Mr. Chairman, I want to take up with the hon. the Minister a question which I think is a very important one and one which affects a large number of our citizens. I refer to the position of those people who became aliens whilst residing in the Union on the passing of the Commonwealth Relations Act. How many of these people are affected is very difficult to determine but it is obvious that a great many are affected by this problem with which I want to deal now. If one can take newspaper estimates as a reliable basis on which to work—they have obviously gone to the trouble of making a survey—it is estimated that at the time of the passing of this Bill there were some 300,000 citizens of the Commonwealth and of Northern Ireland resident here in the Republic, who were affected by that legislation. The Minister has given me figures since that date which show that out of that 300,000, if that figure is reliable, some 45,000 have notified their intention to reside permanently in the Republic. We can assume, using the figure of 300,000 as a basis, that there are some 250,000 in this country, constituting about one-twelfth of our White population, who are in a position of uncertainty as a result of this legislation. I think this might be a very good opportunity to get a picture of where they stand, also for the Minister, probably in conjunction with the hon. the Minister of Immigration, to get some scheme into operation to induce these people to assume South African citizenship. What is the position of these people? When the Commonwealth Relations Act was signed on 15 May 1962 they automatically became aliens in the Republic. In terms of that Act they were given until the end of December 1962 to register their intention of residing permanently in the Republic which automatically entitled them, if they had the residential qualification, to apply for South African citizenship. Of this figure some 42,600 did it within that period. When that period had expired the hon. the Minister gave these people an extension of time without penalty until the end of March 1963 in which to make their intentions known to the authorities. It would appear that some 1,600-odd did so. That still means, if the basic figure is right, that approximately 250,000 people are still residing in the Republic illegally to all intents and purposes. The only thing that I can see that saves them from being here illegally is the fact that the Act states that the Minister can give exemption to persons or groups of persons at his will. But, of course, he may also withdraw that. So I do not think that helps the position at all because he can withdraw that at any time. Those people are here entirely at the will of the Minister which, I think, is a bad situation when they constitute so large a portion of our population.

The bone of contention seems to be the position of those people who did not register by the end of December 1962. From a circular which the Minister’s Department has sent to certain people—unfortunately I have not got a copy with me at the moment—it appeared that those people who had not registered by the end of December 1962 had lost all rights. My contention and that of my hon. friend from Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell), who will put the legal point of view to the Minister in a moment, is that that implication is in fact quite wrong. Under the terms of existing legislation these people will only lose the unbroken year during which they must be permanently resident in the Republic immediately preceding their application for South African citizenship. They will still when they have the four years out of the last eight years in addition to that, according to the Act, then qualify, and many of them will immediately qualify after the period of one year unbroken residence; they will then immediately qualify to become South African citizens, and that is what we want to happen to these people, and we should take every step possible to encourage and induce these people to do exactly that. I think the indication given by the hon. Minister’s Department has created an entirely erroneous conception of the matter. There is one thing that I do want to mention and that is in regard to the Admission of Persons to the Republic Amendment Act which was passed during this Session. There the Minister did to a large extent alleviate the position of these people, because before that aliens who were not here under the Minister’s exemption or who were illegally here, were subject to arrest and deportation. That Bill which passed through the House does give them three months’ grace in which to make up their minds, and from that point of view I think it is a very, very good thing indeed. I understand that the Minister has extended exemption to these people until the end of June and I think we should get down to the problem of how to deal with this particular group of people before 30 June, so that we can try to encourage these people and start a proper campaign to induce them to assume South African nationality. You see, Sir, it is my contention that these people are tailor-mades, they are resident here in the Republic, many of them have a financial stake in the country, many of them have brought up their families here and their children have been born here, many of them have resided here for many years, and if we cannot at this stage make an all-out effort to induce this group of people who have fitted into our community in most cases, to assume South African nationality and help us with our problems, then I think we will have failed in our duty.

Why did they not become South African citizens?

If the hon. member knew something about the subject, I would not mind his interjection. The point is that there are exceptions which the hon. member is referring to, but the hon. Minister will agree with me, in spite of the interjection of the hon. member for Mossel Bay, that he and the hon. Minister of Immigration want these people to stay in this country. We cannot afford to lose such a large portion of our White population in this country. This Government has gone out of its way to encourage immigrants and to encourage immigrants largely from the countries from which these people have come because they are Commonwealth citizens and most of them have come from Britain. So on the one hand we are encouraging them to come and on the other hand these stupid interjections of the hon. member for Mossel Bay give them the impression that we do not want them to come. So where do we go with this Government when you have people making stupid interjections like that? My plea to the hon. Minister is to induce these people to assume South African nationality. We want them as South African citizens. I believe it is the duty of this Minister, in conjunction with the Minister of Immigration, to get down to the job of work and to induce these people to stay here.

I should like to refer to the report submitted by Mr. Justice Diemont who was appointed by the Administrator of the Cape to inquire into the corruption that took place in the administrative section of the Division of Town Planning of the Cape Town City Council.

Order! I should like to hear from the Minister whether it may be discussed here.

I do not think it falls under me, although I am the liaison with the Provincial Administration and as such also with the city councils. It does not lie with me, however, to deal at this stage with any reports that directly concern matters in which they are involved and to express judgment on it as regards policy. Only after I have been requested by the Provincial Administration concerned, to obtain the views of the Government, as the liaison, may I do that.

I am sorry, then I cannot permit the hon. member to discuss it.

May I ask a question, namely whether there is not a possibility that this report will be discussed by the House, where we as Parliament …

Order! It should have been discussed under the Provincial Administration Vote.

My hon. friend from Durban-Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) has indicated that I would deal with the question he raised as to the legality of certain notices sent out by the Minister’s Department. The notice which has gone out in roneoed form has gone out to many people who have become aliens by reason of the passing of the Commonwealth Relations Act last year, and at the bottom of the notice there is a paragraph which reads—

The words I wish to stress are “merely confers permanent residence”. Then it goes on to say—

Now, Sir, there are apparently a lot of people —the hon. member for Umlazi has indicated the figures—who did not make the declaration in time, and the notice which they have received indicates to them that so far as residence qualifications are concerned, they only qualify in respect of any time they stay in South Africa after the date they make their declaration. In other words, what this notice indicates is that all the period of residence before that date is wiped out for the reason, apparently, that they became aliens on the day which was extended by the Minister from 31 December to 31 March 1963. Section 10 of the Citizenship Act of 1949, which was amended from time to time, and was amended in 1962 as well, deals with the case of aliens. All these people became aliens on 31 March 1963. When they became aliens they fell within the purview of Section 10 of the Citizenship Act, 1949, which was amended from time to time, and that provides that the Minister may—

There are two periods that are provided for. The first is a period of ordinary residence of one year immediately preceding the application for citizenship, and a further period of four years during the eight years preceding the application. Sub-section (3) of that section provides also—

So I think we are at one that from the time a former Commonwealth citizen became an alien (i.e. on 31 March) he is deemed in terms of the Commonwealth Relations Act to be sojourning here temporarily, and in those circumstances, that period clearly does not count. So that up to the time when he became an alien, he was clearly—that is my submission—not a prohibited immigrant and was not deemed to be here for temporary sojourn. His residence, in other words, was up to then proper and lawful. But for the passing of the Commonwealth Relations Bill he would have been able to apply for citizenship if he had fulfilled the necessary requirements relating to residence—in other words if he had been here for a continuous period of five years un to that time. He would have been treated as an ordinary Commonwealth citizen. After that date he clearly was here as a temporary sojourner, but the time that counts, according to the notice I have read, is in the opinion of the Department apparently as follows: All the period of residence which he had qualified for before that date is now rubbed out because he became an alien on 31 March. I hope that that is not the intention of this notice, because I think quite clearly the notice is not entitled to deprive a citizen of his residence qualification which was lawful and proper until the time that he became an alien by virtue of the Commonwealth Relations Act, and if he did reside for four years in the eight years preceding an application (when we were part of the Commonwealth) and in fact even for a year thereafter, that would be counted as part of the four years. Certainly, however, the other year which goes to make up the five years which he has to reside ordinarily in the Republic before he makes his application, has to start de novo. That is clear. So if he has not in fact registered by 31 March, when he tries for permanent residence he cannot apply for citizenship until one year has elapsed thereafter. That is clear. And so far as that one year is concerned, I think the circular is correct. But inasmuch as the circular indicates that no other period is a qualifying period of residence, I think the circular is incorrect, and I think it is very misleading to the people concerned. I hope therefore that the hon. Minister will give us some indication of his attitude and that he will indicate that it was not intended to convey that impression, and that the position is as I have stated it. I hope the hon. Minister is in a position to do so now. We have given him notice through his Department that this point would be raised.

I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister whether at this stage any final decision has been taken in regard to the report of the Holloway Commission as to the allowances of provincial councillors. I do not know what the report contains, but if no final decision has been taken about it as yet I should like to avail myself of the opportunity to ask that the hon. the Minister will judge very realistically in regard to the allowances of provincial councillors when a final decision has to be taken. In making this plea, I should like to point out to the hon. the Minister that I am really pleading for his own voters, the provincial councillors who help to appoint the members of the Other Place, and seeing that these people constitute a part of his electorate I do not think it is necessary to motivate this plea. However, I should nevertheless like to point out that as regards the Cape we are in the difficult position that geographically there are many of our constituencies in the rural areas which make the position simply impossible for our provincial councillors at the present remuneration. There are the tens of school boards and divisional councils and other local bodies the provincial councillors are virtually expected to attend every month, and when we have regard to the travelling expenses, the position becomes simply impossible for these people. There is the concession that they may use our train services.

But when I think of constituencies such as Kuruman and Namaqualand, larger in extent than the whole of the Free State, one can realize at what a tremendous sacrifice these people at the present time have to meet their obligations. That is why, if a final decision has not been taken as yet, I should like to urge that the hon. the Minister should judge the matter realistically.

I just want to reply to the pleas made here by the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) and the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell), and I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister not to pay the slightest attention to the pleas they have made here. If there is one thing we should guard against in the Republic, it is not to make our citizenship cheap. All of us know the history of South Africa. All of us know what it cost to obtain the citizenship we have to-day, and which we can offer to foreigners. It is not necessary for me to talk about it. According to the arguments of the two hon. members, it is clear that the present Government has gone out of its way to give those people on whose behalf they were acting here the opportunity to become South African citizens, but they did not avail themselves of the opportunity. Now they are urging that the Government should give them further opportunities. Do the hon. members expect the Government of a proud Republic, which is proud of the citizenship it can offer to foreigners, a Government that welcomes them if they wish to come to our country to become citizens of our country here, to go down on its knees to those people to ask them please to become citizens of our country? I believe that on all sides in this Committee there surely are few who can truthfully say that they do more to get immigrants settled in South Africa than I do. Only yesterday I had an Italian, a Briton by birth, a Hungarian, and the three of them told me the same thing when I asked them why they had come to South Africa. Their reply was: “Because we want security.” These people who are here still in spite of the fact that they did not avail themselves of the privilege the Government offered them, are still remaining here because they are seeking security, and that they can enjoy in South Africa, and I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister not to give the slightest heed to the pleas of these two hon. gentlemen. If these people chose, in spite of all the time they were given, to remain aliens they will just have to follow the usual procedure under our immigration laws and become citizens of our country in that way.

There are still a few members who spoke last night to whom I have not yet replied, and I also want to reply to a few of those who spoke to-day.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) made certain remarks with reference to the case of Roos—someone who again had to take the oath of allegiance to the Republic after having previously been a South African citizen—and he put certain questions. I had the Roos case investigated when it came to my notice as the result of a report in the Cape Times. Clarence Altimus Roos, the person referred to in the report of 14 May, was born at Montagu on 2 February 1916, according to our information. On 11 July 1956 he formally applied for citizenship of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and that was granted to him while he was living in Northern Rhodesia. As a result of this formal action of Mr. Roos, he lost his citizenship in terms of the provisions of Section 15 of the South African Citizenship Act. He was no longer a South African citizen. In terms of Section 25 bis of the Act which was inserted in 1961, the Minister can restore South African citizenship to people who find themselves in the position of Mr. Roos, provided they apply for it and return to the Republic permanently. Then I can immediately grant it to such a person. If the Minister allows them to renew their former South African citizenship, he issues a certificate to that effect in terms of the provisions of the section inserted in 1961. On accepting such a certificate, such a person is requested to take the prescribed oath of allegiance to the Republic. That is precisely what happened here. He must take this oath and forswear allegiance to any other country. I do not think the hon. member or anybody else can raise any reasonable objection to this. Even though he was previously a South African citizen, the onus rests on him on his return to say that he wants to resume his former citizenship. Then there is no waiting period. The Minister has the power to grant it to him immediately but it also requires that on receipt of the new certificate the person will reaffirm his allegiance to his fatherland, citizenship of which he has lost, and that at the same time he will by implication forswear allegiance to any other country to whom he has sworn allegiance. Therefore I do not think that there was any irregular action in the case of Mr. Roos, nor do I think that there is any reason for complaint that he was not treated properly. But I want to say clearly that we do not encourage people to come to us who were former citizens of South Africa; we do not want to entice them back and my colleague the Minister of Immigration does not go out of his way to entice back by all kinds of means citizens who went to Rhodesia, Kenya and other countries and who were former South African citizens. But we do open our arms wide to those who feel that they no longer have a future in those foreign countries and that they want to return to this pleasant old fatherland of theirs, the Republic of South Africa.

May I put a question to the Minister? In the case of South Africans who did not formally take out citizenship in other countries but who for a number of years lived there and who are domiciled there, must they also take the oath on their return?

Not necessarily. They can come here without taking the oath if they still retain their citizenship. It is not necessary for them to take an oath again.

The matter raised by the hon. members for Durban-Umlazi and Durban (North) is one to which I have devoted attention. I just want to say, firstly, that in regard to the large number of 300,000 mentioned by the hon. members, I do not know where they get that figure from. It is not a figure emanating from my Department, and I think that figure cannot be estimated.

Have you no figures?

We did not say that there were 300,000 of these people. I think the hon. member has exaggerated. But that is not the crux of the matter. It is a fact that there are a number of these people. Now the hon. members know that we had an agreement with the United Kingdom as to how we would mutually treat our people when we left the Commenwealth. We kept to the terms of the agreement. We took the date which was taken by the United Kingdom. From our side we were as conciliatory as possible. We went so far as to say that they were laggards and that we would give them an opportunity up to 31 March. I must say that the doubt expressed by the hon. member for Durban (North) as to the validity of this step has long been recognized by us. I doubt even to-day whether in terms of the Act I had the power to defer it to 31 March. For that reason we feel that the best way of dealing with the matter would be to submit the whole case as stated by the hon. members to the law advisers to get clarity on that and other relevant matters. We should like to have their opinion as to what the actual position is, and as soon as we ascertain their views the matter will receive further attention. We will even perhaps have to consider introducing amending legislation to meet bona fide cases where people find themselves in trouble. The point is that there was never any intention on the part of the Government to put people in a difficult position at short notice and to exclude those who settled here permanently but neglected to take these steps. That was not the intention at all. The intention was to put a stop as the hon. member for Karas said, to people deliberately wanting to retain a dual allegiance. We are looking, as all good South Africans ought to do, for people who will swear allegiance to one country only, and who will devote their full energies to this country. We do not want to coerce these people. It is surely a matter in regard to which they have to decide themselves. We thought at the time that if a person was given six months in which to decide what citizenship he preferred while living in the Republic of South Africa, that was time enough. I am not saying that this period was not long enough to give these people the opportunity to make their choice but there are some who, as people generally do, forgot that they had to exercise this choice. For that reason I just want to tell hon. members that that is the procedure we followed. Even the letter referred to by the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) was submitted to the law advisers so that we could get a complete picture and be able to make as many concessions as possible to these people.

The hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. Martins) asked a question about the relationship between Swaziland and the Republic. I must tell the hon. member that the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced on behalf of the Government that these general arrangements have now been arrived at as from 1 July 1963 and that on entry or departure from the Republic certain travel documents will be required. In regard to the entry of persons from those territories, the basis on which we intend to work is the following. Whites and Coloureds will have to be in possession of valid passports and travel documents. Visas will not be required in their case, and if Coloureds want to come and work here they will have to obtain the approval of the Department of the Interior beforehand. Asians will also have to possess travel documents and/or passports, but they are subject to visa control. In other words, they must obtain the approval of the Department previously, before entering the Republic, and provided that they comply with the legal requirements before entry they will be allowed to enter. Then there are the Bantu. The Bantu from those territories who want to come and work in the Republic must also be in possession of passports or travel documents, but because it will take time to supply all of them with passports a temporary arrangement has been arrived at with those territories in terms of which we will allow them to enter, if they are not in possession of passports or travel documents, provided they have a temporary identification document and proof of their service contract with the employer in the Republic. This arrangement will apply from 31 December 1963. The Bantu who want to enter the Republic for purposes other than to work here must have valid travel documents or passports. In cases of emergency, persons will be allowed in on temporary documents. Passport officials will of course have the right to refuse entry to the Republic to any person who in terms of the provisions of Section 4 of Act No. 22 of 1913 is a prohibited person. Persons who want to enter the country will also have to prove that they have been vaccinated against smallpox. In short, the entry of Bantu workers from territories like Swaziland is of course a matter which closely affects the Department of Bantu Administration, and therefore it will be regulated by that Department, proper consideration being given to the interests of our own Bantu. The broad principles I have mentioned here on which our relations with the High Commission Territories will rest are as stated at the time by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but the final details still have to be worked out, and now comes my advice to the hon. member. As far as my Department is concerned, it is out of the question for us not to abide by the principle that these people should have travel documents and/or passports. How it will be applied, and in what way it will be made possible for these people who want to move from Swaziland to the Republic and vice versa is not a matter for my Department, but for Bantu Administration, to determine to what extent, with a view to protecting our own Bantu, they will allow these travel documents, whether for constant travelling to and fro, or re-registration after six months, or on some other basis. We are not going to determine that; we are only laying down the principle, and we will implement as their agents everything that Bantu Administration tells us to do. But the principle has been decided on that there should be travel documents or passports.

I should like to know this: The Republican Bantu who goes to Swaziland to work there, the farmers of the Republic who take their Bantu to go and gather the cotton harvest in Swaziland—what is the arrangement in that regard?

It is exactly as I have said. It will be done on a basic of reciprocity. If we permit people to come here, they will also permit our people to go there, but the particulars have not yet been worked out.

The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. P. S. Marais) mentioned the question of the Holloway Commission which was appointed to inquire into the allowances of provincial councillors. Their report has just come to hand. My Department has not yet made even the necessary copies so that every member of the Cabinet may have one, and the Cabinet has not considered it yet. But as soon as it has been considered, the result will be published. I can give the hon. member the assurance that we have confidence in that commission, and that we shall consider their report very fully.

Vote put and approved.

On Revenue Vote No. 22.—“Public Service Commission,” R 1,180,000,

I believe that we can be justifiably satisfied with our Public Service in general. There are of course exceptions, but you find exceptions in any big service similar to this one. Having said that I must say that all of us in this country are perturbed at the appreciable number of resignations from the Public Service each year. This figure of annual resignations is by no means as large as it was in 1955, when it reached the maximum of 5,000 resignations. The number is less today, but it still represents a steady and unsatisfactory erosion of some of the best talent we have in the Public Service. Now, the Public Service Commission realizes this problem and in 1960, according to their report, they investigated the main reasons for the resignations. It was indicated in the latest report we received this year that towards the end of 1962 particulars would be made available as to what the main reasons for the resignations were. Now, I inquired from the Clerk of the Papers, but I believe that nothing has yet been tabled this year. I should like to hear from the Minister whether he has received a report on the reasons for the resignations, whether that report has been tabled, and whether he can give us particulars as to what appears in the report.

The Public Service, as I said before, gives general satisfaction. I doubt whether the same can be said in regard to the Public Service Commission itself. In regard to that body, there is a growing sense of dissatisfaction amongst many of the public servants. There has been dissatisfaction about some of its activities in regard to appointments and promotions. The hon. the Minister will remember that many years ago, about 30 or more years ago, things reached such a pass that a resolution was adopted by this House calling for the dismissal of the Public Service Commission, and it was dismissed and a new one was appointed. I believe it was unjustifiably done in that case, but one would not like to see a similar state of affairs developing, and I believe it is time that we should warn the Public Service Commission that its activities are being closely watched by this side of the House, too. I think most members will subscribe to what I say when I say that we have received more complaints than before in regard to matters like promotion, the grading and regrading of posts, and in regard to favouritism and dissatisfaction with regard to the merit system, which does not appear in all cases to be such a wonderful system, according to some of the complaints I receive, and also complaints in regard to the shifting into dead ends of certain people whom the commission may regard unfavourably.

