Mr Chairman, you will permit me, at the outset, to address a few preliminary remarks to this House.

In the first place I should like to convey a sincere word of welcome to the ministerial representatives, who are also present here today. We welcome these people because we are grateful for their accession, not only as ordinary people, but also as high-level political functionaries. We appreciate these people as educationists and experts on culture, and we are of the opinion that these people really do have a function to perform to the benefit of education and culture, particularly in regard to the White community, with whom we will be dealing today.

Furthermore I should like to convey a special word of thanks and congratulations to Mr Terblanche in his capacity of Superintendent General of this department, and also to all the other people who support him so loyally. I do this in the knowledge that the services these people render are being rendered because they are truly inspired by one all-important idea, viz to give of their best in the position in which they find themselves. Consequently I praise them for their exceptional service, and for the encouragement and support they give me personally. In this connection I want to congratulate Dr Stone officially on his appointment during the course of the year as Executive Director, which is the second highest post in the Department of Education and Culture.

I should also like to thank the directors of education of the various provinces sincerely for the excellent work they are doing. These are difficult times in which we find ourselves; times of consolidation and co-operation, although in the historic past we sometimes worked on separate levels. The way in which these directors of education have been able to integrate into the one large totality is gratifying, and I want to thank them personally for that. In this connection I should also like to express my congratulations in this House to Dr Walters, who was appointed the new Director of Education in the Cape during the course of the past year, as well as to Mr Ohmsdahl in Natal.

I should also like to congratulate my department—and I also think the hon members who have seen it will agree with me—on the excellent annual report they have once again published. It is an excellent source of valuable information concerning the activities of this department.

It is also true that in this department there are various organisations making their contributions, which on the one hand make things a little difficult. On the other hand it is extremely important, in the interests of the task we serve, that we have so many different people involved who really give of their best. Here I am referring to the Federal Teachers’ Council as the highest authoritative body in respect of the organised profession. I want to thank them for their exceptional co-operation. It is true, as my colleague the hon the Minister of National Education has already stated, that we are not always in complete agreement with one another, but we hone one another’s ideas and we do so because we all have one common objective, and in that sense we work very pleasantly together.

In this way I would also like to express my thanks to the various English-and Afrikaansspeaking parental associations—some of them have already been recognised by my department, while others have not yet been recognised—that also make a special contribution in this process of partnership. To this I should also like to add the various regional cultural councils, which are also making a special contribution on those levels.

I would also be failing in my duty if I did not also mention the wonderful and cordial co-operation between my own parliamentary study group and myself, and I want to take it further and also include the co-operation I receive from colleagues in the various parties in this House. They also know that my door is open to them when it comes to matters considered to be in the interests of education. In this connection I also want to indicate that the main speaker of the PFP offered his apology for unfortunately not being here today; he will be in this House tomorrow.

My department believes that education should be language-, culture-and group-orientated; we must have no illusions about that. We also believe—this is the second important aspect—that all children in South Africa should have an opportunity to receive education of a high standard. In other words, my department renders an educational and cultural service to the historic White group with its own language, culture and affinities, and through this group, we believe, we are also making an exceptional contribution to the development of the Republic of South Africa in general.

I also want to indicate the way in which the Department of Education and Culture supports other education departments with expertise, without neglecting what is unique to the department. I also want to give attention to the concepts of devolution of power, participation in deliberations and joint responsibility. It is indeed a privilege to be part of a strong, dynamic department which is playing a key role in a reforming dispensation in the interests of the youth of South Africa.

Education and culture are inseparable, and that is why our own cultural institutions and the eight cultural regions into which the country has been divided, are part of the close-knit unified structure. Typical of this unity is the way in which the four education departments, each with its own character, co-operate in a full-fledged partnership as components of one large department. Consequently a great deal of good progress has been made towards realising the underlying objective of the Constitution, whereby education as an own affair maintains and develops the identity, the way of life, the culture, the traditions and the practices of the White ethnic group.

The concept of education as being group-orientated—I emphasise that this is not a political decision—is educationally justifiable, not only in the Republic of South Africa, but throughout the world, and is being implemented in the best interests of the children.

In addition it ensures an own milieu in which the Whites, alongside a broader South African milieu which is an absolute reality and within which they have to function, feel at home and secure in their own cultural milieu. In this way they feel satisfied, and not personally threatened, and we believe this department makes such a contribution to a stable and peaceful existence.

†Let us be quite clear about own education. The provision of education is universal and the respective systems have common standards of provision. However, the particular character of each cohesive group within our multicultural society is amply catered for. The concept of own schools in own communities is a prime guarantee that each child will be nurtured from childhood to maturity within an environment of mother-tongue education, an own culture and an own system of values.

The system of own education ensures continuity between home and school. The transfer of cultural values is fundamental to education and is dependent on the personal involvement of teachers with pupils and their parents with whom they share a common identity and value system.

Own education as a group right guarantees the survival and growth of own language and cultural and group ideals. However, please note that own education is not exclusive, self-sufficient, isolated and sealed off to the extent that contact with other groups is inhibited. Own education and multicultural contact are not mutually exclusive concepts. Own education is open-handed in its approach to other groups and receptive and willing to learn from others. I shall return to this matter a little later on.

The Department of Education and Culture is a dynamic unit. Within the structures of the State this department now holds a stronger position. The upgrading of the post of the head of my department to that of Superintendent General and the establishment of a senior post of executive director reflects a positive evaluation of the competency and complexity of the department as well as a recognition by the Government of the accomplishments to date. The department accepts with enthusiasm and dedication the challenges and responsibilities of the future. With a clearly identified task of unquestionable merit the department acts dynamically and with confidence.

We are glad to co-operate with other groups and, since the department has been structured into an effective unitary system, it is better equipped to reach out to others to the mutual benefit of all our children. I am proud of the educational standards we have attained over the years and therefore we are happy to co-operate and to share our expertise with others, just as we are willing to learn from other education departments. My department, a unity of education and culture, provides services readily, not only to our own but also to anybody else requesting it. During the past year the National Examinations subdirectorate examined more than 221 000 candidates, a large percentage of whom were Coloureds, Indians and Blacks. Courses and syllabi for post-school education and examination papers are freely available to other population groups. We also render services regarding educational technology and curriculum development to various education departments within the RSA. Cultural services are also provided.

*The insistence that children of other population groups be admitted to our schools, however, we consider to be pedagogically unacceptable and unjustifiable. We do not see it as our task to admit the children of other groups to our schools, but to help the other groups, where help is requested, through our expertise to enhance their own independent standards, where necessary. Naturally we maintain the principles of the Constitution referred to in the Schedule, paragraph 14, in regard to rendering of service. We do so very gladly in various spheres. We attach great value to academic, cultural and sporting contacts. We can learn a great deal from one another without watering down what is our own. In particular we attach value to the spontaneous contact which is not forced or which does not have to be counteracted, because it is precisely in this that our future of coexistence lies, because it is an absolute reality that we find ourselves in this multicultural society with different population groups. We cannot ignore that. In that light education also has a specific responsibility and an obligation to discharge.

My department and I maintain excellent relations with our colleagues from the other groups and departments. There is obliging co-operation between ourselves and the other education ministers and education department heads. Without making education instrumental to ideological, political or socioeconomic considerations, we accept that education in a multi-national South Africa has an important part to play in the creation of sound intergroup relations. Uniformity of endeavour and loyalty to a common father-land, ie a true unity in diversity, is the ideal my department and I cherish.

Do you believe that?

Of course I believe it; that is why I am saying it.

Education as an own affair in contrast with integrated education makes this possible. [Interjections] True unity in diversity is only possible when groups, on the one hand, do not experience their right of existence and survival as being threatened, and on the other hand have positive perceptions of one another.

Because education is culturally and linguistically orientated, integration of education is not our policy. We do not wish to experiment with it. We believe that the expectation that throwing open the schools will work a miracle and resolve all educational problems, is unrealistic. It will result in disorder and it will harm education. We can at least try to avoid the problem which other countries such as the USA, West Germany and the United Kingdom are experiencing with school education.

Do you agree, Dawie?

Of course!

The well-known American author of a number of books including Megatrends, John Naisbitt, summarised the American experience in this way when he referred to the era following the so-called melting pot experiment:

What does Stoffel have to say about that?

At present we are experiencing the … [Interjections.]

May I tell hon members that they are really trying in vain to drive a wedge between what I say and the standpoints of my colleagues. If they would only listen to our arguments they ought to be acceptable even to those hon members, unless their ideas are so totally dominated by petty political arguments that they cannot recognise these truths. [Interjections.]

At present we are experiencing the ebb tide Western Europe has been experiencing for quite some time, namely that our striving for provision has peaked and we must now consolidate without stagnating. This is also a truth. Instead of on-going expansion of education owing to an increasing number of births—of course I am referring in particular now to White education—a reversal has occurred so that the increase is now waning, something which therefore leads to fewer pupils and teachers. Consequently we must now rationalise instead of expanding. We are therefore in a position to consolidate now and give further attention to the service being rendered.

This also has financial implications, and we are not able to do everything we envisage or what is expected of us. It is already difficult to meet our ordinary needs and to find additional financial resources, because although the number of children is diminishing, the real value of the rand is also diminishing rapidly.

White education is facing great challenges. It is going to require expertise and ingenuity to make the grade financially. Rationalisation, on all levels and for conceivable aspects in general in our educational set-up has become an on-going obligation and responsibility.

†Mr Chairman, one of the most important projects which receives continuous attention, and has been accorded an even higher priority this year, is the raising of the level of productivity in our department in order to function with even greater cost effectiveness. A system whereby productivity may be measured and increased, is being introduced in the department and will lead to even greater efficiency. The primary consideration is not the overall amount of money allocated to this department. In these difficult economic times attention is focused on its expenditure. Priorities are measured against each other so that each decision can be motivated in terms of cost-effective management procedures.

The most important consideration remains, however, whether the decision is educationally sound. Continuous attention is therefore paid to the rationalisation of scarce facilities and manpower in the best interests of the child and the community.

Where schools are closed due to population migration and the depopulation of rural areas, facilities which become redundant, can be put at the disposal of other interest groups.

*In this connection, however, I want to say that in many cases my department itself uses such facilities for essential accommodation of other educational components such as teaching clinics, administrative offices and teaching centres. In many cases the redundant accommodation consists of prefabricated buildings that can be used elsewhere after we have dismantled them. Secondly, serious consideration is now being given to making empty classrooms available to private preprimary schools, because we know that the child who is ready for school, makes better progress in his subsequent school career.

I want to break off here to say that I am aware of a rumour that is being spread—it is probably not difficult to ascertain its origin— that the pre-primary schools are on their way out, that is, that they are going to be closed because there is ostensibly not enough money for White education since all their money is being given to other education departments. Allow me to say at once that it is very clear, arising out of what I have just told hon members, that such arguments that are being disseminated are nonsensical and very far removed from the truth. [Interjections.]

My department will of course lay down requirements with which those pre-primary schools will have to comply before they can lay claim to the existing facilities. Moreover, it is our point of departure that unutilised facilities must firstly be offered to the other departments of the Ministers’ Council, so that they can decide whether they want to use them. We have no objection in principle to unutilised facilities, which are not required by the abovementioned parties, being made available to other education departments. It is obvious, however, that such decisions can only be taken after the merits of each case have been investigated, in order to ensure inter alia that the transfer of such facilities will not result in tension in other spheres, and jeopardise the service we are rendering in education.

I conclude my argument today by announcing that my department has accepted the principle of choosing a theme every year by means of which an important facet, perspective, task or object of education can consistently be emphasised. Such an annual theme will emphasise or structure specific activities of the department, so that it can entail united action and a joint concentration on objectives by the partners, as well as greater understanding for the service and for those rendering the service among those receiving it. The theme for 1988 will be “Education and Culture in the Service of the Community”. Education, including own education, serves the South African community in general as well as the own community in particular, as I have already indicated. Education has the responsibility of making a contribution to help to create a satisfied society. The promotion of culture enhances the quality of life of South Africans in general, and creates a special milieu of security for the own group.

The department knows that its primary justification for existence is derived from the rendering of this service, and would very much like to accept it as a responsibility and a challenge.

Mr Chairman. I ask you to grant me the privilege of the half-hour.

On behalf of this side of the House I should like to associate myself with the hon the Minister this afternoon by thanking the staff of this large department very sincerely for the valuable work that has been done during the past year in the interests of White education, as well as by conveying my sincere congratulations to those persons who were appointed to senior posts in this department during the past year. In particular I want to congratulate Mr J D V Terblanche, who became Chief Executive Director of the department on 1 June last year, and whose post designation and rank has since been changed to Superintendent General: Education and Culture.

When one reads through the report of this department one is deeply impressed by the great work that has been done here during the past year. This afternoon I want to pay tribute to all those people who served White education during the past year in such an excellent way on an administrative level, but also as teachers. The standard of our education that has been built up over a period of years is really something all of us can be very proud of. Those persons in the teaching profession who do not see the occupation as a way of earning a living in the first place but as a calling in which they can render a service to their people and to their country deserve special thanks.

The situation now is that this good work that is being done by most people in education is at present being threatened by trends which are developing in politics and which are causing concern for the future of White education in our country among those of us on this side of the House. We on this side have already made it repeatedly clear that we believe in ethnically-orientated (volksverbonde) education. We are honest enough to say that our views on education can never be separated from our views on the ethnic policy for our country. We believe in self-determination of peoples, and we believe that that self-determination must also be carried through to the sphere of education.

Those persons, on the other hand, who advocate one undivided South Africa, one citizenship and one general franchise, will of necessity cause those views to be incorporated into their education policy. One cannot actively and positively build one nation in one common territory and then strive for and apply separation in the sphere of education. In this respect the PFP, although they are wrong, are nevertheless more logical than the NP in their thinking. [Interjections.] The building of one nation, the bringing together of people under one government in one body politic, in one state with one national anthem, one national flag and one common national pride, logically requires that one will also use education for the purpose of ultimately realising that goal. [Interjections.]

It is easy to say, as the hon the Minister said in a statement a few months ago, that education should not politicised. That is also the way we would like to have it. In fact, I think that everyone in this Committee would like to have it that way. However, it is not possible for a person, in applying an education policy, to divorce oneself from political convictions, particularly not when one is living in a country in which such drastic differences exist among one’s own community in respect of the ethnic policy for our country. One’s views on the future of peoples in this country are transferred to education.

One cannot advocate Christian national education and then adopt a neutral attitude in respect of religion in order to accommodate one’s fellow countrymen who are of another religious persuasion. [Interjections.] One cannot cling to Christian national education and training, and then water down one’s national pride because one is afraid that one will offend those who do not like the history of one’s people. [Interjections.]

