I move—

This motion consists of three divisions. The first part sets out this problem of a shortage of technicians and engineers, a problem which is due to our phenomenal progress in the industrial sphere. The second part deals with the solution of this problem by consolidating and extending technological education and training. The third part refers to the aim, namely to be able to meet our own needs and to retain our leadership in Africa.

My first task therefore is to indicate that there is an acute shortage of technicians and technologists in South Africa because of our phenomenal industrial expansion. I do not think that it is necessary for me, Mr. Speaker, to outline this enormous industrial expansion, but as a matter of interest I do want to point out a few facts in this connection. Firstly, the manufacturing industry is one of the biggest single contributors to our national income to-day, making a contribution of R1,123,000,000, that is to say, 26 per cent of our total net national income as against a contribution of only 13 per cent made by the second highest contributor, which is commerce, and approximately 11 per cent by the gold mining industry. Secondly, over the past decade the index figure of the manufacturing industry as employer has also risen from 71 points in 1948 to 120 points in 1961. Thirdly, in the past decade the chemical industry at Sasol has come into being, an industry which itself has become a phenomenal contributor to our national income, and indeed since 1947 the generation of electric current has trebled. Our iron and steel industry has become one of South Africa’s main exporters.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about a shortage of technicians and technologists and engineers, it must be clearly understood that here we are dealing with a field of occupation in which three levels of skilled persons operate, between whom a clear distinction is not always drawn in everyday colloquial language. In the first place there is the ordinary artisan who does skilled manual labour and who colloquially is called an “artisan”. Then at the second level there are the technicians. This is a group of workers who in the technical sphere fall between the artisan on the one hand and the technologist on the other. In the sphere of engineering the technician is a person who is capable of applying in a responsible way techniques which are prescribed by the professional engineer. Then there is the third and the highest level, namely the technologist. I use the word “technologist” as a comprehensive term to describe graduates in the natural sciences as well as professional engineers. The technologist is a person who has a university degree and/or some equivalent qualification. My motion deals only with technicians and technologists and not with artisans; in other words it deals with professional men at the second and the highest levels. The technician is the professional man who acquires his qualification through training after secondary education while the technologist has a university degree. The shortage of technicians and technologists is a world-wide phenomenon which is due to the fact that we are living to-day in a technical and technological age. Both Russia and America are making every effort to train sufficient technicians and technologists and literally thousands of them are being trained abroad because these countries realize that their enormous industrial production, their military advantage, their expansion of trade and their respective civilizations depend on the provision of sufficient technicians and technologists. South Africa which in every sphere has made more progress than any other country on the Continent of Africa dare not adopt an indifferent attitude with regard to this matter. As far as the shortage of technicians and technologists is concerned, I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that I have to mention on a few figures. Figures are always boring but unfortunately we are dealing here with a technical subject, and in dealing with a technical matter one has to be technical.

I deal first with the shortage of technologists and in doing so I follow the division of technologists into two main groups, the first group being engineers, who include agricultural, chemical, civil, electrical, industrial, mechanical, mining and metallurgical engineers, the second group consisting of scientists. This group is confined to chemists, physiologists, geologists, physicists, and applied scientists in engineering, forestry, agriculture, and in veterinary science. As far as the shortage of engineers is concerned, the position is as follows: In 1958 there were 6,691 posts—nearly 6,700 posts. Of course, that is not the full number that there should have been at that date, for two reasons: Firstly, as far as the Public Service, the municipalities and the universities are concerned, new posts were simply not created because the existing posts could not be properly filled. Secondly, with regard to the private sector such as industry, technicians were trained, because of the great shortage of engineers, to do the work of engineers. These 6,700 posts for engineers in 1958 did not therefore represent South Africa’s full requirements, but it is interesting that no less than 61 per cent of these 6,700 posts existed in South Africa’s industries.

In 1960 the National Bureau of Educational and Social Research completed a survey of the training and employment of scientists and engineers in South Africa, and according to that survey a little more than 10 per cent of these 6,700 engineering posts were vacant and a little less than 14 per cent were inadequately filled, that is to say, filled by unqualified persons.

The Bureau points out in its survey that industrialists are very accommodating towards inadquately qualified persons in the sense that they do not simply dismiss them, even if suitable engineers are available, provided they are able to discharge their duties satisfactorily. On the other hand the Public Service, the big industrial corporations, the mines and the universities insist on the best qualified persons only, and if a person is not properly qualified his chances of appointment are slender. Because of the fact that industrialists do not simply discharge unqualified persons provided their work is satisfactory, the Bureau of Educational and Social Research considers that only 25 per cent of the inadequately filled engineering posts must be regarded as vacancies for engineers. Even on this basis the shortage in 1958 was estimated at 13 per cent. If all the present posts remain filled and provision has to be made just for the present shortage of 13 per cent as well as for the new posts which will come into being up to 1965, we shall need at least 1,761 engineers by 1965, and if the necessary engineers are not provided we shall have a shortage of 23 per cent. In other words, 23 per cent of our total requirements will have to be trained before 1965. But we must take into account the natural wastage due to death, retirement and resignation, and the National Bureau of Educational and Social Research estimates this at nearly 1,050 posts, so that by 1965 provision will have to be made for at least 2,800 vacant engineering posts, that is to say, 38 per cent of our total requirements.

The Bureau goes on to say that out of every three persons who are trained as engineers, only two eventually enter the profession. So as to be able to fill 2,800 posts by 1965 therefore no fewer than 4,200 persons will have to be trained as engineers, that is to say, 57 per cent of our total requirements. In paragraph 19 of the Bureau’s survey it states—

The Bureau’s conclusion reads as follows (paragraph 22)—

Take the Coloureds; they will solve your problem for you.

I now come to the shortage of scientists. If the picture looks a sombre one in respect of engineers, the picture which the Bureau paints in respect of physical scientists is pitch black and alarming. The Bureau estimates that in 1965 there will be 1,000 posts and that provision will have to be made to fill 742 vacant posts, or 74.2 per cent of these 1,000 posts. With regard to the vacancies which exist to-day, chemistry is specifically laid down as a qualification in the case of 75 per cent of these posts, and if, as is stated in this Survey, most of these posts for graduates exist in industry in the applied natural sciences, then South Africa’s chemical industry is facing a dark future. Since I represent a constituency in which more than R200,000,000 has already been invested in the chemical industry—I refer to Sasol and its by-industries—I feel that it is my duty to point out that not only my constituency but the whole of South Africa may suffer a tremendous blow unless provision is made to meet this shortage of scientists.

In paragraph 8 of Chapter 4 of its Survey the Bureau states—

Because of lack of time I do not propose to deal with the shortage of scientists for agriculture, forestry and veterinary services, but I do want to point out that in the educational professional itself the Bureau estimates that up to and including 1965 provision will have to be made for 1,400 vacant posts for science teachers, and these teachers will also have to be graduates if the education is to be adequate.

For industry, for the State and for education alone provision will have to be made for 2,142 vacant posts up to and including 1965.

I come now to the third group. I have dealt with the shortage of engineers and the shortage of scientists. I should like to deal briefly now with the shortage of technicians. In order to meet the present shortage and to make provision for posts which at present are inadequately filled, together with the anticipated natural wastage due to death and resignation, and in order to make provision for new posts which will come into being up to and including 1965, it is estimated by the Bureau that provision will have to be made for something like 3,000 technicians. That represents an estimated shortage in 1965 of something like 60 per cent of the total requirements in this country as far as technicians are concerned.

Paragraph 11 of the Bureau’s Survey reads as follows—

To sum up therefore, according to the Bureau’s Survey there will be the following shortages in the total requirements as far as technologists and technicians are concerned up to and including 1965: A shortage of 57 per cent in engineers, a shortage of 75 per cent in scientists and a shortage of 60 per cent in technicians.

I think I have adduced adequate proof that there is an acute shortage of technologists and technicians, a shortage which is expected to grow steadily unless far-reaching and radical steps are taken. I am very pleased that it is the Government’s intention to face this problem squarely and I am very pleased to learn therefore that the Government has constituted a special Cabinet Committee to investigate this question of scientific manpower and of increasing our scientific manpower. In this connection I want to refer my colleagues to the statement made by the Minister of Economic Affairs in the Other Place when he replied in the Committee Stage of the Scientific Research Council Bill. I notice too that at a recent conference of the Federated Chamber of Industry of Cape Town, great concern was also expressed with regard to this matter. Industrialists are undoubtedly perturbed about this state of affairs. All interested parties are keenly aware of the seriousness of the situation, and it is unnecessary therefore to deal at greater length with this problem of the shortage of technologists and technicians. The time has come to seek a solution, and that brings me to the second part of my motion which deals with that aspect.

The second part of my motion contains the request that technological and technical education should be consolidated and extended. You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that my diagnosis of the trouble is what has now apparently become an everyday cliché, namely that there is too much divided control of our education. We view all our problems in South Africa from a national angle; Coloured affairs are tackled on a national basis; industrial development, finance and agriculture, etc., are tackled on a national basis. In every sphere therefore we have a national approach to all our problems, with one exception only and that is the nation’s greatest asset, namely the White youth and his education. In this connection Prof. Kgware of the University College of the North recently lauded the fact that Bantu education had been saved from this fate. He stated—

This divided control of White education, in my opinion, lies at the root of this problem of the shortage of technicians and technologists in South Africa, as I shall try to indicate in a moment. The training of technicians and technologists takes place at three levels. Firstly, there is the ordinary school training which ends with the matriculation examination, with the necessary basic subjects for technical and technological education thereafter. This level of education, high school education, is the basic requirement therefore for both technologists and technicians; it is the foundation of technical and technological education. The second level is the post-matriculation training of technicians. This training, as far as South Africa is concerned, is a comparatively new development and in the main it is being done through technical colleges and, where they exist, also at technological institutes. The training period for these technicians is from one to three years and the examinations are conducted by the Department of Education, Arts and Science which issues four diplomas, the National Engineering Diploma (N.E.D.), the Government Certificate of Competency (G.C.C.), and an Advance Technical Certificate I and II (A.T.C. I and II). A third level of training is the post-matriculation degree training for technologists at a university—in other words a university training with a degree in engineering or science.

It is clear therefore that this secondary training at our schools is an absolutely indispensable requirement for training at both of the subsequent two levels, for technicians as well as for technologists. In this connection two questions arise immediately: Firstly, are there sufficient qualified staff at our high schools to teach physical science and mathematics, the basic subjects? Secondly, are there sufficient pupils taking physical science and mathematics at our high schools? Let me deal with the first question first. In this connection the National Bureau of Education and Social Research has just made available for publication a survey which the Secretary for Education, Arts and Science has been good enough to lend to me. This survey gives one a revealing picture of the staff position in respect of physical science and mathematics at our high schools. If the percentage of permanent staff is to serve as a yardstick to determine the measure of stability of this instruction at our high schools, then the position is as follows: Of the permanent posts in the Department of Education, Arts and Science, 85.4 per cent are filled; in the Cape Province only 78.2 per cent are filled, in Natal only 75.9 per cent, in the Orange Free State only 74.8 per cent, in the Transvaal only 56.9 per cent. If one takes the unsatisfactorily filled posts as a yardstick then the position is as follows according to this Survey; I quote from the Survey—

As far as the staff requirements with regard to physical science and mathematics teachers are concerned, the position is even worse really than the general position which I have just outlined. Nearly one-third, 21.9 per cent to be precise, of the posts are unsatisfactorily filled, and the percentages for the various departments are as follows: Natal 33.2 per cent; Transvaal 33.1 per cent; Orange Free State 27.6 per cent; State-aided schools 17.1 per cent; the Department of Education, Arts and Science 9.7 per cent. In this Survey the Bureau comes to the following conclusion, amongst others—

The Bureau’s final observation in this Survey reads as follows (paragraph 115)—

This is a serious charge against our respective education departments, and this Survey clearly indicates that there is neither sufficient staff nor qualified staff, with the inevitable result that things go wrong right from the basic training of technicians and technologists. This state of affairs too I attribute to our divided control in education. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that some years ago our education departments suddenly became obsessed with the idea of differentiated education for the child and they introduced more vocational instruction, with the result that the teaching of the basic subjects suffered a certain amount of harm. When I talk about basic subjects, I refer only to the basic subjects for technicians and technologists. On the other hand, the Department of Education, Arts and Science turned its instruction in technical schools into a sort of vocational instruction for artisans instead of concentrating on vocational instruction after secondary education. As I said a moment ago, this post-secondary education training as far as technicians at the technical colleges are concerned is a modern development in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, in this connection it seems to me that it is only consolidation of our education that will be able to save us. I want to pose the question here in all seriousness whether the time has not arrived for the provincial education system to be broken down? Has the time not come, in the interest of education and in the interest of national unity, when the various provinces should no longer regard their education departments as the particular bastions of the language and cultural interests of their respective language groups, with the result that they want to have nothing to do with the centralization of education? I believe that South Africa’s development will still force us to see to it in our own interest that our White education does not continue to be worse off than Bantu education.