The thing that concerns us all is the fact that there is a decreasing percentage of English-speaking South Africans in the Public Service. I do not think that the blame for this can wholly, or even largely, be laid at the door of the English-speaking South Africans themselves. I believe that steps should be taken to make it clear to English-speaking South Africans that there is as good a future for them in the Public Service as there is for Afrikaans-speaking candidates. I want to point out certain features which do not make me too happy. I have here a list of the prominent members of the Public Service who come down to Parliament every year, which I got from this list of telephone numbers which each Member of Parliament receives. Of the 200 public servants coming down for the Session, more than 170 have Afrikaans names. I think that is a disproportionate number and that if an English-speaking youngster wanting to enter the Public Service sees this he will probably be worried about his future. Just look at the people living in Acacia Park. In this connection I think I might mention an experiment I made last year during the recess. I telephoned 30 Government Departments in Pretoria and of those 30 Departments 28 replied to me in Afrikaans and only two of them replied in both official languages.

That was the wrong day.

I say that is a bad sign. It is a sign that in an institution where the 50-50 principle should be upheld that is not being done, and I think the blame lies partly with the Public Service Commission and partly with each individual Minister.

Then I wish to raise another matter with the Minister. There is going to be some reorganization of the Public Service Commission this year. It has to do with the greater autonomy which is envisaged for the Post Office, and there has been talk of legislation to be introduced later this year. Before I proceed further, I just want to ask the Minister this, and then perhaps I need not proceed further along these lines: he gave notice to-day of the introduction of a Bill to amend the constitution. Is that the Bill which will deal with the Public Service Commission?

No.

Then I must ask the Minister why it is that there has been this long delay in regard to this matter. I do not wish to express myself on the merits or demerits of what is being done to the P.S.C. under this new proposal, but I do say that at present there is a vast amount of uncertainty in the Post Office, as well as in the Public Service, as to what is going to happen in future. The public outside knows that legislation will have to come from the Minister, but we have not yet had any indication from him as to when it will come. I trust that when he gets up he will give us some indication as to when this legislation will be introduced. As I say, I am not expressing any opinion on the merits or the demerits; I want to see the Bill itself first, and I hope we shall see it soon.

I also hope that there will be a more thorough investigation into working conditions in the Public Service, particularly in regard to the working hours and the large amount of enforced overtime that has to be worked, very often without pay. Again I am not expressing myself on the merits of the matter, but I know that there has been a proposal from the staff associations to the Public Service Commission and to the Minister that where it is practical a five-day week should be introduced with the proviso that public servants will work so much longer every day that on the whole they will work about one hour more a week. It is a matter which I believe deserves consideration. It has been tried at Onderstepoort and at the State Sawmills with success, and it also has the approval of the majority of the departmental heads. It is indeed unfortunate that the Cabinet decided—if I am correctly informed—against this at a meeting last November.

I believe that the position of women in the Public Service should also be reviewed, and particularly that of married women. The present position whereby they are forced to retire automatically when they get married is undesirable. I am not pleading at this stage for the automatic continuation of their jobs in all cases, but I believe that greater leniency can be granted to married women. We are losing talented married women who have done good work, simply because of the stringency of the regulations. They have very few of the privileges that unmarried women and other members of the Public Service have. They enjoy few benefits or none at all from the Government Employees Provident Fund. I do not believe they have railway concessions, and they have nothing equivalent to the holiday savings bonus that other members of the service have. [Time limit.]

It is very strange that it is not an English-speaking person who makes this charge, but that it should be that particular hon. member who has made that unjustified attack. He has not taken the trouble to analyse what percentage of English-speaking persons, or persons with English names, are employed in the lower grades in the Public Service. He merely takes the names of the small number of higher officials and because the majority of those happen to be Afrikaans names, he wants to create the impression that only the Afrikaans-speaking people are being promoted, and not the English-speaking ones. I do not think that is fair. Surely the hon. member knows that in all grades there are many more Afrikaans-speaking than English-speaking people, because the English-speaking people largely enter the industrial field. They do not offer their services to the State. Some of them look down upon the Public Service, but now the hon. member wants us to put the English-speaking people in charge and the Afrikaans-speaking people under them. Take the highest official in this Parliament, the Secretary. He has an English name and it shows that if a man gives his services to the Public Service, he can climb to the top of the ladder, irrespective of the language he speaks. But I think the hon. member is standing behind the door and his conscience is disturbing him, and that is why he is making this charge.

But I have really risen to make a plea to the Minister in regard to the bursaries granted to public servants. We know there is a tremendous shortage of qualified professional personnel, male and female, in the Public Service. I am afraid, in consequence of the industrial development and the splendid economic growth ahead of us, that this shortage of qualified personnel will become increasingly great. Now the Public Service has introduced a system, in order to attract personnel, of granting students bursaries that extend over a training period of four years, on condition that when they have completed their studies, they will serve the State for four years. I should like to urge that a more indulgent attitude should be adopted by the State towards those who have received those bursary loans, and I have very good reasons for doing so. We find that many of these officers are unable to fulfil their contract as a result of various circumstances. They may be unable to give their services to the State for the full period of four years in terms of the contract, and it happens that such a person, having completed his studies, renders services to the State for two or three years. Formerly it used to happen, in the case of women, that after they had given two or three years’ service to the State, and then wished to marry, they had to repay the full bursary loan at 10 per cent interest, and no recognition was given for their years of service. In regard to the male staff, you frequently find that after a man has served for three or three and a half years, he marries, and then he finds that the Public Service salary is not sufficient to support himself and his wife and child, or he is made an attractive offer in industry, and if he does not accept it he will most likely never get it again. That officer receives no recognition for his years of service. In other words, he has to repay his full debt and then he is called upon to pay 10 per cent interest as well. As the State obtains its funds at a very low rate of interest, I cannot see why, when the State has given a loan to such a person and he has not fulfilled his contract, and he has to repay the loan, the interest should not be reckoned at the rate of 5 per cent, or not more than 6 per cent. Secondly, once he has given two or three years service, and only about six months are left for him to serve in terms of his contract, the State should seriously consider giving him recognition for the period he has served, and that can be calculated pro rata very easily. I appreciate very much that the State is anxious to retain these young students to whom it has given bursaries, but I think if we are more indulgent in this regard, we shall attract many more young students who will apply for bursaries and subsequently become bona fide civil servants. Besides, if we have already given these people a bursary and they have qualified and they have rendered three or four years’ service to the State, they have not been lost to South Africa and to the production potential of the country. On the contrary, they are worthy citizens who have received proper training and who will be able to render further services. I think the Minister will admit that this kind of treatment is not fair and just to the young people who would like to study, but cannot afford to do so otherwise. After all, they belong to our people. They are not financially able to study, and if we give them a bursary and they have the certainty that after they have rendered service for a certain period they will not lose everything, it is a further inducement to them, and we shall attract greater numbers to the Public Service. I ask that an inquiry be made so that we will be able to do it in such a way that we can give recognition proportionately, and need not demand repayment of the full amount.

The only place where the grievances of the Public Service can be exposed or discussed is in this House, and I think that hon. members will agree that our country is particularly fortunate in having probably one of the most efficient and dedicated bodies of men in the Public Service. Having said that, I think probably some of the most dedicated men are those who hold the high positions and who come to attend to their duties during the sessions of Parliament. I know many of them personally and I do not think that any criticism can be levelled that they do not do their jobs in a dedicated manner.

I am quite convinced from my personal experience of and association with some of them that they do not only hold their jobs by virtue of the names that they happen to be blessed with. That being so, it is all the more necessary, when these men speak out in their staff associations about the conditions prevailing in the Public Service for this House and the hon. the Minister to take note of what they say, because in putting forward their views they do so in a most responsible fashion; in other words, they put forward their views through their staff associations. As we all know the representatives of the staff associations meet the Public Service Commission once a year as a joint advisory council, and at the congress, which usually lasts two or three days, they express certain views. I think it is important that we in this House should take note of the dissatisfaction, discontent and inadequacies in many branches of the service which have been publicly aired by the public servants themselves. Sir, I refer to certain resolutions which were introduced at the Joint Advisory Council. I do not want the hon. the Minister to say that this is a propaganda or a political stunt. These are the views of the public servants themselves, and let me emphasize that they express these views through their own associations. At their last meeting they discussed certain items which were to be brought to the attention of the Government, and, in the words of their resolution, they passed these resolutions because of their concern about the conditions in the Public Service. What are the conditions to which they referred. There were quite a number of them: That the Public Service does not recruit and retain sufficient staff to perform essential services in an efficient manner. That is a very serious accusation, that the Public Service does not recruit and retain enough servants to perform essential services in an efficient manner. They went on to say that dissatisfaction exists among public servants in regard to the manner in which salary scales are determined, in regard to the promotion system, the application of the merit system, the insufficiency of promotion prospects, and then they mentioned other well-founded reasons requiring investigation. These are all issues which affect the position and the future of men who have dedicated their lives to the Public Service of this country. When the public servants themselves say that dissatisfaction exists on these important issues, then I do not think that the Government can afford to overlook their views. Then there is another reason which they give; they say that there are services given by the Public Service which, when compared with other essential services, can be abolished or curtailed drastically. Sir, when the public servants themselves say to the Minister through their staff associations that a lot of services are surplus, that they can be abolished or curtailed drastically, then I think we can accept that they are acting in a public-spirited manner and that they are adopting a responsible approach in the interest of the public purse. But they go much further. They express fears as to the future of the Public Service and as to the adequate management of the Public Service, because this is what they say: “The shortage of well-trained and experienced staff is causing anxiety in the higher managerial ranks and the position is becoming alarming because the most senior posts cannot be filled suitably in the near future.” Note, Sir, that they underline “suitably”. Sir, this is a very serious accusation made by the public servants themselves. This comes not from servants in the lower grades, but from servants in the highest grades, expressing fears as to the future of the Public Service; expressing fears that the most senior posts cannot be filled suitably. These fears of the public servants seem to be very well founded, because if you look at the figures given in the report of the Public Service Commission as to the number of resignations as compared with the recruitment figures in the professional and technical grades, you find that those figures are alarming. In 1961 there were 1,067 appointments in the professional and technical grades against no less than 672 resignations. The reason is obvious, and that is that their salaries do not compare at all favourably with the salaries paid outside the Public Service. What was the result of all these discussions? What did the public servants themselves ask for through their recognized associations? They asked the Government to appoint a commission consisting of people within the Public Service and outside the Public Service to conduct an extensive inquiry with a view to promoting efficiency and with due regard to the principle of fair competition of all employers’ organizations. They do not want a commission consisting only of public servants; they ask for the opinion of outside experts, of people in commerce and industry, who can sit with Government or Public Service representatives as impartial commission to investigate and overhaul the entire operation of the Public Service. Sir, I submit that when the public servants themselves view the position in such a serious light that they go to the length of adopting resolutions and present them through the proper machinery, through the Joint Advisory Council to draw public attention to these matters, it is a matter which the Government cannot afford to ignore. I would like to ask the Minister whether he is going to accept this resolution of the Joint Advisory Council that a commission be appointed to investigate all the shortcomings in the Public Service.

Then one final point that I want to put to the hon. the Minister—I have raised the issue here on a former occasion—and that is the position in regard to the proposals which have come from the public servants themselves in regard to the medical aid benefit schemes. As the Minister knows a committee was appointed by the Public Service Commission to go into this matter. The Public Service Commission accepted the committee’s recommendations in full and submitted them to Treasury for an opinion before final submission to the Government. When I raised the matter with the Minister last year, he said that the matter was under consideration, but he made no further statement, and as far as I am aware he has made no further statement since then. This is a matter of great concern and interest to the public servants themselves and their families and I hope that the Minister will now be able to tell us what his intentions are. I understand that to be able to introduce the scheme will mean an amendment to the existing Act, and I hope the Minister is going to tell us that he is going to take that step in the interest of the Public Service so that these matters can be put on a proper basis.

Sir, the matter which I have raised here is a very serious one. It is no light matter when the public servants of our country feel obliged to draw public attention to these matters, and I ask the hon. the Minister, in order to allay public fears and in order to ensure that we have and continue to have a contented and satisfied body of public servants, to make a statement in regard to this matter to-day and to tell us whether he is going to accede to the request of the Joint Advisory Council that an impartial commission be appointed consisting of representatives of the various interests in the country so that they can come forward with recommendations to promote efficiency in the Public Service.

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) has in his typical, traditional manner tackled something about which he now makes a great fuss. He wanted to intimate that the Public Service now has almost no English-speaking officials. He says that the English-speaking officials in the Public Service are becoming increasingly fewer. He says that there are 170 Afrikaans-speaking officials here and that there are only 30 names which sound English. In the first place the hon. member is behind the times in regard to this matter. If one finds a Malan who adopts the same standpoint as the hon. member and in the Northern Transvaal one finds a Mr. Douglas who cannot even speak English, it only proves that one can make a great mistake when judging solely by a person’s name. The hon. member has obviously forgotten that according to the surveys made, the enrolment in the Public Service during the United Party regime was no more; than between 10 and 12 per cent of English-speaking people. The hon. member evidently did not have these data available. It is a service which is particularly attractive to the platteland boys and girls who are predominantly Afrikaans-speaking. It is due to the fact that the youths in the cities, who are predominantly English-speaking and have English names, have many other opportunities for employment. But the hon. member wants to create the impression that the Public Service is now closed to English-speaking people, that they are being kept out of the Public Service, that the Public Service is increasingly becoming more Afrikaans, and that this is done deliberately, and that the present Public Service Commission is responsible for it because they make promotions which do not satisfy the ordinary official. These things are said here with the object of sowing suspicion, and not with the intention of building up a sound Public Service. It is true that the officials are flattered somewhat by being told that they are such good people, but then it is said that the Public Service Commission is so unfair. Some of our most prominent officials who have made their mark in the Public Service and who have been through the mill and are now members of the Public Service Commission must now listen to this veiled accusation that they are really responsible for this state of affairs. The hon. member also in his own way made a test as to the degree of bilingualism in the Public Service. I quite accept that all officials are not completely bilingual. I accept that one demands much more of a public servant than is perhaps demanded of somebody else, so much so that one expects a Std. VII or a Std. X person to be completely bilingual. Well, that is quite impossible. There are few of us who are completely bilingual, and bilingualism is a comparative concept. In a country like South Africa we have to be grateful as long as the public can be attended to in the language chosen by the particular member of the public concerned although from the linguistic point of view it might perhaps not be perfect If a person comes from an out-and-out Afrikaans home, it would be quite wrong to expect his English to be as perfect as his Afrikaans. However, it remains a fact that public servants are expected to serve the public and to do so efficiently, and every attempt is made by the Public Service Commission, even by granting additional bonuses, to attain the greatest possible measure of bilingualism. I think we must get away, in the times in which we live, from this narrow-minded idea that the Public Service Commission goes out of its way to appoint and to promote just one language group. Promotion is done on merit. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that I, as the responsible Minister, insist that merit should count rather than seniority. Seniority only enters the picture and becomes the decisive factor when all other things are equal as regards merit.

The Minister of Agricultural Technical Services told us that political merit also counts with him.

The hon. member is again completely off the lines. The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services said that if he has to appoint people to a board and they are of equal merit he. will always give preference to a Nationalist, but that refers to a board, and it has nothing to do with officials.

Now I just want to tell this to the hon. member, and also to the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant), who also referred to the question of resignations. We are just as concerned about it as those hon. members. We were also concerned about it last year, and we did not sit still. We instructed the Bureau for Educational and Social Research to institute an investigation. That is much more than even the Advisory Council of the staff associations asked for. What we did was to initiate an investigation in loco to ascertain what the reasons for these resignations were. This report has now been handed to us, and it is being considered, and during the course of this year we will know precisely where we stand. We hope that this investigation has put the finger on the weak spot.

Will that report be tabled?

The results of the consideration of this report will of course be announced, but whether the report will be tabled I do not know because it is a Departmental report. However, everything will be divulged; it is not necessary to hide anything. We are just as concerned as hon. members are about these resignations. Resignations take place on a large scale and one can advance many possible reasons for them. Perhaps the staff associations have not even mentioned all the reasons: perhaps there are also additional reasons. In the case of one person, it is the salary which counts, in the case of another it is the conditions of service, and in the case of a third, a five-day working week. There are so many jobs offering outside the service and there is such a shortage of manpower that there will continually be resignations. One finds that in every sphere of life, not only in the Public Service. It would be wrong to single out the Public Service and to say that the resignations from the Public Service are particularly high But what happens is this: A youth comes from the country districts to the city. He knows nothing about life and certain offers are made to him here. His friends tell him that he can earn much more in the city, that he may perhaps earn an extra RIO a month, and the result is that he resigns and goes to the city. In the one case it is this consideration and in the other case it is that consideration which counts. That is what we are investigating now.

But the resignations are particularly in the higher grades.

That merely proves what a good system of training we have and what good officials we turn out. When they get to the higher grades they are offered much higher salaries in the private sector. If the hon. member wants to compete with the private sector in so far as salaries are concerned, he will also find that he cannot do so, and no Government can do so. But fortuntely there are men and women who remain in the Public Service although they carry a heavy burden, and they do excellent work. These considerations I have mentioned do not count with those people. But I readily admit that I am just as concerned as hon. members are. We are particularly concerned because recruits do not come up fast enough from the lower ranks to fill the responsible senior posts. There are gaps, but every possible attempt is being made by the Public Service Commission to fill all these vacancies. These vacancies are advertised and the conditions of service are made as attractive as possible. Recently salary increases were introduced which cannot be scorned. Every possible attempt is made to encourage the initiative of the young man or woman and to make the service really attractive. I want to say that I am proud of the success achieved by the Public Service Commission under these difficult circumstances.

The hon. member for Orange Grove referred to the continued employment of married women. I can just tell him that there is provision for retaining married women in the service where that is considered to be in the interest of the State. They are retained at the same salary as that which they received before getting married. That is done in deserving cases, and even where married women are employed on a temporary basis they receive the same salary they got before leaving to get married. I think those are the most important points mentioned by hon. members.

Are you able to give an indication as to whether any legislation will be introduced this year in connection with the Post Office?

I have just been informed that the Public Service Commission has had to refer the Public Service Amendment Act to so many bodies that it has taken some time. It is not only the post office which is concerned, but also the compulsory medical aid scheme in regard to. which an amendment has to be introduced in the same Bill. This amending Bill was handed to me only to-day and I have not read it yet, but as soon as I receive the approval of the Cabinet I will immediately give notice of the introduction of the Bill. But in the meantime we are carrying on as if it has been approved; there can be no objection to that and administrative work is already being done in that regard.

The hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. Martins), who apologized for not being able to be present, asked me a question in regard to the bursary scheme. I can just tell him that the whole bursary scheme, including all bursaries, also university bursaries and other bursaries granted by the C.S.I.R. and the Railways, etc., has been referred to a Cabinet committee for investigation and to review the whole bursary scheme, if necessary and then to make submissions to the Cabinet.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 23,—“Printing and Stationery”, R4,790,000, put and agreed to.

On Revenue Vote No. 24—“Education, Arts and Science” R27,813,000,

May I have the privilege of the half-hour? It is my privilege again this year to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his Department on the production of the Annual Report for the calendar year 1962. Actually I have been given one with a double cover, which is rather unusual. We are accustomed to receiving Annual Reports which are one, two or three years old, but there we have a report from the Education Department for the calendar year 1962. I think that is really a very creditable achievement.

