I move—

With the passing of Act No. 51 of 1966 the new Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg was established. This Act constituted the council of the University and the council held its first meeting on 7th December, 1966, at which meeting the necessary resolutions were adopted and appointments were made for establishing the organization and administration of the university early in 1967. The first students were enrolled at the beginning of 1968 at which time tuition in first-year courses and in certain post-graduate courses commenced. At the beginning of April this year, the number of students enrolled at the University for the second academic year had already reached a total of 1,104 students. As a result of the experience gained in the past two years in respect of the administration of the University and particularly of the functioning of the council and the senate, it has become necessary to make a number of amendments to the Rand Afrikaans University Act. The hon. the Minister of National Education consented to the submission of these amendments to Parliament by means of a Private Bill, and in fact approved of the proposed amendments contained in this Bill.

The first group of amendments concerns the constitution of the council of the University as the body in which the managerial and executive powers of the University are vested. The University requests the State President to appoint six instead of four persons as members of the council, and the senate of the University to designate three instead of two representatives to the council. In addition provision is now being made in section 9 (1) (b) for municipalities which do not already have representation on the Council of the University to participate in the election of representatives of donors who qualify as donors in terms of the provisions of the statute. This amendment is sought at the unanimous request of the University council itself.

As regards the constitution of the senate of the University, this Bill seeks to amend section 10 (3) so as to ensure continuous membership for the chief administrative officer and the chief librarian of the University instead of membership for a period of three years only. In addition provision is being made for the functions of the senate to include the organization of the tuition and research of the University as well. At the moment section 10 (5) refers only to the organization and control of the curricula and examinations of the University as functions of the senate.

The appointment of academic staff always is a very important matter at any university. At present the Act provides in section 13 that the professors, lecturers and other teachers at the University shall be appointed by the council after consultation with the senate. The University now requests this section to be amended so as to provide that appointments shall be made by the council after consultation with the executive committee of the senate. This amendment flows from a unanimous request of both the senate and the council. The consideration which applies in this case is that the senate is a reasonably large body which cannot effectively have consultations with regard to and decide on recommendations concerning the appointment of teaching staff. The proposed amendment is similar to a provision to be found in the University of South Africa Act. This amendment will have the effect that the executive committee of the senate will submit its recommendations in respect of the appointment of academic staff directly to the council without the mediation of the full senate.

It is also deemed unnecessary for the council to concern itself with the admission of a graduate of any other university to a status at the University equivalent to that which he possesses at such other university. Consequently an amendment to section 16 is being proposed so as to allow of the senate disposing of the admission of a graduate of any other university to such status.

The present section 19 makes provision for degrees honoris causa to be conferred by the council on the recommendation of the senate. It is deemed impracticable for this matter to have to be debated at a full meeting of the senate and of the council. The University is of the opinion that a more effective procedure would be for recommendations in connection with degrees honoris causa to be fully considered and finalized on a confidential basis by a joint committee of the council and the senate and for the recommendations of that committee to be submitted directly to the council for a final decision. With this in view it is being proposed to amend section 19 so as to allow of the council conferring degrees honoris causa subject to the provisions of the statute. It is the intention to lay down and define in the statute the constitution of a joint committee of the council and the senate appointed for making recommendations in this regard as well as the procedure to be followed and the requirements to be met.

The University is of the opinion that all aforementioned amendments will lead to the more effective functioning of the senate as well as the council without detracting from the real authority and position in the University of any one of these two bodies.

In terms of section 17 of the Act, all examinations which serve as a final test of a student’s knowledge of any subject or course shall be conducted by an internal examiner as well as by an external examiner who is a professor or lecturer of any other university. This wide definition of a final test will in practice necessitate the bringing in of external examiners from outside the university as far as virtually all examinations in all subjects are concerned in view of the fact that practically every examination in the subject or course concerned is a final test for at least certain students. The matter is further complicated in that the system of semesters of the Rand Afrikaans University gives rise to final examinations in numerous subjects being conducted at the end of the first as well as the second semester. The proposed amendment to section 17 will bring the position which will obtain at the Rand Afrikaans University into line with that at present obtaining at the University of Port Elizabeth as a result of an amendment to its Act. This proposed amendment will have the effect that external examiners will be required only in respect of any examination conducted at the end of the final semester in a major subject leading to a degree or a diploma. The external examination at the final semester examinations in the final year of the major subject, will ensure adequately that the examinations and standards of the university will be maintained at a proper level. After all, a student would not be able to pass the examination concerned if the demands made on him at previous semester examinations had not been up to standard.

Further minor amendments are being proposed to section 8 in order to obviate the necessity of prescribing the powers and functions of the chief administrative officer and chief officers of the university by statute. In view of the fact that the duties and functions of these officers have to be changed from time to time according to circumstances, the stipulation of such duties and functions in the statute of the University will be detrimental to having the desired degree of flexibility. The opinion is that it will be adequate for the university council to define from time to time the procedure to be followed in appointing these chief officers, as well as their terms of office and their functions.

Finally, an amendment is being proposed to the name of the Faculty of Commerce and Administration so as to give this faculty the more modern and correct name of Faculty of Economics and Management.

With the kind permission of the hon. member for Kensington, I merely rise to give this House the assurance that these amendments were submitted to me by the Rand Afrikaans University in September last year; that the amendments are properly motivated, that the amendments have been properly checked and that the Government wants to associate itself with the Bill and wants to give this House the assurance that the Government law advisers have found all the proposed amendments to be in order, i.e. the appointment of six instead of four members by the State President; matters relating to the administration of the University, as proposed here by the hon. member for Benoni; the constitution of the council; the functions of the senate; the appointment of teaching staff; the names of faculties; the matter of conferring degrees honoris causa; the matter of conducting examinations and other tests, and matters related there.

We on this side of the House will naturally support this Bill. We have always supported any movement to establish the autonomy of universities, and this is one of those. I think I should congratulate the hon. member for Benoni on the fact that the honour has fallen to him to introduce this first amending Bill for the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit. We know that that university will be a great success because it is a Johannesburg institution and that itself ensures its success. Sir, I think we should be grateful to the Government and especially the hon. the Minister for having made it possible for amending Bills to our universities’ legislation to be introduced in this manner. This procedure is, of course, a great improvement on the procedure that we had here some years ago. I do not think there is any special feature of this Bill that really requires discussion. When a university is established it is quite natural that the council and the promoters of the university are anxious to have everything established in the law, in the statute of the university, and subsequently, in the light of experience, they find that it is better to leave a good deal over to amendment under the statutes of the university and by resolution of the council. We shall support that and it is a matter for congratulation to the hon. member for Benoni. On this occasion I should also like to congratulate the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit for having had their first graduation ceremony last Saturday. We wish them success for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, I am moving the Second Reading of this Bill on behalf of the University of Port Elizabeth, of which it has been my privilege to be a member since its establishment. This amending Bill now before this House, makes provision for nine amendments to the existing legislation of the University of Port Elizabeth. These amendments, however, are being effected with the support and the approval of the hon. the Minister of National Education and his Department.

I should like to deal in brief with the proposed amendments. First of all there are a few improved definitions for eliminating any uncertainty from a legal point of view. For this reason a new definition, i.e. a definition of “teacher”, is being inserted into the list of definitions and the word “professor” is being defined more clearly. In the second place a more suitable constitution of the convocation is being envisaged; henceforth, in addition to graduates and members of the senate of the university, also teachers permanently appointed to posts on the establishment of the university as well as the Registrar will be members of the convocation.

In the third place the establishment of a full-fledged Faculty of Law is being envisaged. In terms of the existing Act it fell under the Faculty of Arts. In this connection I may mention that there has been a fine increase in the number of law students at the University of Port Elizabeth, and that the Baccalaureus Juris degree in particular meets with the approval of the members of the Department of Justice studying law at the University of Port Elizabeth.

In the fourth place the examination procedure in respect of final examinations is being amended by giving the senate the choice to appoint the compulsory additional examiner in respect of the subject on which an examination is being conducted, either from the teachers of that university who were not connected with that examination or from qualified persons outside the university.

In the fifth place the constitution of the council of the university is being amended in terms of clause 3, and these amendments amount to the following: In the first place, in terms of the existing Act of the University the convocation, if it had 100 members, was entitled to elect one person to the council of the university and two persons once the number of members of the convocation had reached the figure of 500. Now, in terms of this amending Bill, it is being envisaged to give the convocation the right to elect two members to the council of the university at this stage and an additional member once the number of the members of the convocation has increased to 1,000. In the second place clause 3 is making provision for municipalities in the Eastern Cape, which qualify as donors in terms of the provisions of the statute of the university, to participate in the election by the donors of two members to the council of the university. Previously divisional councils did in fact have this right to vote with the donors, but municipalities were excluded from doing so. The council of the university feels that the municipalities of the Eastern Cape also ought to be able to exercise this right. In the third place, Sir, this clause seeks to grant divisional councils in the Eastern Cape the right of jointly electing one member to the council of the university. The municipalities already have this right to a greater extent. In the fourth place provision is being made for the election of a vice-chairman of the council who shall preside at meetings in the absence of the chairman. This is a very useful provision and the usual procedure which is followed at all institutions and the council merely wants this position to be confirmed.

Finally, this amending Bill seeks to abolish the representation of Rhodes University and the University of Stellenbosch on the senate and the council of the university. Although the University of Port Elizabeth will always think back with a great deal of appreciation to the very important work which representatives of Rhodes University and the University of Stellenbosch did on behalf of the University of Port Elizabeth in the years of its formation, and although I want to avail myself of this opportunity to express the gratitude and the appreciation of the university to all those professors who assisted the University of Port Elizabeth by word and deed to become firmly established, I nevertheless want to mention by name two persons who rendered exceptional services to the university in its initial years. I am referring to Professor Rennie of Rhodes University and Professor Yeats of the University of Stellenbosch. In the annals of the University of Port Elizabeth reference will always be made with pride to the share these two learned gentlemen bad in the establishment of this university. I should like to suggest in all modesty that the University of Port Elizabeth has now reached maturity and deserves to be given its final autonomy. i.e. its academic and administrative independence, in terms of this legislation. Consequently provision is clearly being made for this in clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill now before this hon. House. In order to qualify this statement properly, I am obliged to refer in brief to a few aspects of the University of Port Elizabeth.

In the first place I want to refer to the number of students. In 1965 the University of Port Elizabeth started with an enrollment of 326 students, including 50 post-graduate students. On 1st June. 1966. the enrollment was 580 students, of whom 113 were post-graduate students. On 1st June, 1967, the enrollment was 770 students and 118 post-graduate students. The rate of growth was maintained and on 1st June, 1968, the enrollment was 852 students, including 133 post-graduate students. At present there are 952 students at the university.

In the second place I want to refer to the achievements of students. After the recent graduation ceremony altogether 249 degrees and 82 diplomas had already been awarded. Thirdly—achievements of teachers: As regards achievements of teachers, 21 of the present teachers obtained additional degrees during the past year, of which five were doctor’s degrees.

In the fourth place, as far as academic administration is concerned, I just want to refer to the faculties. At present there are four faculties, i.e. a Faculty of Arts, a Faculty of Science, a Faculty of Education and a Faculty of Economic Sciences, whereas a Faculty of Law is being envisaged by this legislation.

Now I want to refer to the study boards. Study boards are faculty committees which are geared for providing the faculty council with expert advice in respect of certain groups of related study directions having common interests. So for example, the Faculty of Arts has seven study boards, the Faculty of Science four, the Faculty of Education two and the Faculty of Economic Sciences one. In addition there are 34 subject committees which in turn are grouped under the various study boards, whereas the number of subjects in which tuition is being given comes to 82 at present.

In order to illustrate further my statement that the University of Port Elizabeth at present rightfully qualifies for the academic and administrative autonomy it is being granted in terms of clause 3 (b) and 4 (a) of the legislation before this hon. House, I want to refer hon. members in brief to two other aspects as well. Firstly: The present campus. The total purchase price of buildings on the present campus amounts to R1,400,000. The area of the complex comprises six acres. Secondly The new campus; the new campus measures 2.000 acres in extent. The campus plans, based on large extensions to the university and on planning for the distant future, were completed fairly recently and were approved by the council of the university. Those plans are aimed at establishing a unique university system. Unique not only in the Republic, but also in the world, in that that system is based on the so-called universette system. The universette system gives structure to the planning as a whole and at the same time eliminates a number of shortcomings with which universities have to put up at present. For example, supervision and control will be restricted at any stage, irrespective of how large the university may become, to only 5,000 students per university. Even if the university were to grow into a very large one, expensive scientific facilities, required particularly for third year and post-graduate students. need not be duplicated unnecessarily. There will never be any possibility of a concrete jungle arising because the planning is of such a nature that it is able to meet the space requirements of the university in the future. But in spite of the fact that planning is based on the idea of universettes, and that this will facilitate the delegation of supervision and control, this will not destroy the intimacy between student and teacher. Even if the university were to develop into a very large one, this system would ensure the maintenance of contact between student and teacher in the course of study, in the interests of the preservation of manpower. The intention is to start the construction of the first phase of development in August this year. The total cost of this phase will be R13 million, and it will be completed by the end of 1972 and will be able to meet the requirements up to 1985.

On the occasion of the academic and administrative coming of age of the University of Port Elizabeth, which is being envisaged in this legislation, I want to convey, on behalf of the University of Port Elizabeth, our gratitude to the Government for the best of cooperation we have always had from it through the hon. the Minister of National Education, Senator J. J. de Klerk, and his Department, as well as for its major contribution in assisting this university to pass through its infancy. In conclusion I extend herewith our special, express and sincere gratitude and appreciation to our esteemed chancellor, the hon. Minister B. J. Schoeman, who, as the head of this university, has always set us the finest and best of examples and on whose guidance we shall always be able to build with so much pride.

As far as this Bill is concerned, I should like to make the same statement as I have just made in connection with the Bill on the Rand Afrikaans University, which this House has just passed. To that I want to add that the coming of age of the University of Port Elizabeth in all respects, as is being envisaged in this Bill, is an important event, and I should like to convey congratulations to the university on my own behalf and on behalf of my Department. The request to be released from the guardianship of the Universities of Stellenbosch and Rhodes did not come from the University of Port Elizabeth. The University of Port Elizabeth did, however, express the opinion that the university was able to act independently at this stage. Thereupon I personally wrote to the University of Stellenbosch and to Rhodes University asking them to give me the assurance that it was no longer necessary for them to serve on the senate of that university for the purposes for which they had been granted membership originally. Both universities gave me the assurance that the standard of the work at that university was of such a nature and that degrees obtained at that university were deserving of such recognition locally as well as abroad, that they would be able to withdraw their guardianship hence forth. It is for this reason that the Universities of Stellenbosch and Rhodes will not serve on the senate of the University of Port Elizabeth henceforth. Of course, the system of external examiners at this university will be the same as at all other universities in order to ensure the maintenance of standards on the highest possible level.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome this young institution to the ranks of other universities as a full-fledged university.

Mr. Speaker, what I said in regard to the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit applies equally well to the University of Port Elizabeth. We appreciate that the assistance of the University of Stellenbosch and of the University of Rhodes was necessary in the beginning to ensure the smooth functioning of this university. However, this university now feels strong enough to proceed on its own, and we wish it every success. I should also like to congratulate the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) that the honour to introduce this Bill came his way. There are two minor features of this Bill to which I should like to refer specifically. The first one is the amendment I find in clause 1 (d). To my mind this amendment is a very fine amendment, one that I support wholeheartedly. This amendment is for the insertion of a new definition, i.e. the definition of “teacher” and reads—

This definition has a very wide range and I support it wholeheartedly.

The second provision of this Bill, for which I should also like to congratulate the university, is the provision for a convocation, referred to in clauses 3 and 5. This, I think, is a very wise provision. But what is rather strange to me is that when we were considering other university Bills a couple of weeks ago and when we urged, especially when considering the constitution of the University of the Western Cape, that provision should be made for a convocation the hon. member for Algoa, who I understand …

Order! But that is not under discussion now.

Mr. Speaker, what I wanted to say was that I believe the hon. member for Algoa is a member of the council of the University of Port Elizabeth. I should like to refer to what his view is of convocations generally. This is how he expressed it—

Mr. Speaker, you will observe that I am on the side of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central). I congratulate him wholeheartedly, only it is a pity that he had not spoken up earlier, when we were discussing the university Bills for non-Whites.

