the contribution they make. They often have to travel very long distances and they often make their contribution under difficult circumstances.

I want to convey my sincere thanks to the hon member for Virginia for the effective way in which he dealt with certain aspects. I think he touched on an important point. If it is true that the matriculation examination which we conduct is of a lower standard, why are we being castigated about the pass rate? If we were to raise that standard, surely our pass rate would be much worse than it is at the moment. I can assure hon members that we are doing everything in our power to keep the standards on a comparable basis. The hon member also referred in a very knowledgeable way to the demands which are going to be made on Black education in future, and I thank him for doing so.

The hon member for Durban North made a very interesting and correct analysis of this portfolio. I thank him for this and for the constructive way in which he did so. He said something very important: “The higher the educational level of a person, the higher his feeling of deprivation.” I think this pinpoints several aspects to which we have to give very careful consideration, also in the light of the socio-economic development of the communities for which we work. I also thank him for his support with regard to the new structure which we have announced to pre-empt the flash point. That is precisely what we intend to do.

The hon member for Kimberley North discussed the question of examinations in his usual calm and collected and extremely knowledgeable way. I am sure we could all see that he was a person who had made very good use of his years in the teaching profession. I should like to make just one remark arising from what he said. A few years ago, at a dinner in the Mount Nelson shortly before his death, Prof Kware related an incident that had once taken place on the campus of his university. He was sitting in his office when one of his people came running in and asked him whether he knew what was going on his campus. When he got outside, he saw a big, expensive car and a neatly dressed Black man standing next to it, recruiting students. I forget the exact figures, but as far as students in their final year were concerned, that man already had 30 of the 34 on his list. Not one of them ended up in the profession for which they had been trained. And the breaking of this cycle was to the detriment of the teaching profession. They were appointed as “trainee personnel managers”, “trainee marketing managers” and “trainee branch managers”. I believe that the private sector should realize that there is a particular balance which should be preserved with regard to the flow of knowledgeable Black people back to their own communities.

†I have taken note of the remarks of the hon member for Johannesburg North with regard to the Atteridgeville situation. He is correct in his analysis of the position. Although it does not concern my department, there is just one point I want to point out to him. As regards the two pupils who were arrested, one of them tried to stab the principal with a knife while the other was his accomplice. The two of them were released on bail yesterday and promptly returned to Atteridgeville where they stirred up more trouble. I do not know whether it is true, but I am told that they were part of the reason why the children went back onto the street where a clash with the police ensued. If that is the kind of response we get from those people, I am sure the hon member will agree with me that a person who is under arrest and was stirring up problems in the community, should stay where he is. I want to thank the hon member for his positive contribution.

*It was apparent that the hon member for Helderkruin is an expert on the anatomy of revolution. If I am correct, this is the subject in which he obtained his doctorate. I thank him for his very skilful exposition.

†The hon member for Albany raise the question of farm children. I can give the hon member the assurance that we are looking into the position of these children. I am not saying that we will find a proper solution in the short term, but I do want to tell him that we realize that it is a problem and that we are investigating the matter.

*As the hon member for Heilbron said, those children might do very well at school, but they do not get the opportunity because there are no boarding schools which they can attend. We are working on a scientific analysis of this matter. Perhaps we can overcome the problem by enabling farm schools to provide tuition up to higher standards. In this respect, we have to consult agricultural unions and so on, for if we provide agricultural training for these children, we must have the assurance that it will be possible to employ them and to pay them proper salaries in the areas they come from. I shall also examine the question of equal access to urban schools for farm children. I think that the hon member for Heilbron made a very useful contribution about the question of school readiness and the farm school situation. For this he has my sincere thanks. He made many useful suggestions and we shall certainly go into them. I am thinking in particular of his proposal that farm schools should go beyond standard 5.

†With regard to what the hon member for Pinetown has said, I think there is one thing all people in South Africa should realize, namely that our education departments must prepare children for where the jobs will be. As far as the Black communities are concerned, the jobs will in future be primarily in the technical and commercial directions. Unless the Black communities can support us in this regard and unless we succeed, on our part, to encourage children to follow these lines of study, we have no hope of achieving the sort of situation the hon member talked about.

Mr Chairman, this afternoon we are discussing the activities of the Department of Education and Training in a calm atmosphere. This is a good thing and I am glad that we are not experiencing the venom and acrimony this afternoon which was the order of the day during the discussion of this Vote in the past. This is a department which is so important and offers so many possibilities that we have to discuss it in a calm atmosphere. We can then thrash out the problems involved. The venom and acrimony are absent but I do not know whether that will still be the case after the hon member for Bryanston has spoken.

We are discussing a dynamic department and I should like to refer with great appreciation to certain tasks of this department. The department is involved in the total development of people, from the toddler to the adult. Bearing this involvement in mind, the overall aim of the department is to provide Black people with education in the area under the control of the department, to assist the self-governing areas in performing education functions, and to assist the independent Black states according to agreements that have been entered into.

The tremendous magnitude and complexity of the task underlying the achievement of this aim is illustrated by the nine programmes which give a picture of the activities of the department, namely administration, primary and pre-primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, vocational and trade training, training of handicapped children, teacher training, adult education and supportive and allied services. A tremendously wide-ranging programme has therefore been amalgamated in this department. Closer scrutiny of these programmes clearly underlines the many facets of the department’s activities from pre-primary to university level.

The department’s education and training task covers the entire spectrum from the technical to the academic. It includes training of teachers, provision for handicapped children, provision of auxiliary services, publications, examinations, provision of bursaries and textbooks, the building of schools and other institutions, and many other aspects. Thorough planning is the underlying principle of this extensive task which is carried out with due regard to the overall requirements of the country, the availability of funds, the aspirations of communities, the ideals and abilities of individuals and the declared policy of equal education for all population groups.

It goes without saying that it is not possible to review in detail here the activities of the department throughout the length and breadth of the country, involving more than 40 000 teachers and 1,6 million pupils in more than 7 000 schools, because my time is too limited. I therefore want to single out only a few highlights.

I want to start at the lowest level, namely pre-primary education. The department is endeavouring to involve as many five-year-olds as possible in a bridging year, particularly in view of the importance of pre-primary education in a school preparation programme. A time programme has been worked out and excellent lecture material has been made available to the teachers. In 1983 there were 83 registered pre-primary schools with more than 9 000 pupils. These registered pre-primary schools receive an annual subsidy of R100 per pupil. The effectiveness of pre-primary education is proved by the figures obtained for the Johannesburg region in the 1982 academic year. The general pass figure in sub A in this region was 73,9%. In contrast the pass figure for the 2 200 pupils exposed to pre-primary education was 90,8%. This proves the need which exists for preparing these children for school.

A three year teacher’s diploma course for the training of pre-primary teachers is being offered at St Francis in Langa and at the Soweto Teacher’s College. In 1983 there were 15 students in their second and 44 students in their first year. The first students to have received three years of training will complete their studies this year.

I now want to refer to primary education. Here, too, it was possible to improve the teacher-pupil ratio, namely from 1:44,3 in 1982 to 1:44,8 in 1983. There has been continued success with the department’s upgrading programme for primary schools, a programme in which almost half a million primary school pupils are involved. A wonderful achievement was accomplished in 1983 in that class libraries have now been established in every class of every primary school. In the process R3,3 million was spent to supply the relevant schools with 480 000 library books. These are things which pass unnoticed by the official Opposition. They do not take note of these tremendous tasks that are being accomplished for the schools. Of great importance is the fact that two new one-year specialization courses for teachers in remedial education and librarianship have been introduced as from 1984.