Sir, in the course of our discussions with the hon. the Minister on Education, hon. members on this side of the House will deal with certain aspects of the Estimates. I wish to confine myself to-day to a discussion of the item on page 111, “National Advisory Education Council”, R40.000. Before doing so I again have to thank the Department because earlier in the Session I asked whether I could have a complete list of the members who had been nominated by the hon. the Minister to that Advisory Council, and within 48 hours I received a complete list together with the records of the members of the Council, their origin and where they were at present. I am grateful for that because the remarks I have to address to the Minister are in connection with the composition of the National Advisory Education Council. The hon. the Minister will remember that last year when we discussed the Bill, which is now the Act under which the Minister is operating there were points of agreement and serious points of difference. Let me mention one point of difference. It was our opinion, and we stated it frequently on the Select Committee and again in the House, that this body should be representative of the whole community and not only of any particular section. We drew our inspiration, of course, from that famous report on education, probably the greatest report on the subject that we have ever had in this country, the De Villiers Commission Report. The De Villiers Commission in first suggesting a National Council gave an outline of how the National Council should be composed. They said that there should be representatives not only of the teaching profession, universities and so on, but also representatives of manufacturing industries, of commerce, of agriculture and organized labour; that it should represent the community as a whole. We drew our inspiration from that report. I think we were in very good company, and if I have general criticism to offer it is that the hon. the Minister in nominating the members of his Council has taken too narrow a view. He has nominated people of one section of the community, one to which I belonged and one to which I am glad to say the Minister belonged. He has not gone beyond the teaching profession. We should have liked something better than that. I think, for example, of the De Villiers Commission Report, of which we are so proud. Who are the men who gave us the De Villiers Commission Report? I do not see men of that calibre mentioned in this list of members of the Advisory Council. There was first of all the chairman of the commission. He was not a member of the teaching profession, he was an industrial chemist, and where is there a finer educationist in South Africa than Dr. Francois de Villiers? And who were the men who served with him? There was Professor John Orr, an engineer. You would not say that he was an ordinary member of the teaching profession. The other two men on that commission I knew very well. They recommended that men of that type should be represented. I do not see any of them here. Sir, I could mention other names in the same category, men whom we have with us in South Africa to-day and who have had a scientific background, who are interested in industry, whom we could very well have on a Council such as this. Let me mention one, if I may: Dr. van Eck. I think that is the type of man who could be nominated to this Council. However, the Minister has seen fit not to do that; he has selected his own Council. In discussing the personnel of this Council I want to say that in nominating members the Minister’s embarrassment was an embarrassment of richess. I do not wish to be personal about any member of the Council. I would go further and say that for every man nominated the Minister had available 50 men or women whom he could have nominated, men and women of the same calibre. There were so many from whom he could choose. I do not wish to say that there is a single person on that Council who should not be on an advisory council. Where then has the Minister failed? I think he has failed in this respect: He has failed to maintain a proper balance in nominating the members of the Council. There are certain balances that we require in our society in South Africa. Let me mention two of them. One of them is to maintain the correct balance between Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking institutions in education. That is essential. We have now succeeded, chiefly through the policy of the Nationalist Party and I am not going to condemn it or discuss it, in segregating the Whites in their education from the grades right up to the universities. Therefore I think it is necessary that in nominating the members of this Council provision should have been made for that balance between the two sections. I come to another balance it is necessary to preserve, a balance of the individual importance of the provinces. We still have provincial control of education; the provinces should be well represented. No province should be able to say that they have not been fairly treated. Sir, I do not think that has been achieved by the hon. the Minister. I think he has failed in that respect and I think he has failed in regard to the representation of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people who are interested in the profession. That in my general criticism. We should have had men representative of the whole community, and I say that the Minister has not preserved the right balance. The whole Advisory Council is academic; that is my chief criticism. When I make that criticism I should like to analyse the Council to substantiate what I have said. In terms of Section 3 of the Act the Minister is called upon to nominate an executive in this Advisory Council. He has to nominate a chairman and two vice-chairmen. As a proviso to the section he can add two additional members. He has nominated his executive and these are the members. I do not want to mention any names throughout this whole discussion. I think it is not fair to the members of the Council. As I have said they are all worthy members; it is a question of whether the balance has been maintained. The hon. the Minister has chosen as chairman the rector of the Pretoria University, a distinguished educationist on the philosophy side. Well he must be an outstanding man if he is rector of the Pretoria University. The first vice-chairman is Dean of the Faculty of Education of the Potchefstroom University. The third is another professor from Pretoria; this time the rector of the College of Education of Pretoria. I presume there is a very close relationship between the College of Education and the Pretoria University. Then we have as the fourth, the principal of an Afrikaans medium girls’ high school in Pretoria; this is the first additional member. The fifth member is English-speaking. What is so worthy about this member? I think it is most important, to emphasize this. We discussed at length in the debate on the Bill the position of private schools in our South African system of education. There are the Catholic schools, the Anglican schools, the Methodist schools and there are undenominational schools. The member who has been chosen to be the fifth additional member is principal of a private school which belongs to one of the smallest groups. There are three boys’ high schools in this group and all the boys taken together in those three schools would not be more than the number of boys in one of our ordinary State high schools in Johannesburg or Pretoria. Of these three schools two do not receive any subsidy from the Government whatsoever, and so they are excluded from the provisions of the Act And from those three schools the Minister has chosen two headmasters. Again it is not a question of the men themselves; it is the balance that has not been maintained. That is the fifth member, and English-speaking member.

I now come to the matter which is dealt with in Section 2 of the Act. In terms of Section 2 of the Act the Minister has to appoint the other members of the Council. In appointing them he has to nominate one member himself to represent his own Department and each province has to nominate a member. The principle of nomination was preserved in that small section. The Minister did make that concession. So there are five members. Let me say at once they are all distinguished members. There is a senior inspector from the Minister’s Department and the other four are deputy directors or as they say in the Cape, a deputy superintendent-general, of education, the second man in command in each province. There are five of them; they are all Afrikaans-speaking. The ten leading people of which nine are Afrikaans-speaking …

Oh no, the one from Natal is English-speaking. He was nominated by the Administrator of Natal.

I am coming to the Natal nominees when I deal with the provinces. The next group we come to are the representatives from the universities. As I have said the whole Council is academic. We choose deans of faculties of education and lecturers in education, men from among the teaching profession. We do not go to the professors of chemistry who are lecturers in research in chemistry or research in industry. We do not do that. There are four English-language universities in South Africa and four Afrikaans-language universities which are residential. I am not talking about the University of South Africa because that falls into a different category. I shall take the professors from the Afrikaans institutions first. I have mentioned that there are two professors from Pretoria. A lecturer from the Pretoria University has been added, that is three; there is a professor from Potchefstroom; there are two professors from the Orange Free State that is six; there is one from Stellenbosch which makes it seven from Afrikaans-language institutions. There are four English-language universities and how many professors have been chosen from them? One! One to seven! And he is the dean of the Faculty of Education of the Cape Town University. Again an outstanding man; I am not discussing these men as individuals. There are none from Natal, none from Rhodes, none from Wits, but two from the Free State. I do not think that is quite a fair deal. I think the English-speaking section, academically, deserves better representation.

I now come to the next group who are inspectors. An inspector, with due respect to the hon. the Minister, should not be nominated to this body, I think. I am thinking of myself and I shall tell you why, Sir. A headmaster yes, but not an inspector. I can explain it better if I compare it with the position in the army. There are two kinds of officers in the army or any military organization: The Commanding Officer and the Staff Officer. The Commanding Officer commands a battalion, a brigade, a division whereas the Staff Officer is an adjudant, a brigade major in a G.S.O.I. He is the Staff Officer to carry out the orders of his superior who commands. The inspectors of schools who are nominated to this body are representatives of their own administrators or whoever may nominate them. As an inspector of schools I had to carry out a policy which I did not always agree with. I had to carry it out because it was the policy of my Department. That is my reason for suggesting that they are not suitable people to be on this Council. The people who should be on it are leading members of the teaching associations, headmasters of schools and, if I may be personal, men of the calibre of the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Schoonbee)—when he was in his prime!

I come to the most difficult group of all, these headmasters. I find this very difficult to discuss. There are quite a number of English-speaking headmasters but I want to see how they have been chosen. They have been chosen in a most remarkable manner. Two were drawn as headmasters from one small group of schools which together have only about 760 boys. The third has been drawn from a small private girls’ high school in Johannesburg, which is a good school. But large girls’ schools under the State system, under the Anglican system, and the Catholic system are not represented. That is the third. The fourth is actually a member who is not an active schoolmaster but is a retired schoolmaster. He is not in the service any longer; he is on pension. I think the five that have been chosen are good heads; one is the head of a boys’ high school in Pretoria, one is the principal of a girls’ primary school in the Eastern Province. It is a very good school in the Eastern Province. That is the representation of English heads of schools. I do not know who recommended them; somebody must have done so.

I now turn to the Afrikaans-speaking heads. They seem to be much better off. There is the headmistress of a girls’ high school in Bloemfontein; we also have the principal of a school in the Northern Transvaal, and the principal whom I have mentioned, of the high school in Pretoria. I think the Minister will expect me not to include the members of his own Department. I know some people say they are from Pretoria and that they are Pretoria nominees. But they are not; they are nominees of the Minister’s own Department. I am not going to include the Director of the Bureau or the lady who is responsible for adult education; I am not even going to include the director of South West Africa because he is there, I presume, for liaison purpose. South West Africa does not come under the Act. I have given the outline of the branches of the profession and I should now like to deal with the provinces. How have the provinces been represented? Here I should like to be very careful because I think the provinces have not been treated as they should have been. Let us take the Afrikaans-speaking representatives from the Transvaal first. They have a strong team from the Transvaal. They have the Deputy-Director of Education; they have three professors and a lecturer. That is five. They have a principal of the girls’ high school in Pretoria and a principal of a technical high school in Northern Transvaal; that is seven. Good, strong Transvaal representation on the Afrikaans-language side. And on the English-language side? They have an English-speaking inspector from the Transvaal. The Minister knows what my views are about that; he is there as the representative of his Department, not as an independent individual. We have the headmaster of a high school in Pretoria and the third is the principal of a small private girls’ high school in Johannesburg. I do not think that is good representation. You have seven outstanding people against a not very strong team of three in the Transvaal.

Now I come to the Orange Free State, which we can regard as an appendage of the Transvaal when the Nationalist Party is in operation. In the Free State they have on the Afrikaans-language side the Deputy-Director of Education, two professors of education from the Orange Free State University and the principal of a girls’ high school for Christian National Education. Four good nominees. Then we come to the English-language side in the Free State. The Orange Free State is very concerned about the English language to-day. Let us take the constitution of the English-speaking side. Not one member of the teaching profession on the English-language side has been nominated in the Free State!

Let us go to Natal and see what the position is there. In Natal there are three representatives. The one I have mentioned; he is from a private school. Of the two representatives in Natal one is Afrikaans-speaking, the Deputy-Director of Education, and the other is a senior inspector of schools from the head office—two head office representatives and a representative from one of the private schools. Not a schoolmaster from the State system of education in Natal has been nominated.

Let me come to the Cape, the land of Van Riebeeck. We are told: “Come to South Africa through the Cape.” I am going to take the English-language side first. They have the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Cape Town University. They have a retired principal of a school; a lady who is the principal of a primary school in the Eastern Province and another principal of a private school. That is four. I do not think they are altogether representative of the English-language teaching profession; they are not representative of the South African Teachers’ Association at all. Let us go to the Afrikaans side. If you have tears to shed prepare to shed them now. We have the Deputy-Superintendent-General of Education; we have a professor of education from Stellenbosch and we have another representative from head office. Two representatives from head office; one representative from the Stellenbosch University; and not a schoolmaster from the Cape on the Afrikaans side! I do not know what the hon. the Minister of Finance thinks about it. He is the leader of the Nationalist Party in the Cape and I should like to ask him what the Chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch thinks of the Chancellor of the Potchefstroom University. I think that is a fair question. That is the position in the Cape and what was the reaction? The reaction in the Cape was strong and violent amongst teachers. They wrote articles in the Press; the Minister wrote letters to them and they wrote letters to the Minister who suggested that they should come to some settlement. I hope they have. They certainly should come to some settlement. The people in the Cape were incensed because of the manner in which they have been treated. It was not only people who held a grievance but people much more important. I am not speaking of individuals now but even a worm will turn and here the Cape Nationalist Party turned. This was what one of them had to say, an educationist in this House; the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. van Staden). What he had to say was reported very prominently in the Burger. He said this—

He said the following at the end—

He spoke out. I think the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Stander) is going to take him to task. He spoke out and so did the Burger. The Teachers’ Association quoted Langenhoven and said this—

I do not think the Minister has trodden on their heads; I think he has kicked them in the pants. The Burger also had a great deal to say. You know, Sir, the Burger during the recess is totally different from the Burger during the session. During the recess they show a marked leaning towards independence. [Interjections.] No, they do not see the light but it is shining there dimly. The Burger wrote like this and they kept it up until the last week before the Session of Parliament. They said that when the Transvalers come down we welcome them on behalf of the Cape and that if the Transvalers feel lonely the Minister of Education could convene a meeting of the National Advisory Council. Then the Transvalers will feel thoroughly at home! The Burger, during the recess, reaches out towards freedom. Two years ago I thought they were almost going to grasp it, but when we come to the Session the Burger falls in with the Cape Nationalist Party in a solid phalanx marching behind the Transvaal Nationalist Party. They sing the theme song of the Nationalist Party: “We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria rules the waves.” I think this Council is rather a case of Pretoria having waived the rules.

I am very sorry that the hon. Minister did not say he was going to have a Council constituted of representatives nominated by institutions. I proposed a compromise to them. I think it was a fair compromise. I proposed that he should nominate half of the members himself and that these representative bodies, commerce, industry, agriculture and so on, should nominate the remainder. We would then have had more satisfaction but I can assure him that there is not the measure of confidence in the Advisory Council to-day that there should be. I think we deserve something better. The hon. member for Malmesbury spoke about the “enge manier” and we speak about “die enge poort”. We all try to go through the “enge poort”; I do not think the member for Malmesbury thinks there is much hope for the Minister and his Council.

The view of the hon. member for Kensington was amusing. He has now had the opportunity to put the views of his party for the umpteenth time. The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) is not here to-day to take up the matter and now the hon. member for Kensington has done so. He has dealt with a few aspects of the Council: he has dealt with the English and Afrikaans representation and the question of the representation of the provinces. I should like to give a brief explanation of the principle of representation. The hon. member for Kensington will recall that in the Select Committee we worked together very pleasantly and fruitfully. Various views were expressed in regard to the nature of such a Council and as to its functions and procedure. That was eight years ago and at the outset I thought it might be the best idea to have direct representation, namely two different bodies. When an advisory council, or for that matter any Council appointed by the State, is established, there is one great difficulty and that is that if you give a body representation you make that body a part of that Council. It becomes part of that Council. If you tell a certain church or an organization: this man is your representative, they can demand that that position should also be filled by one of their representatives. When I saw what it could lead to if direct representation were to be given to any body, I strongly set my face firmly against the principle of representation being granted to certain bodies. The hon. member for Kensington will recall further that the Select Committee did not submit a report. When I refer to a report, I am referring to a report such as that great masterpiece to which he also has referred. I have studied that report from beginning to end and I have taken much from it, but I have rejected cardinal principles of that report for very good reasons. I do not wish to go into the question of how many members should represent every province. I now wish to say this to the hon. member for Kensington and hon. members of this Committee—and I hope it will be spread outside—that the reason why I am not prepared to cover the terrain he has covered, is because I in my private capacity or in my capacity as chairman of that select committee, or as a person who has always propagated the idea, had nothing to do with the constitution of the Council. I say this because people have suspected me of having advised the Minister on how his Council should be constituted. I have not done so. He has not asked me to do so. What the Minister did was to ask in this House that any member should give him the names of persons whom they thought should serve in the Council. I also mentioned persons, and particularly persons whose names were submitted to me by other bodies. Mr. Chairman, you will forgive me if I deal with my personal matters here to-day, but this thing hangs over my head like a dark cloud since the appointment of that Council. I am terribly unhappy. People are reproaching me. I am receiving letters of reproach from people who apparently wanted to be on that council. I receive letters from people who wanted other people on that Council. I do not want to go into the question of whom they mention or what they say in their letters. But I hope it will now be broadcast to the world that I did not appoint the Council. It was not my function either. I was chairman of the Select Committee and it was my function to submit a new Bill to the House. We drafted that Bill and we submitted it to the House of Assembly, and having done that my task was done. If I subsequently conveyed to the hon. the Minister the suggestions of other people I merely did so in order to help these people. I think that on three occasions—he had not yet returned to his office and was in Natal still—in July I already began to forward these things to him. I do not want people to think that the attack is aimed at the Minister, but that I had a hand in the thing. Let the people outside now realize that it is not the function of the Chairman of a Committee. As regards the issue of Afrikaans-speaking as against English-speaking people, and as between one province and another province, one institution as against another institution, one class of school against another class of school, I have also pondered much, and I can only ask one question in this Committee, and I am putting it to all of us: When will the South African nation grow up? When are we going to become adults—that applies to us all, and all of us can ponder it. Other things are being raised. People ask me: “Why do you not participate in literary debates? Why do you not concern yourself with censorship?” I say I will not touch that for the nation does not think in an adult manner as yet, and the nation does not think in an adult way about its education. The reason is that the parents of the children do not take sufficient interest except for purposes of propaganda. I am referring to everybody. In our Committee this was said to a certain group: “You have come here merely to make propaganda”, and on both sides to-day people are always thinking only of how much propaganda value can be derived from a matter. My holiest object with the establishment of that Council, for which I worked for eight years, was to take that whole matter, the interests of education, out of the hands of persons who want to make that propaganda and even to take it out of the party political arena and then to place it in the hands of the teachers.

Now I come to one further small point I wish to make. The hon. member for Kensington must not take it amiss of me now if I do not fully deal with his introductory speech. I cannot traverse that terrain, my hands are tied. My position does not permit me to. The hon. the Minister has already dealt with the matter repeatedly, and he is capable enough to do so. But there is only one matter I should like to put: It struck me that when the Council commenced its activities, they started off with the teaching personnel, and that it also appointed four ad hoc committees to study certain matters in connection with the teaching staff, the teachers. The other evening I was sitting in the College of Surgeons, Interns and Gynaecologists when membership of that body was awarded to the State President as a mark of honour.

I trust the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert) will excuse me if I do not pursue the trend of his remarks, but my time is limited and I wish to refer the hon. Minister to what appears to be an anomaly which exists in the matriculation examinations and to ask the Minister for some clarification or explanation, and to appeal to him, if he agrees that there is such an anomaly, to use his influence to ensure that that anomaly is removed.

The present position in so far as matriculation is concerned is that we have subjects grouped under two schedules: Primarily languages, science and mathematics, and then under the Second Schedule certain subjects which appear to enjoy a slightly lower status. In addition to that we have a grouping of subjects into four different classes, and it is from the two schedules and the four groups that a student complying with certain regulations is enabled to choose the subjects which he will take for his matriculation examination. But, Sir, it would seem that in the grouping of these subjects …

Order! The hon. member is now discussing provincial education.

Sir, I am coming straight away to higher education, dealing with it on a national basis, and I want to deal primarily with art. In so far as art is concerned, and I bracket music with art …

On a point of order, the hon. the Minister plays a very important part in the matriculation examination, and it is dealt with in the annual reports of the Department, and the hon. member for Berea is now speaking to this subject which quite definitely comes under the Minister’s salary.