However, Mr. Speaker, we support this Bill wholeheartedly.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the council of the University of Port Elizabeth, I want to thank the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Kensington very sincerely for the congratulations they expressed. We appreciate that, because we know that those congratulations came from the hearts of two illustrious educationalists. The hon. member for Kensington poked some fun at my views of a convocation. I still hold that point of view. I am a member of the convocation. I know that people are really interested only when an election is held. This is so. Often only members of the staff of the university show up for a formal meeting of the convocation. Apart from that it does not function. A convocation is a tradition. I do not know why the hon. member wants us to abolish it when we have a convocation. I am of the opinion, however, that the universities which do not have convocations, need not go to a great deal of trouble to acquire convocations.

As a member of the council and of the senate of the University of Port Elizabeth from its establishment, it is a very great honour and privilege to me to associate myself wholeheartedly with this Bill and to give it my support. To hon. members of this House it may be a matter of mere formality, but to us who have been concerned in the establishment, the development and the extension of this University, it is a matter of really great importance. As the hon. the Minister also told us, the passing of this Bill will mean that this University will be gaining real academic independence and full autonomy. This is of the utmost importance to us. I believe that this University, conscious of the responsibility which this entails, will now also take up its position in a dignified manner in the ranks of the noble universities of the Republic of South Africa.

With the establishment of this University in 1964 it was provided in the Act that one representative of Rhodes University and one of the University of Stellenbosch would serve on the council of the University. In addition it was provided that the number of professors from these universities who would serve on the senate would be equal to the number of professors on the establishment of the University itself. The object of this provision was, of course, to ensure that the contents of the syllabi and the standards of examinations of this young University would be of the required standard. The provision that the Universities of Rhodes and Stellenbosch should each have a certain number of professors on our senate has a very interesting history, which I should like to give in brief. Hon. members probably are not aware of the fact that this University of Port Elizabeth is the first University in South Africa which was established as a full-fledged university. Other universities first had to function as university colleges for some time prior to becoming full-fledged universities. This was the original plan as regards this University as well. It was to become a university college under the academic guardianship of the University of South Africa. That, however, would create problems. Whereas it was acceptable to the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population, it was not acceptable to the English-speaking section. Many of them were of the opinion that the establishment of such a university college at that time would be detrimental to Rhodes University. A municipal election was held. The town councillors who were in favour of a university college were defeated. A great deal of emotion was aroused. There was the threat of a deadlock being reached which might have been completely destructive of our idea of establishing a university.

The English-speaking group then came forward with a compromise, i.e. they would support the university college if Rhodes University were to become its guardian and not the University of South Africa. That, in turn, was not acceptable to us. After lengthy negotiations the hon. the Minister suggested a brilliant solution which was acceptable to both parties. He decided that he would give Port Elizabeth a full-fledged university; not a university college, but a full-fledged university under the academic supervision of the two mother universities, i.e. Rhodes University and the University of Stellenbosch. This is how we obtained the services of these people who played a very useful role during the past five years, the formative years of the university. Sometimes they held meetings which lasted deep into the night; they did really hard work with a great deal of dedication. All the honour is theirs, and to-day we can bid them farewell with a feeling of sincere gratitude and appreciation. I want to conclude by expressing appreciation also to the hon. the Prime Minister who actually was the father of this University because of the vision and insight he displayed here in 1960 when he said, when Rhodes University was being extended to Port Elizabeth, that that should not be used as an excuse when Port Elizabeth had to get its own university one day. By that statement he actually opened the door to us so that we could in fact get our own university. I also want to say that the guidance, the assistance and the wise counsel of the hon. the Minister of National Education will probably be written in gilded letters in the annals of this University.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, you will probably agree with me, and not take it amiss of me either if on this occasion I make mention of the fact that a great moment in the establishment and development of education and training has arrived in the history of the Republic. In 1967 it was my privilege to take the lead in giving shape to a new approach to our education policy by launching three Acts through Parliament, i.e. the Education Policy Act, the Educational Services Act and the Advanced Technical Education Act. To-day the moment has arrived for submitting to this House, for its consideration, a Bill seeking to provide the missing link, i.e. teachers’ training, as a measure to amend the national education policy. I take pleasure in outlining in brief the course of events over the years as well as the attempts that have been made in order to bring us where we are to-day. In 1962, when I made my debut as Minister of Education in a debate, a Bill relating to the National Education Council was introduced. In the course of the debate before the Second Reading of that Bill, I described that measure as the long-awaited, positive step for ensuring the coordination of education and a national education policy for Whites in the Republic, and I pointed out at the time that over the past 40 years it had been argued at conferences, by commissions of inquiry and by all manner of other organizations that greater co-ordination of education had to be effected on a national basis. At the time the historical background was outlined very briefly. I do not want to repeat it here. The ball was set rolling by means of a conference on technical and industrial education held in 1911, and this was followed by the report of the Jagger Commission of 1916, the report of the Hofmeyr Commission of 1924, the motion of the Education Conference of 1928 in Pretoria, the report of the Provincial Financial Commission of 1932, the findings of the Roos Commission of 1934 which led to a provincial Consultative Committee in 1935, the report of the Nicol Commission in 1939, the deliberations of the Wilkes Commission of 1946, the recommendations of the De Villiers Commission in 1948 as well as the plea of the Inter-denominational Committee in 1954 and 1955. I emphasized at the time that it was not advisable to define the functions of the Education Council too sharply and too definitely, because practical experience itself would gradually show what problems would require the attention of the Council from time to time, and I also referred to the position in the United Kingdom where the Education Council determined its own terms of reference provided that they fell within the limits of the general powers, as prescribed by the relevant Act, i.e. to advise the Minister on matters in regard to the theory and practice of education in England and Wales and also on such problems as were referred to the Education Council by the responsible Minister. The function of our proposed National Education Council was to advise the Minister in a general manner on the policy which ought to be implemented in regard to education. In addition this Council was to do its best to maintain and promote the prestige of the teaching profession and those practising it. As an ex-teacher I merely said at that stage that it was high time the teaching profession acquired the necessary prestige, but I added that this was only an introductory remark because the matter was a subject in itself which included the diversity of the training and the certification of teachers at universities, training colleges and technical colleges. I also remarked that to effect this would require lengthy and great wisdom and discretion. I went on to say that we were establishing a council which would for many years have to work hard merely to scratch the surface and by doing so to make some contribution to the South African nation. That Council was established when the National Advisory Education Act, 1962, came into operation on 28th December, 1962. In August, 1965, the Council submitted to me a memorandum of principles which had to be incorporated in a National Education Policy Bill. That Bill was introduced in February, 1967, on which occasion I sketched, in a rather detailed manner, the background which led to that important measure and which, in that process, also highlighted the importance of education and the teacher.

The great value of such a national policy is that it enables us to develop a nationally acceptable system of differentiated education which makes it possible for our children to derive the maximum benefit from good education and training, in that every individual may then be presented with a challenge in the form of a programme in which his personal aptitude, ability and interests have been taken into account in a scientific manner. I pointed out, in the first place, that more than three-quarters of our teachers were being trained at colleges where the salaries of lecturers compared poorly with those of university lecturers who did the same work, and, in the second place, that we were still providing the vast majority of our teachers with only three years’ post-matric training whereas the present-day demands on the profession have increased a great deal, and that we were providing our veterinary surgeons with four or five years’ training. At the time I expressed my sincere regret at the fact that in regard to the training of teachers an agreed, satisfactory solution could not be found. At the same time I expressed the hope, and not only the hope, but also the expectation that we would before long introduce amending legislation relating to the training of teachers. The National Education Policy Act, 1967, came into operation on 1st January, 1968, when the National Advisory Education Council was established by section 4, but on 27th October, 1967, its predecessor had already accepted a Bill relating to the training of teachers to be submitted to me in the form of advice in pursuance of a request I made at its first meeting on 29th March, 1963.

This Bill, which would grant the Minister certain powers in respect of the training of white persons as teachers—as well as a policy in that regard—and which made provision for the establishment by universities of institutes for their training, was introduced here and read for the first time on 23rd April, 1968, but was withdrawn the next day and the subject of that Bill was referred for inquiry and report to a select committee, which found that it would be unable to complete its inquiry before the prorogation of Parliament. In this respect I want to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the National Advisory Education Council for their earnestness, circumspection and the consultation they had with all interested persons and organizations in order to submit a Bill which would offer a possible solution for greater co-ordination in regard to the training of teachers.

The spade-work done and the initial steps taken by the National Advisory Education Council will be known in the history of education in the Republic of South Africa as the point of departure from which further foundations could be laid so as to bring us where we are to-day. On 28th June, 1968, a commission of inquiry into the Training of White Persons as Teachers was appointed by the State President, with Dr. J. S. Gericke as chairman, for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on this matter. Furthermore, the terms of reference of that Commission was to make recommendations on an acceptable and practicable policy and system for the training of white persons as teachees in order to regulate by legislation the training of teachers in such a manner that—

1. (a) teacher training be co-ordinated and elaborated on a nation-wide basis;
2. (b) new circumstances and requirements be complied with and teacher training be kept abreast of modern trends of thought and practices in order to make provision for the qualitative and quantitative requirements in respect of teaching staff;
3. (c) the prestige of those in the teaching profession be maintained and promoted; and
4. (d) the adverse results of overlapping be eliminated.

As hon. members already know, the Commission’s most important recommendations were, firstly, the establishment of a professional council for the training of teachers; secondly, the possible establishment by administrators of provincial advisory committees; thirdly, the training of teachers for secondary schools to take place mainly at universities (maintaining liaison with other training institutions in the same region); fourthly, the establishment of a joint advisory committee for such liaison in every region, and finally, minimum periods for training. The Commission embodied its proposals in a Bill.

The report of the Commission was tabled quite some time ago, and I suppose that hon. members are already familiar with its contents. The Government has accepted the recommendations of the Commission in principle, without any reservations. The obvious way to give effect to the Commission’s recommendations and to adapt the provisions of the National Education Policy Act, 1967, to those recommendations, was to amend the latter Act suitably and to embody the recommendations in it. That has been done, with the necessary adjustments here and there, in the measure which is before the House at the moment. At this stage it is probably fitting to express gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Gericke and his Commission members for the very thorough report they caused to be published. It was a State President commission which, in record time, had to process and coordinate a large quantity of written and oral evidence, had to take decisions and ultimately formulate a culminating point of advice. I am aware of the fact that this Commission did not consider itself bound to fixed daily hours of meeting and adjourning, but acquitted itself of its task with great speed and thoroughness, and came up to all the expectations contained in its terms of reference.

The Commission’s point of departure, as emphasized throughout in its report, was to grant recognition to the traditional methods of teachers’ training but nevertheless to propose, in a courageous and convincing manner, a new phase for the training of teachers. It chose not to propose changes which were too revolutionary, but rather to follow an evolutionary course. Furthermore, this Commission saw ta it that new creations linked up with the existing practice and, above all, that the teaching profession be developed so as to fulfil its calling and task of being the educator of the child and be granted its rightful recognition as such by the parents as well as the community. I am convinced that in the annals of the history of education and training this report will, therefore, take its rightful place and be known as the point of departure towards the ideal state of affairs for the future.

Now I want to deal briefly with the provisions of this Bill. The important points will be evident from these provisions, and I also want to state my views on this Bill in a frank manner.

The National Advisory Education Council is being abolished and a new body is being established in terms of clause 5, i.e. the National Education Council which will, on the one hand, continue to cany out the functions of the existing National Advisory Education Council in regard to the policy in respect of education in schools, and will, on the other hand, be vested with the powers of the Commission’s proposed professional council for teachers. The National Education Policy Act, 1967, already contains a number of definitions, and consequently clause 1 of the Bill only provides what is to be understood by “college”, “committee”, “committee of university principals”, “teachers’ training”, “student” and “university”, with improvements to three expressions which have become dated.

In a joint memorandum on this Bill, as well as in individual letters addressed to me subsequently, the Administrators requested that the further instruction and training of teachers should not be restricted in the definition of the word “teachers’ training”. Consequently it is my intention to introduce at the Committee Stage an amendment in terms of which such training may be provided at those institutions of which the committee approves in terms of paragraph (b) of the definition. In terms of clause 2 provision is being made for two new sections in the principal Act, firstly, in regard to the training of Whites as teachers for secondary, primary and pre-primary schools, and, secondly, the determination of policy in respect of such training.

Unless the Minister grants permission, the training of white persons as teachers for secondary schools may in terms of section 1A be provided at universities only. Such permission may be granted, on certain conditions and for a specific period, for training at a college maintained or subsidized by the Department, i.e. a college for advanced technical education where the Department trains its teachers, and, on the advice of the council, also at a provincial training college. Training for primary and pre-primary schools shall be provided at a college or at a university—that is the status quo—but as from a fixed date such training shall be provided, as recommended by the commission of inquiry, at a college and a university in close co-operation with each other. In terms of section 84 (1) of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961, a provincial council may, subject to the provisions of that Act and the Financial Relations Consolidation and Amendment Act, 1945, make ordinances relating to education—and now it is being stated very clearly—except higher education and education for certain non-Whites.

The definition of the expression “higher education” in section 17 of the latter Act, includes full-time education of a standard which is higher than the standard ordinarily required for an examination for the tenth standard; these are the words used in the Act. The said provisions are not affected in this Bill; the proposed section only relates to the training of certain persons as teachers for certain schools and does not affect directly the power of a provincial council to make an ordinance relating to education. I am furnishing this explanation because the Commission raised this problem in paras. 64 and 72 (b) of its report. By virtue of the fact that in terms of the said section 17 teachers’ training had been declared, as from 1st January, 1968, “to be higher education and that the training of teachers by the provinces would consequently be illegal”, which the Commission could not simply accept at its face value, it considered the possibility of handing over all teachers’ training to the universities. However, as hon. members know the Commission rejected that course of action, whilst for the rest it had regard to the fact “that teacher training is higher education”. The Commission found it easy to extricate itself from that dilemma, i.e. by means of the legislation which is before the House at the moment.

A second insertion is section 1B, which grants the Minister the power to determine policy in respect of the training of teachers. This takes place after consultation with the Administrators—after each Administrator has in turn consulted with a joint committee for every region—as well as the Committee of University Principals and the Council, subsequent to which that policy is determined, inter alia—

1. (i) in order that co-ordination of training may be effected;
2. (ii) in order that a teacher may be equipped to give effect to the policy determined by the Minister, within the framework of certain principles, in respect of education in schools;
3. (iii) in order that there may be equal treatment in respect of financial assistance offered on behalf of the State for such training;
4. (iv) in order that the demand for teachers may be met;
5. (v) in order that teachers’ training for secondary schools may extend over a period of not less than four years, and for primary and pre-primary schools over a period of not less than three years; and
6. (vi) in order that the appellation of certificates awarded to such persons may be the same.

At the same time the existing rights of the teaching staff of colleges which may be affected thereby, are being safeguarded, i.e. in respect of salaries and conditions of service. Notice of any steps taken in regard to the determination of policy shall be published in the Gazette, whilst the Administrators and the universities shall carry that policy into effect and report on it, if necessary. Provision is also being made for provincial advisory committees. The Administrator of the Cape Province made the request to me that the determination of policy in respect of teachers’ training be confined to those aspects referred to in the above-mentioned paras, (i) to (vi) of section 1B, and that any extension thereof in respect of any other matter not referred to must, if it should ever prove to be necessary, be effected by Parliament by way of amending legislation. I readily acceded to this request, and consequently I shall move at the Committee Stage that para (b) of subsection (1) of section 1B in clause 2 of the Bill be deleted.

