laid upon the Table:

Mr Speaker, I move without notice:

Agreed to.

Mr Chairman, at the beginning of the discussion of the Vote in question, I should like to convey my sincere gratitude towards the Director-General and the staff of the Department of Education and Training. Hon members will agree that during the past year, staff in the head office, and also especially what I call the field staff—the teachers, principals and inspectors—have had a very difficult time in the sphere of education in Black communities. Without much ado, I should therefore like to express my thanks here and pay tribute to the dedication and the courage—courage often in the face of a threat to person and possessions—which these people have displayed in performing their task.

In addition I express my thanks and appreciation for the patience and tact with which they conducted their negotiations in order to defuse tense situations. I should also like to refer with appreciation to the part the Council for Education and Training, the highest advisory body to the Minister, has played in the department as well as in the sphere of Black education in general. Then I should also like to refer to the addition of a second Deputy Director-General in the person of Mr Jaap Strydom, whom we welcome heartily in this post, particularly because we know he has had a long career of experienced negotiation in awkward and threatening conflict situations in Black education, and has handled these with distinction.

On this occasion I should also like to express my thanks towards my two colleagues, the hon the Deputy Minister of Education and Development Aid, who assists me in this department, and the hon the Deputy Minister of Development and of Land Affairs, who assists me in the other department, that of Development Aid.

I should like to refer briefly on this occasion to what I said in one of the other Houses of this Parliament with reference to a request addressed to me by the Chairman and the Executive Committee of the Council for Education and Training.

It is clear that there are two strong reasons for criticism in connection with Black education in the Black communities. The one reason has reference to the acknowledged fact of the disparity in education facilities and the backlog in education services for the Black communities in contrast with those of the other communities. There is also a perception, however, which has become more and more evident in respect of Black education leaders on the basis of their interpretation of certain statements Dr Verwoerd, as the Minister responsible for the newly instituted Bantu education at the time, made in the Senate in 1954.

The perception was that certain of those statements set a limit, placed a ceiling on the possibilities to which education for Black communities could develop. Because this was an erroneous perception which was rectified by other statements and by the facts a long time ago, but which still continued to mar the credibility of the Department of Education and Training, like a ghost as it were, I found it necessary to take a clear stand on this matter. I should like to quote the crux, of what I said about this on another occasion, to be recorded in this House as well.

I said education for each community should, of course, reflect and promote the culture and the values of that community. I also said, however—and here I used the words used by Dr Verwoerd himself—that education for Blacks, as for all groups in South Africa, should also be modelled on the communal reality of the modern industrialised and urbanised world with its strong Western flavour. There can be no question, as many of us thought and reasoned during the 1950s, of there being various separate economies. There is one interdependent economy.

I said education, for Blacks too, must also make ample provision for white-collar professions, something Dr Verwoerd was sceptical about. It must also provide for the training of learned people, of modern, sophisticated Blacks, who are necessary to South Africa. In addition, it should make provision for work opportunities for everyone in the large interdependent economy and labour market of South Africa, and it should provide for the inclusion of Blacks in a civilised community, a modern and sophisticated South Africa in which all population groups, and not only the Whites, share.

In addition, I said there can be no question of an inferior or watered-down education programme for Blacks. There is no restriction or ceiling in respect of fields of study for Blacks, as has indeed been proved in practice for decades by the provision of education up to the highest level by means of technical colleges, teachers’ training colleges, technikons and universities. There is no question of education which avoids the sophistication of modern civilisation or which is restricted only to the traditional culture—as the statement at the time might have implied—or to preparation for inferior or only semi-schooled work opportunities.

In view of this clear statement, I hope everyone involved in Black education will join hands, without reservation and without doubting anyone’s credibility to assist the department responsibile in developing and promoting this important service in the interests of the relevant communities.

I also think I should inform the Committee at the outset on the situation regarding the order and the maintenance of the normal course of events in the Black schools. As hon members will know, 7 400 schools, of which just over 7 000 are primary schools and about 330 are secondary schools, are under the control of the Department of Education and Training.

It is true that the events roundabout 1 May caused an unfavourable turn in the general attendance pattern which had been relatively stable by the end of March. I am pleased to be able to report, however, that since 2 May there has been a positive tendency again.

It is true that towards the end of April, the education activities at 20 to 30 schools were temporarily suspended because of poor discipline. I am pleased to be able to say, however, that that figure has diminshed to only eight. In addition, there were between 250 and 300 schools towards the end of April which had either total boycotts or very poor attendance of less than 80%. Those figures have also diminished since 2 May to only 210 schools. The figure is still too high, but at least the tendency is a positive one.

I should also like to point out that the present round of the writing of final examinations which was made possible for candidates who did not see their way clear to writing their final examinations last year and who are now getting an additional opportunity to do so, was ushered in in a very promising way. It started on 2 May and 80% of the enrolled candidates turned up at the high schools under the control of the Department of Education and Training to write the examination.

I want to make it clear that in its approach to the instability and the unrest conditions in education at Black schools, the department’s first and most important objective is to ensure that the children remain in the schools, or, if they leave the schools or show poor attendance, that they return to school. We are convinced that the best chance of maintaining stability in the communities is to have the children in the schools.

In the second place it is our clear objective, as well as the instruction to everyone concerned, that when the children are at school, it must be ensured that they proceed with proper education, that orderly and disciplined tuition takes place and that the recognised programmes are followed.

In the third place the clear instruction is that when undisciplined action or continued disruption of the education process takes place, or when revolutionary activities or anything in conflict with the tuition programme of the department takes place—unfortunately this has occurred at certain schools from time to time—those activities must be checked immediately.

In addition, it is our instruction to everyone involved to conduct the closest possible and continuous negotiation and discussions not only with the relevant teachers and pupils, but also with community leaders. I want to express great appreciation here today towards the officials and educationalists in service of the department, who spend hours on discussions and meetings with parent groups, school committees, community councils as well as the pupils’ representatives, to identify problems in an effort to find joint solutions to them. While we made it very clear that we shall not tolerate undisciplined and undermining conduct, we also intend to conduct the negotiation process with the greatest possible tact and patience.

In addition it is our policy that when the matter cannot be brought under control properly, we shall be forced in consultation with the relevant school committee, to suspend the educational activities at a specific school on a temporary basis. We do not close schools—we have not closed any schools—but a temporary suspension takes place so that the situation can cool off and we can take measures, in consultation with responsible community leaders, to restore order there, and then to re-open the school.

In handling these negotiations with the community, it is clear to me that there are two tendencies among community leaders. The one tendency is represented by those people who are motivated by the revolutionary standpoint of the organisations we are all familiar with, and whose only objective is to bring about ungovernability in this country and also, as has been said, “to make the education system grind to a halt”. Fortunately those people have not always managed to have their way, and while they have wanted to promote total boycotts from time to time, they have had to contend with the other tendency.

This tendency—it is the second tendency—is found among leaders who, in our view, are not always moderate people—politically they may be quite militant—but who express the conviction that education has to be maintained; that education must be kept going, because they admit that the ridiculous slogan used by the revolutionaries, viz “freedom before education” is senseless and that no political freedom or emancipation in the political or administrative sphere has any meaning if the relevant community’s people are not trained to use that freedom in a responsible way.

It is my conviction that the negotiations that have been conducted—I want to refer with appreciation to the initiatives taken by my colleague the Deputy Minister of Education and Development Aid in particular— have shown that positive action and a negotiating approach in fact strengthen this tendency which strives to keep the education process going, as against the negative element which wants to bring it to a standstill. As far as it is possible, we shall continue our efforts to promote that positive tendency by means of negotiation so that the figures I mentioned will hopefully return to normality and a more favourable situation in future.

At this stage, these remarks will suffice.

Mr Chairman, I request the privilege of the half-hour.

First of all, I should like to say that I am glad to hear from the hon the Minister about the improvement in attendance at the schools, and about the fact that the examinations which are taking place appear to have got off to a good start. In addition to this, I should like to associate this party with the remarks made by the hon the Minister in respect of welcoming Mr Strydom. I should like to congratulate him on his promotion to the position of Deputy Director-General. I should also like to associate this party with the hon the Minister’s remarks in respect of the hard work put in by the officials over the past year.

It certainly has been a turbulent and difficult year, as the hon the Minister mentioned. There has been considerable disruption of the education system. It has been mentioned that only 5% of schools were affected by this disruption, but as 70% of our Black schools are farm schools, that 5% includes a much higher percentage of the others. In respect of senior schools in particular, about two thirds of them were affected in one way or another. I think it is indisputable that serious problems remain. We hope to use the time available to us in this debate to discuss some of those problems.

Firstly, I want to thank the officials for being accessible and helpful during this past year. As usual, the annual report arrived in good time. It is comprehensive and contains a wealth of information.

I should also like to thank the hon the Minister and his deputy, firstly, for their willingness to discuss problems that arose from time to time; secondly for showing greater flexibility than Ministers heading the Department of Education and Training in the past; and thirdly, for not reducing debates to a personal level but for allowing us to get on with interesting, even if sometimes robust, debates on the subject without having to cast aspersions on individuals involved in those debates.

I accept that the hon the Deputy Minister and the hon the Minister are doing their best, within the constraints of Government policy and priorities, to improve Black education. In this regard I particularly welcome the hon the Minister’s repudiation of certain statements made by Dr Verwoerd in the 1950s, which he has repeated here today, and the willingness of the hon the Deputy Minister to try to keep open channels of communication wherever possible. I know he has worked long and hard at that.

However, I wish to make one thing quite clear. The hon the Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister are both members of the NP and have been so for many years. That is their personal choice. They are co-responsible for all the policies and actions of the Government and therefore I hold them as responsible as anyone else for the political, economic, social and educational crises facing South Africa.

Firstly, I would like to look at what I consider two fundamental requirements for resolving the problems in Black education. The first requirement is that there should be trust, trust between the Government and the Black communities, parents, teachers and pupils. The other requirement is a stable environment, and I wish to address that issue first.

It is most desirable that children obtain the best possible education and that this process is not continually disrupted. However, it is totally unrealistic to expect schools to function normally when the society in which they operate is in a state of upheaval. When Black people of all ages are being shot, detained, teargassed, murdered and harassed; when school-leavers are unemployed by the hundreds of thousands; and when the authority of the Government has broken down in many areas, it is hard to believe that anyone can expect that schools will be able to function in a conventional way.

In his report, Prof Van der Walt said the following:

In this regard, the behaviour of the police has often been appalling and has bedevilled the situation in many schools. The indiscriminate and savage whipping of schoolchildren in a Bonteheuwel school on Monday is a good example of the police succeeding in destroying any efforts that others may make to calm down the atmosphere in schools.

There are many other factors that complicate the education scene, but I do not plan to discuss them today. However, I wish to emphasise again that we need to bear in mind at all times that Black education will not fuction smoothly until such time as other pressing problems are also resolved.

To turn to the other essential requirement, that of trust, I wish to focus on why there is so little trust between the Government and Black communities in respect of education. In an article in the Sunday Times of 9 Feberuary this year, the hon the Deputy Minister said the following:

Order! When the hon the Leader of the House and the hon member for Lichtenburg have finished their dialogue, the hon member for Cape Town Gardens may proceed. [Interjections.] Order! The hon member for Cape Town Gardens may proceed.

I presume this interruption will be deducted from the hon member for Lichtenburg’s time, Mr Chairman.

I repeat what the hon the Deputy Minister said:

I agree with that. Let us examine those good intentions and also other comments. In a press release on 26 March 1986, for example, the hon the Minister reiterated the Government’s commitment to establishing equal education opportunities for every inhabitant in the country. In a press release on 8 April 1986 he referred to—

In the advertisement, paid for by all of us, in the Sunday Times of 2 February 1986 the State President referred to—

What could one reasonably expect from these commitments? I suggest that we can at least expect the following: Firstly, that Black education will enjoy the highest possible priority. Secondly, that credibility and trust are essential. Thirdly, that every effort will be made to achieve parity as soon as possible. I should like to look at these elements in more detail.

First and foremost is the demand for one central education department and one Minister in charge of all education. This is vital as separate departments are seen as symbolic of inferior apartheid education. Technically, there is a central department controlling certain aspects of education. I am referring to the hon the Minister of National Education’s department. However, the proliferation of racially based departments remains.

The Government argues that one single department would be an administrative monstrosity and that education would suffer as a result. The fact is that nobody has suggested that there should not be provincial or regional decentralisation; in fact, the opposite is true. The fact that White school education was decentralised did not change the fact that one Minister was responsible for White education in Parliament. Those who use the argument that it would result in an administrative monstrosity are either ignorant, dishonest or are deliberately trying to justify the unjustifiable.

Let me illustrate this point. If the education of all races was administered at provincial level—in the same way that White school education was until two months ago— the Transvaal would have the most pupils— just under 1,5 million Black, White, Coloured and Indian schoolchildren. That 1,5 million is no less manageable than the 1,8 million currently handled by the Department of Education and Training or the 2,4 million White pupils now falling under one central Government department under the hon the Minister of Education and Culture. There is no difference; the numbers would in fact be smaller.

The excuses for not having a central education department for all races have worn thin. It is a major grievance among Blacks, and the Government would do well to do something about it.

Secondly, a major problem is the shortage of suitably qualified teachers. This is not easy to overcome in the short term, but far more could be done. There is, firstly, a surplus of White teachers. I should like to ask the hon the Minister or his Deputy Minister what steps have been taken to find a way to utilise them in Black schools. That is acceptable to the teachers themselves and to the Black schools and communities as well. I would like to know what has been done in this regard and what attempts have been made to expand and call on this resource.

The second point in this regard, relating to qualified teachers is that there are places for only 5 269 students at the Department of Education and Training teacher-training colleges. There are vacant places for 2 767 students at White teacher-training colleges. Filling those places with Black students would increase the number of Black students at college by 53%. Yet, the hon the Minister has made no request for Black students to be allowed to fill those places. Does that show a commitment to equal education, or a commitment to racial ideology?

It is their stupidity!

Thirdly, there is the way in which available finances are allocated. The most recent figures available to us—we have been trying to get this year’s for more than a month—are for the year 1985-6, the financial year that has just been completed. Education expenditure over all racial groups was increased by R937 million during that year. Of that amount Whites received R527 million, or 56% and Blacks received R272 million, or only 29%. When one compares this with the total number of pupils and students one sees that there are about 1,4 million White pupils and students—that is 21%—and 4,2 million Blacks, or 63%. Obviously, Mr Chairman, I accept that this is a rough measure, mixing students and pupils, because the nature of the expenditure varies considerably, but I believe that in globular terms the end-figures would not vary much. More detailed figures are, however, just not available.

Be that as it may, Sir, it is clear that either Black education should have received about five times more than it did, or White education should have received only 20% of what it did. That would only have resulted in parity in respect of the increment—not in the system as a whole. The point is made that the reason for the disparity is the difference in the qualifications of the teachers. That, Mr Chairman, is statistically correct. Surely, however, the real question is: How are we applying our resources towards improving and equalising educational standards?

Let us assume for the purposes of the argument that only R937 million extra was available in total for the purposes of education. That means that about R590 million should have been made available for Black education, and not only R272 million. That would mean an additional R318 million. That amount of R318 million could then have been used to help make up the shortage of qualified teachers in other ways.

Let us consider only one example, Sir. Computer aids of various sorts have been shown to be highly effective in upgrading pupil performance in critical subjects such as mathematics, arithmetic and languages. They do cost a great deal of money, but R318 million would have enabled all nonfarm primary schools to have access to a computer-based educational system. The results could have been dramatic.

The shortage of teachers should be an incentive to do more to improve Black education in other ways—not an excuse for accepting lower standards. It is almost unbelievable that it has taken so long to supply free books and stationery to Black pupils. Cost has always been given as the major obstacle. Last week we learnt that the total cost would be R37 million in a full year—a miniscule amount compared with the total sum spent on education.

Schoolfeeding is another example. Last year, when it was discovered that some White schoolchildren were arriving at school hungry, panic buttons were pressed in an attempt to remedy the situation. Yet tens of thousands of Black children arrive at school hungry every day. This obviously impairs their learning capabilities and reduces the effectiveness of the teachers’ efforts. To spend money on feeding schemes makes sense in every respect—educationally, financially and socially. I would like to ask the hon the Minister to tell us whether this is being considered and what he estimates the costs would be if such a scheme were implemented.

Finally, I would like to refer to the pupil/classroom ratios. The hon the Minister was embarrassingly evasive when I questioned him in the House. However, the Standing Committee on Finance was advised that the amount per annum required to achieve parity by 1990 is R133,6 million. What is happening in this regard? Has this programme been adopted or is the R169 million voted for resettlement of people taking precedence? Good intentions and commitments to equal education will achieve very little unless they are translated into action.

Apartheid in education as in most cases caused or aggravated problems in Black schools and universities. Bringing about improvements in Black education is fine as far as it goes; but it does not go far enough.

Separate education will always be unequal, and Black education will remain inferior for as long as there is no freedom of choice. The Government should remove its apartheid blinkers and stop wasting valuable time and money that South Africa can ill afford.

The Government frequently places the demands of its racial ideology before the educational needs of Black children. Until that attitude changes, the Government has no right to claim that everything possible is being done to give Black children the best possible educational opportunities.

Mr Chairman, to start with, I should like to associate myself with the hon the Minister’s words of appreciation to the officials and congratulations to Mr Strydom on his promotion. Allow me to add at once my great appreciation for the services rendered by the hon the Minister and his deputy.

I listened for almost half an hour to the tirade of the hon member for Cape Town Gardens and I do not even intend to reply to such a negative speech because the man or woman who moves into the sphere of the education of the young with heavy and clumsy political feet, pollutes and tramples on what is and must be the best and finest part of the national economy. [Interjections.]

You must be talking about the National Party.

The politicising of the education and training of the Black youth is the greatest disaster which could ever have struck that part of the population of South Africa, because it has disastrous consequences for the education process in whatever region or country it occurs. In the USA the politicising of education has, for example, resulted in a lowering in the standards so that a large percentage of the matriculants and a significant percentage of first year students at universities cannot read properly.

This is the grave disservice the PFP is doing education for Black people through the mouth of the hon member for Cape Town Gardens who carried on a tirade for minutes on end regarding the so-called and purported injustices being done to the Black child under the present government just to get a bit of applause from the left wing radicals. By behaving in this way the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is playing right into the hands of the so-called “evil genius” behind the unrest, according to Prof Mahvati, the chairman of the National Council for Education for Blacks. This is a policy which wants to turn the child and his education and training into a political football in order to achieve something other than a sounder and improved education dispensation for the Black child.

After all it is the declared policy of the Government, as has been spelt out repeatedly by the State President and recently again by the hon the Minister of National Education with the announcement of the ten year plan, that there will be parity and equality for Whites, Blacks, Coloureds and Asians at all levels and in all spheres of the education process.

When?

The moment that hon member gets some sense!

In order to determine the magnitude of our task, the endeavour to achieve equality and the progress made in that direction, it is essential for us to form an idea of what the different spheres are in which equality is being sought. I repeat: The Government and the Department of Education and Training are striving for and working actively and energetically towards equality in all spheres of education, namely equality in training and qualifications, conditions of employment with regard to salaries, pensions, leave and medical and housing benefits.

In the second place they are striving for equality of standards as regards the contents of syllabuses, examinations, certification and so on. In the third place they are striving for equality in the quality of buildings, amenities and equipment and facilities for extramural activities.

In the fourth place they are striving as far as possible for equality in the quality of education, in spite of the dependence of this equality on the personal qualities of each individual teacher. In the fifth place they are striving for equality with regard to the pupil-teacher ratio and the pupil-classroom ratio. In the sixth they are striving for equality in the per capita expenditure on education. I shall say more about the last-mentioned sphere later.

With reference to all the other aspects and spheres of our endeavour to achieve equality I want to emphasize that a critical analysis of the various spheres will indicate that in many cases, as a matter of fact in most cases, equality has already been achieved. Just think of equality in salaries and conditions of service; in standards and the contents of syllabuses; and in building standards for classrooms and school buildings. I can also say without fear of contradiction that where equality has not yet been reached, significant progress has been made in that direction.