Sir, I want to lay the emphasis mainly on art and music, and I submit to the hon. Minister that we are a young country and a background knowledge of the history of art would encourage and foster the development in South Africa of our own culture in both art and music. It is the opinion of certain educationists in South Africa that the present position penalizes certain candidates, as well as hindering the development of education through art. There is not sufficient appreciation of the fundamental importance of art as a preparation for life and for future careers—in architecture, fine arts and a career in teaching. I believe that there should be a more sympathetic approach to art, and I appeal especially to the hon. Minister that there should be greater encouragement to pupils to take art as a subject in the matriculation examination or the senior certificate examination. Sir, if we consider the present position, we find that art is a subject at the university for the first year B.A., we find that it is a subject for first year Architecture, we find too that there is a B.A. Fine Arts Course, and we find too that in overseas countries, the history of art is treated as a special subject. But art in South Africa does not enjoy the same status in the senior certificate as subjects recognized for other university purposes. Sir, what is the discrepancy, the lower status that exists? From a study of the matriculation handbook, it would seem that certain anomalies are highlighted and such a study also indicates that there is a divergence of opinion in the interpretation of regulations. The interpretation seems to revolve on the passing of mathematics (which is a compulsory subject), particularly if art is taken. I would like to quote a case, in order to illustrate this point, of a young man who had a particular flair for languages but who felt that he was inadequately prepared in mathematics, so he decided that he would concentrate on languages and the other subjects which made up the five subjects for matric and that he would not pay particular attention to mathematics. He entered for all six and wrote the five subjects; he wrote the one paper in mathematics and did not even report for the second paper, and he was sufficiently well-prepared in the five subjects to obtain the aggregate. He obtained the certificate and he is now at the university. But I would like to quote another case arising out of a query which was addressed to the Joint Matriculation Board, a specific example from which it appears that the subject of art is relegated to a lower status. This is the query addressed to the Joint Matriculation Board—

The reply from the Matriculation Board was—

Let us go a little bit further and assume that a student still took English A, Afrikaans B and Mathematics, but he took Latin instead of Physical Science, and he took Portuguese instead of art, and then as his sixth subject, geography. The student would immediately be penalized to the extent of 50 marks, because the maximum number of marks assigned to Portuguese is 350, but the number assigned to art is 300. Sir, I do not intend in any way to belittle Portuguese as a subject. I quote it as an example. A similar position applies in the case of Nederlands (lower grade), Hebrew, Bantu Languages (lower grade), etc. But I would like to ask the hon. Minister if he is satisfied that art as a subject should be relegated to a lower status. Sir, let no one imagine that art is an easy subject. It is true that a practical aptitude may favour certain people, but what of the syllabus? Let me take the art syllabus for the art examinations, and I quote just one, for the senior certificate. We find that there is a three-hour theory paper for art which is allocated 150 marks, there is a three-hour practical examination in art, which is allocated 75 marks and a further 75 marks are allocated to the student on the basis of his artistic work performed during the whole school year. So that a brilliant student who takes any other subject besides art and concentrates solely on his examination has an advantage over an art student who is required to work throughout the year in order to ensure that he does receive a fair proportion of the 75 marks allotted to that particular part. As far as the actual syllabus itself is concerned, I venture to submit that it is so broad that it requires a student to devote far more time in study than to any other subject in the curriculum for the matriculation examination. He has to have a knowledge of: Primitive art, Bushmen paintings, South African arts and crafts, ancient art, with special reference to the arts of Egypt and Mesopotamia, classical art with reference to Greek and Roman architecture and sculpture, Indian art, Hindu architecture, art in Europe from early Christian times, the development of architecture, painting and sculpture in South Africa. And I would like briefly to quote a sentence which I think sums up the position and the true value of art. It says in this syllabus—

When I was interrupted by the time limit I was referring to the medical practitioners who fully control their own profession. The same applies to persons who practise as lawyers. The lawyers see to it that they have control over the people who practice their profession. The same applies to pharmacists. Similarly there are various other professions which a person cannot enter unless he is admitted by the persons who control that profession and who are qualified in it. One of the important issues concerning education which is going to be tackled now is the status of the teacher. Great emphasis has been placed on this, and I should like to urge upon the Minister to see to it that absolute priority is given to this question of the status of teachers in our country. The question of status is not only a matter of the salary, the title or the degree given to a person. The status of any profession depends on the quality of the person who is admitted to that profession, and the time has come when that quality should be controlled. As in any other profession, the qualifications of the persons in that profession should be controlled by the people who practise that profession. Thus the qualifications of teachers and their status should be controlled by teachers and not by clerks or any political body or any council or executive committee. Let us be perfectly clear on that point. As long as the status of the teacher is determined administratively and not by a body consisting of teachers (that is to say, a proper registration council of qualified teachers) we shall never be able to place their status on a proper footing. One can give the teacher ten titles and the highest salary that the country can afford, but that will still not give him the necessary status. But the teachers have never yet been in the independent position that they have been under the sole control of members of their own profession. The hon. member for Kensington has pointed out that certain persons, who are now members of the Advisory Council, are only there to carry out the wishes of their masters. That is what it amounts to. That is the fact of the matter. As long as there is an Administration that controls that person, an Administration that has to determine his qualifications, he is never going to achieve the status enjoyed by members of other professions. That is all I wish to add to what I have said already.

There is one small matter in that regard than I should like to raise. The whole Advisory Council is now going to extend its activities. It has already started. It naturally goes very slowly—too slowly to my liking. But since the hon. member for Kensington and other hon. members opposite and other critics have now complained ad nauseam about the constitution of the Council, I do not want to give the answer again which I gave a moment ago when I asked: “When are we going to grow up as a nation?”, but I want to ask what can be done now since the Council has now been appointed. What constructive criticism can hon. members opposite put forward for the reform of that Council? I simply cannot see that any good purpose can be served by levelling reproaches and particularly by saying that the schools are not big enough, that the status of certain members is not high enough, or that it is too high and ought to be reduced, or something of that kind. That will serve no purpose. It will serve no purpose to make comparisons and to say: “That province is getting so much and this province is getting so much”. It is no good saying that we must see to it that we have exactly the same number of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people. But what I really mean is that that Council should be allowed, to get on with its work. Yesterday we had complaints here about the poor standard of English in Natal, and I want to say candidly that I am dissatisfied with the poor standard of language studies throughout the country in both languages. Languages are no longer being studied. The study of languages is sadly neglected because the whole emphasis has fallen on technology and the whole spotlight has been focused on sciences and technology and administration and things of that kind, and if a nation does not know its language, if all those technologists do not know their language, and if this Council fails to make the study of languages in this country one of its main tasks, then it is going to be a failure. I ask hon. members to give their Council a chance to see what it can achieve. Do not judge it by its appearance; do not judge it by its form; judge it by its deeds, and then we can exert pressure; then I myself will, join hon. members of the Opposition in worrying the Minister and urging that we should go faster in putting this matter right.

Let us have a national system of education; let us obtain advice of a national character, and not only on a provincial basis for one section or another. Ultimately, and I do not want hon. members to think that I am making propaganda, this is bound to come as surely as night follows day—it will culminate in one national controlling body for White education in our country; that is inevitable.

I want again this year to bring to the notice of the hon. Minister the serious position that faces the country in relation to the training of medical practitioners and dental surgeons. Mr. Chairman, our population has increased by approximately 3,000,000 in the last ten years. The present number of doctors we have got on our register is 8,248. Of these nearly 50 per cent are not in private practice. Of those in private practice 1,730 are specialists. What perturbs me as well is that there is an unequal distribution of the medical personnel in South Africa. We find a flocking of doctors to the towns and a denuding of doctors in the Platteland and in the Native reserves. I will not go into the matter of the services that are provided. In the short time I have available, I will try my best to keep to the failure of the Government to provide the facilities that are necessary to keep pace with our increase in population, even though our increase is not so very great. But in spite of that we find that we are lagging behind year after year. Up to some years go, a certain number of doctors have come in from overseas and that has alleviated the position in the universities. But for one reason and another— the Minister knows one of the reasons and one of the obstacles that is being put up by the Medical Council in regard to reciprocity of doctors coming from other countries—we find that fewer doctors are entering our country and more are leaving. Why are more doctors leaving our country at the moment? Primarily because there is a shortage of medical personnel throughout the world, not only in our country, and the facilities that are given to doctors outside our country are sometimes so much better than they are in this country that some of our people, born and bred in this country, are prepared to leave our country to go and practise outside. The result is that we are becoming denuded of medical personnel, and with the shortages that are apparent already, we find that there is greater and greater demand for medical services throughout the country. What are we going to do to meet these demands? In 1962 only 155 doctors qualified from our universities and in 1961 only 119. There was an increase there of approximately 40. The figures for the Pretoria University show that 48 doctors graduated from that university, 46 from the Witwatersrand University and only 22 from Cape Town. And in the field of dentistry the figures actually dropped. In 1961, only 52 dentists qualified in South Africa, and last year only 38. For our total population of 16,000,000 we find that we have only got 1,338 dentists on the register to-day. If we allow this sort of position, we are going to find that even for essential services we will not have sufficient medical personnel. Therefore I plead again, as I did last year: We are facing an emergency in the field of medicine. We must not let this position develop, we must not let it get worse. How then can we possibly avoid a disaster in the next six or seven years? Bearing in mind that the White population has almost entirely to supply the medical personnel for the whole of the Bantu population, it becomes obvious to all of us that facilities must be made available in all available universities to train Bantu to become doctors or to become dentists. I say this in the full realization of the policy of the Government, but I say again to the Minister that he must treat this as an emergency. We cannot afford to let the years go by without doing something about it. It is not going to help to divide the country and to say to one group: Because you are Black, no White doctors are available for you. The tragedy is that the White doctors will not go there if they do not find it remunerative enough to serve. Two things must be done, and they must be done as soon as possible. First of all I say to the Minister that he must open the universities to all people who want to train as doctors and dentists or pharmacists, irrespective of their colour. When the emergency is eased, when we find that the time has come, when these matters can be eased up again and when ideologies can be satisfied, then is the time, if he wants to, to bring in legislation again. But at the moment he must relax these provisions that have closed the universities to non-Whites. Again I say to him that I think the time has come for him to encourage the establishment of another medical school in this country. There is a demand for it. As the hon. Minister probably knows, the Medical Council has established a committee to go into the matter as to whether or not it is advisable to have a medical school in addition to those existing at present. But I say to the Minister, and the Minister knows that I am not simply playing with words and to create a sensation, that the necessity exists for another university and he should have it investigated. Time is essential in this matter. He must realize that it takes almost ten years for a doctor not only to become qualified but to be allowed to go out into the outside world to practise. It takes him six years to qualify, then there is one year’s internship, and then the extra couple of years to get the necessary experience to go out. What is our position going to be in seven or eight years’ time if urgent steps are not taken to improve the position? I would say to the Minister that if he is against allowing non-Whites to enter the White universities, let him have part of Baragwanath Hospital set aside for the training of non-White doctors. I ask him to do that as soon as possible. In the beginning of next year we must have a faculty in Johannesburg which is prepared to train non-Whites as doctors, and then we must immediately investigate in which part of the country another medical school can be established to care for the people in the surrounding area who want to take up medicine or dentistry or pharmacy. Those are the three branches of the health services that have to be implemented as soon as possible. I do not wish to go further into the matter, but before I sit down I want to say that another attempt must be made by the Minister to try to come to some agreement with the Medical Council so that more doctors can be allowed into our country to alleviate the already acute shortage.

In the first place I should like to deal with the attack of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) on the Education Advisory Council, and I wish to put the matter in the correct light. I want to begin by saying that the hon. member, as an ex-educationist whom we respect, surely rendered a very great disservice to the teachers to-day by this petty attack on this council. All people who are interested in education, looked forward with keen anticipation to the appointment of this Education Council as a body which would at long last tackle education systemtically and try to see whether we can formulate a broader policy of education for South Africa to meet, a need which has been felt for years. Now that the council has been established, we get this kind of petty attack on the personnel of the council. But look how inconsistent the hon. member is in his attack. He begins by saying that all those people are extremely capable people; he does not have a single objection to any one of them, and they are all educationists of outstanding quality, but then he concludes his speech by saying that they have no confidence in this council and he says that the council is standing on such a footing that he cannot see a very bright future for it. In other words, the hon. member cannot find any fault with the personnel of the council, but he finds fault with the balance between Afrikaans-and English-speaking people. I want to give the hon. member the answer immediately. Neither the Minister nor this side of the House, nor the Act insisted that there should be a balance between Afrikans-and English-speaking persons, between men and women, or between the various provinces. This council does not represent the provinces or the language groups. That is not its purpose or its task. The council has been constituted of educationists of outstanding ability and they have a specific instruction and task. I want to ask the hon. member since when education has been bound to a language, since when it has been necessary for one to belong to a specific language group before one can do certain things for education or for another language group? No, the fact of the matter is that we have a very eminent council here. This reminds me of the problem of the selectors who have to select a Springbok rugby team. The moment the team has been selected, everybody finds fault with it, but everyone of us would have been able to select a different team. I say that the Minister found himself in this position that he could have appointed three or four councils that would have been just as good as the present council. He constituted this council from eminent people; the hon. member admits that, and I ask the hon. member now to stop sowing suspicion against these people before they begin their task and to give them a reasonable chance to show their capabilities.

Just one last thought before I finish with the hon. member. During the second and third reading debates of this measure last year the Minister specifically drew attention to this, and very clearly asked that all interested parties should make recommendations to him by submitting the names of people whom they would like to see on the council. Did the hon. member for Kensington, as the United Party leader in the educational sphere, take the trouble to furnish the Minister with a list of names? How many members opposite did so? They did not make a positive contribution in any respect, but now that the Minister has constituted the council they come along with negative criticism. That is typical of the United Party. They propose no alternative, they simply try to break down everything that we do. I think it is a disgrace that the hon. member took half an hour to launch such a petty attack.

I really wish to draw the Minister’s attention to another matter. Are we doing enough in South Africa and in education for our intelligent child? In all spheres of education special facilities exist for the stupid child, the normal child and the backward child who have to receive individual attention because they are lacking in talent. For the normal child there are the ordinary educational facilities, but there is no specific provision for the intelligent child. In education the position is that if you have a class in which there are intelligent, normal and backward children, the work that is done is determined by the average group and it is the backward child who determines the rate of progress, because he always has to be considered. The intelligent child is very often bored in class because he absorbs that knowledge much sooner. He is capable of absorbing more but it is not given to him. A particular task awaits the intelligent child in South Africa. Whereas in every country of the world it is generally accepted that about seven per cent of the population will become the leaders of the future in the various spheres, we in South Africa have the problem that with a small White population we have to take the lead and provide guidance to an increasing extent for the non-Whites, and that is why this percentage of people who are to become the leaders should be increased from 7 per cent to about 14 per cent. The leaders come from the group of intelligent children. Who are the people who attend our universities to-day? I make bold to say that there are thousands of our intelligent children who never get the opportunity to attend a university because their parents cannot afford to send them there. I make bold to say that the average first-year student is normally intelligent but they are mostly students whose parents can afford to send them to the university, whether they have the ability or not to make their mark. I extracted the percentage of passes for first-year students from this valuable report of the Department, on which I wish to congratulate the Department. For three years the results were as follows: In 1959 there were 8,413 first-year students at all the universities, of whom 5,024 passed, an average of 59.7 per cent. In 1960 there were 8,637 students, of whom 5,273 passed, or 61 per cent, and in 1961 the percentage of passes was 61.4 per cent. Over the three years we can take 60 per cent as the average numbers of first-year students who passed. As against that I obtained the figures for the secondary schools. In 1961 we had 27,667 candidates who passed matriculation. Of those 8,905 were enrolled at the universities, not even 33 per cent. In other words, not even one-third of the matriculants are attending universities. I want to draw the inference that between matriculation and the university there are a large number of capable and intelligent future leaders who fall away because they are not given the requisite assistance to go to university. I know there is the Holloway formula that is applied in respect of subsidies for students at university, and I know that the formula is now being revised under the leadership of Dr. Cilliers, and that in all probability there will soon be a new formula. I do not wish to deal with the formula, but I should like to say that something must be done by the Government. I know the universities are very jealous of their autonomy and that they do not want this autonomy interfered with, but we must help these gifted children, whose parents are not able to send them to university, in one way or another. I should like to urge that the Department of Education should take the cream of the matriculants every year —as many as the State is capable of taking, 500 or 1,000—and that the State should then say to them: “We regard you as the future leaders; you have an aptitude which you cannot be allowed to waste in some small job, and we shall give you an opportunity to qualify yourself.” An attempt should be made by way of bursaries or in some other way, to help these intelligent students to make their contribution and to ensure that we do produce the necessary percentage—14 per cent— of future leaders.

The argument of the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) cannot gainsay the fact that the National Education Council is insufficient and ill-balanced to give representation to the four provinces, to the two language groups, to commerce and industry and mining and agriculture, who are the people who deal with the product of education. All these points were put forward by hon. members on this side at the time, and they have been rejected, and that is why this Council has the imbalance it has at present. The Executive Committee is composed of four Afrikaans-speaking people and one English-speaking person. I would like to ask the Minister whether there were not enough English-speaking people with sufficient qualifications to have put more of them on the Executive Committee?

What is the ratio of English-speaking teachers to Afrikaans-speaking teachers?

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the Education Estimates, Items “G” and “H”, Financial Help to the Universities and Bursaries. The beauty of these Estimates is that it gives facts, stripped of political propaganda. The economic aspects and the importance of higher education have been stressed often by both sides of the House, and we have heard my hon. Leader earlier this Session stressing the need for technological and scientific education. Hon. members on this side, and even the Prime Minister himself, are interested in the whole question of the improvement of scientific and technological education. There is complete consensus of public opinion in this regard, both inside and outside this House, and the only ones who are apparently resisting any upstepping of this are the hon. members on the Government side. Last year in a private members’ debate it was the hon. member for Durban (Central) who put forward an amendment that the Government should appoint a commission to investigate the improvement and the extension of training facilities for scientists and technologists. One would like to ask whether one may presume that the establishment of the Scientific Advisory Council is the result of that recommendation, because in the establishment of this Council the hon. the Prime Minister himself has said that one of the problems South Africa has to face is in regard to scientific education and the need for more well-trained science teachers. At the opening meeting of the Scientific Advisory Council the Prime Minister said that the Council must deal with the training of scientists and research at the universities and with the factors that would lead to the retention and the best use of South African scientists and the correct approach to fundamental or pure scientific research and applied research and to stop the scientists leaving South Africa. Here I would like to point out that the crucial year in education is the first year at the university. It provides the greatest hurdle in any degree course. University education to-day is conducted at a tempo to which the first-year student is unaccustomed, with the result that the percentage of first-year failures at the universities is higher than in any other year, and it is highest in medicine, science and engineering. Many science careers which are terminated at this time could have been continued if there had been proper tuition in first-year studies, a pre-university year. I feel we have to organize our scientific and technological education on a more realistic basis, and I would put forward the proposition of the establishment of a specialized bilingual college for mixed Afrikaans and English-speaking students for pre-university scientific and technological instruction, staffed by English and Afrikaans-speaking teachers. I feel that such a college would bridge the gap between matric and the first year at the university. I feel we cannot splinter our national resources and our financial resources on sectional differentiation. Such an institutue must be free from language differentiation and politics, and English and Afrikaans-speaking students should be selected on the standard of their talents. They should use either or both of the two official languages if they so wish. In such an institution, instead of educating our youth separately, we must concentrate on scientific co-operation because we need to-day a unity of effort without barriers in education. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the statement made by the Joint Matriculation Board where they said recently that they were not prepared to consider a post-matric year because they believe that it is not important for a student to take four years for a three-year degree. In other words, they are prepared to condone the fact that three-year courses to-day at the university will take four years. As the post-matric year has been rejected, this new approach must come in the form of a pre-university year and it should be undertaken by a special science institution such as I have suggested. The establishment of such a college would be the function of the Department of Education, which not only subsidizes the eight universities but the activities of the technical colleges also fall under it. The four senior technical colleges, in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town, are semi-autonomous institutions and they are almost entirely post-matric institutions. It is on behalf of the students in scientific and technological courses that I ask the Minister seriously to consider establishing such a college to bridge the gap between matric and the first year of university in order to reduce the rate of failures. [Time limit.]

I should like to start by thanking the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) very heartily for his friendly congratulations on the publication of the Annual Report of the Department of Education for the year 1962. I am sure that my officials have noted his remarks. I share the hon. member’s pride that it has been possible to do this. In point of fact their report is brought out timeously every year. But that is as far as I can go in congratulating him. One expected something different from the hon. member for Kensington. One would have thought that a person who was associated with education for so many years, who was an educationist of repute, and who became an inspector of schools, would not have allowed himself to be used to make party political propaganda in a very cheap way out of a matter which is very dear to our hearts and that is the education of the child. If the hon. member had rather had the courage of his convictions and had said that the Council appointed by me was a rotten Council and that they could have appointed a much better Council, instead of speaking in veiled terms and sowing suspicion, he would have forced me to have respect for him. But that sort of attitude is very cheap. It is a sort of spiteful attitude which one does not expect from a person of his experience. One does not expect people who were associated with education for so many years and who know what the problems are, to try to drag a matter of this kind into the political arena and to vent their spleen, even though the hon. member tried to sugar-coat the pill. I can only say that I reject that attitude with the contempt it deserves. I am not infallable. I have made certain mistakes. Everybody who achieves anything in life makes many mistakes. As the hon. member for Randfontein has said, if we were to sit down to-day and nominate people for appointment to an education council we would all nominate different people who are equally good, because there are so many thousands of teachers in this country, and I have so much respect for the teaching profession (because I myself was a teacher) that I see my way clear, using just the names submitted to me, to constitute ten such councils, all of which would be good. But that was not what the hon. member for Kensington had in mind. He was simply out to see how much suspicion he could sow and, in an attempt to thwart the work of the Council, to create the impression that the English-speaking people and the provinces and the various factions in the profession had been done an injustice. But any such attempt must fail in advance. If these hon. members who feel this way about the matter had been present on 29 March 1963 when the first sitting of this Council was held, we would have heard a different tune from them. All 29 members who were present that day left the meeting with very pleasant feelings, and the English- and Afrikaans-speaking members representing the various sections gave me the assurance that they realized that they had been called upon to perform an important task. That is why the note that was struck here this afternoon was truly a discordant note. What the hon. member for Kensington did was to flog a dead horse. I attributed greater intelligence to him, because on a previous occasion when the hon. member for Hillbrow was here and when all the facts in connection with the composition of the Council were given to him, I thought that the hon. member would have learned his lesson. I do not want to repeat it. I do not want him to run away from this House as the hon. member for Hillbrow has done. The hon. member for Hillbrow conveniently saw to it that he would not be here.