The next step is secondary education and I do not want to say much about that. I just want to say that the department is keeping abreast of the needs of the time to give pupils at secondary school level the opportunity to develop their individual abilities and interests. Particular attention is being given to differentiated education. Continued efforts are being made to improve the quality of education at secondary level as well. In this connection the Subject Advisory Services Division of the department is doing tremendous work. When one realizes that there are at present more than 300 secondary schools with a total of 273 000 pupils, one gains an idea of the magnitude of the task. Textbooks are being provided to the pupils free of charge and since 1979 more than R35 million has been spent on books for them. Now an hon member has requested that textbooks should be exempted from GST. Does he realize how much money the department spends to provide textbooks free of charge?

Sir, I want to make haste. There is one further point I want to single out. Today a great deal has been said about the training of teachers. I want to indicate briefly what the department is doing in this connection. The department is still giving high priority to the training of teachers. The number of students enrolled at the departmental teachers colleges is expected to increase this year by 32% to approximately 4 600. By the end of 1983 a milestone was reached when the first group of students wrote the final examination for the three-year primary education diploma at the college under the control of the department. A total of 226 candidates wrote the examination and only 20 failed. By the end of this year the first group of students will also have obtained the three-year secondary teachers diploma.

I am not going to talk about technikons and tertiary education. One of my colleagues will do that. In conclusion I want to say that time does not allow me to elaborate on the many other facets of the department’s activities which attest to progress and the purposefulness and earnestness with which the important task of education and training for our Black people is being carried out virtually every day. Suffice it to say that an inestimable service is being rendered throughout the country, that problems which seem insurmountable are simply accepted by the department as a challenge and are solved, and that in fact a great deal of progress is being made in the context of developing communities. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member who has just resumed his seat has made a very important contribution in regard to pre-primary education. Of course, without a foundation one cannot build anything. I agree that that is a very important topic.

I do not want to take that point any further because I want to shift the debate a little towards universities in particular. Before doing that, may I say to the hon the Minister that as one of the class of 74 I am particularly glad that he occupies the position that he does. Those of us who were with him 10 years ago and watched his progress ever since were not at all surprised when he was appointed as Deputy Minister and finally as Minister. Those of us who listened to him this morning know full well that the quality that he has shown over the 10 years is now coming to fruition. We wish him well.

I want to say two other things to the hon the Minister. The first point concerns something over which he has no control. Perhaps I should also address this to the hon the Prime Minister in his absence. Sir, in heaven’s name, we cannot keep on changing the Minister of Education and Training. This is too important. I want to say to the hon the Minister that he must stay there. He cannot run away now. He must stay in that job because it is too important, especially after he has started it so well. I also want to say in all seriousness to the hon the Minister that there are going to come times when he is going to have great heartache, and even heartbreak. At times like that when he perhaps feels that all his efforts are in vain and that he does not get the response that he perhaps would like—from teachers, children, Parliament, or anybody else—I hope that he will continue despite that heartache which is inevitable in such a difficult job.

I have read the report with great interest. I want to refer to some of the statistics contained in it, some of which are very encouraging indeed and a few which give rise for concern. As far as the Medical University of SA. Medunsa, is concerned, I should like to place on record our congratulations to the fact the first 34 general medical practitioners have qualified and received their MB ChB degrees. I think that is an incredible step forward. We badly need doctors of all races and I am delighted that this progress has been made. However, I want to highlight the reference that has been made of inadequate accommodation and lack of clinical facilities at Medunsa. I understand that there were 1 000 applications of which only 120 could be accepted. Obviously the need is there and the desire is there. I hope very much that the support and finance will be forthcoming to make it possible for this university to develop even further.

As far as Vista University is concerned, we could have a very long debate on that. The hon the Minister’s predecessor will remember some of the debates which we have had. Despite our difference of opinion in terms of education the fact that we now have 3 000 students registered at that university is encouraging.

It is now 6 000.

According to the report it is 3 000, but this latest figure is even more to the credit of the department. We are aware that most of the concentration is on teacher training, and why not? That is where one of the greatest needs lies. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, that is a very good beginning. Nonetheless, I place on record again that we are sad that this was a separate institution instead of an open university.

As far as general statistics are concerned, the student enrolment at Black universities, according to the latest figures in the report, now stands at 14 977. That is an increase of about 4 000, which is commendable. It is interesting that almost as many Black students, namely 14 715, are studying at other universities than the so-called Black universities, including 1 782 at so-called White universities. This is a very interesting development. Of course the overwhelming majority, over 12 000, study through Unisa. One therefore finds them in many parts of South Africa.

I would think that the hon the Minister with his commendable honesty displayed today will agree with me that in the light of the needs of our time the number of pupils who start school is still far too low and therefore remains unsatisfactory.

As far as the award of degrees is concerned, 1 043 were awarded in 1983, which is an increase of one hundred. This is again pathetically low in relation to the number of Black children at school. It is of course much better than it used to be but there is nevertheless enormous room for improvement.

Something that gives me cause for concern is that the amount in regard to bursaries and loans for Black students, as reflected on p 115 of the report, actually reflects a downward spiral in some instances. That is very bad indeed, and I hope that attention will be given to that aspect. I refer in particular to loans and bursaries granted to students at Fort Hare and also the University of Zululand where there is a steep decrease in loans granted during 1983-84 in relation to 1982-83.

Matriculation exemption is of course, imperative for young people who wish to go to university, and in this regard I am disturbed that in 1980 there were 5 174 such exemptions while in 1982 there were only 4 811. In view of the tremendous increase in almost every other area, one must try to establish why there has been this significant decrease in the number of matriculation exemptions. When one looks at the matriculation exemptions where mathematics is included as a subject—and mathematics is a very important subject—one finds that in 1979, five years ago, there were 3 130 while in 1982 there were only 2 324. This once again shows a backward rather than a forward process in a crucial area.

Lastly, I want to refer to a specific university, and the hon the Minister will not be surprised when I refer to the University of Zululand. 29 October 1983 was a very dark and tragic day on the campus of that university. I remind the House that five students were killed and damage in the vicinity of R20 000 was done. That is a terrible thing to happen at any university anywhere in the world. A terrifying clash took place between those students who are obviously supporters of Chief Gatsha Buthelezi and those who are not. One could spend a lot of time talking about the response of the various parties, but I want to say that the response of the department was perfectly proper. We amongst many others, I am sure, called immediately for a judicial commission. I am not saying that it was in response to us, but the department took the initiative and set up a judicial commission of inquiry with Mr Justice Neville James as the one man commissioner. Now we are shocked to hear that because of “financial arrangements” he has withdrawn, and the hon the Minister has announced the appointment of a departmental committee under prof Middleton of Unisa. I am not sure if that is final but in view of the seriousness of the event, this is totally unsatisfactory. I would therefore urge the hon the Minister to reconsider it so that a judicial inquiry could be reinstituted without delay.

It has been done.

Thank you very much.

Mr Chairman, I am sure the hon member for Pinelands will forgive me if I do not react directly to his speech. I should like to describe to hon members what the Department of Education and Training has achieved during the past year in the field of secondary education.

In the first place, we should consider whether the department is succeeding in realizing its goal. The department’s goal is to offer every Black child education which will enable him or her to develop his or her full potential. The first thing that is needed to achieve this goal is, of course, money, as well as buildings, equipment, staff and a great deal of goodwill from parents, pupils, other organizations and the authorities in particular. These components each play a major role in determining the quality of education. There is, however, another very important aspect which has to be taken into account, and that is the milieu in which the education takes place. Unfortunately there are elements at work in the community doing everything in their power to influence the milieu in which education ought to take place in such a way that it is sometimes very difficult to achieve this goal. The authorities are, however, doing everything possible to create conditions in which the development of every pupil is possible.