The Administrators also made the request to me that the advice of a provincial advisory committee for teachers’ training should apply to universities as well as those colleges which are controlled or assisted financially by the Department of Higher Education. I do not have any objection to that, and I shall move an amendment to subsection (4) of section 1B to that effect. Although it was part of the Commission’s terms of reference to make recommendations for regulating the training of teachers directly by legislation, its recommendations, apart from training which is to be provided mainly at universities, with an indication as to the duration and nature of such training, actually amount to the fact that a professional council for teachers’ training be established to advise the Minister, after the establishment of certain committees, in regard to policy and that the Minister should then gradually determine the policy, for which the necessary administrative powers are going to be granted in the proposed Bill. Since I commit myself to the advice given by my advisory bodies, I do not wish at this stage to go any further into the details of the policy to be pursued in respect of teachers’ training, nor to embody them in this Bill—otherwise I would be anticipating my advisory bodies—until such time as I have obtained advice in that regard from such a professional council. It would be unfair to such a body to anticipate its advice. In view of the incorporation of the proposed professional council into the contemplated National Education Council, the general policy which is contained in section 2 and which is to be followed in respect of schools merely becomes a subdivision of the national education policy, and the reference to the expression “national education policy” in clause 3 is being deleted where it appears in the introductory paragraph to section 2 of the Act.

As a result of the accepted legislation in respect of the establishment of universities for non-Whites, and as a result of the fact that there are no longer any university colleges in the Republic at the moment, the words “or university college” in section 3 of Act 39 of 1967 have become redundant and are accordingly being deleted in terms of clause 4.

The National Education Council which is being established by clause 5, not only for the purpose of carrying on with the important but also continuous functions of the existing National Advisory Education Council in regard to advice concerning policy in respect of education in schools, but also for the purpose of serving as a professional council for the training of teachers, becomes a council of possibly 29 members, of whom seven will form the executive committee. At least three members of the executive council and five of the other members are to be appointed on account of their special knowledge of teachers’ training, whereas four other members are to be lecturers in a faculty or department of education at a university, another member is to be appointed from among the universities, two members are to be recommended by teachers’ associations and, finally, one member is to be associated with technical education. Such a representation of professional men for teachers’ training gives effect to the recommendation of the Commission of Inquiry but prevents the existing provision for the determination of the policy in respect of education in schools from being separated from the proposed determination of the policy in respect of teachers’ training. In his training the teacher is to be equipped to give effect to the policy determined in respect of what he will have to teach school children. To separate the provisions in question, as is now being recommended by the Commission, would lead to overlapping on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to a diversity which would cause that close contact between child and teacher, which is so essential in formative instruction in general, to be severed by separating the policy for the education of one group from the policy for the training of the other.

The advice in respect of the policy with which the Minister is already being served in terms of the Act, has therefore been broadened in subsection (3) (a) of the new section 4 so as to include teachers’ training as well. The Administrators of the four provinces made a strong plea for a separate council for teachers’ training, and recommended that the functions of such a council should include the determination of—

1. (a) the minimum admission requirements for training,
2. (b) the minimum contents of a course for a certificate,
3. (c) the compilation and nature of courses,
4. (d) the appellation of certificates, and
5. (e) the minimum qualifications of the teaching staff.

However, the said aspects of teachers’ training are, as I have already explained, precisely those which can be determined by a Minister after consultation with the Administrators, the Committee of University Principals and the council which will now be established. Such determining functions exercised by a council would, in the first place, add to the Minister’s powers, which would not be legally justified, and could, in the second place, be in conflict with the ordinance of a province or with the statute of a university which has already been approved by the Minister.

Such a recommendation is, as hon. members will appreciate, unacceptable and it would in practice be impossible to give proper effect to it: Notice of steps taken by the Minister is at least being given by notice in the Gazette, but such a loose system of subsidiary legislation through the granting of administrative powers to such a council, would be altogether too vague. Further adjustments are being made and a provision is being included, i.e. subsection (4), for the purpose of determining the responsibility of, and the apportionment of work to, the different members of the executive committee.

I take pleasure in making two further concessions by also substituting, for the sake of clarity, the expression “general policy” for the word “policy” in section 4 (3) (a) of Act No. 39 of 1967 at the request of the Administrators, and by changing the wording in the new subsection (4), which is being inserted in that section by clause 5, to read—

In this way the accent is in fact placed, as recommended by the Gericke Commission and requested by the Administrators, on the professional aspect of the education policy as something which is dealt with separately from education in schools whilst it nevertheless falls under the cloak of national education.

In terms of subsection (2) the necessary continuity between the National Advisory Education Council and the new National Education Council is being preserved. It is evident from the Consolidated Report of the National Advisory Education Council on The Teacher, which was tabled in February, 1969, that although there is some agreement among the education authorities about the functions which might be entrusted to a teaching or a registration council, these functions are not sufficient to justify the recommendation that a registration council be established, and I emphasize this very strongly, because the confusion that arose was about the point that the professional council would at the same time have to be the registration council, and the whole report expresses the feeling that the time is not ripe for that.

If such a council were to be entrusted with functions which are similar to those of the Teaching Council for Scotland, they would coincide partly with the functions of the National Advisory Education Council. In order to cut that knot, it was decided to establish a National Education Council on the lines I have just described. It complies in outline with the recommendations contained in the report on The Teacher as well as those in the report of the Commission of Inquiry, but it does not interrupt the unfinished business of the National Advisory Education Council in regard to the formulation of the general policy in respect of education in schools within the framework of the ten principles laid down in the 1967 Act.

The provision in clause 6 in respect of section 4A, i.e. in regard to control over recruiting and selection of students, was taken over from last year’s Teachers’ Training Bill and is consequent upon a recommendation made by the National Advisory Education Council at the time, i.e. that the procedure for recruiting and selecting students be governed by regulation. As for the rest the whole problem is dealt with exhaustively in Part III of the Report on The Teacher. According to the Commission recruitment and selection can be regulated to the best advantage by the body which controls education, and that is why it is once again being provided that, as was proposed last year, such control be vested in either the Administrator concerned or the Minister, according the Department for which a student will be trained.

Representations have been received from the Administrators and others for the contemplated section to be amended by the omission of the words “to a college”, in order that the election of a person for admission as a student to a university to be trained for the purpose of becoming a teacher in the service of a provincial education department may also vest in the Administrator concerned. This is my reply: From the nature of the case it will be impossible for the Administrator to guarantee such a person—i.e. a person who does not apply to the Administrator for a loan or a bursary—a position in his service and consequently such a person cannot by law be subjected to selection by such Administrator. An Administrator will in fact have control over the recruiting and selection for the admission to universities of those persons who applied to him for bursaries or loans and who are dependent on them for further study. The amendment in clause 7 to section 6 (2) of the Act goes hand in hand with the incorporation of the idea of a professional council in a National Education Council in order to determine policy more accurately for the purposes of the former section. Similarly, the amendment in clause 8 to section 7 of the Act is a consequential adjustment and at the same time an improvement. In clause 7 an amendment is being proposed in order to extend the recommendations of the Committee of Educational Heads in section 6 (2) of the Act to teachers’ training, as requested by the Administrators. An amendment to clause 8 is being proposed—also at the request of the Administrators—to substitute the expression “general policy” for the word “policy” in section 7 of the Act, as I have already explained, and to do the same in clause 10 in respect of the long title.

Section 8A is being inserted by clause 9 so as to grant the Minister the power to make regulations governing, more specifically, the implementation of the provisions of the Act. The National Advisory Education Council strongly recommended such a provision, and the Commission of Inquiry also made provision for it in its proposed Bill.

The long title of the Act is being amended by clause 10 so as to adapt to the new elements which are about to be added to the contents of the Act, in order that the title and the contents may tally with each other. Once the amendments to Act No. 39 of 1967 have come into operation, the National Education Council will have to serve the Minister with advice in order to determine policy in respect of the training of teachers in such a manner that effect may be given to the recommendations of the Consolidated Report on The Teacher, more specifically in respect of those aspects which will by that time have been embodied in the Bill in principle, such as the status and prestige of the teachers, the recruiting and selection of teachers—regard being had to the loss of teachers—the training and certification of teachers, their conditions of service and their working conditions.

I want to express the hope that the discussion of this Bill will be conducted on a very high level. If all of us are attuned to reinforcing the future of our education in a purposeful manner by granting our teachers the best training that can be provided, I am convinced that much can be accomplished. Although complete agreement, openly or tacitly, in regard to all the provisions of this Bill does not exist, I can give the House the assurance that in principle it does in fact enjoy the greatest measure of support. What is particularly important to me, is the statement to the Press made on 29th March, 1969, by Dr. Gericke, Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry, in which, inter alia, the following was said (translation)—

This is significant, particularly because the members who heard, read and debated all the evidence arrived at such a unanimous conclusion after this consideration. Yes, even the two members who submitted a minority report, agreed in principle with this statement to the Press. In its statement to the Press the Commission went on to say—

This course which has been indicated in this way, will have to be followed with care and circumspection, and I am convinced that, when this legislation is placed on the Statute Book, the steps taken by this House will be in the interests of education and training in general, but especially in the interests of the child and the teaching profession in particular.

I am very glad that in introducing this Bill the hon. the Minister has sketched the history of the introduction of the Bill over the last seven years. This is the culminating point of the policy that was introduced at that stage. I should like to say that I am not concerned with what any member of the commission said some time after the report was submitted. We have reports before us, and nobody can ever complain that we did not have sufficient information about the training of teachers. I have four Blue Books here on the subject and I have read them all. If anybody comes along now and says that a member of the commission has made some additional observation, it does not impress me in the slightest.

Sir, when the hon. the Minister in 1962 asked us for a National Advisory Education Board, we sat together on a select committee —it was a very pleasant experience—and we did not agree with the hon. the Minister’s constitution of that board. But that is ancient history now. From the beginning we felt that there was an imbalance in the constitution of the board. Subsequently, after being in labour for some years, we had placed before us a National Education Bill, which is now Act No. 39 of 1967. We debated that Bill in the House and we stated our objections to it. We offered constructive criticism as well, and that Bill is now part of the law. But we are dealing here to-day not with that Bill but with a Bill for the training of teachers. This Training of Teachers’ Bill was first introduced last year as Bill No. 68 of 1968. There had been much preparation and discussion before that Bill was introduced. Eventually it came before the House; the hon. the Minister said that he would send it to a select committee before the Second Reading and he did so. I was privileged to be a member of that select committee under the chairmanship of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions who was then the hon. member for Randfontein. We did hear some evidence but we could not conclude our deliberations and we assumed, as had been intimated by the Minister, that we would then be constituted as a commission to sit during the recess. We waited for the decision of the Government and nothing was done until in the final debate of the Session in the closing hours of the Session, we had the dramatic intervention of the hon. the Prime Minister, so late in the Appropriation debate, that there was no time to discuss it further. I should like to quote one extract from the speech of the hon. the Prime Minister; he said this—

He was going to appoint his own commission—

He made that statement with the hon. the Minister of Education sitting alongside him. The reason why he made that statement, as he said earlier, was that the whole atmosphere, the whole discussion, had become “vertroebel” (confused); there was misunderstanding. Well, Sir, the hon. the Minister of Education did not raise his voice. We are a democratic parliamentary Government, and when the Prime Minister intervened in this way, it was quite obvious that the policy of the hon. the Minister had failed. What is the established custom in these cases as illustrated in the British Parliament? We, to a great extent, follow their procedure. In the case of Sir Thomas Dugdale, the Minister of Agriculture, in the Crichel Downs case, the Minister surrendered his portfolio. It was an excellent opportunity for our Minister to do so because a re-shuffle of the Cabinet was imminent.

Well, then a new commission was appointed, the Gericke Commission. When that commission was appointed, the Select Committee could of course no longer sit as a commission, a fact which disappointed me a little. The work was very interesting and members of the Select Committee were working well together. But now that I have read the report of the Gericke Commission, I must say it is an excellent report. There are, in fact, two reports a majority report signed by six of the members of the commission, and a minority report signed by two of the members of the commission. This minority report expresses the views of the Minister’s Advisory Council. Let me, in order to enable us to follow the matter better, call the Bill that was before Parliament last year, i.e. A.B. 68-’68, Bill No. 1. The idea of that Bill was to create institutes of education at universities. However, that was not acceptable to the provinces. It was also not, I think, acceptable to the teaching profession. It was a system based on the English system where they have established institutes of education over a long period of years. Well, this was considered by the Gericke Commission but they did not accept it. They did consider it, heard evidence about it but they were not prepared to accept it. Furthermore, they were also not prepared to subscribe to the advice of the National Education Advisory Council about the establishment of such institutes. In chapter 4 of the report of the Gericke Commission the establishment of a South African professional council for the training of teachers is dealt with. What the commission had before it was a Bill for the training of teachers and not a Bill to amend other legislation. Well, this is what the commission had to say in paragraph 57 (d)—

This, then was the finding of this commission, i. e. that they did not want anything but a professional council for the training of teachers.

The National Advisory Education Council also submitted evidence to the Gericke Commission including a proposed bill, a Bill which although not quite the same as Bill No. 1, i.e. the Bill of last year, nevertheless contained the same principles. Let us call this Bill, Bill No. 2. Bill No. 3 is the draft Bill proposed by the Gericke Commission making provision for a professional council consisting of 13 men. Well, I want to say that had the Minister accepted that Bill he would have had a very fine basis for the training of teachers. However, he decided not to do so and introduced his own Bill instead the Bill we have before us, A.B. 80-’69, or Bill No. 4. This Bill differs considerably from the Bill of last year. In the first place, it is not a Bill for the training of teachers. What the hon. Minister has done is to introduce a Bill to amend another Act, i.e. the National Education Policy Act of 1967. In other words, he wants to combine the training of teachers with the National Education Policy Act, Act 39 of 1967. So, instead of giving the teaching profession its own professional council, he says to them that he is going to make provision for such a council in the National Advisory Education Council. So, instead of having a council with a modest membership of 19 and an executive of five, we are now going to have 29 with an executive of seven. The other day I spoke about Parkinson’s Law. Well, this is Parkinson's Law running riot! And it is all unnecessary.

I want to say I do not accept this Bill and before commenting upon the details I shall first like to move the following amendment—

1. (a) the Bill fails to implement the more important recommendations of the Gericke Commission Report, especially the recommendation to establish a South African Professional Council for the Training of Teachers; and
2. (b) the Provincial Administrations are relegated to a position of inferiority in the proposed plan for the training of teachers in their own Provinces.”.

They do not accept it. You see, Sir, in the training of teachers there ought to be certain considerations. One is the quality consideration, i.e. that the standard in the profession shall be maintained. Then there is the quantitative consideration, i.e. that we shall have sufficient teachers. Well, we do not have sufficient at the moment, certainly not for mathematics and for the two official languages. So we have to plan for this.

Let me now come to the Bill the Minister has introduced, and let us examine it. The principle of this Bill is contained in clause 5. That clause gives the Minister the power to establish an expanded council, to which we are absolutely opposed. All the members are to be appointed by the Minister—all 29 of them. The Minister in his speech introducing this Bill gave us an indication where these members would come from, how they would be chosen. Let us compare this with the medical profession. How does the medical profession select their council? The hon. Minister of Health appoints four doctors, one dentist and two unregistered persons, i.e. probably laymen. In other words, the Minister appoints seven. The profession itself, i.e. the people who practise, elect 10 doctors. They will also elect four dentists, double the number which the Minister will nominate. Finally, every university, where medical men are trained, will contribute one member. That is a professional council. What does the Law Council do? They elect their own members. They are not nominated by the Minister of Justice. Let us take the Pharmacy Board. The Pharmacy Board select their members in the same way. A minority of four is nominated by the Minister of Health but the majority of six is elected by the pharmacists of South Africa. Here we have our teaching profession. The Minister will nominate 29 people of whom seven will be executives in order to advise him how to control the teaching profession and to advise the Administrators. We all know that the Administrations in the provinces of South Africa do not accept this Bill; they have not accepted the Minister’s suggestions from the beginning. That is clause 5. I cannot move an amendment to clause 5. One cannot mend that clause, one must just end it. We are opposed to this clause which contains the principle of the Bill.