It is now necessary for us to give attention to the per capita expenditure of R365,11 per annum for Black pupils. This is in point of fact the lowest per capita expenditure of the four groups—White, Asian, Coloured and Black. It is this fact which has been seized on and exploited by the political vultures and the wilful and malicious agitators as the most damning evidence, according to them, of the shameful ignoring and neglecting of the education of the Black child.

That is why it is necessary for us to take another penetrating look at the position in connection with this matter, and seek out the clausal factors. In the first place, in order to get a bit of perspective, it is necessary to mention that during the past year there has been a phenomenal rise in the total and per capita expenditure in respect of Black education.

In 1980-81 the per capita expenditure was R116.76, whereas it was R365,11 in 1985-86. This is an increase of 214,7%. The total amount voted for education and training was R32,958 million in 1972-73. The estimated amount for 1985-86 is R917,486 million—almost 28 times as much as in 1972.

The most important thing to remember is that there are certain clausal factors which have an influence on the per capita expenditure on the Black pupil. This results in the amount being so much lower than is the case with the other group. I want to mention these factors.

In the first place, in determining the per capita expenditure in the case of Whites, medical and dental services are included, whereas in the case of Black pupils these services are handled by another department, namely the Department of Health Services and Welfare, and are not taken into acocunt at all.

In the second place approximately 80% of the budget of an education department is spent on salaries. In the case of Black education the qualifications of approximately 78% of the teachers are lower than those of teachers in White education, with a resultant lower expenditure. As the qualifications of the Black teachers improve, the salaries will improve and the per capita expenditure will then have to rise.

In the third place, in the determining of the per capita expenditure the department’s contributions with regard to medical schemes, pension funds, housing subsidies, etc, are included. Although the same conditions of service apply with regard to these matters, a relatively small percentage of Black teachers are making us of housing subsidies at this stage. The lower salaries of unqualified and underqualified teachers also reduce the amount which is contributed to the pension fund. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I should like to associate myself with other hon speakers who have congratulated Mr Strydom on his appointment, and wish him everything of the best, and this goes for all the officials and teachers of the department.

The hon the Minister tried to pass off the state of the revolutionary climate and the actions in the schools falling under his department as being limited to a few schools only. On the other hand he indicated that he was taking very strong action against these revolutionary acts. I think that the hon the Minister revealed that he did not know exactly what was going on in the schools in his department, when he said that this was limited to a few schools only.

I want to quote an extract from the Weekly Mail of 18 to 24 April 1986—this was one of the demands put to the hon the Minister, to which he acceded:

It goes on to say:

The hon the Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister were absolutely delighted when the National Education Crisis Committee decided over the Easter weekend that the children should go back to school. The fact of the matter is that it was not decided that the children should go back to school to receive an education, but that it was decided that they should go back to be educated for the revolution.

The hon the Deputy Minister said that these were reasonable and moderate decisions, but they were decisions which amounted to the fact that they had to go and support the workers in the revolution. People who reported and attended that conference, like Rev M Tsele of Soweto Parents Crisis Committee said:

It is because it is easier to organise revolution from within the schools that they decided to go back to school. They decided that they could not dare to undertake a revolution with school children only, but with workers too, and that the school children should only play a supporting role. The hon the Minister and his Deputy Minister are absolutely delighted about this.

In the Weekly Mail of 27 March an article appeared under the caption: “The teachers in fear of their pupils”. The article reads as follows:

Then they are paraded and intimidated. It is also stated in this article that a teacher had the experience that when he had to mark an examination book the words “Fail me and you get the treatment” were written at the top of the page. We all know what the “treatment” is.

I maintain that the situation is far worse than the hon the Minister tried to indicate to us here. What is more, the hon the Minister takes the trouble to issue statements to indicate how he has complied with all the requirements set, and that he has yielded to all the demands made of him. But social scientists like Ball-Rokeach in 1980, Blumenthal in 1975, Gamson in 1975 and Rhoodie in 1983, have indicated that if violence bears fruit, it elicits further violence. As a matter of fact it develops its own dynamics as a result of the success it achieves.

One of the most important ways in which violence can be kept down to a minimum and in which the cycle of violence can even be broken, is not to reward violence with reforms and concessions, but at least not to create the impression that violence pays. These scientists say that it would be wise not to carry on with any reform initiatives during times of violence.

The Government is now making concessions with regard to all the demands put to it, and in this way the Government and this hon Minister in particular are playing into the hands of the revolutionaries. The big question today is: Is the hon the Minister doing this consciously or unconsciously, or does he no longer have any choice? Is he simply the victim of circumstances?

Today the hon the Minister again gave proof, as he in fact did last week elsewhere, that he sided with the revolutionaries who said that Dr Verwoerd wanted to give the Blacks inferior education. But this is not true. Dr Verwoerd was in fact the man who established Black universities. [Interjections.] Was his motive then not to produce educated people and white collar workers in the ranks of the Blacks? With this kind of behaviour the hon the Minister is strengthening the hand of the revolutionaries, because he no longer sees his way clear to step into the breach for what is right and true.

The Government is leaving everyone except the revolutionaries in the lurch. The teachers are being abandoned to their fates. I want to know from the hon the Minister, when that parading of teachers took place in Alexandra, where did the hon the Minister take action, as he said he in fact did? What did he do? Which teachers who were humiliated in this way did he protect?

The schools are hotbeds in which the revolution is being organised. Education in the Black states is being undermined by all these concessions and riots and revolutionary actions which are openly being allowed in South Africa. This has an influence on the Black states. This makes the children there think that they must also burn down buildings and run amok and humiliate teachers to get something. They think that the more they bum down buildings and the more they humiliate the teachers the more the Government gives in to their demands. That is why I say that the Government is leaving everyone except the revolutionaries in the lurch. They are not leaving the hon the Minister in the lurch. According to the manual the hon the Minister is playing right into their hands.

The question now is what must be done to fight this situation. The first thing is that the Government must realise that in this revolutionary climate in which we now find ourselves, a strong Government will stand up and say that it will cease all reform and all similar things and first restore law and order. Only when law and order have been restored must the Government talk further and look at prosperity and development.

I want to tell the hon the Minister that he should summarily close down all the affected schools—those schools where revolution is being organised—because in reality he is now financing the revolution if he keeps those schools open. [Interjections.] He is financing the revolution because that is the place from which the revolution is being organised. I want to tell the hon the Minister that he must come out clearly against the revolutionaries and on the side of the moderates.

Where is there a visible sign today in this entire episode since 1984 of the Government coming out clearly on the side of those persons who want to go to school? Nowhere! The revolutionaries carry on, and the Government does not take action against them. It does not side with the moderates and those persons who want to go to school and improve their careers and futures.

That is why I want to say: Close down those schools! He can even go further; then they will respect him too. If he closes those schools, he can take that money and transfer it to the Black states, where the children are going to school and where the money will be utilised better. He must transfer that money and the teachers, so that the children can get healthy education and not, as is happening in the schools here, be involved in revolution.

If the Government starts acting like this, it will demonstrate clearly to the revolutionaries in South Africa as well as those outside South Africa who are behind them and who are working out these plans for them, that this is a Government and these are people who are able to deal with a revolution, who have respect for education and sound training and who are not prepared to yield to pressure from outside or from inside the country.

Mr Chairman, today the hon member for Lichtenburg made me think that I was really extremely glad that he had left our side of the Committee. [Interjections.] After all, he used to be the Minister of Education and Training on our side. He and his leader were here with us. [Interjections.] Can hon members imagine what it would have been like today if he had still been here and had been the Minister? [Interjections.] Can the hon members imagine in what state our country would have been?

The hon member’s leader was also Minister of Education and Training at one stage, and a short while later Soweto was burning. What would have happened if they had still been sitting here today? I think that the hon member really made an irresponsible speech here today, and I think that the hon the Minister will deal with him presently. [Interjections.] But I want to discuss a more positive matter.

It is a fact that education is of the utmost importance to the population of any country. All pupils receive an education with the objective of training them to be good citizens, of enabling them to make a productive contribution to economic life, and of enabling them to be incorporated into an orderly society of civilised citizens as well-adjusted and well-formed people and to fit in with the requirements of professional life. That is actually what education is concerned with.

The South African system of the provision of education has always been aimed mainly at preparing students for university. Considering the large number of pupils who leave school before they pass standard 10, the question is whether the present system of education still meets the needs of today. If the pupil wants to leave school before he passes matric he has no idea what his aptitudes are.

In the past a number of authoritative investigations were undertaken and statements were made which had far-reaching implications for the provision of education. I want to refer to them briefly. In the first place there was the HSRC report on the provision of education. In the second place there was the investigations by the President’s Council into demographic trends in the RSA and into formal and informal education. In the third place there was the White Paper on the Provision of Education which was released by the Government.

In view of the shortcomings in the present system it was decided to develop and test a new model called career education. This model must meet certain requirements and I should like to spell out a few of them very briefly.

In the first place it must be possible to apply the model to all careers, for example commerce, administration, the paramedical professions, agriculture, home industries and so on. In the second place it must meet the needs of the community. In the third place it must meet the requirements of the pupils. In the fourth place it must meet the needs and requirements of the employers. In the fifth place it must afford every pupil the opportunity to develop to his full potential, and it must make provision for branching off rather than for dropping out.

At present a system in which the ratio of academic education to career education is 70:30, is considered balanced. In the foreseeable future technical education will become the most important component of career education. At present it is accepted that 70% of all career education will be technical education. The manpower shortage will be worst in the technical sphere. Measured against the ratio of 70:30 with regard to academic to technical education, the present ration of more than 99% to less than 1% is very wide of the mark. In the past the poor achievers and drop-outs were summarily channelled into technical education, without regard being given to personal interest and ability.

The career-orientated model is divided into different phases. The first phase is the formative phase. This includes all pupils from Sub A to Standard 4. The technical forming of this phase takes place by means of a subject, namely efficiency in Techniques. I repeat that all pupils are involved in this formative phase. Consequently we start with a figure of 100%.

The second phase is the transitional phase. This is aimed more at the Standard 5 pupils. In this phase all pupils are taught basic skills such as care and handling of tools, for example gauge saws and files. They are familiarised with all the tools they will need.

The third phase is the reconnaissance phase in which the junior secondary standards, Standard 6 and Standard 7 are involved. The objective of this phase is in the first place to afford all the pupils an opportunity to determine their interests and abilities in the respective careers, and in the second place to enable the department to offer pupils study guidance, based on their achievements. The pupils also have certain obligations.

They can then choose what specific technical direction they want to take. There are various technical directions from which they can choose. They can, for example, choose to qualify themselves in the motor-related direction as motor or diesel mechanics or as panel beaters. Other possible professions for which they can begin to qualify themselves are metallurgical, electronic or electro-technical engineering. They can consider cabinet-making, wood-carving and various other directions.

The final phase is the specialisation phase in the senior secondary school in Standard 9 and Standard 10. In this phase the pupil now has the opportunity on the basis of his achievements and abilities, to receive specialised training in a specific technical direction. This will serve as the first step on the road to a full-fledged profession.

Pilot projects will be launched at 75 schools in five regions on the level of Sub A to Standard 5. The department intends to test two levels in practice every year by means of progressive pilot projects until by 1992 the entire spectrum from Sub A up to Standard 10 will have been checked out experimentally.

I foresee a wonderful future with the introduction of this new phase in our education. Otherwise the child leaves school without any idea of what he is capable. The department has taken a big step into the future by designing a system of career education. I believe that other education departments will have to give thorough consideration to this in order possibly to do so in future too, because we cannot simply continue to train children up to matric in academic directions. We shall have to see whether we cannot train a larger percentage of pupils in technical directions.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Winburg had a good point about the importance of technical education and we agree with him on that count. I too would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of his party, to congratulate Mr Strydom on his promotion.

May I start by saying that I believe that the hon the Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister have in fact restored pride in a department which found itself in very difficult circumstances and which was under considerable stress and attack. Those circumstances continue, and I believe their approach and their very clear sensitivity to the matters which the department has to handle and their responses to crisis will further contribute to the restoration of pride in and improvement of the image of a department which has experienced a very difficult past.

I think we have, here as in the Department of Manpower, probably a department whose officials are rapidly coming to the fore as regards being expert negotiators and people who are prepared to sit down and listen and get right down to the crux and the real feeling of what is going on in the minds of many South Africans. That is absolutely critical in formulating policies and in making sure that we adopt the right approach.

In this regard I would like to refer to the Van der Walt report. In doing so, I cite this as being probably one of the most fearless, sensitive and honest documents in respect of this entire problem that the department has to cope with.

I hope that every member of the hon the Minister’s department has to read this as a prescribed work. I hope equally that every hon member in this House has read this although I very much doubt it. I would like to go even further in suggesting that in schools too this should be read to give students some insight into the attitudes, the real problems that we are faced with and the important possibility of the responses by people being part of the solution. Unless one reads this, whilst one may have certain natural views about matters, one will be unlikely to be able to respond on a person to person basis with young Black people about their educational problems.

I doubt in fact whether even the department, with all its insight into these problems, will have analysed this report sufficiently to be able to counter every situation which develops out of the responses received here. That concerns me, because it is that degree of response which I believe is necessary in order to bring about that peace in the education field which is so necessary for us to be able to progress at all. In this regard I must say that I find the hon member for Lichtenburg’s approach to the problem a total nonsolution. As a result of it violence would be exacerbated to such an extent that we would have no hope of solving it whatsoever.

General Smuts used to do it that way.

That was a long time ago, my friend. I very much doubt whether that opportunity exists today, even if that were an option.

The circumstances are basically the same.

The list of accomplishments by the department are put very briefly in the latest issue—April 1986—of Focus on Education. The objectives are listed in a “Did you know?” fashion, and I think the idea is a very good one because the reader is shown some very readable statistics which show a tremendous input and which encompass the whole field of matters with which the department has to cope.

I would say that this department is burdened with two limitations: The one is financial and the other is obviously a matter of constitutional or ideological approach. As far as the financial position is concerned, I must agree with the hon member for Cape Town Gardens where he says that, if we are really concerned about attending to this matter with urgency, we have to maximise our resources. After all, we do not have inexhaustable resources available to us. Moreover, there is no doubt that we are duplicating and overlapping in fields of education at great expense.

I personally believe that the hon members on that side of the Committee know very well that the multiplicity of education departments that exists in this country today cannot continue. I believe those hon members know it, and I therefore suggest a planned move away from that. In fact, the Government could make an announcement to that effect in exactly the same way as the hon the Minister did when he very clearly denied that the Verwoerdian approach to education was still being applied in this country, as was contended by certain Black students. The hon the Minister’s statement in which he rejected the Verwoerdian approach was therefore a very important one to make. I am afraid, however, that I do not agree with the timing of his statement concerning the appointment of a Black educationist to make the top decisions—whatever post this educationist was going to occupy— because the hon the Minister “dropped” this appointment, as it were, into a terribly difficult political situation, causing the impact of it to be lost.

I believe that when we look clearly at the maximisation of our financial resources, it will be quite obvious to us that we are going to have to rationalise the departments concerned. In that respect I suggest that this hon Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister take over the Department of National Education leaving the other two “verkrampte” hon Ministers responsible for education—the hon the Minister of National Education and the hon the Minister of Education and Culture—to find other fields. [Interjections.] The fact that one has an own affairs system of education or a community-based system of education does not mean that one has to prop up these systems with a ministerial edifice. [Interjections.] I believe that if tertiary education—university training, teacher training and so on and even private schooling—is reclassified as a general affair, then community affairs, worked on a local option basis, could all reside under one department of education. That would save an enormous amount of money—money that is desperately needed for other purposes!

Mr Chairman, the hon member for King William’s Town must pardon me if my speech does not follow along the same lines as his. However, I do wish to congratulate him on a well prepared speech. Although I do not agree with all the points he made, I think he put his points across very forcefully.

It is ironic that there should be people at work in certain Black townships trying their utmost to revolutionise society by means of an armed struggle, whilst others are succeeding—although without being much noticed— in revolutionising society through changes in education, peaceful changes in education that can only benefit society. Comenius has said that “general corruption of the world begins at its very roots; so the general rehabilitation of the world, however, has to begin here too.”

A very well-known educationist once said that a little child came to us ready for the best or the worst, according to the conditions which were created and the influences of his environment. He added that the future of that little child was in our hands— not only his future, but indeed the future of the world, for the humanity of tomorrow was preparing itself in infancy. Today, he said, there was no more urgent task than this preparation through children by a society more ready to live together in peace.

Mr Chairman, some societies are in turmoil. They are tom by violence so ruthless that it resembles barbarism as was last seen during the latter half of the Second World War. It seems as though all evil forces have united against civilisation in South Africa.

The Anglican mission opened its first nursery school for Black children at Ekutuleni, in the old Sophiatown, in 1936. A Miss Chaplin, who had been trained at the Rachel McMillan Training College in Deptford, London, was the first principal of that nursery school, which eventually became a training college. How strange, Mr Chairman, that the Archbishop of that church today also propagates violence as a means to an end, and openly associates with the revolutionaries who use the church as a means to bring about revolutionary change. I wonder what Miss Chaplin would have said about the departure by the Anglican Church from the message of peace and goodwill in which she believed so strongly.

In February 1948 the Instituut vir Christelike Nasionale Onderwys published a manifesto on education under the auspices of the Federaste van Afrikaanse Kultuurverenigings, from which I wish to quote the following:

*Mr Chairman, the objective set for education in this manifesto is essentially the policy Black education has been striving for for many years.

There is an increasing tendency among mothers of young children to go and work because of economic pressure, and this results in an increased occurrence of environmental retardation in children. School preparedness is a prerequisite for a successful school career. The high failure and drop-out rate in the Black population entails unnecessary expenses, and to the individual it means a loss of dignity, human dignity and opportunity. Pre-school education can also assist in the quicker identification and learning problems, and in the same way exceptional giftedness can be channelled in time.

Pre-school or pre-primary education also makes it easy for the child to adapt to the formal education of the primary school. Research has shown that the present formal educational structure does not meet the demand for education in all respects. Children who go to school when they are not ready to do so are not assisted in bridging the gap as one would wish. It is difficult to accommodate failures within the present formal educational structure. This structure has the potential of being blocked.

Mr Chairman, to remove the defects I have mentioned from the present educational structure, the HSRC’s education task group recommended that education be presented in three consecutive phases—a prebasic, basic and post-basic phase. The pre-basic phase must be aimed at school-preparedness. The basic phase is aimed primarily at basic literacy and establishing literacy, while the post-basic phase must be aimed at differentiated educational requirements. This three-phase provision of education forms the fundamental framework upon which the recommendations in respect of the educational structure have been built. The education task group also recommended that if a priority investment is to be made in education, it should be in the basic and pre-basic phases.

Pre-basic education begins at birth and ends when the child enters basic education at approximately 6 or 7 years of age. Pre-basic education can be separated into education in creches between birth and the age of 3 and education in nursery schools between the ages of 3 and 6. There is formal tuition and learning in both cases.

It is wrong to want to differentiate fundamentally between the two stages. Research also shows that there is a need for pre-basic education, that a bridging period of one or two years is essential and that it is justifiable to make a calculated investment in it and in this way to restrict the losses in the rest of the educational phases.

The purpose of the bridging period is to prepare as many children as possible for school before formal education is begun. This means that a child develops from a play-and-leam attitude to a scholastically orientated work attitude, and the recommendation is that the bridging period last from one to two years and that the children be accommodated in the primary school.

Children who turn five during the first half of the year can be admitted to the bridging period on a voluntary basis. Children who turn six during the first half of the year are compelled to enter the bridging period, and if the child is ready for school, his basic education starts. Children who go to school at the age of seven are admitted to the basic education programme and therefore begin with formal education.