As far as my second question is concerned, namely, whether there are sufficient pupils in the natural sciences and in mathematics, I have no statistics at my disposal, but it is safe to accept that there are sufficient, because every generation of a nation produces sufficient material if it is only utilized correctly. But my submission is that the teaching of natural sciences and mathematics leaves so much to be desired at schools that in the post-matriculation years of training the pupils simply throw in the towel when they get to university. An example of this was recently given by the Federated Chamber of Industry. I quote from a report which appeared in the Argus—

Why did this happen? I believe that while they were at school they did not receive the proper basic instruction which would have kept them at university.

As far as the second level of training is concerned, namely, the post-secondary training of technicians, there is also dissatisfaction, particularly amongst the industrialists. In this connection, however, I want to pay a tribute to the Department of Education, Arts and Science which is doing its best to meet the situation. I notice from the Chairman’s report to a conference which was convened by that Department at Johannesburg on 5 March last, with regard to the training of technicians, that the Department started holding conferences with industrial people as far back as 1956. It has apparently now become an annual institution to confer with them. In order to provide a measure of relief the Department of Education introduced so-called “sandwich courses”; that is to say, an employee is given four months’ annual leave to study at a technical college for three successive years at full pay, and then he is awarded the National Technical Certificate III. These “sandwich courses” were introduced because of the need that was felt for qualified persons with slightly higher qualifications than the ordinary technician, so as to bridge the gap between technicians and technologists, who are graduates. I shall come back to this again later on.

As far as the third level of training is concerned, the training of technologists, that is to say graduates in engineering and in science, it is clear to me that our universities as they are equipped at present and as they are providing training at present, are by no means able to meet our needs. There is a great flow of first-year students to our universities, and considerable misgivings have already been expressed with regard to the large number of failures. We find that in this regard the schools and the universities indulge in mutual recriminations, but there are two facts which are as clear as a pikestaff. The first is that there is a great wastage of money and manpower and the second is that many of these students should never have gone to university. Because of the fact that a technological course at a university requires full-time study, the number of students is also subject to the limiting factor of the money at the disposal of the particular student. There are undoubtedly numerous young men who have the aptitude to become technologists but who are prevented from doing so through lack of funds and whose inherent aptitude is therefore lost. The failures at the universities are not necessarily suitable material for technological training. It is alleged that many of them fail because academically they received inadequate instruction at school in the basic subjects. Many of them could be trained as technicians, with a more practical course in a technical institution, and they would then be able to do some of the work which technologists also have to do to-day because of the shortage of technicians. It is these people particularly who can be turned in useful material by means of the so-called “sandwich courses” of the department. They could be described as practical technologists. The practical technologist, in contrast with the academic technologist, would receive his training on a more practical basis in co-operation with industry, but his training must not be divorced from the academic aspect. That is why I want to put forward a plea here this afternoon for a new institution, a technological institute. We already have the forerunner of such a technological institute in the shape of Sasol. I shall indicate in a moment what happens at Sasol. These technological institutes that I advocate would also open the way for the less-privileged who cannot afford a university career. Such a technological institute would really be a dual institution. It would not only be a technical college where technicians are trained, but it would also be able to train technologists. In other words, technicians trained at these institutes would also be able to qualify later on in the same institutions as technologists. We have an example of this in the Charlottenburg Technische Hochshule in Germany. There is undoubtedly a great need for such institutions in South Africa. It is because the need is so urgent that the Department of Education, Arts and Science is already making efforts in this direction. In the Chairman’s report to the conference which was held recently in Johannesburg, on 3 March, under the protection of the department, I find the following significant statement by the Chairman—

In this connection the Deputy Secretary for Education made the following statement on the same occasion—

I am aware of the fact that the department is contemplating the introduction of part-time training along the lines of the “sandwich courses” of the technical colleges. But this training of theirs also leads to what I call a “dead-end”. They never achieve professional status as a result of these “sandwich courses”. I want to warn against this because these courses do not meet with the approval of the industrialists. The Chairman of the Federated Chamber of Industry made the following statement in this regard recently—I quote from a report in the Argus—

You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that in the past the technical colleges did not serve their real purpose because they were really trade schools. I want to issue the warning here that in this way they also want to try to become academic institutions, for which they are not equipped. That is why I want to propose this interim institute, which I call the technological institute, which will give training to technicians and which will be able to train them part-time while they work, so that in due course they can be promoted until they become full-fledged technologists.

As far as the location of the first of these technological institutes is concerned there may be some difference of opinion; some people might suggest the Witwatersrand, but I want to point out that there is a university there already and it might unnecessarily detract from the university perhaps. The same applies to Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban. I would suggest the Vaal River bekken as the obvious area because it has now become the seat of the metallurgical and chemical industries, of the coal-mining industry and of the generation of electric power. Just as Iscor at Vanderbijlpark has become the key industry around which the metallurgical industries of Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging came into being, so Sasol is becoming the key industry around which South Africa’s chemical industries are coming into being. Nowhere else in South Africa is there such a golden opportunity as there is in this area for the training of manpower in the metallurgical and chemical industries, in the coalmining industry and in the electronics industry. I mention Sasolburg because it is the central point of the great developments in the Vaal River bekken, but naturally it could equally well be at Vanderbijlpark or Vereeniging; the decisive factor must be the national interest. As a matter of fact there ought to be various institutes of this kind for every industrial complex. Every industrial complex should have its own technological institute. I mention Sasolburg as the best central point for the chemical and metallurgical complex of the Vaal River bekken. There are also other industries in other parts of our country that ought to receive similar attention.

I am aware of the fact that the argument may possibly be advanced by the universities that this will mean a splitting up of forces and that there is no place for technological institutes in South Africa for the training of technologists. That, however, is a short-sighted view, because it overlooks three facts, firstly, that the existing universities are not capable of meeting our total requirements as far as engineers and technologists are concerned. The survey of the National Bureau of Educational and Social Research, Part IV, which was published some time ago, testifies to this fact. In paragraphs 32 and 33 they make special reference to the fact that the universities are unable to meet this need. The second fact which is overlooked in making such an allegation is that the technological institute is only linked up with a particular industrial complex. It would not, for example, train civil and agricultural engineers, nor would it produce graduates in the natural sciences for educational purposes. Thirdly, it does not take into account the fact that South Africa has a great future potential as far as industrial development is concerned.

I should like, as I have already said, to conclude by pointing to the experience of Sasol in this connection. The demand for graduates with chemistry and physics as major subjects, and particularly with postgraduate experience and training, was so great, while the supply on the other hand of junior laboratory staff with useful practical experience was so poor, that shortly after it came into being Sasol began to make efforts to solve this problem by establishing a training centre to train these assistants as technicians. The experiment was a great success. Young men are now enabled, by means of part-time study at this institution, to obtain the national diploma for chemical technicians—a four-year course. The high wastage of laboratory assistants has been checked and the great gap between the matriculant and the graduate is fruitfully filled by the technician. This means that fewer chemists are used for routine work; they are released for responsible work.

But there are many of these technicians who want to advance further and ought to advance to full-fledged professional status as technologists. But such a person has to give up his work for a period of four or five years to go and study at a university. By means of a technological institute with a status such as that advocated by me, it would be possible to enable that person to attain that status without his having to sacrifice his work and without the industry having to lose his services. The possible “sandwich course” to which I have referred has two disadvantages, and that is that the industry still has to forgo the man’s services for a certain period during which the industry pays his salary, or he still remains just a “glorified technician” and is unable to achieve full-fledged professional status.

Finally then, the solution of this problem, as I see it, lies in two directions, firstly, in consolidation through a national education system with proper differentiation of education instead of the duplication of education that we have at the present time; secondly, as far the specific problem of technicians and technologists is concerned, the solution lies in the establishment of technological institutes that will make it possible for training to be given from the lowest to the highest level, without the necessity of depriving industry of that manpower. Along these lines South Africa will be able to retain her leadership in the technological field on the Continent of Africa.

I second the motion and it is a pleasant duty for me to do so. I want to concentrate upon a few general ideas for consideration by the Government in connection with this matter and where I air these views, I want it to be clearly understood that I do so with great humility because I am not a scientist and because, like the vast majority of our Government, I am not more than a well-meaning layman. Apart from the hon. member for Hercules (Dr. A. I. Malan) and our medical members, I fear that we are all in the position of being well-meaning laymen.

The first point that I wish to make is that I believe that these valuable ideas which have been expressed by the mover of the motion, and many other related ideas, ought to be considered by a body which is composed of more than just well-meaning laymen. Therefore my first point is that I believe that the Scientific Advisory Council which has been appointed under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, should be built up to a scientific policy council falling directly under the Prime Minister. I suggest this not because we undervalue what is being done or because we wish to doubt the ability of the Ministry of Economic Affairs but because our scientific policy affects the whole of the State machine. Let us consider for a moment all those things which are affected by our scientific policy. We think of the Department of Economic Affairs, the C.S.I.R., the utility companies, Sasol, Iscor and so forth, the Atomic Energy Board and private industry. And what of the important facet of education, a matter which was so thoroughly covered by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman)? What about Agricultural Technical Services, what about the Department of Defence; what about the Department of Transport which is interested in this regard both as far as railway transport and air services are concerned and what about road engineering? There is the Department of Posts and Telegraphs with its interests in radio and telegraphy. There is the Department of Mines with its enormously important economic implications in which regard I think in the first place of the study of the earth’s crust and its reaction in regard to mining developments. Furthermore we have health and so forth. I do not think that the list is an exhaustive one but I think that this list is sufficient to show that the problem of the scientific policy of a country covers so many State activities that it must of necessity fall under the Prime Minister. As our State system is at the moment one ministerial colleague has no power of guidance in respect of his equal colleagues. That power of general comprehensive leadership only rests with the Prime Minister. Therefore I believe that we must have a Scientific Policy Council of this nature to which this motion, which I believe and hope will be adopted without objection, can be referred, to which the many documents on this subject can be referred and to which the many proposals and criticisms in connection with the matter can be referred so that the scientists on that council can separate the wheat from the chaff and advise the Government so that action can be taken along broad policy directions which cover the entire matter. In raising the idea of a scientific policy council I do not wish to deal too deeply with it but I would like to reply in advance to the obvious question in regard to how such a scientific policy council should be constituted. A policy council of this nature should undoubtedly consist of persons who are capable not only because of their thorough scientific knowledge to pass judgment as scientists but who because of their experinece in the scientific and also the administrative sphere are also recognized as leaders in that sphere. There are a few spheres which must obviously be considered in the composition of such a council although such a council will not necessarily be strictly representative of divisions. I want, however, to mention the following divisions which will have to be considered: There is agriculture and the other biological sciences; the medical science; the science of engineering; geology; chemical science, the physical sciences, industries as such which have to deal with applied science; the universities and the Economic Advisory Council which on the other hand has already been constituted under the hon. the Prime Minister. I believe that such a council will be able to render very great services for us in considering the ideas which we are expressing to-day and in putting them into operation. Before I depart from this first submismission which I have made, I would just like to show that the establishment of a central council of this nature is a generally accepted first principle in the promotion of scientific study. In the publication of NATO’s scientific committee under the title “Increasing the effectiveness of Western Science”, a 1960 publication, they mention as a first method of promotion of science the “improvement of central organizations”, and they deal with the central organization of Soviet Russia. After having referred to the fact that centralized guidance in science cannot be adapted to the democratic state system, they go on to say this—

I want to leave this aspect there and go on to a second related matter and that is that the effectiveness of the proposed remedies which are raised in this motion and which have been raised on other occasions, should, after the constitution of a scientific policy council of this nature, be referred to that scientific policy councilfor the expeditious laying down of a policy as far as our scientific training task is concerned, our scientific research task and our scientific production task. Here I want earnestly to emphasize the fact that we in the Republic have been speaking seriously for the past three to five years about the value of a centrally guided scientific policy but this has really not progressed any further except that the appointment of the existing committee under the Department of Economic Affairs has taken place. I believe that if we appoint a scientific policy council then these problems of our scientific training task, our scientific research task and our production task should be referred to that body so that together with expert economic bodies and the controlling political organization they can resort to the formulation of a policy. As far as the time factor is concerned we know that all ministries always say that the matter must stand over because it is not possible to give attention to it. With all due deference, however, I want to ask whether we in South Africa should not ask the Government whether they are sometimes not so fully engaged in administration that they do not have time to govern? This matter is so important that I believe that our Government should for some time leave the departmental routine in the hands of the departmental people and that this important question of the establishment of a scientific policy for South Africa should obtain preference and that it should be an aim which we must try to realize not within a few years or after some time, but within practically a matter of months, and that the matters which have been raised to-day should be considered, decided and given effect to within a short space of time.