I now come to clause 2. In this regard I should like to have a word with my colleagues in the profession. I will not go into the clause in detail. Clause 2 is amended by the insertion of two new sections, namely sections 1A and 1B. I want to quote only one detail at the beginning. Section 1A (1) reads as follows—

I want to say that I disagree with that entirely. When we considered the University of Port Elizabeth (Private) Amendment Bill a few minutes ago, I expressed my satisfaction at the definition of a teacher. I now appeal to my colleagues in the profession to tell me what a teacher is. How does one train a secondary school teacher differently from a primary school teacher? There are two aspects to the training, namely professional and academic. The only difference is a question of emphasis. When we train teachers for the lower classes of the primary school, the emphasis is on the professional side, the class study. As we go through to the higher forms, the emphasis is on the academic standard. When a man goes to a training college for three years and takes perhaps the first year B.A. or the second year B.A., because he is a good student and then afterwards goes into the profession and qualifies, is he a secondary school teacher or a primary school teacher? The Port Elizabeth University Bill says the professors are teachers, the lecturers are teachers. We are all members of one profession. We do not want this distinction. Well, I am not speaking without the book. I should like to quote from an authority that will appeal to the hon. the Minister. He is not the only Minister in the world who has an advisory council. I should like to quote from “The Future Pattern of the Education and Training of Teachers”. It is the eighth report of the National Advisory Council on the training and supply of teachers in England. I want to give three short extracts from what they say. It is quite worth reading. The first extract reads as follows—

They had had institutes of education for several years before they wrote this. They know all about institutes of education. They are not trying out their hand at it. These men are men of experience. Here is my second extract—

They are all members of the same profession. Finally I should like to give this extract—

I have one more quotation. I quote this, because it rather appeals to me. It is a pamphlet on the training of teachers and was written by a group of Her Majesty’s inspectors with experience in the work of training teachers. These men are inspectors of education. They have experience and were asked to draw up this pamphlet. I want my colleagues especially to listen to what they had to say. They said the following—

Why on earth can we not train a teacher for secondary school at a training college?

Not with a three year course.

The University of the Witwatersrand has never trained teachers. They are trained at the College of Education of which I once had the honour to be chairman. This College of Education works in very close liaison with the university.

There is provision for that.

They work together. They train primary and secondary teachers. Why should we lay down this hard and fast rule, this division in the profession? We do not have that in any other profession. Why should we do that? I have criticized this Bill. Of course, I think we must reject it. What should we do? What can I offer that is constructive? First of all, I think the hon. the Minister should not proceed with this Bill.

That is very negative.

I think he should issue a request to the Administrators, to training colleges and to the universities that it is desirable that the training colleges and the universities should be more closely associated in their training. We do not differ on that. We all agree on a voluntary basis. The next stage will be this. Quoting a training college which I know, namely the College of Education of Johannesburg, I would say that the training college of Johannesburg should be affiliated to the University of the Witwatersrand so that although the students are in an autonomous institution, they could take their degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand. Their association is now very close. Let me say that 30 years ago we asked the Administration of the Transvaal to build a new College of Education on the campus of the university. They felt that we were much too far ahead of our times. They were not prepared to accept that. That was going too far. However, I want this close liaison, this close association. They should be affiliated. I am sure the Administrators and the Executive Committees would be prepared to accept that. That is how I feel we should proceed in the future, but not by amending the law we have already. It is the wrong way; it is the wrong approach. We could introduce the Gericke Commission Bill. I think that might be an improvement. I should like to ask who are the men we should look to in this country for advice. It is not so much the university professors, but the Committee of Educational Heads, the directors of education in the provinces. They are the men who have come through the whole gamut of education. They are not prepared to say too much in their report. They say that they have reported to their own Administrations, but they cannot go further. They recommend nothing, because they are opposed to the Bill, as we are opposed to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, during the course of his speech the hon. member for Kensington made various attacks on the Bill and I actually regret that I do not have sufficient time at my disposal to reply in full. Therefore I merely want to reply to a few aspects which he mentioned in his speech. At the beginning of his speech the hon. member referred to the so-called dramatic intervention last year by the Prime Minister. I spoke about this matter on a previous occasion, under the hon. the Minister’s Vote, in fact, and therefore I do not want to reply to this in detail. I merely want to state that, according to Hansard, 1968, column 7590, the Prime Minister stated very clearly why the Bill was referred to a special commission. The hon. member was present and according to his democratic right in Parliament he had, on that occasion, to the best of my knowledge, sufficient time to reply and to express his criticism. Unfortunately the hon. member attacked the Minister in public during the recess. I have already referred to that, but I merely want to repeat one paragraph from a previous speech. On occasion in Durban, according to a report, the hon. member attacked the Minister:

Here the hon. member once more cast a reflection on the hon. the Minister and I think …

No, he did not do it.

But, the hon. member did in fact do it. The hon. member for Kensington definitely cast aspersions on the hon. the Minister because he said that the Prime Minister had to intervene in connection with this Bill.

The hon. member tried to imply here that this portion of teachers’ training should be separated from the entire national policy. However, in that connection I cannot agree with the hon. member, because I consider education as a whole, and the training of teachers is not a separate entity in education. We must view education as a whole; we cannot view it in fragmented parts. Therefore I cannot agree with that part of the hon. member’s view. The hon. member also spoke here of the composition of the council, the members of which are soon to be appointed by the hon. the Minister. For the sake of convenience the hon. member could also have discussed this matter during the Committee Stage. I shall also refer to a few of the hon. member’s other remarks in the course of my speech. If the hon. member for Kensington’s motion were to be accepted, it would only cause a further delay in the possible solution of a very crucial question, i.e. the training of the teachers. Therefore this side of the House cannot give any consideration at all to the contemplation of that type of amendment.

The background and the factors leading up to this matter were dealt with in great detail by the hon. the Minister; everything has now built up to this point where the Bill is now being submitted.

As an introduction to my speech I should like to refer to the part played by the hon. the Minister in respect of this Bill. We know that from the very first year of this Minister’s appointment to this portfolio, the training of teachers has enjoyed his serious consideration. As far back as 6th June, 1962, during his Second Reading speech about the National Advisory Education Council Bill, the Minister made it very clear that an investigation into teachers’ training would be one of the essential tasks of the National Advisory Education Council. This National Education Council was also established as a result of Act No. 86 of 1962. One of the functions of this Council is also defined in section 7 (3) of the Act. I quote The council shall also endeavour to uphold and promote the prestige of the teaching profession and of persons engaged therein.

By means of this council the Minister has now taken positive action to let the spotlight fall sharply on education, the teacher and all related aspects. At the first meeting of the National Advisory Education Council, on 29th March, 1963, the hon. the Minister made a direct request to the council to investigate the matter of the training of teachers. On that occasion the hon. the Minister referred to the existing conditions. He regarded it as an absolute anomaly that while certain training colleges train secondary school teachers, universities, on the other hand, train teachers for primary schools. I want to agree with him. He therefore said that a scientific system should be worked out in connection with the teachers’ training. On that occasion the hon. the Minister also mentioned the diversity of training and the certification of teachers in the Republic. Because the hon. the Minister believes that this matter must be put right, and because he was convinced that a sound education system must have as its basis a satisfied, properly selected and well-equipped teachers’ corps which commands the confidence and respect of the public and the community, he insisted that the National Advisory Education Council should nominate four sub-committees. The sub-committees had to conduct a thorough investigation and study and then draw up reports about all the various aspects of education. During his Second Reading speech on the National Education Policy Bill on 20th February, 1967, the hon. the Minister again referred to this important matter. He stated inter alia, that he thought that the training of secondary school teachers, and I want to emphasize this, ought to extend over at least four years. I now come to a very important matter on which I differ from the hon. member for Kensington. He said that a three year training was just as good for our secondary school teachers. I differ from him on this point. The Minister also said—and I agree—that a teacher who receives his training at a university has the opportunity of extending his knowledge of the subject which he must teach to his pupils. In addition, the hon. the Minister also referred on this occasion to the fact that secondary school teachers ought only to be trained at universities or in co-operation with universities. The hon. the Minister also said that a state of affairs had come about and had developed through the years in respect of the training of teachers which was as undesirable as that which was already in existence and had developed at that time at high schools in connection with divided control and divided policies. The hon. the Minister further expressed the hope that the Education Council would, together with the bodies concerned, succeed in finding a solution to this problem of the training of teachers before the end of 1967. Thus the appointment took place of the select committee to which the hon. member referred and which was in existence for a while last year, as well as the subsequent and eventual nomination of the commission which was also referred to. I have already quoted in order to point out the earnestness and gravity with which the hon. the Minister tackled this matter. He tackled it with only one object, i.e. to serve the cause of the child and the teacher as such. I know that the hon. the Minister, as an educationist, has the matter of the education of our nation’s children very much at heart, because it concerns the training of future citizens.

I regard this Bill as an historic occurrence. It is of historic importance that a Bill has eventually been introduced about this basic question of the existence and the continued existence of our nation, a Bill about teachers’ training with a co-ordinated Christian and national basis. This took place after lengthy and searching consultations and after the hon. the Minister had given his serious attention to the matter from time to time. In his speech the hon. the Minister thanked various bodies. On this occasion I want to associate myself with that and mention some of the bodies again. In the first place I want to thank the National Advisory Education Council for the tremendous task it took upon itself and I also want to congratulate it on the success which it has achieved. It was a very comprehensive task, but this council, under the competent chairmanship of Professor Rautenbach, did a great job of work for this country and specifically for education. Then, on behalf of this side of the House, I also want to thank the Gericke Commission for the tremendous task which they undertook. It was a difficult task, but the Gericke Commission knew that it was a very comprehensive one. The hon. the Minister has already referred to the fact, but I want to mention it again, that in a very short space of time that commission had to hear 137 people who gave oral evidence. Those people gave evidence in person or on behalf of various bodies. That commission had to work through 110 memoranda, some of which were particularly bulky. This was evidence embodying divergent approaches, but this commission could nevertheless draw up the report which we received. I regard this report, as well as the minority report, as brilliant ones and I want to express our heartfelt and sincerest gratitude to all the members for this report. Neither can I neglect to thank the members of the select committee, which was in existence for a short while last year, for the good work which they did during the few sittings under the competent guidance of Dr. C. P. Mulder. The interest on both sides was particularly good and this is proved in the select committee report by the good questions which were put and in the remarks winch were made. It indicates that the members understood the whole question and were particularly interested in it.

I should like to come to another question, i.e. the question which is being asked today in many circles about whether this Bill is necessary. From the evidence of the various reports I want to refer briefly to what has been said. For many years it has been felt that a need existed for a change in the training. of teachers in the Republic. However, it became more than a mere need. It became essential. In the oral and written evidence reference was made in many cases to the shortcomings, and witnesses emphasized the word “shortcomings”, which are awaiting a solution in respect of teachers’ training. Educational heads who frequently liaised with the National Advisory Education Council, who were consulted by them and who have sat on the Contact Body, have also declared that they have been asked by their Administration whether a change was necessary in the training of teachers and whether the existing training was not good enough. Those educational heads replied that the present system no longer met with the requirements of the times. They admitted that there were quite a few differences in the training of teachers and felt that there should be a greater degree of co-ordination in connection with teachers’ training throughout the entire Republic. The mass of evidence in the memoranda, initially before the select committee and subsequently before the Gericke Commission, contained no single plea, as far as I know, to the effect that the present status quo in connection with teachers’ training should continue. What is more, from the written and oral evidence, which came from all over the country, there was one point of unanimity, i.e. that the present status quo should no longer continue. Through its recommendations that commission appositely pointed out that the existing situation could not continue, and that commission was actually interpreting the feelings of the whole country, of all the people interested in education and teachers’ training.

I should like to say a few words in connection with the duration of teachers’ training, since this matter was raised here by the hon. member for Kensington. The important provision of the Bill which will also contribute—and I say this purposely—to increasing the status and prestige of the profession, is that the courses for the training of teachers in secondary schools should extend over a period of four years. It was also felt that the course for the training of teachers for pre-primary and primary schools should at least extend over three years, while in the past there was still sometimes a two-year training period. The minimum period of four years for high school teachers, and the minimum period of three years for primary school teachers, was also accepted by the educational heads as well as the contact body. There was absolute unanimity in connection with this matter. In addition, the Bill provides that the training of secondary school teachers should only be given at university. In the Free State it is already common practice for prospective high school teachers to prefer their training, both academic and professional, at university. Thus, for example, on the 14th February, 1969, there were 670 students enrolled at training colleges in the Free State and 806, who wanted to become teachers, at the university. In other words, all in all 55 per cent of the prospective teachers were enrolled at the University of the Orange Free State. The same phenomenon is to be found in the Cape Province. On the 14th February of this year there were 2,038 students enrolled at various training colleges, while 1,317 prospective teachers are studying at various universities. 898 of these are enrolled at Stellenbosch. These students who are studying at university this year and who are prospective teachers, constitute about 39 per cent of the total number of education students. Among these there are, of course, diploma students. In the Transvaal the majority of people who prepared themselves for secondary education took the combined degree and diploma course and they are still doing so at present. In this province the academic, i.e. the university degree portion, is done at university and the professional course at the training college. Such students are placed at colleges which co-operate with the universities. According to provisional statistics—I simply obtained these from the Press and I cannot guarantee their validity—6,863 students were enrolled at the four colleges n the Transvaal on the 14th February, 1969, while 505 students who want to become teachers, were enrolled at the Universities of Pretoria and Potchefstroom. Those who are merely enrolled at the universities constitute 7 per cent of the total.

In an interim report of 1964 the Education Council informed the Minister that it felt convinced that the training of all teachers should take place in co-operation with universities, subject to certain conditions. This joint committee for higher education, which was subsequently established, only met once, but could not agree about the concept “in co-operation with the universities”. On the 20th February, 1967 the Minister subsequently made this clear in the House of Assembly as follows—

It is, incidentally, very interesting that the Administrator of the Transvaal, Mr. Van Niekerk, alleged, inter alia, as a reason for the closing of the training college at Heidelberg at the end of 1967, that students in general preferred to go to colleges which are attached to universities. This is according to the minority report, page 107.

The Gericke Commission recommended, on page 36 of the report—and now we come to this very Important point and I should now like the hon. member for Kensington to listen —that owing to the high academic requirements which they must satisfy in respect of their school subjects as well as their theoretical-professional schooling secondary teachers will, as a rule, be trained at universities. At the same time the Commission recommended that the provincial training colleges, especially for the training of primary school teachers, should continue to exist, but that the training had to take place in co-operation with a university. In other words, for the training of teachers, colleges and universities must be drawn closer together. This important recommendation is embodied in the Bill by virtue of the fact that the way is being left clear for training at a college and a university to take place in close co-operation. This is contained in clause 2 (1) (a) (iii).

Since the Bill provides that teachers for secondary education shall only be trained at universities, I should like to express the hope that the obtaining of a degree will not amount to mere knowledge of a subject, but also the educational alignment of that knowledge; in other words, that there will be composite or integrated training whereby the practical knowledge, which the prospective teacher needs will be supplied. In addition I want to appeal to all the university departments of education which will in future, to an ever greater degree, be entrusted with this task of giving their aspirant teachers greater opportunities for practical experience; in other words, that they will increase and extend the periods for probationary teaching beyond what they are at present, so that the young teacher can be better prepared for the practical situation. In this connection I want to refer to the Transvaal training colleges which I know of, and I want to give them credit for having given the students every opportunity in the past, as they are still doing, to gain practical experience. In addition they give the necessary guidance to the student before he encounters his own classroom situation. In short, I want to appeal to the universities also to devote the necessary attention to the practical proficiency of the aspirant teacher.

In conclusion I merely want to say that I believe that this Bill is the final word in teachers’ training. I believe education to be dynamic, and thus it will also be necessary for this Bill to be adapted, in the course of time, to meet additional requirements. But we are glad that we have here a common point of departure and that from this point we can enlarge on something that will prove beneficial to the teachers as such, to education, to the child and to the country as a whole.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort, I felt, made no serious attempt to justify the difference there is between the Bill we have before us and the Bill which was proposed by the Gericke Commission. He was, of course, in a very great difficulty, as will be every other member who speaks on the other side, because you have a Bill here introduced by the hon. the Minister which in fact scalps the Gericke Commission and the provincial administrations. I believe that this is a matter which is of such serious concern that we are quite entitled to ask this House to join us in rejecting the Bill. The hon. member for Koedoespoort said that this would be a “vertraging”. I wonder whether the hon. member would be prepared to say that the four Administrators of the provinces would not welcome a “vertraging” in order to give them the chance to have further consultations with the department on all the matters contained in this Bill in order to attempt an implementation of far more of the recommendations of the Gericke Commission. I believe that the problem raised by this Bill is a take-over by the hon. the Minister. This is a take-over of the training of teachers by the Minister, taking it under his own wing, under the Education Council which he now sets up. This is an invasion of long-established rights and I think it is well that we should understand that, that in this Bill there is an invasion by the department and the Minister of long-established rights which have accrued to the provincial administrations.