The Government has accepted the principle that horizontal flow possibilities and interaction between formal and non-formal education and vocational practice will exist. A task group consisting of department officials and expert representatives from outside bodies met on 30 July 1985 to enquire into the bridging period in pre-primary education. This task group will enquire into the educational aspects such as curriculation, teachers’ training, financial aspects, control and administration, equipment, as well as demographic matters. The task group’s target date for dealing with the final reports was 2 May this year and they plan to have the report about the enquiry ready by the end of August next year.

At the end of October 1985, there were 112 registered pre-primary schools, and pre-primary classes had been registered at 126 primary schools. At the end of March, 13 468 children and 516 teachers were involved in the pre-primary education phase at the schools controlled by the department.

I want to thank the hon the Minister, the hon the Deputy Minister and all the officials and private bodies who are involved in the research project in connection with the bridging year, for the lead they have taken in this respect, and I want to express the hope that this exciting reform in education will be accomplished soon.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Maraisburg will forgive me if I do not follow directly on his theme of the pre-primary school.

†In politics, they say, as in teaching, it is psychologically wise to praise first before criticising rather than the reverse. I therefore give credit to the hon the Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister for their handling of the many problems in Black education. To this must be added praise to many officials and teachers—from the Director-General down to the poorest paid temporary teacher. Particularly at the teacher and principal level many persons have given far beyond what is required of teachers in any other department.

I would like to quote an example of an in-vigoratingly different and more sensible approach by this department that happened 10 years ago in 1976 when the Deputy Minister of Black Education, the hon member for Waterberg, led the campaign in Soweto. A more sensible approach is the following which I quote from a press release of the Deputy Director-General, Mr Jaap Strydom, and the Lamontville Education Crisis Committee of Friday, 18 April 1986:

Thirdly the statement reads:

That is the way to go about things and that is the way to handle these matters.

I do not intend here to go into the disastrous situation which existed in Lamontville before that meeting. I have discussed it with the hon the Deputy Minister and he has the information, and I know that he will ensure that some managerial experience is generated from this case. It is a perfect case study of how to handle a situation. Suffice I think to say that to refuse to listen and to call in the police and have them shoot an 11-year-old child without talking first, is absolutely crazy.

My main topic today is quality education. We are well aware of the significant debate which is taking place on quality versus quantity in Black education. I want to suggest that it should not be quality versus quantity but that there should be quality together with quantity. Today there are over 6 million Black pupils under this department and its associated departments. These 6 million Black pupils number more than the entire White population.

You frighten me!

You are frightened already—I know that! Yet in 1984 only 49% of Standard 10 candidates passed and only 11% received Matriculation exemption.

Let me put it another way. Between 1980 and 1984 of 335 000 Black matric candidates 170 000 failed to leave without any certificate and only 37 000 gained Matriculation exemption. Then we still wonder who the street fighters are and who leave to be trained outside this country!

In 1985 these results were proved once again. Of 71 000 candidates 49% passed and just under 9 000 obtained exemption, therefore 35 000 cadidates were out on the streets in January 1986 with no certificate after 12 years at school. Even at the prestigious Pace College in Soweto—it has received millions of rand from overseas—the results are shocking. What are the answers and, more particularly, what is the problem? I want to say there is no single simple solution. Perhaps the hon the Minister or the hon the Deputy Minister thought we would say that there is, but we do not.

One cannot abandon mass schooling. I came across an interesting statistic the other day that the average age of the Black population of South Africa is 17 years. That means that far more than 50% of the population is or should be at school. One cannot abandon mass schooling but one has to improve on a situation where, out of every 100 pupils entering Sub A only one can eventually move on to university because he has Matriculation exemption. That has been the figure so far.

The department has many task groups looking at various matters. I want to suggest that quality education should be one of them. Here are some possibilities they could look at. Firstly, I think the department should check by way of experts in statistics the ogive curve that is being applied to the results. It is usually done in a 5-year process. One looks at a 5-year cycle and one applies the curve. What one is doing is to carry the bad results of past years into the present cycle. That should be looked at.

Secondly, far more attention should be given to school libraries with the provision of associated study areas which could be used over weekends and for several hours every night. Thirdly, some radical infusion of graduate teachers at the senior secondary level should be considered. I suggest that this be provided for over a 5-year period with special financing. If one is looking for those teachers, they are out there. They are either unemployed or they could be drawn from other education systems by an attractive salary package. In White education we are turning people away who would like to become teachers. Let us use them. The numbers need not be incredibly large but it should be ensured that quality and trained staff can move in immediately at the senior secondary level.

Thirdly and most importantly, one should look very carefully at what is being taught in schools. I think this applies across the board to all departments. In this regard many scathing remarks have been made in this House regarding what is known as “people’s education.” This can be translated as “volksonderwys.” This was the language of the NP in the 1920’s and 1930’s when they opposed the imperialist schooling that was going on at that time. [Interjections.] Whilst there are elements in so-called “people’s education” which one might reject unreservedly, there is much that requires analysis. One major thing it is teaching is that South Africa, or whatever we are going to call this country in the future, is the children’s country. It is going to be theirs.

Alternative education is, therefore, vital. To sit here believing that a Black pupil can be taught about the French or Russian Revolution and not become imbued with a sense of freedom is to blow in the wind. We can forget it.

You are not talking about the Russian Revolution, are you?

I believe political education should not be ignored in any of our schools. If ever there was a time when all our senior pupils needed to have their horizons broadened in this area, it is now. I am not proposing propaganda or party political posturing, but a reasoned, intelligent and educational programme, curriculum or syllabus designed to expose all pupils—Black, White and Brown—to concepts such as democracy, justice, fascism, socialism, communism, capitalism, liberalism, tyranny, dictatorship and freedom. Many countries have such programmes and we should also introduce them so that all our children can learn, debate and discuss these concepts.

I believe that the responsibility for this does not lie only with the State but also with the media. Before Jimmy Kruger killed it in 1977, The World published a weekly supplement called the People’s College. No major dailies carry substantial educational supplements today, and they need to do something about this.

I would like to address the hon the Minister directly. Let us squash firmly any belief that we in these benches have ever said that a single ministry or open schools would solve all our problems. We do not believe they would. We need more schools, teachers, work and money, but we also need a willingness to agree that the world the children of today will know as adults will be different.

There are certain aspects of Black rural education which concern me. I wonder if the hon the Deputy Minister, who is the next speaker, could address the subject of hostels and bussing for Blacks in rural areas. I would also like him to say something about the backlog of pupils who should be at school.

I would like to end by recommending the recently published book Two Dogs and Freedom, in which the children of the townships speak out. It is a series of essays drawn from pupils in the townships about their experiences in 1985 and 1986. It is filled with pictures of troops, Casspirs, “necklaces” and burnings. I would like to close by reading the last essay in the book, one written by an eight year old child who will be 22 in the year 2000. It expresses the hope that I think we too should be imbued with. The childish scrawl is reproduced in the book:

Mr Chairman, I would like to congratulate the hon member for Pinetown on his very realistic speech. I think he at least tried to address the realities of the world in which we live. I cannot say the same of all of the other hon members who have participated in this debate so far.

Let them have it, Sam.

I want to thank him for his remarks on the necessity for communication. It is quite clear to me that this hon member is well informed on what is going on in our Black areas.

He also made certain remarks concerning the quality of education. I agree with him on most of the aspects which he addressed. I think he made some interesting suggestions which we will examine in the course of time. I agree with him that the reality is that there are no simple solutions to our problems.

He also referrred to the employment of White teachers in our department. I can only say that up to now we have already employed more than 2 000 White teachers, and when we receive a request from our Black communities we are always willing to use all the knowledge we can acquire to improve our children’s education.

The hon member also referred to the matter of the investigation of our rural schools, and in this regard I can say that we are at the moment launching a comprehensive investigation into the provision of education for children in the rural areas. This task group started their work on 15 April 1985, and the matters to which the hon member referred will also be addressed by this committee. We hope to receive a final report from this committee by the second half of this year. It must be accepted that it is our aim to improve rural education radically, but it must also be accepted that this is a problem which cannot be solved overnight.

*I should like to join the hon the Minister in congratulating our new Deputy Director-General, Mr Jaap Strydom. I should just like to add that our other Deputy Director-General, Dr Dirk Meiring, is in a manner of speaking also new to his post. I should like to congratulate these two gentlemen very sincerely on their appointment. We receive only the very best co-operation from these two gentlemen, and we have the greatest appreciation for their knowledge which we can utilise for this cause in which we believe.

I should also like to convey my thanks to the hon member for Cape Town Gardens for the positive remarks which he did make.

†We appreciate his remark in regard to open communication channels.

The hon member for King William’s Town was also kind enough to refer to the restoration of pride in our department, and we are grateful for his remarks.

*The success achieved with Black education will, we believe, be one of the determining factors in the future development of our country and all its inhabitants. I think it is also in this spirit and with this attitude that our department is approaching this task.

The provision of education for Black people in South Africa is a dynamic and ongoing process which requires regular adjustments and revisions and which is characterised by evolutionary growth and vitality, in spite of almost overwhelming challenges.

While I was listening to the hon member for Lichtenburg this afternoon, who was also Minister of this Department once, I thought that the fact that the hon member had lost contact so completely with the realities of this country illustrated in fact that the circumstances could change to such an extent in five years’ time that the hon member no longer had any conception of what Black education today was all about. [Interjections.]

In the present climate of political reform—we saw this here this afternoon—education is unfortunately being dragged into the political arena to an increasing extent. There is a calculated attempt to turn education and the pupil into a political football and to use them as a lever for the attainment of selfish political objectives.

So for example we were reproached with the speech which Dr Verwoerd made 23 years ago, and our intentions were constantly being questioned. The hon the Minister referred to that again this afternoon. Nevertheless it is also true that the Government, through the State President, has committed itself unequivocally to the provision of the best available education to all the inhabitants of South Africa.

That is why it is unfair to keep on casting the shadow of doubt over the sincere intentions of the Government. The suspicion-mongers one finds far to the left of us, but as hon members also heard today, they are also far to the right of us. I should like to tell the suspicion-mongers, for whom education has become a political arena, that they are gambling with the future of our children.

Hon members heard the hon member for Cape Town Gardens saying that the acceptance of the good intentions of our department in the attainment of our objective was of the utmost importance. He went on, however, to label all the positive actions of this department as “too little, too late”.

If one listened to the solutions to the problem put forward by the hon member for Lichtenburg, it was clear that that hon member and his party still believed that the Whites alone could decide the future of the people of this country. That is why he is living in a forgotten era. I should like to convey to him the advice of the hon member for King William’s Town, which was that he should read the Van Der Walt report so that he could perhaps get some idea of what is happening among the Blacks.

Apparently it is the point of departure of the hon members of the CP that the Blacks should be kept in their place and that the Whites should simply make decisions for them.

The hon member for Lichtenburg said that we should come out on the side of reasonable people for a change. In the matters we have dealt with we did in fact come out on the side of the reasonable people. But the hon member should simply acquaint himself with what is happening among the Blacks. [Interjections.] We on this side of the Committee believe that the legitimate and reasonable political aspirations of the Black people will not be satisfied through the barrel of a gun, nor by trying to put them in their place by violent means because the Whites have so decided. We believe that legitimate political aspirations should be addressed by means of negotiation. Every community has the right to participate in political decision-making that affects its interests and the future.

We must also admit that politics cannot entirely be separated from education, and that progress in the sphere of political reform is directly related to stable progress in regard to education reform and development. On the other hand it is also true that stable and continued progress in the sphere of education can only take place in an atmosphere of orderliness, stability and peace. That is why it is imperative to make progress so that the challenges and the magnitude of the task will be understood.

If one listened to the hon member for Cape Town Gardens one would have sworn that these problems could be solved overnight. All one had to do was to give the Black people more money, and the problem would be solved overnight. I think there must be appreciation for what has been achieved and what can be achieved in respect of improving the quality of education and, as I have said, the acceptance of the sincere intentions with which this task is being approached.

Unlike the hon member for Lichtenburg, I believe that understanding and appreciation depend on sound relations and positive attitudes among all parties directly or indirectly involved in education, and that these are important prerequisites for effective, successful education.

Against this background the basic premise is that there must be sound communication. As in all spheres of life, we believe in the saying “unknown, unloved”, and precisely for that reason there must be effective communication. Not only must the honesty of the attempts that had been made over the years to improve the standard of education and to normalise education be communicated, but there is also a need to listen with understanding and compassion to the needs, perceptions and aspirations of the Blacks in respect of their own education. We must try to adhere faithfully to this course. I accept that the hon members in the CP and we have chosen to embark on different courses. I should like to try to demonstrate with a few examples that we are trying to adhere to this course.

†Recognising the need for effective open channels of communication, the Department announced comprehensive communication structures as early as 1984. This was an honest effort to create opportunities for teachers, parents and especially pupils to communicate their needs and problems to the authorities and to arrive at acceptable solutions. The Council for Education and Training played a very important role in devising the communication structures. The council itself is also a vital link in the chain of communication.

Two other unique developments were the establishment of liaison committees at secondary schools and the introducation of student representative councils. The introduction of these communication structures has not been without hitch, but through a process of consultation, deliberation and communication it has been possible to make considerable progress. Open channels of communication, a firm commitment to listening to and appreciating the complexities of the education situation have brought about an insight into the problems of our people. For so many people it is so easy to fall into the trap of blaming everything on apartheid and an insensitive and intransigent department. Moreover, they then usually offer shatteringly simplistic solutions.

Let us consider the SRCs, which is a case in point. The department’s sincere intentions to create a forum for pupil representation and communication were made suspect and there were several attempts to hijack this forum for fostering foreign political ideologies and for disrupting education. However, through a lengthy process of negotiation and deliberation with the organised teaching profession, the Council for Education and Training, statutory parent bodies as well as non-statutory organisations such as the Soweto Parents Crisis Committee, various points of view could be accommodated and mutually acceptable solutions could be found.

The three most important guidelines were also laid down for the establishment of student representative councils at individual schools, as follows. Firstly, the student representative councils must be democratically elected, ie by secret ballot. Furthermore, the student representative council will not be allowed to exercise control over the school or to take over the functions of the principal, staff, parent organisations and controlling bodies. Thirdly, student representative councils will be expected to limit their interests and actions to educational matters.

Today there are 218 SRCs functioning at secondary schools countrywide.

*If we were to find that these student representative councils do not adhere to these provisions, we shall terminate their activities. After all, the hon the Minister made it very clear from the start that there are certain rules in terms of which we function, and if what the hon member for Lichtenburg said is true and certain revolutionary elements appear in the classrooms, we shall take action. [Interjections.]

Those hon members usually come here with a load of gossip. [Interjections.] Why have those hon members not yet come forward with one example of such cases. Not one of those hon members has ever come to me and told me that revolutionary education is taking place in a certain school. [Interjections.] Why have they not done that? If they are in earnest about this matter surely one can expect them to do this, but they have not done so. They come here and gossip, as I said a moment ago, because they want to turn education into a political football.

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

No, the hon member made his speech; he must now give me a chance to complete mine. [Interjections.]

Order!

May I proceed, and mention a few examples to those hon members, because I should also like them to learn something about what is happening in the Black world. Evidently they have no idea what is happening there!

You must come and see what is happening in the White world!

I want to mention a few examples of our actions to promote communication and negotiation so that we can solve the problems we encounter on our way, so that we can keep education going, as the hon the Minister said.

During 1985 activities at the Cape College of Education at Fort Beaufort were seriously disrupted as a result of intimidation and political interference. After talks had been held with parents and students on several occasions and after boycotting students had been afforded three opportunities to resume their studies, a group was expelled in the interests of those students who wanted to continue with their studies. Consequently we did take action. After further disruption, however, all classes were cancelled for the rest of the year.

After comprehensive discussions and negotiations with parents, students and lecturers, inter alia on a cold Saturday morning in Grahamstown, and after a committee had held individual talks at various points in the Cape and in the Eastern Cape with students, it was possible to succeed in reopening the college. If these hon members were to adhere to their standpoint, they would have been the people who would simply have suspended everything.

Special arrangements were made to enable students who reregistered to make up lost time and to retain their bursaries. These efforts led to 212 of the 257 students who reregistered passing, and to 27 students having to rewrite examinations in a few subjects. In this way a grave potential loss was changed into a success story from which students, parents, the department and the country could benefit.

I believe that this was a victory for dialogue. I should like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to our officials, the lecturers at that college and our parents, who sacrificed days of their time to make this success story possible.

Numerous other requests and even demands in regard to a diversity of subjects were made on the department during 1955 and the first half of 1986. Some of these demands were exorbitant and had little or nothing to do with education. Naturally we did not make it our task to deal with them. On the other hand we constantly complied with our commitment to keep our channels of communication open and to address all reasonable demands and requests in the best interests of the pupils, students and the parents in the Black communities.

Requests in regard to examinations is a very good example of the requests we received. If one did not know what was happening it could have appeared as though concessions were being made. The fact of the matter is, however, that the requests in regard to examinations came from the pupils who had been prevented from writing examinations through intimidation. Should one simply leave such pupils to their own devices? Should one tell them that one is not interested in whether they are being intimidated or not, or does one sit down and listen to them, and try to help? Such pupils told us they were not being allowed to write examinations in November and asked us whether we were not able to help them.

That examination was in fact presented in November, and 71 000 of our students wrote examinations. It is a success story, but no one mentioned it! Of the 91 000 registered pupils, 71 000 wrote exams. But the hon members for Cape Town Gardens and Lichtenburg only criticise us!

We sat down and spoke to the interested parties. After we had negotiated for hours with these people, we decided that we would afford those pupils an opportunity to write their examinations in May this year. This afternoon the hon the Minister told hon members that so far the examinations were proceeding very well.

We also made arrangements for their examination fees to be transferred. However, this is surely not a concession in regard to principles! Pupils who had paid their fees but who were deprived of an opportunity to write an examination as a result of intimindation, had their fees carried over to May because they had already paid their fees. I should also like to add now that the pupils who fail in May will be offered an opportunity to reregister so that they can write examinations again at the end of the year.

It is true of course that these steps involve inconvenience, and require careful planning and understanding. Close liaison with other bodies must also be maintained in this connection, bodies such as the Joint Matriculation Board and the Department of Education and Culture. We should like to express our appreciation to all these authoritative bodies that were prepared to help in order to help other people who were in trouble.

We believe the creation of such opportunities are of the utmost importance to the future and the career of each pupil, but equally, unlike the hon members here today it seems, we believe that this to be of the utmost importance for preserving order and stability for all the communities in our country and for the cultivation of sound and positive relations.

It is also against this background that the Government proceeded to create equal education opportunities and equal standards, by means of which we addressed the long-felt need of the Black communities in respect of the textbooks, stationery and prescribed books. I think that demand was justified.

By means of ongoing talks with statutory bodies and other parent organisations satisfactory answers were also given in regard to other matters, such as corporal punishment, age limits, school fund contributions, repairs to damaged buildings and relations between teachers and pupils.

At the beginning of the year requests were also made for the schools to open only on 28th January. From talks it very soon became apparent, however, that many parents preferred the schools to open normally on 8th January. After further consultations it was decided that we would take these facts into consideration. The schools opened on 8th January and the subsequent events indicated that this was a good decision, because more than 7 000 of our schools did in fact begin on 8th January and 350 schools began on 28th January.

The fact of the matter is that the schools continued to function, and the fact of the matter is that we were able to continue to offer our children effective education.

During the course of the year we also received representations as a result of the lack of secondary school facilities in our rural communities. Since 1985, as an interim measure, we had begun to add standard 6 classes as well as standard 7 classes to more than 116 schools in the rural areas. As I have just said, the needs we are experiencing in our rural areas are at present being addressed by a working group which will complete a report on this matter soon.

In respect of the subsidisation of private schools, too, certain announcements were made last week by the hon the Minister. In respect of the subsidisation of private schools I should nevertheless like to point out a serious anomaly in the attitude of the Bishops’ Conference of the Roman Catholic Church. On the one hand they have been pleading for a long time for the subsidisation of private schools and for greater spending on Black education in particular, but on the other hand they support disinvestment. Fortunately there is, in the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church, also a strong reasonable body of opinion whose primary interest is the individual, his growth, development, happiness and prosperity. Today we hope and trust that this standpoint will triumph and that this anomaly among these people too will be remedied.