In secondary education attention is given to differentiated education. A great deal of progress has also been made with a rationalization process. According to this programme, secondary schools are organized in such a way that one or more of the following fields of study can be offered; A general field of study, a scientific field of study, a commercial field of study and a technical field of study. Comprehensive units were introduced to make differentiation possible. Through the addition of workshops and other facilities, for example drawing rooms, schools can be equipped in such a way that provision can be made for all four of these fields of study at one school. This rationalization of facilities affords a greater degree of decentralization, which in turn reduces the transport problems of both pupils and staff. In this way it is also possible, to a great extent, to eliminate the need for hostel facilities. There are at present 12 of these comprehensive schools, and by the end of 1985 a further nine are expected to be in operation.

When we take note of the increase in the number of pupils in the four abovementioned fields of study during the past two years, it soon becomes clear that there is great interest in the commercial subjects. Unfortunately there is a lesser degree of interest in the technical subjects. I say that this is unfortunate because in my opinion more students ought to take an interest in this field of study. In order to ensure that the quality of the education continues to improve, a principal subject adviser has been appointed for each subject or field of study, and in each region there are subject advisers with the rank of departmental heads. These regional subject advisers ensure that close contact is maintained with the secondary schools in the region. They also ensure that continuous follow-up work is done. They also offer in-service training courses.

Laboratory equipment and teaching aids are also provided, and for most subjects standard lists have already been made available. The school library probably plays the most important role in the improvement of the quality of education, and this year almost 280 000 books valued at approximately R1,7 million were supplied to schools. By the end of 1984 every secondary school ought to have a trained teacher-librarian on its staff.

Technical secondary education is expanding by leaps and bounds. At present there are 20 technically orientated centres in use. Boys are technically orientated at those centres during the years they are in Std 5 and Std 6. Some of the older members will probably remember similar centres which were established in the early ’twenties and ’thirties to train White boys in handicrafts. This year a start was made with a pilot project for girls, and in future these orientation courses will be offered to pupils during the years they are in Std 4 and Std 5.

This year more than 40 000 pupils are expected to receive their training at these centres. However, I still think it is a great pity—as I have already mentioned—that there is still a great deal of hesitancy among pupils to qualify themselves for technical careers. I therefore hope that this technical orientation programme, which in actual fact is practical career guidance, will help to bring about a greater interest in this field. The future requires more and better trained workers for the industries of this country. The improvement in the quality of secondary education in particular is closely linked to the up-grading and the improvement of the skills of teachers. This is no easy task, particularly when one bears in mind that at the moment there are 302 secondary schools, with approximately 274 000 pupils, and with a sustained annual growth of at least 14%. There are approximately 8 500 teachers involved in secondary education. Of the department’s budget for 1984-85, 22%—ie R156 million—is earmarked for secondary education.

Approximately 16% of the total number of pupils are at secondary school level, and the average pupil-teacher ratio is 31,7 pupils per teacher. Of these pupils, 7,5% reach Std 10. This ratio compares rather favourably with that in some secondary schools under the control of the provincial authorities, and even with the ratio in some private schools. The number of pupils in Std 10 increased by 650% over the five-year period from 1978 to 1983, whereas the total number of secondary school pupils increased by 73,8% during the same period. During the past year, in co-operation with various private organizations, 75 video programmes for use at Std 8 to Std 10 level were produced.

The school radio service of the SABC is playing an increasingly important role in the secondary education programme. More than 30 000 audio tapes on prescribed works were made available to pupils. Media centres are being established at many schools, and these are proving very popular, and an increasing number of schools are becoming involved in this project. It is gratifying to see that more facilities are being created at schools where pupils can study under favourable conditions.

At present the department is engaged in a research project which deals with the computer-assisted teaching of mathematics, and the preliminary results indicate that this computer-assisted teaching of mathematics will make a major contribution to the upgrading of mathematics. The Department of Education and Training is the first education department in South Africa to make use of this method of teaching mathematics.

The hon the Minister, the Director-General and every member of staff of this department deserve nothing but the highest praise for their contribution to the development of every pupil to his maximum potential.

Mr Chairman, I hope the hon member for Maraisburg will pardon me if I do not follow him directly in what he said.

I want to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon member for Durban North in regard to the department and the staff and for their efforts during the past year. I want to address myself particularly to the hon the Minister and to tell him that this debate which is his first as Minister of this department, is without doubt the best we have had in the past four years. The speech of the hon the Minister showed intelligent imagination as well as a sensitivity for the matter without any form of bluster. These are attributes which we feel all Cabinet Ministers should be endowed with in addition to their other requirements, and these attributes on the part of this hon Minister have, in fact, resulted in our having a very interesting debate here today.

The hon the Minister’s speech fleshed out a very detailed statistical review of the achievements of the department during 1983 giving them human form and meaning as well as giving us a welcome insight into his approach to this whole matter. It would appear that this is a day for speech-stealing because I also want to deal with a matter that has already been dealt with by the hon member for Albany although perhaps from a slightly different point of view.

I want to commence by saying that we on these benches agree with every word said by the hon member for Albany and, in the few minutes available to me, I should like to lead off from the hon the Minister’s remark that the department is directly responsible for ensuring that Blacks can take their place in the South African economy as a whole and, may I add to that, also play their part in that situation.

The question of their being equipped or otherwise to play their part is going to spell success or failure in regard to the all-important aspect of making the economic cake bigger by means of increased productivity. If this can be done, all things in Africa can become possible. We have to equip all of our people in order to enable us to fight alongside each other in the unfolding African drama of development, stability, peace and prosperity in Capricorn Africa.

What concerns us on these benches is the growing disparity between the quality of life of Blacks in the urban areas and those in the rural areas. One nearly every front the rural Black suffers in comparison with his urban counterpart. Despite the employment in the rural areas of between 12% and 14% of the entire workforce, those areas have been left out in the cold as far as concessions with regard to regional development are concerned. In fact, whether in regard to wages, employment, housing or entertainment—one can go on and on in this way—the rural Black has been sadly neglected. While for the purpose of continuity in the debate I mentioned education last, I should in fact have placed it first. We believe most sincerely and committedly that this is the key to our survival on the continent and that all progress will flow from it. If the agricultural sector is to pay off its massive debts brought about by the drought and improve the quality of life of its workers, feed a burgeoning population and earn valuable foreign exchange, then that industry will have to use every scrap of ingenuity, modern technology and increased productivity methods to meet that challenge. The accessibility to education at secondary level, to technikons and in the technical field, and even adult education is poor if not non-existent in some areas.

The private sector is playing its part in farm schools and even in so far as some training institutions are concerned. I think in this instance of the one at Nottingham Road. The private sector is therefore involved. Whereas the Government has set its course in the urban areas and is making great strides in those areas, we believe that the hon the Minister and his top staff should turn their attention to the educational voids in the rural areas and launch a campaign with the assistance of the private sector and private individuals to bring about a better level of parity between the urban and the rural Black workers. We feel that we should identify the priority areas first and then encourage and assist the private sector, through organizations and bodies to participate in a scheme to bring about a better situation as regards the accessibility of education above standard five.

The hon member for Albany mentioned as a particular example, a case in point on his farm. I just want to do the same for the moment. We have a small farm school nearby with an enrolment of 166 pupils. Those are the ones legally enrolled. In fact, there are more than 200 pupils if one includes those who are not enrolled. They are the little guys who just come along. They are the Blacks who play with my sons on the farm. They go to town with them and see the school to which my sons went. They look at that school and they say: “Au, Nkosana, inhle le indawo eyako”, which in fact means “what a beautiful school you have”. These comparisons are made.

For a moment I thought we had a Fourth Chamber.

We are on our way.