I would like now to draw attention to a number of smaller specific remedies in connection with this great task which is envisaged in the motion. The first is the question of increased expenditure on this branch of education, of scientific guidance and research. I would just like to refer to the international yardsticks which have been established, and here I want to fall back once again upon the NATO Report of 1960 to which I have already referred. They also mention expenditure as the second method to achieve scientific progress and they say that the two advanced Western States (they refer to Great Britain and America) spend about 2 per cent of their gross national product on research and related technical development. They go on to refer to the Soviet Union, and according to all available information about 2 per cent is also spent there plus possibly a further amount for military purposes, and then they say further—

If we apply this yardstick then the amount which we have to spend annually is about R80,000,000 while Prof. de Waal in a symposium arranged by the Afrikaanse Akademie in October 1960 said that the United States was at present spending R7,200,000,000 on research, that is to say, 2.5 per cent of her national income. He estimated England’s expenditure in this regard at R600,000,000 or 1.6 per cent of her national income. According to his information South Africa was at that time spending R13,000,000 per annum on research, that is to say, 0.3 per cent. I will come back in a moment to various other statements which were made at that symposium.

I do not necessarily associate myself with these figures but it is quite clear that we are still very far from this total expenditure of about R80.000.000 which ought to take place in our country. Prof. Mönnig who is at present Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, mentioned similar figures and also came to the conclusion that we should spend about R80,000,000 per annum. I would just like to point out that this expenditure must of course take place in various spheres. In the first place there is the sphere of education at the universities and the technological institutes which I am now advocating; this has to take place through the various departments of State, the C.S.I.R., the Atomic Energy Board, and the expenditure in respect of the various utility companies. I am not speaking about a new and separate expenditure. This should take place through the industries themselves which spend money on research. As far as research by industries themselves is concerned may I say that if we can achieve the total expenditure which we need to devote to research, industry as such will probably have to contribute a great deal of it itself directly. I want to advocate that consideration should be given to adjustments being made in respect of our fiscal policy in order to make it even easier for industries to spend money on research programmes. I know that to-day this is an expenditure which can be deducted but if further concessions can be made it will help a great deal. In connection with the expenditure on research programmes in industry I want to refer to an address by Dr. Louw, the Assistant Laboratory Manager of Sasol, at the aforementioned symposium of the Akademie where he referred to America—

Then he quotes examples from the United States to show what Du Pont and companies of that kind are doing in connection with research. They spend a considerable percentage of their turnover on research, namely about 2 per cent. He continues—

I would just like to try to bring this single proposition home and that is that if we make fiscal concessions for the implementation of research programmes in our industries, it is eventually going to pay the Exchequer because by means of research programmes the turnover and the profit of our industries are going to increase in the future, increase more swiftly, and although the Treasury may perhaps temporarily make a concession in one year, eventually it will recover it over and over again. I want to leave this point of the total financial expenditure there.

The next aspect which I would like to discuss in relation to the whole problem is the question of bursaries which the State grants for the training of scientists and technologists in various spheres. To many young men and women in South Africa this fine institution was a light which came in their lives and we enriched our country with very capable people. However, there are also certain important inherent shortcomings connected with this system to which I want to draw attention. In the first place this bursary system still aims at allowing people to obtain their minimum professional qualifications and then to be appointed in the service of the State, the Railways, Iscor, or whichever organization has donated the bursary. That is basically wrong. I refer to Prof. de Waal at the aforementioned symposium, where he said—

Our State bursary scheme is still a little shortsighted.

There is the further aspect that some of our most capable young men who accept these bursaries are pegged down to a certain profession and a certain course of study, and they only discover in the course of their studies that is not the most suitable profession or course of study from the point of view of aptitude. Instead of the man who was on the way to becoming an engineer and who might become a research worker in mathematics being able to continue in pure physics or pure chemistry, he is constrained by the conditions attaching to the bursary to complete a specific course and to join the Public Service. I believe that there should be a measure of leniency where we discover great talent in the process of study while the students receive bursaries from the Public Service. I would just like to quote the findings in connection with the productivity of scientific students. This was said by Terman in commenting on Lehman of America and was published in the American Psychologist of 1954—

Mr. Speaker, it is a good thing that they do not say this of politicians. However, that is in passing. The point is merely that where these students are found to be productive in their productive years in respect of a certain direction, it is of great importance that they should be able to do research in that period of productivity. Therefore under this heading I wish to advocate that the Government should consider making a bursary pool available under the guidance of the Scientific Policy Council— either under the C.S.I.R. or a committee of the universities; it is for the Policy Council to determine that—so that if a student who holds a bursary from Iscor or from a State Department is found to be a potentially talented research worker, the central bursary pool can repay the bursaries already paid out to Iscor, the Railways or the State Department concerned, and so that the pool can then carry the student further through a longer study period. In connection with this aspect I must say something about the whole pattern of training and the set-up of our economic life and the approach to this matter. This concerns the problem which has been created in recent times, namely that manpower is released through automation and mechanization. The reaction of the West to this problem, which is actually a boon, has thus far been to introduce shorter working hours. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the elimination of manpower which has been brought about by automation and mechanization, should not be converted into shorter working hours, but into a shorter working life and a longer training period. The State and our entire economic system must learn that the technique of our time demands that a large section of our population should be enabled to live decently during a very long training period. Whereas formerly we apprenticed people as artisans at the age of 14 years or 15 years, and later at the age of 16 years and 18 years, they now have to be carried for longer periods. Whereas we utilized a technician after a training for two or three years, he now has to be carried for a few years longer. And whereas formerly scientific technologists were utilized after they had obtained their first degree, we as a community now have to carry these people for five or seven years longer. This is one of the requirements of our time; it is one of the implications of technology. The State and our entire economic structure must be so designed as to carry these people for a longer training period and they will then have a shorter working life; we must not try during their working life to shorten their working hours. The recognizing of the fact that industries which, for example, carry people for a longer training period, should be able to deduct those expenses from their income, will also have its repercussions on our fiscal policy.

The next specific point which I wish to raise is that these problems cannot be regarded as divorced from the salary pattern of the technologist who has completed his studies. The tragic fact is that engineering industries in the entire scientific field, except for medicine— those hon. gentlemen have learnt since the time of the pyramids to evade the normal economic laws—the entire scientific field has a strange salary structure with a very broad base and a small apex. A tremendous number of engineers are needed for the normal humble engineering functions and one or two men tower above them in the high salary ranges. It is a broad-based pyramidal structure. No wonder then that we have letters in the Press such as this one for example—

Well, I do not wish to support this letter writer but I do want to state that this is a real problem, namely, that in all technological directions you need 50 or 60 men in the lowest ranks as against one or two highly paid men above them. I believe that we must seek a solution in the direction of a new appraisal of salary structures. I have a document here which is also in the hands of the Government. It is entitled “The Propagation of useful Human Activities” and was written by K. Adams. Unfortunately it is a confidential report, according to the note on it. and therefore I do not wish to quote in detail from it. The principle which Adams advocates is basically just this: That instead of our having a gradually rising salary scale according to the number of years of service, the salary scales of the various professions should follow the process of steps; that the salaries should be pegged for a certain period and then rise by a considerable amount; remain unchanged for a period and then rise again by a further considerable amount. I believe that if we give consideration to these aspects we will obtain the manpower that we must have.

This also holds good for education. How can we get the science teacher at high school if wo do not want to pay him for the service which he is performing? Why can there be no differentiation in connection with the science teacher? I know that this was raised a number of years ago and rejected because it was felt the other teachers would protest against it. However, if we want to have an outstanding and unique medical service, then we go to a unique medical man and pay him his unique professional fee. On very rare occasions the same thing even happens with lawyers! A person is prepared to pay for special necessary services. If scientific education is a special necessary service in our time then I believe it is economically right and only correct that those persons who have the qualifications and who are prepared to render that service should be paid a higher fee for it than another man who does not have that qualification and who cannot render that very necessary service. In any case, however, this is merely an additional idea. My point is that in connection with salary patterns, the Scientific Advisory Council will have to consider this matter, that both as regards education and the utilization of our technologists who have completed their study, a pattern of salaries must be evolved in industry and in the State sector of South Africa that will ensure a good living to those technologists who have completed their studies. In dealing with education I would like to raise two further points in this connection. Firstly, that more use must be made of the so-called ed. lab. charts of the pupil. The ed. lab. chart is the record chart of every pupil in a primary school on which all his school achievements, his intelligence tests, his aptitude tests, his deviations of character and so forth—all the information in connection with the child— are noted.

And in the high school as well.

Yes, at high school too. I believe that the information contained on these charts should be perused at the stage where the child is in Standard 6 and that his parents should be advised as to whether or not. according to the available records and information of the Department, he is suitable for a natural science training and career. How does the parent know at that stage what he should allow his child to take—Latin or physical science? It is guesswork. However, if the parent is pertinently advised, “Our records reveal that the child is susceptible to this or that direction”, then the parent will be able to react in this regard to a large extent. This information should also be specifically given to the principals of the high schools which the children attend so that it can also be considered personally and if necessary passed on by the principal of the high school. I believe that after matric this information should be sent again to a central body appointed by the Scientific Advisory Council. We must remember that 1 per cent or so of the cream of our school children have to bear the entire technological evolution, and the records of those pupils (the 1 per cent) should be made known to a central body according to their ed. lab. charts which have been completed up to matric, so that the State will know that there we have 1 per cent who merit particular attention, who have particular possibilities. Then only can we ensure that not one of those children will be lost either because he stops going to school or because he chooses the wrong course of study or the wrong profession.

I want to come now to the last general point that I wish to make in connection with education. I believe that we must energetically introduce the study of French into our high schools. We are fortunate that the Republic also has English as one of our languages, the most important international language in order to enter the scientific field; and that to a large extent we learn German as a related Germanic language at the high schools and in any case can learn it easily individually as a result of the relationship between the languages. In this way we bring another great field of science within easy reach. However, French is a closed book to the vast majority of our people. Just as France has shone over the ages in the mental sciences, so France as one of the most resourceful, brilliant and rapidly progressing countries, is outstanding in the natural sciences. It is true that by way of translation we will eventually, through the medium of English, have an insight into all the knowledge of the world but as far as the rapid obtaining of the results of French research is concerned, the academic contacts back and forth, the exchange of students, the contact of academic staff, the later contact of professional staff, this can only happen if that language also belongs to a reasonable section of our people. I do not of course advocate that all children should learn French but what I do advocate is that French should be available as a study subject at a large number of our high schools and that it should be our aim to enable a substantial percentage of potential technologists and scientists to have a command of French so that they can make that vast treasure of work from that country of origin of ours our own possession. I have made suggestions which I hope will be considered by the Government, after the Scientific Advisory Council has given attention to them. In conclusion I want to preach to myself and to ourselves.

Did you suggest that a mathematics teacher and a teacher of the natural sciences should receive a higher salary than teachers of languages, history and so forth?

I dealt with this in passing but the basic point which I made was that we must get away from the rising salary structure in terms of which regular increments are given according to service and that we should operate according to the conception of Mr. Adams, by means of steps where steep increases are given.

Mr. Speaker, I now come to ourselves. It seems to me that we must give a newer and greater prestige to the scientist in South Africa. I want to quote from Volkshandel’s issue of September of last year and all that I can say in this regard is: Amen—

They could perhaps have added: or economist or industrial mathematician. In the past 10 years these professions have become almost as fashionable as the medical profession—

Now Mr. Speaker, we want to bring home to the nation that the scientist must have a place of honour in our national life. Just as the women’s organizations and the local associations in the past sent away a good lad to a university to become an advocate or a doctor, and, during the past decade, have sent the good lad away to obtain his B.Com. or M.Com. degree, so they must realize to-day that they should send him to study one of the natural sciences. We must keep the place of honour for the scientist. We know how seldom the natural scientist comes into his own when honorary degrees are bestowed, and how seldom the natural scientist receives preference where the front seats are allocated to important persons! Mr. Speaker, the natural scientist is a person whom we should recognize to a larger extent as a valuable leader in our national life. And even in our politics—I have referred in the past to the fact that there are few natural scientists in this House; and perhaps we can ask ourselves, as a governing party, whether we would be satisfied if a senior scientist who is a junior politician were entrusted with responsibility in the Government. I think it is time we became used to the idea that there are people who because of their expert knowledge, are undeniably entitled to a certain amount of preference.