Mr Chairman, in the few minutes I still have at my disposal, I should also like to refer to a very important facet of the activities of our department, ie sport and youth activities. I think the value for the building of good relations and of understanding which is inherent in sport, may not be underestimated. After all, sport offers golden opportunities for healthy interaction between children, between adults and children, and more specifically, between teachers and pupils, who on the sports field have a different relationship with one another than in the classroom.

I believe that this contact affords the teacher opportunities to get to know and influence the child on a more informal level as well. The inculcation of norms, values and attitudes to life in such a less formal milieu is also frequently more effective than in the more formal classroom situation. Pedagogues are consequently in agreement with one another that the sports field and related youth activities also create golden opportunities for school-children of separate population, culture and language groups to meet one another, to get to know one another, and to learn to understand and to cultivate sound interrelations.

Such appreciation and good relations also break down prejudices and destroy the unfortunate, negative stereotypes of one another which so many of us carry around with us for years—a result of the artificial barriers which unfortunately exist between groups in this country. On the other hand, however, it also leads to appreciation and sound relations, and also in fact to a new appreciation for and pride in one’s own culture, language and traditions—subordinated of course to the general pride in our shared South Africanism. I believe that sport …

Are you quoting someone else’s words, or are those your own words?

These are my own words, Mr Chairman. I am convinced, in fact, that sport can build bridges over which the children of the separate groups in our country can reach out to one another, can find one another and understand one another. [Interjections.] I am also convinced that we should develop this approach with great zeal … [Interjections.]

Order!

… for surely we cannot build a future in this country if the youth of South Africa do not know one another. Surely we cannot live in isolation from one another as though each of us were living on his own island.

Then why do you not simply throw all the schools open?

If the hon members of the Conservative Party cannot co-exist with the realities of this country, they will simply have to seek a refuge for themselves elsewhere. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr Chairman, I should like to point out that last year we succeeded in involving 1,25 million of our pupils in a diversity of sports competitions and championships, arranged by the Sport Council of the department. We hope to be able to improve on that effort this year. An amount of more than R9 million was spent on facilities for school sports, and more than R4 million on stadiums in Black communities.

†Mr Chairman, from the aspects I have outlined thus far it should be clear that the department’s policy and attitude are aimed at development, upliftment, co-operation and an open door for communication and negotiation.

I also wish at this stage to commend especially those officials who have to perform their duties under the most difficult and trying circumstances. Cases have been brought to my attention in which officials have been threatened, have suffered injury and loss of property, and in which their wives and children have been harmed and intimidated. These officials and their families, I believe, deserve our gratitude and our admiration for their dedication to this noble task.

In conclusion I wish to say very clearly that we cannot allow our children and their education to be dragged into the political arena, which is an adult domain. Boycotts and disruptions in education not only result in immeasurable harm to the individual child, his parents, the economy and everyone in the country but also lead to serious retardation in the genuine political progress of the communities concerned.

I believe that if all of us care enough, if we believe that our children and other young people deserve and should have the best we can provide, it will not be long before we see an enourmous improvement in the quality of education. There is no cheap solution. There is no easy way, no shortcut. These are difficult challenges facing us all; and if we really care about the future of this country, we will accept those challenges.

The challenges we face in Black education cannot be better summarised than in the words of Alvin Toffler in his book Future Shock where he says:

Mr Chairman, it is a pleasure for me to be the next speaker after the hon the Deputy Minister in this debate. This is indeed a special occasion.

As is often the case, the Official Opposition again criticised the fact that there is no single and comprehensive ministry of education, as they would like very much to see. However, I want to state emphatically that there is no other education department—and now I am including all the various education departments—which is as excellent as this one which controls the education of Blacks. Here we have the hon the Minister seated among us today with a beautiful pink rose in his lapel. When I take a close look at him from where I am standing it seems to me it is a “Peace” rose, which symbolises peace. Equally beautiful, the hon member Dr Rina Venter is sitting there in her corner wearing a pink blouse; but I think that blouse means “hands off”. [Interjections.]

The hon the Deputy Minister is not wearing a “Peace” rose, but across his forehead is written “work”, just work; work and dedication to this particular department. [Interjections.] Turning now to that wonderful team of officials of ours …

Do you think you are standing in front of a std 6 class again?

I shall come to that hon member in a moment. He must keep quiet for a while.

The officials sitting there, that fantastic team who prepared this exceptional document for us, have the message “Work and persevere” written on their foreheads. It is quite splendid. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Lichtenburg asked why the hon the Minister did not close those schools. Now I want to ask the hon member for Lichtenburg as well as the hon member for Waterberg how many schools they closed during 1976. [Interjections.] Those hon members did not close the schools. They know exactly what the true state of affairs is. [Interjections.] They know there is an element of unrest …

What truth? Just go and do your homework.

Oh, please, I want to tell the hon member in all humility that I do do my homework. I was also part of the hon member for Lichtenburg’s study group. In fact I was one of the members of the hon member’s study group with a fairly sound judgment. [Interjections.]

The hon member knows as well as I and the hon the Minister and all the officials do that there is a percentage of instigators, but that there is also the overwhelmingly large group in any particular school which would like to get to the school and its facilities; we must therefore make that school and its facilities available to them. That is what they and their parents want. I want to tell that hon member …

Which one?

The hon member for Lichtenburg. It is not much use speaking to the hon member for Jeppe.

I should like to tell the hon member for Lichtenburg that we must continue with the task and the work.

The hon member for Pinetown also said “This is the country of our children”—that is correct, but we cannot escape our responsibility because it is also our country today.

We must accept our particular task and problem that is peculiar to these times and the demands they make on us.

This department, as a separate entity for the provision of the Black child’s education, is equipped with competent, dedicated and hard-working specialists. The people engaged in this task are specialists. An exhibition has just been held in the auditorium of the Hendrik Verwoerd Building at which hon members were provided with a visual overview of the activities of these people. If we cannot show appreciation for it, we have no appreciation for the work which our own people are doing as a team in conjunction with the Blacks and the leadership corps in that connection. We must appreciate it.

The purpose of this department is to provide the Blacks with education—not education in its diluted form, but education as part of the whole educational milieu. It is essential for the harmonious coexistence of all the population groups of this country in future. We must establish cordial liaison with one another on this level and build up contacts with one another so that education is brought to all communities.

Education is part of the general cultural life and cultural milieu of each population group. We cannot escape that. Here the PFP differs with us. They are deviating from their original view—we listen carefully to the debates—in which they said that we should throw everything open.

Today the hon member for Pinetown said that they did not see that as a solution, yet they asked for one department of education. He said this explicitly today, if members were listening to him carefully. They are moving closer to what great philosophers have said, and they perceive how all-embracing the value of culture is within an educational milieu.

Culture as such is not a rigid, hide-bound concept, or an obduracy in which people can live as in a tin or a can. It is a perpetually creative living organism in which the nation moves and lives, and it renews itself from day to day as the circumstances and demands of a nation’s life change. [Interjections.] That is why I can state confidently today—the hon the Minister and his education department are aware of it—that a new culture is developing in Soweto.

We speak so easily of the European or Western culture of the Whites. It is not true. I want to challenge that statement. The culture of the Afrikaans and English-speaking people sitting here today is an African culture. [Interjections.] The European culture has been transformed by us with our African heritage. It has developed into a unique culture. I have nothing to do with the mildewed and decaying Europe. I am proud of a strong young people at the southernmost point of Africa. [Interjections.] Good heavens, my culture and my unique heritage, is sprung from this soil and it is not Europe. [Interjections.]

I state categorically that our culture with everything that is admirable and civilised and innately our own, is part of Africa. I am not saying that it is a Third World or a third-rate culture; it is a highly civilised and developed culture which is part of this exceptional country in which we are living. I have as little to do with my ancestors and the previous generations which came from the Netherlands or Germany as the man in the moon. [Interjections.] I have no other homeland to go to, nor do I have a tiny White homeland I can flee to. I am living in this country.

In the same way our education department should be aware of the fact that a new culture is developing in Soweto. This culture differs from that of the Black pupils on a farm school in Standerton, and I cannot put them there.

Why not? [Interjections.]

The Black child in a farm school in Standerton knows how to milk a cow but the average Soweto child does not know how to milk a cow.

What about the White child?

I am not denying that. The hon member for Lichtenburg must allow me to proceed with my speech for a while because I did not interrupt him during his speech, although I wanted to. [Interjections.] The hon member for Rissik is not an educationist. He may have been on the wrong track as a teacher. [Interjections.] If hon members were to use their savvy they would agree with me that a new culture of a new community is being formed in Soweto. We cannot escape that fact. [Interjections.]

We know that there are many opinions about culture. I have studied it and determined that 164 definitions of culture by scientists have been recorded. I am not going to dwell on that aspect.

The hon member for Pinetown has just referred to the percentage of failures among Black matriculants. It is probably true, but I should like to tell him that the Whites have their own history of hardships they had to endure. I was one of the first two boys from a specific primary school who ever matriculated. Today approximately 95% of all the pupils of that primary school matriculate, but the formation and growth of those people first had to occur.

These things will come right; we will eliminate the backlogs. We must continue with our work, that’s all. Today I should like to make an appeal to the hon the Minister that we should in all sincerity see whether it is not possible for us to provide the opportunity for secondary schools to be established wherever our farmers are prepared to do so. We must see whether we cannot help those people.

I want to tell the hon the Deputy Minister we should also ascertain whether qualified White female teachers who are married and living in the rural areas and who can speak a Black language such as Zulu or Tswana, as many of us here are unable to do, cannot be given the opportunity of being made available to those Black schools. It would be for an interim period while they still have a lack of competent qualified teachers. They are asking it of us; they are not asking it of the hon member for Rissik. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, because I am keen to discuss the subject of Black education, I hope the hon member for Standerton will pardon me if I do not follow him along the cultural path he has been trying to tread. Anyway, I want to react to what the Deputy Minister said and also to the hon member for Winburg who reacted to the speech made by the hon member for Lichtenburg.

Today I should like to issue a challenge to the hon the Deputy Minister and the hon member for Winburg. Let us examine what happened in the years when the hon member for Lichtenburg was the Minister of this department and ascertain whether it was necessary for him in those years to dedicate half of his speech in this House to explanations about the terrible problems they have to solve and then further to deny that they have any problems.

The hon member for Lichtenburg told the hon the Deputy Minister where the origin of all his problems lay and that he was not addressing the origin of the problems, and now he is being reproached for having done that. If the hon the Deputy Minister had addressed the origin of the problems, as the hon member for Lichtenburg asked him to do, it would not have been necessary for him to dedicate half of his speech today to the solution of problems. Nor would he have denied that there were any problems.

If I had the time this afternoon, I could have shown this Committee a thing or two. Will the hon the Deputy Minister deny that there is a high school on the Rand at which the children have changed the name of the school to the Oliver Tambo High School? Will the hon the Deputy Minister deny that?

Or is it a piece of gossip?

Is that also a piece of gossip from the CP? [Interjections.] I am merely asking.

I also want to ask the hon the Deputy Minister whether nothing happened from the bottom at the schools to the top at Medunsa.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Absolutely nothing?

Another piece of gossip!

Did they not at one stage sent the students away from the university?

Surely we did not say there was no problems!

But you say that we are gossiping!

The hon the Deputy Minister said, the hon member for Lichtenburg did not know what he is talking about. He said the hon member had lost touch with reality. The hon member for Lichtenburg was addressing the realities which the hon the Deputy Minister does not want to address. He denies the realities and that is why he is trying to throw up a smokescreen. Nevertheless he did in fact proceed to indicate how he was trying to solve the problems. [Interjections.] I want to tell the hon the Deputy Minister that the sooner he returns to the realities and deals with them, the sooner he will solve the problems in education. He must deal with them in the way the hon member for Lichtenburg did, who in his day did not have to stand up in this House and spend half of his speech on excuses and explanations of how he was dealing with his problems.

The hon Deputy Minister and the hon member for Winburg said that it was a good thing the hon member for Lichtenburg was no longer the Minister. If he had still been the Minister today, there would have been peace. [Interjections.] In his time he proved that he could deal with these matters and could maintain peace. [Interjections.]

Order! There is far too much participation from both sides of the Committee in what the hon member for Koedoespoort has to say. The hon member for Koedoespoort may proceed.

It has also been placed on record that the Vista University stands to the credit of the hon member for Lichtenburg. Is there anything which stands to the credit of the hon the Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister? [Interjections.] All they have to their credit are problems to explain and how they are trying to make it appear as though there are no problems. [Interjections.]

I have already raised a matter relating to this Vote on two previous occasions in this Chamber. The hon Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs is sitting there—he was in control then—and he will not deny today that on one of those occasions he said that I had made a very good speech.

Yes.

I should now like to address the same issue again, because no one in the Government is at present doing anything about the matter which I raised at the time. Nothing is being done to put into effect what was suggested in that speech, which was praised by that hon Minister. The hon Minister of Education and Development Aid can learn a few lessons from the hon member for Lichtenburg’s handling of a portfolio. [Interjections.]

I want to continue by saying that we on this side of the Committee are not reproaching the officials. We have the greatest appreciation for and sympathy with officials who have to implement a Government policy which is impracticable. We also have appreciation for the attempts they are making to try to make a success of it anyway. I openly convey my appreciation in this Committee this afternoon. [Interjections.]

Do you still beat your wife?

Order!

According to the annual report and the specified duties of this department, one of its most important functions is to be of assistance to the self-governing national states in carrying out their educational activities. This important function is one which should be addressed this afternoon.

In the annual report very important statistics in this regard are furnished in order to indicate to us the state of education in the national states. However, those statistics also reflect a particular situation which cannot in all honesty be favourably compared with the Black education that is being provided inside the Republic of South Africa.

The first thing that strikes one is that the pupil-teacher ratio on all educational levels—as calculated according to the statistics in the annual report—is in all states more than 40:1. In some cases it increases to more than 50 pupils per teacher. In an education system which is still in the process of developing to a certain standard, this is quite wrong and out of proportion. We cannot allow this situation to continue, and therefore it is necessary that this matter be given very serious consideration by the department. To have so many pupils per teacher, is not a very good point of departure for an education system.

The next matter which I want to mention, is the standard of the teachers. People in the self-governing national states complain about the level of education of their teachers. Those teachers are not skilled enough to fulfil their function in the shcools satisfactorily. Therefore I find a great pity to have to read in this report that in virtually every state, there is only one facility for the further training of teachers. [Interjections.]

Furthermore I would like to refer to the fact that two of the six states have only one centre for teacher training; one of the states has only two; one has three; Lebowa has seven; and kwaZulu does at least have nine. This situation is not good enough.

Provision must be made in the estimate for more funds for the national states. More money must be spent in the national states than locally, for there they are working for more intensively on education then is the case locally. Schools are not being burnt down there. There is no unrest. There is no action by pupils against teachers, as is the case in the Black towns in the Republic of South Africa. Therefore it is essential that we concentrate on Black education there, because these people appreciate it and are not burning down their schools. We must not allow the occurrences here, where schools are being burnt down and where more money is being given, to cause the general public to think that that is perhaps the procedure to adopt if one wants more money for education. [Interjections.]

I also want to refer to the problems which are being contended with there. The distances which pupils have to cover in the national states to reach their schools, is a matter which should be addressed. The schools can be smaller, but they must be brought closer to the pupils. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I think the CP’s visit to the Zulu King must have been an extraordinary occasion because it is really the first time in my life that I hear of the CP asking for more money to be spent on Black education. [Interjections.] If one has such positive results from such a visit, I shall be prepared to drive one of their cars there next time. [Interjections.]

In passing I should just like to mention that we can make a success of Black education in this country only if one has the enthusiasm and the cheerfulness which my neighbour, the hon member for Standerton, displayed here today. Only if we do not allow the difficulties we have to get us down, will we be able to make progress with this difficult matter. We shall definitely not make progress by trying to reproach one another by saying: “When we were there we made such a success of it and in any case, when the hon member for Lichtenburg was there, we did not have these problems with education.” Surely we know there have been tremendous problems in education.

If they say there were fewer problems, all we need do is take a look at how much education has grown between the stage when the hon member for Lichtenburg dealt with that portfolio and the present. If we consider only the quality of education—not that I blame the hon member for Lichtenburg—I want to make it clear that there has been a tremendous improvement in the quality of education in recent times.

When he was there?

No, until today, since he was there.

Give us proof.

If the hon member for Rissik would just devote the same amount of effort and earnestness to his position for the sake of the country’s future as he does for political gain and has a look at what is happening in Black schools, he will understand what is happening. Then it would not be necessary for me to table the example.

I should like to turn to the much discussed words of Dr Verwoerd which caused a sensation in Black education. I quote:

What gave rise to Dr Verwoerd uttering these words? This is the question which is occupying our minds. Why did he expose himself to so much criticism in future with these words? When I was at university, a friend of mine half-failed and half-passed. He then went to work for Dr Verwoerd who at that stage had just become the Minister of the then Department of Native Affairs. He had just commenced his activities in regard to Black education. This friend of mine was a die-hard United Party supporter. [Interjections.] He had United Party friends. [Interjections.] Within three months this man was a Nationalist. The question is: Why did he become a Nationalist? He became a Nationalist because he realised what far-reaching reforms Dr Verwoerd had begun, in contrast to our other people who did not realise it. [Interjections.]

What was the motivation for these words of Dr Verwoerd? Before Dr Verwoerd took over this portfolio, the minimum amount of money was spent on Black education. The average White voter, such as myself, a young boy on the farm, had no concept of the need for Black education. How was Dr Verwoerd supposed to get education for Blacks going? In what way could he persuade Dr Malan and especially Adv Hans Strijdom to make money available for Black education? [Interjections.]

Oh, did the fault lie with them? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon members sitting in the immediate vicinity of the hon member who is speaking, must please stop interrupting him and allow him to make his speech. The hon member may proceed.

In the milieu in which he practised politics and in the circumstances which prevailed at the time there was only one way of acquiring the money that was necessary to get education for Blacks going. Hon members should bear in mind the circumstances prevailing at the time and what our country was like in 1956. What was it like on the farms? In 1962 I was doing road transportation work. At that stage there was not a single Black truck driver who was allowed by the Administration to do road contract work. A Black was not even allowed to operate a bulldozer. They were not allowed to occupy any positions. That is what South Africa was like then. When Dr Verwoerd took over Black education, activities in regard to group areas and job reservation were at their worst.

Once we realise this, we can begin to conceptualise the dilemma in which Dr Verwoerd found himself. He had to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable entities with one another. At that stage White workers would have screamed murder at the thought of technical instruction for the Blacks, because they were afraid that they might lose their jobs. We cannot blame them for being afraid of losing their jobs for at that stage the poor white question had only just been solved.

Today of course everything is quite different. There are simply not enough of us any more to occupy all the white-collar posts and the high administrative and entrepreneurial positions. That is why it is our duty, as the heirs of Dr Verwoerd, to adapt education to the new circumstances and the new reforms. For this I want to praise the hon the Minister, the hon the Deputy Minister as well as their predecessors, because since I became a member of Parliament I have always been impressed by the pro-active conduct of our Ministers in this respect.

If we experience any problems with these words of Dr Verwoerd, we must also consider the conduct of Atasa, the Black teachers’ organisation. Within the narrow confines of NP ideology and against the wishes of the voters, Dr Verwoerd worked at the development of Black education. Learning, however limited, was made available to many thousands of people who had never had an opportunity to acquire it before. Those who had never had that opportunity, received that opportunity as a result of Dr Verwoerd’s courage.

Gerrit does not agree with you.

I do not know who agrees with me, but that is my perception of the matter.

I agree with you! [Interjections.]

If the hon member there agrees with me, he must also agree with me that just as Dr Verwoerd was a radical reformer in his time, we must introduce reforms in our time as well. [Interjections.] I do not know whether the hon member still agrees with me. I hope so. [Interjections.]