In fact that school at Komga with a secondary standard has only a few more pupils than this small farm school which goes up to standard five. They notice these things and they pick them up in discussion.

I believe that we cannot condemn or sentence that group of people in those areas to being labourers for the rest of their lives. They are not equipped to compete with the sort of education which their counterparts are getting when it comes to finding employment in the modern technological world. It is a fact that today’s society does not accommodate or make allowances for under-educated persons very easily. It is an area which I believe the hon the Minister should look at because I am quite certain that with his approach and imagination he will be successful in getting the assistance of the private sector, of agricultural unions, in seeing what can be done about improving their circumstances.

Mr Chairman, it is with pleasure that I take the floor after the hon member for King William’s Town has spoken. I do not think we can find much fault with the premises he raised, amongst other things that of the greater role that Black people ought to play in the South African economy. I think he also mentioned a very good example to illustrate the contribution made by the private sector in as far as farm schools are concerned. Amongst other things he also furnished a plea involving the greater participation of the private sector, an aspect I should like to take a little further in the short time at my disposal.

In the Department of Education and Training’s annual report the challenges of the department are set out as follows:

In other words, on the one hand there is the explosion in numbers, the heightened demand for education and rising expectations and on the other hand there is a shortage of manpower, the severe premium on accommodation and equipment and the limits on the availability of financial resources that have to be taken into account.

The White Paper on education in the Republic, which addresses these challenges, is clear on the question of the involvement of the private sector in education and training. The White Paper points out that by its formulation of a distinction between informal, formal and a non-formal education, and its findings and recommendations on the interaction and the mutual link-up between the three sectors, the HSRC investigation has added a new dimension to the thinking and the ideas relating to the education and training process and the structures within which this takes place. One of the most important insights that has come to the fore is that over and above the formal, chiefly State-financed education, there are many education and training programmes presented for which employers bear the cost. Such programmes are chiefly aimed at literacy, induction training, in-service training and retraining. The seventh of the eleven principles for the provision of education makes it clear that the private sector and the State shall have a shared responsibility for the provision of non-formal education. In the White Paper the Government further emphasizes that particularly in regard to the place occupied by universities in the provision of high-level manpower, employers should not, as far as universities are concerned, make demands that cannot be complied with. In conclusion, the Government accepts the desirability of granting the private sector, employer organizations and professional bodies a suitable say in educational decision-making.

As far as the joint responsibility of the private sector is concerned, the State’s contribution in regard to the principles of the provision of education are set out as follows in Principle No 6:

The private sector’s contribution is formulated in the following terms in Principle No 7:

So much for the principles. From the foregoing it is clear that the Government accepts that the provision of formal education is the State’s responsibility. The State’s capability is not, however, inexhaustible, and contributions from the private sector, to supplement the State’s capability, can therefore only benefit everyone in the country, and hence the private sector’s responsibility.

Assistance from the private sector can take several forms, from financial contributions to supplement the State’s limited resources to that of furnishing services, for example in regard to training or other inputs of expertise to improve the present shortage of manpower. The private sector in the Black community does not, generally speaking, have the ability to make a substantial contribution to education at present. This includes both material contributions and contributions in the form of inputs of high-level expertise or the furnishing of services. Fortunately from the overall, established private sector there has, in recent years, been a great deal of interest and involvement in education for the Black community that has come to the fore. Donors and people offering assistance have increasingly come to the fore with offers to supplement what the department cannot provide for in full. Those offering assistance cut across the whole spectrum of the non-public sector. There are mining houses, industries, business undertakings, organizations of many kinds and individuals, and those granting highly valued assistance range from the largest mining companies to local associations which undertake or finance various projects. The assistance received ranges from offers of a few books for a school library to more than R5 million for a single project. The greatest contribution is made in regard to accommodation. There are several cases of complete buildings being donated for a new school. One such example involves the Isidingo Technical College in Daveytown, the donation coming from a well-known large mining company. There are numerous other similar examples. In many schools additional classrooms are added on with the aid of donations. Such contributions do, of course, help a great deal towards relieving the constant dire shortage of classroom accommodation. There is also a problem in this connection, however, in the case of monetary donations being made. The department, like all other functional departments, works on a budgetary system which boils down to the fact that such donations must be ploughed back as revenue. As things stand there is no guarantee that at the moment such monies would be made available as amounts to supplement the department’s normal budget for the specific projects. The problem is therefore that donors who do not involve themselves directly in specific projects, but only want to make monetary donations, could experience problems in making such direct donations. This problem could possibly require further investigation by the authorities.

Another aspect I fleetingly want to refer to is the question of universities. From 1 April of this year a new financial dispensation for universities for Blacks has been implemented. Universities are now being financed in accordance with a financing formula that is also applicable to all other universities. What this formula embodies is that from 1 April 1984 all capital programmes are financed by way of private loans. This year the State subsidy will be 100%. From 1985-86 a contribution will be expected from universities, a contribution that will gradually increase until 1994-95, in other words, after a period of 11 years, when the universities will contribute 33,3% in regard to hostels and 10% in regard to other buildings and services.

Since the sources of revenue of universities are limited, it follows that to a large extent they will be dependent for help on donations from the private sector to supplement their own contributions. As far as obtaining loans is concerned, universities are dependent on the private sector.

In this regard the private sector can therefore make a dual contribution, on the one hand by way of donations, other direct and indirect assistance in the provision of capital services and, on the other hand, by way of loans for capital services are reasonable interest rates and under reasonable conditions. The spontaneous and voluntary contributions already forthcoming from the private sector illustrate the interest and involvement in the task resting on the shoulders of the Department of Education and Training. The donors and those granting assistance take due note of the department’s work and are prepared to supplement the department’s efforts. It is, of course, important for outside assistance to be reconcilable with the department’s own planning and methods of operation.

It will be noted that contributions from the private sector are of great value because they are specifically employed in those areas where the department most frequently feels the pinch owing to a lack of available resources and skilled manpower. The enthusiasm and the general attitude of the private sector in the support it gives is in line with that of the Government’s view adopted in the White Paper.

On behalf of this side of the House we very sincerely want to thank all those bodies making their contribution in this sector and express the hope that they will increasingly be doing so in future.

Mr Chairman, the assistance given to Black education by private enterprise is greatly appreciated. It is a very important contribution they are making. It is, in fact, an investment which they are not only making in the future of their companies but in the future of the children of our country as well. It can be pointed out that the contributions which are being made, come from a relatively small number of private concerns and that the majority of business enterprises are evading their duties and responsibilities in this regard. The majority are not making any contribution.

†By this time the hon the Minister will have realized from all the praise that has come from this side of the House in response to his speech this morning that he has come very close to winning the hearts and minds of the Opposition. [Interjections.] I think that the hon the Minister must be wondering whether he went wrong somewhere in the light of the response he got. I think it is very, very important indeed, because it displays something we in the PFP have attempted to bring home to the Government on many, many occasions, and that is that, when the Government show that they are prepared to make real progress and bring about real reform, they can depend not only on the fulsome praise of the Opposition but also on our wholehearted support. That support the Government will get irrespective of whether their reforms are in strict accord with PFP principles or not. It so happens, of course, that very often the Government are in fact listening to our advice and following our guidance with regard to reform. When that happens, we are very pleased indeed. This hon Minister and the Government will find, now and in the future, that, when real reform and real improvement are brought about, they will have our support and it will be support free of preconditions.

The hon the Minister displayed certain qualities this morning, qualities I should like to mention. I think they are essential in the vitally important and sensitive post he holds. He displayed understanding. Understanding in the sensitive racial situation in South Africa is vitally important. He displayed determination to bring about improvements and he also displayed compassion for the people involved. If in the future he also manages to add a touch of humility, he will come very close to the prototype of the type of Minister that would characterize a PFP Cabinet. I do not want to go on praising him in that way because he is a young Minister with a long career ahead of him and I would not like to spoil things for him at an early stage.