Nonsense.

I should always like to see the hon. member for Kensington in his seat. I am particularly sorry that he saw fit to start on that note and to conclude on that note. There is no question of equal representation on such a council, and if the hon. member works out the ratio of Afrikaans-speaking members to English-speaking members on the Council, he will find that it is precisely the same ratio as the ratio of Afrikaans-speaking to English-speaking in our population. I very much hold it against hon. members on the other side that not a single one of them reacted to my invitation. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) piously asks whether no English-speaking people were available, but she did not take the trouble to send me a single name. Not one of them took the trouble to do so. One name was mentioned by a United Party senator, but that was all. Hon. members opposite cannot sit back now and fold their arms, because I did invite them to submit names. Hon. members need not be perturbed that this Council will not take notice of the representations made to it. The representatives of commerce, of industry and of agriculture, etc., will be consulted by these ad hoc committees as far as their particular sphere is concerned and they will be invited to give evidence. Let me put it this way: If I as an individual sinned in the eyes of hon. members opposite, let them put this important matter of education above personalities and let us stand together. If there are people on that Council who cannot do their work they will eliminate themselves in due course. But the hon. member for Kensington went out of his way to say that he was not attacking any individual. He kept on saying that he had nothing against any member of the Council. Very well, let these people continue with their work. I want to give the assurance to this Committee to-day that these people are not idle. This is not a political council, as was suggested by implication by the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) when she asked that we should keep politics out of education. If any member in this House, whether on the other side or on this side, makes an attempt to tamper with the most sacred possession of the nation, namely the child, the future citizen, by approaching the matter in that way, then such a member makes himself guilty of the most gross contravention. Mr. Speaker, there are so many other fields in which we can oppose each other; why in the sphere of education? If we have fundamental differences let us discuss those differences here, but please do not try to place stumbling-blocks in the way of this Council. Woe betide the person who stirs up trouble; it would be better, as our good Lord said, if a millstone were tied around his neck and if he were cast into the sea. This Council has just started its work, and my plea is that we should rather strengthen the hand of this Council. The members of the Council have been appointed and they are going to stay. It will be no victory for me if they achieve anything nor will it be a defeat for me if they achieve nothing, but they have been placed there with a very specific object. Let us make them feel that they are above party politics and that we stand with them, and if hon. members do that, then we are going to achieve results that we will all welcome. That is my appeal, and I leave it at that.

I come now to the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood). In the first place I wish to congratulate the hon. member on his very well prepared speech and the delivery of that speech. It is always pleasing to see that a member has made a careful study of his subject, but as the hon. member knows the Joint Matriculation Board is an autonomous body over which I have no direct control. However, I fully appreciate the difficulties mentioned by him in a very able manner, and I undertake to submit all the points made by him to the Joint Matriculation Board for very sympathetic consideration. I think that is all I can do and I am prepared to give that undertaking. We can send the Joint Matriculation Board a few copies of Hansard so that they can look up the hon. member’s speech. My good friend, the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) made a few points in connection with the medical and dental situation in South Africa. It is not necessary for me to say that I fully agree with him that there is a very acute shortage. The position at the moment is that we have medical faculties at four of our eight universities. We have medical faculties at Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand and Pretoria. The other four have all applied for the extension of such training facilities. The whole matter is being investigated at the moment by my own bureau and also by the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council. The first matter to be investigated is whether we have the potential of students to extend the existing facilities or to create new facilities. That is a very important point. We also have to take into consideration the requirements of the other professions, and for that reason the hon. the Prime Minister has asked his own Advisory Council which was established recently to investigate the whole matter from that angle. I want to remind the hon. member that when a medical faculty for Bantu was started by the United Party Government, the University of the Witwatersrand warned the Government at that time that there would not be sufficient Bantu to fill a medical faculty. Indians, Chinese and Coloureds are normally given permission to attend White universities. At the present moment the position is that insufficient numbers of Bantu are presenting themselves for training as medical practitioners at the medical school which was specially established in Durban for Bantu. The hon. member asked particularly that more Bantu should be trained for medical work. It is of no avail as far as I can see to provide additional facilities for the training of Bantu as medical practitioners unless sufficient candidates are forthcoming. If there are no candidates forthcoming, then the provision of additional training facilities will not rectify the position. We feel therefore that a very thorough investigation should be conducted before the Government goes to the expense of either creating new universities or extending the facilities at the existing universities. We sincerely hope that this investigation will be completed very soon, and I can assure this Committee that once the investigation has been completed, the Government will and must provide more facilities for the training of medical and dental practitioners.

*I also want to thank the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) for having dealt, not in his youthful impetuosity but in his youthful optimism and far-sightedness, so effectively with the older member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). That is always a good sign to me; if the outlook of youth is right, then the older people will admit it sooner or later. I want to thank the hon. member for what he said in connection with facilities for the intelligent child. I want to admit at once that I am not an authority and that it is not for me to determine how one should approach the training of the intelligent child, but I just want to say that the standard that we set in our secondary schools and even in our universities is the standard for the average child. We take very good care of the sub-normal and the normal child, but as soon as we come to the above-normal intelligent child, the instruction of that child has to sink to the level of instruction for the average child. My experience has been that many of these people with a twisted outlook who go off the rails, many of the so-called ducktails or sheilas, are not stupid children; nor are they neglected children; they are children who are bored at school—I do not say that that is so in all cases—simply because they do not have the necessary diversion and because they are not kept busy, with the result that they get out of hand later on. I am very glad that the hon. member also mentioned that here. I can only say that this is one of the matters which I personally referred to the Education Advisory Council for early investigation to determine what the position is and what can be done to do justice to these future leaders of our nation. I am glad that the hon. member pertinently brought this matter to the notice of the Committee. The hon. member also insisted very strongly that further assistance should be given to these people; that university training should be made available for them to a greater extent. I want to say to the hon. member that all his suggestions in that connection have my approval and support, and I want to express the hope that something will be done in that direction. Some people feel that a school for the particularly intelligent children will be regarded as a school for snobs; that these children will turn up their noses and say to the other children, “We are the clever people.” But it is not necessary to establish a special school for these children. They can still attend the ordinary school but greater demands can be made upon them. For example, we could let them take both laguages in a higher grade instead of one language in the A grade and the other in the B grade; then perhaps a seventh subject could be introduced, and in that event the pre-university year or the sixth form, as it is called in England, could perhaps be eliminated. One could make them do more so that they will be properly equipped to follow a university career with very fruitful results. It is not for me to suggest a solution; that is the task of the experts, but I believe that it is our task here to draw attention to matters of this kind and to express our views. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) elaborated on the question of the pre-university year. In our country it would be an almost impossible task having regard to our limited manpower and having regard to the question of cost. The sixth form or the post-matriculation year has been tackled in various ways in this country. There are parents who try to bridge that year by means of a course of training in the army or in the navy so as to give the child an opportunity to become a little tougher. Pleas have also been put forward that these facilities should also be made available to young girls. There is the other plea that an extra year should be added after matriculation so that in that way we can reduce the number of failures in the first year at university. All these suggestions have also been referred to the Education Advisory Council. I have an interim report here, and in this connection I must compliment the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) because she had a great deal to do with the fact that this inquiry was undertaken. I have here an interim report from the Committee of Inquiry into the university potential and training facilities at South African universities. I received this interim report only two days ago, and I really brought it along just to show what progress we have made already. The report indicates what percentage of matriculants go to universities; what subjects they take, what their interests are and what success they achieve. In this way we have tried to determine where the shortcomings are, where the problems lie. Does the problem lie with the instruction in the secondary school or with the instruction at university? Are we expecting too much from the matriculant in the first year of his university training, or what is the cause of this large number of failures? I think that this report may well serve as a basis to assist us to solve our problems, and I hope that the hon. member will continue to take an interest in this matter because I think it is a very important matter. In the first place we should use our manpower to the best advantage, but we should also guide them along the best lines. I firmly believe that our greatest problem lies in vocational guidance. We are still not making full use of the psychological approach when it comes to choosing a career. I think that is the crux of the problem. A very heavy programme has been entrusted to the Education Advisory Council. The council is appointing ad hoc committees throughout the country and the prospects are promising.

I thank the hon. member heartily for her interest in this matter and I hope that the work of this Educational Advisory Council will lead to very fruitful results.

I must say that I am very disappointed in the speech of the hon. the Minister. He has not replied to the criticism levelled by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). What did the hon. the Minister do? He talks about the child as the holy possession of the nation and immediately after that he starts talking about politics. The hon. member for Kensington has criticized the nomination of members to the Education Advisory Board but the hon. the Minister has not replied to one of those points. Instead of replying to the hon. member’s criticism, he attacked a member who is absent the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) and accused him of having run away. [Interjections.] Instead of replying to this criticism the Minister made a personal attack on the hon. member for Kensington and a personal attack on the hon. member for Hillbrow. Surely the hon. the Minister knows that nobody can say in advance when certain votes will come up for discussion. Nobody knew that the Minister’s Vote would come up for discussion to-day and where the hon. member for Hillbrow has other work to do which will keep him away from the House for a couple of days the hon. the Minister should have inquired what the true facts were before accusing the hon. member of having run away. The hon. the Minister talks about the child as the holy possession of the nation.

That is true.

Yes, it is true. This side of the House always says that that is so but what does the National Party say? What is the Nationalist Party doing with this holiest possession of the nation? What are they doing in the provinces where they are in the majority and where they are separating the Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking children at school so that they can remain in power?

What are you doing in Natal?

What did hon. members opposite do when the legislation in terms of which this board has been established was under discussion? This side of the House moved 29 amendments to prove that we were prepared to keep this matter outside and above politics. And what were the results? The hon. the Minister did not accept one of those amendments. No, there is a radical difference between us on this side and members on that side as far as education is concerned. Let us be honest about the matter. We differ completely as far as the autonomy of universities is concerned; we differ completely as far as the role which the parent should play in the education of his child is concerned. Let me give the hon. the Minister some advice if he wants to know how big the difference between us is: Let him read what his own party did in 1944 when Mr. Strydom and Mr. Swart introduced a private motion in which they indicated what sort of education we should have in South Africa.

There is another matter in connection with which I should like to say a few words and in this regard I want to associate myself with the remarks of those hon. members who have referred to the excellent Annual Report of the Department of the Minister’s. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to page 9, Chapter VI, “Reformatories”.

Order! That does not fall under this Vote.

It falls under the next Vote.

Very well, then I shall deal with it at a later stage. I do not want to say anymore than I have already said in connection with …

Order! Hon. members must not converse so loudly. It is impossible to hear the hon. member clearly.

I want to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) and here again I want to say that I got the impression that the hon. the Minister was not listening properly not only to what was being said on this side of the House but also on his side of the House. Perhaps the hon. the Minister is sitting a little bit too far with the result that he cannot hear properly. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) said very clearly that her plea was that after the matriculation examination and before he goes to university the child should be adapted. The Minister’s only reply to that was that some parents placed their children in the Army or in the Navy for training in order to make them a little tougher and stronger. He said they were not quite sure what to do with the girls. But that was not what the hon. member had in mind at all. The idea was that a school should be established associated either with a high school or a university, where those children can be given guidance. It is not a question of making them tougher or stronger. It is a question of adapting them mentally. The same applies to what the hon. member for Randfontein has said. The hon. member for Randfontein explained clearly how many children passed the matriculation examination annually in South Africa and he drew attention to the fact that barely 33⅓ per cent of them went to university and that it was not necessary to have a snob school for those children who were exceptionally intelligent. I think the provinces are already providing for those children with their two-stream policy under which they conduct A and B classes. The point is this that the parents of those children who pass matriculation first class are financially unable to send those children to a university. Those potential leaders of the nation do not have the privilege of going to university because their parents’ cannot afford it and the Minister is now being asked to give State financial assistance so that more of those children who are really intelligent can go to university. I have a letter here, which I am going to hand to the Minister, from a girl who has written to me that she is writing her matriculation examination this year. She wants to become a doctor but she says her parents cannot afford to send her to university and she wants to know what to do.

Give me the letter.

I am going to hand it to the hon. the Minister. I know provision is made in the Estimates for R400,000, I think, for bursaries at certain universities but the point is that that is not enough and we are asking for more financial assistance. The hon. member for Randfontein put it very well; he said that we as a small White nation should produce the potential leaders and that that was why it was so important that any child who had the intelligence should not be kept back because of a lack of funds. That child should be placed in a financial position by the State to go to university.

I am not going to fight with the hon. Minister. On the contrary I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for what the Department of Education, Arts and Science is doing in equipping our youth. I have in mind in particular vocational schools where our youth are trained as bookkeepers and typists. When we think of our provincial schools where our boys and girls receive academic training so as to go to university later on I really think those children have a wonderful opportunity to prepare themselves for life.

I come to another group of our youth and that is our boys who intend to go farming. Before the Chairman calls me to order I want to say immediately that I want to appeal to the Minister to submit the matter which I am going to raise to the National Education Advisory Board for proper investigation. Agriculture is one of the most important sectors of industry in the country. There are to-day approximately 110,000 active farmers. Farming has become exceptionally complicated and highly scientific to-day, so much so, that anyone cannot just go and farm. Nor is the position, as it was in days gone by, that the most stupid child goes in for farming. On the contrary, I think if there is one section of our youth who should be properly trained and equipped it is the prospective young farmer. I know the Department of Agricultural Technical Services train young farmers.

Order! The hon. member must raise that matter under the Agricultural Technical Services Vote.

I want to repeat that this is a matter which worries me and that it should be referred to the Education Advisory Board so that they can decide what should be done and which is the right direction in which the prospective young farmer should be trained.

The hon. member cannot take that matter any further.

Then I shall deal with the other school, namely, the agricultural high school which fell under the Union Education Department before 1937 and which was assigned to the Provincial Administration under the 1937 legislation.

The hon. member cannot discuss that.

In that case, I shall sit down, Mr. Chairman.

The point I want to make this evening is in connection with the technical training of apprentices. We are to-day training something like 24,000 apprentices. I think the Committee will agree that one of the most important items that we have to deal with is the technical training of our would-be artisans and technicians. If we as a young Republic want to play our part in this world it is very necessary for us to train our technicians to the highest possible standard. I think industry outside recognizes the fact that they must play their part. They have done so. Over the years industry has helped financially in equipping technical colleges. In order to produce the artisans which we require to-day we need a considerable amount of theoretical training as well as practical training in our colleges. Let me take the motor industry as an example. We have motor-cars coming on to the road to-day which are completely automatic and the boy who is going to work on these cars requires a good technical background. It has been said that panelbeaters do not really require technical training as far as technical colleges are concerned but a panelbeater has to know a great deal about metals and the only place where he can learn that is at a technical college.

In its latest report the Department of Education refers to the Apprenticeship Bill which was recently passed in this House to review the whole system of apprenticeship training. I think the Minister will agree that that Bill referred only to labour matters. Nowhere does that Bill dictate as to how the boy is to be trained in the technical college, although reference is made in the report of the National Apprenticeship Committee to the system of education that they should have. The Bill itself, however, does not make any pretence at dictating to the Department of Education how these boys should be trained. This report has been available for two years and very little or nothing has been done about revising the syllabus as far as technical training is concerned. The present syllabus was published in 1951 and to-day you cannot even get a copy of the booklet containing the syllabus. We are told in the annual report of the Department of Education that it is being revised at the present moment. Both the motor and engineering industry are desperate about the technical training of their apprentices. I have sat on technical college councils and apprenticeship committees and I state that we are not happy about the training of our boys at the technical colleges. I am not blaming the colleges because they are working according to a syllabus which is completely out of date. The motor trade itself formulated a scheme in 1954; it was submitted to the Department in 1955 and it was introduced into the Witwatersrand Technical College in 1959. It is interesting to note that the results of the examinations at the Witwatersrand Technical College were very much better than in the past. Industry was disappointed to learn subsequently in 1961 that the Department could not see its way clear to extend the scheme to other colleges although it was bearing fruit, because of the lack of money.

As I said in my opening remarks, it is very necessary for this young Republic of ours to train artisans of a very high standard. We require them in industry and in our growing army. If I may refer to the army: I had a lot to do with the training of apprentices during the war in the army and the system has not changed. If the Minister and his Department were to examine the courses that the youngster in the army has to go through, a combination of theoretical and practical training, they will see that the youngster who comes out of the army, although he lacks the commercial experience, is a very much better artisan than the one we get outside. Admittedly the boy outside is subjected to outside attractions but when he goes to technical college after Std. VI the courses which are offered to him are completely beyond him. He loses interest in the whole course with the net result that he proves a failure throughout his course. I have often thought that something should be done about this. To use as an excuse why the sullabus has not been revised that the Apprenticeship Bill had first to be passed through the House is, to my mind, not a valid one. New courses could have been introduced years ago without this Bill. People who have experience in handling apprentices are of the opinion that there seems to be a lack of appreciation of the true situation that exists in this country. I do not think we should blame it all onto the question of lack of money. I feel it is vital to this country of ours to find the necessary finance to train these boys. As I have said industry will play its part. Industry has never stood behind but you cannot expect industry to go the whole hog and to find all the money. If you expect that you might just as well say that industry should take over technical education and that would be wrong. I think the State has a duty to perform and they should perform that duty. It will be wrong to leave this matter as it is. The matter is serious and urgent. It is not a matter you can leave in abeyance year by year. I get the impression from this report that it has been delayed because of the Apprenticeship Bill. This particular Bill has nothing to do with it. [Time limit.]

The Bible says that man shall not live by bread alone and I want to draw the attention of this Committee and of the Minister to the position of our national museums. Our national museums are unable to perform the functions which they are called upon to perform because of the lack of funds. To give you an example, Sir: our national museums are to-day allowed an amount of R2,000 for purchases whereas we require at least between R 14,000 and R20,000 per annum to enable them to carry out the functions for which they have been established.

I just want to give the main fuctions of a national museum to this Committee. The first is systematically and scientifically to collect material, either historical or natural historicals together with the necessary data. The second is to prepare the collected material, to repair it if necessary, to distribute it and to make it public by means of scientific publications. The third is to display the best objects in the exhibition halls to the public in an educational manner. The fourth is to continue to strive to make the public conscious of its cultural wealth by means of lectures and film shows to school-going youth, students and the public in general, those are the requirements. In order to perform these functions funds are needed. In the first place, in order to be able to collect material, you require scientifically trained staff who should also be able to collect the desired data. I just want to point out to you, Sir, what the position is in the Republic of South Africa to-day. I have here the report of a committee of inquiry which inquired into the needs of State-aided institutions in 1960, and the following appears in this report: In 1934 the South African Museum had one director and six scientific posts for natural history. Thirty years later you have exactly the same number of officials in those posts! When we think of the terrific progress which South Africa has made over the past 30 years, I say it is a disgrace that the Parliament of South Africa should neglect its cultural wealth the way it has as has been proved by the Estimates of the one Government after the other. I am not blaming this Government alone. I blame previous Governments as well.

Order! Did the hon. member say it was a disgrace on the part of Parliament?

No, Mr. Chairman, I say it is a disgrace that we as a Parliament should neglect this matter. If I am not allowed to say it I shall withdraw it. Over a period of 30 years we have not made the slightest progress as far as the appointment of staff to the South African Museum is concerned and we require a host of people with scientific training to do that work. Thirdly it is necessary that we display the best objects in such a way in our exhibition halls that they are of educational value. In the fourth place it is necessary for us to continue to strive to make the public conscious of its natural wealth by way of lectures and film shows to school-going youth, students and the public in general.