I have a complaint against Atasa because they are now withdrawing from Black education, in contrast to Dr Verwoerd who worked on Black education. They are throwing in the towel at this stage. For the sake of political gain, they tell us that they are not going to co-operate as far as Black education is concerned. They are not prepared to stand with us in the line of fire. They tell us that we must manage without them. They tell us that our people will simply have to tell us that we are giving everything to the Blacks, but they are not prepared to have their people tell them that they are lackeys of the Whites.

Which one now has more merit—Dr Verwoerd who simply worked on Black education or Atasa that says the political situation is such that they cannot continue with the schooling of their children?

What do the expressions used by the Black youths of today who do not want to go to school mean? I am referring to the slogan: “No education without liberation”. Do those people realise what they are doing? Do they realise that there could be generations of Black children who receive no schooling? [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I shall not be following on the hon member who has just resumed his seat. I think the fact that the hon member for Sasolburg said that he supported what he was saying is significant enough not to warrant a reply from me.

I took note of the fact that the hon the Deputy Minister heaped praise upon the hon member for Pinetown after that member had heaped praise upon the hon the Deputy Minister. What I am going to say now should therefore not be viewed as being said with an ulterior motive. It is not because I want praise from the hon the Deputy Minister that I say I believe that the hon the Deputy Minister and the hon the Minister of the department have in fact introduced a whole new approach—a welcome, fresh, positive and constructive approach—to the departments they control and to the work that they do. The important thing is that they have recognised the vital importance of having effective communication between those in authority and those who are subject to the authorities, in this case the Department of Education, and the children, the teachers and the parent bodies. They have been sensitive to the grievances and the needs of the Black community as far as education is concerned. They have listened attentively and have attempted, as far as has been possible for them to do so within the very narrow limits and restrictions placed upon them by the legislation of the Government, to redress these problems.

There is a great deal more that has to be done, but the point I want to make is that these hon Ministers have discovered a very important truth, and that is that one cannot govern people unless one is in effective communication with those people. This has to be done in order to establish their fears, their aspirations and their needs and in order to be able to meet those in association and in co-operation with the people.

The hon the Minister said something very important the other day when he said that the Government rejected the Verwoerdian concept of Black education and that is was putting forward more positive and more constructive concepts. That was very, very important because the Verwoerdian concept has dominated the thinking of the Black community with regard to education to such an extent that no improvements or reforms could make an impression on them. If one wants to be forgiven for one’s past sins; if one wants people to accept one’s sincerity, then one has first to admit that one was wrong. One has to admit it openly, and one has to say that one is sorry, and I think these two hon Ministers have done that. [Interjections.]

Although there is a great deal more to be done—we have just started the process of real reform and of making advances and improvements—I think that there is a change of attitude and of heart. I think we should appeal to all Black children, teachers and parents and to all organisations associated with Black education to stop exploiting education for ulterior political motives. It will do irreparable harm to the education of the children. I believe that we must appeal to those organisations and those people to stop disrupting Black education. Neither the children nor the community nor South Africa can afford that. However non-ideal the mechanisms are that have been created for representations I think that one can appeal to schoolchildren, to the parents and the teachers to use those mechanisms to bring their grievances and problems to the attention of the authorities, to negotiate with them, to place as much pressure as they like on them and to attempt to have those grievances redressed.

Having said all that, I think the pressure on the Government to continue with and to extend the reform process and to wipe out the inequalities and the disparities must be increased by all concerned because, in the final analysis, until such time as the people are convinced by the performance of the Government and by the results which are achieved that equal education is available to all children, anything we say and all our appeals will fall on deaf ears.

I just want to say briefly that all the people who was appealing for disinvestment should realise that if the South African economy had not been undermined to extent to which it was then the amount of more than R1 000 million which we are spending on Black education could possibly have been R1 300 million or R1 500 million. They must realise that if they want to compel us to bring about reform, they cannot expect us to be able to achieve that if, at the same time, they cut off the resources with which that reform has to be brought about.

Now I want to say something to the hon the Minister in all sincerity. Very little real progress in gaining the understanding and the confidence of the Black community will be achieved until such time as all apartheid has been removed from education in South Africa. I say this not simply because I regard separate education as unequal; I think that technically one can have separate and yet equal education. This is possible if one has similar schools, the same equipment, the same books and teachers with the same qualifications. However, separate education is highly discriminatory because it denies children the right, in their formative years— these are children who have to live their whole lives together and who have to learn to co-operate with one another so as to achieve common goals—to develop the understanding and the co-operation which is necessary. Separate education strikes at the dignity of the Black people because implicit in separate education is the statement that Black children are different and inferior and that Whites do not want their children to go to school with them. [Interjections.]

The hon the Deputy Minister argued with tremendous eloquence about the positive value of letting children of different race groups meet one another on the sports field. There they can co-operate with one another and learn to understand and to know one another. He pointed out how important that was for the future stability and security of our country. Now, if that is true—and it is absolutely true; I know the hon the Deputy Minister believes and understands that— then it is also absolutely essential that children from all the different race groups should be allowed to go to school together, particularly if they want to! Self-determination is one of the principles which this Government supports. [Interjections.]

However, Black, Coloured, Indian and White communities who want to let their children go to school together, in other words, who want to exercise self-determination with regard to education in schools, are denied that right and that privilege by this Government because of the dictates of its apartheid ideology. I want to ask the hon the Minister please to get rid of it! We shall then see real progress. We stand for the opening of all schools, but we are prepared to meet them halfway. Establish a department of open schools and let all schools decide … [Interjections.]

Order! Is the hon member prepared to take a question?

No, Mr Chairman, I do not have the time.

Let all school parent control bodies decide for themselves whether they want to be open or not the Government has accepted the principle of freedom of association for children and for parents in their legislation. They have also accepted that private schools shall be multiracial. It is not the principle; the Government has accepted the principle. I appeal to them to extend it. [Interjections.]

Just in the last two minutes I have available, I want to mention that I have over the past two years visited in the Transvaal many of the urban and the rural Black schools, and I have listened and spoken to the teachers. The Black teachers are in a most unfortunate situation because of the unrest in this country, because they are caught in a couldron of the conflict between their sense of duty and dedication to their pupils and to education on the one hand, and the activities of the political activists on the other hand. These teachers are often intimidated. They are threatened with death, they are threatened that they themselves and their property will be burnt and they are humiliated in front of their classes. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I apologise for not reacting immediately to the speech made by the hon member for Bryanston, but I shall comment on a point he made during the course of my speech.

I sat here astounded by the hon Deputy Minister who told us and pleaded with us to carry on and on and on down the wrong road. [Interjections.] Here in my hand I have the reason for it. The hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid himself said in 1978, in public on a John Pank television programme, that “one man, one vote may come”. In that same speech he said:

That is what the hon Deputy Minister is in fact doing now in the schools: “To learn to live with radical Black leaders.” That is the torture they are undergoing and that is their tribulation and that is what that hon Minister foresawa long time ago. [Interjections.]

During the speech made by the hon member for Bryanston I also noticed that he said “one must first admit you were wrong”. In this respect the hon the Minister set the entire NP an example. In 1971 and 1972 he was still advocating a Coloured homeland, after it had already been the policy of the HNP for three years. While he was chairman of Sabra, he made an enthusiastic and convincing speech in Robertson—in favour of a Coloured homeland! Mr Piet Cillié there upon wrote just one leading article in Die Burger—not a long one, just a teeny-weeny one. The next day that hon member went out like a snuffed candle, and he never spoke about a Coloured homeland again. [Interjections.]

He is still out!

Yes, he is still out.

This afternoon I want to tell the hon Minister that he owes South Africa an explanation on why they waited 20 years before repudiating Dr Verwoerd’s views on Black education. After all he demonstrated that he could repudiate quickly; he could repudiate himself very quickly. Why did he wait 20 years before repudiating Dr Verwoerd? [Interjections.] We saw the results of that long wait at once this afternoon. Even in the hon member for Heilbron one cannot succeed in erasing Dr Verwoerd’s views completely. This afternoon I should like to thank that hon Minister very sincerely for having waited so long before doing it, because they will never succeed in erasing Dr Verwoerd’s basic views with regard to Black education completely.

These hallelujahs, the enthusiasm for pouring massive amounts of money into Black education stems from what happened in the post-war world, when the general view in the West became one of merely having to pour vast amounts of money into education. In doing so one would not merely have education, instruction and civilisation, but prosperity as well. A report has already been issued by Unesco in which it is stated that this has not happened. Today, in the African states, they are pouring enormous amounts of money into education. Between 12% and 16% of their budgets are spent on education. In Russia itself this figure is 13% and in South Africa it is 18%, of which one third goes to the Blacks. Now this hon Minister must tell us whether we can afford it, while immersed in a depression and a war—in a struggle for survival.

The hon the Minister also has other, far more serious things of which he has to give an account. South Africa’s actual figure for education is 21%—almost double the percentage which Russia spends on education. That is so because there are hidden amounts. This hon Minister and his department do not disclose everything which they are spending on Black education. For example the capital expenditure is not added to the current expenditure. The amounts which, directly and indirectly, go the self-governing and independent states are not included in the calculation. The cash and other tax concessions which are poured in via Manpower and National Education are not included in the calculation either. Even the costs incurred by the Defence Force in providing Blacks with education are not included either. Now I should like to put it to the hon the Minister, Mr Chairman, that according to our calculation, it is therefore 21% of South Africa’s annual Budget which is being spent on education—almost double that of Russia. This hon Minister should therefore, by means of concrete and correct facts, enable us to arrive at a correct figure. I should like to tell him in advance that that figure will be very close to 21%.

Mr Chairman, this entire situation is not going to be a success. This approach by the hon the Minister is not going to succeed at all. Prof Jan Sadie of the University of Stellenbosch himself said that by the year 2000 there will be 4 million school-leavers in South Africa that would be unable to find employment. And that will be the case, Mr Chairman, in spite of the enthusiasm of the hon the Deputy Minister. By that time he might also be one of the school-leavers walking around without emoployment—political employment. [Interjections.]

The simple reason for this, Mr Chairman—and I am also saying this for the benefit of the hon member for Standerton—is that one cannot dump education and civilisation willy-nilly on a people. Education and civilisation are acquired through effort and over a long period of time and the whole approach of dumping education, of thrusting it on the Black peoples of this country is going to be a hopeless and dismal failure. Canada has already abandoned its attempts to educate and develop the Eskimo’s and the Red Indians rapidly. America, with its massive attempts, has a Negro population of which 25% is analphabetic, according to the latest edition of Time Magazine. Now this hon Minister wants to come and tell me that he is going to do better than Canada and America! Never! Not he! Nor that Government of his! [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, what is meant by equal education? Will it just boil down to equal opportunities? Or is the hon the Minister going to capitaluate to such an extent to the Black Minister of Education whom he wants to appoint that if the Blacks do not produce proportionately as many matric pupils as the Whites, they are going to lower the standard of the certificate for Black matric pupils, ostensibly to … [Interjections.] No, the hon the Minister must tell us. We want to know what he is going to do. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr Chairman, we want to know. Is the hon the Minister going to concede or not? New structures? The hon the Minister said he was going to come forward with new structures. He also said he was not going to allow anyone to abuse this. According to the Press this same Minister expressed the following interesting point of view in 1984, and I am quoting from the Rand Daily Mail report on what he said. Under the caption “Viljoen: school age regulations to be changed”, the Rand Daily Mail reporter (1984) wrote as follows:

Those norms, those 1982 limits were then abandoned by the Government. In so doing they opened the doors to the revolution by placing its leaders and ringleaders among the mass of Black children, in order to carry out their activities with as much success as was never before possible in earlier years under any leader in South Africa. This hon Minister never learned that the communists abandoned the incitement of workers in order to attain their revolutionary goals long ago. Now they are inciting the studying masses, a technique which started with Danny the Red in France, in Gen De Gaulle’s time. South Africa now finds itself in the same situation. That hon Minister and that hon Deputy Minister are unable to assess the situation correctly. [Interjections.]

Order!

All they can do, Mr Chairman, is to proceed along the road on which they now find themselves. In this process they are precipating South Africa towards a colossal disaster. They are sabotaging the healthy, gradual, growing, properly developing Black education endeavours of a great man such as Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Sasolburg has been hibernating—since 1966 already. Between 1966 and 1986—a period of 30 years—nothing whatsoever has happened in the political life of that hon member. Time has simply stood still for him. [Interjections.]

You cannot count!

Order!

In the period of 30 years, between 1966 and 1986 nothing happened in his political life.

Twenty years! [Interjections.]

Order!

All right! All right! Let me just rectify that figure: It is 20 years. [Interjections.]

I should like to take my difference with the hon member for Sasolburg further. He says no more money should be “poured”, as he puts it, into Black education. Once again the hon member for Sasolburg—ie the HNP—differs with the CP member for Koedoespoort. The hon member for Koedoespoort said more money should be spent on Black education. How is one to understand that? [Interjections.]

The most remarkable example of ambiguity which I have seen coming from this hon member this afternoon, is that he held Russia up as the perfect model for South Africa. [Interjections.]

Order!

He says that in Russia less money, percentage wise, is being spent on education than is the case in the RSA. He therefore uses that country’s approach to education in order to compare it directly with that of South Africa.

Order! I must point out to hon members that according to the rules no hon member may participate in the debate while seated. [Interjections.] The hon member for Potgietersrus may proceed.

It is no use hon members trying to shout down the nonsense of the hon member for Sasolburg for although he first presented Russia as the perfect model…

He did not say that.

He then went on to say that the Russians were no longer interested in the workers; now they were concentrating on the studying youth. They do not want to spend any money on the studying youth, but now the Russians are concentrating on the studying youth.

As the spearhead of a revolution.

Order! The hon member for Sasolburg has already made his speech.

That is the typical distortion of the facts which we have become used to here from the hon member for Sasolburg. [Interjections.]

The key that opens the door to a better future for anyone, whoever he may be, is the education and training opportunities which that person has available to him. If civilised standards are a high priority in our country, then education on all levels will be one of the most important factors through which those goals can be attained. Should there be a standstill or stagnation in a country’s education and training systems, the result will be that a standstill and eventual regression will set in in all aspects of life in that country and in the lives of all its peoples. Therefore the nature, content and quality of education is of paramount importance for the future of South Africa and all its peoples. It shapes the whole person and equips him to make a meaningful and constructive contribution in the community to which he is attached. It is this shaping work which the hon the Minister, the hon Deputy Minister and their department are occupied with.

As in the field of primary, pre-primary and secondary training, the department does excellent work in the field of tertiary education at universities and technikons for Blacks. I should like to give my attention to this.

Statistics also tell a story, the story of that which is really happening in tertiary education for Blacks. When we take a look at comparitive statistics, we see that there has been an impressive growth in the number of students who have enrolled at universities and technikons from 1971 to 1985. In 1971 there were 236 students at technikons, a relatively new educational institution. This number grew to be 1 604 students in 1985. The progress that has been made here, indicates that among the Black population there has been a larger contribution to the technikons of technicians, technologists, technical teachers and people trained in business administration and managerial directions.

This development can only be advantageous to a country such as South Africa which is still a developing country in the technical, technological and industrial spheres.

The number of student enrolments at universities has increased just as dramatically, from 2 379 in 1971 to 22 837 in 1985. This is very promising for the provision of the necessary professional manpower in South Africa. Besides a considerable increase in the number of lecturers at the universities and technikons, there was a growth, which I should like to point out, in the number of Black lecturers at tertiary educational institutions. In 1971 there were only 64 Black lecturers connected to these institutions, but in 1985 this number rose to 333. It is clear proof of the fact that the academic training of these people was so thorough and extensive that they are now able to qualify for appointment as lecturing personnel at a university or technikon which makes heavy demands on the staff which they employ.

Since academic and technical training on a tertiary level is so important, good final results are also necessary. Therefore it is encouraging to see how the number of graduates between 1971 and 1985 has increased. In 1971 159 undergraduate diplomas and certificates were awarded and in 1985, 649. In 1971 there were 65 post-graduate diplomas and in 1985, 164. There were 254 Baccalaureate degrees in 1971 and 925 in 1985. The number of honours degrees increased from 23 in 1971 to 168 in 1985. From 1971 to 1984 15 doctorates and 124 Masters degrees were awarded to Blacks. From 1956 a total of 14 853 degrees were awarded to Blacks in this country. These statistics tell a tale which will have to be borne in mind.

Since I referred extensively in this debate last year to the origin and activities of Vista University, this year I should like to point out the progress which has been made at this university from 1983 to 1985. Student enrolments at Vista have increased from 3 010 in 1983 to 9 997 in 1985. It is laudable that 7 000 of those approximately 10 000 students were teachers who improved their qualification by further study.

The educational institutions of Blacks were placed under tremendous political pressure in 1985. This pressure came especially from the left-wing radical elements. They came with slogans in order to cause political unrest at schools and on university campuses. They said: “First liberation and then education”. [Interjections.] These elements instigating unrest also tried—they are still trying—to force so-called “people’s education” on the students. I get the impression from information that has been made available to us that the students did not want to give in to intimidation and that with the exception of the University of the North, it was possible for all academic activities to proceed normally last year and exams were taken at the usual times. Exams were only postponed at the University of the North. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I shall associate myself with the hon member for Potgietersrus in respect of certain things he said. The statement he made that statistics tell a story, is surely correct. At a later stage I shall associate myself with that further.

I do not want to waste my time at all by replying to what the hon members for Sasolburg and Lichtenburg said because to express opinions along those lines under the circumstances in which we are living today is to belong to a world which is quite alien to me.

Just leave it alone then.

Your own members said: “You must be tough”.

Order! The hon members for Rissik and Brakpan do not have to comment on whatever the hon member who is speaking has to say.

I was very disappointed with the speech made by the hon member for Heilbron. I want to tell the hon the Deputy Minister that he would do well to go and talk to that hon member, because to use the arguments of that hon member as a justification for the statements which Dr Verwoerd made in the past, is beyond me. I say this in all honesty.

I want to tell the hon member for Heilbron that it was during that period in fact that the expenditure on Black education was pegged at R13 million per annum for more than 15 years. One does not have to undo the department’s work by that kind of justification.

I turn now to my hon colleague, the hon member for Cape Town Gardens. I want to tell the hon the Deputy Minister that he must understand that the opposition parties have a task, and part of that task is to point out mistakes and to indicate the direction which should be taken. It is in that light that the observations made by the hon member for Cape Town Gardens should be interpreted. If this sounds negative, it is unfortunate but perhaps negative things should also be said in order to rectify matters.

At this stage I want to associate myself with the great appreciation which has been expressed for the work which has been done the past year by the ministry and the department. Tremendous progress has been made in this field. I am not going to repeat the statistics, but I think that the progress which has been made concerning the number of classrooms, the in-service training teachers, the improvement in the teacher-pupil ratio and the appointment of Blacks to the higher administrative structures of the department. Great progress was made in those fields.

Obviously there is still room for improvement, especially as far as the qualifications of teachers is concerned. I have a great appreciation for the tremendous progress which has been made, but as has already been said here today, it remains a fundamental problem. Before our Black teachers have been properly qualified, they cannot, firstly, give the kind of instruction which is expected of them and, secondly, they cannot satisfy the pupils. We know that pupils adopt a critical attitude to the teacher who has to teach him. It is one of the basic causes of the lack of discipline in our Black schools.

Furthermore I also want to say that the teacher-pupil ratio will also have to improve drastically, if we compare it with other groups. In particular I want to say that the teacher-pupil ratio in career-orientated subjects will have to be drastically revised. What I have in mind now are the natural sciences, the technical subjects, domestic science and so on. In these subjects a far smaller teacher-pupil ratio is necessary for effective teaching than is the case in other more socially orientated subjects. I think the hon the Minister and his department are aware of that, but I also think that concentrated attention should be given to the matter.

Furthermore I am concerned about the classroom-pupil ratio in the national states. It is obviously a lot worse in the national states than elsewhere, and in some way of other further help assistance will have to be given to the self-governing national states in this regard.