It is not just for what the hon the Minister said—and this is important—that he has received praise from this side of the House, but there was a new spirit which characterized his speech this morning. It is the clear difference between this new spirit and the spirit which characterized the speeches made by his predecessors over the last 10 years that we have been on this side of the House that is important. We have always wanted to listen to a realization of the facts and to practical answers to the problems which exist and we have often instead listened with dismay to a defence of the Government and their actions, to a defence of the Minister and his department and in particular to a defence of the philosophy of apartheid. Obviously, it is our responsibility on all occasions to attack apartheid as a system, particularly as it affects the education of the children of this country, and we will continue to do so, but when the Government move away from apartheid, when they move away from discrimination, when they move away from injustice, they have our support.

I should just like to give the hon the Minister one bit of advice with reference to the speech he made. He must not deny, minimize or attempt to explain away disparities or inequalities between White and Black education. There is no future in that. That has no value. He must admit candidly that these disparities or inequalities exist and then he must concentrate all his attention and efforts on evolving real and effective solutions. We will be reasonable. We understand that the gap in respect of the inequalities cannot be closed overnight and we have said so on numerous occasions. It cannot even be closed in a few years. All we ask the Government and the hon the Minister is to evolve carefully a program of action to remove these inequalities and this discrimination and to draw up a time-table. Whether they say it will be achieved in 5, 10 or 15 years, which will depend on all the factors involved, they must work out such a program. They must then announce it, implement it and stick to it no matter what the circumstances are. The rewards the Government will reap from that will be truly remarkable. There will be remarkable rewards in the fields of better race relationships and a longer, more qualified, more capable and competent input into the society and economy of South Africa and also into the solution of our political problems.

There is one matter which I should like to raise with the hon the Minister, a matter which I think is very important indeed. I should like to ask the hon the Minister to arrange for an investigation to be made into the use of corporal punishment at Black schools in South Africa. I should like to quote from a newspaper report of April 1984, as follows:

That amounts to something like 2 000 children who are victims of severe punishment at Black schools every year. I quote further:

I think it is particularly sad to punish a child for that. Children very often do not have school uniforms because their parents cannot afford it. To punish them for that is very sad indeed. I quote further:

Also the punishment of a child for failing to pay school fees is very sad indeed. There are so many Black parents who really cannot afford it. It is amazing how severe the punishment is for a Black child who does not wear a uniform or does not pay his school fees. It is seen as a very serious misdemeanour in Black schools. I quote further:

Obviously these teachers are acting contrary to the regulations which the department has laid down. In fact, in answer to my hon colleague for Cape Town Gardens the hon the Minister of Education and Training supplied a very comprehensive answer that sets out the regulations that apply. I am quite sure that if the schools were to comply with the provisions of these regulations these excesses would not take place. Quite clearly when these excesses take place they take place in contravention of the regulations which exist. I should like to suggest to the hon the Minister that corporal punishment of this nature and the psychological problems and resentment that it causes, as well as the reaction that it causes from the children, is and will always be a contributory factor to problems of violence at school as between pupils and teachers, to problems with regard to vandalism where pupils vandalize school property because of their resentment towards their teachers and the school, and to all other problems of violence. I therefore ask for an investigation into this matter.

Mr Chairman, it gives me pleasure to speak after the hon member for Bryanston. I am sure the hon the Minister will reply adequately to his remarks on corporal punishment in Black schools. At the beginning of his speech he said that he promised on behalf of the PFP that they would support the Government if developments took place on this side. But, in my turn, I want to ask him what happened during the referendum last year. We do not believe them that readily!

I should like to devote my speech to adult and tertiary education for Blacks. This subject is extremely important, particularly in view of the demands made on us by our modern technological society. In general, South Africa may be classified as a developing country. This means that our society is becoming increasingly complex and therefore requires an increasing number of skills from the individual. This consequently leads to a growing need for trained manpower. Literacy is therefore one of the basic requirements of a modern democratic technological society. The Department of Education and Training accepted this fact as a reality at an early stage, and that is why it initiated a programme for adult education on an active basis.

The course for adult education ranges from basic literacy to Standard 10, and at present more than 38 000 adults are enrolled at 343 centres, at which free education and study material are provided. About 3 600 active teachers are at present making use of these facilities. I think that Black teachers are aware of the fact that if they want to provide their pupils with proper education and training they must have the necessary qualifications. I also want to appeal to teachers who are not yet properly qualified to make use of the opportunity the department is giving them to improve their qualifications to the maximum extent possible.

This year a major training programme was also launched to reorientate the part-time teachers taking classes at the centres in the methods of teaching adults. After thorough research a handbook entitled Teaching Adults was printed and distributed among teachers. This handbook and the training programme of the department should have a major effect on the quality of the tuition given at after-hour centres. In this connection I also want to appeal to the hon the Minister to establish more of these centres in the rural areas. It is absolutely essential for Black people and teachers involved in education in the rural areas also to be in a position to improve their qualifications, and for that reason I am asking that my request receive serious consideration as one of the department’s important goals in the rural areas.

The continuation and extension of adult education and the promotion of literacy is also one of the basic guidelines for the stimulation and development of tertiary education. In this field the Department of Education and Training has also achieved wonderful results over the years. The South African Government has committed itself to equal education opportunities for all population groups, and that is why Black universities and technikons have been established and enlarged by the department. The independent states, viz Bophuthatswana, Transkei, Venda and Ciskei each have their own university. As a matter of fact, all the Black states insist on making more tertiary institutions available, which proves that the Black man is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of attaining the maximum education qualifications possible.

Up to 1978 there were only three universities that primarily served the Black community, namely the University of the North, the University of Zululand and the University of Fort Hare. Since then the Medical University of South Africa has been established, as have three branches of existing universities which were established at QwaQwa, Umlazi and Zwelitsha. Vista University is the latest addition and opened in 1983 with the following four campuses: Mamelodi, Soweto, Batu and Zwidi. I understand that the campus at Sebokeng will be opened this year. Vista University also has a campus for further education of teachers in Pretoria, and in 1983 2 234 teachers were studying at that campus on a part-time basis.

As the financial climate in the RSA improves, it is envisaged that the facilities of Vista University will be enlarged further in the major urban centres. I believe this is fit and proper. I also want to take this opportunity, however, to make a serious appeal to the hon the Minister and the department to give consideration to opening a branch of Vista University in the Western Transvaal. I can give the hon the Minister the assurance that there is definitely a need for it. If I were to be asked where such a branch should be opened, I would say that in my opinion Potchefstroom is the appropriate place. There is still enough space in the Black residential area Ikageng, where the necessary structures can be erected. I am convinced that some of the lecturers at the Potchefstroom University for Higher Christian Education would be prepared to act as part-time lecturers.

If one looks at the student enrolments at universities during the past four years, one finds that there has been a steady growth. During 1980 there were approximately 8 000 students pursuing their studies at the above mentioned universities. In 1983 this number had grown up approximately 15 000, and that is a considerable increase. This increasing number of Black graduates can, I feel, play an important role in the upliftment of their own people, which will be to the benefit of South Africa as a whole.

As far as the management of Black universities is concerned, the control boards originally consisted only of Whites. Qualified Black people were gradually appointed to the councils of these universities, however. In this way the Black community is being given an increasingly say in the management of Black universities. As for the staff contingent, academic and administrative, and the laboratory assistants, we have almost reached the stage where the ratio between Blacks and Whites is equal. The abovementioned facts illustrate that the department and the Government have really worked hard at the task of academic and management training of Black people at tertiary education level.