In order to perform these functions funds are required. I should now like to know from the hon. the Minister what his policy is in connection with the matters I have mentioned. In order to collect material we require scientific staff which can also collect the desired data. At all the museums there is a shortge of such staff due purely and simply to lack of funds. In the second place we require vehicles, packing material, implements for excavation and funds for the maintenance of such implements. Once again that calls for funds. Museum material can include subjects of the following nature: historical, biological, zoological, botanical, archaelogical, anthropological, palaeontological and athnographical. You cannot expect two or three persons to master all the above-mentioned scientific branches of our national museums. The result is that valuable material lies about for years and cannot be prepared. I can relate my own personal experience to you, Sir, of how I visited rock paintings in the Rosendal district a month ago, rock paintings which I saw 40 years ago. I was surprised to see the destruction which soil erosion had brought about there. There are paintings of Phoenicians which prove that there were Phoenicians in this country long before there were any Bantu or Bushmen. I say we must have that staff. In some cases thousands of objects which had been collected are lying at our museums awaiting preparation and description. But once again due to the lack of funds the museums do not have have the necessary staff to do that work.

Then you get the cost of display cases, the erection of dioramic and other exhibitions which likewise call for the expenditure of large sums of money if you want to do it properly. It is in this respect that the museums of the Republic are far behind overseas museums. The fault definitely does not lie with the staff of the museums; it is rather due, firstly, to the lack of the necessary technical staff because of the lack of funds, and, secondly, because of the lack of funds there is also a lack of space to exhibit these things. If we want to make the nation aware of its cultural wealth we must make the museums as attractive and educational as possible. Lectures should be given and where possible films should be shown. The museums are prepared to perform these services if only they are financially placed in a position to do so. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether it is his policy to place our national museums in South Africa in a position to perform the functions which they are called upon to perform.

It is perhaps wrong always to belittle your own as against those of other countries. Nevertheless there are facts which we as South Africans must face up to to-night. When a South African goes overseas as a tourist he visits all the big well-known museums; he visits the art galleries and the archives of those countries. Without exceptions those places appear on his travel plans for the very reason that those institutions exert themselves to show to the tourist what the natural wealth of their nations are. [Time limit.]

There are two matters which I want to raise with the Minister. The first is the question of getting the maximum out of the ultimate end product of education, which is the skilled and trained individual. Hon. members on both sides of the House have offered various solutions to this problem and the Minister has quite candidly said that he was not an authority on how the education of the intelligent child should be approached. This statement must be viewed against the information given to the committee by the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder)—that of all the matriculants in South Africa fewer than one-third go to university, and of those who do go to university, only 60 per cent pass! In other words, there is a tremendous wastage of those who are able to begin or to continue with a university education. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) suggested as a solution the pre-university year, as an alternative to the post-matriculation year which, as a possible solution, has already been discarded. The fact that this is a problem which cries out for a solution cannot, of course, be over-stressed. We have, for example, the information given to us by the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney) in regard to the training of artisans, and we have had statements quite recently from leaders of industry. Here is a statement made by Mr. Harry Oppenheimer at the annual meeting of the African Explosives & Chemical Industries Ltd.—·

In common with other undertakings in South Africa, the company is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit enough competent people to keep up with the plans for expansion. An inflationary condition of too many jobs chasing too few people seems to be not far away.

At about the same time, the chairman of another company, in this case Stewarts & Lloyds of South Africa, said—

That stresses the point that what we lack in South Africa—especially in regard to the group that must lead in this country, namely the White group—in quantity can only be made up in quality. I therefore very briefly want to suggest to the hon. the Minister an approach which has been examined, for example, at the University of the Witwatersrand, to meet the demand for top-level personnel throughout the country. It is on the principle that there should be a special kind of teaching programme for the gifted child. I think they have gone a long way towards working out a method, which I would like the Minister to consider in due course. They have based their programme on the findings of authorities in other countries, particularly in the United States, where there is, in addition to the routine training of children, special training for the gifted children. This special training consists of allowing young children of nine years of age, for example, to carry out research in the New York Public Library—according to a report I have here— to study biographies, the French language, literature, play chess, etc. In this case, Sir, it is a model programme. No homework is given; the children are free to choose their own interests. These exceptional children have demonstrated the success of the project by leaping ahead with their studies, and by developing promising specific aptitudes. These programmes are called “accelerated programmes” of education. In at least three schools in the United States the results have proved that the average child does not suffer in his normal educational programme in the particular school, by virtue of the fact that a special group of gifted children are given these special facilities for leaping ahead, as it were. There is a fair proportion of such gifted children in our South African schools, and that is one way of giving them that additional advantage so that when they go to university they will, in the first place, be ready for university study; and in the second place, they can qualify within a reasonable time and thus make their contribution, in terms of the cost of their education to the State, to the welfare of the State itself.

Before the suspension of business, I described very briefly what is called the “accelerated programme” of education, which apparently has been successful where it has been applied—in the United States quite recently, for instance—for gifted children, on the basis that gifted, talented children get what one might call gifted, talented teaching. In order to complete the point, it simply means that those gifted children able to absorb more, and more quickly than others, can move ahead at their own pace, and towards the end of their last year in high school, those children actually can begin taking university subjects. This, of course, helps them to make an appropriate choice of career and then to enter university which a much sounder foundation and a wider knowledge of the subjects which they will then study at the university, than would otherwise have been the case. It is no coincidence, Mr. Chairman, that a similar programme of education is at present being operated in the Federal Republic of West Germany, where, although they call it by a different name, the object is identical with the American method. Briefly, they take a boy or girl who, say, is excellent in arithmetic, above the average; but just average in case of Afrikaans, and weak, say, in English. That child will study arithmetic with the best of his class and the best of the parallel classes, will study Afrikaans with the average group, and study English with those who lag behind, the stragglers. All the other subjects in the curriculum are being taught, particularly in the City of Hamburg, in which this experiment is centralized in Germany, in a fourth group, namely the original class. In that way you have four different groups, and the urgently required promotion of the most talented pupils is in this way made possible. The level of learning can be increased and in fact, according to the record that I have here—a publication of the German Government—is being increased, and in this way the talented child, or the talented group as a whole, gets a much better “mental feed” than under our present system or method of education. To complete this particular point, I want to say that in addition to the survey which has been conducted by the National Institute of Personnel Research, with the assistance of the Witwatersrand University, the hon. Minister might well investigate the desirability of further studies being made of the subject, say, by the National Bureau of Social and Educational Research, or by the National Education Advisory Council, which I think the hon. Minister will agree is just the kind of body which would wish to interest itself in the very real potentialities of these two schemes, and which unfortunately I have only been able to touch on very briefly.

The other matter about which I wish to put a point of view to the hon. Minister is the item in the Vote of R 198,000 for the Performing Arts. Last year, the amount was R 100,000. Let me say immediately that I wish to express the appreciation of all those who, including myself—if I may say so—have striven long and hard to advance the performing arts in South Africa, for this grant, in the first place, and for the increase that has been given this year. In fact, there is a “doubling up”, and I can assure the hon. Minister that if he adopts this simple policy of “doubling up” every year, then within five years he will see a standard of performance and a standard of appreciation in South Africa that will, I think, delight and surprise him and everyone else interested in the performing arts, and that will confound even those Philistines who still abound in South Africa, in regard to the performing arts.

I think this is the appropriate time for the hon. Minister to tell us something about the way in which this grant is being and will be spent. There is, for example, the fact that in the Transvaal, the Performing Arts council has already presented its first season of opera and ballet, and it has other activities of which the hon. Minister no doubt is aware. I hope he saw something of the season in Johannesburg last month, in April—in the Civic Theatre. It has planned another programme for September of this year. In fact, it is a very active body, and I am pleased to say that I have some association with it. In the case of the Cape a similar body, but under a different name, has been set up. I suggest to the hon. Minister that this is the time to make a declaration of policy in regard to the spending of these moneys, and the achievements that he and the Government expect of the bodies which have been set up and will be set up, and also to tell us what the composition of the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal is, and what the composition of the Cape body is, and what is intended in regard to Natal— which leaves only the Free State—I understand that the Free State will either be associated with or integrated in the efforts of the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal. [Time limit.]

At the start I want to refer very briefly amongst other things to the composition of the Council which has been referred to this afternoon with so much unnecessary heat, and in expressing a few ideas in this regard I shall do so without in the least becoming heated myself or making other people heated. I want to give the House the assurance that even though the hon. the Minister were to disband that Council to-day and then, having regard to all the criticism that he has heard to-day and that he has already read in the Press, and having regard to all the advice that he has received as to how this Council should have been constituted, to appoint another Council, and we were to meet to-morrow morning to discuss the Vote of the hon. the Minister and the Council were to be discussed, we would experience precisely the same criticism. Everything that has been said would again be said. It is clear that as far as the representation of the Provinces and of language groups and of educational institutions is concerned, the Council will change to such an extent as a result of death, resignations, the expiration of the periods of service of various of the members, and so forth, that after a year or so the proportions may perhaps be precisely the opposite of and completely different to what they are at present. But the Council would not be any worse because of this fact; it would be just as efficient.

Having said this in connection with the composition of the National Advisory Education Council and the criticism that has been expressed in this regard, I want to draw attention to a few of the many outstanding matters to which I hope the House will give its attention. If we think amongst other things of the selection of teachers, we ask ourselves whether it is true—as it ought to be—that after a teacher has finished his training and is still young and a class is entrusted to him, he accepts his task in fear and trembling because of the fact that he is aware of his human failings and because of the fact that he realizes what it means to a parent to entrust his or her most precious possession, their children, to that man or to that woman. The child is human material which is susceptible to impressions which will have an effect on the life of that child when he is very much older. Every teacher, both male and female, ought at the start of his or her service to hesitate before the very great and almost superhuman task that awaits him or her. A child who in its extreme youth is entrusted to a school and perhaps to a teacher, either male or female, is a child in whom his parents are interested, and this also holds good for religious institutions in our country. It holds good for the State itself of which that child must eventually become a citizen. Having regard to all these facts it will also eventually also affect all controlling bodies at a later stage, bodies which will be controlled by those children when they are older, for example, a body such as this House, because we are all products of schools and we have gone through the hands of teachers, both male and female. It is an almost indescribably responsible task because if these powers are abused and if this material is wasted the adverse effects simply cannot be calculated.

I want to say this evening that so often in our society we hear people say: “You have nothing to do with my private life; I do my duty during office hours but when I am not on duty, I am my own boss and I do what I like”, but that is a wicked idea and has an evil instigation. Nobody on earth has the right to tell me that I have nothing to say about his private life. I have a great deal to say about it and more so about the life of the teacher. Why? Because he is a member of the community of which I am a member and he can destroy that community through his actions in private life. And then we hear people say: “You have nothing to say about my private life. I do what I like from sunset to sunrise, as long as I am at my post in the morning”. As I have already said, this is even more so in the case of a teacher than in the case of anyone else because when I entrust my child to him he knows that I will have a say and want to have a say in connection with his private life, because from the nature of things my child is also influenced by what he does during his so-called private life. I want to say that anyone who has opposed the National Advisory Education Council from the start, has done a disservice to the country and to education as a whole, but what is still worse, everyone who refuses to co-operate and who tries to create obstacles, commits an unforgivable crime and can never be absolved from the evil that he has done.

Mention has been made this evening of the above-average child. I want to put it to those hon. members who are educationists, those who are fathers and mothers, that a great injustice is done in our schools in that a child who is an above-average child and who does well at school and who is always first in his class, is rewarded with a gift, while the hardworking child who works far harder and achieves far more is never rewarded with a gift and is always last in the class. It is not the achievement of that above-average child that is being rewarded. That is a gift that he has received and it is his intelligence that is being rewarded, which is completely wrong. We can give him another reward. We can give him a reward to which the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) referred—to create facilities for him, amongst other things, to live out his life and to progress as he is able to progress.

The hon. the Minister mentioned vocational guidance. There is a tremendous task which rests upon us to ensure that we have the right people to train our children. A misplaced person is a very unhappy person in himself, but the greatest evil is not the evil that is done to him in that he is misplaced and is not happy in his work. The greatest evil that is done is done to the community because he does not do the work that he can and must do but he does the work that he cannot do. He is misplaced and in this way we have a great deal of mental erosion because there is no careful selection and vocational guidance right from the start to ensure that everything possible is done to provide the right education and teachers of the right calibre, people who will do this responsible work amongst our youth, our children who are our most precious possessions, so that these young people can be formed in such a way that they will eventually be able to serve the community to the good of all, not forgetting the honour of God, because the child that is entrusted to us is God’s creature.

I listened with interest to the hon. Minister’s reply, his explanations and his remarks concerning the interim report of the Commission of Inquiry into the University Potential and Training Facilities in South African Universities, which I understand he only received a couple of days ago. May I express the hope that both the Education Council and also the National Educational and Social Research Council which fall under the Minister’s Department will go very thoroughly into this vital problem of the pre-university year and how to combat the first-year failures that are taking place at the present time.

But I would like to deal with the links that I was speaking about concerning the universities and the training colleges and the technical colleges. May I in regard to the technical colleges refer to Dr. van Zyl of the Pretoria Technical College who emphasizes the very close link between the university and the technical college there. He appeals for closer cooperation between the technical colleges and the universities and he says that the technical colleges should play a far more important role in post-school training than they do at present. May I suggest to the hon. Minister that in connection with this scheme of a special college for a pre-university year’s training, he could well institute a pilot scheme in the technical colleges to test the workability of this scheme, and here, Mr. Chairman, I would like to read a letter from the Witwatersrand Technical College which says that it is deeply interested in this movement for the establishment of a pre-university year of study, and they say that “it appears to be especially desirable in the sciences as shown by the heavy rate of failure in these subjects in the first-year university courses. The technical colleges are experiencing the same trouble in respect of our post-matriculation courses such as pharmacy, ophthalmology, where the first year includes 12 science subjects of the same standard of that of the universities and there was at one time the suggestion that the four major technical colleges might introduce certain pre-university courses, especially for students who matriculate at an unusually early age”. There it was associated with the introduction of their post-matriculation technician courses for engineering students engaged in the mining industry, in which the pure science subjects are taken from the matriculation stage up to a standard just slightly below that of the university first-year examination.

An approach to the university first-year to a modified one-year course of this nature, would assist in providing a more thorough grounding in the relevant subjects. In the senior technical colleges there is at the present time the facility I believe, to institute such a pilot scheme, and I would like to put it forward for the very serious consideration of the hon. Minister and the Department to assess the value of having a pilot scheme in respect of this pre-university year’s training. The hon. Minister and his Department can then see whether it would lead to an improvement, as I believe it would.

I would also like to put forward a plea for more money to be spent on research, and I would like to advocate an allocation for research. We have seen recently on the Witwatersrand that the president of the Chamber of Mines, Mr. P. H. Anderson, has asked for more money to be spent on research and for larger grants both from the Government and from industry, and Mr. Anderson said that there was insufficient appreciation of the university’s role in training men for those fields of industry where training and research go hand in hand. He referred to branches of sciences to-day, and he cited nuclear physics as one of them, where advanced training is impossible without facilities for research. I would like to mention that it was the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council, Professor Mönnig, under the Minister of Economic Affairs, who concluded that we should be spending R80,000,000 a year on research, and the amount that we spend on research, including the hon. Minister’s Department and others is some R13,000,000 only. Trained research workers have to be produced by the universities, but no large research programme can take place without trained talent being available. Here we come back to the pre-university year which I feel will also aid in the recruitment for a research programme. I would like to mention to the hon. Minister that Canada has instituted a programme since 1928; they have organized classes for specially gifted children, and these specially giften children are brought together in a centrally located college where they are given a greatly enriched curriculum, without acceleration and under the guidance of specially selected science and technological teachers. I want to ask the hon. Minister to consider such an institution, with pilot schemes perhaps at the beginning, in the technical colleges.

I hope the hon. Minister will seriously consider the provisions of funds for this purpose, as well as more funds for research, because this money will go to the universal support of university training and the training of the talented youth of South Africa in science and technology, and it will eliminate, I believe, the bottleneck that we have at the moment in providing funds for higher education and for entrance to the university, this over 50 per cent first-year failure rate that we have in our eight universities at the present time. I believe that our education aim must be to provide the road forward that runs from school-leaving direct through the scientific college that I am advocating to the universities, and to make it possible for every student of ability, for every boy and girl who wishes, with scientific ambition, to travel on that road, with their talent and perseverence, to the highest positions in industry and research and commerce. May I ask the hon. Minister very seriously to consider these proposals and to give this urgent problem high priority with the Education Council and with the National Bureau of Education and Scientific and Social Research, and find the solution to breach this gap between the school-leaving year and the first year at university.

I want to reply to a few matters falling under the sections of the Department that are my responsibility. I want in the first instance to say a few words in pursuance of the plea for the necessity for giving greater support to our museums and our museums of cultural history. There is no difference of opinion in regard to this matter. The Government is fully aware of the necessity for museums as places for preserving things, places for the preservation of cultural and historical objects, and everything possible is being done to promote this work. As the Committee is aware, a year or two ago the hon. the Minister appointed the Booysens Committee to inquire into the requirements of the museums, and as a result of the report of that commission, an additional amount of R 100,000 has been included in the 1963-4 Estimates. Hon. members will also note that a further R37,000 was provided for salary improvements and it is the intention of the Government gradually to increase the grants further as we are able to appoint the necessary staff. This ought to serve as an indication to hon. members that the Government realizes the necessity to enlarge our museums. The idea of museums of cultural history distinct from the museums of natural history has also been accepted in principle. With the development and expansion of our museums our idea is to separate our museums for cultural history from the museums for natural history. In this connection I may just mention that it has already been decided in principle to establish the first open-air museum in our country at Pretoria. The hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) has worked very zealously in this regard and this is something which we hope will appear on the next Estimates. The idea is that this open-air museum will be set up close to the Voortrekker Monument and the museum of cultural history will be established next to that open-air museum. The museum of cultural history will then be completely separate from the present Transvaal Museum. As far as Cape Town is concerned the idea is that after the restoration of the old Supreme Court building here, it will become a museum of cultural history and as soon as the building has been restored, it will assume the form of a museum of cultural history and it will also be separated from the present South African Museum. As a result of these steps and in pursuance of this information I hope that it is very clear to hon. members who are interested in these matters that the Government is doing everything possible to promote this development of our museums.

There is one other person to whom I must reply in the sphere for which I am responsible, and that is the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney). He raised the question of the training of apprentices and also the question of the syllabuses which are apparently not sufficiently up to date. I want to tell him that the revised syllabuses are now being printed and that the revised syllabuses offered to apprentices by the Department of Education will come into operation from 1964. But I also want to make use of this opportunity to reply to the plea of the hon. member for Salt River that even more could perhaps be done for the proper training of our apprentices by referring to the suggestion which the Department of Education, Arts and Science made to the Department of Labour, and that is to bring a system of intensive training of apprentices into being at Olifantsfontein, between Pretoria and Johannesburg. This is something completely new and I can almost say, something revolutionary in South Africa, although intensive technical training is something which is in operation in various European countries with very good results. The Department of Education is fully aware of the necessity to make the best use of our young people and to train them as quickly as possible, and to this end, it has made this suggestion. The Department of Education is prepared to start an experimental scheme at Olifantsfontein for training 250 apprentices intensively for a year. The suggestion is that they should be trained in engineering, and specifically in metal work. as fitters and turners and otherwise, and that there should be 250 of them. We have the accommodation at Olifantsfontein and we can train 250 apprentices there. I think that this suggestion is a proof of the willingness of the Department of Education, as well as of the Government, to do everything on its part to strengthen our manpower, to do everything to give our young people the opportunity of achieving artisan status as soon as possible. But this scheme can only be implemented if we also have the wholehearted and active cooperation of employers. We are offering the facilities at Olifantsfontein, the accommodation that we have there, the training facilities of the Department of Education for 250 apprentices, but now it is up to industry to make use of those facilities because these apprentices who will go there for training will have to be enrolled by their various employers. In other words, the employers will have to pay their wages during the year in which those apprentices are receiving intensive training at Olifantsfontein. The advantage of this scheme is that those apprentices will be able to qualify earlier and it is possible that the Apprenticeship Board may be able to make provision in their contracts whereby those apprentices will have to remain in the service of the employers concerned for two or three years after having passed their artisan test. These are aspects which still have to be considered by the Apprenticeship Board. I mention this offer of the Department to indicate that we realize the necessity for doing a great deal for these young people in order to accelerate their technical training. I hope that employers will take the initiative and make use of this opportunity that we are giving them so that they no longer need complain that too few artisans are being trained. The State is offering these facilities and it is the task of employers to make use of those facilities.

May I just ask the hon. Deputy Minister whether during their period of training the State will pay for their board and accommodation there?