I also want to congratulate the department on the exhibition which it held in the H F Verwoerd Building. I think many of us found the exhibition particularly informative and interesting. It helped one to gain an impression of the work being done by the department.

The tremendous extent of the department’s task and the progress which has been made in that regard, is very clearly apparent when one takes a look at the statistics for the past five years. I want to mention only a few of them. In Black education—and now I am excluding the independent states—the number of primary and secondary institutions increased from 12 112 to almost 12 500. The number of pupils in those schools increased from 3,5 million to more than 4 million. I am including the self-governing national states in these statistics.

I can summarise the statistics for Black schools by saying that there are 2½ times as many schools—again I am referring only to primary and secondary institutions—outside the independent states for the Black group than there are for the three other groups in South Africa put together. As far as pupils are concerned, there are twice as many in those institutions than there are pupils from the other three groups put together. One is grateful for that, but it does indicate the magnitude of the task.

I want to add that if we look at the teacher-pupil ratio again, it indicates how badly Black education compares, because according to my calculations for those two groups of schools—primary and secondary—with the qualifications which I have stated, there were approximately 98 000 Black teachers in 1985, while there were 102 000 for the three groups. In other words, there is a negative ratio compared with the other facts which I have stated here. It is therefore quite obvious that as far as the pupil-teacher ratio is concerned Black education still has a very big backlog compared with the other groups. A big improvement is necessary in this regard.

It is a fact, as demonstrated here, that Black education has unfortunately fallen victim to and become the battlefield of politics in South Africa. The political struggle is unfortunately reflected in the field of Black education. I want to say at once that we all deplore this fact, but I am convinced that not until the political system has been rectified will we be able to eliminate that problem entirely from Black education.

In the meantime that problem is being aggravated by the unreasonable political expectations which are being created among Blacks, and by the principles and views which are being stated by the militants. The slogan is “liberation before education”. That also arises from the erroneous conception that all these people are interested in now is the take-over of power. That is a completely erroneous conception, and I ask myself often who is behind it. Who is responsible for these young people, many of who in fact know nothing about politics, being able to play around with these concepts and use them as the mainspring for their activities in Black schools and among the general public?

Of course this problem is further aggravated by the fact that Black parents cannot discipline their children. This is understandable, because unfortunately the Black parent often feels inferior to his child who has passed std 5, std 8 or matric. The unfortunate Black parent cannot compete nor hold his own against his child. That is why he often feels inferior to his child and is often not in a position to discipline that child properly.

In addition economic circumstances such as unemployment have aggravated the situation, and in that connection I should like to express my appreciation for what the hon the Minister and the hon the Deputy Minister have achieved. I want to say quite frankly: One must admire what he demonstrated to us here this afternoon, namely the need for communication, and what had been accomplished by the hon Minister and his department.

It is very clear that basically there are three things which must be done in the field of education. Firstly there are symbolic steps that must be taken. In this regard I want to say that one cannot speak of a single department merely for the sake of having a single department. It is for the sake of the symbolism which it has for the Blacks. We must get away from the impression of separation and discrimination. That is the important thing, and I am afraid that before we do the symbolic things, we are always going to have the concept among the Blacks that Black education is inferior.

I am grateful to the hon the Minister—he must pay no heed to what the hon members of the CP said—for saying what he did the other day. He let it be known that the Government has finally rejected the premises put forward by the late Dr Verwoerd. [Interjections.] I hope it will have the necessary constructive effect. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member Prof Olivier referred to the discipline of children in the Black community, and I should like to make a few remarks about the restoration of parental authority in the Black community.

These days one often hears words of reproach directed at parents who do not discipline their children, or do not exert control over them. I should like to remark this afternoon that those who express this reproach are not informed on what is happening in the Black community at present.

The loss of parental authority over children in the Black community is not a simple problem of poor parenthood. Much more is at stake than merely the apparent split between parents and children and the apparent passivity prevailing among parents. It goes much deeper than is generally realised.

To understand the problem and to work out a practical plan of action, we must seek the fundamental aspects necessary in a relationship between parents and children. I am referring here to the general characteristics which should always be present in a relationship between parent and child to enable a parent to maintain authority.

The quality of a parent-child relationship is determined firstly by the things the parent makes known about himself to his child. I am referring to his attitude towards material things, towards himself and towards other people, as well as to his values in life, his skills, his education as a whole, his background, his ideals and his aspirations. These are, in fact, the things that teach a child to respect his parents, and once a child respects his parents and stands in aw of them, that parent has authority over his child. These things that the child knows and which lend authority to his parents, give rise to a mutual trust. These three characteristics are imperative in the upbringing of the child.

If we make an analysis in the Black community and we consider what is happening there, we see the children are drawing up totally new criteria according to which they judge the parents and that the parents are in no way equal to complying with the criteria by which they are judged. This change can be ascribed largely to new living conditions and improved education opportunities.

There is a great difference between the attitude taken by the parents towards their own social requirements, their own economic requirements as well as their political expectations, and the attitude of the children towards these things. This entails new value systems. It entails new ideals, and new attitudes are created in the children. I think it has become imperative for us to help the parents and to make them aware of this matter.

Parents simply cannot measure up to the criteria by which they are judged. They are experiencing a situation, therefore, in which the children are taking the lead and making demands that the parents should comply with. As a result, a serious situation is arising. The parents are beginning to feel guilty because they feel they cannot measure up to their children’s expectations. Although they do not approve of the violence, they also identify very strongly with their children’s pursuit of freedom. The mothers often emphasise this very strongly in discussions. These ideals of the children are also the parents’ ideals. Since they cannot associate themselves with the violence, they feel ambivalent; they become passive, however, and do not know how to deal with this situation. This makes the parents feel uncertain about their own place and task in their own community. Not only do they doubt within themselves, therefore, but they also doubt their own responsibilities. They begin to reproach the system, the Government, for the dilemma they are experiencing.

It is important to emphasise that no parent wins the respect of his child unless he takes a strong lead and sets norms and is a leader in his community. It is not merely a question of radicals using the situation effectively in their own interests; it is also a matter of the essential foundation in the parent-child relationship which is absent, and requires urgent attention.

This brings me to a matter which I should like to emphasise very strongly this afternoon. If we want to correct this matter, it has become necessary for us to implement a national education programme to counsel the parents. It has become necessary for us to support the parents with campaigns in every possible sphere. In this connection I want to appeal to every cultural organisation, women’s organisations, the church communities and clubs, to literally every cultural institution, to assist the parents in the Black community. This matter almost compares with the evacuation of Dunkirk when Mr Churchill sent boats out to fetch his soldiers from the other side of the English channel. No one thought they would be able to bring the soldiers to safety, but he sent every possible vessel and they succeeded in bringing them to safety.

Each one of these bodies at our disposal can emerge with a meaningful campaign today. It is necessary, however, that we then launch a national adult education programme so that these cultural groups in our country can take their cue from a central control point when they initiate this matter. I believe it has become necessary to pay attention to this. The parents have the ability to awaken a strong national feeling. The particular concern here is the confidence that must be created in the Black parents so that they can take a political stand, to emerge as political leaders and to emerge with a strong national pride and to be able to plead their own cause and that of their children. If we can develop the self-confidence of the parents, we will be developing South Africa. If we give the parents the opportunity to come forward with strong political leadership, we are depriving the enemy of its initiative.

I want to conclude with the thought that I believe we have this ability to extend a hand to the parents in this community. It is going to require a motivated and co-ordinated effort, however.

Mr Chairman, the subject on which the hon member Dr Venter has addressed us this afternoon is of great importance to all communities in our country, but especially to the Black communities, as she was talking about parental authority in those communities. She correctly identified one of the major problems as one where the parent cannot meet the expectations of the family and so runs into difficulties. That is exactly what has happened, and it is one of the major factors causing the problems in our Black communities, namely that as far as political and socio-economic change is concerned the younger generation feel that their parents have not succeeded in bringing about change as, in fact, the parents do themselves. In the economic field, as unemployment spreads, more and more parents will feel inadequate because they are not able to provide for their families economically. In the social field we should not underrate the negative influence of the very long working hours, and in particular the very long travelling hours, that affect the fabric of family life where the workseeker in some areas has to leave home as early as 4 am, and maybe gets home well after dark, even as late as 8 o’clock in the evening. They also live in overcrowded circumstances which make it far more difficult to exercise the normal authority and influence in a family. I agree with the hon member that the lack of self-confidence plays a role in this regard.

In his report on the investigation into education for Blacks, Prof Van der Walt said the following:

In many respects that sums up an important element of this critical problem.

I must say I was disappointed in the hon the Deputy Minister this afternoon, not so much in what he said, but in what he did not say. I raised a number of queries and made a number of suggestions during the course of my speech, to which he gave no reply at all. He criticised my speech—and he obviously has the right to do so—as being negative, but when one takes into consideration the state the country and Black education are in—and Black education is in a crisis situation despite his own and the hon the Minister’s efforts and those of the officials of the department—I think that pointing to the serious problems and some of the possible solutions, or contributions to the solutions, is not in itself being negative. I could have spent the 15 minutes allocated to me on listing things that I thought were good. However, I think I did also congratulate the Ministers and the department on certain important aspects.

He also said—and I should like to touch on this because it often arises from hon Ministers on that side of the House—that there were no simple solutions, no cheap solutions, no easy solutions and no shortcuts. Those were phrases he used during the course of his speech. I accept the first three, but I do believe that we need to look for shortcuts that will work. I am not just referring to shortcuts that look smart superficially, but I think we have to look for shortcuts that work. We need emergency measures to get us out of the crisis we are in. I do not think that one can say in any crisis that one will not look for shortcuts. I think we have to see whether there are not some unusual steps that can be taken to help us out of this crisis.

To respond to suggestions from this side of the Committee that they will not solve the whole Black education problem, is in my view puerile. There is no one-off quick fix and we have never claimed otherwise. However, I believe that each suggestion needs to be evaluated on the basis of whether it can make a positive contribution or not. Will it demonstrate good intentions and will it contribute towards parity and equal educational opportunities, or will it not? I think each suggestion needs to be evaluated on that basis, and I hope that in his reply, the hon the Minister will respond to some 7 questions and suggestions that I made during the course of my speech earlier this afternoon.

There is one other matter I should like to raise with the hon the Minister, and that is his statement last week about subsidies to private schools. I was pleased to see that no mention was made of race in that document, and I should like to ask him whether it is correct to interpret this as meaning that race itself is not going to be a factor as far as his departmental subsidies to private schools are concerned; that the other factors will apply—which, by and large, seem to me to be reasonable—but that race in itself is not going to be a factor.

Mr Chairman, I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to reply to hon members’ contributions to this debate in the time at my disposal, and I want to begin by thanking hon members on this side of the Committee very sincerely for their positive support.

I should just like to refer briefly to the hon member for Kimberley North, who gave a splendid analysis—and I think it was a very necessary analysis—of the various spheres in which parity should be striven for as far as education services are concerned, and particularly of the problems surrounding the question of per capita expenditure and the reasons for the disparity in that regard. I am very grateful to him for the guidance he provided in this connection.

The hon member for Winburg spoke in a well-informed manner about the deparment’s intensified orientation to career-directed education, and in particular gave an indication of a new education model which has to promote this reorientation to career-directed education from the substandards right through to the senior secondary schools. It is the goal to increase the present very low percentage of senior secondary pupils who are taking a technical or career-directed school course to, we hope, 20% during the next decade. This is a vast undertaking, which is being tackled in a very comprehensive way. I am glad the hon member referred to it.

The hon member for Maraisburg touched on another extremely important question. I want to agree with him wholeheartedly that this is a matter to which more attention should be given and more money spent, namely pre-primary education, the provision of a bridging period between the informal pre-school training and the formal training in the first substandards at school. This a very important matter, and in my opinion one of the greatest priorities which were emphasised in the De Lange report in order to bring about genuine equal opportunities in education.

I want to thank the hon member for Standerton for his contribution in connection with the extent to which education is part of the total culture of each population group, and for the eloquent way in which he presented this matter.

The hon member for Heilbron placed the words uttered by Dr Verwoerd in the past in their correct perspective, and reminded us that at the time a completely different approach and point of departure applied to the respective population groups in this country. One of the other hon members pointed out inter alia that we should also remember the fact that at the time the freezing of the budgeted amount for Black education applied as general Government policy. This was certainly something which made a very major contribution to the unhappiness in regard to Black education over the decades.

I want to convey my thanks to the hon member for Potgietersrus for his contribution on the growth in the sphere of tertiary education, and particularly for his illumination of the role which the Vista University is playing in this connection.

I am particularly indebted to the hon member Dr Venter for the enthusiastic and skilful way in which she highlighted one of the crucial problems in the broader context of the community in which Black education occurs—at the beginning of the debate the hon member for Cape Town Gardens also referred to this—namely the question of parental authority. I want to give her the assurance that our department considers her suggestion to be a matter of urgency, and that probing attention will be given to the proposal that a national training programme for parents should take place on a large scale in order to ensure that they are better equipped to deal with the generation gap between parents and the younger generation. In fact, the respective Ministers dealing with educational matters have already asked the new South African Council for Education to give attention on a nationally co-ordinated basis to non-formal education, although it is fundamentally an aspect of own education, so as to do justice in this way to education on the non-formal or adult education level.

Next I want to dwell briefly on the contribution made by the hon member for Lichtenburg, although I think that my hon colleague the Deputy Minister, in his thorough and penetrating contribution, dealt fairly effectively with the hon member for Lichtenburg. In the first place I want to say that I find it astounding that one of the most radical, most militant newspapers in this country, namely The Weekly Mail, was quoted by him here as gospel. Whatever is presented by extremists in The Weekly Mail as things which they envisage, is simply accepted as fact by the hon member for Lichtenburg. It is also nonsense that my hon colleague the Deputy Minister and I allegedly intimated that the resolutions of the National Education Crisis Committee Conference in Durban were fair resolutions or that we were delighted about them. We associated our positive reaction with the one resolution which was in fact welcome, namely that they recommended that pupils return to school. There were other resolutions, however, in regard to which both of us expressed serious reservations because they indisputably contained revolutionary elements.

Further to what my hon colleague the Deputy Minister said, I want to tell the hon member for Lichtenburg that steps are indeed being taken against those who undermine discipline, or who in general participate in subversive activities in the schools. However, there is also negotiation, as the hon the Deputy Minister indicated, in order to remedy an unsound and dangerous situation in co-operation with leaders of the communities. There were quite a few cases in which there was a standstill in education for a long time, but in which we succeeded through negotiation in getting education back on course again. I am referring in this respect, for example, to Witbank, the Standerton area and Lamontville, which was under discussion earlier in this Committee, as well as to certain areas in Pretoria. I could enumerate many other areas in which the temporary suspension of activities at the schools, as a result of the undisciplined situation there, did in fact have a salutary effect. This led to a restoration of normal education conditions.

I also want to emphasise that in many cases in which unsatisfactory conditions prevail in the schools, they cannot be attributed to the majority of the pupils, but are frequently caused by small groups of extremists among those pupils, sometimes even from outside the schools. That is why it would be unfair simply to penalise the entire pupil community for what is being done under the direction of extremists. I also want to join my hon colleague in inviting every hon member to contact us if he has information that irregularities are occurring at schools to which thorough attention is not being given. We shall react immediately and take steps in this connection.

The hon member for Koedoespoort made a very interesting speech, and I really want to congratulate him on his about-turn. In particular I want to congratulate his Zulu hosts on the dramatic change in his approach, which they brought about in one afternoon. [Interjections.] I imagine that he may, on a subsequent occasion, and after a further visit, make a speech wearing his loincloth. [Interjections.]

You do not need a loin-cloth, Gerrit!

Who are you insulting now, Gerrit?

I really do want to tell the hon member in all honesty that the points he made were all points with which I can agree. [Interjections.] Hon members on this side of the House welcome the conversion of the hon member for Koedoespoort, and we want to tell him that we agree with him that the teacher-pupil ratio in the national states is a cause for concern. We are in fact eliminating, in co-operation with the education ministers of the national states and my department, the inequalities which exist between Black education in the national states and that which falls under the Department of Education and Training.

I just want to furnish the figures correctly. In the case of primary schools the average pupil-teacher ration in the national states is unfortunately the high figure of 48:1. In the Department of Education and Training the figure is 4:1. As far as the secondary schools are concerned, the figure in both cases is the same. The average pupil-teacher ratio in the secondary schools, in both the national states and under my department, is 33:1. Since the figure in the Department of Education and Training has in the meantime decreased, as far as primary schools are concerned, to 40,5:1, this is something we are proud of. Seen in the historical context, that figure was 47,5:1 in 1980, but that ratio diminished to 40,5:1 this year. We shall continue in this way.

Concerning the hon member for Koedoespoort’s reference to the training of teachers in the national states, I want to point out to him that there are in fact 23 colleges of education in the national states, with 12 700 candidate teachers who are at present receiving training. We agree with the hon member that there are various aspects of the situation in the national states which could be improved.

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

Mr Chairman, my time is very limited. The hon member and I can discuss it afterwards.

Pursuant to what the hon member for Lichtenburg said, I want to give the assurance that there are cases in which money that was made available as a result of disorder and boycotts within the area for which the Department of Education and Training is responsible is being made available for the expansion of educational facilities in the national states, for both the appointment of teachers and the making available of more classrooms. It is a sound principle that those parts of the country in which order prevails should be helped and advanced, and that those parts in which order is not prevailing simply have to accept the results and pay the price. [Interjections ]

The hon member for Sasolburg asked why we waited 20 years to repudiate Dr Verwoerd’s basic views. In my statement I repudiated a spectre, which had been conjured up out of certain former statements by Dr Verwoerd, alleging that Black education was being offered in an inferior or in a limited sense. In my statement I also made it clear that the fundamental premise which he stated, and which is still accepted by the Government, is that all education should take into account the culture and the values of the community to which that education is being offered. It is in my opinion far more fundamental. I add to that however that in so far as the Government of that time was responsible for the appropriated amount for Black education being pegged for a long period it is also something which I—and I think every responsible person—must admit today in all honesty as one of the big mistakes in the history of education of this country, because the central Treasury is after all basically responsible for the education of everyone. It was unfair that the source of the expansion of Black education was frozen in that way for a number of years. Fortunately this happened a long time ago, but let us be frank with one another about it.

The hon member for Sasolburg also asked whether we were striving for equal education or equal education opportunities. He ought not to have put that question, because the principle is already laid down in legislation. No government can ensure equal education. The most a government can do is to ensure equal education opportunities and equal education standards. The extent to which a specific community avails itself of those opportunities and succeeds, subject to those standards, in building up a full-fledged education system for its people, depends on many factors. It depends on the calibre of the people who come forward out of that community to work as teachers. It depends on the dedication of those people, but also on the earnestness and the motivation with which the pupils themselves participate in that education.

You told a different story in the other two Houses! [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I should like to address a remark to the hon member for Cape Town Gardens. The hon member for Cape Town Gardens told me here at the end of his speech that we should also make use of shortcuts which work. I want to put it to him that one of the things which is receiving considerable attention—the hon member for Pinetown also raised this matter—is the use of technology and computer science in education. I want to point out that there is a great diversity of technological aids which the Department of Education and Training has made an integral part of its educational system. This is being done because the De Lange report correctly pointed out that deficiencies in the human material responsible for education could in our era readily be supplemented by technology, and that through that technology specific, excellently-drawn-up education programmes could be made available over a wide front. I want to point out that the Department of Education and Training has, in the first place, had a permanent contract with the SABC since as long as 1964, for which it is at present paying R0,5 million per annum, for the provision of school radio programmes. The programmes entail 45 minutes of broadcasting time every day, in the form of three lessons of 15 minutes each. Accompanying documentation for those lessons is provided, and casette tapes are also made available for repeat lessons. This matter is not merely being dealt with casually, but the HSRC instituted a followup investigation in 1982 to establish what value the service had had, and also recommended specific adjustments. The department is also spending an amount of money— unfortunately I do not have the figure available at the moment—on the purchase of radios for schools in order to make use of this educational radio service.