Mr. Speaker, the most important manner in which we can bring home the importance of science is to make provision ourselves for the study of our own children in that direction. Here I wish to speak for my own Afrikaners. It has struck me that so many of our English-speaking Republicans make provision for the education of their children—some unfortunately for private school education. However, this is an old tradition on the part of our English-speaking people in South Africa which is to a large extent non-existent in the case of the Afrikaners. Just as we are prepared to give our sons for military training, with the sacrifices connected with it, so we as a nation must be prepared to give up our sons and daughters for long, scientific, technological training, and pay for it out of our own pockets, in the proud knowledge that in this way we are serving our nation.

I have mentioned a few ideas which I wished to raise. I want to conclude on this note, that to my mind the Republic in which we find ourselves means a revolution to superiority. We have already had this in many spheres, because of this great wave which has flowed through our nation, as the result of which we have accepted the obligation and the willingness to make sacrifices in respect of our full military preparedness. We have had evidence of it in the acceptance of the idea of the separation of national groups. We have had evidence of it in the material exploitation of our geographical area. However, Mr. Speaker, it is equally important that we accept the adventure of this technological evolution and that we who are not technologists and who can only be the trail-blazers, should at least be willing and eager trail-blazers so that others following us will be the light of our country and our continent.

I want to agree with most of what the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) has said, particularly with his suggestion that the hon. the Prime Minister should have charge of the Advisory Council of Education. I would say that there are countries in the world where the Prime Minister is actually the Minister of Education, so much importance is attached to education. But, Sir, while I agree with what the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) has said, I must say that his speech astounded me. That speech could easily have been made by an hon. member on these benches. It was the prologue, I would say, to a motion of censure in the Minister of Economic Affairs and the Minister of Education. I could not think of anything more complete than the long list of deficiencies in technical and scientific education which the hon. member read out to us and the figures which he quoted showing how deplorable has been the work of these two Ministers. It is as well, I think, that the hon. the Prime Minister was here to hear what one of his front-benchers had to say.

Why do you try to make politics out of this?

Mr. Speaker, I am not talking politics, I am thanking the hon. member for having helped me to show how seriously we have dropped behind in this type of work. However, Sir, If he does not like it I will not say anything more. I can only say that I am grateful to him. He even went so far as to censure a Cabinet Committee because he told us that he was very pleased to think that there was now a Cabinet Committee considering this subject. Surely if there is a Cabinet Committee considering this subject it is hardly the place of a member of the caucus to come to this House and to tell us what he thinks that Cabinet Committee should do. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I do not think there can be any doubt that the hon. member for Heilbron was correct in what he said. There can be no doubt about it that there is a grave shortage of scientists in this country and that we will very soon be unable to meet our commitments in that respect. In the race for the development of the country, in the race for production, in the race for trade we will be unable to meet our commitments unless something very drastic is done. We will drop further and further behind. There are several causes for this but I will not mention all of them at the moment. I do, however, want to mention a few. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research lost 26 of its physicists between 1955 and 1957. It lost 21 between 1958 and 1961. In four years every man that the C.S.I.R. imported into this country left the country. Not one stayed behind.

It has been difficult to obtain all the information from the universities, but the University of Stellenbosch lost 34 of its senior staff— professors, senior lecturers, lecturers and junior lecturers. It was able to replace most of them. Rhodes University had 29 resignations from its professors and lecturers between January 1958 and February 1962. Natal—always difficult—had 79 resignations …

For political reasons.

I am not discussing Dpolitical reasons. I can talk about those but I will not. The University of South Africa had 14 resignations over the same period. I would not like to give the impression that a great many of these posts have not been filled. Many have, but it is difficult to work it out. It does show, however, that there is a tendency on the part of universities to lose workers of senior status. If you were to analyse the figures further, Sir—I am sorry I cannot go through them all—you will notice that there is a tendency in some cases to replace them with men of lesser calibre because the posts must be filled. Many of these posts are filled temporarily because no suitable person is available. This is reflecting very seriously upon the education of our young men. It behoves the Minister of Education to investigate and find out why we have this loss, why do we lose our scientists. The position has always been that some of our people went overseas and some of them did not return. That is one of the penalties of being a small country, an undeveloped country and a country with a limited number of universities. That is one of the things we must expect. But there was usually a two-way traffic. We were able to attract scientists and lecturers from other countries to this country. There were great reasons for this. Our salaries were adequate and furthermore we presented a form of adventure. It was something of an adventure in coming to a country where there would be great opportunities, where the ground had not already been ploughed and fertilized and used over and over again, where there were new problems and where people had freedom of research, where they were not tied down by red tape All that brought young men to us, young graduates and post-graduates. But that has all gone, Sir, and we are losing our own. Advertisements can be placed in the English and in the American papers but we get no applications. The universities tell me that. They tell me that they advertise overseas but that they do not receive any applications.

There is a world shortage.

Of course there is a world shortage. We all know that but ours is the worst in the world. That is the trouble. Why do they not want to come here any more? I am not going to discuss the political aspect of it because I think this is hardly the place or the time to do so. It is the place but it is not the time. They do not come here because the universities are starved. The whole setup has been niggardly. The universities are tied to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. This Council has, for so far as I have been able to determine, acted with great dignity, integrity and fairness. I am the first to give them that credit. But this Council itself is tied, because it cannot get enough money. We have a report of the head of that institute in which he says—

Thus even the C.S.I.R. has been crabbed and consequently been prevented from doing the work it wanted to do. The result of this is that it has been able to give extremely little to universities. What is more, it is also unable to give any tuition. There is no teaching in the C.S.I.R. and because there is a shortage of junior trained men coming up and a shortage of senior men to teach, we find that there is a shortage of the very people whom the C.S.I.R. wants. So we have a vicious circle, because the few people who are trained are taken on by the C.S.I.R. This is so because the salaries being offered by the C.S.I.R. are higher than those being offered by the universities. Thereby the universities are deprived of the services of junior lecturers and of its postgraduate workers. The result is that the universities have to make use of teachers who are themselves not fully qualified to teach those subjects. The very men who are capable of teaching these subjects in universities are gradually being whittled away from them. The C.S.I.R. takes away the few that are available, whilst the universities are unable to supply new trained units. There are grave reasons for this. One of these is the absence of social research. Universities are unable to understand—because they do not have the necessary funds to find out—and the Government is unable to understand why we are not training people as we should. The subject should be given a much wider scope than that set for it by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman), and I, therefore, should like to move the following amendment—

The important thing is to keep what we have and to see whether we can get others. I agree with what the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) said on the subject of bursaries. These are too few. It is time, I think, to change the type of bursary which we are giving and thereby keep our newly qualified graduates in the country, because these are the people who are lost to us. They should be induced to stay in the country until they have attained their doctorate. Thereafter they are more likely to come back to the country should they go overseas, because they would have established themselves in this country, and would have developed a research technique. What I want to suggest is what the principal of the Natal University has suggested, namely a system of Rhodes bursaries in reverse. We can afford to import people. We did, in fact, import them, and perhaps still import a few. We will be able to cope with many of our problems if we can get help. We should, therefore, offer scholarships to students from overseas, so that they could come out here and attain their doctorates as a result of work done in the country. That would help us to solve our problems. We have an example in the generosity of America in this regard. Nearly everybody on a university level in Great Britain—and so with nearly everyone in this country for that matter—can get a trip to America to study at one of the universities there. America does not do this because the Government there is very fond of Great Britain or of South Africa, but because some of the best brains of these countries will go to America and will not come back. They are, in other words, stealing brains. It is time that we should do a bit of stealing as well and with that in view offer facilities for students from oversea countries to come and study in this country, so that they can ultimately help us to solve our problems. We can afford to do it, and it is, moreover, the only way in which to tackle the problem. It is no use to advertise; there is just no response. I have discussed this very question with quite a number of university professors who have been overseas in an endeavour to obtain assistance with regard to post-graduates. They have offered these postgraduates jobs, but they just did not want to accept such jobs. The reason for this is to be found not only in the political climate of the country, but also in the academic climate. This is bad as well. There is no academic freedom of research in this country; there are no academic facilities to publish papers. There are papers which are lying derelict—papers which are not allowed to be published, and there are others which those who have composed them cannot afford to publish. It is time that money should be made available to those who undertake research work to publish the results of their work. As a matter of fact, some of these results are being published overseas because locally they cannot afford to do so. They cannot afford to pay for the illustrations. We must also give more assistance to museums. If we want to interest the youth of the country in science and in technology, then we should provide science and technology museums. It is shocking to think that a country which is so advanced as is ours, has not one technology or science museum. Universities are being handicapped in regard to their libraries. Why do we not help them more with their libraries? Workers come out to this country thinking that they would get technical help to do their work. But what do they find? They find that the libraries are inadequate; that they cannot get any technical assistance; and that the apparatus which they need they would have to make themselves. Research workers are not going to spend their time doing that. There should be technicians to look after that.

Another factor is that the teaching load at universities is too high. The proportion of students to teachers in some of our universities is as high as 1:80, whereas the normal proportion is 1:10. 1:10 is the recognized standard. There was a certain lecturer in the University of Cape Town whose teaching load was 45 hours a week! What time has such a man, firstly, to prepare his lectures, and, secondly, for research? He would rather be a school master, because then he would have more time and could go out and supervise rugby. We are too mean with our universities. Why should they, like mendicants, go with their hat in their hands to the C.S.I.R.? I have already said that the C.S.I.R. behaves extremely well, but is it dignified or right that, having decided that a type of research is necessary, our universities should do this? After all, the universities have to decide what research should be undertaken and who should determine whether that research has not been undertaken somewhere else already. They are the institutions who have to determine what financial assistance is necessary for any research and whether such research is needed by the country. Why should they then go cap in hand to the C.S.I.R. to ask for the necessary funds? No country can go forward in this world unless it makes money available for basic research, money for the sake of research, purely for the sake of the discovery of knowledge. Must we then always be dependent upon the knowledge of other people and then adapt it to our needs? What funds are made available in this country to-day for basic scientific research? It is not because the C.S.I.R. does not like to help, but because they cannot. The money they have, they themselves need. Funds are needed by our universities for administrative work. Why should a professor in any subject have to write his letters in longhand? Surely we can afford to provide him the services of a typist? Why should readings over 24 hours be done by the research worker himself with only the help of his friends at night time? He should have workers to help him with this type of work. The days of sealing wax and shoe strings are gone. Trained scientists are sought after all over the world. They are to-day the main item of export, because with the knowledge a trained scientist has in his head he can move all over the world and always get a job anywhere. He is like the international tenor who only needs a scarf round his throat to keep out colds—he can get a job anywhere and fill a concert hall anywhere. The scientist to-day is such. He is no longer the little man with glasses who peeps round the corner in the hope that someone will give him a crumb. No, Sir! He, to-day. stalks the world stage because he is the leader of the world, and as such he has to be treated. I am amazed that professors in this country put up with conditions. Open any newspaper and you will find advertisements from Australia and New Zealand; open the Medical Journal and you will see advertisements for doctors. And it is just as well to remember that every doctor who leaves this country has cost us in the region of R10,000. He was, therefore, a bad investment.

Universities must be given freedom of research; they must be given money as of right which they should themselves spend. I am convinced that they will work in conjunction with the C.S.I.R., but they should not be under the control of that body. What funds have the universities for non-scientific research work? This work they have to finance out of their general funds, and this amounts to extremely little—less than one-half per cent of their income. Yet this country, of all countries in the world, stands in need of more and more research into social services.

We must have sociological research. We are faced with the prospect that 3,000,000 of us having to carry the burden of higher education while we know nothing of the other 12,000,000. We do not know what their abilities and aptitude are; we do not know what they are good at; we do not know how they will take to scientific training. As a matter of fact, we know nothing of them, because we have never yet investigated this problem. The result is that we do not know whether they are going to be trustworthy if they are given jobs, say, in the civil service. We do not know what their judgments will be like if they have to make decisions. The best we have been able to do thus far is to make some of them sergeants at police stations. Of all the scientists who have been neglected, scientists in the field of social research are the worst off. And that while we need more in this field than all the other countries put together, because we live in a multi-racial State. Where are the people who should give us their knowledge in this respect? They should be trained and not by the C.S.I.R. It should be done by the universities themselves. Swaziland has already taken the trouble of investigating this problem and, what is more, it has been done by South African universities. That is the sort of people we are—we are backward; this Government, as well as many of us, has the mentality of the ox-wagon, and that while we are living in a jet age! Time is moving in on us, and yet no such investigation has been done! Education is a pyramid. At the base everybody should come in so that right at the top we might find the one great man we have. But what is the position now? He is lucky if he succeeds in climbing the first few rungs of the ladder!