The State will pay a portion of it. They will have to contribute a certain amount for board. That still has to be worked out. It may perhaps be on the basis of say a quarter of the wages that they receive. This may be the quota, but they will have to contribute something towards their board. In any case, we on our part are prepared to make those facilities available.

Large amounts are being spent by the Government every year on national defence, but it seems to me very little is being done in the way of training individuals for personal self-defence. If all individuals in the country were trained in self-defence, there would be very many less successful assaults on people and many more assailants would be apprehended.

What do you suggest?

Of course I expected that question, and the hon. member will know just now what I am suggesting. This applies particularly in the case of women who, when they feel defenceless, are inclined to panic. But if they know that they are not defenceless they will not panic and there would be many more cases where the assailant is apprehended. I maintain that the best way of training the people of the country in personal self-defence is by means of the schools, the technical colleges and the universities. I maintain that in the curriculum of every school, technical college or university a course should be introduced in wrestling, Judo and Karate. There are plenty of well-trained specialists in the country with the knowledge to train our physical culture teachers [Interjection.] I am speaking on the question of education. I was saying that there are plenty of well-qualified men in the country who are able to work out such a course and it could very quickly be introduced into our schools, and I think it is necessary to have such a course under present conditions in South Africa. My own training in these matters started when I was at school.

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss schools now.

Then I will confine it to technical colleges, although I consider that now that there is an Education Advisory Council which is responsible to the Minister my remarks could apply to all education in the country. I say my own interest in this started when I was at school and happened to have the advantage of a school principal who was a specialist in wrestling and who taught all the senior boys wrestling. I have forgotten a great deal of what I learnt then, of quarter Nelsons and half Nelsons, but I still remember the basic grab and throw, which I am glad to say I never had to make use of, and it is knowledge which I feel every person in the country should have, and it is best taught to them in their youth in the technical colleges and universities. In case some members do not know what it is, Judo and Karate were invented by the Japanese because they are very small people and they needed a means of defending themselves by using brains against brawn, to ward off attacks by bludgeon, knife and revolver, by delivering blows in vital spots with the hands, elbows and knees. The object of these methods is to give a quick initial advantage in case of attack, which would provide the all-important seconds and minutes which would enable the person attacked to get hold of a weapon. [Interjections.] I see hon. members opposite are very amused, but it is only a few years ago when the teaching profession generally discouraged the idea of teaching swimming in schools. It has only recently been realized that swimming should be taught. Many people in the border areas are concerned because they feel helpless and I think that the knowledge of self-defence should be got across to our people, and it is more essential to have a knowledge of self-defence to-day than it is to have a knowledge of swimming. It is more necessary to be able to save oneself from an assailant than to save oneself from drowning.

Mr. Chairman, in reply to the last speaker, I can just say that I have taken note of his idea that if one stretches the Education Vote so broadly, one can discuss nearly anything under it. But it was very interesting and I will pass on his remarks to my colleague the Minister of Justice, who is responsible for that.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) asked me whether I would make a statement on the performing arts. I think the hon. member would be the first one to concede that this question, at such short notice, is rather unfair. However, I am prepared to give him such information as I have available. The amount of R198,000—I want to thank the hon. member for his congratulations because we were able to double this amount—provided for in the Estimates has been allocated as follows: R60,000 went to the Transvaal for opera, R30,000 for drama and R 15,000 for ballet, and R6,000 for music. That makes a total of R111,000. In the Cape Province this year there is R30,000 for drama, for ballet R 15,000, and for music R6,000, a total of R51,000. In the Orange Free State there is R 10,000 for drama, for music R8,000, a total of R18,000. In Natal there is R 10,000 for drama and R8,000 for music, a total of R 18,000, and that makes up the total of R 198,000. Now it must be emphasized that a scheme is being introduced gradually over a period of five years, as it is not possible to provide the funds for all the performing arts at once, and for all the four provinces at the same time. Cognizance had to be taken of the readiness of each province to embark on each of the performing arts. Apart from this aspect, regard was had to arrangements still to be made in each province to obtain the direct contribution to qualify for the Government grant of R2 for R1. I am able to say that in the Transvaal the Performing Arts Council, with its four sub-committees for each of the performing arts, was established last year, and that the full scheme is in operation in this province, with very marked success. In the Cape the Council has been appointed and the appointment of sub-committees is now under consideration. That is the reason why the Cape Province receives less this year than the Transvaal. Meanwhile the drama has been launched and it is trusted that ballet and music will follow in the course of this year. In the Orange Free State the Council has been appointed with a committee for drama and one for music, and both will be launched in 1963. Natal has now submitted proposals which are under consideration. Generally speaking, I can say that the scheme is progressing favourably and is well accepted everywhere, and also well supported by local authorities and individuals. This goes to prove that despite much criticism at the time, the principle of decentralization is proving to be a very great success. I am afraid that at this moment I cannot say more. I have not all the papers here, and to give all the names of the different personnel serving on these committees is impossible at this stage. I hope the hon. member will be satisfied with what I have said.

*The hon. member for Hospital also put the question, with reference to the other speeches concerning the intelligent child and what can be done in this regard, and here I come back to the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss). I can tell hon. members that there is an Inter-Departmental Advisory Committee for Education and Social Research. This Committee, which is a commitee of the Bureau for Educational Research, meets every six months to make recommendations in regard to the various research projects. This Advisory Committee was met by the executive committee of the National Education Advisory Council. On that occasion discussions were held and that joint meeting took the very important decision of recommending that a survey should be made of the potential of our school population as a first and essential part of the surveys in regard to our human resources. Someone in that meeting referred to this survey as being just slightly less important than the Orange River scheme, but Prof. Rautenbach, the chairman, pointed out that it was not less important but even more important than the Orange River scheme, because without the manpower this scheme could not be implemented. Now I just want to say that many people are to-day concerned about the problem of the manpower of our country. I can refer to the economic adviser to the Prime Minister, Dr. Hennie Steyn, who has expressed his opinion in that regard on many occasions, and to the Advisory Scientific Council. The Department of Labour has made various manpower surveys and a very important institution in Johannesburg is the Manpower Foundation of Mr. V. Wood, and then of course there is the Bureau for Social and Educational Research. Now this advisory council has decided that priority should be given to this matter. A talent survey of the school population, as we now envisage it, has already been made in the U.S.A. and Canada, whilst the need for such a survey is also strongly felt in other countries. I just want to quote the following from the Report on measures to Improve the Supply of Teachers in Scotland—

We have also made an estimate of what it will cost to determine this potential, and it will require an amount of R 17,300 per annum for the next ten or 15 years. I think it is very interesting to take note of this. All our discussions in regard to the shortage of manpower and the number of failures and the problems which face us amount to only one thing, that if we do not make a proper survey of firstly, what our potential is, and secondly, all the measures which should be taken to direct this potential into the right channels by vocational guidance, and to provide the facilities therefor, we will be faced with serious problems. So when we have regard to the attendance at the universities we see that of the total number of matriculants in 1962, 41 per cent went to university. Of those who passed Matric First Class, 56 per cent went to university. During the past year the percentage of matriculants was 50 per cent, but as the result, inter alia, of the balloting of young men for military training this percentage decreased. This percentage of matriculants going to university compares favourably with that in most Western countries. It is not a matter of trying to get a higher percentage, but we should try to make the best possible use of the percentage which in fact does go to university. That is why the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) spoke about a pilot scheme, this experiment which he suggests I should make with the assistance of the technical colleges. What the hon. member is really advocating is a junior college, as it is called in the U.S.A. I must say immediately that I do not think educationists in this country would support that idea. One of the reasons is that the highest standard attained in the secondary schools in the U.S.A. is a little lower than our matriculation standard. That is why they can have a system of junior colleges, which really only brings them a little closer to the actual matriculation standard we have here. It seems to me that our shortage of manpower and the problem we have in regard to distributing that manpower makes it essential for us to be careful not to exaggerate. But where I quite agree with the hon. member is that those who have gone to university should be dealt with in such a manner that we do not suffer these unnecessary losses of time, energy and money. When opening the academic year at Stellenbosch, I calculated that if one considers the numbers of failures in the first year at the universities in terms of money, it costs the parents approximately R800,000, and it costs the State one and a half times as much. Therefore it is bad enough in terms of money alone, but in terms of the manpower one could have utilized the position is even worse. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that I am making the fullest use of this research bureau in co-operation with the Education Advisory Council, to devise all possible plans to develop this potential to the full. The hon. member may rest assured that the ideal we are striving for is the same as hers, to bring about these improvements and to reduce the number of failures. I do not think there is anything further I need reply to.

It is sad to hear the hon. the Minister telling us this long story of what is being done now, this inquiry into the potential of the country and what can be done to improve the supply of technicians and scientists, when I think that over four years ago I personally, and many others on this side of the House, warned the Government of a crisis which was arising in the scientific sphere in this country and the problems which this country would have to face. Having lost many of its best brains, although it is late in the day, it is at least pleasant to hear that something is being done. We can only hope that when the crisis really hits us, and when the problems which the scientists should solve, with the assistance they should have from the technicians and the technologists in order to solve these things arise, the door will not have been opened too late.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the position of the health visitors. This is an important group of health workers who are for the moment being — I would not say neglected, but who are not receiving the attention to which they are entitled. The health visitor is a very important individual in the social life of the country, and with the change in the methods of treatment of the various sick people, the health visitor is becoming more important. Up to this year or last year the examination of these people was carried out by the Royal Sanitary Institute. Of course, it was really done by a local committee under the supervision of the Department of Education. But with the advent of the Republic and the general movement towards independence, which I think in that respect is quite admirable, nevertheless, the Royal Sanitary Institute’s Committee is falling into disuse and it is important that as soon as possible it should be replaced. The local authorities are subsidized by the Department of Health to use these people, and they should really be used in the proportion of one health visitor to two ordinary clinic nurses, but we find that there are 36 health visitors being employed by local authorities and some 490-odd other nurses. It is important that the Department should make haste to lay down a syllabus and declare when it will hold an examination, and that it should encourage nurses (all these people are registered nurses) and get the local authorities and the provinces to subsidize these nurses. We already have a great shortage and our needs are even greater than they were in the past, because this is the most important section of the nurses working in the public field. This person has to educate the family and the public in the methods of caring for those people who have been ill, who have had accidents, and the returned alcoholics who have to be adjusted into their families, and the mental cases who have been discharged. All these people have to be fitted back into their families, and the families have to be educated how to look after them. They have to educate the community so that they will realize that amongst them there are these injured people, mental cases and alcoholics, who must now be treated as normal people. This is the burden these nurses must carry, and, as I say, we are running short of them, and the Department of Education is the Department which should attend to it immediately. That is the burden of what I have to say.

Now I want to pass on to another item, and that is to give some support to the hon. member for Karas (Mr. von Moltke). I did not think the reply of the Deputy Minister was satisfactory. He threw a pittance into the pool and said how wonderfully they were helping these museums. I have previously drawn the attention of the Minister and the Department to the importance of the archaeological exploration of the Orange River Valley. This country is recognized, together with the Rift Valley, as being the cradle of mankind. It is probable that somewhere in this region man came out of the trees. It is probable that we have in this country the clue to the origin of main. There is one thing which is well known and that is that prehistoric man always lived in a valley. He kept away from the mountain tops.

Why?

Because he needed water. Once dammed up and closed, all the available information in these valleys will be lost. I realize that it is rather beyond the resources of this Department to provide all the money necessary, but there is a great interest in prehistory in the older countries of Europe and particularly some of the Foundations in America are very interested in it. I think the Minister should make it known that archaeological expeditions to this country will be welcomed and given every possible assistance. The old universities in Britain and some of the very rich universities of the United States have carried out research in the past, and I would like the Minister to realize of what value it has been to the tourist industry in Egypt that the Valley of the Kings was discovered and that all the old history of Egypt was laid bare and can be visited by tourists. [Time limit.]

I want to skip the subject raised by the previous speaker and deal with a subject which is very important. I want to talk about archives—particularly film archives. When we discussed the Archives Act last year I asked that a section of the State archives should be specially equipped where valuable and historical films could be preserved. I also pleaded for it that staff should be appointed to do research work and to trace those films which are still being preserved in this country and even overseas. I said there was a real danger that many of those valuable films might get lost because they were not being preserved properly and because of a lack of interest. I returned to the same subject under the Education Vote, and I pleaded with the Minister to consider making funds available for the establishment of a State-aided South African Film Institute which would, on a much broader basis than originally suggested by me, fulfil the task, not only of tracing and preserving films, but which would also undertake to develop a truly South African film service; in other words, an institute which would bring about co-ordination between existing undertakings which were already doing valuable work in this direction, as, for example, the State film service, the Society of Film Producers, the Library Society, the Museum Society and the Archives. The Minister gave a very encouraging reply in that connection. He said the following, inter alia (Hansard 1962, vol. 3, col. 5186)—

I now want to know whether provision is, indeed, made in the proposed legislation for a film board which will perform this important task or for a South African Film Institute more or less on the basis suggested in my plea.

There is a very significant article in Panorama of May 1963. The article is written by Mr. Piet Germishuys and deals with the development of film production in our country right from the very beginning—from the previous century. According to this article, there is good hope that funds will soon be made available on the part of the authorities for the establishment of such a South African Film Institute with an archives section to trace existing pieces and to preserve them. I want to quote from this article in order to show how strongly Mr. Germishuys, who has made a thorough study of this, feels about the subject. He says, inter alia—

Because of the fact that from an early stage the stigma of being cheap entertainment has become attached to the film, no deliberate attempt has been made originally to preserve films, with the result that this very valuable documentation, which is not only of great cultural and historical value to South Africa, but also most important as far as the history of the medium itself is concerned, is practically completely lost. Only a handful have so far been traced in film archives and museums in Britain, the U.S.A. and Holland. In this way three of the eight news films about Paul Kruger have been traced, although not one of the two about Cecil Rhodes.

Then he goes on and says—

It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Germishuys, who shows great interest in this direction and who has made a thorough study of the subject, feels that there is a real need in this respect. I trust, therefore, that ample funds will be made available in the proposed legislation so that what he, that is Mr. Germishuys, calls our flickering past will continue to flicker on the silver screen in future. That will confirm the Minister’s encouraging statement to which I have already referred, and it will be an indication of the positive progress that has been made and, as such, it will be welcomed by everybody interested in the preservation of valuable films about the past.

We are pleased that the restoration of national and historical monuments, relics and antiques now falls under the director of archives. I have no doubt that under his guidance much leeway in respect of the preservation of these national assets will be made up. I want to thank the Minister for the interest he has taken in this work. I think he has now found a solution to many of our difficulties. I also want to express the appreciation of the council of the Simon van der Stel Foundation for the provision of R4,000 on this Vote. This sum will be of inestimable value and will enable the Foundation to influence the public to line up with organizations in other countries, like the Historic Society of England, the National Society of Scotland, the Hendrik de Keizer of the Netherlands and American organizations which restore historic buildings regardless of cost.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the Foundation has more than 17,000 members who have contributed, during the last four years, a sum of R80,000. The general public have an idea that the money they contribute should be spent for the purchase and restoration of historic buildings, but they are dead against their contributions being spent on administration costs. So this grant is of particular value. It will help us considerably in augmenting our funds and obtaining more life members for our organization. The Minister has now removed this particular bone of contention with which the organization was confronted.

The Simon van der Stel Foundation was initiated at a meeting here in Cape Town in the Castle with Government support and enormous encouragement from part of the public. I regret to say, however, that if it were not for the efforts and sacrifices made by our chairman and our director, this organization would never have reached that stage of development and success which it has reached to-day. We know that thousands of our historic buildings, in the Cape in particular, priceless buildings of architectural value, have gone down before the bulldozer for the development of national roads, industrial buildings, flats and skyscrapers, etc. Even Lindley’s church in Pietermaritzburg was bulldozed down, in spite of the endeavours of this Foundation, to make space for municipal buildings. There is no doubt that it is essential that this desecration of our historical buildings should be stopped.

I appeal, not only to this House, but also to the Government, to see to it that our historic and natural monuments, which are unique in the world, should be preserved. Old Cape architecture is common only to South Africa. I appeal to every individual in the country to share this great responsibility of preserving our national buildings and our historic relics and antiques. After all, our tradition is built on these jewels and gems which our ancestors have handed down to us. It is sacrilege to see the way in which these valuable structures are disappearing. I am told that about 3,000 old Cape houses have disappeared from the Cape Peninsula.

In spite of the fact that this Vote has already been fully discussed I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to two further matters. During this debate and also outside, in the country, we have heard a great deal about the shortage of scientists and technologists. Anybody considering the development of this country must admit that we are short of these people. The question that now arises is what is done for the training of the scientist! We were pleased to hear the hon. the Minister say that a survey is being made of the human material that is at our disposal, people who have scientific ability, so that provision can be made to meet the shortage of scientists that is experienced in various spheres.

But we will never be able to make up this shortage unless we start in our intermediate schools. That is why my first question to the hon. the Minister is this: In how far are we applying the sound idea of differentiated education? We believe that the National Advisory Education Council has been set up to bring about the necessary balance in our education system and with this in mind I want to know how far an investigation has been made into the divided control of intermediate education in our country. I believe that we will never be able to do justice to the training of scientists unless we first remove this divided control over intermediate education. It is here that we must start applying differentiated education, which will then bring the necessary scientific talent to the fore.

In the second place I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher), who asked for more training facilities for doctors. Surveys in this connection have already been made. We are in agreement on one point in this country, however, and that is that we are going to experience a shortage of doctors at some time or other. I do not think it is necessary to deny this fact. Neither is it necessary to make further surveys in this connection. I believe that it is not even necessary to make further surveys of the human material available to us. It is a fact that most of our universities at which we have a medical faculty have every year to select in some other way students applying for enrolment in those faculties. Because the necessary provision does not exist at our universities to absorb all the human material offered we are losing a great deal of talent in this particular field. That is why I say that it will not be necessary for us to make any further investigations. The hon. the Minister knows that there are institutions which are available to render these services and we would like to see the hon. the Minister reaching finality at some stage or other in regard to the question of whether there are at present sufficient facilities in our country for the training of doctors. If not, he must give those institutions the opportunity to come to the fore and offer their services so that those facilities can be provided.

To delay this matter any longer will only result in smothering and neutralizing the spirit of enterprise, sacrifice and willingness which exists on the part of those institutions. That is why we want the hon. the Minister to tell us that because there is such a shortage of facilities in this connection the appointed place to provide these needs is at the University of the Orange Free State.

The Minister looks surprised that I should rise to speak on the question of education. I can assure him however, that we have something in common, because, like the Minister, I was once a student teacher. The difference is that I gave up voluntarily to join the Army, whereas the Minister gave it up to go into politics. It might have been better for education in South Africa if he had given his talents to education! At that I leave it.

I want to ask the Minister to take up a certain matter with his Advisory Council. That body should investigate, and report back to the nation on it, a serious, dangerous and, to my mind, an un-South African trend which has developed in South African education. I want to refer him in this connection to the Onderwysblad of September 1960. If we look at further editions of this journal we will find the same trend. This is the official journal of teachers’ organizations such as “Natalse Onderwysersunie, Transvaalse Onderwysersvereniging, Suid-Wes-Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie”. This journal speaks officially in the name of many teachers of South Africa in regard to the policy of education, and instructs its teachers regarding the line they should take in their activities as teachers. The Minister now has an advisory committee and I think he should ask that committee to look at these instructions to see whether they are in the national interests. I want to quote from the editorial article of the journal, especially from the second paragraph dealing with the danger to the position of the White man in South Africa. It says—

Here, Mr. Chairman, is a direct instruction to indoctrinate children not by means of special lessons but “onopvallend”. In the first quotation they speak of a political fight. Now they are instructed to back this up.

To be good South Africans.

That is not what it says. It says—

This against an introduction, instruction in which reference is made to leadership in the political field. Let me repeat that—

Now it talks of “reggesind” … I quote further:

Now, it is known that the National Party controls education in three of the four provinces. The United Party controls it in one. Here it refers to one province in which the National Party does not control education and it talks of “reggesinde onderwysers”. It goes on—

Here we have an article dealing first with political leadership and then in the same paragraph stating that in three out of the four provinces you are getting the right type of teacher to indoctrinate the children. Only in one province that is not happening. That is what it implies here, because the fourth can only be the province being controlled by the United Party. So, this one official journal of the teachers’ associations mentioned earlier, demands indoctrination, and is satisfied that in three out of the four provinces that is taking place. In the fourth they are not getting “reggesinde onderwysers”. The article also says—

“Gebuig” for what?