As far as the use of educational television is concerned, I just want to say the following. At the end of last year this department, together with another department concluded a contract with the SABC, in terms of which educational television broadcasts will be commenced early next year. An advisory committee is assisting the SABC in determining the nature of these programmes, approving them and working out the operational facets. We are contributing 0,2% of our Budget to these costs. This year the amount is R1,4 million. Furthermore we also appropriated an additional R1 million to enable schools to acquire the necessary equipment so that they can make use of this educational television service, which will begin early next year.

Furthermore, Mr Chairman, I also want to pay tribute to the large number of bodies from the private sector that assist us in expanding opportunities in Black education. We have, in co-operation with IBM, manufactured a series of video programmes as teaching aids, particularly in biology, nature study and chemistry and in mathematics for stds 8 to 10. We have put into operation a computer-supported tuition system, the so-called TOAM system—it was originally developed in Israel—in certain of our teachers’ training colleges, as well as in a number of primary schools in Soweto, and have done so with a great deal of success. Six of these systems were donated to us by organisations in the private sector, and during the previous financial year we imported an additional four, and we hope, with the help of the Treasury, as well as with the help of the private sector, that services of this nature can be expanded further.

In the College for further Training and in seven of our teachers’ colleges we have also introduced a number of microcomputers, as aids to introduce the student teachers to computer literacy—computer awareness—so that they can be part of the modern world when they go out to the schools to teach. We hope to enable them in future to convey those skills to their pupils by way of courses.

†Then, Mr Chairman, again with the assistance of the IBM Company, we have introduced a special reading programme for beginners, called Writing to Read, which has been devised in a rather unorthodox way in the USA, and which is presently used both for the initial teaching of English and for the upgrading of English. Again here the whole project is launched under the careful supervision and control of the Human Sciences Research Council.

We have also introduced a special project, Alpha, which is aimed at upgrading the quality of senior secondary teachers, using an inter active laser video technology system. The upgrading material is used for in-service training courses in mathematics for stds 8 to 10, and we hope to expand this to other subjects as well. This has been initiated at the Soshanguwe College for Further Education, and again under the monitorship of the HSRC.

Finally, we have also taken steps to introduce the use of language laboratories in our training colleges, and we hope this, too, can be gradually expanded into the actual school system.

I have gone somewhat into detail because I think it is important to note that the Department of Education and Training is not a backward department dealing with antedeluvian educational methods, but has in fact been trying to be as modern as possible and also to stay as well-informed as possible with a view to introducing educational technology across a broad front.

The hon member for Cape Town Gardens also referred to the share of the new money becoming available, that is awarded to Black education. I must admit that the hon member has a point. I would, however, also like to point out that the share which the national states have received of the total financial allotment has risen from 26% to 33%, whilst the share of White education has decreased from 52% to 43%. Notwithstanding that, the situation is unsatisfactory. This, however, is due mainly to the fact that most of the new money were amounts that were carried over in respect of teachers’ salaries. Since we start with a basis of much better qualified White teachers earning higher salaries, the share taken from the new money for education in general has been affected. Nevertheless, we are addressing that problem. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why my colleague, the hon the Minister of National Education, announced a ten-year plan that works according to a formula, is to redress this sharing out of the new money in such a way as to move towards a situation where the Black education departments and other underprovided departments get a larger share relative to the White departments. The formula will be applied in equal terms to all the departments concerned. So we acknowledge that point. We are working on it and we hope we will be able to eliminate the problem.

The hon member again referred to the question of one central department. I want to congratulate the hon member for Pine-town on admitting that one department and open schools is not going to be the solution to our problems.

Not the only solution.

The hon member for Cape Town Gardens, however, once again insisted on one central education department, and he, in fact, enjoyed the support of the hon member for King William’s Town. I would like to remind hon members once again that there are very few countries which have the administration of all their educational activities centralised in a single department. If I may, I should like to refer to the two cases I have often quoted, namely West Germany and the USA. These two countries have no centralised education department but instead have decentralised departments in the different states.

Are the departments racially divided?

The breaking up into different departments of the educational system, in itself, is not creating unnecessary bureaucracy and duplication, but is in fact making for efficiency. Our new Department of National Education is a case in point: It provides, in umbrella fashion, for fundamentals such as policy of finance, staffing policy, conditions of service and examination standards. I am sure, therefore, that this matter can be effectively dealt with. [Interjections.] I remain convinced that to throw together all the bodies administering education in South Africa into a single, central department under a single ministry will, in fact, create an administrative monstrosity and will, furthermore, eliminate the possibility of the different communities exercising self-determination with regard to their education. It would also be very difficult …

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Minister a question?

No, Sir. I would like to complete my reply and there are many points I have to respond to.

As I was saying, it would also make it extremely difficult to apply different techniques and strategies for remedial education according to the needs of the different developmental stages of the various communities and departments. Finally, I am convinced that education also has a strong cultural rooting, and so I think this differentiation is also justified in a cultural sense. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Cape Town Gardens also referred to the question of schoolfeeding. I would be very careful about this matter although I must point out that in emergency circumstances, such as last year, arrangements for schoolfeeding were not only made for White schools but through our department also in certain regions and communities for Black schools. When there is an emergency I think it is a perfectly valid point that attention should be given to schoolfeeding.

Is the emergency over in Black schools?

Because of the short time available to me I will probably not be able to address the other points the hon member made and he will excuse me if I perhaps deal with them differently later on.

The hon member for Pinetown referred to the question of ogive curves and I would like to explain to him that the technique of the handling of examination results being adjusted to ogive curves is being done at present under the overall control of the Joint Matriculation Board.

I know. I am aware of it.

The intention is that under the new National Certification Council which we have in mind, there will be a more comprehensive way of handling these curves. I think this is a very important matter and I fully agree with the hon member that they must be annually updated so that we do not work with antiquated data that have become irrelevant in the situation.

As far as school libraries are concerned—I think this is an extremely important programme—we spent just over R3 million last year for classroom libraries in primary schools and R3,6 million in secondary schools. This is not yet enough and we have to expand these libraries. The average school library in the 322 secondary schools has about 1 400 books and that is far too few. I also would like to mention that annually 60 selected teachers are admitted to a course specialising in library organisation and the handling of media in order to promote the effective use of school libraries. I also want to mention the contribution made by the private sector through the organisation Read, which works in close conjunction with the department and makes a very important and a highly valued contribution.

My colleague the hon the Deputy Minister has already referred to the question of appointing teachers from other population groups and we have no problem with that, provided the community and the organised Black teaching profession do not object. On the whole they are a bit hesitant about primary schools but I do not think they have objections in respect of secondary schools.

The hon member also referred to what he considered to be the importance of a well-balanced political education taking place. I think there are few countries in the world that have really succeeded in implementing an acceptable system of political education in the sense of civic education in their schools. I think West Germany and Austria are two particular examples of countries that have been successful in this in recent years, but I think in our society with the tensions that we have, we would have to handle this matter extremely carefully because, quite obviously, it could be abused. Though in principle I have no objection to it, in practice I have considerable reservations.

The hon member for Bryanston repeated his question on open schools. I think I dealt with that matter in some detail in the no-confidence debate and I would like to say again that accepting that kind of system would fundamentally affect the whole basis of the community-based constitution that we have at present and therefore I would prefer to introduce greater flexibility for the authorities dealing with education as an own affair to decide about the policy of admission in their institutions according to the way in which they see fit.

I think a very important point which the hon member for Bryanston made towards the end of his address—I would also like to thank him for the complimentary remarks he made earlier on—was the fact that Black teachers are caught up in an extremely difficult and almost cruel dilemma. I am aware of that and I have great sympathy with them.

*The hon member Prof Olivier touched upon several matters. Towards the end he once again raised the question of different departments of education, but I think the matters which he touched upon earlier, were all positive points with which I can basically agree. He referred to the qualifications of teachers, the relationship between pupils and teachers and particularly to career-orientated teacher training. I want to point out to him that at present courses in career-orientated technical subjects are already being offered at five of the department teachers’ training colleges. These will be extended next year to a sixth college. Last year 378 candidates finished their studies in technical education by obtaining three-year diplomas.

†I want to make a brief remark on a fundamental point which I think was wrongly applied by the hon member for Sasolburg. I want to say that in bringing about educational reform the provision of more money is not the only answer. We do need more money and we cannot achieve our goals without it, and this must also be money that is shared out more justly and more equitably.

It is no use, however, only having more money. One must also have the capacity to use that money more efficiently and effectively and that requires more time for training people to do so. The backlogs in this respect that we have in South Africa do not only result from apartheid, from discrimination or from having different departments— they are a typical problem of the Third World. The hon member for Sasolburg actually referred to this although in a very negative way.

*I have two quotations here which I want to present to this Committee. The one is from the Cape Times of 19 March this year, in which reference is made to the situation pertaining to the school-leaving examination in Zimbabwe.

I recall that in September last year a series of articles appeared in the newspapers of the SA AN group, in which someone said that Black parents in South Africa were so frustrated with education in South Africa that they were sending their children to Zimbabwe to attend school there, or write the school-leaving examination there.

†In this news items from the Cape Times it is mentioned that Mr Mugabe, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, complained in 1984 about a failure rate of 64% among the total number of O-level candidates. Hon members will know that the O-level is a schoolleaving certificate comparable to our standard nine.

In 1985 the failure rate increased to 80%. At the end of 1985 only 20% of the students who sat for the Cambridge General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level Examinations passed. This was a disastrous and appalling result according to spokesmen in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has not got apartheid, different departments of education or a wicked NP Government. It has real Third World problems.

These problems are not only in Zimbabwe. I have some information here to which my colleague the hon the Minister of National Education recently referred—he did it in public too—about a Unesco-initiated effort in Latin America in the 1950s to improve the level of primary education.

Although the average public expenditure on education throughout the Latin American states rose in that decade at the rate of 12% per annum and although nearly 20% of the public expenditure was being devoted to education at the end of that decade, the results were dismal. The failure rate was still so high that 50% of all the children entering primary school dropped out after their first year. Only 14% completed five years of primary schooling and only 10% six years of primary schooling.

It should therefore be realised that although we need more money we must also apply that money in a rational and responsible way. To do so we need the necessary manpower to use the money in a productive, responsible and professional way. This means training. We cannot therefore put the cart before the horse, but we have to plan this according to a sufficient time perspective to enable us to ensure the efficient use of the money available. That is why my colleague the hon the Minister of National Education has announced the 10-year programme which, to my mind, will make a vital difference to the promotion of education and in particular Black education in South Africa.

Vote agreed to.

Vote No 11—“Development Aid”:

Mr Chairman, at the beginning of my observations on the debate on the previous Vote I expressed my appreciation to both Directors-General of the two departments and their personnel. Allow me now to thank more specifically the Director-General of Development Aid and his personnel for the creative and loyal way in which they have effected the reorientation of this new department from the old Department of Co-operation and Development in a very short time and with exceptional efficiency.

We are in the fortunate position that quite a number of the sometimes frustrating control and supervisory functions which existed under the old department no longer fall under us, and that we can now concentrate on the development work, particularly as regards the national states, but also as regards the trust areas. It is in my opinion an exceptionally pleasant and challenging task which lies ahead of us.

I should also like to refer to Mr Piet Kriel, the Deputy Director-General, who is due to retire soon, and on this occasion convey to him my sincere thanks for the years of exceptionally expert service he has rendered, inter alia also as financial expert in our department, but also in other departments.

I should also like to express my appreciation to the Commissioners-General of the national states, with whom I still have the privilege in this position of co-operating very closely in their capacity of representatives of the South African government attached to the governments of the national states.

The State President has on two occasions already—at the beginning of last year and at the beginning of this year—explained the Government’s intention to effect full proprietary rights over land for Black people in South Africa. The question has frequently been put: To what extent does this now affect trust land and national state areas? In this connection I should like to make a short announcement to put the matter in its correct perspective.

†When the State President announced the Government’s decision to grant Black persons freehold property rights to land, he also anticipated negotiations with leaders of the self-governing national states to promote the institution and promotion of individual property rights for Blacks in the national states.

Negotiations with leaders of the national states have identified the anomalous situation with regard to land incorporated into the jurisdiction area of a national state as part of the process of consolidation, that it has been customary to transfer such land to the authority of such state only for purposes of using the land while the property rights in the land remained vested in the South African Development Trust. The land was transferred in full freehold title to the national state only on its assumption of independence.

The Government has now decided that, subject to existing real rights of third persons, the freehold title held by the South African Development Trust in land already incorporated or to be incorporated into the territory of a national state will be transferred to that national state. Mineral rights held by the Trust in such land will also be transferred to the national state.

Provision will also be made to include the power to deal with land matters and mineral affairs in the legislative and executive authorities of national states. Negotiations are being conducted with national state governments to arrange the orderly transfer of these rights and powers.

Individual title to land in promulgated townships either on trust land or in the national states is presently conferred by a so-called deed of grant or by a 99-year leasehold deed. It has now been decided to provide for regular registered freehold title in such townships in addition to the less complex and less expensive present system of the deed of grant. The regulations with regard to the latter are also being revised so as to approximate it as closely as possible to freehold title. There will therefore be three options: The deed of grant, the freehold title or the 99-year leasehold.

Trust land not yet incorporated into national states and not earmarked as compensatory land for resettling tribes or communities will as far as possible be planned and developed, in consultation and co-operation with the national state government concerned, with a view to granting to Black persons individual ownership in such land.

It is furthermore trusted that because this is a matter within their authority, the national state governments will also promote individual property rights in the non-communal areas already falling under their jurisdiction. Discussions and negotiations are proceeding in this regard.

*If any further questions concerning this matter should arise during the debate, my colleague, the hon the Deputy Minister of Development and of Land Affairs, who is more specifically concerned with the particulars of this matter, will comment on them when he enters the debate. With this I wish to conclude my remarks.

Mr Chairman, I request the privilege of the half-hour.

May I at the outset say, Sir, on behalf of hon members on these benches, that we welcome the statement which the hon the Minister has just made relating to freehold title to land held by the trust now being transferred to the national states, and the incentives contained in the hon the Minister’s statement to encourage the granting of freehold title by the national states to individual ownership. We note the three types of freehold title, namely freehold title, deed of grant and 99-year lease, and we think that these are steps in the right direction. We think that the hon the Minister’s statement is to be welcomed, and is of great significance.

I should also like, very briefly, to say to the hon the Minister that I welcome the statement which he made yesterday in the House of Delegates relating to the situation in Natal insofar as Black township development is concerned. This again shows that there is a realistic approach and that additional funds are being made available ahead of time for what is a vital matter in Natal-kwaZulu. Time does not permit me to go into greater detail on that, and I want to return to the main subject of my speech, and to deal with the position of national states, particularly those which have indicated that they are not interested in the independence option.

The State President in his Opening Address at the beginning of this parliamentary session indicated that attention would be given to extending the powers presently enjoyed by national states, and, the hon the Minister and his colleagues have reinforced this view in recent speeches. In many ways we are perhaps debating this issue in a vacuum because it seems that there is legislation in the pipeline dealing with national states, and I assume that that legilation will be dealt with this year either during this part of the parliamentary session or during the session in August and September. It would be useful if the hon the Minister could indicate what sort of programme he anticipates in regard to this legislation relating to national states.

However, I seek further information on this issue from the hon the Minister. In a recent speech in Gazankulu the hon the Minister is quoted as having said the following:

He was referring here to apartheid I presume:

He then went on to say:

The press speculated at the time that this was a hint at some sort of federal dispensation for the homeland or national states in any future constitutional programme. The views expressed by the hon the Minister on that occasion reinforced the statements made by his colleague the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning when he opened the Gazankulu Assembly in March, and when he referred to the State President having announced the following:

Now I want to come back to the hon the Minister’s statement that “a certain degree of group existence and group autonomy will have to form part of any future South Africa.” That is a very general statement, and the extent of its significance depends very much on the definition of the terms “group existence” and “group autonomy.” I should like the hon the Minister to elaborate on precisely what he means by these words. Does he refer here specifically to racial or ethnic groups? Is membership of, or identification with a group to be volutary or to be predetermined on an ethnic basis? I think it is very important that he defines what he means by those two terms.

No one will argue with a strengthening of regional autonomy per se in areas such as the homeland areas, if it means decentralisation of administrative powers to provide better regional government in specific geographic areas of South Africa. Nobody can argue with that, but if it means regional autonomy to reinforce ethnic compartmentalisation on a compulsory predetermined basis, I have to point out that it is doomed to failure, and the hon the Minister and his Government must be warned of this.

The serious problems we see around the country today—the division, the unrest, the strife—stem very largely from our preoccupation with racial compartmentalisation and enforced ethnicity over the years. It is not a philosophy which is accepted by the majority of Blacks around the country, whether in the urban or in the rural areas. It is an attitude which has brought division between people around the country and which has attracted the wrath of the outside world.

While it may be logical to recognise historic ethnic identities, customs and differences, such differences can only be divisive if they are to be used as the basis for political rights and for future political and constitutional dispensations in such a way as to deny the individual the right of voluntary association and choice. In support of this contention I can probably do no better than to quote extracts from a speech made recently by the Chief Minister of Gazankulu, Prof Ntsanwisi, to the President’s Council on 21 April. He said the following:

The professor went on to say the following:

He dealt with calls for the Whites to draw together and for a strengthening of group identity and his comment in this regard was as follows:

He went on in that vein.

I believe that these words of the Chief Minister of Gazankulu merely echo the feelings of millions of Black South Africans, and it is therefore important once again to return to the hon the Minister’s statement that a certain degree of group existence or group autonomy will have to form part of any future South Africa. It is necessary to require an elucidation from the hon the Minister as to what precisely is meant by those words.

When one deals with the possible extension of powers of the national states it will be interesting to know what the Government’s intentions are in this regard. At present the powers given to the national states in terms of the National States Constitution Act of 1971 are fairly considerable, and it is therefore appropriate to look at the powers which are presently excluded. Section 4 of the relevant Act sets out matters which are excluded from the powers presently enjoyed by the national states. It reads as follows:

It lists a wide range of matters, such as the following:

1. (a) the establishment, control, entry, movements or operations of any full time or part-time military unit, quasi military unit or organisaiton of a military character
2. (b) the registration, establishment and control of factories for the manufacture of arms, ammunition or explosives …;
3. (c) the appointment, accrediting and recognition of diplomatic and consular offices …;
4. (d) the control, organisation, administration, powers, entry into and presence in the area of any Police Force of the Republic charged with the maintenance of public peace and order …;
5. (e) postal, telegraph, telephone, radio and television services;
6. (f) railways, harbours, national roads and civil aviation;
7. (g) the entry of persons other than citizens into the area concerned;

This section of the Act goes onto deal with matters such as currency, customs and excise duties and other matters of this kind which are excluded from the powers enjoyed by the national states.

When one looks at the situation and listens to the speeches made according to which the Government is intending to extend the powers of national states, it is therefore theoretically possible, in terms of these intentions, for the legislative assemblies and governments of national states to be given the powers to which I have referred which are presently excluded. In such a case the Republican Government may, as has happened in the case of the four independent TBVC countries, provide for the issues listed in the section above by way of treaties between itself and the governments of such national states, and such treaties or agreements might even go beyond the scope of the issues listed in the present Act as being excluded.

If this were to take place, it could mean independence by stealth insofar as the existing national states are concerned because these national states would be placed virtually in the same independent position as the four TBVC countries at the present time; in other words, they would be independent in anything but name, but still be formally part of the Republic.

I think it is important to establish the Government’s intentions in this regard. It is important that the hon the Minister should indicate the extent to which the existing powers of the national states are to be increased because if it is the Government’s intention to move these states to a situation of near independence and if it is the Government’s philosophy to regard any new constitutional dispensation as having to be grounded in group autonomy or ethnic existence, then we must look afresh at the Government’s plans in respect of other spheres relating to the homeland states or the national states, such as, for example, the issue of consolidation for kwaZulu. If the Government is intent on group autonomy and group existence as the basis of constitutional reform in South Africa, then it may well be that in terms of its thinking, it will regard the consolidation of an area like kwaZulu as being essential, and the recommendations of the Commission for Co-operation and Development would then become more relevant to that situation.