Is it in the interest of the profession? That is the question.

I will come to that, but the point I want to make here is that there are rights, if you want to call them that, or interests, which have accrued to the provincial administrations over many years and which are to-day being seriously infringed by the Bill. I want to say that these rights are real rights and they are treasures and have been treasured for many years by the provincial administrations, and rightly so because I want to say that they are rights which were held by the provinces in defence of the minds of our children. I put it as seriously as that, that it is regarded as such by the various provinces, that the rights they had to instruct and train and to select the people who were to serve as teachers in their service was a guarantee of the quality and the sort of person who would be in charge of the schools in which the minds of our children are formed. I put it as seriously as that. The teachers are the instruments whereby the mind of the child can be formed. I am quite certain that I speak for my own province of Natal—I would not presume to speak for the other provinces, although I am sure they would agree—when I say that this is a right which has been treasured for many years and one which even to-day the provincial administrations are exceedingly unhappy to see infringed by this Bill, a Bill on which I feel there has not been enough consultation.

There were eight years of consultation.

There were eight years of consultation and there was a commission appointed by the Prime Minister, the Gericke Commission, and throughout the whole of the report of this commission the opinion is expressed that there should be a gradual change. I will read that to the hon. member in a minute; I will come back to the point, but the point I wish to make now is the question of the professional body which was suggested by the Gericke Commission. The specific object of that professional body was to give a new status to the professional teacher. The function of a body such as this is one which is common to many other professions, as the hon. member for Kensington has said. I remember clearly how the engineers during the last session had a Bill passed which enabled them to set up an institution, which would enable them to set the standards. Who can better set standards which the teachers have to come up to than the teaching profession itself? I believe that one of the big problems we face to-day with the teaching profession—and I believe the Minister’s Bill is going to make it perhaps more complicated —is the problem of ensuring the status of a profession in which so many of the posts are held by part-time employees, and here I mean by married women. What worries me—and this is a thought I express to the Minister in all sincerity—is that the division now between secondary school teachers going to universities and primary school teachers going to training colleges will have the effect that you will have more and more women going in for the primary teaching and the men tending to go to the secondary schools. I believe that one of the factors which has a tremendous influence on a child, particularly in the primary schools, is that of the man teacher. I am only too grateful to acknowledge the tremendous debt that we owe to women who teach in our schools. Without them and without the married women the whole system would have collapsed long ago. But I do believe that there is a vital part that the male teacher has to play, and I am afraid that the Minister’s proposal to hive off secondary from primary school teachers is going to have the effect of reinforcing the position of the woman teacher in the primary school and tend to take the male teacher off into the secondary school stream, and this I regard as being unwise and undesirable. I believe that the proposal to have a professional teachers’ body would have given the teacher, as being the person responsible for his own standards, a far higher status than he can have under the proposal made by the hon. the Minister, who now sets up inside of his council a vice-chairman who is primarily responsible for the training of teachers. I do not think that this is a satisfactory answer.

Is that not an improvement?

It may well be an improvement, but here we had a proposal which I think would have been the ideal thing and which is asked for by the profession and by every single profession. The engineers, for example, have been striving for years to get a Bill which will give them that professional status; and here you have probably the most important people in the whole of South Africa, our teachers, who have been pressing for a body of that nature to give them that enhanced status. Sir, I ask the hon. member for Koedoespoort: Does he regard it as unwise to give them that kind of status and that kind of body of their own?

They have been clamouring for that for 50 years but they could not get it.

Is the hon. member against it?

I am talking about the profession as a whole.

I am quite certain that if the hon. member wants to have a clear conscience he will admit that an institution of this nature will be to the benefit of the teaching profession. I am quite certain that he would say so, and I regard the fact that it has been left out of this Bill as a great gap. This is one of the recommendations of the Gericke Commission which could quite easily have been included in the provisions of the Bill. The hon. the Minister in his Second Reading speech did not, I think, elaborate enough on the reasons for not accepting it. What he has done is to make provision in the council which he is setting up for persons who shall be primarily responsible, but the Gericke Commission itself gave the answer where it said that the teaching body as such did not regard the Minister’s council as being representative of themselves; that it was part and parcel of the Minister and the Minister’s department and they wanted something which would have a different, separate status, from that of the department. Sir, I wish to come back to some of the recommendations of the Gericke Commission, and I want to return to the question of the gradual change, because I am convinced that one of the problems that we have here is that the functions of the provincial administrations, which have for so many years been responsible for the training of teachers and have, I believe, done a satisfactory job, have now been taken over. This Bill is a one-way ticket for the training colleges under the control of the provincial administrations. There will be no new ones. They will gradually either be phased out or they will get a secondary status to the universities.

What is wrong with that?

Sir, there is absolutely no need for this to happen. Surely to goodness, by an affiliation between the training colleges and the universities they could still be enabled to carry out this important function. Mr. Chairman, I will tell you what I think is wrong with it. In the provincial training colleges, the province concerned, which is the employer of the teacher, has been able to ensure a certain tone or standard for the people who are going to teach in their schools, but people who go to a university are free to all the winds of the world, and this is something—perhaps I am also a bit “verkramp”—which creates a bit of doubt in my mind. I really believe that the provincial training colleges gave the provinces the opportunity to create an atmosphere for their teachers, an atmosphere of thought which is carried over into the schools; and when I see some of the things that happen at our universities to-day I wonder what the result of this is going to be. The Gericke Commission, in dealing with the question of the gradual change which is to take place, says that the more realistic course, with a view to progress, would be for all teacher training to be controlled by the universities and education departments jointly, and it says that it would be desirable for them to retain a substantial say in teacher training, as should the universities in their proper sphere. It makes the point that there should be a gradual change-over, a process of adaptation.

That is exactly what we are doing in my Bill.

No, I am sorry …

He has not read the Bill.

I read it very, very carefully indeed. What the hon. the Minister is doing in his Bill is simply to take from the provinces the initiative that they might have had in negotiations with the universities. The Minister has taken into his own hands the entire initiative in the training of teachers in the future. [Interjection.] Sir, however much we may say that the status quo is being maintained, the whole future initiative in the training of teachers is going to be under the control of the department of the hon. the Minister.

My department has no control over it whatsoever.

Sir, one can accept the Minister’s statement, but as far as I have read the Bill, the whole matter of teacher training is becoming the primary responsibility of one of the vice-chairmen of the council which the Minister is setting up under this Bill.

Is that correct?

No, it is not correct.

The hon. the Minister and I obviously do not agree on this matter, and when he replies he can explain to me where I happen to be wrong.

I will deal with all these points in my reply.

I will welcome it, but as far as I can understand the Bill, the intention of the hon. the Minister is to make a vice-chairman of his council primarily responsible for the training of teachers, and I am afraid I cannot accept his statement that he is not going to have full control of the matters that we are discussing here.

Sir, I return to the point that the Gericke Commission recommended that there should be a synthesis of the present situation, under which the provincial councils and administrations train teachers, and the university system where people who are graduates are absorbed into the teaching profession. The problem was raised as to whether it was not unsatisfactory perhaps that the controlling administration, the province, should have so great a say in the training of teachers whom they themselves employ from the point of view that they might be rather more concerned with the quantity of teachers that they turn out rather than the quality. I am afraid I do not accept this as being a really valid objection to the present system. The training colleges that we have in the provinces have been turning out perfectly satisfactory teachers for both secondary and primary schools. Sir, the problem was raised how there could now be co-ordination between the universities and the provincial authorities and the answer, I think, was given, oddly enough, in the minority report, which points out on page 125 that there has been joint control by the provinces and the universities for over 17 years in regard to the training of medical practitioners. The report says—

There is no reason at all why the same sort of operation could not have been carried out in this particular case to allow the provincial administrations to retain their considerable amount of say over the people who are going to be trained as teachers.

Sir, the hon. the Minister raised one point in relation to teachers who are going to university. I want to make sure that I understood him correctly. I understood him to say that one of the problems was that the students going to university should not come under the control of the provincial administrations in that they could not be guaranteed employment by the provincial administrations if they were not in receipt of bursaries.

The provincial administrations cannot control the universities.

Sir, I wonder whether the answer to this might not be to have a contract signed with the provincial administration. Persons who signify their intention of teaching in the schools of the particular province could, on going to university, sign a contract with the education department of that provincial administration. They would then always have the guarantee that there would be a job available for them when they graduate.

This is a matter which the advisory boards will have to consider.

I raise this matter for the Minister’s consideration. It did not seem to me to be a major objection.

You want me to control it but I am not prepared to do it; my advisory boards will do it.

Sir, let us be quite clear on this matter. The hon. the Minister has brought a Bill here which I say—and I repeat it—has scalped the provincial administrations and the report of the Gericke Commission, and I believe that the amendment which we have moved, which seeks to reject it on those grounds, is the right one in the circumstances and I invite hon. members opposite to join us in its rejection.

Mr. Speaker, I want to state as my honest opinion that I do not think the hon. member for Mooi River knew what was going on all the time as far as this Bill is concerned. The first important point he raised was the rights of the provinces, and not the training of teachers, with which we are dealing here. He wants to protect the right of the provinces here. He clean forgot what we were dealing with here. The hon. member stated that a major rift was being formed between the training of teachers for the primary school and teachers for the high school. Sir, those practices exist at the moment. The hon. member for Kensington reproaches us for not having a separate Act for teacher training. Our precise purpose is to preserve that unity. Ordinary teaching, the training of the child, is the task with which the teacher is ultimately going to be concerned, and that is why the training of teachers must be included in the same legislation.

But, Sir, there is another very important matter which the hon. member raised here, i.e. that the council must now give the teaching profession added status. Sir, no matter what profession it is, whether the medical, the engineering or the teaching profession, the status of the profession is determined by the people themselves, the members of that profession, and not by a council. The hon. member did not tell us how the council should enhance the status of the teacher in the eyes of the public or in the eyes of his fellow professionals. This is merely another council. The personality and the character of the teacher, the work which he does—these are things which give status to his profession, and not the body which stands above him.

Sir, the hon. member left quite a number of wrong impressions here. He even wanted to create the impression that provincial administrations are going to be deprived of the right they have to select teachers for their schools. When the hon. member said this, I immediately made the note: “But the provinces still retain the right to select”. I do not think the hon. member has the interests of education at heart when he says things like that. The hon. member for Koedoespoort pointed out that the educational process is in fact never completed; it is never in fact rounded off; it is a process which is simply a continuous one. This is so because in the modern world we have a tremendously rapid increase in knowledge, because there are continual innovations in the subject matter, and the syllabi continually have to be adapted to this. Apart from that we are working with human material, which has to be coped with in continually changing circumstances. For that reason as well there can never be a final rounding off in the educational process and the education system. The legislation which we have passed in this House during the past number of years is clear proof of this. The Minister has already referred to this. There is, for example, the Vocational Education Act of 1955; the National Advisory Education Council Act of 1962; the National Education Policy Act of 1967; and the Educational Services Act of the same year. There is therefore a continual process of development, change and adjustment, according to the demands of the time.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort referred to the need for change which has arisen over the years. I think the Minister should be given the credit as being the person who was the first to lay his finger on this need. He admitted that need when he instructed the N.A.E.C. to investigate the position of the teacher. Since then already the Minister has been taking an active interest in this matter. We have two important reports before us, i.e. the report of the Gericke Commission and the consolidated report of the N.A.E.C. Each of these reports contains a chapter on the needs which exist for a renewal of teacher training. In fact, Act 39 of 1967 already pointed in the direction of change; this already foreshadowed a change, for how could one have a national approach and a national policy for ordinary education while one did not have such a policy for teachers, for the people who in fact have to provide that education? That is why I maintain that the 1967 Act already gave us an indication that we would at one stage or another have to deal with teacher training.

But where one talks about change and innovation and wants to implement this in practice, then one must take cognizance of a few fundamental principles of education. There are a few factors which actually comprise the nucleus. I am mentioning them so that I can deal briefly with each one. Firstly, the purpose of education and training; secondly, a national policy; thirdly, a specific system based on certain principles; and, fourthly, the teacher, the individual in the system—perhaps the most important of all.

Firstly, then, the objectives of our teaching and training. These objectives can be entrusted to no other person than the teacher, and it is in fact our purpose with this legislation to place him in a position where he can realize those objectives. They are the people who see the goal towards which they must lead the children. To my way of thinking there are the following objectives: (a) The incorporation of the child into the Christian Western culture as it has taken shape in South Africa; (b) the development of the aptitude, knowledge and skills of the child as a whole and in harmony so that the end result will be a full-fledged human being and citizen of the country who will have the right attitude to the Almighty, his fellow human beings, his country, his environment and nature; and (c) the moral, aesthetic, emotional, intellectual and physical development, in effect the full character and personality development of the child. We must bear this very carefully in mind, these are the objectives of education which the teacher should pursue.

[Inaudible.]

I can inform the hon. member that these are particulars derived from both documents. They point out that the objectives which have been furnished here are what are being pursued in almost all the provinces in South Africa. I am therefore not deviating from the pattern which is being followed in all the provinces in South Africa.

But apart from the objectives a national policy is needed. It will be of no avail if we have wonderful objectives and we do not have the instrument or the apparatus with which to realize those objectives in practice. That is why a national policy is necessary. Any country which really takes its education seriously and is earnest with its education must approach that education from a national point of view. In this respect we made progress with Act No. 39 of 1967, i.e. the National Educational Policy Act. But when we passed that Act there was a conspicuous exception, there was in fact a disgraceful discrepancy. The training of teachers was not covered in that Act. Therefore we were not yet approaching the training of teachers from a national point of view. But we also received the promise that training of teachers would not be excluded for long. Actually, therefore, it is obvious that we should be dealing with this legislation to-day. It is a logical consequence of legislation which we passed two years ago in this House. But it is not only a logical consequence. The way which the policy is stated in the Act. viz. that the Minister, in consultation with the Administrators, the Committee of University Principals and with the N.A.E.C., shall from time to time determine the policy is also very clearly motivated. I shall read the hon. members from the consolidated report, paragraph 12.2.6.1. I quote—

This National policy must necessarily give effect to the principles outlined above; must be in conformity with the principles laid down in section 2 of the National Education Policy Act, Act No. 39 of 1967; and must ensure the co-ordination of teacher training.

I therefore maintain that it is properly motivated. On page 88 the report reads as follows—

The hon. member for Mooi River alleges that we are surrendering education to the Minister. If the hon. member were to read this report he would see on what grounds these provisions have in fact been written into the Act.

But even the minority report of Professors Horwood and Nel, on page 134 of their recommendations, reads as follows—

Therefore there is motivation from different quarters as to why there should be a national policy and on what principle that national policy should be based.

I come now to the system. However, before one can talk of a system there are a number of principles which we must very clearly take into consideration. The first is the educational objectives, to which I have already referred. Any system of education must be able to produce the teachers who can realize those objectives in practice. It must produce enough teachers of the quality able to do that kind of work. But training must be on a par throughout the country. These people must be equally well trained for their task. The place where that training takes place is not all that important; the nature of the training is of the utmost importance. This forms the unity of training, as well as of education. Then, as regards the minimum duration and nature of the training. In this world we are living in to-day, where knowledge is expanding at such a tremendous rate, we must really pay careful attention to this. It would probably be ideal if we could train our teachers for four to five years. But for the present we will probably have to be satisfied to train the primary school teacher for three years and the secondary school teacher for four years. But one can only hope and trust that the day will come when the primary school teacher will be able to receive an even better training than the secondary school teacher, for the primary school teacher is the one who moulds the clay when it is most malleable and who lays the foundations on which the other is eventually going to build. But a further principle which we must take into consideration before we come to the system itself, is countrywide equality in respect of financial assistance to students. This is mentioned in the reports. In addition the historical development and established traditions must be taken into account. The process must not be a revolutionary one. As the hon. the Minister said, it should preferably follow an evolutionary course. There must also be a national policy, as I have already said, and then the national system. In respect of the national system I would also like to quote the following (translation)—

The Bill makes provision for these principles. In clause 2 (1) (b), paras. Ci), (ii), (iii), (iv) and (v), in fact this whole piece, the legislation makes provision for the principles stated for us in these documents.