I should also like to point out that the key to the development of Black manpower in our country lies not only in the academic but very definitely in the technical field as well. The demand for people with proper technical training in our country is very high. I understand that the department is also giving very serious attention to stimulating and expanding technical education for Black people at tertiary level. As a result, it has already proceeded to establish technikons for Blacks. The training at these technikons is equivalent to that offered at technikons for the other population groups. The same syllabi and examinations are used. I believe that as money becomes available the department will establish an increasing number of technikons so that more Black people can be given the opportunity to obtain good technical qualifications at tertiary level.

Finally I should like to appeal to all Black teachers and students to make use of the opportunities being created for them in order to attain the highest possible qualifications. Black people in our country need not throw off a colonial yoke, as Black people elsewhere in Africa have to do. The Government has created opportunities by means of which they can find themselves. By attaining proper qualifications they can shake off the yoke of illiteracy. Then, I feel, they will be able to make a greater contribution to the development of their own people and of South Africa as a whole. I should also like to pay tribute to all the officials—White and Black—who devote their lives to the education and training of Black people. These people are doing tremendous work, and I should like to thank them for this.

Mr Chairman, I request the privilege of the second half-hour. The hon member for Schweizer-Reneke said quite a number of things with which one could wholeheartedly agree. For example, he referred to the importance of the postschool education of adults, the expansion of the facilities of the Vista University, and so on. However, the hon member will not take it amiss of me if I do not react any further now to what he said.

As other hon members on this side of the House have already done, I also wish to convey my congratulations to the hon the Minister, and thank him for the truly well-balanced way in which he set out some of the most important problems facing us in regard to Black education here. As for the vision which he displayed in this connection, as well as the practical and concrete steps which he indicated, particularly those pertaining to the democratization processes in Black education, I can assure him that we took cognizance of these things with very great appreciation. To that I must, of course, add my appreciation for what the department is doing in regard to the tremendous task with which it has been entrusted, and in particular, too, for the way in which the department showed itself willing to attend to hon members of this hon House and to provide them with information on matters of interest. In this connection I also express my appreciation for the friendly invitation issued by the hon the Minister to hon members of this House to come and talk to the official of his department and to him on the analyses they made in connection with the matriculation results. Furthermore, I thank him for the kind invitation to pay a visit to Black educational institutions on the Wit-watersrand next week. It is a pity that some of us, owing to other appointments, are unable to accept that invitation.

Mr Chairman, I want to put it to the hon the Minister that when we express criticism in this connection it is not being done in a spirit of negativism, but always with the intention, through our criticism, of making a contribution that can enable the department and the hon the Minister to do their work even better. There is no doubt that the department has been entrusted with a task of trenendous magnitude; probably one of the most difficult tasks in our country. This is one of the departments which is in face-to-face contact with the Black population of our country. There are two other departments, two other levels, where we also have the face-to-face contact. They are the SA Police and the Department of Co-operation and Development, particularly via the Administration Boards. As some of my other hon colleagues have indicated, it is unfortunately the case that the work of the Department of Education and Training is very frequently affected and made difficult, not by the actions of the department itself, but on other levels where that interface of the White authorities with the Black people occurs. I am very sorry for the hon the Minister and his department, because they cannot control those matters. Those matters are completely out of their jurisdiction, but they nevertheless have to pay the price of resistance on the part of the children and teachers in respect of school buildings and other matters.

I want to discuss a single aspect in this connection. The hon the Minister correctly pointed out the tremendously difficult problems Black children have studying under the conditions in which they find themselves. There is a lack of facilities. Very often the house in which they live does not even have electricity. Their parents are not there because they both have to work. The opportunity for communication between them and their parents for a short while in the evenings is also limited. All these things cause tremendous problems. Very often one is amazed that children who grow up in and who have to study under those conditions can achieve what they do, not only at school but afterwards as well. In that respect it is with a degree of humility that we should sometimes consider the failures of our own children, particularly when we realize that if our children had been encumbered with those problems, they would have been much worse off. I have the greatest appreciation for that.

Let us consider for a moment the disruptive effect on the children of the application of this interface on other levels. An hon colleague of mine indicated last week that during the past four years more than 800 000 Blacks have been arrested for influx control and similar alleged offences. Can we conceive of the situation of those Black children who arrive home, only to hear that their mother or father has been arrested? The situation is absolutely unthinkable, and until such time as we rectify that situation we cannot hope or expect that the Black child will be able to do his best at school. I ask again: What would our children do if they were confronted with the same situation? The Black child has to find out that his mother or his father has been arrested and then the money has to be found to pay the fines. Hon members will understand what the effect of this must be, not only on the learning ability of the child but also on the mind of the child and his whole attitude to the White régime. I say that in that sense as well the Department of Education and Training is a victim of the general system that applies in South Africa.

The hon the Minister made an earnest appeal to us to co-operate in eradicating the view which exists in some circles that Black education is inferior. I want to say that this is not a view which is stated or propagated by us. We should really not disregard the facts of this matter either. The hon the Minister will probably concede that that impression of inferiority was created by unfortunately chosen words used in the past in this Parliament, and particularly in 1953, when the Black Education Act was passed. We are pleased that those times are gone, but I also want to say—and the hon member for Virginia is also aware of this—that after years those unfortunate words still linger on in the memories of Black people. I want to tell the hon the Minister that on our part we will certainly try to eliminate the memory of those words.

I want to go further. This attitude is not only a product of those unfortunate things that were said. The hon the Minister will concede to me that the backlog with which the hon the Minister has to cope, and to which he referred, is to a considerable degree attributable to the things which we did, or failed to do, in the sphere of Black education.

That pegging of the expenditure on education at R13 million per annum for many years compels me to say that there is not a single person in this Committee who can honestly say that the pegging of that amount, in spite of the minor adjustments that were made, did not have a tremendously detrimental effect on the whole development of Black education. Now we are paying for the results of that policy. Let us therefore be honest and say that in the past things happened which, to some extent, also had an effect on the present situation.

And what did your party do?

The hon member for Durban North must please leave me alone.

This does not apply only to that area, and the hon member for Durban North and the hon the Minister will concede that I am right on this score if we look at the policy we adopted in connection with Black universities and the tremendously detrimental effect this had on the minds of Black people. I want to say at once that I have the greatest appreciation for the way in which those universities developed, but on the other hand, there was the whole milieu in which those universities were launched and the way in which those universities were administered— this was pointed out by the hon member for Virginia, as well as the hon member for Schweizer-Reneke—in that the entire apartheid system was not applied in respect of those universities, but within those universities as well; so much so that White and Black lecturers were not even allowed to have tea together in those universities. There was also a discrimination between salary scales. We cannot deny or disregard these facts pertaining to the creation of a climate and a state of mind among the Blacks.

Why must it be raked up again now?

I am glad that those things are past. I am not trying to blame the present Government or the present hon Minister; I am simply saying that we should not run away from our own past. That is all I am saying. We should therefore not merely attribute the deficiencies in this situation at this stage to a lack of finance and other things. [Interjections.] We all know that even if we were to spend all the money in the world, even if we were to use all the finance at our disposal towards that end, there are certain problems in Black education which we cannot solve within a year, or five of six, for that matter. The lack of teachers and school buildings is not something that we can rectify within a year. Even if we were to apply all the money we possibly can to these problems, we cannot solve those problems. Who is so stupid that he does not realize that? Who is so stupid as to say that all those things should be solved within a year and all those differences should be eliminated within a year?

Even Horace agrees with that.

Yes, Horace, the hon member for Bryanston, said that. [Interjections.]