Let us be completely honest with one another on this matter. As long as there are people among us, in education as well, who wish to elevate the dogma of equality to a creed and in whom no iota of true nationalism remains, politics will continue to play a role in the education of our country. For us as parents, particularly as covenanted parents, it is of the utmost importance who is responsible for the education of our children. That is why parents must not be blamed if they keep a watchful eye on the election of management councils and controlling bodies that play a decisive part in the designation of teaching staff. It is their right, and what is more, it is their responsibility to do so.

I have said there are trends in politics which arouse concern in us for the future of White education in our country. One of these is the pressure being exerted on the hon the Minister to expand integrated education on school and tertiary level. This pressure is emanating not only from PFP members, but is also emanating from the members of the NP itself.

I read in the Cape Times of 29 July 1987 that the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning made submissions in regard to the admission of two Black pupils to the Rhenish Primary School in Stellenbosch. It is clear, even though not directly stated, what the contents of those oral submissions were.

It is clear that the hon the Minister of Education and Culture did not give in to pressure from his hon colleague in this case, but that he followed the advice he received from the Cape Education Department in this connection. This afternoon I honestly wish to congratulate the hon the Minister again on his actions. I want to congratulate him on having had the courage of his convictions to say no to his colleague and to follow the advice of sensible educationists in this connection.

On the other hand we also have a bone to pick with the hon the Minister. It deals with the way in which he handled the Menlo Park matter, when the school management council prohibited a Black athlete from participating in the school’s athletics meeting. After the media had hysterically descended on the management council, which acted in a completely correct way, and completely within its terms of reference and rights, the hon the Minister panicked and issued a statement. In that statement there is at least one issue which worried us. The hon the Minister threatened to introduce legislation enabling him to discharge a management council or some of its members of their duties.

It is a disgrace!

What the hon the Minister should in fact have done was to have taken up the cudgels for that management council and defended them. Instead of doing so, however, he climbed onto the bandwagon of the liberalists and integrationists in respect of education.

What did the parents say?

What does the State President say?

What does the Constitution say?

Order! I am not interested now in what this or that person has to say about it. I am only interested now in what the hon member for Brits has to say. The hon member may proceed.

We now want to ask the hon the Minister whether it is a sin when a management council of a White school decides that an official school sports meeting, in contrast to junior sport, shall be for White children only. Is it a sin to refuse to allow participation by people of colour if, as the TED prescribes, prior permission was not obtained in advance according to the prescribed procedure? It is indefensible that the hon the Minister should have left his own people in the lurch in that way, and this side of the House wants to tell the Menlo Park management council that we have appreciation for the way in which they dealt with the matter and also for the standpoint they adopted in that regard. [Interjections.]

If our parents do not begin to raise their voices in protest against the integration process in education, we are going to lose the battle, because the Government cannot or does not want to stop it any more. The hon the Minister did say this afternoon that the insistence that children of other population groups be admitted to White schools was intolerable to him. At the same time, however, he also said—and this is the other stool he wants to sit on—that we attach great value to contact in the academic, cultural and sporting spheres. I want to say this afternoon that this is the beginning of integration on the school benches as well. [Interjections.]

According to particulars in the report of the department for 1986 there are 2 688 Coloureds, 1 737 Indians and 2 172 Blacks in White State-aided schools. In White public schools—which have to be distinguished from private schools—there are four Black pupils in Natal and in the Cape 347 Coloureds, 87 Indians and 188 Blacks.

As far as technical colleges are concerned, the position is as follows: Out of a total of 115 835 students there were 976 Coloureds, 311 Indians and 679 Blacks at White colleges.

However, I want to draw particular attention to the influx of Blacks into White universities.

On 31 March this year there were 7 999 Coloureds at White universities in this country. At the same time there were 13 854 Indians and 30 340 Blacks at White universities in South Africa. Of this number 40 981 were students at the University of South Africa and 11 212 …

Mr Chairman, is the hon member willing to reply to a question?

No, Sir, the hon the Minister can ask his question later. He can wait until he makes his reply. [Interjections.]

Order! I take it that the hon member for Brits is not prepared to reply to a question.

As I said, there are 52 193 students at White universities.

That also includes that at Unisa!

But surely he said so! Why do you not listen to what the hon member says? [Interjections.]

I have already said this number includes the Black students at Unisa. At the same time there are 11 212 coloured students at White residential universities. That, Mr Chairman, is a situation which is beginning to get out of hand and which we can no longer tolerate. [Interjections.] Our traditional White universities are becoming integrated on a large scale, and it is my conviction that this development has played a major part in the unrest situation at White English-language universities in recent times.

Yes, there is no doubt about that!

In recent months the newspapers were full of reports to the effect that numerous Black students were playing a disruptive role at White universities. Shortly before the general election this year a PFP political meeting was disrupted and broken up at the University of Natal when a group of Black students burst into the meeting hall. On 5 May a Black student at the University of the Witwatersrand was found guilty on a charge of having a document of the South African Communist Party in his possession. In Grahamstown the senate of the Rhodes University had to call the Black Student Movement to order as a result of their misbehaviour and damage to property. This movement, the Black Student Movement, also disrupted classes at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand.

Mr Chairman. I have received correspondence from concerned parents who are no longer satisfied with this kind of behaviour at our English-language universities. Recently Black student organisations have figured prominently in the unrest situations at White universities. If they cannot behave themselves as guests should behave at White universities, steps must simply be taken against them and they must be deprived of that privilege.

This Minister is too feeble to do that!

Of course the admission of students from other populations groups to White universities also has financial implications for White education. It means that an ever-increasing percentage of that money, specifically earmarked for White education, is also being utilised for Black, Coloured and Indian education now. These facts are not reflected in the figures for the allocation of money for the education of the separate population groups. This year White education was given an increase of only 8,8%, while the Coloureds received an increase of 16,1% and the Blacks an increase of 40% in their education budgets. Some of the money set aside for so-called White education, however, was also used for the education of members of other population groups. The impression which is being created that the full budget for White education is being utilised for Whites is not correct. When we take note of the fact that more than 50 000 students from other population groups are studying at White universities, and that the subsidy to students varies from R4 530 to R7 168 at residential universities, and from R4 296 to R6 529 at non-residential universities, it becomes clear that a significant percentage of the budget, ostensibly intended exclusively for White education, is at present being utilised for the education of students from other population groups.

If, as regards subsidies at universities, we work only with an average of R6 000 per student per annum, the subsidy amount for students from other population groups alone amounts to R300 million. Mr Chairman, since there is at present such a large shortage of money for White education, and specifically for universities, we should like to know from the hon the Minister what that amount—the current as well as the capital costs—is.

There is another urgent matter to which we should also like to draw the attention of the hon the Minister. We have already raised this matter during the debate on National Education, but received no reaction from that hon Minister. The matter is concerned with curriculum content. Last week the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid announced that a revision of curriculums was being requested by the Department of National Education, and that that hon Minister in question had reacted favourably.

Blacks are no longer satisfied to follow curriculums in their educational institutions which are drawn up mainly from a White perspective, and in addition specific subjects were mentioned, for example Literature, History and Religion. Black educationists want to be involved in and responsible for drawing up curriculums in their own educational institutions.

Let us make it clear again that the CP fully understands the need that exists in this connection. In fact, we welcome every people, including the Black peoples, themselves giving substance to curriculums for their own educational institutions. We do not want to dominate them in this respect.

What we do not accept, however, is that such amendments to curriculums, particularly in respect of religion and history, will also be applicable to White educational institutions. This will implement precisely what was recommended in the HSRC report of a few years ago on inter-group relations, ie that education should be used to promote such relations.

In that report it was recommended inter alia:

We have made our standpoint on this regard quite clear. What we now ask and expect of the hon the Minister is that he should intervene on behalf of his own people, by whom he was elected to this House and in whose service he functions in this department. We may not allow our children to be indoctrinated into a generation with no identity through a process in which religion is watered down and history eliminated.

Mr Chairman. I should like to welcome the hon member for Brits as the Official Opposition’s chief spokesman on education and culture. I hope we shall have a meaningful discussion on this subject in the House.

I should also like to associate myself with the hon the Minister in congratulating Mr J D V Terblanché on his appointment as Superintendent-General of the department on 1 March 1987, and in welcoming the four Directors of Education who are present here today: Mr Odendaal of the Orange Free State, Dr Bredenkamp of the Transvaal. Dr Walters of the Cape Province and Mr Ohmsdahl of Natal. On behalf of this side of the House, I want to congratulate Dr Henry Stone on his promotion to Executive Director of Education. I wish him great success in his huge task.

It is very clear from the annual report that there has been a major reshuffle of posts and reallocation of tasks among many of the top educationists and teachers in South Africa. They now occupy very important positions in the centralisation of this department. We should have liked to have mentioned their names, but it is a formidable list. We know most of them, and I can see that these gentlemen were handpicked. We expect great success as well as an improvement in education to come about as a result of their appointment. It is very clear that the members of the group co-operate readily with one another. As the hon the Minister has confirmed, there is already a high degree of co-operation between these officials and the four provinces, even after such a very short time.

To come back to the hon member for Brits and his speech, I want to say I heard nothing in his speech to convince me that the CP wants to serve education as a profession. Nothing in his speech indicated to me that they wanted to enhance the effectiveness of the education structure. It is very clear to me, however, that education and the teaching profession as such has become a marvellous vehicle by means of which they can convey their own political philosophies. They want to convey this into the classrooms of our schools via the teachers. I consider it completely unacceptable that the teacher, who already has a hard time fulfilling his function in society, should be burdened with this as well.

In order to give hon members an idea of how educational affairs are being manipulated, I could not use a worse example than that of an experienced educationist who was appointed to a prominent post in education only last year, and who was persuaded by the CP to stand as a candidate in the Brentwood constituency during the election. It was shocking to see how that party used information. I quote from the Brentwood Patriot in which it is said that this person:

Do not attack a man in his absence. [Interjections.]

When the canvassing started, he was introduced as a former director of education. When he did not make enough progress, they even changed his title to former superintendent of education. When that party fights an election, no other principles matter to that party than those of serving its own cause.

Of course your party never does anything like that!

In my honest opinion it is tragic that someone can be talked into abandoning his teaching career by the promise that he will win a seat in a constituency with a majority of more than 2 000 votes, only to find on the day of the election that he has lost by more than 2 000 votes. It is tragic that a competent and capable young person with two children at primary school, is now unemployed and out of the teaching profession.

Next time he will be in the House.

Numerous men and women in education are being given this distorted view of the facts daily; and because they have no grounding in party-political speculation they accept these things and sometimes yield to the temptation of carrying them into the classroom. Eventually they endanger their own careers. I find it unacceptable and irresponsible. That is why I say they are not concerned with serving the teaching profession, but with their own party-political gain. They want to bring party politics into the lives of people who have a daunting task to carry out. [Interjections.]

I want to express my appreciation in this House today to those thousands of members of the profession who present the subject content and the authentic facts in a balanced way. They have not succumbed to this type of abuse, but, undeterred, have promoted the values of education in the classrooms.

I want to express my immense appreciation to the hundreds of thousands of parents who have succeeded in guiding and informing their children in a balanced way, and who have kept their children’s feet firmly on the ground in the midst of this party-political in-fighting taking place among the adults. I want to speak with great appreciation about the hundreds of thousands of positive pupils in our schools who, in this early, unformed stage of their lives, are able to weigh up facts, discern objectively, and concern themselves with the factual situation of the RSA, the country in which they have to seek and follow their own paths for the future.

On 27 March 1986, after 76 years, divided control over education was lifted, and a single department of education for Whites came in to existence. Functions were reclassified in order to centralise education with regard to policy advice, and the co-ordination, rendering and administration of specific services. This unity of centralisation is clearly visible. There is a visible calm, and co-operation, productivity and action in education that we would never thought possible a few years ago. In its own right and on its own resolution the organised profession rationalised and established the Federal Teachers’ Council.

With the institution of the provincial education councils, on which the profession and the general parent community will deliberate on educational affairs, we will have parent participation in education as well this year, something hitherto unknown in education. We look forward eagerly to this splended new step in education: All sectors of the profession will in future sit around a conference table with the general parent community and hold lucid deliberations on essential aspects of education.

The Private Schools Act (House of Assembly), Act No 104 of 1986, has already shown positive results in bringing about stability and uniformity in this uncertain sector. This, too, is a positive sign for the future. The coordinating of the various provincial education ordinances is in progress, and certain provisions in other statutes with regard to the rendering of educational service are being consolidated. The reclassification of educational functions and the consequent restructuring of the department, as well as an elementary pattern of statutory parental and other bodies at local and regional level, have been taken into account. These rounding off and integrating processes are continuing unabated. It is clear that the hon the Minister and his Committee of Heads of Education have been hard and productively at work, and still are, in order to consolidate these matters further. Inevitably there were vast changes but, as happens in education, they took place without any grumbling and in the service of the teaching vocation. We congratulate the teaching profession sincerely on their achievements during the year that has just come to an end.

Order! I regret to say that the hon member’s time has expired.

Mr Chairman, I am rising merely to afford the hon member an opportunity to complete his speech.

Mr Chairman, I want to thank the hon member for Pietersburg for the opportunity.

The search in the educational sphere for better-structured, wider and more comprehensive technical education, and the need for a more technical and industrialised South Africa, have led the other members of our study group and I to request the careful but far-reaching co-ordinating of the work of all institutions concerned with technical education, and for greater co-operation between them. I should like to draw this matter to the attention of the hon the Minister. What is clear to us at this stage is that these days the universities are offering courses that have such a growing practical component that they can encroach completely on the territory that the technikon has demarcated for itself. The technikon, in turn, is experiencing a need for detailed academic content—which can penetrate so deeply that the technikon would find itself duplicating completely the contents of subjects offered at the universities.

A technical college, which is actually a pre-tertiary programme, has a unique character and background because it owes its existence mainly to dropout students varying from very young to the very old. This type of education is sometimes referred to as scrapheap education since the technical college student is normally the pupil who dropped out of school because he could not find his feet in the academic sphere and was compelled by circumstances to return—when he tried to adapt to life on the outside, he discovered what the minimum requirements were for him to obtain recognition.

The private sector has become strongly involved with the technical colleges, because it is the private sector who send these men and women back for further training. Most of the subjects offered here have exceeded the secondary standard margin by such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish at engineering level, for example, where the secondary standard ends and the tertiary standard begins.

I want to explain that. I cannot understand, for example, why a subject like Building Science is offered at university. I can understand why the core subjects in the commercial sciences are offered at university, but once one has passed accounting, auditing in a certain sense, and business economics, also in a certain sense, one encounters the rest of the subjects in the commercial science family which have a greater practical component, viz typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, computer science, machine operation, and so on.