Coming to the system now, this Bill provides that secondary school teachers shall be trained at university, primary school teachers for the most part at the colleges. Then there is also the concession that certain of the secondary school teachers can be trained at training colleges. I want to admit that we can differ a great deal in regard to a system, in regard to where the emphasis should fall and how the whole matter should be put together. But perhaps we should see what the Gericke Commission states on page 38, para. 71. I think this is of cardinal importance. It reads as follows—

I think that is of the utmost importance. The National Advisory Education Council, or the National Education Council as it will be known in future, with its 29 members, is a guarantee for us in this respect as well. If one goes into the matter of those 29 members carefully, we will find that approximately half of them are people who have knowledge of teacher training. We can leave the future development in the hands of this Council with confidence. What is also important is that the objectives on which our system is based should be sound and pure.

I come now to the last and the most important of all, viz. the teacher, the individual, in the system. Elevated goals are set, we have a specific system which is based on certain fundamental principles, but if we do not have the teacher in that system, we will not get very far. What does this ideal teacher or good teacher look like? What do these men and women look like whom we want to produce a specific system for us? I am quoting from para. 45 of the Gericke Report. It reads as follows—

What is being described here is an almost superhuman being. But we are not dealing with superhuman beings. We are dealing with those who are in our classrooms to-day, and who are teaching and training our children. If we realize what objectives these people must pursue, if we realize what kind of people, arising out of what I have just read, we would like to have in our educational system, then I should like to make an appeal that they who are involved in education must display the right frame of mind. They must forget about who has to have an equal say here, or who has to have the primary say somewhere else, or must still get it. Instead of the rights of those here or the rights of those there, the trainee and the trainer must be thrust into the limelight. If attention is given to these two reports and what is contained in these two reports is implemented, we will be provided for a very long time with guiding lines—those sound principles—whether they deal with conditions of service or service regulations, or whether they deal with promotion, salaries, pensions, status, leave, or whatever, we will progress far, that is if we can only, from now on, use this legislation as a starting point. The teacher is a professional person and let us, once again, in whatever we do, appreciate the teacher and his task correctly. Let us once again make of the teacher the master we once knew in our national life, the learned man with status. Then things will go well for us and for our future.

Mr. Speaker, if I had any doubts about my reactions to this Bill I must say that the fiery speech which I have just listened to from the hon. member for Germiston would have convinced me that it was the right thing to do to oppose this Bill.

I discussed the principles.

I do not agree, as the hon. member well knows, with the basic principle of imposing uniformity in the educational system of this country. This Bill after all is an extension of the 1967 Act, which I opposed in principle. I opposed it because I do not believe that an educational system to be really beneficial should be anything other than a system of diversity, and one which allows the teacher to use his full initiative both in operating the interna of education and in his general conduct in the school. This of course is imposing the old deadly uniformity that the Government brought into …

Why deadly?

Because it becomes deadly. Uniformity becomes deadly. It is part and parcel of the meaning of the word uniformity, because it allows no initiative and no diversity. So obviously I am going to oppose this Bill in principle. The hon. member was right of course when he said that we had to expect this Bill to come to the House. We know that because the hon. the Minister told us that in 1967 when he introduced the Second Reading debate of the 1967 Bill. He told us then that his one regret was that the council had not been able to come with any hard and fast recommendations regarding teacher training but that it was his firm intention—he hoped before the end of the following session —to introduce a Bill which would put teacher training under an umbrella just as the whole educational system has been put under an umbrella by the 1967 Act. It was therefore only a matter of time before this Bill came to this House. Now, Sir, I am in a dilemma, because I do not understand clause 1 of this Bill. I do not understand the major definitions clause of this Bill. I would be happy to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kensington if I felt it went far enough, but if my fears are right about section 1 of this Bill, I may have to go further and move a “This day six months” amendment. My dilemma obviously is that I have to make up my mind while I am on my feet as to what I am going to do at the Second Reading. I should therefore like the hon. the Minister to tell me right away what the interpretation of teacher training in the definition clause means. The definition reads—

As I read that, and I may very well be wrong, it seems to me that this definition might give the hon. the Minister or bis council complete control over any student taking a B.A. or B.Sc. at a university for purposes other than teaching, but which happens, as regards courses taken, to coincide with those approved as a degree qualifying for teaching.

I can tell you right away that you are wrong.

Is the hon. the Minister quite sure?

You are wrong.

I am glad to hear that. I must say that it is a very wide and ambiguous definition. As I read it, it can be any B.A. or B.Sc. degree which happens to be approved for teaching. If I, as a student, go to a university and choose to do a B.A. or perhaps a B.Sc. degree which co-incidentally happens to include all the courses approved as a qualification for teaching, why am I then excluded from the ambit of this Act?

It says “provided to a student”. It may mean any student.

Yes, it may mean any student at all. If the hon. the Minister gives me his assurance that I am wrong, and that this relates specifically to teachers and not to any student at any university taking a B.A. or a B.Sc. degree, I shall support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kensington. This whole Bill which is before us is simply, as I have said, extending to the ambit of teacher training everything I objected to in the original Education Bill. It is furthering the extension of the Nationalist Party ideal of uniformity. I believe that this is quite out of place in education, be it lower education, secondary education or higher education. I believe in diversity, in individual intitiative and in decentralization as far as education systems are concerned. The hon. the Minister took vast powers unto himself under the 1967 Act. It seems to me that he is now taking exactly the same powers which will control and crib, cabin and confine teachers with this Bill he is introducing to-day. This is more than just “co-ordination” of teacher training, as stressed by the Minister. It is of course control over teacher training, and not simply co-ordination. There are various clauses in this Bill which I find very objectionable indeed, and I shall be opposing those clauses during the Committee Stage.

Let me take clause 5. The hon. member for Kensington has talked about the constitution of the council. This is completely unacceptable to me as well. I believe, and many educationists have said so, that education is too important to be left only to professional educationists. Indeed it is significant that most of the modern innovations which have been introduced into education itself have in fact been innovations introduced by people who are not educationists at all. No provision is made in this Bill for the council to have, as part of its membership, any sociologists, any economists or any members of the chambers of commerce and industry, who are, after all, going to have to absorb the products the teachers are going to produce. They would surely know all about the requirements of a modern industrial Society, which is after all the society we now enjoy in South Africa. There is no provision at all for any representatives in the vocational training field, such as trade unionists. They ought to have some say on this council as well. There is no provision for any of the voluntary agencies to be represented on this council. Worst of all, all the personnel are appointed by the Minister. Only two members will be nominated by teachers’ associations, one by the English-speaking and one by the Afrikaans-speaking teachers’ associations. Out of 29 members only one will represent technical education. I think this is a very lopsided sort of council indeed. The representatives of the provincial education department are far outnumbered by the Minister’s other nominees, and the council, as envisaged by the Bill, in fact guarantees the Minister against receiving any advice which might cause him to think again, or possibly any advice which might cause him to think at all, because these are after all his appointees. Certainly the professional members should be nominated by their own universities. It seems to me that the English and Afrikaans-speaking teachers’ organizations should nominate their own representatives without being screened firstly by the Federal Council and then by the Minister. Surely they should be allowed to select their own representatives.

Clauses 5 and 6 embody the major principles of this Bill, and clause 6 is also very objectionable as far as I can see. I have certain specific objections which I should like to make. Clause 6 gives the Administrator concerned and the Minister unqualified control over the recruiting and the selection of student teachers to be admitted to the colleges. This does not apply to those going to the university, but only to those going to the colleges. I should like to know on what basis this recruiting and selection will be done. It seems to me that there should be some qualification to this absolute power presently enjoyed by the Minister and the Administrators. The Administrators are of course in any case appointed persons. They are political people. Surely there should be some qualifications to the wide powers in regard to the selecting and recruiting of students. I think there should be some sort of conscience clause again. I think there should be no discrimination as far as language is concerned, and I think that if there are more applicants than vacancies, although must say this seems very unlikely at this time, only academic qualifications should be taken into account. If the Minister really wants to give effect to the mother tongue medium, that is part and parcel of the principal Act, it seems to me that the important thing he should do is to try to set up bilingual teacher training colleges. That would be a real contribution, instead of trying to have a closed circuit where Afrikaans children go to Afrikaans-medium schools, and then, as they probably will do, because of this selection, go on to Afrikaans colleges. Presumably they will be selected for the colleges which are their mother tongue colleges.

Do you think that will attract more English-speaking teachers?

I think it might be a good idea. I agree that the fact that something like 75 per cent of the teachers in this country are Afrikaans-speaking is a very great problem. This I lay entirely at the feet of English-speaking parents, who do not encourage their children to go in for the teaching profession. I agree with the hon. member one hundred per cent. But the very fact that their children can get training with State assistance, as is often provided in the case of the colleges, may possibly encourage some of them to go in for teaching. I think they are beginning to realize the importance of bilingualism, which they cannot get by going to an English-medium school. To have the other tongue taught as a subject never gives the child a really broad basis for bilingualism. If they can get this at the teacher training colleges, I think this might be of very great assistance. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should think seriously about setting up such bilingual teacher training colleges.

I should like to quote some remarks which have been made in this regard by an educational authority of whom I think very highly indeed. I hope that the hon. the Minister shares my opinion. I am referring to Professor Malherbe. Professor Malherbe talks about the necessity of trying to encourage bilingualism. Incidentally, he makes the comment in his remarks on this Bill that, according to the census figures of 1951, 11 per cent of Afrikaans-speaking people were unilingual. In 1960 this percentage of unilingual Afrikaners had increased to 18 per cent. The percentage of unilingual English-speaking people has remained constant. I am quite sure that by 1970 the census will probably show an even greater percentage of unilingual Afrikaans-speaking people. He says that this is the only country in the world where the State is using its schools to divide its people and to deprive the children of taking advantage of the normal channels of communication that lie at hand in a bilingual South African environment. They are deprived of the opportunity of learning the second language in a normal way. Now I think the same deprivation is going to be perpetuated in the training of teachers. This closed circuit which operates in the educational system is to the disadvantage of both sections of the population, namely the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking sections. I want to point out, from the figures given to me by Professor Malherbe, that something like 70 per cent of the population speak both English and Afrikaans. In about 33 per cent of the homes of our white children in South Africa both languages are used. I think it is an ideal opportunity to try to encourage more bilingualism by setting up these bilingual training colleges. This is the sort of practical idea I think the Minister should have been devoting his attention to, rather than applying that section of the principal Act which introduces uniformity in the system of teacher training, as it already exists in the schools. For all these reasons I believe this Bill should be opposed. I do not think it introduces anything that will be of advantage in the training of our teachers. The hon. member for Witbank made an interjection and said that the Bill is in the interest of education. I do not believe that to be the case at all. As far as I am concerned, I think clauses 5 and 6 are very objectionable. They impose this complete control by the Minister from above on the whole system of teacher training in this country. I do not believe that we will in any way derive any advantages from such a uniform system.

Just in passing, I am not sure that I agree with the remarks made by the hon. member for Kensington about the four year training course for secondary teachers. I think this is probably a good idea. I am not an expert in this. I hesitate to disagree with him. However, other experts have disagreed with him.

But you agree with me.

Well, I do agree with you. I also agree with some of the university experts, who do feel that as far as higher education is concerned, a minimum course of four years for secondary schools teachers is probably essential. I also hope there will be some sort of basic requirement for high school teacher trainees, namely at least a proper university matric and not a B-stream matric. For the rest, I must agree with everything that the hon. member for Kensington has said. As I say, since I objected in principle to the 1967 Bill, and this is simply an extension of that Bill, I must oppose it in principle again.

Mr. Speaker, to-day it is once again my dubious privilege to follow up on the hon. member for Houghton. I know that in the sphere of politics we are not the same wave length at all. However, I hoped that in the sphere of education we might have more in common, but fortunately we differ fundamentally in this respect as well. The hon. member made a number of very irresponsible statements. I wrote one down in which she stated that “education is too important to be left to the profession of education”.

No, I said professional educationists.

I nevertheless think it is a very irresponsible statement. Who does the hon. member want to decide on educational matters if it is not the educationists?

Must it be the trade unions, or the politicians? I think most of the arguments used by the hon. member here were refuted in 1967 already during the debate on the National Education Act. Thus I do not want to go into this any further.

I should like to return to the amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Kensington. It is a pity that he is absent from the House at the moment. I honestly think the hon. member did not have much time to think over his amendment properly, because the two legs of his amendment contradict each other completely. With the one leg of his amendment he envisages expanding the professional council for teacher training into a statutory body. At the same time, however, he wants to maintain and expand the authority of the provinces. I do not know how these two factors can be reconciled. I think the two legs of the hon. member for Kensington’s amendment contradict each other. In that respect I do not think it was very well thought out.

At the first meeting of the National Advisory Education Council in 1963 already the training of teachers was laid down as one of the two priorities for discussion by that body. After thorough study, hard work, and difficult negotiations over a period of six years we have before us to-day a Bill which will amend the National Education Policy Act in such a way that teacher training will also be incorporated into the broad national education policy as it was accepted in this House in 1967. In my opinion the Bill contains four cardinal and extremely important principles. There are of course many others, but I am mentioning only the four most important. The first is the principle that secondary school teachers, with a few exceptions, will be educated exclusively at universities. This I regard as a very important principle. The second principle is that primary and pre-primary school teachers will be trained at a college, but that from a date which will be determined by the Minister, these people will be trained at a college in close co-operation with a university. The third cardinal principle is that the Minister can also determine the policy which will be followed in respect of teaching training. With this, country-wide co-ordination is being envisaged, i.e. that the teachers will be equipped to give effect to the Christian and the National principles of education and that there will be uniformity in respect of certification, the designation and the standard of teachers’ certificates. The fourth principle is the abolition of the existing Advisory Education Council. In its place a new Education Council is being established on which persons with the necessary professional knowledge of teacher training will serve.

Before proceeding to deal in greater detail with these four main principles I also want to refer briefly, as other hon. speakers on this side have done, to the urgent need that existed for a change in the present teacher training system. In the first place I think the most important reason why such a change had to be effected is that an end had to be made to the endless duplication of teachers’ certificates. I think there are at present approximately 32 different institutions in our country which are issuing approximately a 115 different teachers’ certificates. Such a state of affairs, surely, creates confusion and uncertainty. It certainly does not serve to enhance the status of the teaching profession. The second reason for a change, in my opinion, is that there has been a series of drastic changes and developments in the lives of people since the Second World War which have changed our whole attitude towards life completely. The breathtaking pace at which technological developments are taking place, which arise out of this new knowledge mankind has gained, results in a shrinking world for us in an ever-expanding universe. Our concepts of time and space have changed completely. Mountains, oceans, rivers and distances no longer separate nations and people. We can therefore not afford to proceed peacefully with our teacher training as if nothing had happened. We will not be able to dream away our time like Rip van Winkel in our pedagogical donkey carts for much longer. Every facet of our education cries out for innovation and experiment. Because all educational innovation must of necessity begin with teacher training, the time was ripe for innovation and change here as well.

The third reason, which has already been pointed out, is that teacher training has already been declared to be higher education by the Educational Services Act of 1967. In terms of the Constitution it therefore had to be established on a national pattern.