I have great pleasure in seconding this amendment. I should like to mention that a few months ago the hon. member who moved this amendment (Dr. Radford) and I discussed the question of the training of scientists in this country. What prompted me, as a layman, to take an interest in this matter, was a report by a Dr. Laurence Dethick wherein he said that the West was at a great disadvantage vis-à-vis the East in so far as technology and science were concerned. According to this report, it is estimated that Russia will have 400,000 engineers within five years as against 153,000 in the case of America. This in itself is sufficient proof that we in this country should do something in this regard as well.

There is no great difference between the motion moved by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) and the amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central), and except that the hon. member for Durban (Central) wants a commission to investigate the whole question, there is hardly a difference between them. I think the hon. member for Durban (Central) is right in asking for a commission to investigate the whole question and I hope that, as this is not a political issue, his amendment will be accepted. It will be a great day for South Africa if we are going to tackle this great and important issue in that way. We are providing for millions of rand to be expended in defending South Africa on the battle field. Is it not more essential, however, that we provide for the survival of South Africa in the field of science and technology? It has been stated that the measure of the civilization of any modern nation can be judged by the quantity and more so by the quality of its scientists.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) is backed, when he asks for a commission, by a conference which was held in Bloemfontein in 1959 and which was attended mostly by physicists, chemists and mathematicians, for the purpose of discussing the provision of teaching facilities in the sciences. The following resolution was then issued by that most important conference—

After having reached various conclusions, a resolution was adopted stating that in the opinion of the Conference, conditions were so serious as to warrant a full investigation at the highest level. This is exactly what we are asking for in this amendment. You will, therefore, see, Sir, that the idea of a thorough investigation of the whole matter of the training of scientists and technologists is not a new one but has been urged in the strongest possible terms by a conference of experts. I hope this Parliament is going to endorse its plea. During recent years there has been phenomenal development in all countries, including South Africa, in science and technology. Sputniks, nuclear developments and other achievements bear ample testimony to this statement. If South Africa is to progress and maintain her leadership in Africa, it must, with the help of modern techniques, exploit to the full its natural and human resources. This task will require a large and well-trained body of scientists, technologists and professional men. We have an additional difficulty to cope with, namely the fact that the White population of our country, counting only 3,500,000. will for the foreseeable future have to provide the scientists and professional men to supply the needs of our total population. This is a great burden. Unless we are a supernatural people—which I do not believe we are—this will indeed be a formidable task which will be placed on the shoulders of the White population. Personally, I cannot see why the Coloured people cannot also accept their fair share of responsibility in this respect, i.e. in regard to the supply of professional and trained men to meet the needs of the country. People who are better qualified than I am maintain that it will be exceedingly difficult under present circumstances to draw the same percentage of future scientists with the necessary aptitude from the Bantu population. I am not qualified to say whether this is correct or not. In regard to the Coloured people, however, I should like to make the point that they can make a contribution in this regard.

It is quite obvious, therefore, that South Africa with its known handicaps must (a) make the fullest possible use of South Africans who have the desired aptitudes, and (b) accept that it is necessary to import scientists and technicians from other countries. It has been shown by various speakers that a real shortage of trained scientists has developed in most countries, and it has also been stated here, quite correctly, I think by the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), that it was shown in a study of 2,500 of the ablest of the world’s chemists that they attain their maximum productive rates between the ages of 30 and 34. That is mentioned by Lehman in his “Age and Achievement”. This Lehman has made a very comprehensive study of the relation between age and creative achievement. Terman, an American psychologist, in 1954 came to the conclusion that the striking thing about his age curves is how early in life the period of maximum creativity is reached. In nearly all fields of science the best work is done between the ages of 25 and 35 and rarely later than 40. The figures taken from Lehman’s book give the following ages: For chemistry 26 to 30; for physics 30 to 34 and for mathematics also 30 to 34. It is therefore quite plain that we will have to start the effective training of scientists and technologists at an early age. South Africa, like many other countries, is not training sufficient scientists and technologists for her needs, nor is she making full use of her limited human resources. Conditions, so I am told by people who know better than I do, in South African universities are not ideal for research or the training of scientists and compare unfavourably with overseas institutions. Many South African scientists accept positions overseas with increased salaries and better working conditions. Although it can be expected that this has always been a feature of South African academic life, it has always been possible in the past to import scientists and technicians from overseas. At present this is not the case for many reasons, the most important of which, in the minds of overseas scientists, are possibly the following: (a) Science and technology in their own countries have expanded to such an extent that there are more positions than trained scientists. Consequently they do not look outside their home country for attractive positions. In addition the scientific atmosphere in their own countries is often very healthy, and in addition they are in close contact with the major centres of scientific research. (b) Working conditions in South African institutes and universities, and salaries paid, are not comparable to the conditions in overseas institutes and the salaries paid by them. (c) Political reasons which I do not propose to discuss at this stage. Sir, it has been stated here this afternoon, and it is true, that the shortage of scientists is particularly serious in mathematics, physics and theoretical physics. Most South African universities have found it difficult and sometimes impossible to obtain properly qualified people to fill their establishments. The University of Cape Town has been unable to staff departments in these subjects properly for years. Advertisements sometimes bring in no worthwhile applications at all, and it has been necessary to bring in retired school teachers and to use senior students to help to do the work which should be done by fully qualified and senior men. Some at least of the other universities are even worse off. Unless these problems are overcome, the present situation is a mortal threat to the universities, research institutions, industry as a whole, and the very life of the country, for if the supply of scientists is insufficient the entire foundation of the country will collapse. On top of that, South Africa is still spending less on its universities and the training of its scientists than most Western countries and even some of the younger countries such as Israel and Australia.

It is accepted that scientific research is absolutely linked with higher education. It forms an integral and essential part of it. At a university the teaching of science can only be competently undertaken by those who are actively engaged in scientific research.

Now read the next paragraph.

(Mr. Pelser): Order! Is the hon. member refreshing his memory from his notes?

Yes. [Interjection.] Sir, it is quite obvious that the hon. the Deputy Minister is not serious about the future of South Africa. All he is interested in doing is to revert to the job for which he has been trained, that of political agitator.

Order. The hon. member must withdraw the word “agitator”.

I withdraw the word “agitator”. I thought that this was a very serious subject. After all, this motion was moved by an hon. member on the Government side. I thought hon. members opposite were serious about the future of South Africa but the Deputy Minister is apparently not. Sir, if hon. members will take the trouble to consult Dr. E. G. Marais of the National Physical Research Laboratory of the C.S.I.R., they will ascertain his very strong views regarding on-the-job training in research. Research is an additional essential in order to train students in methods of research and science; consequently university staff must be given the time and opportunity to undertake research. Because South African universities are grossly understaffed, the result is, firstly, that the staff are encumbered with numerous lectures and have little time for research. A lecturer at the university of Cape Town—this was referred to by the hon. member for Durban (Central)—at one stage spent 45 hours per week lecturing or supervising practicals. Secondly, the staff-student ratio is as low as 1 in 80 in some science departments, whereas the acceptable ratios in overseas institutions are 1 in 10 or 1 in 20, and in some places even less. I may say for the information of the hon. the Deputy Minister, who is taking this matter so seriously, that in South Africa …

On a point of order, may I ask whether the hon. member is referring to me?

That is not a point of order.

May I say something then on a point of personal explanation?

It has always been the rule here that if an hon. member wants to explain anything he can do so when the member addressing the House sits down. The hon. member can offer his explanation at the end of my speech. As I was saying, although the acceptable ratio all over the word is 1 in 20, in South Africa we have forced the universities into the position that the staff-student ratio is 1 in 80, except for the Native universities where I believe the ratio is 1 in 3. Consequently the staff are unable to give adequate attention to the advanced students, with the result that the standard of teaching and research suffers. Thirdly, the heads of departments and senior staff members are bogged down with administrative duties necessary for the running of their department. Universities also suffer from a serious lack of equipment which is often necessary for scientific research.

Then I would like to refer also to the fact that modern research often requires small research teams. Commenting on this matter on one occasion Dr. Marais said this—

Here I am thinking particularly of the Cape Town and Stellenbosch universities where they will now be able to collaborate with the institute which is being established here. Commenting on this matter Dr. Marais said—

Most university professors with whom I have discussed the matter, absolutely agree with that statement made by Dr. Marais. A research student should normally remain in our universities to a post-doctorate level and thus help to stimulate our post-graduate research activity in our own universities, and only after the postdoctorate level should he take up a scholarship overseas to broaden his research experience.

The shortage of research and teaching staff at our universities has been aggravated by the establishment of Bantu and Coloured universities in South Africa—not that I am against those universities; I simply say that the position has been aggravated because we simply have not got sufficient teaching personnel to cover so wide a field. In addition to that the salaries paid to universities personnel is notoriously low and very often a serious factor in university personnel leaving South African universities and taking up overseas appointments or appointments in industry or the C.S.I.R. The result is that our meagre human material is spread over too wide a field, and this may well become a vicious circle, which may eventually be responsible for the fact that scientists will not be trained in the future to take up these posts.

Another point that I would like to mention is that it is an accepted fact that students enter universities of South Africa at a much lower age than their counterparts overseas. Whether this is the sole cause I do not know, but it is certainly true, as has been stated here by previous speakers, that in the case of first-year science students you have up to 40 per cent and 50 per cent failures—especially in the first and second year. We should therefore have bigger and not smaller staffs than overseas and American universities. In many cases students entering the universities have not got the necessary aptitude, and that also adds to the strain placed on the teaching personnel. Science education at our schools is far from adequate, and it is interesting to note the high failure rate at our universities. This is a waste of time and money and we will have to do something about it. In a moment I shall put forward a suggestion, which was also made by Dr. Naude and various others, and which I think it will be worthwhile investigating. Unfortunately under the present system the universities are forced to accept these first-year students, who fail the first year, whether they have the ability and the aptitude or not, because the universities, since they are financed according to the total number of students, accept students who are not ready for admission to the university at all, and I wonder whether that is not also one of the aspects which should be investigated by a commission. Often science teachers at school are insufficiently trained to teach their students up to university level. Very often this is due to the acute shortage of good teachers, which again may be due to the salaries paid to teachers. Whilst I advocate a complete investigation into the whole matter of training and retaining scientists and technologists, I realize that this will take time, and perhaps the Government may give serious consideration to relieving the position immediately by introducing a post-matriculation course at schools. This would prepare suitable students for a university career, and in addition it would make the task of science teachers at schools more interesting and stimulating and therefore improve their teaching of the lower standards. Students who have completed the post-matriculation course may be admitted to university in the second year. I realize that this will not be possible for all schools, but cannot a start be made in places like Cape Town, where it will certainly be possible in selected schools? I am given to understand that one school in Cape Town is already doing this with very good results. It happens to be a private school. I can see no reason why the Minister should not as a matter of urgency take this first step.

Sir, at the request of various scientists with whom we have consulted over a long period, I should like to make the following suggestions to overcome some of the difficulties that I have quoted: (1) Teaching of science and research at university: (a) Increase the staff at universities by about 50 per cent to lower the teaching load and make more time available for research. Reduce the administrative duties and allow students more personal attention, especially the advanced student. (b) Increase the salaries and improve working conditions in order to keep South African scientists and attract overseas scientists. In order to implement the latter, a system of fellowship and/or contract appointments in generous terms is suggested. Many people would probably come to South Africa on a year’s contract while on leave from their jobs, and once here, a fair proportion is likely to stay. (c) Encourage starting of research teams so that more basic research training is undertaken by universities and students are encouraged to stay in South Africa until doctorate level. (d) Increase grants for laboratory equipment and more library facilities. (e) Increase grants to enable frequent visits to overseas institutions, especially now that, not as a result of my action or any action taken by this side, we have left the Commonwealth and scientists are no longer eligible for a number of grants, fellowships and bursaries that were previously available to them, (f) An attempt should be made to establish a reasonable balance between research institutions and those of the C.S.I.R., the Atomic Energy Board, the Agricultural Departments etc. on the one hand and the universities on the other. Undue growth of such institutes rob the universities of staff and eventually must starve the institutes themselves of scientists. Undue restriction of the research institutes by removing sources of employment for graduates harm the universities.