Consequently, the “long leg” component of what has begun in theory at the university, ends in a practical direction, which is actually the sphere of the technikon. That is why, with this mutual encroachment by these two institutions taking place at an increasing rate, we wonder whether a need does not exist for an integrated partnership between the university and the technikon, the technikon and the technical college, and the technical college and technical education at secondary level. This could be extended to include commercially orientated subjects at secondary level. Can such a partnership not be forged—I shall now illustrate my argument—so that, as far as the more practical education is concerned, there may be cordial co-operation between the technikon and the university. The practical component of the training can then be offered by the technikon and the academic training by the university, and vice versa.

We believe that education is constantly undergoing a process of renewal. It goes hand in hand with the developing world. Large sums of money are of necessity involved in the development of education. I must tell hon members that it seems to me that rationalisation in this area in all the educational institutions could be a solution for the future so that it will not be necessary for us to duplicate. With the maximum forces at our disposal we should be able to allow these things to spill over a little, eventually leading the education family to a point at which they co-operate cordially, instead of sources of friction arising during a process of empire building in which they would be antagonistic towards one another.

It is well-known that in education the challenge exists to every kind of educational institution to make itself marketable to the community in order to attract the outstanding students. This competitive spirit is healthy, but it can also be counter-productive for the student in that he may not end up at the educational institution he should be at. In this process he nearly goes under at the institution he should not have been at, and would not have been at had he been correctly channelled. He drops out and becomes a failure, with the result that he leaves the educational institution; and only later on, at an advanced stage of his life, does he struggle to find indirectly, at the place he should actually have gone to, that which he had lost.

Education has the colossal task of having to guide and prepare young people. We have great appreciation for what vocational guidance offers in education today. I believe much hard work still has to be done as far as the channelling of students are concerned: Eventually all students should receive the proper education so that the needs that are going to arise in our country one day will be satisfied.

The people in the world of underground activities are just as aware that it is precisely the education of the youth that is the breeding ground for their subversive campaigns. In Black education we are saddled with the Crisis Committees; and in Coloured and Asian education, as well as in certain White communities, we are confronted with the idea of “liberation before education”. In White communities we are saddled with the idea of the “Boerestaat” and the disregard of other people within its boundaries. All of these three mainstreams are extra-parliamentary and, in their search for confrontation and ultimate revolution and the undermining of the stability of this country of ours, they carry the seeds of our ultimate destruction.

The teaching profession is caught up in the middle of this struggle and is threatened by it because it is becoming the lever which must be pushed around in gaining this kind of power.

I speak from the heart when I say this: May the heavenly Father preserve us so that this kind of thing can be kept out of this sector. These people have not been trained to withstand it. They already have such a comprehensive task in conveying knowledge and in forming the child that they do not need this added to their burden.

I want to come back to the hon member for Brits and ask him very seriously: Can we not, in some or other way, out of respect and appreciation for the education of our children—that is our most expensive investment—keep this out of education and do it in some other sphere? In this one there is no place for this kind of nonsense.

Mr Chairman, it is my privilege to lead the PFP in this debate today. I do so in the absence of the hon member for Pinetown who returns to Parliament tomorrow, and will be participating in the debate then.

On behalf of this party I would also like to congratulate Mr Terblanche on his appointment to the post of Superintendent-General. I know him to be an extremely sound, popular and concerned educationist. We look forward to him doing the same good job in his new capacity as he did as Director of the Transvaal Education Department.

As is well-known in this House, the PFP is certainly opposed to the concept of own affairs education, and certainly our opposition remains, despite what the hon the Minister said by way of introduction today. We believe that education should not be an own affairs matter, that all education should fall under the control of one Ministry of Education, and that regional education departments should be drawn up on geographic and not racial lines.

We are opposed to own affairs education because we believe it makes a mockery of the whole concept of equal education opportunities for all. We regard own affairs education as expensive, a duplication of services, and as an attempt to gain total control over White education in all the provinces.

At the time when own affairs education was introduced the provinces expressed concern about central control of education. We believed that it would lead to the provinces losing their identities. In Natal we too had the fear that the Christian national education philosophy—which we had rejected for years—would be forced upon us. However, we were assured at the time that negotiations were taking place, that this would not be the case and that a very carefully planned policy of centralisation and decentralisation—which would include the organised teaching profession and the parents; the so-called partners in education—was envisaged.

This would allow the provinces to retain their own particular character and ethos. We were told that control from Pretoria would in fact be minimal. That was the theory. What has happened in practice has made a mockery of the concepts of centralised and decentralised control. Decentralization is obviously minimal, while the degree of centralised control is increasing rapidly.

By decentralization I presume the Government is referring to the establishment of the provincial education councils and what it refers to as “a simple pattern of statutory parental and other bodies at the local and regional levels”. I accept the fact that parents, and to some extent the organised teaching profession, have been included in education matters to a greater extent than before. At school committee level they have been given some extended powers, while at the regional level school boards have been set up which are representative of parents in particular communities. However, to suggest that they have been given any real power is to extend the mockery of the whole setup even further.

Even the provincial education councils, which are to be representative of the parents—I stress the words “to be representative”, because those councils have not yet met although it is well over a year ago that the control of the provincial councils over education disappeared—the organised teaching profession, tertiary education, commerce and industry etc, will have no real power since legislation has ensured that they will have no teeth, but will be purely advisory in nature. The important question is whom they will advise, Sir. They will advise the Government. What does the Government do with advice? Very little.

It is therefore clear, Sir, that a very cunning system has developed to insure that, although on appearance decentralization has taken place, on its own admission the Government has centralised policy-making for White education and, by centralising policy-making, one is in fact centralising overall control. The provincial education departments consequently become nothing more than administrative branches of that control. They become in effect tools in the hands of the Minister.

It will be impossible for provincial education departments to retain their own character and ethos under these circumstances. It will be impossible for the provincial education departments to fight against the gradual implementation of the Christian national education philosophy, where it does not already exist— a philosophy which, I regret to say, is little more than a policy of indoctrination.

I want to ask the hon the Minister why the policy of own affairs education was rushed in so hastily. Why was the Government in such a hurry to introduce a policy, when the structures had not yet been established to allow for its proper implementation? Was it because by doing it so quickly, without the proper structures having been set up, the provinces themselves were powerless to act or react against these changes? There was something sinister in the undue haste with which central control took over from provincial control.

I believe that in order to give the whole take-over some credibility, regional councils of parents were introduced at about the same time that provincial council control disappeared, thus suggesting that the Government was serious about decentralization. However, these regional councils, which have been meeting for over a year now, have in fact no real role to play. They have no funds or secretarial staff and they do not know whom to advise or on what to advise. I must tell you. Sir, that many parents involved in these councils, in Natal in particular, regard them as an absolute farce.

As I have said, as far as the provincial education councils are concerned, they have not yet met—one year after provincial control of education disappeared and, in fact, three years after they were first raised as an alternative. However, even when they do meet, they will have no authority over education in the provinces. They will be purely advisory in nature—advisory to the hon the Minister. I hope, Sir, that he will listen to the advice he receives, even if it does not agree with NP policy, as may well be the case, for example in Natal.

I should like to ask the hon the Minister, however, what criteria were used for choosing the chairmen of these councils. In Natal, a person unknown in education circles was chosen to chair this council, while in the Cape we find that a prominent educationist representing a particular group of people was chosen. I might add that both these appointments have caused a stir for totally different reasons, and the hon the Minister knows why. However, as far as departmental control is concerned, it is laughable for the Government to try to claim at this point that its interference in these departments is minimal. I should like to provide some examples and, at the same time, ask some questions.

Firstly, under the new system, provincial directors of education appear to be powerless. Although they have had promises of a delegation of some powers, at this stage they have to refer all decisions affecting their departments to Pretoria for ratification. I ask whether this is bad planning on the part of the Department of Education and Culture or whether it is in fact deliberate planning.

Secondly, why is it that many matters previously handled by the provincial secretaries are now handled by Pretoria, causing delays of up to six months on matters affecting teachers and officials alike?

Thirdly, why is it that simple matters such as requests for overseas study leave now have to be referred to the Committee of Heads of Education, when previously they were handled provincially?

Fourthly, why is it that printing that was normally done under private contract in the provinces, now has to be done by the Government Printer, causing further delays and pressures?

Fifthly, why do purchases such as hostel provisions now have to be referred to the central department in Pretoria, and no longer to the departmental supply divisions?

Why, sixthly, are departments no longer even allowed to develop filing systems to their own best advantage, in the interests of efficiency, without being told that they must use the system used in Pretoria, and that even the file covers themselves have to be standardised?

Seventhly, why is it that senior posts such as deputy directors of education can just be removed from a province without consultation?

I want to say that all those points and many others are causing serious administrative problems in departments, and are resented by departmental officials who are concerned as to where they stand.

Finally, I want to ask the hon the Minister how long it will be before uniformity is introduced into what happens in the classroom as well—before all provinces are forced to use the same textbooks and teaching methods and to teach the same subject content. In other words, how long will it be before Christian national education becomes part and parcel of every province, whether the parents, teachers and officials of that province want it or not, because it appears to me that that is what this system of own affairs education is, in fact, all about.

Mr Chairman, before I react to what the hon member for Durban North said, I first want to congratulate the hon member for Brentwood on his designation as chairman of the NP study group on education and culture. I think he will be a very successful incumbent of that post.

As in the past, we have now again listened to the views on White education expressed by both the Official Opposition, the CP, and the PFP. It is very clear that both these parties find common ground on only one point, and that is that White education is not an own affair. To put it differently, the PFP does not accept that education can be an own affair, as the hon member for Durban North has once more explained. The CP, again, says education is not an own affair because there are specific elements of joint decision-making involved. The PFP rejects the concept of separate departments and wants all education under one roof. They consequently feel that there should be one educational dispensation for all population groups. In doing so they fail to appreciate the differences in the cultural composition of the respective groups. In their demand for equality in education, they are throwing a very important principle overboard, and that is that education should be a cultural experience.

Detaching education from what is unique to a people, from group ties, will quite simply mean that those receiving the education, ie the children, are going to be adversely affected in certain respects. In such a situation, the child will be the one who suffers.

The CP, in contrast, does not want to recognise the ethnic diversity in South Africa. [Interjections.] When they speak of education as a cultural asset of a specific group, we agree with them, and would like to say they are right. We on this side of the House accept that education is unique to a specific group and should be experienced as such by the child. We also believe in own education for each group. Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that the CP only wants to negotiate for its own education, ie that of the Whites. They, therefore, only want to look after their own education.

The NP, however, has a greater responsibility, in this regard, than that of merely looking after own education. At present the NP is the governing party and also has a responsibility to other groups in South Africa. Nor is this merely a superficial or incidental responsibility, as the hon member for Brits put it last week in the discussion of the National Education Vote. It is a pity the hon member is not here at the moment, but I do just want to quote what he said last week in regard to this statement. I quote from Hansard, House of Assembly, 27 July 1987:

We do not, however, feel ourselves to be under any obligation, under the policy of power-sharing, to pay for the education of other peoples on a permanent basis. We shall make our contribution, as the NP also did when it still adhered to the policy of separate development, but we shall do so on a voluntary basis so that the standards of White education are not permitted to stagnate or are even lowered in the process.

It is therefore a matter of record that if the CP were to come into power one day, it would not feel itself compelled, in any way, to make any reasonable contribution to the education of other groups. So here we again have the statement that the State coffers belong to the Whites and that money would be distributed haphazardly to other parties involved. What is being spelled out here is a kind of cap-in-hand policy. Surely we do not live in such isolation in South Africa. After all, absolute boundaries have not yet been drawn, nor will it be possible to do so in absolute terms.

The CP will do it!

No, it is not so easy that one can say that the CP will do it. In future South Africa will continue to have an integrated economy. Everyone will contribute to the State coffers—or are we only going to accept contributions from certain segments? Everyone will contribute and everyone will have claims on the State coffers. Just as much of an over-simplification is the hon member for Brits’ statement that the determination of norms and standards for syllabuses and examinations by a general department negates the concept of own affairs.

Just as our economy is and will continue to be an integrated one, so will the work situation in South Africa remain an integrated one. There will continue to be people of colour who will compete in a certain job situation and who will have to be evaluated accordingly; or would it not matter if the norms applicable to their certificates are not the same as those of the Whites? If we therefore say that there should be uniform norms and standards in regard to syllabuses and examinations, we do not necessarily mean the contents of such syllabuses. I accept that hon members of the CP know this. I hope so. That is why the contents of one’s own history syllabus, the history syllabus as far as the settlers and national heroes of the Whites are concerned, is not necessarily going to be the same as that of a place such as KwaZulu, for example. The determination of norms and standards is therefore not linked to the contents of the syllabuses or the contents of the examination material.

It is necessary to lay down guidelines for the achievement of a reasonable degree of uniformity in regard to the ultimate evaluation when certification must take place. That view was clearly stated in the 11 principles on the provision of education contained in the White Paper. Principle 1 states clearly, for example, that there will be equal opportunities for education, including equal standards in education, for every inhabitant, irrespective of race, colour, creed or sex. The Government is still in the process of implementing this and the other 10 principles and considerable progress has already been made. Time does hot, however, permit me to refer to all 11 of them individually.

Permit me, however, to refer briefly to principle 10 in the White Paper, ie that the professional status of the teacher and lecturer shall be recognised. Together with parents and children, teachers are still the most important partners in the educational set-up. At six years of age the child moves, as it were, out of the protective milieu of the parental home into the school milieu and thereafter virtually accepts the teacher as another parent. That is part of his educational experience. That is why it continues to be important for the teacher, as an extension of the parental role, to conduct himself professionally in such a way that his influence will always be experienced in a positive light by the child. A teacher’s duty is therefore not solely to educate but also, to a very large extent, to be instrumental in the child’s upbringing. This can only be achieved if teachers, at all times, conduct themselves in such a way that their professional status is not adversely affected. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, perhaps I should link up with what the hon member for Gezina said by returning to a few ideas he put forward. What is very clear is that the hon member for Gezina does not really know or want to know CP policy. I want to take this opportunity of inviting him, in all seriousness, to hold discussions with our study group on education and culture so as to properly acquaint him with CP policy. [Interjections.] Perhaps that would lead to the hon member reconsidering his position.

Simply to say that the CP will only make voluntary contributions to education and then deduce from that that the CP does not want to make any contribution whatsoever to the education of the other peoples is simply not true.

That is not in accordance with our policy. As our party’s chief spokesman on educational matters said earlier, we shall only contribute voluntarily. What that means is that we are, in fact, prepared to contribute on the basis of a Christian sense of responsibility. We do not want to be compelled by legislation to contribute to the education of other peoples.

How are you going to budget for it? [Interjections.]

When one says, as the hon member for Gezina has said, that our economies are integrated, one can also add that education, according to NP policy, will also be integrated in the end.