There is still a fourth reason. The present system of training definitely did not contribute towards producing the necessary number of teachers for the country. Nor did it succeed in training the right type of teachers. In 1966 the shortages of trained teachers in the three most important subjects in the various provinces were as follows: The shortage of teachers in Afrikaans in the Transvaal was 973, in Natal 319 and in the Cape Province 826. That is a total of 2,118. In 1966 the shortage of English teachers in the Transvaal was 893, in Natal 444 and in the Cape Province 745. That is a total of 2,082. The shortage of mathematics teachers in the Transvaal was 782, in Natal 300 and in the Cape Province 678. That is a total of 1,760. I do not believe that this situation has improved much since then. No Government can allow such a disturbing state of affairs to continue. That is why a change was essential. Another important reason which has already been pointed out is that a better utilization of our manpower is essential, that the urgent need for country-wide co-ordination of teacher training must receive attention, and that there is a greater need for unity among the ranks of teachers. Apart from the factors which I have now mentioned, I can also mention reports of quite a number of commissions. I am mentioning only the Baxter Commission of 1923, the Roos Commission of 1934, and the De Villiers Commission of 1948, all of which recommended changes. Apart from this the world trend in regard to teacher training must be taken into account. In regard to the question whether the change in the existing system is essential there is no difference of opinion among people who can form authoritative judgements, and among educationists who put education in the country first. The question now arises as to which changes can be made to the present system and in which way the changes can be introduced without disrupting the sound educational principles and at the same time taking into account the established tradition which has been built up over a period of 60 years. These were the two major considerations in the introduction of changes, i.e. that the sound educational principles should not be violated, and that the established tradition should be taken into account. In other words, the task facing the hon. the Minister in drawing up this Bill, and the task facing the various commissions was to establish a pedagogically well-grounded system which would also be a viable one for all those who had to work with it. The National Advisory Education Council have been wrestling with this problem for several years. The Select Committee of this Parliament wrestled with this problem, and eventually the State President’s Commission under the chairmanship of Dr. Gericke discussed this problem. For all these bodies there were three ways in which these changes could be effected. In the first instance it would have been possible to yield to the very strong temptation to transfer teacher training in toto to the universities. This would have enhanced the status of teachers immediately, it would have brought about uniformity in the profession, and it could have been declared to be pedagogically well-grounded. However, it would definitely not have taken the second principle, viz. the established tradition into account. In this connection I quote from the Gericke report where the following is stated on page 22 (translation)—

That is why the first point, namely to transfer teacher training to the university in toto is not acceptable. The second course one could have adopted was that of the [previous Bill, i.e. the establishment of institutes. That is, the establishment of certain institutions which are linked to universities, but which would occupy a position between the colleges and the unversities and which would retain the traditions, the benefits and the good qualities of both. For educationists who have the interests of teacher training at heart and who take an interest in the matter, the institute idea is a fine and acceptable creation. Of course a good deal of thought would have to be given to the matter and a lot of rough edges knocked off to be able to implement it in practice. However, it seems to be a very fine idea, and it is one which has also been put into effect elsewhere in the world. However, it must be realized that if it were to be introduced it would be quite a revolutionary change which, if it were introduced precipitately, might cause confusion, uncertainty and dissatisfaction among those who would have to do the work. We must bear in mind that for the past 60 years the provinces have been responsible for the training of teachers and that established traditions cannot be broken all at once. In the Cape, for example, there are seven training colleges at which more than 2,000 students are studying. Over the years large and extensive building complexes have been erected, fine traditions have been created, and excellent work has been done for which one must express great appreciation. Thousands of teachers with high ideals and fine principles in life have been produced, and one is very grateful for that. Apparently it would be impracticable to convert all these establishments into institutes linked to universities and it would be a great pity if some of these colleges would eventually have to close down. It would be a great pity for the various areas in which they were situated, and for that reason one is grateful that it was not implemented. That is why in the Cape, of which I have knowledge, the institute idea would not have been practicable because it would have been too revolutionary. It must be borne in mind that in all countries where teacher training was transferred from the college to the university it was a gradual process which amounted more to a prolonged, evolutionary process. In the U.S.A., for example, the old teachers’ colleges gradually gained the enhanced status of State teachers’ colleges, which in turn gradually developed into university colleges and subsequently into full-fledged universities at which teachers were trained. In Britain as well there is a tendency to convert the teachers’ training colleges gradually into institutes for the training of teachers, which are linked to universities. In these countries therefore the development was a gradual evolution rather than a sudden revolution. Consequently this would be the desirable procedure to follow here in South Africa, and this brings me then to the third course which may be adopted. This is the course which the Gericke Commission recommended and which the Minister has also written into the Bill, viz. that there is to be a gradual development in this direction. The Commission’s report, as well as the Bill, takes thorough cognizance of the educational as well as the traditional historical principles of teacher training, and it places one on an evolutionary road along which one might eventually, without disruption or bitterness, reach the desired goal. That is why I want to discuss very briefly the four main principles which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, and point out certain aspects of these.

The first is that all teacher training for secondary school teachers shall, with a few exceptions, be provided at the university, and in the Cape this is no new principle. We have been adhering to this principle for many years, and except for certain practical subjects for which the university does not make provision in any case, such as woodwork, physical training, etc., all secondary training for teachers in the Cape has for many years been provided almost exclusively at universities. In fact, the Cape Provincial Administration actually encourages its students to attend a university by way of higher bursaries. A student who attends a university obtains a bursary of R500, but a student who studies at a college, obtains a bursary of R300 per year.

There are also more bursary holders at the universities. In 1968 there were 591 bursary holders at universities in the Cape, who received a total amount of R524,000 in bursaries. At the colleges there were 586 bursary holders of R300 each, to a total amount of R412,000. This indicates that this is actually, apart from what the hon. members for Kensington and Houghton had to say, the existing position in the Cape. Considering the astonishing amount of highly specialized knowledge a teacher has to master and which he will have to convey to his pupils, I cannot find any fault with this principle and I think that it is quite correct. However, I foresee practical problems in regard to that section of the clause which provides that the Minister can grant exemption for a certain period of time in respect of a specific subject to the effect that certain teachers can be trained at colleges. I have no objection to such exemption being granted. In fact, I think it is a good thing because the task of the university concentrates more on the academic side and not on the professional-practical side. But according to the Bill it occurs to me as if this concession will be on a very temporary ad hoc basis. One certainly cannot expect the Provinces to make proper provision for the training of their teachers if they do not know that it can take place on a reasonably long-term basis. In any case, what one would like to see is that even if these teachers were still to receive their practical and professional training in practical subjects at the college they should still receive their academic training at the university.

The second principle of the Bill, i.e. that the primary and pre-primary teachers must, from a date to be determined by the Minister, be trained at a college and a university in close mutual co-operation, is a very interesting one. The way in which this close co-operation must take place will probably be determined by the Education Council. One does not want to anticipate it, but if I may venture an opinion, I think it would be a very happy state of affairs if the college would in future confine itself more to the professional and the practical training of the teacher and that the academic training should take place at a university for all secondary teachers, and primary teachers as well, and that close co-operation should take place in this way. This is a pattern which one could perhaps, if need be, expand further. The question arises as to how long and to what extent academic and professional training of teachers ought to be integrated. It is true that in all other professions I know the professional and the academic components virtually balance each other from the outset of the training, but it is an integrated course. With teachers, and particularly teachers in the secondary schools this has not up to now been the case. One would like to see the new Education Council also discuss this question very carefully, because I do not think it is right that we should first have a prospective teacher follow an academic course and then throw a professional course on top of it like a pedagogical patchwork quilt. But I welcome these measures for closer co-operation. I think it places us on a road which could lead to the establishment of a very happy position of cordial co-operation between university and college, which would be in the interests of the teaching profession and which would lead to the status of teachers being enhanced and to greater unity in the profession.

Before I leave this point, i.e. the cooperation between college and university, I want in passing to express the hope that since a new university is to be built at Port Elizabeth on a totally new campus and since a new training college is to be built, a generous and broad view will be taken in regard to the planning and establishment of these two institutions. If it is to be the case that this new cooperation must in future take place, the desired state of affairs would be that the college should be built as close to the new university as possible, and the grounds are there, so that there can also be close liaison in the field of sport and in other respects. Here then is a unique opportunity, I think, of immediately implementing this experiment of closer liaison between college and university. I sincerely hope therefore that the steps taken in this regard will not be shortsighted ones.

The third main principle of the Bill, namely that the Minister will determine the policy himself, is an obvious one and it is a principle which was thrashed out here in 1967 already; I do not want to say anything further about it. The fourth main principle is the establishment of the National Education Council. It is in this respect that the Bill deviates from the report of the Gericke Commission. It deviates slightly, not a great deal; in fact, according to a Press statement which was subsequently issued, they are very satisfied with the establishment of this council as well. This is the reason why hon. members opposite do not want to proceed with this Bill and are apparently opposing it. I cannot understand how people who assert that they are educationists and who have the interests of education at heart can in fact oppose this excellent and brilliant solution to a vexatious position, which the Minister has submitted. Suppose there were two Councils of equal status existing side by side, the one to see to teacher training, and the other to advise the Minister on the general principles of education. What potential for discord in education would one not be able to create in this way! It could bedevil the entire education system and prove the bane of the Minister’s existence in future if he received this advice from the one council and that advice from the other. Which should be followed? I have sympathy with this recommendation of the Gericke Commission in respect of the statutory board, because I was a teacher myself and I know that for many years now the teachers have been wanting such an education council. But as the hon. the Minister indicated, they did not want it in order to advise the Minister as such, they wanted it in the hope that it would lead to the registration of education as a profession, and that was not the intention of the Gericke Report. I think the hon. Minister must be congratulated on a very brilliant solution, to wit, a council with two constituent parts which can consult separately and then consult together and ultimately reach a happy decision. For that reason I think the teaching profession is also very satisfied with the constitution of this council. In fact, they are getting at least 16 members out of a total of 29. This is more than they could ever have expected, and that is why I think the teaching profession will also be very happy with the constitution of this council.

With this I have dealt very briefly with the most important principles of the Bill. It is my sincere hope that the principles contained in this Bill, when they are applied, will place our education in such a position that it will be able to serve our nation in the most effective way possible and that it will be possible to utilize our potential in the form of human material in the best way. In fact, I hope it will be so effective that it will lead to not one single pupil being lost in the learning process. To-day no country in the world can afford to have an ineffective educational system. Our nation, with only 3½ million Whites, can afford it least of all. That is why we must lead the world with the most effective educational system, which will ensure that our human material will be utilized in the most effective way. The hon. member opposite can smile if he likes, but this is so. We must therefore conceive our objectives very clearly. Fortunately, there is a very wide interest in education to-day. Bodies of all kinds are consulting on education, holding conferences and congresses. Even businessmen, church leaders and others are interested in this matter and are holding congresses on education. This is all very encouraging for a person who is interested in education, but, Sir, without the inspiration, without the idealism, without the fine example of a good teacher, the true schoolmaster, all of this will avail us nothing. More than ever before it is probably necessary to-day to co-operate here and emphasize once again that the success of all education and of each educational system ultimately depends upon the calibre of the teacher in the classroom. If the Apostle Paul could have participated in this debate, Sir, he would probably have stated his case as follows: Though you speak with the tongues of learned pedagogues, and have not the right teachers, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though you had the gift of planning, and understood all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though the Government placed all the necessary money at your disposal so that you can afford all your schemes and you have not the right teachers, it will profit you nothing.

Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to follow the hon. member for Algoa in paraphrasing St. Paul. I notice that he went into rhapsodies when he described the brilliant manner in which this Bill dealt with the composition of the council. I know he has stated his position as a politician and that he supports the Minister in the new concept of the new council. But does the really believe, as a member of the teaching profession, that this compromise will be better than the council which was put forward after due consideration, by the Gericke Commission, the Professional Teachers’ Council? I notice that the hon. member for Koedoespoort was rather cagey when the same point was put to him as a member of the teaching profession.

I gave you my reasons.

I realize that, but I am afraid that I do not accept all those reasons. The hon. member based his speech on four points; he dealt with aspects, concepts and ideals. Worthy and important as they may be, I cannot help thinking that both he and the hon. member for Germiston have been more preoccupied with ideology than with paying attention to some of the aspects of the teaching profession itself. I believe that they have overlooked factors which are of immediate concern to the teaching profession, factors affecting their own requirements and their well being, and I believe that these are important factors which, if we go on evading or neglecting, will be to our detriment.

Sir, anyone seeking clarity regarding education in South Africa, with particular reference to teacher training, will, I believe, concede that the problem has been complicated by events in which this Minister and this various advisory councils have played some part. I base some of my conclusions on the fact that, I do not think, the Minister knows the answers. I also think that his Education Advisory Councils have either not tendered or the Minister himself has not always accepted the correct advice. Sir, during the course of my speech I wish to emphasize and enlarge upon my claim that the Minister did not know what the position was. I say that the Minister did not know that the teachers were dissatisfied with their salaries. I say that he did not know the extent of the drift away from the profession. I say that he did not know what the teachers and the public were thinking, and I say that he was even undecided about the name, the composition and the functions of his council.

Clever man!

I cannot compete with the clarity and eloquence of my colleague, the hon. member for Kensington, when he put the position concerning the four Bills, so clearly, but I want to indicate that in the course of one year we have had these four Bills; that the present Bill put forward by the Minister differs from the other three Bills, and that already the Minister has found it necessary to submit six amendments to this Bill and even an amendment to an amendment! I would describe the situation as the story of the patchwork quilt. I believe that this Bill is a patched-up compromise designed to retain certain aspects of previous Bills, but at variance with the recommendations of the Gericke Commission.

The hon. member for Kensington has referred to the four Bills that we have had in the last year. I want to refer to the four councils in the last 12 years. We have had four National Advisory Education Councils. The first council held its inaugural meeting in October, 1957, and it was assisted by the committee of heads of education departments. The chairman of that council was the then Minister of Education, and I think it would be fair to say, if one reads the report of that council, that it never really got off the ground. Then in 1962 we had a Bill to establish another education council, an Education Advisory Council. This Bill, as those members who were in the House at the time will recollect, went to a Select Committee; the Select Committee heard voluminous oral evidence and also considered many memoranda and submitted a new Bill entitled the National Education Council Bill. The Minister immediately indicated that he would amend that name to “Advisory Council Bill” when the Bill was discussed in this House. It is my belief, Sir, that this Bill laid the foundation of the “confusion in diversity” which we find at present in education in South Africa, because in my opinion it laid down, contrary to the weight of the oral evidence, that the highest and most important education council in the Republic would deal with education for Whites only. I believe that this was the starting point for some of our present problems. I believe that these problems have been aggravated by overlapping, resulting (a) in duplication, (b) in a brain drain and (c) in a teacher shortage crisis. Sir, I want to quote evidence which was given before that Select Committee by Professor H. J. J. Bingle, a foundation member of the Education Advisory Council, a member of the first executive of the Council and also still an executive member of the Council which was reconstituted in 1967. I quote from the report of the Select Committee—

(Prof. Bingle) Yes, but only at this stage. To me it is something that has not been settled. As a matter of fact, I believe that as regards administration, control, etc., we cannot keep the education of the various races separate as we are doing at present. I think the education of the country forms a unity and that the council would in due course have to acknowledge that.

A most profound statement, Mr. Speaker! These are not the words of an English liberalist, but the words of a distinguished Afrikaner educationist, and to-day, seven years later, the unity ideal in education is still a pipe dream because of this present situation of diversification and dilution of our limited available resources, and the teacher shortage crisis is still very much with us.

Now, Sir, I want to deal with the second council, the National Advisory Education Council, which commenced to function on the 1st January, 1963. But by 1967, only four years later, this hon. Minister sought legislation to do away with this council, to replace it. He introduced legislation to form council No. 3, a National Advisory Education Council to replace a council of his own creation, about which he boasted. He said that it would be a “plump and healthy council” of which the country would be proud. He went on to say that it would be a “model” council. He said too that he staked his political reputation on this council and the appointment of its members. I want to quote specifically from Hansard what the Minister said, and I refer to column 7199 of Hansard of the 6th June, 1962—

Whereas in 1963, the Minister in his wisdom appointed 29 members, he had come to the conclusion apparently by 1967 that 19 members would be adequate. He had a big council; it was too big, so he made it smaller, and now we are making it bigger again.

So what!

Sir, I say that the Minister has vacillated. I believe that in his vacillation he has shown that ten of the very best educationists, in the Minister’s own words, became redundant and were unnecessary because he found no need for them in his new council.

How silly.

Yes, Sir, I am in good company. I believe that behaviour like this on the part of the Minister is bordering on irresponsibility. Sir, one must not lose sight of the fact that since 1963 an amount of R300,000 has appeared on the Estimates. I believe that the actual money spent on the workings of these councils is nearer to one-third of a million rand to-day, and I suggest that before Parliament agrees to a further reconstitution of the council, we in Parliament are entitled to ask why the Minister has sought these changes when in 1962 he waxed lyrical over the council and its future. Sir, I want to repeat what I quoted in 1967 from the Minister’s own speech, because I believe it has as much bearing on the matter to-day as it did in 1967. This is what the Minister said (Hansard, June, 1962, col. 7198)—

Not mad enough to kill it, Sir, but just how stupid have they been! With the passage of time I believe that it is necessary to challenge and query some of the remarks which the hon. the Minister made and which appear in Hansard. I quote from column 7193 of June. This is what the Minister said—

Sir, there is not much evidence of that. If one examines the appointments made, one must conclude that the council is lopsided and one must conclude that the appointments barely recognize the existence of the other language group.