I want to return to what the hon member for Gezina said and the estimate which he made. His estimate was that R500 million per annum would be required to achieve parity in ten years. If we say that it is our intention to achieve parity, but then say that we cannot achieve parity even after ten years, my goodness me, then that promise of parity means nothing when it comes to attitudes in our country and the hope and expectations that we have to foster among those people. That is my reply to the hon member for Gezina. If we had to tell the Blacks today that even after ten years we do not see our way clear to finding sufficient funds to achieve parity …

I did not say that.

The hon member did not say it, but that was the impression he gave. If that is the estimate, I want to say there is no reason why we should not be able, in the course of ten years, to find an average of R500 million per annum to achieve that parity as far as Black education is concerned. Then the problem in South Africa lies solely in having to determine our priorities correctly as far as our financial expenditure is concerned. That is the heart of our problem.

If we cannot eliminate all those disparities, there are many other things we can do to eliminate certain disparities. The hon member for Pinetown referred to some of these things in the course of his speech. I am referring to school books, transportation, and so on. I can add a few others to that list. I am thinking of school libraries. It is solely a question of money. Then there are sport facilities and the improvement of school premises.

That, too, is just a question of money?

I say it is merely a question of money. The other problems, however, are not merely a question of money, because we cannot, for example, train teachers within the space of a year. The things I mentioned, however, are merely a question of money. The provision of school libraries, sport facilities and facilities in schools such as TV sets, pianos and so on, are merely a question of money and can be rectified immediately, or can to a great extent be rectified within a year or two. If we wish to avoid the impression of inferiority, it is essential that examination papers for Whites and Blacks should, in fact, be identical. I am referring in general now to things in regard to which we cannot say that milieu or background is a factor. I am thinking of subjects such as mathematics, the natural sciences and others.

That is not the case even in the White education departments.

Surely there can be no difference, for example, when it comes to a mathematics paper. The element of milieu and background are surely not relevant in respect of such papers.

I should like to make three further observations. I want to say to the hon the Minister, in all amity, that I think he should be careful not to place too much emphasis, as he did during part of his reply, on the differences in background and the difference between our situation and that of a First World or a Third World situation. He runs the risk of strengthening the impression that our view is in point of fact an apartheid view. Did the hon the Minister mean it in that way?

No.

There is a fundamental difference between education in our society where the Black child has to be prepared or participation in an already established industrial and business community, and other developing countries where the economic milieu is completely different. The Black child must be trained to take his place in the industrial and business world that already exists in South Africa.

I also want to refer to the importance of the pre-school child. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that it is a proven fact that the level of a person’s intellectual ability is determined during the first seven years of one’s life. The hon the Minister spoke about the lack of communication between parents and their children and the problems experienced by children in their family context. There is even the problem of the language medium used, and sometimes the inability of a parent to communicate with a child. With reference to this I cannot emphasize strongly enough that we will have to adopt a completely different approach in respect of the pre-school child. We shall have to create facilities on a large scale to take the pre-school child out of the milieu in which he is growing up and to place him in a milieu where he will be able to undergo full intellectual development.

Finally I want to refer to the effect of malnutrition and undernourishment. It has already been proved time and again that a lack of proteins and certain vitamins in the diet of a growing child may have serious permanent intellectual consequences. It seems to me that school feeding should be an essential element of the activities of the Department of Education and Training and that the hon the Minister should give attention to this matter.

Mr Chairman, before I reply to hon members’ contributions in the time remaining to me, I should like to say something in connection with a matter directly affecting the department and which I think should prove to be good news for many of the senior staff members in the Black teachers’ corps. I have a well-prepared document on this matter in front of me, but owing to a lack of time I shall confine myself to the gist of the matter.

I think it is very clear from what many hon members said today that the department could be faced—as it was in the past, but more so at present—with a tremendous challenge in regard to high-level manpower. The department cannot fulfil its educational function by merely having professional people in the field. There are certain head office functions, pertaining to management, that have to be performed. For example an administrative infrastructure must be created and educational planning must be done. The hon member for Cape Town Gardens pointed out that there may be delays in payment, etc. What it boils down to is that as the number of pupils and facilities increase, the administrative cadre will have to bear an increasingly heavier burden. Over many years the department has trained educationists to occupy the senior positions in the department. Thus far no Black persons have as yet been appointed to the top cadre, namely the planners and management, both professional as well as controlling administrative. The matter has been thoroughly investigated and the conclusion has been arrived at that the stage has been reached where there is an adequate level of senior teaching staff among the Black members in the department who, in terms of qualifications and experience, are—perhaps even have been—ready to be exposed to the higher managerial and planning functions in the department.

When these things are discussed cognizance is not only taken of a person’s academic qualifications. Even if the person has a MBA degree, management is something that has to be consolidated on the shop floor, so to speak, in the work situation. Consequently the department is shortly going to implement a plan to identify senior staff members among the ranks of Black teachers and to expose them at head office to practical experience so that they can be prepared to come into consideration for senior positions in the department in future.

It has always been the policy of the Government that people of a specific population group should receive preference when it comes to those services in the State set-up that have been specifically established to serve their own people. Consequently we have deemed the time to be ripe now to identify and to support such people in the Black community by giving them experience and—if necessary—further academic training. We have enough qualified people for that. A start could be made with professional exposure on those levels where there have up to now not been any Black people so that they can come into consideration—I want to emphasize this—together with a number of their colleagues, for appointment to those posts. What it amounts to, in other words, is that a competitive level will be created where those people will in future have to compete with one another for promotion. Discrimination in reverse is just as bad as discrimination. What the department is concerned with therefore is a merit contribution. We are looking forward to these people seizing the opportunities which will be offered to them at head office.

The degree of devolution and decentralization that has already been achieved in the department in respect of managerial functions lends itself very well indeed to people who have had that exposure or in-service training coming into consideration for those posts in the first place.

The hon member for Pinetown referred to a statement made by Dr Verwoerd. What Dr Verwoerd said in the Senate on 7 June 1954 is frequently used as an argument against this side of the House. It occurs in the document entitled “Bantu Education Policy for the Immediate Future”. Even though this was 30 years ago, it seems to be that certain people still see today as that “immediate future”. We have frequently been reproached with this policy although the objectives of this policy statement were achieved long ago in certain areas. For that reason I was pleased to hear that the hon member Prof Olivier is prepared to help us refrain from raking up the past. That was the right thing for his time and served its purpose, and we on this side of the House do not intend to allow ourselves to be condemned in this connection. The practice of the department over the years has demonstrated that that phase is past. The passage which the hon member for Pinetown quoted today sounded completely unfamiliar to me. I would appreciate it if the hon member would send us that quotation, because I have never heard those words before. In any event, I want to ask him to put that quotation away for it is really not applicable any more.

I want to come to the hon member for Winburg. It seems to me that if there is a lack of harsh words on the political level in this House, the speeches eventually acquire such factual pithiness and vigour that it becomes very difficult for a Minister to reply to them because there is so much that is pleas ant and positive to which he has to react. The speeches are not then merely a lot of bluster and hot air. That is why I want to make haste. I should like to thank the hon member for Winburg sincerely for a very meaningful survey of the Budget and of the activities of the department. It was a very good thing that these aspects were summarized in such a skilful way. Not only did we find it enlightening, but it was also very sound reference material.

†I want to thank the hon member for Pinelands for his remarks. He also referred to Medunsa. I want to tell him that the fact that our university facilities provide for 200 students while we are able to accept only 120 applications on account of the inadequate hospital facilities was a great frustration to us all. I have, however, a note that in this Budget—the hospital does not fall within the responsibility of this department—R6 million has been earmarked for capital with a view to creating a new hospital of 1 200 beds. So, the planning is under way and I think we can all look forward to the day when we will be able fully to utilize the medical facilities at that university.