Where do you get that from? [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I should more specifically like to react to what the hon the Minister of Education and Culture said in connection with the utilisation of White educational facilities by members of other population groups. In this connection I want to know from the hon member for Maraisburg whether he brought the letter of the principal of Suurbekom to the attention of the hon the Minister. It is a letter in which the principal of Suurbekom raised legitimate complaints about what the community of Suurbekom, in the Losberg constituency, had to contend with. Has he, in fact, brought that letter to the hon the Minister’s attention? It is a very serious matter which the relevant principal has embodied in a report about what is going on at Suurbekom. The matter is so serious that in a later debate we shall be considering the whole question of Suurbekom in more detail. As far as education is concerned, however, I should like to present hon members with the following facts, if they are not yet aware of them.

Suurbekom is an area consisting of a number of smallholdings which are, at present, being inundated by Blacks from Soweto and other surrounding areas, in spite of the existence of the Group Areas Act. I shall make this report from the principal of Suurbekom available to the hon the Minister in case he thinks I just want to use it to score a few political points.

Since the lifting of influx control, in July 1986, the following situation has arisen in the White residential area of Suurbekom. The number of White families has decreased from 108 to 90. The number of White pupils has decreased from 221 at the end of 1986 to 142 at present—a decrease of 79 children. [Interjections.] I heard that interjection, Mr Chairman. Someone asked whether that was again the fault of the Government. For the hon member who made that interjection it could possibly prove to be a costly joke, because it will yet be proved that it was indeed the Government’s fault. [Interjections.]

This is a very serious matter. Interjections will not in any way affect the seriousness of the issue for those living in Suurbekom. In no way will it diminish their case. [Interjections.]

Order!

The number of premises occupied by Blacks increased from 16 to 36. I see the hon member Dr Geldenhuys also looking me straight in the eye. He is also fully aware of what is happening at Suurbekom. I wonder if he has also conveyed the seriousness of the situation to the hon the Minister of Education and Culture.

He cannot be bothered about that.

The estimated number of Black children living at Suurbekom has increased from 160 to 360. Here we are dealing with a White school being placed at risk as a result of the encroachment of Blacks in a residential area rightfully zoned for Whites. That is generally known as the displacement of Whites. It is directly related to the Government’s failure to comply with or enforce the provisions of the Group Areas Act.

When I spoke about the Group Areas Act yesterday, the hon the Minister of Justice …

But were you not in church yesterday? [Interjections.]

I actually meant Friday, Sir. On Friday the hon the Minister of Justice reacted to my standpoint as follows, and I quote:

The inhabitants of Suurbekom, the voters of Losberg, the voters of South Africa, are asking this House with what seriousness the principles of the Group Areas Act are being complied with when people are being displaced as they are in the school at Suurbekom. In this report the following facts are brought to our attention. The pupils have a completely negative attitude to the area in which they live, not to mention a negative attitude to the school in which they must receive their tuition.

Can this House realise what a child must feel when it cannot even take pride in its own school, because it is one of the basic educational ideals that a child should be made to feel proud of his school. [Interjections.] Let hon members make a noise if they wish, but that will not detract from the facts.

These children are asking their parents and the teachers in Suurbekom: “What is going to become of us, because are the Blacks not going to take over in Suurbekom, as in the rest of the country?” The teachers in Suurbekom have to motivate the children … [Interjections.]

Order!

But it is impossible to motivate the children and it is impossible to motivate the parents, because the idea has already taken hold that Suurbekom is going to become a Black residential area. And I am not even mentioning the fact that a teacher from Soweto has illegally obtained a residential stand very close to Suurbekom and is already living there. He says: “I have merely anticipated events ever so slightly. I purchased a property near the school, because if Suurbekom becomes a Black school, at least I shall be living close to the school where I am going to be teaching. ”

We want to know from this hon Minister in this debate what his standpoint on Suurbekom and the primary school at Suurbekom is. Is he aware of the decrease in the student population as a direct result of non-compliance with the principles of the Group Areas Act? Is it his standpoint that as the responsible Minister he would want to protect this school? Has this information been conveyed to the hon the Minister by the hon member for Maraisburg who, I gather, is the custodian of the constituencies which have now become CP constituencies in that area? Have they conveyed that information to the hon the Minister, and if they have done so, has he already written a letter to that school principal to tell him that he need not be concerned, because Suurbekom will remain a White school? If he has not yet written that letter, what must this side of the House and the voters of the Republic of South Africa as a whole think of the fact that in the election the hon the Minister made such a fuss of the Group Areas Act, the preservation of White areas and the protection of the community interests of the Whites in areas such as Suurbekom? [Interjections.]

History will judge us, not interjections or silence on the part of members of a governing party.

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

Mr Chairman, I am merely rising to afford the hon member an opportunity to complete his speech. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member may proceed.

Mr Chairman, I want to make a few brief remarks in regard to the question of teachers’ salaries, but let me firstly just thank the hon Whip for the opportunity to continue. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr Chairman, may I just make a few remarks about the teaching profession? Let me emphasise that I do not want to argue here and now for an increase in salaries in the teaching profession. I simply want to point to the imbalance that exists in this regard. A lecture at the college of education obtains a maximum salary of plus approximately R36 000 in round figures (1986), whilst his comparable opposite number at a university, a junior lecturer obtains a maximum salary of R21 000 (1986). If one compares this with the maximum salary of a school principle with a BA-degree plus a diploma, one sees that he earns a salary of R29 000. I could go on in this vein, but I do not have the time to do so and I just briefly want to conclude my argument by asking the hon the Minister to give this imbalance in the teaching profession his attention at some or other time. We have every confidence that this will be done. I have a comprehensive report about it which I could make available to the hon the Minister. Unfortunately I do not now have the time to go into in detail.

Thirdly I should just very briefly like to refer to another tricky problem that is going face the teaching profession next year, and that is the question of tuition fees. I think a better term for tuition fees is actually—the hon the Minister must pardon me for expressing it in these terms—White child tax, because tuition fees are aimed at taxing White parents to make provision for facilities which they will have to forego if additional money is not found elsewhere. The underlying principle is that of parity, but the way in which the parity functions now is that White parents have an additional tax imposed on them, without a child tax being imposed on the Coloured and Indian populations.

I am afraid that in this connection we are also dealing with “discrimination in reverse”. [Interjections.] We are asking the hon the Minister why it is necessary to impose tuition fees, or a child tax, on Whites in a one-sided, unidirectional fashion, without imposing it on the other population groups too. It is true that the introduction of tuition fees will inevitably result in a decrease in the voluntary fees now paid by parents. I cannot go into the whole question of the implementation and enforcement of these fees, but it is very suspect, from a constitutional point of view, that I am compelled to send my child to school—I do not have a choice—and am then also compelled to pay fees to keep him in school. That is not comparable to other cases, for example being compelled to pay income tax, because I am not compelled to earn an income. [Interjections.] We want to know what the moral justification is for White parents having further taxes imposed upon them; of having to pay a tax to keep their children at school.

Mr Chairman, firstly it is not possible for me, in the time at my disposal, to react to all the remarks made by the hon member for Losberg, and secondly, the subject which took up most of his time has no place in this Vote at all. It is a group areas subject. This is now the second occasion he has misused in an effort to discuss this subject.

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Is it not a reflection on the Chair if the member states that I misused the debate, since you did not stop me? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member spoke about group areas, but he correctly related it to the position of the school to which he referred. I find no fault with that. The hon member for Sunnyside may continue. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I shall therefore not react to the matter on group areas which the hon member broached and shall come back to the hon member again at a later stage.

Firstly I want to react to a statement the hon member for Brits made, ie that certain arguments are being put forward for contact between children across colour lines. In South Africa we must take the realities of this country into account, instead of clinging to a dream-world and, like the CP, trying to live in one. Their policy can only lead to a dream-world. When we are dealing with the realities of South Africa, however, and want to prepare our children to contribute their share, too, and to play the role they have to play, apart from the fact that schools are an own affair and children should have an opportunity to be educated within the milieu of their own culture and community, it is essential that the child should not be isolated, as the CP wants him to be …

You are dreaming!

He is the one who is living in a dream-world!

… but should also have an opportunity to make contact with other population groups. Since hon members wish to maintain that making contact in the world in which we are living is a new principle, only just accepted by this side of the House, for the sake of interest I should just like to quote to him what was said by the then Minister in a debate on national education in 1977:

[Interjections.] That is precisely the NP’s education policy, one of non-integration. Hon members opposite were probably not listening to what the hon the Minister said earlier this afternoon. I can understand their not remembering or wanting to remember something that was said last year or in previous debates, because it does not fit in with their argument, but barely one hour ago the hon the Minister clearly explained the education policy, structure and system in South Africa and said that as an own affair education was culturally-orientated and community-orientated and that White children would therefore go to White schools. Did hon members hear him say that? [Interjections.]

What are the facts? [Interjections.]

Hon members do not want to hear it, because it does not fit in with their arguments. The more we try to explain to them, year after year and in one debate after another, that education is not integrated, the more they try to make out that it is in fact integrated and then base their arguments on that.

What do you have to say about Menlo Park?

Is Menlo Park an integrated school? [Interjections.] May I know from the hon member why he is asking for my opinion on Menlo Park? Does Menlo Park have an integrated school?

You do not have a standpoint on Menlo Park. [Interjections.]

What I am trying to say is that the school itself can decide, but there should also be an opportunity for contact with other population groups in this country, because we are not living in an isolated world. If we bring up children in an isolated, compartmentalized world so that when they have to go out into the world one day and face up to the realities of South Africa, they are not ready to accept that reality …

How did you grow up?

… it would be a sad day, because then the generations of children we are raising will not be ready to face up to the demands and the realities of South Africa.

They must be a bunch of quitters (hensoppers)!

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: May the hon member say they are a bunch of quitters?

Order! I heard the hon member referring to quitters. I did not, however, understand him to be referring in this connection to hon members of the House; I was under the impression he was referring to the children who would be the products of a certain kind of upbringing.

I was referring to the children who would be raised to be quitters.

Order! That is how I interpreted it. The hon member for Sunnyside may continue.

What do you know about Afrikanerhood?

I should like to state that in recent years, throughout the world, the position of education has been under scrutiny. The truth of the matter is that there have been serious problems in connection with, and concern about, the standard of education. In this connection I want to refer, in particular, to a report published in the USA—the hon the Minister also referred briefly to this matter—indicating what happens when one is not careful in one’s approach to education and constant efforts are not made to effect renewal and reform. One of these commission reports—it actually sums up the whole situation—stated the position in the following terms:

It is therefore very important that the standard of education—in South Africa too— should be maintained. Today I want to pay tribute and express my thanks to the members of the teaching profession who have, throughout our history and up to the present day, ensured that the standard of White education was maintained at a high level. As the hon the Minister said repeatedly in his speech, the standard of White education will not be allowed to decline, but there will also be an examination of those areas, in the education of the other population groups, in which standards are not yet as high as they should be.

This brings me to another point, to which the hon member for Losberg also referred. When we look at the systems of education throughout the world, for example at those of the United Kingdom—I just want to mention this one example—we see that the central government makes a 56% contribution to education. The rest of the money comes from the local authorities and communities, and from the parental community itself. The truth is that throughout history the provision of education has not primarily been the duty of the state. In South Africa, however, we have made it the duty of the State, which has chiefly accepted responsibility for it. It is right for the State to have a responsibility, too, because the people who are trained and educated are again used in the State’s labour force. I do not, however, think it is solely the State’s responsibility to provide for everything. The community and the parents also have a duty when it comes to the education of their children. [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I should like to associate myself with the congratulations expressed to various people on their promotion. In addition I should like to congratulate the hon the Minister on the clear policy speech he made here earlier this afternoon. I think he must have envisaged what the hon member for Losberg would say, and so replied beforehand to what the hon member asked later. I wish I had unlimited time, because I should have liked to have discussed with the hon member what he said here.

I want to associate myself with the theme chosen for 1988, viz “Education and Culture in the service of the community”. I want to begin by saying that in essence, education is or should be teacher-orientated. In a developing country like South Africa, this makes great demands on education, particularly in the sphere of technology. I am pleased to see that although, until a few years ago, we in South Africa placed the emphasis in our education system mainly on the preparation of pupils for university study—the emphasis was on general preparatory education up to standard ten level—a shift in emphasis has taken place, with greater emphasis on career orientated education. It is generally accepted that a thousand job opportunities would have to be created per working day in South Africa to provide for the large number of unskilled potential workers who are entering the labour force. It is ironical that although there is too little work for too many workers, there is a great shortage of trained workers in the field of technicians. In order to attain and maintain a growth rate of 4,5% in the Republic of South Africa, 23 000 new technically trained workers and 9 500 foremen have to be added to the labour market annually. During the past few years an average of only 9 500 artisans have entered the labour market after their apprenticeship, and only 2 000 technicians were trained; a shortage therefore of more or less 11 500 technically trained workers in a single year.

It is interesting to hear that South Africa trains only 37 engineers per million of its population in comparison with Taiwan’s 341 engineers per annum, and that we train only 78 technicians per million of the population in comparison with Taiwan’s 876.

The technical college is eminently suited to the training of these essential technicians. Technical colleges are post-school educational institutions with the purpose of offering education to apprentices, part-time classes for the senior certificate, language courses for immigrants and people who want to learn a foreign language, technical and intensive commercial courses, enrichment courses, hobby courses and any course in respect of continued education in technical, commercial and other subjects for which there is a demand among the local community. What I am saying, therefore, links up with the theme of education and culture in service of the community.

An apprentice learns all the aspects of his trade by practical experience under the supervision of a qualified artisan or craftsman, and is also compelled to attend theoretical classes and a technical college. The prospective apprentice must be at least 16 years old and, of course, no longer of school age. Different educational qualifications are applicable in different industries, but a standard 7 or standard 8 certificate or a certificate of equal value is the general minimum requirement for admission.

I believe the technical college is qualified to adjust its curriculum according to the community’s demand in such a way that it can supply that great demand. It is calculated that during the first 10 years of his professional career, a young engineer will find that 50% of the knowledge he had on completing his studies will be obsolete. This knowledge will have to be replaced, apart from the new knowledge that has been added in the meantime in that field of study.

In my opinion the technical colleges’ great task and importance resides in the following three spheres in particular: (1) The training of artisans and technicians to supply the great demand; (2) refresher courses for and retraining of qualified people to assist them in keeping up with the rapid technological development; and (3) by offering a cultural task by means of enrichment courses and hobby courses.

I believe technical colleges assist in creating educational opportunities corresponding to the particular requirements and aptitude of every student, as well as the needs of the community. Because technical colleges can make a positive contribution in a community, but unfortunately are very expensive, I believe that a community which has a technical college should become involved with this institution to a greater degree.