Secondly. I come to the teaching of science in schools, and here I would suggest the following: Improved standards of science teaching in schools so as to save wastage of time and money of students who should never have come to university by: (a) Introducting a post-matriculation course at school; (b) improved science teaching at schools, by encouraging brighter personnel to take up teaching. I was very much interested in the suggestions put forward here by the hon. member for Kempton Park, and I hope the hon. the Minister will give serious consideration to it even if it means giving a special bonus to science teachers at schools to improve the quality. I may say that at present the teaching profession, with the present salary scales, attracts only the dedicated—and thank goodness there are still a few of them—and the really mediocre. Then I come to my third suggestion: (c) Improved laboratory facilities at schools so that science is made more interesting and alive, so that potential scientists are attracted to this subject. (d) And this is very important where it can be done: To arrange a system whereby the brighter pupils are grouped together in a school so that the more backward students do not hinder the progress of the brighter ones. Under present-day conditions we are spending in South Africa R1,128,000 to try and force through matriculation the backward child, the stupid child, and to make him a political organizer and sometimes a Member of Parliament, and in due course he may even rise to the rank of Deputy Minister. But it is a strange thing that not a penny is spent to help to attract the brighter child to special schools and special classes where he can become an asset to South Africa in the scientific and technological field. Then I come to my fifth suggestion in this regard: (e) Encourage regular refresher courses for school teachers at universities so that teachers remain in contact with the subject they are teaching, (f) Reconsider the present basis for financing universities. It appears to be designed to encourage students who are not suitable to go to university.

Then I come to another matter that was also mentioned by the hon. member for Kempton Park but which was not canvassed fully by him, and that is the question of bonded bursaries. I suggest that the Government should introduce a system whereby people can be relieved of bonded bursaries in order that they may carry on with their research.

What do you mean by bonded bursaries?

Bursaries given by industrialists and sometimes even by the Government and by Government institutions to reasonably bright students to be trained as engineers, for example. When the man has finished his course, he is forced by the conditions of the bond to take up that particular profession when he could possibly become a good research worker.

Are you against that system?

Yes, I am against it. Moreover if the hon. member had done a little research he would also have been against it. Prof. Murray of the Australian University, in one of the best reports on this particular subject, has condemned this whole system of bonded bursaries and given such good reasons that I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the matter more fully. Any person who is interested at all in technology and science will agree wholeheartedly that it is a bad system.

On what grounds did he condemn it?

He condemned it first of all on the grounds that at the age when the child takes up that bonded bursary, the child is not capable of deciding in which direction he is going to go. Secondly, it is not always possible at that age to determine the qualities and the abilities and the aptitude of the child at that particular age. I may say that there was a case at the Cape Town University now. I am thankful to the Government Department concerned, but I believe that here we had the case of twins who turned out to be rather good research students, and they were bonded by the bursaries granted to them. Fortunately as the result of representations made, they were released from the conditions of this particular bond and they did a little research although not long enough. This is a matter which has been thoroughly investigated by educational authorities, who are all very much against these bonded bursaries.

Thirdly, I come to other research institutes. At present there is a great inequality of salaries paid to scientists in various institutes. It is not sufficient to increase the salaries of scientists in the C.S.I.R. as was recently suggested in Another Place. The salaries of scientists in all research institutes should be re-assessed. It is essential that science in South Africa be seen as a whole and not as a series of isolated research institutes.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) has already dealt with the question of the publication of research results. As you know, Sir, whereas the C.S.I.R. in the past generously subvented the publication of papers in South African journals, this year I believe practically no paper was so published in South Africa, for the simple reason that the money was not available. The editors of most journals are therefore holding numerous manuscripts that they cannot publish and this position leads to (a) a group of frustrated scientists, and (b) a loss of prestige for South African scientists.

There is just one more point that I would like to make. I think it is not only the Government and the authorities who are to blame for the little research that is being done in South Africa. I think it is high time industry also played its part in making money available to bright students. I would like to go even further and say this: It is industry that profits most from the fact that the country possesses highly qualified scientists and technicians. Industry should therefore realize its responsibility towards the training of scientists. Insurance companies, likewise, benefit more directly as the result of medical research and yet, in South Africa, they contribute practically nothing to research. It may be stated that the life-span of man has increased considerably as a result of the advancement of medical science, and although the insurance companies are making enormous profits, they are putting every penny into bricks and mortar. To my knowledge they are not ploughing a farthing back to assist people who are interested in medical research. [Interjection.] I still have to be convinced that they have made a worthwhile contribution towards the advancement of medical research.

In conclusion I should like to make this further suggestion, in which I hope the Minister of Immigration may also be interested. Has the possibility ever been considered of recruiting matriculated youths overseas and of training them here as scientists and technicians. I am sure that large numbers of those people would stay behind and help to build up this country and would become an asset to us in this life and death struggle in which South Africa is at present engaged.

The hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) referred a few moments ago to a Deputy Minister who is supposedly not attending to his work and who is supposedly not interested in the motion before the House. It is not clear whether he was referring to my bench mate, the hon. Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Development or to myself, but he was apparently reacting to an interjection. I can only tell him that neither of us interjected. He was, therefore, obviously reacting to a figment of his imagination. Consequently, I shall not go further into that.

If that is the case, I apologize.

I listened attentively to the introductory speech of the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) as well as to that of his seconder, the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), and I wish to congratulate them on the way in which they have placed this very important subject before us, and the attention they have drawn to certain shortages in the case of natural scientists and technologists and technicians here in the Republic. They have also made certain positive suggestions which deserve consideration. The world, as well as the Republic, is holding out certain very great opportunities and challenges for the following 50 years in the scientific and technological fields. It was the application of science which gave the West an advantage over the East during the past centuries. The world is to-day entering the era of the atom and sputnik, but we also know that to-day it is not only the Western countries who have the knowledge in that respect and the ability to utilize it. The non-Western nations realize that there is no mightier weapon during this period than training in the scientific and technological fields. In the dictatorship countries it is much easier to follow a policy which is directly aimed at promoting the training of ever-increasing numbers in this respect. We in South Africa, however, do not have to be spurred on by the example of foreign countries. Our own circumstances dictate the policy we should follow here. It is the object of the Government to reinforce the foundation of our welfare, to raise the standard of living of our whole population, and to fulfil its obligations towards the lesser developed areas within the borders of our country. The measure of success we will attain will depend on whether or not we succeed in raising our industrial production, in making productive capital investments, in making the best possible use of our labour and in exporting goods and services of quality at competitive prices. Rapid development in these fields is essential if we wish to raise the standard of living of our whole and ever-increasing population. Additional capital and additional labour forces alone are not sufficiently stimulating. The increase in our per capita income demands at the same time that the economic efficiency of our production should improve, that we should encourage technological and scientific training, and that we should constantly remain in touch with the progress made in other countries of the world in the technological field. The highest rungs of the ladder are not necessarily reached by those countries with the biggest population. Those countries with the best and most effective educational systems are the countries which are in the lead. To-day scientific and technical proficiency enables a dozen people to perform that which required 1,000 people to perform 50 years ago. If we wish to use our country’s mineral resources and our own raw materials and our labour potential to the best advantage, we have to train more scientists, more engineers and more technologists. The Government is determined to try to meet this need.

When we think of the extent of the progress we have made in the fields of agriculture, mining and industry, it is clear that science and technology have played an important role.

Take our agriculture. We are pre-eminently an agricultural country. Scientists had to come forward to show us what improvements could be effected and scientists have made great contributions. We have, for example, Onderstepoort with its scientists, and we have those people at our agricultural and technical colleges who have made great contributions. Just think of mining, Sir. In many instances the prospector discovered the mineral wealth, but the scientist, the geologist, the engineer and the technically trained person followed in his wake. Only they could have made our mining industry as successful as it is to-day. In the industrial field as well we started in a small way, but we gained knowledge from overseas, as well as capital, and we ourselves have become proficient to-day, thanks to our own technicians who have acquired knowledge from others and from our scientists. But even today the so-called “know how” remains a very important factor.

The fact that the Republic is the most developed area in Africa and the area where the standard of living is the highest, is precisely due to the successful way in which we have been able to enlist the services of and apply the sciences. When we think back of what we have achieved we are grateful for the contributions made by the scientists, but when we look ahead we see at the same time the great opportunities which our country offers. In his motion the hon. member for Heilbron concentrated in particular on the iron and steel industry, the fuel industry, the chemical industry, the mining industry, the textile industry and the electronic industries. Those industries are of the utmost importance when we look at the future. When I try to give a brief sketch of the future and the important role science will play in bringing to fruition the plans we are contemplating, I do so, in the first instance, to indicate the opportunities which await our youth, the scientifically trained youth, and I wish to point out that the driving force behind all these plans is the scientifically and technically trained person. We are dependent on him. If we do not have those scientists the development which we envisage will be hampered.

As I have said, it places high demands on us. As hon. members know the State itself plays an important role in creating the right climate, not only by means of its investment in industrial expansion but the State also plays an important role in promoting development in spheres where private initiative is incapable of undertaking that development. Where the State tackles such big undertakings, great opportunities are being created for private initiative. There is, for example, Sasol, to which the hon. member has already referred. During the next seven years Sasol will be spending approximately R60,000,000 on further expansion. The object, of course, is to bring about a substantial increase in production. As hon. members know Sasol produces approximately 3,500,000 gallons of petrol per month to-day, but apart from that a very large variety of chemical products, such as liquid petroleum gas, diesel and fuel oil, detergents, alcohol, ketone, tar products, and ammonium sulphate are produced there. That indicates that the processes undertaken at Sasol are of a highly technical nature.

Under what part of the motion does that fall?

I wish to point out to the hon. member that the processes are of a highly technical nature and that the development of Sasol calls for technologists with a particularly high standard of efficiency. I merely wish to reiterate the well-known fact that South Africa is giving the lead to the world to-day in the extraction of oil from coal, and as far as petrol and chemical products are concerned. From the very nature of things Sasol plays an important role in the practical training of scientists. The hon. member for Heilbron has referred to the training which is taking place at Sasol. It is of a technical nature, more or less the same standard of training which you get at technical colleges and the training which technologists receive there is not of university standard. Those persons at Sasol who follow technical courses and who want to go further have to do so at a university. Universities are costly institutions and the universities are already finding it difficult to obtain a sufficient number of scientists to undertake the technological training.

Sasol has included in its expansion programme the establishment of a synthetic rubber industry. The manufacture of the two most important raw materials (butadiene and stireen), which are necessary in the manufacture of synthetic rubber, will demand approximately R16,000,000 from Sasol. This development at Sasol will give the country’s chemical industry a tremendous boost, as well as our engineering industry.

During the next 12 years Iscor will spend something like R600,000,000 on development. That will increase its production of approximately 2,350,000 tons of steel ingots per annum to 4,500,000 tons of steel ingots per annum. Amcor is also embarking on an expansion programme.

What has that to do with the motion?

Hon. members do not wish to hear about this, but I am showing what development is awaiting us and how many technicians and scientists we will require. When you tell hon members opposite that this is related to these industries, Sir, they do not wish to know anything about it. I am referring to the development which Escom intends undertaking during the next ten years at a cost of R40,000,000 per annum. Foskor has already embarked on its development programme which will cost approximately R4,000,000. The I.D.C. estimates that during the next three years a gross amount of approximately R22,000,000 will be spent on specific projects. That does not include the development of textile projects in border areas. The I.D.C. estimates that during the following ten years it will be investing a further sum of R60,000,000 in private industries. A tremendous increase is also envisaged in respect of private investment in industries, the details of which I need not go into at the moment. I do, however, wish to point out that flowing from this development of Sasol, a chemical industry will come into existence, and that flowing from the development of Iscor, satellite steel works and manufacturing undertakings will come into existence. It is interesting to note that last year the Committee on New Industries dealt with a tremendously increased number of applications for new industries. They approved of 201 applications, but of those 96 projects were in respect of engineering and metal industries, 43 in respect of chemicals and cosmetics, and 37 in respect of textile and clothing industries.

I also wish to refer to the demand for technicians which will arise in our motor-car assembly industry and in our expanding shipping industry.