Why do you not raise these matters under my Vote?

Sir, I want to refer to some more grand words used by the hon. the Minister. I want to refer to the question of national education conferences. The Minister referred to these on several occasions when he introduced his Second Reading speech in 1962. He said that these conferences should be convened and that they offered a golden opportunity to make valuable contacts in regard to appointments of ad hoc committees. He said that it was necessary periodically to convene big national education conferences, annually or every two years. Words, Mr. Speaker, no action. I want to ask the hon. the Minister: How many national education conferences have been convened either by himself or by his National Advisory Education Council?

That has nothing to do with teacher training. You have not said a word about this Bill.

But I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. the Minister has failed in not calling together these national conferences. So he is not fully aware of the opinion of the teachers and of the public.

I have got the opinion of the teachers. You need not worry about that.

In order to support my contention, I wish to quote to the Minister, a gentleman whom I am sure the Minister admires and respects. He says—

The person who made that remark was Professor S. Pauw, and he spoke those words in 1963. Despite this lack of national congresses, we have placed on the Statute Book a National Education Policy Act and a variety of measures to establish National Education Councils.

Sir, I want to deal with the question of teachers’ salaries, because I believe this is a very serious matter. I believe, too, it has a very serious influence on teacher training. I believe it is serious when the hon. the Minister admits that he did not know of dissatisfaction among the teachers, and when he accused the hon. member for South Coast of initiating dissatisfaction in Parliament. I want to refer to what the hon. member for South Coast said.

Order! To which part of the Bill is the hon. member referring?

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I believe that teachers’ salaries play a very important part in the training of teachers; because, if in the overall picture of the training of teachers, salaries are not taken into consideration, it will have very serious results.

I submit that it has been referred to on numerous occasions in the Gericke Report and also in the minority report. The hon. member for South Coast said—

Order! No, I do not think that is relevant.

I abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I feel that I must ask your indulgence to quote the Minister’s opinion. He said that he did not know that there was dissatisfaction. But two years later he said in Hansard that the vast majority of teachers are “trained at colleges where the salaries of the lecturers compare unfavourably with those of lecturers at universities which are doing the same kind of work”. I ask the hon. the Minister: Is this not a cause of dissatisfaction among the teachers?

I now come to another important aspect, which was also dealt with in the reports which we have before us. I submit that the hon. the Minister did not know the extent of the wastage of teachers from his own Department, or the movement of teachers in the higher echelons from his Department. I want to quote a survey which was taken in 1956, where it was disclosed that the number of teachers with doctorates and masters degrees in the teaching service was 970. By 1961 only 530 were still teaching. This means a loss of 440, or 45 per cent. I believe it is important in considering the question of teacher training to ask where these teachers could be. I want to put forward three possibilities. Some could have joined other education departments. Some could have joined the staffs of the five ethnic universities. An analysis of a calendar of one of those universities shows that, in fact, on their teaching staff at that time there were 45 teachers, 20 with master’s degrees, 10 with doctor’s degrees and 15 with bachelor’s degrees. Another possibility is that teachers left South Africa. The third possibility which I believe contributed notably to the shortage of teachers was the drain to the private sector. When an economist can say that the chronic shortage of school teachers in science subjects highlights the critical situation, and that teachers realize that “dedication to service is too high a price to pay”, and that the offers of higher salaries and fringe benefits caused this drift to the private sector, I believe that this aspect of the brain drain cannot be disregarded. Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister was not aware of this. I want to quote what the hon. the Minister said in this House in April of this year. He said this—

The hon. member must discuss the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to the point that I made in the first place.

The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

I am, Mr. Speaker. I am dealing with the appointment of the commission right now, which indicates the lack of information and vacillation which went on. The hon. the Prime Minister finds it necessary —and the hon. member for Kensington has already referred to this—to intervene during the closing hours of the last session to appoint the Gericke Commission. I want to quote his words at that time. He said—

I can see that there are problems. I can see that. I believe that the Gericke Commission had a very difficult task. I believe that it had to devise a via media to reconcile the interests of the provinces, the teacher training colleges under provincial control, the universities with their autonomy, the colleges for advanced technical education and other training institutions under the Department of Higher Education, as well as the churches and other interested bodies. I believe that the Gericke Commission set out to accomplish this in a manner best summed up in the words of one of the witnesses. I refer to page 30 of the report of the commission of inquiry. This witness said the following—

He was referring to the first Bill in 1968.

That I believe is a most responsible statement. I think, too, that the Gericke Bill proposed two important principles which have been watered down by this present Bill. As has been stated already, the first principle was the establishment of a South African professional council for the training of teachers. This was to have been a 13-member council symbolized by the blending of appointments involving the Minister, the provinces, teachers’ associations and also the Association of Colleges for Advanced Technical Education. But in this Bill the hon. the Minister attempts for the third time to constitute his council. The name is to be changed again. It will now be called the National Education Council. The membership is now to be enlarged from 19 to 29. What I find to be an unsatisfactory aspect is that the council envisaged in the Gericke Bill is to be absorbed in the newly constituted council in this Bill. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether the council favoured by this Bill is that favoured by the teaching profession itself. The second principle which seems to me to have been put forward by the Gericke Bill was in regard to the training of teachers. I quote again—

But then, in the Gericke Bill, there was the following proviso—

I want to ask the hon. the Minister why he could not accept this particular proposition contained in the draft Bill submitted by the Gericke Commission, because it seems to be completely in line with his own point of view. When he introduced the Advanced Technical Education Bill in 1967, the Minister said (Hansard, Vol. 19 of 1967, cols. 968 and 970):

The Minister also said, when he was indicating that the four main technical colleges would now become technical colleges for advanced technical education, said “that they should mainly confine themselves to advanced technical and teacher training extending from more or less the Std. X level to a level somewhat lower than the university level in that particular field”. A third time the Minister reiterated (col. 972) that these colleges should concentrate to an increasing extent on offering training courses such as teacher training and so forth. However, in this Bill these rights which the colleges enjoy at present, can be done away with at the whim of the Minister, at a time to be decided upon by him, and with no proviso or no safeguard. I do not believe that it is in the interests of those particular colleges or of the provinces, that this should be the position. I believe that teacher training is of prime importance. I believe it is Parliament’s responsibility to ensure that teachers receive the best training so that they can guide our children during the knowledge explosion which we know faces us in South Africa to-day.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to do an injustice to the hon. member for Berea, who has just sat down, but if I heard correctly, he referred to the hon. member for Algoa and said that he had a political approach in connection with this Bill, only to support the hon. the Minister. I do not think that one should make such insinuations at this stage, when we are deling with such an important matter. The hon. member for Algoa is an ex-teacher who in all probability has education sufficiently at heart not just arbitrarily, for political reasons only, to support a Minister. He also referred to the dissatisfaction of the teachers, and said that the Minister knew nothing about it. No one has consulted the teachers more in regard to this Bill than this very Minister. He knows exactly what they said. He also knows about their dissatisfaction. A reasonable measure of agreement was reached after they had held consultations. The Advisory Education Council was not simply pushed or brushed aside. The members of the council are also highly satisfied with the way in which this was done and with the assurance that they received that the work they had done was being continued. The council was not brushed aside as if it meant nothing, or had done nothing in regard to these matters. Discussions were held with the members and they are very happy with these new developments. When we come to the appointment of the Gericke Commission by the Minister of Higher Education, about which such a fuss is being made now and to which so many objections are being raised, we find that no less a person than the Prime Minister himself praised the Minister of Higher Education on account of the appointment of that Commission. This is what he said (Hansard, Volume 24, 1968, col. 7592)—

The hon. the Minister cannot simply be judged and condemned by stating that he, through the changes he brought about, has done either the country, or the nation, or the teaching profession, or the commission he appointed previously, a disservice. This simply does not go down. Changes are necessary, because we are not static, because we are making progress.

He has made history.

In connection with the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Training of White Persons as Teachers, which is dealt with by this Bill, I want to say that I am of the opinion that there has seldom been a commission which could look back with so much pride at its work in this connection, and could say that a Bill had been drawn up which was nearly one hundred per cent in agreement with its recommendations. Nevertheless we hear from the side of the hon. the Opposition that so many of those recommendations by the Gericke Commission were simply brushed aside. I should like to refer to some of the recommendations made by this commission. These recommendations are embodied in the Bill. Although they have been modified slightly in some cases, the Bill as a whole has been drawn up in full accordance with the recommendations. The commission made, inter alia, the following recommendations: (1) The replacement of the National Advisory Education Council by the National Education Council; (2) a minimum of three years’ training for primary teachers, but also the institution of an optional academic-professional four-year course for the teacher’s degree; (3) a four-year academic-professional course as the minimum for secondary school teachers for a teacher’s degree; (4) the establishment of a joint advisory and co-ordinating committee for teachers’ training in each centre or region by the Administrator in collaboration with the university concerned and the Department of Higher Education in order to effect closer integration and co-operation among the existing training institutions; (5) the provision of generous subsidies for teacher training and more money for teachers’ colleges, for generous staff provision, facilities, etc.; (6) smaller classes for better education; (7) the salaries of lecturers at the colleges should be comparable to those of lecturers in corresponding posts in faculties of education; (8) as much academic independence as possible for teachers’ colleges; (9) financial assistance should be granted to students who are being trained at universities, provincial colleges and colleges for advanced technical education; (10) in order to enable the right kind of student to qualify himself for teaching, bursaries and/or loans for this training should be made available in the most generous measure.

These recommendations made by the Gericke Commission, as we find them in the report, are more or less identical to the provisions contained in the Bill. I should like to repeat that I think it seldom happens that a commission can look back with so much pride at its work, and say that a Bill was drawn up in accordance with its recommendations. The hon. member for Algoa addressed a word of thanks to the hon. the Minister at the end of his speech. At that point I heard the remark: “Here it comes, here it comes!” coming from the benches of the hon. the Opposition. Well, we know that the hon. friends are allergic to expressing appreciation for the work done by hon. Ministers. I need not wait until the end of my speech before the hon. member who made that remark can say “Here it comes at last;” he should say: “Here it is already.”

You know, Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister has put us on a certain course, and I want to mention some of its features, which are connected with this Bill. If we notice that something is going wrong in our national economy, then we must hold on to our education. However, I want to lay down a clear condition beforehand, and that is that that education should be national and Christian and must have the mother tongue as its cornerstone. If those are the foundation stones of our education, the hon. the Minister can point out to us when matters are starting to go wrong. So, when matters begin to go wrong, hold on to education. If we want to keep things in order, we must hold on to education. If we want to prevent stagnation, we must be able to reform our education. This is what we are doing. A nation that reforms, lives; without reform, there is stagnation in every sphere, political, educational, religious and economic. A reforming nation reforms in all respects, and this is what the hon. the Prime Minister is doing. He is reforming, so that we may live. This reformation is directed at the child—I want to refer to that in a moment—but our education has always been directed at the child; sometimes to a greater and sometimes to a lesser degree. In my time our education was mainly directed at the child as regards the practical side. Education was directed at the child in such a way that the good teachers of the old days always used to correct their mistakes on the behind of the child. Nevertheless, it was directed at the child. This legislation of the hon. the Minister directs education at the child, and in order to ensure that our nation will survive, we must build on that foundation of Christian, national and mother-tongue education.

I now want to refer to the report of the Gericke Commission of Inquiry. It appears from the terms of reference given to the commission that the policy was born out of a need based on the principles of co-ordination, staff provision, raising of status of the teaching profession, and the elimination of overlapping. On page 3 of the report I read that the Minister of National Education expressed himself as follows during the first meeting of the National Advisory Education Council on 28th March, 1963, and this has a bearing on the Bill that is before us—

I quote further the report, this time from Chapter II, page 13—

I cannot mention all the points of interest in this report now, but I do want to refer to the next paragraph on the same page, namely paragraph 33 (a), of the report—

Prior to the establishment of the Union of South Africa, the admission requirements for the training of teachers were below matriculation level. In 1912, the Transvaal laid down matriculation as the admission requirement, and in 1914 it was followed by the Orange Free State, while the Cape Province and Natal only followed suit in 1928; i.e., a gradual advance … So finally we came to where we are to-day. To-day our education policy is development, reformation, and always progress. Then I want to read to you again from page 13, paragraph (b) of the report—

I now want to refer hon. members to a point of order that was raised by the Opposition in respect of the National Education Policy Bill of 1967.

Order! Is that point of order in order now?

I think so, Mr. Speaker. This was the beginning of the legislation on the training of teachers with which we are dealing to-day. The Bill amends the National Education Policy Act. On those grounds, Mr. Speaker, I think that I may discuss this. I quote from columns 1559-1560 of the Hansard of 1967, where the hon. member for Durban (North) raised the following point of order—

I have read this passage to hon. members so that they may see that the opposition that existed then is being continued to-day by way of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kensington, i.e. that the Bill be rejected in its entirety. I can only say that we were all delighted when Mr. Speaker ruled as follows, and I quote from the Hansard of 1967, column 1575—

And we did proceed with it, and at this moment we are still proceeding. Numerous commissions have been appointed in the past to investigate educational matters. The first was in 1910, when a conference consisting of the Deputy Secretary of Education and four education heads declared that higher education would include education above matriculation level. The next commission was the Baxter Commission of 1923. Then there were also the following commissions: the Hofmeyer Commission of. 1924, the Roos Commission of 1934, and the De Villiers Commission of 1948. Eventually we had Act No. 86 of 1962, in which, inter alia, the functions of the National Advisory Education Council are laid down as follows—

1. (2) … to promote co-operation generally in the field of education, and generally to co-ordinate education policy with a view to adapting the education system to the needs of the country …
2. (3) the council shall also endeavour to uphold and promote the prestige of the teaching profession and of persons engaged therein.

Poor Hansard.

That history has been dealt with fully. The hon. member must return to the Bill.

I have now come to the fourth part of my speech.

Does that part deal with this Bill?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it deals with this Bill. In this Bill we find the following provision—

The policy mentioned here, rests on the foundation stones of Christian, national and mother-tongue education. I go further—

1. (a) which is to be pursued in respect of teachers’ training in order that …

And then I come to that series of provisions on page 6, but I shall read only paragraph (ii) —

In my speech I now want to concentrate on these three subdivisions, namely Christian, national and directed at the child, as they are referred to in this Bill. The foundation of every nation is a religious and national one, and these characteristics also appear from its education, and also from the economic, political, literary and artistic fields. It is no coincidence that legislation on education in the Republic demands that things in our present system which meet certain requirements should be retained, but then purification in the process of educational renovation is also demanded. I think that in saying this I am referring to the Bill which is now before us and its objects. Our educational system, therefore, has been subjected to close scrutiny over the years, as is again being done now. As the hon. the Minister said, we must grasp and hold on to our education, and reform it if something is Wrong. This is discussed in an illuminating way in the periodical Tegniek, in the issue of February, 1969. In this connection I should like to refer to what was said, i.e. that the destiny of a nation, and this is the child-directedness of the teachers’ training, depends on the opinions of its young people under the age of 25 years. This is a tremendous statement to make, and for South Africa it may be reassuring with our present education system and with the way in which we are now reforming it, but for the world outside it may perhaps be disconcerting. I repeat, that if this is true, it is not disconcerting to the Republic of South Africa in the present circumstances, but reassuring that the future of this nation of ours depends on the opinion of our children of 25 years of age and younger. It is they who are now at university and among whom we are training teachers to train our young people and to keep them on the right course. We will share the fate of the world if our education is not cast in the abovementioned mould, and if we should allow the opinions of young people in South Africa to be mobilized and utilized out of context and out of proportion in a militant way, as is happening elsewhere. We are still safeguarded against this. This fact I want to attribute to the effectiveness of our education system and to the integrity of our teachers’ corps throughout the length and breadth of our country, to whom we want to pay very great tribute for their services. If in terms of our policy we also build up channels of communication for a better understanding with and a fuller recognition of the outside world, in regard to the training of teachers and the facilities which will as a result be provided to our student youth in our schools and universities, then influential spheres from outside will exert their influence on our country through these same channels of communication. Then we must make use of the channels offered us by education to defend ourselves, and the training of teachers should be such that qualitatively they will be enabled to educate the youth in such a way that they will be a safeguard and a bastion for us against danger.