I should also like to place on record my thanks to that part of the private sector for the great contributions they have made in the past to the costs related to a technical college and its maintenance.

I want to conclude by expressing my concern and requesting that since 55% to 60% of the school-going population is made up of girls, urgent attention should be given to more professional education for these girls. Can we not also provide technical training for more of these girls? I believe that girls can make a great contribution in this sphere, because they have the ability to do so. Possibly there should be a change of attitude among many of our parents and officials so that we can consider this as well. I use a typist to do my typing, but as soon as there is something wrong with the typewriter, she calls a male technician to repair it. I wonder whether this task could not be done by a woman. I believe we shall have to make much greater use of members of the female sex to assist us in carrying out this great task.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Kimberley North talked about career-oriented education and aspects related to technical and technicon education. I would agree with him that these matters are of considerable importance, particularly in the light of the need for South Africa to achieve a high economic growth rate.

I wish, however, to address the Committee on a different subject. First of all I would like to refer to an answer given to a question I put to the hon the Minister of Education and Culture regarding White State schools that requested to be permitted to admit children of other races. It was with disappointment— although I cannot say I was surprised at the time that I received the official reply—that I heard that every single one of those requests had been turned down. There were some 12 schools involved in making this request, involving thousands of pupils. Those schools made those requests after the parents had overwhelmingly expressed a view in favour of what they felt was in the best interests of their children’s education. I believe those parents are responsible people who were not rushed into making a decision. Parent bodies were adequately consulted—there has never been any suggestion to the contrary. However, the hon the Minister’s reply was a flat “No”. In terms of Government policy the answer was “No”.

It is interesting, however, that there is an exception, because the Government is afraid of the diplomats. The result is that 120 children of diplomats who are not White are allowed into White schools. The reply I was given when I asked whether there were children other than White children admitted to White schools, gave this figure of 120, and the reply to my question as to on what grounds these children were admitted to White schools was that “the children concerned are the children of diplomats and members of consular missions. ” That may apply to the 120 children mentioned, but there are in actual fact cases that do not fall into that category. Therefore that reply is not entirely true or complete. I will not raise the matter here because I do not want to start witch hunts, but the hon the Minister will know, and I certainly know, of cases where that is not so.

The attitude is that one cannot admit children that are not White into White schools, but when it comes to diplomats’ children the Government is too afraid to face the consequences of its policy and so it becomes colour-blind and says that those children may go to the White schools. What they are in fact saying is that they are racists, but they do not want to create international incidents about their racist education policy; thus, where diplomats are concerned they run away from their policy.

Last week, on 29 July, the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid made some interesting remarks in this House. I wish to quote from his unrevised Hansard, and I would like the hon the Minister of Education and Culture to listen very carefully and to tell me whether he agrees with this statement:

I ask the hon the Minister to listen very carefully to this:

I would like to ask the hon the Minister of Education and Culture whether he agrees with that statement.

I shall answer you.

Is it such a difficult question? Is it a trick question? I have quoted, and I will certainly send the quotation across to him if he wants to see it. I ask him, however, whether he agrees with that statement.

Continue with your argument.

Mr Chairman, I am not surprised. It is typical of that side of the House: When one starts showing up the hypocrisy, they run.

You run to Dakar! [Interjections.]

Let me now make a point. I want to thank the hon the Minister for that wonderful contribution. Now you go back and sort out Namibia! [Interjections.]

It is very interesting that the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid makes it clear that the education of a “volk” cannot be determined by another “volk”. He also says that the Afrikaners, with their history, know that very well. He will know very well that the Afrikaners’ education was never determined by a Black, Coloured or Indian “volk”. The problem was that there was discrimination against the Afrikaners in education, and the nature of the education they wanted, by the predominantly British power at the time which controlled education. That is what he is talking about when he says that the Afrikaners know that they cannot have the kind of education they want if people who are not Afrikaners are controlling education.

In the hon the Minister’s statement this afternoon he referred to the key elements of “mother tongue”, “culture”, and “values”. He also said that own education determined by those criteria is a group right. That is what the hon the Minister said.

What is actually happening in this country, in terms of their own terminology— and I do not agree with the way in which own affairs is being conducted by this Government—is that everyone except English-speaking Whites and Blacks have their own affairs. There is, however, no such thing as own affairs for English-speaking Whites in South Africa.

I also want to ask the hon the Minister the following, and he does not have to reply now because he obviously gets very nervous about it: Does he think that the English-speaking Whites are part of the same “volk” as the Afrikaners and that they have the identical culture? Clearly his colleague in the front bench does not agree with him on that point.

The fact is that own affairs, as in education, is a political creation. It is being used as a substitute for the words “apartheid” and “racism”, otherwise there is no logic in the hon the Minister’s claim that decisions for English and Afrikaans speakers, for example, have to be made by one department and that he makes the decisions for English speakers.

Mr Chairman, I would like to ask the hon the Minister the following, and I do not want to be personal because it would apply the opposite way around if it were he talking to me: In terms of his own concept of own affairs, based on mother tongue, culture and values, does he not think that it is a cheek that he—as he would describe himself—as an Afrikaner Nationalist Cabinet Minister from the Free State platteland—tells English-speaking parents in the Cape Peninsula what is in the best educational interests of their children? In terms of his own definition, and in terms of what the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid said, does he not agree that that is in fact what he is doing, and that the decisions he is making here are completely contrary to what he claims and to what the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid claims is their own philosophy in education?

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Cape Town Gardens broached the matter of the admission of Black pupils to White schools, and implied that this would mean that the Government would simply shut its eyes and admit these pupils because of its fear of international incidents. This is not the true state of affairs, however, because surely this whole matter is regulated by international law throughout the world as far as people who may find themselves as envoys in another country at any given stage are concerned—hence the principle of extraterritorial jurisdiction. If only the hon member would accept that principle, I think he would be able to solve these problems on that basis.

A further component was broached, viz the NP policy in respect of national education. In this respect an attempt was made to fragment it further by implying that the English-speaking people did not have the right to have a say in determining the education policy for their children. The comparative image of Cape Town on the one hand and the Free State on the other was used. Once again this is not true, because the existing structures create all the channels through which every citizen in this country can form part of the process of determining the educational policy.

I want to discuss another matter here today. It deals with the milestone reached this year in respect of parent involvement in the management of our education. As early as 1967, the National Education Policy Act determined that the parent community should be granted a place in the educational system by means of parent-teacher associations, school committees, control boards, school boards or in other ways. In 1976 the Minister of National Education gave further effect to this when it was provided by means of Government notice that a school commission, control and advisory board or advisory school committee or school board, consisting of pupils’ parents, should be established for each school. This was also based on the principle that the parents should make up at least half of that board. The duties of those bodies were spelt out in 1979, and recognition was in fact given to the fact that those bodies were the official mouthpiece of the parents of pupils of a particular school.

The establishment of parent-teacher associations was never formally laid down by means of statute. These bodies could be established on a voluntary basis.

Directions were also promulgated for the establishment of school boards. The Administrator of a province, school board districts or areas had the authority to determine for which purpose school boards could be established, whether by the direct or indirect election once again of parents of pupils of the relevant school. Their powers had reference mainly to the provision and maintenance of teaching sites and buildings. Just as in the case of the other bodies, the school board had no function with reference to the professional functions of the teachers.

This matter also formed part of the HSRC enquiry into the provision of education. The principle of parent involvement in education is recommended in the HSRC report. This report mentions the greatest possible degree of autonomy at a school, which the parents and teachers—as those in authority—would have. The freedom of parental choice, in accordance with certain conditions, emerges strongly, and even co-responsibility for the curriculum of the school is regarded as the function of the parent, the headmaster and the teaching staff.

In the White Paper on the Provision of Education, the Government accepted the principle of the desirability of parentrepresentative bodies on the local level, whether of each school or of groups of neighbouring schools. The idea of the devolution of decision-making to those parentrepresentative bodies as far as is practically possible was also accepted. In this connection local parent-management bodies should strike a justifiable balance between the participation of the headmaster, the professional educators, the parent community and the general community. The Government is in favour of differential education management bodies which can function on this local level.

Mention was also made of the Menlo Park incident, and the same simple principle is applicable there, viz that in every decision taken—and the processes created by this— one should consider the facts and act in a truly objective way, not with ulterior motives and preconceptions.

The National Policy for General Education Affairs Act, 1984, provides that the State should be responsible for the provision of formal education, but also, as was said here earlier today, that the individual, the parent and the community should have a joint responsibility and a say in that connection.

In the present educational dispensation, parent involvement on a partnership basis is being extended on all levels by the Department of Education and Culture and its four provincial education departments. This partnership implies security, co-partnership, codecision-making and co-responsibility on all these levels. The result is that education is being democratised to a great extent, and this is the sphere in which progress has been made this year with the proclamation by way of Government Notice No 553 of 13 March 1987, in which provision was made for the establishment of the respective provincial education boards. These bodies will give expression to this partnership idea.

The basis of the relations between professional education on the one hand and the other partner, viz the parent, on the other will have to be such that one does not dominate the other, or that the parents do not enter the specialist spheres. It is also true that after consultation with all these partners, and once all inputs have been made, it is the Government’s education department which has the ultimate responsibility of integrating all of this to a decision corresponding with Government policy. Greater parent involvement does not imply, therefore, that the parent may involuntarily enter the sphere of the education department, the school or the teachers.

The statutory embodiment of parent involvement on a basis of partnership took place last year when the National Education Policy Act of 1976 was amended to provide that, and I quote:

In its definition this Act specifies the organised parent community; not only statutory boards or committees such as a school board or school committees, but also the bodies and associations recognised by the Minister.

This would mean that the parent would be given a say via two channels, viz via the free parent body on the one hand, as well as the statutory body on the other. In my opinion the time has come for a clearer definition to be given to the spheres of activity of parental involvement in future. There is a degree of confusion among certain of the parents as to whether or not they have a say, whether through one body or another, and these concepts make it a little more difficult, particularly when one bears in mind that the non-statutory or free association is getting statutory recognition to exist as a free organisation—that is on the one hand. On the other, there is a practical problem concerning the statutory bodies, viz the school committees and so on, which have to join forces in an organised way on a voluntary basis in order to appoint the representatives who might ultimately participate in the respective provincial education boards.

I think this is indeed a milestone. It is something the parent community in particular is looking forward to.

Mr Chairman, to start with I should like to refer to a matter which the hon member for Brits has already raised and to which the hon the Minister of National Education has also referred, and that is the question of the disorder prevalent at certain White universities.

To put it briefly, Sir, a document has just come to my attention, and here I am referring to a propaganda document of the End Conscription Campaign in which, amongst other things, the following is stated:

That is what the article states.

In connection with “Namibia” it states:

Further along one reads:

These are just a few brief quotations from this official propaganda document of the End Conscription Campaign. What do we find, however? We find that on 27 July 1987 this document was sent in an official envelope—I have a photocopy of it here—from the University of Natal. Since the ordinary, peace-loving citizens of this country are now sick and tired of this kind of disorderly and undisciplined behaviour emanating from White campuses, we ask the hon the Minister concerned to act swiftly and decisively against this preposterous behaviour. [Interjections.]

I should like to say a few words about school sport. In the annual report of the Department of National Education sport is described as “a basic feature of our modern culture and way of life …” and as an “important part of man’s cultural heritage”. It is then stated: “It relates to values inherent in a community and gives expression to them. ” According to the report sport contributes “to the creation of stable and healthy communities and societies”. It “binds people together, promotes spontaneous communication, creates strong social relations and bonds and promotes good human relations”. One cannot fault the accuracy of these statements. It is specifically because sport is so important to every community that one should organise and conduct sports activities with the utmost circumspection.

Specifically because sport is regarded as being so important for every community, it becomes a powerful weapon in the hands of anyone wanting to impair or mar the essential fabric of a society. This reality is reaffirmed in the report by a remark such as the following:

In the White community in South Africa sport plays an extremely important role. What is particularly striking about the playing of sport in the White community in South Africa, however, is that it is particularly at school level that South African sportsmen and sportswomen achieve world class standards. Apart from the physiological reality that in certain types of sport, in particular, achievement is largely restricted to the younger generation, it is true that in a capitalistic system of government sports competitors are forced into the labour market much more quickly to earn their own bread and butter than would be the case in more socialistic systems of government. Consequently in a capitalistic system of government sportsmen and sportswomen stop competing actively in sport at an earlier stage.

The result is that school sport is, to a large extent, the backbone of the whole sports set-up in a country such as South Africa. This fact is perceived by South Africa’s political enemies, and that is largely why their sports boycotts against South Africa have failed at the senior sports level. Firstly our senior sportsmen still maintain world standards for a relatively short period after school-going age, and secondly the natural trend towards an own community life amongst Whites and people of colour could not be changed by sports boycotts imposed from beyond South Africa’s borders. School sport has consequently become a new battleground on which the enemies of the ethnic concept and own community life are carrying out their subversive activities in South Africa. Those enemies are not confined to overseas countries. At present they are members of South African sports bodies. As far back as 1982 I heard a group of executive members of one of our provincial athletic bodies conducting a debate on how to obtain control of school sport in their province so that total integration could be implemented in the field of sport. The International Athletics Federation laid down total integration in the field of sport as a prerequisite for South Africa’s re-entry into international sport.

As at Menlo Park.

For this reason it is a source of concern to me that the Government, which professes to be in favour of the protection of the own community life of the Whites, allows certain things to happen in the sphere of school sport without adopting positive counter-measures. Firstly the distinction between school sport and junior sport is used as an excuse to encourage school children to accept racial integration. An athletics team from a certain region or province is allowed to be racially mixed, for example, although it is a school team. The example of the incident at the Menlo Park High School is still fresh in our memories and has again been broached in this debate. This incident could have been prevented if the Government had not given recognition, and does not still give recognition, to so-called racially mixed “junior” sports teams which are, in effect, nothing more than ordinary school sports teams which ought to be homogeneous teams in accordance with the Government’s own commitment to school sport as an own affair.

As if this blunder on the part of the Government were not enough, Government members go even further and politicise problems of this nature by criticising a management body, as in the case of the Menlo Park incident, which had autonomous control of a relevant sports team and questioning the action taken by such a body. Here I am referring, for example, to the public statements of the hon the Minister of Home Affairs and the hon the Deputy Minister of Finance with reference to the Menlo Park incident.

The simple solution for this utterly confusing situation, caused by the artificial distinction being drawn between junior sport and school sport, is to regard the involvement of children at all levels of participation in sport as being involvement in school sport. Competition between various population groups can still take place, but then only on the basis of homogeneous sports teams competing against one another.

I want to mention another aspect to which the Government is not giving proper attention. These days certain well-known sports administrators are openly striving to create a mixed sports community at all levels. Publicity is given to these views by bodies such as the SABC, without Government opposition. The inescapable conclusion is that the Government supports these views.