I am mentioning these facts to give the House an idea of the scope of the tasks which awaits us in the industrial field and so that hon. members will realize what demands will be made on the Government and on industries as far as technologists in all fields are concerned. I have given sufficient examples but I also wish to add that the Government is fully aware of the big task which rests upon its shoulders to supply the technicians and to make the scientists available who will be required in the years that lie ahead. Hon. members of the Opposition have insisted on the appointment of a commission of inquiry but such an inquiry has already been conducted. The hon. member for Sea Point has referred to a report by scientists in 1949 but as far back as 1951 the National Bureau of Educational and Social Research made a survey of employment facilities available to engineers and engineers’ assistants and technicians in the Union of South Africa and they drew attention to the shortages which existed at the time. But in 1957, six years later, it was obvious that the position was totally different from what it was in 1951 and that the results of the survey made in 1951 were already out of date. In the light of the rapid development during the years 1951 and 1957 it was desirable to make a new survey. For that reason a new instruction was issued by the Minister of Education, Arts and Science to the National Bureau of Educational and Social Research in 1957 and that Bureau made a very thorough survey. Only two of the reports have been submitted, the others still have to follow, but I can already refer hon. members to the report which was published in 1960. They will then see that the inquiry which is asked for to-day has already been undertaken and that the report is already available. But apart from that, I can also refer to what the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs said in the Senate recently—

You will therefore see, Sir, that the Government is fully conscious of the task which rests upon it in this respect and there is no necessity to appoint a committee or a commission to go into the matter. It behoves us, however, to bear in mind the fact that the shortage of trained persons in the aforementioned fields does not apply in the case of South Africa alone. It is a world problem which has flowed mainly from the fact that the well-developed national groups constitute the main source from which the under-developed national groups draw their manpower. The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) has referred to the loss of scientists. He also pointed out that Natal was losing many. I think the reason why Natal has lost so many is due to the very fact that in the past perhaps too many were recruited from overseas and that Natal relied too much on men trained overseas and too little use was made of our own people. They now have to look to other sources for their manpower. Reference has been made to funds which are available. It is true that we have fewer funds available than other countries. I know that MIT, for example, receives no money from the State. The Michigan Institute of Technology is one of the greatest technical undertakings in the United States of America and it has been established completely from contributions by ex-students and business undertakings. I wish to support that idea wholeheartedly. We know that most of our universities are to-day embarking on programmes of collecting capital from businessmen. Large amounts have already been collected from private undertakings and ex-students. I think we can learn a great deal from other countries and make our own contributions.

The hon. member for Kempton Park has argued that the salaries of science teachers should be increased. I am afraid that if we were to discriminate and increase the salaries of the science teachers alone we will be creating other problems for ourselves, because according to a survey made by this very Bureau of Educational and Social Research, the greatest shortage is in respect of teachers of English. There was a shortage of 519. The second highest shortage was in respect of teachers of Afrikaans, namely 425. Only then do you have mathematics where there is a shortage of 320 and chemistry with a shortage of 290. I am afraid that alone will not solve our problem.

I do wish to point out, however, that at the moment the Republic is particularly well looked after with its eight residential universities for a White population of 3,000,000. In 1961 there were 30,363 full-time students at these universities which gave us a student population ratio of 1:99. As far as it is known that is the second highest ratio in the Western world, the ratio is higher only in America where it is 1:71.

To enable the White universities to meet the needs of the country to a greater extent the Government’s contributions in respect of current expenditure have gradually been increased. It is said that sufficient money is not being voted by the Government. But in 1955 the total monetary contribution to those universities amounted to R4,900,000 and in 1961 it had already risen to nearly R9,000,000. It has therefore practically doubled over the past five years. The hon. member for Sea Point said that we contributed little towards education but I do not think the hon. member is correct because it appears that in South Africa the State contributes 73 per cent of all contributions to universities whereas in a country like the United Kingdom it is only 70 per cent. I do not think, therefore, that the statement that we are not contributing enough in relation to other countries is correct. From 1955 to 1961 more than R3,000,000 in the form of grants and more than R13,000,000 in the form of loans in respect of capital expenditure have been approved. This increasing tendency in Government contributions is continuing uninterrupted.

With the acceptance by Parliament two years ago of the Promotion of Technological Training Act, as subsequently amended, industries and other companies were encouraged to make bigger contributions towards post-graduate training and research in the natural sciences and technology. It is heartening to see that this encouragement is bearing fruit and that companies, particularly the mining industry, are making contributions on an increasing scale.

With a few exceptions, it can be said with a reasonable amount of certainty that the White universities have the necessary training facilities available to meet the demand for university training. Indeed, it is a fact, to mention one instance, that the engineering department at one of the universities has room for more students. In order to illustrate the progress which has taken place I wish to give comparative figures in respect of all the residential universities for White students, figures which reveal interesting tendencies. From 1957 to 1960 the number of students in the following technological directions had increased as followed:

In medicine the number increased from 2,017 in 1957 to 2,233 in 1960; in dentistry there was a decline from 375 to 296; in engineering there was an increase from 2,116 in 1957 to 2,886 in 1960, an increase of 770: in agriculture and forestry the increase was from 1,087 to 1,345 and in veterinary surgery from 164 to 174.

Statistics have been obtained from all residential universities for Whites except from Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and the Orange Free State in respect of the Departments of Geology and Mineralogy jointly, Chemistry and Physics. I am sorry that we could not obtain data from these three universities as well because I think they would also have shown a considerable increase. But as far as the available data in respect of the other universities are concerned, it appears that in respect of geology and mineralogy there was an increase in the number of students between 1957 and 1960 from 618 to 666, chemistry, an increase from 3,054 in 1957 to 4,014, a very big increase; physics, an increase from 2,630 to 3,324 over the four years I have mentioned.

The universities are still concentrating on providing more staff and accommodation in these departments. The question arises whether the taxation concessions to companies for postgraduate study and research in the field of pure and applied science should not be extended to pre-graduate work in these directions or even to all fields of study at universities. Reasonable progress has been made in the field of training artisans and technicians. Sufficient funds are made available annually for current expenditure. In respect of the years 1957-8 up to and including 1961-2 an amount of R9,000,000 was approved for buildings for trade schools and technical colleges. Nevertheless there is still a big backlog in this respect as a result of which numbers of children who are candidates for these institutions at secondary school level, cannot be accommodated. This acute problem is still engaging the attention of the Government.

Courses for technicians are something new and less known in this country, particularly in the case of some industries it is an effort to convince them that they should let their employees follow these courses. The mining companies, Sasol, the iron and steel companies, the chemical industries, Government departments and municipalities are, however, making use of these courses to an increasing extent. A sufficient number of enrolments has already justified the introduction of courses in the following directions at technical colleges: chemical technicians, medical technicians, pharmacist, mechanical and electro-technical technicians, agricultural and gardening technicians, land survey technicians, metallurgical technicians, tele-communication technicians, mining technicians, electronic technicians. Furthermore, since 1962 an advanced course for mechanical and electro-technical technicians has been instituted at the Witwatersrand Technical College.

Apart from this it is clear that the C.S.I.R. makes a very big contribution in the training of our scientists and technicians. There has been a great deal of reference to the C.S.I.R. and for that reason I wish to indicate what the C.S.I.R. has done, a body which is mainly financed by the Government. This body makes an amount of approximately R114,000 available annually in the form of bursaries for post-graduate training of scientists and it is, of course, working in conjunction with the universities in this respect. The amount spent on 253 students last year, as I have already said, was R114,000. Assistance to the tune of R28,000 was given to 62 pre-graduate students, post-graduate B.Sc. students (73 in number), post-graduate B.Sc. honours (86), post-graduate M.Sc. (18) and bursaries in respect of canalized research were granted to 14 persons. That shows that the C.S.I.R. plays an important role in the training of scientists. Apart from that in 1961 there were 160 personnel members who studied extra-murally. They may be away from their work for six hours per week in order to attend classes. It is a well-known fact that the C.S.I.R. continually loses some of its most capable scientists to industry, because the last-mentioned pays salaries with which no government or semi-government institution like the C.S.I.R. can compete. Nevertheless we are not necessarily losing the services of these people, although admittedly some of them take positions overseas. However, it is not always due to the fact that they are attracted by the higher salaries which are offered in overseas countries, but it often happens that they want to follow a scientific direction which they cannot follow here, or a direction in which we do not offer sufficient scope. It is a pity that is the position, but we should realize that South Africa is still a young country and that the demands which are made on the revenue yielding section of the population are so great that the Government cannot always make the necessary funds available which it would like to make available in order to extend the field in this direction.

Apart from the work done by the C.S.I.R. we also have the bursaries which are made available directly by the Government to persons who wish to enter the Government service as officials. The Government makes an amount of R285,000 available annually in the form of bursary loans to persons who intend making the Public Service their career. These bursaries which average an amount of R400 per annum per bursary-holder, are granted in respect of study in a large variety of directions. For example last year 85 new bursaries were granted for studying in the fields of agricultural science, engineering, forestry, geology, micro-biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Together with the bursaries which were granted in these fields in previous years, there were approximately 380 students last year equipping themselves in the above-mentioned fields which brought the Government’s expenditure on bursaries for the year in question to approximately R152,000. In addition to that there were 154 bursary-holders at university last year studying to become teachers. Many of them are taking science courses and as future teachers they will make a great contribution in training our youth in these directions.

I can also point out what is being done in respect of training in the field of nuclear power. The Atomic Energy Act of 1948 provides that the Atomic Energy Board may give financial or other assistance in respect of the training of research workers and other workers in the field of atomic energy. The Atomic Energy Board makes ample use of this power by granting bursaries to officials for scientific and technical training. For example, at the end of 1961 26 personnel members and 24 bursary-holders of the Board were undergoing specialized training overseas.

The Director of the Atomic Energy Board and the senior officials of the research divisions of the Board visited our South African universities during 1961 and made a survey of their research facilities in order to ascertain whether they would be able to undertake certain research projects, projects which the Board is supporting financially and 11 research grants were made for fundamental research during the year to institutions, amongst whom there were five universities, while various grants were also made to members of university staffs and research institutions for training overseas.

I also wish to refer you, Sir, to the nuclear institutions at the southern universities. As part of a big programme for training and research in nuclear power, a programme which was drawn up by the Atomic Energy Board and approved by the Cabinet, the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch decided jointly to establish a nuclear institute of the southern universities in co-operation with the Central Government, the Cape Provincial Administration, the Atomic Energy Board, the Wool Board, certain municipalities and certain industries. It is felt that in view of the atomic age in which we are living to-day, nuclear research is the spearhead of scientific development and that it is the bounden duty of the universities to meet the urgent demand in this respect. The costs attaching to the programme amount to nearly R1,000,000 in respect of capital expenditure and R61,000 per annum in respect of current expenditure. The Atomic Energy Board has undertaken to contribute R50,000 annually towards current expenditure and the Central Government has undertaken to contribute R250,000 towards the capital expenditure. This development is of great importance to the economic and industrial development of the Republic. The Department of Mines is also doing a tremendous amount in the metallurgical field. You have the Government Metallurgical Laboratory in Johannesburg. One of its functions is to make facilities available for research students in the field of minerals, the use of minerals. This laboratory was organized at the beginning of May 1961 and is now being developed.

I can also refer to the Government training schools for mine-workers. They are not run by the State but the State carries part of the costs, namely one-quarter of the maintenance costs and two-thirds of the capital expenditure. The balance is borne by the Chamber of Mines. Under the “Mining” Vote the Government’s contribution for the current financial year is shown as R636,000. There are about 12 of these schools and they can train a total number of 1,800 students at the same time, but on 24 December 1961 the number of students was only 1,217. The fact of the matter is that in general the Government is doing its share in meeting the needs as far as university training for scientists and technologists is concerned. It is however very doubtful whether all the children with the necessary brains for university training find their way to the universities. Good human material is so often attracted by commerce and industry after they have obtained the matriculation standard in the first class—which is no longer sufficient to-day—by attractive salaries, in comparison with the high costs of studying. That immediately raises the question of whether a sufficient number of bursaries of a sufficiently liberal nature is available. This question is at present receiving the attention of the Minister of Education, Arts and Science. Furthermore it must be borne in mind that university colleges for non-Whites are getting into their stride and that in the foreseeable future they will be making a real contribution in producing university trained persons for the non-White national groups. That will bring about a measure of relief as far as the White section is concerned.

To sum up, it may be accepted that the universities with the assistance of the Government, industry, commerce and the public in general, with due regard to the available human material of the necessary standard, are well on the way of producing the optimum number of university trained persons in all important fields of study. I must, however, qualify this general statement by saying that the taxation concessions granted to companies in respect of contributions to universities in general, as well as the availability of a greater number of more liberal bursaries in order to develop our human material to its maximum potential, deserve further attention.

It is the Government’s intention to carry on and to continue establishing training centres and the accompanying facilities. Just as it is the Government’s intention to increase the tempo of economic development, it is its intention to increase the tempo of training in the technological and scientific fields.