As far as Vista University is concerned. I think it is proving a formula for success. It is gratifying to visit such a campus and to see the enthusiasm with which this new model of education is being handled. The hon member also referred to bursaries. In that regard I have a note here which confirms that on page 115 of the annual report it is made clear that there was an increase in the amount made available by the State for bursaries to universities and also an increase in the amounts awarded to students by universities as bursaries and loans. I do not know whether I and the officials who furnished me with these figures perhaps misunderstood the hon member. I see that the hon member is shaking his head. We can take the matter up later with the officials of the department.

As far as the University of Zululand is concerned, I can inform the hon member that, having had problems with the financial arrangements before—special circumstances apply which I do not think it is appropriate to discuss on this particular occasion—we wanted to have a departmental investigation, but only last week or the week before the Cabinet approved that a Judicial commission should be appointed again, the commissioner being Prof Middleton who is also a member of the Hoexter Commission. He will start his investigations as soon as possible.

*The hon member for Maraisburg gave us a complete picture of the comprehensive education being provided at our secondary schools in particular. I should like to thank him for doing so. The hon member referred to computer-assisted tuition. I wish I had the time in this Committee today to share with the hon members a few of the results of a project which has been in progress for more than a year in the department and in respect of which considerable expansions are going to be considered soon.

I am referring to the use of computers or the teaching of mathematics, particularly among primary school children. A very interesting fact has emerged, and this ties in with what the hon member Prof Oliver said. One of the problems being experienced in the matriculation course is the language issue because one then has to function and operate in an entirely different language to one’s mother tongue.

In Soweto I saw a group of small children being taught the use of computers in a mobile van. Such a system could, of course, play a very important role in connection with farm schools as well. I think the hon member for King William’s Town will understand this. Besides the computer, that mobile unit also contains 32 terminals. It was an experience to see those youngsters doing their arithmetic on a keyboard. One must also remember that many of the problems that are being experienced occur in regard to grammar and are not only problems in connection with figures. The problem is explained in three or four lines on the screen. What is very interesting is that after a year there were indications that a considerable improvement had already occurred in the English of those children. Consequently, this system therefore not only improved their arithmetic and mathematics, but also their English.

Since several hon members referred to the problems that was being experienced in farm schools, inter alia that these schools did not attract the best teachers, this is certainly one way in which one will be able to make the teaching situation for the teachers and pupils at farm schools more interesting. In this way one could possible ensure that better qualified teachers accept posts at farm schools.

I want to mention in passing that the book written by Coombs, to which I referred earlier today, makes specific mention of the fact that in developing countries, where a great deal of urbanization is taking place, the loss of good teachers from farm schools—two hon members referred to this earlier—is also a very great problem. We shall certainly have to cope with this problem in an imaginative way.

†That brings me to the hon member for King William’s Town. He made some very valuable comments with regard to an overall policy regarding the rural people. He pointed out that the disparity between the facilities available to people living in rural areas and those living in urban areas should be addressed, not only from the point of view of education as such, but also from an overall social point of view, as well as with a view to providing the necessary infrastructure in terms of people for future agricultural development. Therefore, I think it is very important that in this regard, when we consider the further development of the farm school situation, we should bear in mind that the subject matter taught in those schools must of necessity address the needs of the communities where those schools will be established whatever facilities might be decided upon in future. It is true what the hon member said: Agriculture needs an increase in productivity in order to compete, not only locally but especially in overseas markets. I think proper education will make a sizeable contribution towards that end.

*The hon member for Newcastle gave an elucidation of the role of the private sector, and I want to thank him for doing so. Our department is greatly indebted to the private sector for the role it is playing. I also want to include the farmers in the private sector, because on every farm on which a farm school is erected, the farmer is making an investment. I want to pay tribute to those people who are prepared to channel their own funds in this way to the benefit of all.

Besides my thanks to the private sector, I want to add that there are many problems and snags which could be eliminated if prospective contributors—there should be more and not just a few, as the hon member for Bryanston correctly pointed out—would only liaise with the department in time so that we can work out ways and means for making the best use of their assistance. I want to tell the hon member that the problem which he raised of money which disappears into the coffers of the department has been solved. We have just received approval from the Treasury to establish a trust in our department in which these cash contributions can be invested, to be applied in accordance with any needs that may arise or for the purpose for which the particular contributions have been earmarked.

†The hon member for Bryanston made some remarks for which I want to thank him. He also made reference, however to the disparity in per capita expenditure. We have never denied the disparity. If there were not a disparity and if there were not acknowledgement on our side of the fact that this disparity existed, then certainly the hon the Prime Minister would not have committed himself and the Government to the bringing about of equality in education. When looking at the disparity, one should bear in mind how the different amounts are calculated. Although comparisons can sometimes be odious, we on this side of the House do not mind comparisons being drawn, and we will bear the brunt if we on our side should fall short in any way. However, let us consider for one moment the reality of Black education. Educating a primary-school pupil is cheaper than educating the secondary-school pupil. The growth we are experiencing now is in regard to secondary schools. Indeed, there is a tidal wave of pupils on its way to the secondary schools. In fact, our growth rate in respect of pupils is in excess of 15% per annum and every child who graduates from the primary to the secondary school makes a contribution towards the closing of this gap, because of necessity more money must be spent on him.

Secondly, 78% of our teachers are underqualified, and if they have a lower qualification than M+3 they earn, relatively speaking, much lower salaries than their White counterparts, who generally have higher qualifications. Therefore, every Black teacher who qualifies to the level M+3 makes a significant difference; that is inevitable. Every teacher who graduates and increases his or her qualifications will assist in closing that gap. We therefore encourage our staff members to do just that.

However, there are many other minor factors as well. In the White departments, for instance, health services are calculated as part of the per capita expenditure. We do not do that, because another department is responsible for the health and welfare of the children in our schools. We can, however, debate this aspect over and over, but I hardly think that we will solve the problem in that way.

I agree with the hon member that there are terrible psychological and other problems emanating from an excessive use of corporal punishment. Although I do not think it is necessary to launch an investigation, I want to give the hon member the same assurance which I recently gave to the executive committee of the Atteridgeville town council. I can assure the hon member that I, with the co-operation of the senior officials of the department, will see to it that there will be the strictest possible adherence to our regulations, which are explicit and good. If any child is abused and it is brought to our attention, we will take the necessary steps. If subsequent to that, that child is discriminated against or intimidated by the specific teacher, we urge such a child to report the matter to us and we will take the necessary steps to eradicate this evil. Corporal punishment is to a limited extent a good thing, but if it is in the least abused, whether in the family or especially in the school where it is administered by a stranger to that child, it is an evil, and the department will do everything in its power to eradicate it. I have, however, taken note of what the hon member has said.

*I come now to the hon member for Schweizer-Reneke, and I promise him that we shall give attention to the question of another campus for the Vista University. I am very grateful for the elucidation he gave, and also for the appeal he made. When all is said and done, if Black pupils or students waste money, they are wasting their own parents money because the Black parents today are paying millions of rands in tax, and not only in personal tax, but also in sales tax, excise duty, etc.

We could hold a long political discussion on what the hon member Prof Olivier said, but I want to point out to him that we as Whites also went through hard times; this was pointed out by the hon member for Koedoespoort. Unfortunately we forget about it very quickly, because we are now too affluent. The truth is, however, that if we were to draw a comparison between our results at the time, we would perhaps see a similarity with the Black child of today. I simply ask that we bear this in mind in our assessment of the results. Unfortunately my time is too limited to react any further now, but as far as the backlog is concerned, we shall certainly do our utmost to eliminate it. The fact that we received a 26% increase in our Budget, is to my way of thinking an indication of this intention. I thank hon members for this fruitful debate.

Vote agreed to.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No 22.