Thirdly certain sports bodies withhold financial contributions from bodies presenting courses in school sport on an individual basis to individual population groups. I know of one instance, in the Transvaal, of financial contributions being withheld from a certain coaching association which presented a course at Magaliesberg, solely on the grounds of the relevant sports body insisting on a mixed course before financial assistance would be granted.

Scandalous!

If the Government were serious about having school sport take its rightful place in the structure of each population group, it would ensure that it made special finance available to bodies presenting school sport on an individual socio-economic basis. The CP states, in this regard, that the control, administration, coaching and playing of sport at school, club, provincial and national levels should take place on a separate basis. Specifically because education embodies the aim of realising one’s identity, there should be separate sport at school level. International participation in sport would be supported by a CP government, provided demands were not imposed on White sportsmen and women to arrange their sports set-up in conflict with the party’s constitutional policy.

Mr Chairman, at the outset let me express a word of thanks to the hon the Minister. He administers this department with great distinction, and this afternoon he gave a very strong indication of the course we want to adopt as far as this department is concerned.

I just want to refer briefly to the remarks made by the hon member for Roodepoort. Firstly, as far as people of colour at Black universities are concerned, let me say that this is a sensitive matter. It is a matter that also disturbs us on this side of the House, and I want to assure him that regulatory steps are being taken to deal with the situation.

In regard to his reference to mixed sport at school level, it is my considered opinion that one cannot always put such matters right by means of laws and regulations. The things the hon member for Roodepoort would like to see happening only take place at one level, ie that of education in the parental home. It is there that the child is taught what is right and what his cultural values for the future should be. I myself have children who have participated at provincial level, against people of colour too, and that has created no problems whatsoever. There were not even any subsequent references to such participation. I should like to tell the hon member that these are values that one corrects in the parental home and at no other level.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon member how he wants to correct the situation in the parental home when, in terms of the junior sports policy, integration is specifically being forced upon schoolchildren. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I do not think the question is relevant. I was speaking about participation in school sport on a voluntary basis, something we very frequently come across in society at large. I am convinced that we cannot prevent that from happening, since there are certain schools which, for the sake of the process of education, would like to make such participation possible, but that matter must be settled by way of the education provided in the parental home.

This afternoon I want to speak about the rationalisation of tertiary educational institutions in the Republic of South Africa. There are four main reasons why this has become a matter of extreme urgency. The first is the escalating costs of education in South Africa, so-called educational inflation. This also includes the escalating costs of tertiary education in our country. Secondly there are the demographic trends in the Republic of South Africa which we constantly have to bear in mind for the purposes of planning and which constantly give rise to changing circumstances. Thirdly there is the necessity of achieving the goals which are set in regard to education and the provision of education in the Republic in the interests of constitutional, economic and social progress in the country. Fourthly—and our hon friends in the Official Opposition must take note of this—it is important to effect rationalisation so as to preserve, for the future, the cultural character of the universities and tertiary educational institutions.

We can therefore state unequivocally today that economy measures and rationalisation in the academic world have become part and parcel of our way of life. It should therefore very clearly be understood that the object is to achieve these ideals I have mentioned and not to take anything away from anybody or to lower any standards in the process.

It should also be stated that the rationalisation of tertiary educational institutions is a worldwide trend, and I have here examples of published reports, for example by the Carnegie Foundation, a research body in the USA, in which there are very indications of how external factors, such as population trends—in the USA too—educational inflation, an overall shortage of money, etc, are forcing these institutions throughout the world to focus attention on rationalisation at all levels.

What is also of great importance is that we in South Africa are faced, too, with other factors which make it vital for us to examine this aspect. Firstly let me mention the decrease in the growth rate of the White population and the consequent decrease in the numbers of pupils attending White schools. It is stated that in 1990 there will be 22 000 fewer White primary school pupils than there were in 1984. This trend is already exerting an influence on the rationalisation of primary school teacher training. As a result of this trend, and the concomitant decrease in the demand for primary school teachers, and also because of the population projections for Whites, the four provincial education departments have already instituted an in-depth investigation into the possible rationalisation of teacher training. Attention has been paid, in particular, to student enrolment, the utilisation of existing accommodation and the possible amalgamation or even closure of institutions for the training of teachers.

At universities, too, we experienced a sharp increase in the student population in the seventies, but the truth is that at this stage that trend is levelling off, and in the nineties a turning point is expected as far as that is concerned.

The second important aspect is the future need for human resources in the Republic of South Africa. Here let me just refer briefly to the De Lange Report of 1981 which recommended that in future more emphasis should be placed on technical education than on academic education with a view to building up a strong corps of technical people in the country. The hon member for Kimberley North referred to this training of technicians. For example, there are 17 technical staff members needed as back-up for every engineer. We shall have to bear that in mind in the future. More students at the tertiary level will be moving to the technikons owing to the need for this type of education, and there is also a greater need, in practice, for better co-operation between universities and technikons.

The third aspect is the ratio of funds employed for tertiary education as against those employed for primary and secondary education, according to a paper delivered in America by Prof A H Strydom. At this stage we spend 20% of our total budget on formal education at tertiary institutions where we find only 5% of our young students—ie from the beginning to the end of their studies. It is therefore a major problem, and if one compares this with the expenditure ratios throughout the world, at the moment we are spending—ie according to 1985 figures—an average of R450 per primary school pupil, R700 per secondary school pupil and R4 250 per tertiary student, and this gives us a ratio of R100 spent on primary education as against R950 on tertiary education, whilst in developed countries, for example, the ratio is R100 to R350, with a ratio of R100 to R1 800 in developing countries. This indicates that we shall have to take a very careful look at this ratio for the future expenditure of funds.

Fourthly the interests of students in the RSA have changed. Here we see very clearly that whereas in the past we generally needed “reading, writing and arithmetic” as overall preparation for a career, this has now changed with the advent of the whole concept of “lifelong learning”, with people repeatedly having to return to a tertiary institution for continuation classes because knowledge very quickly becomes outdated.

So in the short term one can look at the sharing of facilities, such as hostels, library facilities, the merging of departments and savings on non-academic staff. Academic standards can be retained by facilitating co-operation between academic staff of which there is a scarcity, and more research can be done in this field.

An area which lends itself very well to development in this sphere is the Bloemfontein area where we have the University of the Orange Free State, the Bloemfontein College of Education and the Free State Technikon. At that university we find the same numerical levelling-off trends—the Bloemfontein College of Education has itself imposed numerical limits. In contrast the technikon, with a steadily increasing student population, is housed in school buildings.

Mr Chairman, I just want to tell the hon member for Winburg that he made a sound contribution to the debate. I hope he will not take it amiss of me if I do not comment in detail on what he said.

The whole issue concerning the concept of own schools seems to come up time and again. The hon the Minister touched on it again this afternoon and the hon members of the various parties on this side referred to it again.

The difficulty I experience with this concept, especially as the hon the Minister stated it, is the confusion in regard to the concept of identity. In all honesty I now want to tell the hon the Minister that on the one hand he emphasises the multi cultural nature of our society as well as mother tongue instruction and he uses that as a justification for separate schools. At the same time he speaks of “group cohesiveness” and White schools. But if one wants to be honest one cannot use those two concepts conjointly. One cannot speak in one breath of language, mother tongue and culture as bearing the philosophical responsibility for separate schools and then speak of White and group solidarity in the next.

In that connection the hon member for Cape Town Gardens has a perfectly valid point because if we seriously maintain that the primary consideration is culture, and not colour or race then my hon colleague is perfectly correct in saying that that hon Minister, because he does not represent the English-speaking population and cannot represent them, does not have the right to control education on behalf of the English-speaking part of the population. It is as simple as that.

There it is justification for possibly having separate schools on the basis of cultural and linguistic diversity. In my study of societies throughout the world it has time and again become apparent that when an inherently culturally heterogenous population exists, as in Yugoslavia, Belgium and so on, one finds a particular cultural group insists on having control over education. This is a fact and it would be stupid to deny it.

There are two things which become clearly apparent from this study. Firstly, it is never exclusive. If there is a child from another group who wants to attend a specific school and his parents are prepared to send him to that school with its particular cultural character that child cannot and will not be excluded. As far as I know, the principle of exclusivity does not apply in those societies. Secondly, nowhere in those societies does the matter hinge on race or colour. Culture is the one and only criterion.

The hon the Minister and the NP cannot deny that it is an unfortunate fact that they are indeed using colour and race synonymously with culture here. In other words they use the cultural argument in order to justify their racial and colour-based perceptions. I have frequently issued that challenge to hon members on the opposite side of the House. If we are really talking about culture and language and value systems which have to be passed on from parents and teachers to children, I find no justification on that basis for Coloured education being labelled as such because the Coloureds are not a homogeneous language or cultural group. In fact, I should like to introduce the hon the Minister to friends of mine who are members of the so-called Coloured community who, he will agree, are on the same and perhaps on a higher cultural level than he and I. That exclusion is completely unjustified.

It is a pity that I do not have time to react fully to the hon the Minister’s speech but his quotation from a particular American author on the “melting pot” concept is no justification for the exclusion of people on the basis of colour or race. [Interjections.] It would in fact be in conflict with the American Constitution. It is not possible at an American school to exclude someone based on the fact that he is a member of another colour or racial group, because would be in conflict with the American Constitution. In that regard this quotation by the hon the Minister is completely unjustified. [Interjections.]

I should like to debate some of the philosophic concepts which the hon the Minister expounded, but I am sorry that I unfortunately cannot do so. I have no objection to the concept of schools for a community which is really culturally distinctive and which feels that they must control their own school, but these are not the primary considerations here. If the hon the Minister says that we should not introduce ideological-political considerations I merely want to say that he knows as well as I do that the whole concept of own affairs is of an ideological-political nature and this is especially reflected in the schools.

What about ethnicity? [Interjections.]

There are a few other matters I should like to deal with here in light of the Budget. I took cognizance of the relatively modest increase in the subsidies in respect of recurrent expenditure and in capital grants to universities, viz from R612 million to R744 million and from R7 million to R7,762 million, respectively. I can understand that in accordance with the formula and the State finances one must of course proceed with caution, but I nevertheless want to express my concern about the fact that the amount of R100 000 for bursaries and loans has not been increased. With the inflation rate and escalating accommodation and tuition fees at universities it seems essential to me that the amount which is available for bursaries and awards should be increased.

The low rand-dollar exchange rate has made university books so extremely expensive that special provision will have to be made and I appeal to the hon the Minister to make a special allocation for the expansion of libraries to help universities keep abreast of publications which have appeared elsewhere.

Once again I want to make an appeal for a special allocation—I am not doing it on my own behalf or on behalf of any university— for overseas visits by our own scientists. This cannot be over-emphasised, particularly during this period of sanctions, disinvestment and our exclusion from countries. [Interjections.] I therefore request the hon the Minister to consider making a special additional allocation to universities to enable them to send their lecturers overseas. I have been impressed by the research projects which have been initiated by the universities.

There are two points which I should like to touch upon in the final minute or two, and one is the autonomy of universities. I listened to the hon members of the CP, but our standpoint is very clear and that is that we believe in the autonomy of universities and that the State does not have the right to interfere with that autonomy either directly or indirectly. [Interjections.] Added to this, I believe universities have the responsibility and the duty to maintain the principle which is embodied in university autonomy, namely that of academic freedom. [Interjections.]

A final point I want to mention is that the statistics which were supplied in the reports of the universities pertain to 1985. I want to say at once that it is a pity that we are only now working with 1985 statistics, although I can understand it when I look at the tremendous amount of work contained in the reports. It is not the department’s fault; I see those reports were dated circa September 1986. The hon the Minister will concede that it is difficult to work with statistics which apply only to 1985. In this regard I should merely like to make a final point concerning the question of newcomers who are not admitted … [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, hon members will appreciate that in a long debate like this and with the limited time we all have to contend with—the hon member Prof Olivier has just referred to this—it is impossible for me to reply to all individual questions; it cannot be done. Consequently I shall attempt to summarise and will be able to deal with only some of the questions at this stage; not that I am running away from questions. We shall try to furnish replies later to specific questions which I am not able to answer today. Hon members will understand that, when a specific hon member rattles off 10, 12 or 14 questions one after the other, it is impossible to reply to all of them.

I wish to start with the hon member for Brits, the chief spokesman of the Official Opposition. He began with ethnic education and made certain statements. To reply in brief, I wish to refer the hon member to the speech with which I opened the debate this afternoon. I discussed matters related to this concept then and therefore do not consider it at all necessary to refer to it again in the light of the thoughts the hon member expressed on it.

He spoke about politics in education. Let us make this clear: Naturally this side of the House is not so naive as to think one could have a system of education divorced from the philosophy and view of life of the specific people served by it. Politics in general will obviously leave its mark on education; this is inevitable. What upsets me, however, is that the hon member for Brits, when discussing Christian national education went as far as to say—if I understood him correctly—that party politics would play a role as long as politics lasted. [Interjections.] That is true because the hon member for Brits went on to say that that was the reason why management councils would continue to be on guard—it was their right and responsibility.

The hon member is now involving party politics directly in this issue. He referred to requests I had made in this connection, viz that we should try not to hijack and misuse education for party-political purposes. This applies to all parties—the governing party too. We shall have to bring about change, we shall have to accept that one cannot divorce education—as I have just said—from the broader concept of politics, that is statecraft, the philosophy and view of life, culture, etc. We are in agreement with the hon member on that point.

When he wants to introduce party politics, however, when he cannot extricate himself from certain statements made by the former member for Koedoespoort, from statements he made on behalf of the CP at a congress at a specific stage in which he encouraged parents and CP members to take over control of the management councils …

As if you do not do this.

… then it is precisely the same as the hon member for Brits’s is now saying and I say this a dangerous standpoint. It is not in the interests of education if we do this.

You people do exactly the same.

The hon member’s effort to involve my colleague the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning in the above-mentioned case will not succeed. The hon member himself said there was no mention of the hon the Minister’s recommendations and requests.

I made it very clear in reply to the question here in the House why we were not doing this. The hon member for Brits would not like it either if I were to disclose our personal discussions across the floor of this House. The hon member had better accept that we and I in my personal capacity accept responsibility for the decision; and I accept it on behalf of the Ministers’ Council; and I accept it on behalf of the Government. If the hon member therefore thinks he will play us off against one another, he is making a big mistake. It will be of no avail.

There are some cases to which the hon member referred such as Menlo Park, the admission of students, of those of colour, the financial implications, etc which I shall certainly deal with tomorrow. For certain reasons it would suit me better to discuss these in the speech I shall make tomorrow, so I shall not reply to all his questions today. This also applies to some other members to whom I shall reply tomorrow.

The hon member also objected to my view on contact, the task and responsibility of the school to bring about better human relations, to make contact across the colour bar.