It is a pity that we, like most other countries, have to admit that we have too few scientists at the moment to fill all the posts as teachers, lecturers at universities, scientists in industry and research workers in laboratories.

It is an acknowledged fact that in this scientific era science plays the most important part in the prosperity of industry, and therefore also in that of our society. We have the necessary material in the Republic and we have to see to it that the talent is discovered and developed. No matter in what age he is living, the future holds a challenge for everybody— from place to place and from time to time it may vary in character and in seriousness. However, I regard this challenge as one of the particular challenges, a challenge which we must not shirk from undertaking and which must be met. That means that South Africa will have to make much better use of its most valuable resources, the efficiency and the labour of its youth.

In conclusion I wish to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Heilbron for having introduced this motion. It deals with problems which are of the utmost importance to the Republic and which should therefore periodically receive the attention of the highest forum in the country. I also appreciate the spirit in and the high level on which the discussions have been taking place.

I am glad that the hon. Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs who has just sat down, spoke on behalf of the Government because I had hoped at first that they would accept our amendment. As he outlined the increases in bursaries and the various improvements, I would like to know whether the commissions to which he referred earlier had the same terms of reference as those suggested in our amendment. Was the object not only to encourage scientists and technologists here in this country but to keep them here? In spite of what the hon. the Deputy Minister has said we still have the position in this year 1962 that the universities do not get enough aid. We are told this by a visiting American. Mr. John Fullen, an American from Ohio University who says that the universities do not get enough aid. He says—

In this case the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg—

Sir, in this age of science and technology we have to look at the educational system; the education system of the true balance between the primary and the secondary and higher education of which the Central Government has control and carries the responsibility for the last. It takes a very long time for a nation to achieve the ideal standard between all three stages in education. There is an important underlying trend in this which has to be very carefully considered to-day in planning the long-range educational system of the future for South Africa by this Government. The first fact is this, that the level of education of the Bantu, the Coloured and the Asiatic is going to rise and to increase. Their education is going to be on the upward trend. This increased standard of education among the non-European is going to lead to a consequent increase in the standard of education of the European. The second point we have to consider is the age we live in, namely a modern industrial age where we have an industrial revolution taking place in the world. The factors stemming from that are going to affect us, the factors of automation and computers. Automation and computers in science in industry are going to do away with a great deal of semi-skilled labour. It will call for an entirely new kind of operator in technology. In the very near future South African industries will be facing this competition from the outside world. This highly efficient automation in Western Europe and in America and in Britain is going to cut out the advantage which we have at the present time of cheap labour. It seems to me that there is only one way in which we can meet this difficulty and that is that we have to tackle this very important aim of producing more of our own scientists, technologists and engineers in this country. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) said earlier “die material is daar”. I agree with that but we have a very small potential from which to draw. We only have a White population of three million compared with the rest of the world where the position is entirely different. The United States have 170,000,000 from which to draw, Britain has a population of 52,000,000, and in Western Europe, the Common Market population is estimated at 270,000,000 people. The problem to them is not as difficult as it is to us. The White population of only 3,000,000 in South Africa have to carry the responsibility for 13,000,000 other people, the non-Europeans. The problem of finding suitable and enough educated people, technologists and scientists, is a far heavier burden for South Africa.

I would like to quote from a book “Industrial Development and the Continent of Africa” by G. S. J. Kuschke. He says this—

Mr. Kuschke is the General Manager of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa. It is also interesting to see the figures of the Soviet’s needs for the training of scientists. In the latest document which is a report on the education and professional employment in the U.S.S.R. compiled by Mr. Nicholas de Witt, an associate of the Russian Research Centre at Harvard, and published by the National Science Foundation it says this—

We here in South Africa have to make the basic preparation, which is the Government’s responsibility, for the promotion of education. We must realize that the ground must be broken immediately. Part of this is the preparation of specialists for this new specialized industrial era in which we are living and we have to start in our schools. That is why I fully support the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) namely to appoint a commission to study and frame recommendations for far more intensive training for scientists and technologists. The first stages must be started in the high schools which is the right place to begin, with differentiating education such as they have in the Transvaal. Children with special ability and promise should be gathered in special classes and they should be encouraged by scholarships and Government funds where it can be done to spend extra time before and after matriculation on these specialist subjects. Post-matriculation specialized courses should be introduced and teachers to handle these subjects and these students should be specially selected They should be the pick of their profession. Here I would like to say that I welcome the remarks by the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) where he said that we should seriously consider encouraging the conscientious and enthusiastic science teacher by upgrading them to a higher salary scale. I myself have raised this for many years in the Provincial Council. I would welcome the acceptance of the policy of this side of the House as far as that is concerned.

I feel that immigration should come into this, the immigration of science professors and lecturers and technologists. Hitherto we have been limiting our immigration policy mostly to the skilled artisan but to-day we have to raise our standards. With our immigration to-day we have to encourage young science graduates, teachers and lecturers, scientists and technologists. Our high schools feed our universities and that can best be done with the establishment of this pre-university class suggested by the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) where the cream of our A-stream students will be trained. They are the ones we have to concentrate on. In that way we will avoid the tremendous wastage in the first year at University. It is common knowledge to-day that our teaching of mathematics and science is so unsuccessful in the high schools that the first year university courses have a wastage of 50 per cent. Those 50 per cent are unable to continue in the study of science and mathematics. They are unable to finish their courses. We need specialized education to-day to meet the need for specialized higher education. There is no time to be lost with this training. We are in the midst of this new industrial era. There is a world scramble to-day for technologists and scientists. If you look at the papers and magazines from overseas countries such as America, Western Europe, Great Britain and Australia, you see a wide number of advertisements for scientific specialists. This is presenting another difficulty to us because a very large number of our best young scientists and technologists are being attracted by these advertisements. They are leaving South Africa for what they consider better employment and better opportunities for research overseas. As the Rand Daily Mail put it a short while ago “The drain of Brains” after more than 80 leading doctors, scientists, professors and lecturers had left South Africa over the past year. We do not have the buyers’ market in South Africa to-day to keep these brains. This again suggests to us that we must extend our education so that we will have sufficient trained personnel to staff our universities and over and above that, that we will have enough of them so that we can keep them even against those who are leaving the country for posts overseas. We have to protect our own future here in South Africa, the future of the young men and women who will be recruited to science and technology and who are at school to-day. We have no time to lose. Provision must be made now for their better higher education, whatever the sacrifice to other aspirations. Because of all South Africa’s resources the greatest resource is her coming generation. They will be the South Africans of the future and expenditure on their education should be a first charge against South Africa’s finances to-day. The job has to be started without delay. We may have modern dams, textile factories, steel mills, mines and power stations; they can all be built in a few years. But those who staff them, the managers, the engineers and the technologists and the personnel necessary to run them take ten to twenty years to train. And that responsibility rests with this Government. The responsibility that rests on the Government is to appoint a commission to re-assess the needs of South Africa, for more modern and forward-looking scientific and technological education—specialist education—at university level. We must not only create more research bursaries, scholarships and grants but we must institute a regular exchange of ideas with overseas countries. We should guard against being isolated from the overseas pool of science. We need constant access to the world bank of learning. We can profit by this. We are a small and very highly industrialized country at the foot of Black Africa. We cannot escape meeting the rest of the world in competition. We must be prepared for it. I am sure that hon. members in this House will not be willing to sit back and let South Africa lag behind in finding a solution to this problem of training and keeping the scientists and technologists of to-day and of the future because we have to match the world in science and in technology.

I wish again to support this amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central).

I think the House is greatly indebted to the hon. members for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) and Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) and to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs for the light they have shed on this problem of training scientists and technologists. I think they have impressed upon us the necessity of giving all our attention to this great task. However, they have also brought us the encouraging message that the Government has already done much in this direction and that it intends doing much more in the future. There is also much to commend in what we have heard from members of the United Party although they could not resist the temptation of taking a slight political dig at the Government. It might have been a good thing had their dig hit the mark, but. as usual, those hon. members are always missing their mark.

I want to start with the hon. member for Johannesburg (Mrs. Weiss) who has just spoken. She complained and said that the Republic contributed very little to higher education. I think it was clear from the figures which the hon. the Deputy Minister quoted to us, that, as far as the White population was concerned, with the exception of one other country, the Republic was the biggest contributor to university education in the world. I think, therefore, that political dig missed its mark completely. The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford), moved an amendment and said that the speeches of the hon. proposer of the motion and that of his seconder constituted criticism of the Minister of Economic Affairs and of the Minister of Education in that they were supposed to be blamed for the fact that we were to-day faced with a shortage of scientifically trained people. I think the hon. member’s mathematics have failed him. Had he analysed the position, he would have found that the children who were born in the year when this Government came into power were only in Std. VIII to-day. He would also have found that the children who went to school when the Government came into power were to-day at the most in their second year at university. When we talk of the shortage of scientifically trained people therefore, the retarding factor which faces us to-day. we should realize that it is as a result of what was not done during the years before this Government came into power. It is a longterm project. This is not something which has started to-day. I am not trying to put the blame on this or that side. The world has progressed rapidly over the past few years and the governments of those years did not foresee that we would need an ever-increasing number of scientifically trained people in the year 1962. In order to have had them to-day, we should already have started to change our educational system in the forties.

Nor do I agree with the hon. member for Durban (Central) when he emphasized the fact that we should import people to do this work. The people about whom he complained because they had left certain universities so hurriedly, were very often that very imported material and a large percentage of them were political refugees. They did not leave for scientific reasons, but for political reasons. Although we are sorry about the knowledge which they have taken with them, Sir, I do not think we have to be very sorry about the atmosphere which those people have taken away with them. It is not so much a matter of immigration. To my mind the very object of the motion is to train our own material to meet the needs which exist to-day. That is why I am looking forward anxiously to the report of the committee of which my friend, the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert). is the chairman, and that we in South Africa will get an educational system which is better adapted to correct these things.

I do not want to delay the proceedings of the House unduly, but there is one matter which I should like to bring to the notice of the Government. It is linked with this subject because if we pay attention to it more people may be set free to do the technological and scientific work which lies ahead of us. These are people who, from the nature of their training and aptitude, will be eminently suited to serve the purposes which we want served to-day. I am thinking of our architects. Architecture requires great ability, ability which can equally well be used in technological and scientific work, in engineering, etc. But the position to-day is that we have a profession in respect of which I think there are about five institutions or departments at universities where architects are trained. It is costing the country a great deal of money and the position to-day is that we have a great number of architects who are unable to make a living. I believe that a very large number of our architects have left the country during the past three years not for political reasons but simply because they could not make a living here. We train the people. The position then arises that we do not have any work for our architects in this rapidly growing country of ours. The primary reason why that is the case is because of the fact that about 85 per cent of the building construction work done in South Africa, is not done through architects. Unfortunately we allow any unqualified person to draw up a plan; any person, any builder can erect a building without the supervision of an architect. It happens here in Cape Town that big blocks of flats are erected where an architect was never present when the plans were drawn up or where he never supervises the way in which the work is being done.

If an architect is in attendance they get more bulk.

Perhaps they have to increase the bulk to make some kind of living. The matter to which I want to draw attention is that we should make better use of the services of the scientifically trained people—training which has cost them a great deal of money—by seeing to it that not such a large percentage of our building construction work gets done without the services of an architect. In the second place, it may become necessary for us to train fewer architects and in that case we can use those people who have an aptitude for the sciences to help to meet this need which we share with the rest of the world to-day. I do not think there is a more important subject than this one which we can discuss to-day, a subject which should engage the attention of our government, this subject of the training of our own people to undertake that most essential technological work which awaits us in the future. If scientists from overseas want to come to South Africa, they will be welcomed and we will receive them with open arms. But as has so often been proved, we know that the rest of the world is experiencing the same shortages which we are experiencing and that is all the more reason why we are in duty bound to supply this training to our own people.

Then I want to raise a final point in connection with the architects. A great amount of the work which is available to-day, especially at times when the building trade is slack, is work which is undertaken by the Provincial Administration and by various Government departments. I definitely think that in this respect there should be a more just and equitable distribution of the work. We find it only too often in some of the provinces—and sometimes also in the case of some Government departments—that the same architects are used over and over again to do the work. Some architects live solely from work which they get from Government departments while others have to be satisfied with the little work which is offered by private enterprise. We should avoid wastage of those forces and rather train the people who are available to do the necessary work which we have in this country to-day. We must then employ those who have already been trained more efficiently by a more even distribution of the available work from the Provincial Administration and Government departments. Mr. Speaker, with your permission I wish to move—

I second.