I am interested to know why the hon. the Minister went into politics instead of sticking to education. He could have done something in the education field, but now he can do it in the political field. He can ask his advisory body to carry out an investigation whether in fact party political indoctrination is taking place in South African schools. I believe that if this body could eliminate political indoctrination in South African schools he would be doing a real service to South Africa. Seeing that we are being asked to vote R40,000 for this advisory committee, I believe we are entitled to ask that vital aspect, i.e. the aspect of mixing politics with education, should be investigated and that the Minister should be advised thereon so that he can try to eliminate it from the educational system of South Africa. [Interjections.]

Hon. members can shout as much as they like. They know, however, that this magazine after first referring to political leadership goes on to talk of indoctrination. They know that this is letting the cat out of the bag.

What is the date of that article?

September 1960.

Three years ago!

Yes, three years ago. In other words, for three years it has not been subversive underground indoctrination but open indoctrination admitted as such by the official organization. [Time limit.]

This debate was progressing quietly and peacefully until the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) participated in it in a way which is so typical of him.

And he spoke absolute nonsense.

No, he did not speak absolute nonsense. I will tell you why. He was of course rather tactless this evening. Hon. members opposite started this education debate this afternoon by launching an attack against the National Advisory Education Council. They want to week this Council.

Who are “they”?

The hon. member is one of them. The whole idea of the hon. member for Durban (Point) and others is to wreck this Education Council. He spoke about “right-mindedness”, but what is wrong with being right-minded? It is far better to be right-minded than to have leftist tendencies or to have the wrong tendencies. The leftists and those who have the wrong idea of things are those members opposite. They sit there. The hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) is a person who has the wrong idea of things. She stood up here this afternoon and asked what the attitude of the parent was towards the school in all the other provinces except Natal. I want to ask the hon. member whether she is not ashamed of herself. What is the position in Natal now? There was a time when the Afrikaner child in Natal was wild and a stranger to schools. There was a time when the Natal Provincial Administration governed with dictatorial powers. There was a time when the Natal parent was a stranger to the school; there was a time when the parent had absolutely no say in the administration of and the appointment of teachers in the Natal schools. How dare the hon. member for Durban (Point) come along here and attack the word “right-minded”? After all, what is wrong with that? He knows just as well as I do that this right-mindedness means that we must link up our school education with education in the home and that the cultural, religious and traditional background of the home must be adapted to and correlated with the spirit and atmosphere of the school. That is the concept that is expressed in the word “right-mindedness.” It has nothing to do with politics.

What about the article that I quoted from?

It has nothing to do with politics but with the correlation of the background of the home, the culture and religion of the home. …

And the Nationalist Party!

The National Party represents all these things. The National Party is no party; it is the personification of the efforts and thought of the whole nation. We know the United Party’s past. It all started with Lord Charles Somerset’s attempts at anglicization. From there it ran through the Milner period and from there to the time when hon. members opposite introduced a motion in this House in 1943 through the medium of Mr. Klopper, a motion seeking to drag education into politics.

That is also what the hon. member for Durban (Point) has done this evening—he has dragged education into the political arena. They have always used education as a political weapon. He told us the same old story here this evening. We know that story. Hon. members opposite have never regarded education as a process that is divorced from politics. They have always utilized and abused education for political purposes. We have had experience of this again to-day. They cannot keep the National Advisory Education Council out of politics. They do not want to keep beyond the pale of politics. They do this year after year. What is being said in this House now? They are talking politics. This therefore is a deliberate attempt to drag education into the political arena. On the other hand, this side of the House has always considered education to be a process that must be closely associated with the home, with the cultural background of the child, with the religious background of the child with which the church is also closely associated. We have never regarded education as a means for the achieving of a political end, but merely as a process to further the interests of the child itself. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just spoken went back a long way into the history of education. Something which he should understand, however, is that it is a fundamental principle of United Party policy that politics should remain aloof and not interfere with education. Natal is very proud of its system of education whereby the fundamental right of a parent to determine the medium of instruction for his child is made paramount. There are parallel-medium schools, there are single-medium schools and these are schools to which the parent can send his child where he can be instructed in whatever language medium.

The matter which I should like to raise with the hon. the Minister is being dealt with under sub-Vote L on page 118 of the Estimates of Expenditure—the National Advisory Council for Adult Education for the Advancement of Physical Education, Adult Education, Art and Science and Publicity. The amount shown on the Estimates in this respect shows a decrease from R423,090 to R416,090. Although the hon. member for Hospital has expressed gratitude for the increase under the item “performing arts”, I am disappointed that there has not been a substantial increase in regard to those items which are shown here as globular sums in respect of the allocation of grants and financial assistance to organizations by the National Advisory Council for Adult Education. I am disappointed because I believe there is a vast field still remaining for the Department of Education, Arts and Science to render assistance to these organizations which are endeavouring to assist our young people in particular to utilize their leisure time beneficially. When we realize that leisure time is something which is increasing due to the shortening of working hours and the five-day week and the 44-hour week …

Under which head are you speaking?

I am referring to subhead L, “National Advisory Council for Adult Education”. I want to deal with the allocation of funds by that national body to organizations which fall under that particular advisory council. The utilization of leisure time can, to a great extent, supplement the educational system which we have in South Africa. If these young people use their leisure time beneficially they will be better equipped citizens for the future.

There is one particular aspect which I should like to put to the hon. the Minister. I am referring to an organization which is endeavouring to engender a love for their country in our young people; that is the South African Youth Hostels Association. This association is an organization which encourages young people to see the country and to appreciate the beauty of their own country. One of their mottos is: “See South Africa First” The Youth Hostels Association has an international background in that it was formed in Germany by a school teacher in 1909 for the benefit of young people, particularly from the industrial towns, who did not have the means or the opportunity of visiting the country and of enjoying the beauties of the country. Consequently there is a vast network of these youth hostels in Germany to-day. I understand there are some 715 of these hostels with 77,639 beds. These youth hostels are used extensively by overseas visitors, particularly young people. In South Africa the formation of this association goes back over a period of ten years to 1953. They have, however, been hampered considerably in their development due to a lack of financial aid and assistance. I know that they approached the Department of Education, Arts and Science in 1960 and again in 1961. Following upon those approaches an allocation of R500 grant was made to this association. Although that grant is naturally most welcome and of great assistance to the association, much more is needed. Incidentally, this is an association which brings our English-and Afrikaans-speaking young people together, so that a greater understanding is brought about among the two language groups; at the same time a greater understanding is brought about of South Africa by youth hostellers from overseas. I am glad to see that the prospective Minister of Tourism, the Minister of Information, is in the House at the present time, because he will be interested to know that the Youth Hostels Association makes available to the Tourist Corporation the Youth Hostels Association Travel Guide, and this Travel Guide is being distributed by the Corporation with encouraging effect in that a large number of young persons from other countries have since visited South Africa and gained a better understanding of conditions here and used the youth hostels that were available.

The development of this organization is of great benefit to South Africa. These young people become more self-reliant, they get a better understanding of their own country and, at the same time, they are afforded the opportunity of meeting other young persons who are touring South Africa. They get to know and to understand the problems of the countries of those persons as well. I believe the Government can do far more in assisting this Association. This organization exists in many countries, particularly in Europe. There are some 3,000 hostels in Europe. The governments of those countries do render such assistance. In the German Tribune of 2 February 1963 I read the following—

The Government has acknowledged that they are performing a service to South Africa, and that they are becoming of educational value to South Africa. They are also becoming of international significance as far as South Africa is concerned amongst the young people of the world. But I do think that a greater contribution can be made by the Government to assist this association.

Similarly there is another organization which I believe should receive sympathetic consideration when it comes to financial assistance from the State, and that is the International Arts League of Youth. This is another association which does all in its power to encourage young people to appreciate the arts. Regular conferences are held, and this organization has become of considerable significance in recent times. They, too, Sir, are hamstrung by the fact that they are unable to obtain sufficient financial assistance from the State. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will give consideration to these pleas. I realize that the amounts shown in the Estimates are globular sums, and I am not in a position to analyse which amounts have been allocated to these two particular organizations. My plea to the hon. the Minister is to give this matter his generous consideration.

I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to one or two matters. Many of the points that I wanted to raise have already been discussed. We are living to-day in a world which in the future will not be governed by numbers or colour, but by brainpower. Because I represent a constituency that has the largest training college in the country, and because the largest university in South Afirca is situated close to us, I have a considerable number of students, professors and lecturers in my constituency. I know how important study, research and post-graduate training are to us in South Africa at this stage. We know that the Western world has progressed very far in the scientific sphere. We also know that the East and Russia, amongst others, have progressed far further than we would like to have seen. The West is trying to make up that leeway to-day. In the same way we at this southern tip of Africa have to struggle to retain the lead here in Africa so that we can assist the West at a later stage. In the next ten years about R3,000,000 will be spent in the Republic on economic expansion and we need men to lead us in the sphere of this economic prosperity that we are going to experience. The hon. the Prime Minister has already set up the Economic Advisory Council, the Scientific Advisory Council and the Co-ordinating and Planning Council, but the hon. the Minister oi Education, Arts and Science will also have to assist and ensure that the necessary manpower is there. A great deal of human material is lost during the school-going years and a great deal of human material is also lost up to the university stage. Much of our potential manpower is lost after it has acquired a Bachelor’s degree and I want to advocate post-graduate study. The Rector of the University of South Africa has said that people acquire more degrees by means of postgraduate study, but that they do not specialize any further. We know that there are not sufficient facilities available to-day for the child who wants to study further and to specialize. Some of our best brainpower in South Africa to-day does not have those means at its disposal and I want to ask the hon. the Minister to make additional bursaries available, on the one hand for studying locally and on the other hand for studying abroad. I want to advocate a minimum of 150 additional bursaries of from R600 to R700 per annum for students studying for Masters’ degrees in this country, that is to say, R90.000 per annum. We already have 80 bursaries for students studying for Doctors’ degrees, but I want to advocate a minimum of a further 50 bursaries of from R600 to R700 per annum, which will cost us an additional R30,000 per annum. This must be borne in mind for next year. As far as our bursaries for study abroad are concerned, I want to advocate a minimum of 30 additional bursaries for two years. This will amount to R40,000 for the first year and R80,000 for the second year and thereafter. This gives us a total of about R200.000 which has to be made available. This is the greatest investment that any nation can make — the development of the brainpower of its youth. The dividends on our gold shares may disappear; our gold mines may cease operating, but once the nation’s brainpower has been developed it can never be lost and we will be able to undertake further expansion.

According to the South African Digest of 7 March 1963 we have 7.56 teachers for every 100 students in South Africa to-day. In the United States of America the proportion is 7.7 for every 100 students and in Britain 9.6 for every 100 students. This shows that we have the necessary manpower to train these people. We also have the students,, but we are lacking the means to place at the disposal of these people. I hope and trust that where we need this manpower to build up our economy over the next decade this matter will receive the serious attention of the Government. It is all very well to advocate that there should be more doctors, but if our people cultivate better eating habits and take more exercise we will not need so many doctors. But we need these men in the economic sphere. There is a tremendous shortage of economists, teachers and leaders in the business world.

In conclusion, there is another matter that I want to advocate. I want to refer to the occasion when the State President received the honorary Doctor’s degree at Rhodes University. According to the Sunday Times of 2 September 1962, 77 professors and lecturers at Wits, 50 at Natal University and 26 at Rhodes boycotted that ceremony—and the State President was involved! Whether we are Nationalists or United Party supporters or Liberals or Progressives, he is our State President. It was not a party that was being boycotted. I consider this to be an act of sabotage against South Africa. Mr. Chairman, I want to give you certain figures from the annual report of the Department. I also want to express my “thanks” to the Department for these detailed reports that we receive from them. According to the Annual Report for 1960, Rhodes University received an amount of R404 per student from the State whose Head of State they boycotted; Wits received R296 and Natal University received R308 per student, while Stellenbosch received R256 and Pretoria R224; that is to say, Rhodes, Wits and Natal received R180, R72 and R84 respectively more per student than Pretoria University, and I want to ask that their grants be reduced accordingly. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I am going to reply very briefly. I want to thank the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) for his friendly words of gratitude for the information given to him. To the hon. member for Durban Point (Mr. Raw) I just want to say that he was barking up the wrong tree. It is not the function of an education advisory council to interfere with documents drawn up by a teachers’ association. I challenge the hon. member to show me in the Act where that function is entrusted to the Advisory Council. In addition to that, this is a teachers’ association which has the right to say what it pleases. If the hon. member wants to submit any complaint he should submit it to the disciplinary authority, which is the Transvaal Education Department, so that they can investigate the matter. That is the best advice that I can give him, although I want to say at once that he presented this matter here in such a distorted light that I think he will have to go back to the Army by the time they have finished with him.

I just want to say to the hon. member for Welkom (Mr. H. J. van Wyk) that his requests with regard to differentiated education and with regard to divided control cannot be lightly acceded to because these are matters of great importance. They are matters, of course, which form the entire corner-stone of education and which will be tackled immediately by this Advisory Council. As far as the question of a medical faculty is concerned, which the Chairman would not allow him to discuss, I want to say to him that while he is a member of the Council of Bloemfontein I am the Chancellor of Potchefstroom, and that we are still going to quarrel a great deal about the question as to where the medical faculty should be situated. In any event, we do not begrudge him a medical faculty.

It would take some considerable time to reply to the matters raised by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford). I would suggest therefore that he and I discuss these matters privately.

If the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) looks up the Estimates, he will see that for two years R 100,000 has been given to the Pretoria City Council for the establishment of an Arts museum. The last payment was made last year. It still has to appear on the Estimates. In actual fact it is not a reduction of R7,000 but an increase of R43,000.

If people want more money for hostels, then they should say what they want. There is a limited sum of money and the ordinary concessions can only be made out of that limited sum of money, otherwise it would mean an increase in taxation.

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote M—“Education, Arts and Science”, R2,359,000, put and agreed to.

On Revenue Vote No. 25—“Schools of Industries and Reform Schools”, R2,061,000,

Mr. Chairman, earlier this evening I congratulated the hon. the Minister’s Department on the Annual Report. I must say that I did not read the whole of the Annual Report because there are so many tables at the end of that report that I became confused. I do not think that there are many members of this Committee who perused that report thoroughly. I doubt whether the hon. the Minister himself perused it carefully.

Do not try to be funny! I always go through these things.

I do not know whether the hon. the Minister includes these tables amongst his “things”. I take it that he has perused it.

I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to what is said under “Reformatories” and under “Industrial Schools” in this Report, as well as to what is stated under the heading “Psychologists”. As far as reformatories and industrial schools are concerned we must realize that most of the children who attend those schools are sent there in terms of the Children’s Act. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister what the attitude is of his Department to the Department of Social Welfare because these children are transferred to these schools from the Department of Social Welfare. I told the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare, and I also want to tell this Minister, that I think that this control should be in the hands of one Minister—that reformatories and industrial schools could perhaps fall more appropriately under Social Welfare or under a joint board of the two Departments. During the discussion of the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare, I had the following to say about the officials who work at those institutions and what their attitude to this work should be—

I read the report of one of these reformatories and I was very disturbed to see that they frankly admit that 60 per cent of the cases that are sent to them are hopeless cases. They admit that they cannot rehabilitate those cases at all. This is a very serious problem. Because the hon. the Minister is responsible for these schools, I want to ask him whether his Department has already considered dealing with these children in smaller units and introducing a house system into the schools. As I told the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare, we have the example of the Rudolph Steiner School at Hermanus which deals with Mongolian children. There, one person is responsible for eight or ten or eleven children. Although those children are very backward mentally, very good results are obtained because of the direct contact between teacher and child. It is impossible to have mental contact with 300 or 400 children. We know that in the case of these difficult children it is only mental contact that can rehabilitate them.

Before my time expires I want to draw attention to these two brochures. The Constantia School is mentioned and this is what is said—

I take it that this is a boys’ school. It is a reformatory. Then mention is made of the institution for girls and they say—

This is a serious position. Sir. I find the same under the item “Industrial Schools”—

They talk about the serious need for more industrial schools. But they also say that the erection of the new school at Utrecht is being eagerly awaited. I do not know for how many years this amount for the school at Utrecht has appeared on the Estimates. I know that about 18 months ago I contacted the Department in Pretoria personally. They told me then that tenders would be called for in March 1962 for the building of this school. As far as I know, tenders have not yet been called for, but I mention this in passing. This is a serious matter and I would like the hon. the Minister to tell us the reason for this delay. It is a serious thing if sub-normal girls have to be looked after for a considerable time in places of safety. This report goes on to discuss psychological services. [Time limit.]

Because I deal with industrial schools, I shall reply to the points raised by the hon. member. The work that is done at these industrial schools is really outstanding. A long while before I became connected with this Department I made it my task to visit the industrial schools in our country. I was often impressed by the particular devotion with which the staff of our industrial schools tackle their task. I became convinced of the fact that the industrial schools and reformatories very properly fall under the Department of Education. As the hon. member knows in the past they fell under the Department of Justice when they were regarded as a type or prison. Fortunately, we have outgrown that stage and they are dealt with today as educational institutions. The hon. member expressed her concern that 60 per cent of the cases admitted to reformatories were hopeless cases. That is so. Dr. Lötter recently conducted an inquiry from which it appears that this was unfortunately the case, but I think that we should be grateful that 33 per cent of these cases—this was his finding—are successfully rehabilitated. If one considers that at least 33 per cent of these cases can be rehabilitated, then I think all the money that is spent and the trouble that is taken in regard to this matter is not in vain.

The hon. member advocated smaller units in the form of the house system. I can think of two industrial schools that I have visited recently—the industrial school at George and the one at Heidelberg in the Transvaal—both of which have the house unit system advocated by the hon. member. About 30 of the pupils are accommodated in one house under a house father who is one of the members of the staff. This gives those children a feeling of being at home. Contigent to this the hon. member asked what co-operation there was between our Department and the Department of Social Welfare. I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that the cooperation is of the very best. The lads who are placed in employment after leaving either the reformatories or the industrial schools are then put under the care of the probationary officers of the Department of Social Welfare. We find that our co-operation with them is of the best. Because there is this sound co-operation between the Departments we find that the new hostels that we are developing now where the pupils who are to be placed in employment can be accommodated after leaving either the reformatories or the industrial schools, will in future be under the control of the Department of Social Welfare.

In connection with Utrecht I just want to say that the Department informs me that this school is at the moment in the planning stage. We hope that what is at present in the planning stage will soon become a reality.

Vote put and agreed to.

Precedence given to Revenue Votes Nos. 27 and 28 and Loan Vote G and Revenue Vote No. 29 and Loan Vote E.

On Revenue Vote No. 27—“Agricultural Technical Services (Administration and National Services)”, R 10,058,000.

Sir, I want to ask for the privilege of the half-hour. Mr. Chairman, last year the hon. the Minister announced the improvements that he had effected in his Department by giving effect to recommendations of the Rautenbach Report. He created a number of senior posts, introduced better conditions of service and so forth. We are very pleased to hear that. We believe that this is a great improvement and we hope that it will prevent our losing as many officials in the future as we have lost in the past. We are very grateful to the hon. the Minister for what he has done in this direction. Neither do I think that I can neglect to express my thanks and appreciation at this stage for the excellent services that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is rendering to the farmers of this country. They are people who are absolutely devoted to their task; nothing is too much trouble for them. Even the junior officials give of their best and they are always prepared to do what they can for the farmers of South Africa. We are very grateful to them for doing so. But the fact still remains that we do not have sufficient officials and the hon. the Minister will not deny this either. The hon. the Minister himself said last year that as far as he was concerned he wished that he could double the number of extension officers. In other words, he admitted that there was a tremendous shortage even in regard to extension officers. Because of that fact we are being very adversely affected. We do not expect an adequate number of officials to be found in one year to do all the work but I honestly believe that we can progress far more swiftly towards finding the necessary staff than we are progressing to-day. Take the case of veterinary officers. Last year the hon. the Minister said that almost all these posts had already been filled. But the fact remains that there is still a great shortage of veterinary officers in this country. There are large parts of the country which do not have the services of veterinary officers. There is only one veterinary officer per 100,000 head of stock in our country where in other countries the ratio is one veterinary officer to 5,000 or 12,000 head of stock. We are very far behind and we need those additional veterinary officers very badly.

Just before I report progress I want to point out to hon. members that Revenue Votes Nos. 27 and 28 are very similar and hon. members will therefore be permitted to discuss both Votes under the policy of the hon. the Minister.