Let us say to each other today … [Interjections.]… of course own education primarily bears the responsibility of providing its own children with education in accordance with its own culture, its own traditions, its own heritage. Very well, but own education means something more. In our multicultural society, which we cannot change, own education also has a specific responsibility and duty to prepare the child for the adult environment in which he will find himself after matric.

Does the hon member agree with me? Surely there is no other way. [Interjections.] The moment we accept this, we must prepare the child to be part of a society in which he will be in daily contact with members of other population groups as well, who are also contributing their energies and labour in the interests of the good and prosperous survival of all in this country. That is why I say the school has a definite responsibility to make contact …

How?

… on various occasions, inter alia those involving sport such as the Menlo Park incident, which we shall discuss in detail. It can be done because all we will be doing then will be to continue at school what is happening in any event at home, before the child even starts school.

When it is a question of whether contact may also be made with specific professional circles in White education by Coloured, Indian or Black education, I have no fault to find with this. There is no reason to prevent teachers from exchanging ideas across the colour bar on a professional level within a specific discipline. Neither would there be anything wrong with children making contact, say between the student council of a White school and that of a school of another population group if the subject were the task and functions of student councils. What is important however …

Weekend camps lead to mixed marriages! [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I did not interrupt that hon member when he was speaking, so he could at least be courteous enough to be quiet while I am speaking. [Interjections.]

The fact of the matter is, as I said earlier, that contact should not be enforced. I shall discuss this concept again when we are dealing with the Menlo Park incident. As regards the content of syllabuses, the hon member for Gezina replied very thoroughly to the standpoint adopted by the hon member for Brits. Once again this is an Aunt Sally which is being set up and knocked down by the CP itself. Its members do it on the pretext that everyone has supposedly decided on the content of syllabuses for White education. Where is that recorded? Who ever alleged that? Who said that? [Interjections.]

One may strive for the equal standards without implying equal content of syllabuses. This has never been the case. We had four separate education departments in the past; no two of those departments’ questions papers were identical. The Transvaal matriculation mathematics paper consisted of questions different from that of the Free State. The standard was laid down and guaranteed by the Joint Matriculation Board but content was not involved. Core syllabuses as such are determined. This rumour that all of a sudden there is supposedly a single body which is a so-called—this is according to hon CP members—mixed body and which supposedly determines the content of all the various syllabuses is simply not correct or true.

But it is a mixed body!

That concludes my reply to the hon member for Brits.

I want to congratulate the hon member for Brentwood on his election as chairman of the study group of his party. For years the hon member was involved with education and I consider him capable of making an exceptional contribution—here too, as he proved this afternoon. He has already dealt with the CP on distorted statements and specific reports.

The hon member warned that confusion could arise on the presentation of subject matter at technical colleges, technikons and universities. The hon member actually requested that there be an integrated partnership—as he put it—between universities, technikons and technical colleges.

I want to tell the hon member that great progress has already been made in discussions on this very matter, especially regarding co-operation between technikons and universities. The question is also being thoroughly examined whether the concept of rationalisation does not necessarily demand that some courses still offered at universities should not be transferred to technikons or vice versa. This matter is receiving close scrutiny in regard to technical colleges as well.

The hon member referred to an “integrated partnership”. Integrated discussions related to this most important matter raised by the hon member certainly take place daily. The hon member for Kimberley North also made a very good contribution on technical colleges. He pointed to the importance of paying attention to such colleges which we endorse. We cannot merely keep on saying that we should have career orientated education; we shall also have to try to realise this in practice and possibly do so at an earlier stage than we are doing at present.

He will definitely also appreciate that this is comprehensive and complicated matter, with many attendant problems. One point is certain, however, as various hon members on this side of the House indicated: We shall definitely have to pay more attention to the channelling of our students and pupils—in a technical direction too—and we shall have to get away from the snobbery that still exists here and there regarding university education, ie that universities are supposedly the only places where a good education may be received. Nevertheless I wish to caution immediately that I do not mean that universities have served their purpose; they still have a very important task to accomplish, especially in the field of research.

The hon member for Durban North, like the hon member Prof Olivier, is opposed to own affairs. This is a difference we have been debating for years across the floor of this House. The hon member for Durban North expressed his fears on centralisation and on Christian national education which is supposedly being enforced in Natal now. This surprises and even somewhat amazes me because that hon member is an experienced teacher; he has had a successful career in education. The hon member knows that there are specific vital facts within education as such which are distinctive to education only. He acquired this knowledge at his school where he made contact with the child itself. What concerns me somewhat—I hope the hon member will pardon me; I am not trying to objectionable—is that in his contribution today the hon member permitted political arguments to gain the upper hand over educational arguments with which that hon member is thoroughly conversant.

Who is discussing that now?

I shall now come back to the hon member Prof Olivier’s arguments. I want to say to the hon member in addition that he need not be concerned that he will be totally deprived of the Natal ethos. The hon member need not worry about that as I have said repeatedly we shall not do that but his comment remains: “Words, words, words!”. What is actually happening? I want to tell him now. We are achieving something in Natal which he thinks we shall never succeed in doing.

I want to tell the hon member regarding the abolition of the post of deputy director that this was cleared with all interested parties. We cleared it with them and the Natal teachers’ associations are aware of our standpoint. Although there was a great fuss for public consumption that this supposedly meant centralisation and domination, that I had insulted the deputy directors and simply taken these posts away from three provinces to enable us to centralise, this is devoid of truth. I want to pursue this matter in greater depth immediately. I wish to say at once that in consequence of added new obligations of the Department of Education and Culture—I have a large department—an inquiry was launched into the functions of the department in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Commission for Administration. In its inquiry the commission found that the need for the posts of chief directors was justified. The Ministers’ Council also accepted this.

At the same time the obligations and activities of people in specific posts in the provinces were also investigated. It came about on this basis that those three posts of chief director were created within the department. The question at issue is therefore not centralisation and that certain provinces have to fear they will be deprived of various rights and privileges. Of course we form one great whole; I am not apologising for that. Of course it is true that Education and Culture will be the only policy-making department. This has been recorded in legislation and we make no apology for it.

The hon member asked me what criteria I had applied in the appointment of chairmen. I am very sorry the hon member for Durban North also raised this because whether he intended it or not—I do not believe it was his intention—he is discrediting the people I have appointed as chairmen. I know this was not his intention. [Interjections.] It is true that the hon member asked me what the criteria were. The hon member then went further by telling me that the person appointed in Natal—I do not have the exact words but they were something along these lines—was an unknown quantity and nobody knew of him. If the hon member for Durban North does not know of him, it does not mean that nobody else knows of him! [Interjections.] Permit me to tell the hon member that that same person appointed in Natal has the approval of many people within education.

The hon member then asked by way of a further interjection: What are the criteria? The criteria are that as the Minister I retain the right to choose the best man according to my judgement for the task he has to perform.

[Interjections.] That task which has to be carried out …

Whether it is good for the province or not … [Interjections.]

I did not shout the hon member down.

You cannot deny the facts. [Interjections.]

The task of that particular provincial education council, even if it is being shot down in flames by some people as supposedly not being an important task because it is an advisory body, is an extremely important one. The hon member would do well to take another look at the Act and regulations concerning provincial education councils. Those provincial education councils are representative of all the various partners and for that reason I also have to have a chairman who to my mind will be well capable of dealing with that difficult situation. I now want to say I have the fullest confidence in all four the chairmen I have appointed. I have no doubt that with the assistance of the other members on that provincial education council they will make a really good contribution.

I also wish to thank the hon member for Gezina sincerely for his good contribution. He made a well-balanced speech on own education and in the process I think he also replied to CP and PFP arguments. He also answered the question of syllabuses to which I want to add something. The hon member requested recognition of the professional status of the teacher and lecturer and that we should proceed with this in accordance with principle 10 of the educational guidelines. We are very pleased to comply and I endorse this.

The hon member for Losberg stated that there would be only voluntary financial contributions for members of other population groups if that party should come to power. I do not wish to turn this into a political debate but the statement has already been conceded that in accordance with the policy of hon members of the Official Opposition a geographic area will develop that will not be inhabited by Whites only; there will be others too. My point is simply this: Financial contributions of all the persons in that geographic area must surely come from everyone; they will certainly all be taxed— definitely not only Whites. If the hon member wants to accept that, he cannot tell me now that the education of other colour groups in that same geographic area will depend solely on voluntary contributions—if the White master is willing. Meanwhile members of the other groups do have to pay, however, because they pay taxes, sales tax, their share of customs and excise and so on. This could obviously not work!

The hon member mentioned Suurbekom. One of my colleagues stated clearly that this matter did not fall under my portfolio. The hon member even attacked the Group Areas Act. All I want to tell him on this matter is that it is not a White group area in the first place but a controlled area—if my memory serves me. That is the first point I want to mention.

In the second place I wish to tell the hon member I am convinced that the reasons for the depopulation of that area cannot be ascribed entirely to the Group Areas Act or its non-application.

That is wishful thinking.

No, it is not wishful thinking; I can assure the hon member of that! Would the hon member be able to persuade all CP members to live in that area? If he has any knowledge of it, the hon member should know there are definitely other problems in that area regarding the availability of water—there are many others. The hon member is well aware of this! Nevertheless the hon member comes to this committee and tries to make political capital out of it by saying it is solely due to the non-application of the Group Areas Act. [Interjections.] I do not wish to pursue this any further as it is not in my field. I merely want to tell the hon member on the subject of the school that we are doing everything in our power to accommodate it as regards the pupils who actually attend it. We shall certainly look after their interests, among the number of pupils there. [Interjections.]

The hon member spoke on tuition fees which I shall discuss tomorrow. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Sunnyside replied most effectively to the hon member for Brits concerning contact with other groups and the hon member has my thanks for this.

The hon member for Kimberley North spoke on more career orientated education—I also referred to this—and especially about technical colleges. The hon member quoted interesting statistics in respect of graduates at this level compared with technically trained people. The hon member is right. I could add some other statistics to this and also stress the importance that we would perhaps have to come into line apropos the outside world concerning the number of people trained academically at university compared with the training of technologists. If my memory serves me, we have three graduates to every one technologist at the moment whereas the reverse holds in the international world so it is important that we attend to this too. I thank the hon member again for his contribution.

He also put the question whether girls should not receive technical training too. At the moment it is true that there actually are girls receiving technical training. The question is probably whether we should not sell this better so that more girls could be trained technically.

Although the hon member for Cape Town Gardens was pleasant during his speech and smiled, he reacted sharply here and there in sympathy with the request of certain schools that they be thrown open to admit those of colour. I accept the hon member’s reaction. The hon member referred to diplomats’ and consuls’ children. We are already aware of these facts. The hon member also referred to “others” and said he wanted to leave it at that. The hon member is free to come to my office with those other particulars he has. He is welcome to discuss them with me if he feels so inclined.

In accordance with our policy, Government schools are primarily there for White children with provision for the children of diplomats and people from various consulates. As regards private schools …

Why do you draw that distinction?

I shall get to that in a moment. The hon member knows what the policy is on private schools.

The hon member asked—I consider this a fair question—why we did this regarding diplomats’ children. There are two reasons, the first of which is that we believe in respect of Government schools it is in the best interests of the children that they attend separate schools. That is the basic philosophy. Not only does it serve the best interests of Whites but also those of Coloureds, Indians and Blacks.

Where diplomats are concerned, we are dealing with diplomatic privileges which apply worldwide. Our diplomats and people serving in consular missions overseas are also free to send their children to schools of their choice. In this way the same courtesy applies from our side that we furnish the same opportunity to children of diplomats and consular staff to attend these schools. The point at issue here is therefore not a matter of running away or force. It is a practice worldwide and we are merely honouring the good convention already in existence.

The hon member added that own education was a political concept. I want to refer the hon member to my reply to the hon member for Brits indicating the link between education and politics. There is a definite link and one cannot deny this but party politics are not involved here. Hon members’ criticism of this side of the House that we are simply operating racist politics is untrue. We do not believe in this for education; it embraces far more than that.

The hon member made an important statement in saying that, if this were true, I as a little chap from the Free State—I am quite proud of any Free State origins, just as the hon member is proud of hailing from the Cape …

Even after Saturday?

Yes, even after Saturday!

The hon member said that as an Afrikaansspeaking person I could not really represent the English. I want to ask the hon member whether this means that, if the PFP came to power one day and there was an English-speaking Minister, that Minister would have his own policy through virtue of his being English-speaking.

He would not be ultraconservative.

So now it will vary from an Afrikaans-speaking Minister to an English-speaking one. That is too foolish for words! Surely this is not the question. The hon member knows this but I want to tell him that as an Afrikaans-speaking person I have given not only the assurance but also proof positive in possible and impossible places regarding the protection of English-speaking persons too.

That is not the point at issue.

Surely we cannot have separate schools in this country for the English-speaking. German-speaking, Italianspeaking and so on except at private schools where we do make such provision.

In the legislation and regulations on private schools it is stated clearly that, where adequate provision is not made at Government schools for cultural and religious differences, a private school may be established. This is done. As regards Government schools, however, there are schools for different population groups.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister whether or not he agrees with the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid who said that unless a “volk”—and he referred to the Afrikaners— could control their own schools it was not satisfactory to protect their language, culture and so on. It is the quote that I used in my speech.

During his speech the hon member asked me to reply to this. I am simply not prepared to do so if I am not aware of the whole context of the speech. I consider it very unfair of the hon member—and he will concede this—to expect this of me. I shall look at the speech and possibly respond to it tomorrow.

Please.

I shall do it with the greatest of pleasure. The hon member had better ensure that he is present in the House and I shall respond to it tomorrow. At this stage I am not prepared to reply to it. I do not claim the hon member’s reference is inaccurate. On the subject of Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking people, I merely want to say that we have two official languages which are recognised in any case. Hon members know that provision is made for education in the mother tongue. There are single-medium but also parallel-medium schools so provision is made for different needs.

I shall reply to further questions tomorrow.

Mr Chairman, in response to the hon the Minister’s reply one must state that apparently the hon the Minister himself does not know how the so-called very vital contact between school children across the colour line takes place. When asked to furnish an example of such contact, he speaks about contact between teachers, but not between children. We want the hon the Minister to spell out precisely what he means by contact between school children and what relevant projects his department envisages. Or will it only, be after this clandestinely-arranged so-called Broederbond leadership camps that parents will be shocked to learn of a racially mixed points of contact between our children? We on this side of the House totally reject contact between various races and peoples at school level, particularly if this needs to be arranged by the department or the school. We definitely require a great deal of clarification from the hon the Minister about this vague policy of contact, at school level, between children across the colour line. Until the hon the Minister has done so, we on this side of the House simply regard this vague statement of his as another step towards integration on the part of the Government.

In the 1985-86 financial year the Department of Education and Culture incurred administrative expenditure to the tune of R32 000 on arrangements for the Huguenot and Diaz festivals planned for 1988. We on this side of the House do indeed give our full support to these two festivals and have no problems with the money the department has spent on them.

As hon members are aware the 150th anniversary of the Great Trek is also being celebrated next year. It is very significant that the Directorate: Cultural Affairs of the department has not, in the 1985-86 financial year, as in the case of the Diaz and Huguenot festivals, started planning, by way of financial assistance, for the arrangement of that festival. Money was only voted for that purpose in the 1986-87 financial year. The department’s insensitivity is undoubtedly merely a reflection of the NP Government’s insensitivity to any historical event that does not accord with the classically liberalist dogma of equality of which hon members opposite have become the prophets. [Interjections.]

The Great Trek of 150 years ago and the symbolic Ox-wagon Trek of 1938 are indeed the events from our people’s past in which the desire for liberty and self-determination amongst the Afrikaner people pre-eminently manifested itself. The firm and unshakeable resolve of our people to be governed in its own fatherland by its own people was ultimately given substance 150 years ago during the Great Trek. Specifically because of the NP Government’s capitulation about our own people governing itself, I do not find the NP’s apparently complete insensitivity to the 150th anniversary of the Great Trek at all strange.

The commemoration of the Great Trek in 1988 embodies far-reaching implications for the NP Government with its ethnically alien policy of power-sharing. Specifically as a result of the Government’s betrayal of the principles of freedom, self-determination and political separation of other groups by its policy of power-sharing, the commemoration of the Great Trek in 1988 has, in our view, become a tremendous embarrassment to the Government. As a result of the Government’s ill-fated policy of power-sharing, today the Afrikaners as a people are divided as never before in our people’s history, not only politically, but also culturally and even from a religious point of view.

In 1988 two festivals will, in fact, be held to commemorate the Great Trek—a festival by the FAK and one by the Afrikanervolkswag. The question is whether the Government is going to give financial support to both these festivals or whether it is only going to support that of the FAK. The department has already paid R430 000 to the FAK’s steering committee, in the full knowledge that there is not only going to be one festival, there being at present a split, at the cultural level, in the ranks of the Afrikaner. We want to know from the hon the Minister what his reaction would be if the Afrikanervolkswag also applied for financial assistance for its festival next year. As the hon the Minister knows, in 1988 it would have been possible to have only one festival if the FAK had not decided to refuse to allow the Afrikanervolkswag to affiliate with the FAK, merely to serve the political interests of the NP Government as a result of the Broederbond ties of both the FAK and the Government. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, may I put a question to the hon member?

Mr Chairman, unfortunately I do not have the time to answer questions. [Interjections.]

What has that hon Minister, who must co-ordinate the cultural affairs of the Whites, done in regard to the problem of two festivals in 1988? Has the Government perhaps decided that the dangers inherent in one festival might be a devastating blow to its policy of power-sharing, since such a festival would probably re-awaken the people’s awareness of its lost freedom and right to self-determination as a result of the Government’s policy of power-sharing in one undivided South Africa? [Interjections.]

The Government’s priorities for South Africa are in no way more clearly focused or emphasised than by the fact that it is spending R430 000 on commemorating the Great Trek, one of the major events in our people’s history, in contrast to more than R4,5 million paid for the production and marketing of an irritating pop song about peace called “Together we build a better future”. [Interjections.] Today I want to tell the hon the Minister across the floor of the House that whatever he does or decides, the Great Trek celebrations in 1988 will re-kindle the Afrikaner people’s awareness of its desire for freedom in its own fatherland, with an own government comprising its own people elected from amongst its own people. [Interjections.] Of necessity that will mean the end of the NP, specifically because the NP is no longer the vehicle for those ideals of self-determination and freedom of the Afrikaner people. That cloak, that responsibility, now rests squarely on the shoulders of the CP. [Interjections.]

Order! We cannot allow this discussion to continue in this vein, with so many interjections. The hon member may continue.

The CP will never shy away from its tireless efforts, day in and day out, to restore the freedom and self-determination of the Whites in our fatherland. There must be no doubt about that. [Interjections.] Not the NP’s puppetnewspapers, the NP-SABC TV, the NP’s Aunt Sallys and much less the brain-washing dogma of equality which the NP itself propagates will ever succeed in …

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

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

I sincerely wish to thank the NP Whip, the hon member Dr Golden. It seems to me he is enjoying the speech! [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member cannot continue with his speech if there is so much noise.

They will never succeed in stifling the desire for freedom on the part of our people. That desire is an unquenchable flame in the hearts of the Afrikaner people. Afrikaner nationalism can periodically be stifled—this has indeed happened in recent years, and the NP, of course, helped it along—but it can never be destroyed. Nor can it be prevented, where necessary, from erupting into acts of patriotism. The NP itself will fall victim to that when it bursts forth in 1988 during the commemoration of the Great Trek. [Interjections.] I should like to continue in greater silence, because it seems to me quite a few hon members have been hurt by what has been said.

Order!

I should like to continue … [Interjections]… by bringing to the hon the Minister’s attention certain problems I have encountered in the schools in my constituency. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member for Schweizer-Reneke must just wait a moment. Matters are really being discussed too loudly in this Committee. We cannot allow that. I now appeal to hon members to speak more softly. The hon member for Schweizer-Reneke may continue. [Interjections.] Order!

I have received several complaints from teachers about the recent salary increase of 12,5%. I should like to give the hon the Minister the statistics of one case. As I have said, there are many such cases in my constituency. This specific teacher’s increase amounts to R346 per month, which on the face of it seems fair. When, however, one ascertains that from this overall increase of R346, R135 is deducted for tax, R28 for pension and R1 in TED fees, money which does not end up in the teacher’s pocket, one realises that the deductions total an amount of R164. One then finds that the real increase was only about 6%, which is far below the inflation rate. I have also repeatedly had complaints from school principals in my constituency of Black staff having received an increase in January 1987, with retrospective effect from October 1986, and then also, with the Whites, having received an increase of 12,5% in July 1987. [Interjections.] That seems to me like discrimination against the White staff in the department, or is it possibly a manifestation of the NP’s policy of the redistribution of wealth?

Cases have also been reported to me of a White staff member renting a house from the Department of Public Works of the Transvaal Provincial Administration, but having to pay for the electricity himself, whilst the Black supervisor at the same school receives free housing and free electricity from the same department. [Interjections.] Is that fair, or is that simply how the NP’s policy of the redistribution of property works—always to the detriment of the Whites? [Interjections.] In the annual report of the Department of Education and Culture, under the heading Chief Directorate: Special Education and Post-school Education, under paragraph 1. 2. 5, Schools for Children with Infantile Autism, it is stated:

The report goes on to state that there are 91 pupils in the relevant schools.

The two schools mentioned in the report are the Vera School for Autistic Children in Cape Town and the Unica School for Autistic Children in Pretoria. I am speaking about these schools today because I have friends living in my constituency who have a small child in the Unica School in Pretoria and because the tragic and traumatic experiences of that family with such an autistic child have had an effect on me. The term “autism” is derived from the Greek word “autos”, which means “I withdraw myself”. In 1943 Prof Leo Kanner, a child psychiatrist from the USA, linked the term to the enigmatic and deviant pattern of behaviour in children. Despite international research, the cause of the syndrome is not yet certain. Cases can be identified, however, and by remedial training the victims can be helped to live a more satisfying and meaningful life.

I have information to indicate that the 91 children receiving this remedial education at present do not constitute 5% of the total number of identified cases of autism and that there is consequently an obvious and tremendous need for an extension to the existing facilities or the establishment of more such schools. The subsidy that these two existing schools receive from the State also appears to be completely insufficient, and I should like to ask the hon the Minister, for the sake of parents who have children suffering from this particular problem, to give in-depth attention to the matter, with a view to providing more funds for these schools.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Schweizer-Reneke will pardon me if I do not react to what he said. I think he tended to conduct the discussion on a cultural level and I should prefer to leave it to my hon colleagues to take that matter further.

This afternoon I should like to exchange a few ideas on the role that education can play in stabilising the rural areas.

Before I get to that, I first want to thank the hon the Minister for the role the department has recently played in ensuring that schools— especially in the rural areas—do not deteriorate any further. He made special concessions there in order to make the teacher/pupil ratio as favourable as possible for us.

Reference is often made to erosion in the rural areas; not soil erosion, but financial erosion and the erosion of the infrastructure and manpower—people who leave the rural areas. Many people say these areas have no future. I am not one of those prophets of doom and I want to refer to the report by the Economic Advisory Council on the reconstruction of agriculture. A clear reference was made there to inflation, interest rates and droughts as being the primary reasons for the deterioration of agriculture. I should like to add the problems in connection with overproduction and the marketing of these products. The expertise of the farmer in the management of his farm makes just as important a contribution to his survival, and that is why I say that within this cadre an even greater burden is placed on the farmer’s managerial ability.

If we take a replacement figure of approximately 2 000 farmers annually that have to replace 60 000 farmers over a period of 30 years, and we consider the training organisations which have to train these farmers, one arrives at figures which are quite astounding. We find—and this does not fall within the area covered by this department—that the agricultural colleges produce 360 diploma students annually, that there are approximately 620 agricultural students at universities who annually complete their training, and approximately 120 at the Pretoria Technikon. At tertiary level that leaves us with a total of 720 people that is if we work with the percentage which has been supplied to us by these organisations. Seven hundred and twenty farmers of the 2 000, who enter agriculture every year actually receive training. Furthermore, one can ask oneself whether that training is able to make a physical contribution to the managerial ability of many of those farmers.

Let us also take a brief look at the influence of agricultural schools. It is quite clear that annually approximately 800 pupils complete their training at those schools. Twenty five per cent of these 800 go directly into agriculture—without any further training. What is important, however, is that 93% of these 800 pupils return to the agricultural industry upon completion of their training. This indicates the importance of career orientated education.

This brings me to my next argument. The De Lange Commission unequivocally recommended that there should be a ratio of 60% career-orientated education as against 40% in terms of academic education. If we really want to make a contribution towards stabilising the rural areas, hon members can firstly consider the role specialised schools are playing in the rural areas. In my own constituency we are particularly privileged to have four of these schools. Three of them are crammed to capacity. In a small community such as Adelaide there are 400 pupils at one of those schools, of whom only 10% come from the town and surrounding area. Ninety per cent of the school’s pupils therefore come from elsewhere. We are therefore lending prestige to that kind of training. As regards the only school which is not yet accommodating its maximum quota of pupils, one is candidly informed that that is as a result of ignorance among the people. They do not know the advantages that career-orientated education offers.

There is a stigma attached to technically and commercially orientated education. The fact that people still think that it will not give them admission to universities is also something which has a negative affect on these schools and that stigma will gradually have to be removed in future.

We want to ask the department to ensure more meaningful co-ordination, particularly of the syllabuses for agricultural schools, agricultural colleges, technikons and technical colleges. We ask for interaction and for the needs in regard to which these bodies can support and complement one another can be spelt out very clearly.

It is important for emphasis to be drifted from training to entrepreneurial training—in other words, that we will really equip the entrepreneur to do his work. We realise that a privatisation campaign is in progress, but the result is that individual guidance is disappearing as far as agriculture is concerned and that group guidance is coming into prominence. For that reason the farmer will simply have to be better equipped in regard to agricultural planning, for if we have a course on landscape architecture, surely something similar can be offered in respect of agriculture. Financial management and manpower management must also form a component of the syllabuses of each of these institutions to which we have referred.

In concluding I should like to refer to the role which can be played in this regard by existing facilities in the rural areas which at this stage are underutilised or unutilised. They can be used for agricultural training and perhaps for commercial training in particular. In this regard two teacher’s training especially come to mind which are not being fully utilised, although they are being used for continuation classes. Courses in agriculture can be offered at those colleges—most probably in cooperation with technikons—which would then give those colleges a new lease of life and exert an influence as concerns on the survival of those colleges and the prosperity of that town as a whole.

In this regard we are also thinking specifically of the computer courses or commercial courses which can be given. Let us mention the example of the Mosgas project. Can the Oudtshoorn Teacher’s Training College not make a contribution in terms of the provision of manpower, or perhaps I should say peoplepower—people who have been properly trained to perform functions in those areas?

Finally, I think that non-formal training can be very successfully offered at these bodies and at technical colleges as a form of in-service training for the farmer who is already on the farm. We therefore make an appeal for those institutions to be used for that purpose. In that way the rural areas will have a brighter future and education will not only be able to provide the infrastructure also be trained people to manage the rural areas.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Cradock talked about a number of interesting things concerning the needs of the farming community in relation to education, but I am sure he will understand if I do not follow him on that subject. I want to address the hon the Minister on the question of the Rhenish Primary School and matters relating to the incident in which it was involved.

The Rhenish Primary School Committee was approached and asked whether two daughters of a Malawian who was going to study at Stellenbosch University—he is a theologian who was going to study for a doctorate— could be admitted to that school. The school committee was happy to accept those girls and accordingly made application to the hon the Minister. Not surprisingly, these Malawian children could not speak Afrikaans. Yet, the hon the Minister’s department declined to let them attend Rhenish Primary School. They cannot speak Afrikaans, and despite the Government’s criteria of language, culture and values, these children ended up at an Afrikaans-medium Coloured school as opposed to any White or Black school.

There is something I should now like to ask the hon the Minister. He knows—he explained earlier about diplomatic privilege and freedom of choice—that if these had been the children of a diplomat, there would have been no problem and they could have gone to that school.

Surely there is no question of “oorstroming” in terms of maintaining “White” culture. Given the language of the children, the alternatives available to them, the limited duration of their stay and the fact that there were not hundreds like them who could cause a problem, why on earth could his department not accede to the request? Why should some other department, such as the Coloured school department—although I am sure that they welcomed the children—be the one required to take the children? I think that is disgraceful.

Hear, hear!

The second point I wish to refer to, is the role of the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning in this matter. It is very interesting. During this week I received a reply from the hon the Minister of Education and Culture. He had received representations from three persons or bodies. The school committee asked him to admit those children. The hon member for Wynberg at that time, Mr Myburgh, asked him to admit them. Mr Myburgh had connections with the school in question through his children. The hon the Minister also received representations from the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. The hon the Minister of Education and Culture declined to say what the nature of those representations were on the grounds that one does not disclose requests by members of Parliament. Well, clearly the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning is far more than just a member of Parliament and therefore, I think that it is really evading the issue. Moreover, the hon the Minister knew that the hon member for Wynberg at that time would not have minded if his views had been made known. He was quite willing to tell us that he had requested that the children be allowed to attend the school. There was therefore no consistency.

I think one can make a very clear inference from this. Clearly the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning was in favour of the admittance of the children to the school.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No 19.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.