It really depends upon what the grand plan of the Government is. Does it still have the old fixation of keeping to group autonomy and group ethnicity on a forced basis? In the absence of this sort of plan one must then ask, if it is not for that purpose, what does it intend to do in relation to the issue of consolidation for kwaZulu in the province of Natal?

At the National Party Congress on this issue in Durban in August, the hon the Minister stated that proposals relating to the consolidation of kwaZulu were on a completely different basis from the traditional method of consolidation because of certain additional factors which needed to be considered and, according to Press reports, he listed the following factors relating to the particular situation in Natal. Firstly, he said that resettlement could not be readily undertaken because of cost, dislocation of community life and the unacceptability of the policy or removal. That was the first point he made in regard to the situation there which apparently differed from the situation elsewhere.

The second point was what he referred to as the developing regional co-operation between Natal and kwaZulu; and the third point was the negative reaction of kwaZulu towards the whole issue of consolidation. He was right in regard to those reservations and yet, a few months after that speech which was made at the congress in August, the Commission for Co-operation and Development came forward with consolidation plans in Natal which were firmly rejected by most influential bodies throughout that province— Blacks, Whites, Chamber of Commerce, agricultural societies; name them and they were there and objected—and particular, of course, the kwaZulu Government which said it wanted nothing to do with those consolidation proposals or any other consolidation proposals.

That is not a true statement.

The hon member for Ermelo says that is not a true statement, but he must indicate to me what evidence he has that the Government of kwaZulu has indicated interest in his consolidation proposals. He should indicate that if he is going to participate in this debate. [Interjections.] Their attitude has been a totally consistent attitude. They have said: “If you want to go ahead with consolidation, you do it, but we are not going to be involved in it. We do not believe it is necessary.” Moreover, the hon the Minister and that hon member will know that as far as Natal is concerned, and according to a very wide cross-section of public opinion in Natal, the belief is that Natal and kwaZulu should be treated as a single region.

That is why I believe it is necessary that this hon Minister should indicate as a matter of urgency what the Government’s intentions are in regard to the consolidation plans of the Commission for Co-operation and Development. I understand that the commission is going to return to Natal shortly to take fresh evidence. That will just keep the whole situation of controversy alive. However, it is necessary that the hon the Minister indicate urgently what the Government’s intentions are in regard to consolidation and the proposals of the Commission for Co-operation and Development because he must be well aware that there is a wide-spread body of opinion in Natal which believes that those plans are totally impractical of implementation.

I am also sure that he will be aware of the very strong movement in Natal that the whole Natal-kwaZulu region be treated as a single region in South Africa, hence the process which is presently under way which is known as the Natal Indaba. That Indaba too is dependent on this sort of situation, and one needs clarity on the part of the Government as to what its consolidation plans are because consolidation, along the lines suggested by the Commission for Co-operation and Development would run totally counter to the discussions which are presently taking place in Natal at the Natal Indaba.

Mr Chairman, in the first place I not only want to thank the hon the Minister from this side of the Committee, but also to congratulate him on the way in which he has dealt with his portfolio, as newly structured since 1 October last year. We want to tell him we are proud of him. [Interjections.] We also want to convey our thanks and congratulations to the hon the Deputy Minister of Development and of Land Affairs for and his practical approach to the problems he has to contend with. This also applies to the very great success he is having in his excellent relations with Black governments and communities.

From our side of the Committee, we also want to express our hearty appreciation toward the department, the Director-General and all his officials for the dedication with which they perform their task. In this respect I should like to associate myself with the hon the Minister by conveying my sincere thanks to our two senior officials, Mr Piet Kriel and Dr Hamburger, who will probably not be with us in the same capacity on a similar occasion next year, for years of dedicated service to the great cause this department is engaged in. We also want to express our appreciation to the officials of the ministry.

A special word of congratulations goes to the department’s liaison section—the hon member Prof Olivier also referred to it earlier this afternoon—for the excellent exhibition which is being held across the road. I hope the hon member for Berea has been there! [Interjections.] I was told that between 800 and 900 people had visited the exhibition since its opening. Of them, 70% were Black teachers from the Boland and the Peninsula. The officials who were responsible for the exhibition really deserve our congratulations.

I want to turn to the hon member for Berea. He put a number of questions to the hon the Minister, which the hon the Minister will reply to as a member of the executive authority. In connection with his questions on consolidation, and more specifically the consolidation of kwaZulu, I must tell the hon member he brought it up under the wrong Vote. Does he not know that that aspect of the Government’s activities has been referred to another Minister since 1 October 1985? [Interjections.] I want to tell the hon member I should like to discuss consolidation with him, but we shall discuss it when the relevant Vote is discussed. [Interjections.]

I want to associate myself with the statement issued by the hon the Minister yesterday about township development, more specifically in kwaZulu, and with the announcement he made here this afternoon. I want to draw hon members’ attention to township development on trust land and in the national states. In this respect one should consult the Government’s White Paper on Urbanisation. I want to point out only a few relevant guidelines in it.

In the first place the Government recognises the role of community involvement in the formulation and implementation of an urban development policy. In the second place the Government recognises the important role industrial development can fulfil in respect of urbanisation. In the third place, towns which make proper and well balanced provision for residential, businesses and industrial practices, must be established. Sufficient land must be made available for urbanisation and, lastly, there is the emphasis on increasing accommodation densities so as to bring about the more effective utilisation of land.

I want to associate myself with these guidelines of the White Paper so as to discuss the department’s activities in accordance with them, and also to tell the Committee how I think the department should set its objectives in that connection. The first and very important point is that the planning and the implementation of an urbanisation policy and of township development should take place in consultation with the residents, or the proposed residents, of that area.

Secondly, the existing work opportunities and the creation of new ones by simultaneous industrial development in such towns is a primary objective. We have had the experience that a mere dormitory town does not promote a happy urban community. We have to try to move away from that. It is of fundamental importance that the worker should cover the shortest possible distance between his home and his work. If people have to commute, good and fast transport systems must be provided.

A further point is that sufficient land should be available. I merely want to say that the commission, when it considers its terms of reference, is very mindful of recommending suitable settlement areas for township development to comply with this strong requirement of sufficient suitable land. There must be no repetition of what has happened in the past, viz that a Black Minister from one of the states asked me whether we thought they were baboons who had to go and live on rock-faces and in gorges. Unfortunately we erred in the past in that such inhospitable places, which could be used for nothing but nature conservation areas, for example, were transferred and earmarked for settlement areas. If we try to do that, we shall really be looking for trouble.

In the last place, the land that is identified in this way must be utilised more effectively, and we shall have to consider increased residential density for a growing population, particularly among our Black communities. In that respect I am rather worried about many of our national states. I want to give two examples for hon members who may have been there recently. In kwaNdebele and in Nsikazi at White River, rural Blacks are settled in scattered, dense pockets, particularly on tribal land with their cattle, maize land and all, in an absolutely disorderly way. We shall have to negotiate with the relevant authorities in the Black national states to get greater order, because these areas are developing into urban complexes while there is no order whatsoever.

Are you accusing him?

I am accusing no one. I am stating my concern, which all of us shall have to address.

You are accusing the man!

With reference to this I want to refer to Programme 2 of the Vote which we are dealing with at present, and place on record my joy at the allocation of a record amount as a grant-in-aid for the SA Development Trust. R360 million is being allocated for this year, which is R99 million more than last year. It is really pleasing to see penetrating attention being given to this. Our challenges are enormous, as are our requirements.

I want to draw the attention of hon members to one of the department’s splendid projects, and that is Botshabelo near Bloemfontein. It is a splendid project of the SADTC. [Interjections.] I hear the hon member for Johannesburg North regards Botshabelo as a resettlement camp. I want to read to him what a Black schoolchild, a prize-winner in an essay competition in Botshabelo, wrote. I hope the hon member is listening well. She said, and I quote:

†I say to the hon member for Johannesburg North: Stop being an irrelevant outsider in these things. Help us to spread this vision of this Black child.

*Mr Chairman, history … [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr Chairman, Botshabelo has a very interesting history. A city is emerging there. The South Sotho people have migrated to Botshabelo. They have been settled there in an orderly way, with their industries, their schools, their clinics and so on. That hon member and his friends regard it as a resettlement camp, however. [Interjections.] What we in South Africa need, is not simply to leave everything to the Government, but for each one to do his duty and to approach these matters in a positive way.

Prof Berger, of the University of Boston, put it as follows:

That, Mr Chairman, is what we need in this country. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid last Friday thought fit to rise in the House of Representatives and, as some reporters in the media put it, to become the first Cabinet Minister publicly to distance himself from Dr H F Verwoerd. The liberal Press of South Africa were in a state of euphoria about it, because a Cabinet Minister who even now is still regarded by some people as a leading figure in Afrikanerdom, as if he were some Third World Leader tried to defame and denigrate the image of a celebrated leader of this country. [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon the Minister whether he is not ashamed of his behaviour. [Interjections.] I wonder how history, and his people are going to judge him in comparison to someone like Dr H F Verwoerd. I am merely wondering. [Interjections.]

Order!

On the one hand we have Dr H F Verwoerd, one of the greatest statesmen ever produced by this country, a man who led his people with wisdom and vision to the crest of a wave in the history of his people, and on the other hand, we have the image of a Gerrit Viljoen, the image of a capitulator, the image of someone who has renounced a philosophy of life and a world view which he also once passionately believed in, the image of one who has toppled the structure of the people, which was established with a great deal of trouble. That hon the Minister, with his pardon-me-for-living syndrome, would want to have a Black occupying the bench he is sitting in at the moment, if he could have his way.

The hon the Minister’s derogatory comment about the hon member for Koedoespoort with regard to his reference to his loin cloth does not befit an hon Minister—especially an hon Minister in that portfolio. [Interjections.]

Order!

That is the typical behaviour of a liberal, who refers to the traditional in such a way.

Yes!

I think that was an insult to the King of the Zulu’s.

Yes, of course! [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr Chairman, in the limited amount of time at my disposal I want to pay further attention to the commission of investigation into the alleged misappropriation of the funds of the Lebowa Development Corporation. Allow me just to begin by pointing out that the Chairman and only member of the commission, Mr L W Dekker, did his job very thoroughly. The same applies to the legal team of the Corporation. They also gave me the impression that they were only interested in the real state of affairs.

It is an extremely great pity that the former Minister of Co-operation and Development could not be sitting here facing us this evening. I should for example have reminded him of the words spoken by him on 3 May 1984, during the discussion of his Vote in the old Senate Chamber when he spoke of the so-called gossip. Let me quote what he said on that occasion (Hansard, Part 116, col 237):

Piet Pinocchio!

To this Dr Koornhof added and I quote:

He went on to say that he had instructed the Commission for Co-operation and Development to investigate the matter. Later on, according to legal opinion, it appeared not to have been the correct procedure and after that the Dekker Commission was appointed. But that was only after almost a year—on 9 April 1985. I therefore allege that Dr Koomhof reluctantly dragged his feet.

Yet another cover-up!

He created the impression that he was not prepared to put all his cards on the table. Allow me to mention an example of such an action. In the Commission’s report on page 8 …

Order! I am afraid the hon member for Pietersburg will just have to refer to that example after the resumption of business.

Mr Chairman, before proceedings were interrupted, I was referring to the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Alleged Misappropriation of Funds of the Lebowa Development Corporation. I refer hon members to page 8 of the report, where it is indicated that on 1 February 1984 I put questions to the then Minister of Co-operation and Development concerning, amongst other things, the fringe benefits of the chairman and the Board of Directors of the Lebowa Development Corporation. At that stage the hon the Minister said (Hansard, 1 February 1984, Question, col 32):

Needless to say, nothing came of that promise in spite of the fact that on 31 January 1984, a day before I put the question, the hon the Minister was informed that fringe benefits were in fact involved.

According to paragraph 3.22 of the report, the Chairman of the Corporation, Dr J H Pretorius, wrote a letter on 13 February 1984 to the hon the Minister, in which he gave him full details about the car on which the LDC was paying all the costs.

On 29 February 1984 when I had not yet received any reply, I repeated the question. What was the hon the Minister’s reply? He replied:

Now let me tell hon members that it was not within the scope of the Commission’s terms of reference to investigate the dealings of the hon the Minister or his department, but from evidence that came to the fore, as it appears in this case, the former hon the Minister of Co-operation and Development did not act correctly. It would also appear from the evidence before us that there was also a laxity on the part of the department. On page 4 of the report we read that the Cabinet gave instructions on 1 April 1982 that the appointment of directors of holding companies to the Boards of Subsidiaries should be discouraged and should be phased out of those boards “over the shortest possible period.” Paragraph 2.13 of the report reads as follows:

The Minister has left in the meantime, but I hope the present hon the Minister of the rudimentary department which is all that remains of the old Department of Co-operation and Development, will see to it that such negligent behaviour will never be tolerated again.

In the 16 chapters of the report many matters are touched upon, but I am not going to have time to go into more details. But the report is there for everyone to read and I hope hon members will in fact take the trouble to go and look at that report.

In regard to this I could perhaps quote what the Cape Times stated on 2 May 1986. I shall read only the introductory paragraph:

On page 12, chapter 5, of the report, the commission makes the following recommendation in regard to the remuneration of directors of subsidiary companies. I quote:

On page 3 of the White Paper issued by the Government on this matter, this recommendation is condoned. No motivation is given for it, however, and I should therefore like to ask the hon the Minister what the reason was for this decision. [Interjections.]

In chapter 8 of the report it is reported that 19 people undertook trips overseas, at the expense of the Corporation and its subsidiaries. R286 656 was spent and the commission found that, seen in retrospect, the Corporation spent heavily on overseas visits, and had little to show for it due to, amongst other things, a lack of adequately circumscribed overseas travel policy and procedure. [Interjections.] All the events around the company Packsure Pietersburg (Pty) Limited, to which a capital amount of R900 000 was lent, according to question 22 on 1 February 1986, deserve serious criticism. One can only hope that the recommendations of the commission will rescue the situation. If this exercise could contribute to establishing better control, not only in the Lebowa Development Corporation, but as far as State corporations in general are concerned, this investigation will have been in the interests of every taxpayer in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Pietersburg dedicated his entire speech to pointing out the irregularities in the Lebowa Development Corporation, which were investigated by the Dekker Commission which published a report. I challenge the hon member to prove from the report that any indication of the irregular enrichment of the members of the corporation is indicated. [Interjections.]

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

No, Sir, I do not have time. [Interjections.]

Let me just tell the hon member that if he is alleging that irregular enrichment took place, I should like to refer him to the Auditor-General. [Interjections.] He should give such information to the Auditor-General. [Interjections.] If the hon member for Pietersburg wants to learn anything about irregularities, he should go to one of the leaders of the CP. Dr Connie Mulder will show him how irregularities take place. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon member said he was ashamed of the hon the Minister. We have no reason to be ashamed of the hon the Minister. We are very proud of him. I say that he handles his portfolio, Black Education, in a brilliant way. We are proud of the way in which he does his work. [Interjections.] If the hon members want to learn anything about the realities of South Africa, let me refer them to the king of the Zulus. [Interjections.] They were at Nongoma and I want to recommend that they also pay a visit to the other Black states to establish that the leaders and cabinets of the national states are also willing to share power at this stage. They must not overlook the realities of South Africa, they must get back to the realities, they should return having undergone a transformation, like the hon member for Koedoespoort, who was so shaken that he does not know where he is at the moment. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Berea spoke of the commission and of consolidation. There are 12 leaders under the leadership of the hon member for Ermelo on that commission. I want to thank him and his officials most sincerely. There is very close co-operation between him and his officials. I have come to appreciate the officials. There has probably never been a chairman of the commission who has furthered human relations and dialogue with other members and Blacks to such an extent in South Africa’s favour as this very man. [Interjections.]

Order! I cannot allow so much comment to be made on the member’s speech as has just been made.

That was acclamation!

Order! The hon members must contain themselves. The hon member may proceed.

With the period of consolidation we have gone through, we have become well acquainted with Black issues and bottle-necks. We have lately held more discussions with Whites and Blacks who are involved in consolidation and that is why I foresee a fine future. An important point which is being discussed in South Africa at present is land, and this is an emotional and very important subject. It is not a simple problem.

I want to refer the Committee to the Act of 1936 which we have to implement. I must say, I am not very proud about the fact that after 50 years we have still not implemented their recommendations completely. After it was decided in 1936 that 6,2 million ha of land had to be added to the 9 million ha that were put aside for Blacks in South Africa, it took us 50 years to implement that. If we look at the intensity of the problems that exist in South Africa at the moment, and if one thinks that the whole population of South Africa was merely 12,5 million in 1951, and is almost 30 million today, one realises that we have many problems in this regard. In 1904 only 25% of the total population of South Africa was urbanised, and just look where we find ourselves today.

In 1951 the Blacks in South Africa owned 17,5 million morgen, which was composed of 260 separate units, and which comprised 12,9% of the Republic’s total surface area.

The present situation is unsatisfactory and we do not have a popular task to carry out either, but the public must realise that it is being done in the interest of South Africa. In our daily activities we have found that a very strong desire for property rights or private ownership exists amongst Blacks. We found that communal ownership was destructive and that reforming of that system was imperative. I am therefore very pleased about the hon the Minister’s announcement in this Committee.

Now we are being asked why we have taken so long to implement the terms reference issued in 1936. The availability of money was a very important consideration. But we are grateful for the target date which the State President set for next year, because by that time we must have come to same. A commission under the chairmanship of the hon member for Ermelo is working very hard to complete its business so that finality can be reached on matters concerning land in South Africa, so that one knows where the borders are.

We are criticised by Blacks who say it is taking too long to transfer the land. They say that in some cases it takes up to 18 years before the land is transferred, but there are good reasons for that. We are criticised by Blacks for the long-term leasing of farms to White farmers. We have come to realise the urgent need for land amongst Blacks in South Africa. There is an urgent need for land to facilitate the urbanisation of Blacks and it is a bottleneck in South Africa today. It is not so much agricultural land which has become the issue, but to find land for urbanisation where there are job opportunities.

The removal and resettlement of people is an important matter. We have said we shall not move people against their will, but there are many Blacks in South Africa who do want to move, who have to move and who want a little place in the sun in South Africa. We must find this for them.

The utilisation of land is an important question in South Africa. It must be used productively and in the interest of South Africa’s people. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member may proceed.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. If you would only control the hon member for Rissik, I could continue. [Interjections.]

The transfer of land to the national states has to be planned with their co-operation. We have very high regard for the hon the Deputy Minister for the way in which careful plans were made for the transfer of the 80 000 hectare which we gave to Qwaqwa. That was done in co-operation with the University of Potchefstroom.

We are very grateful for the settlement of 21 400 Black farmers which took place in the national states. They have been economically settled within the national states. They can now continue with production on their own. This is important in South Africa, because Black entrepreneurs do not always understand the free market system and its advantages and rewards for individual initiative and entrepreneurial spirit.

A personal and individual responsibility must be cultivated amongst Black entrepreneurs, so that they may taste the fruit of the system, and therefore be able to support it enthusiastically. In this way a Black middle class would arise which would advance job creation and help to reduce unemployment.

The encouragement of entrepreneurship and initiative amongst Blacks is of the greatest importance for stability, rest and peace. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Vryheid is a member of the Commission for Co-operation and Development.

Believe it or not!

He finds himself in a position where he is like an old piece of leather. A new piece of leather is flexible and therefore very useful, but when it gets old and perished it becomes brittle. That hon member’s party has reached that stage. If one just bends it a bit, it breaks. [Interjections.] The NP’s policy does not have the flexibility to cope with the situation in South Africa today. It has indeed moved away from its original inflexibility which is now represented by the CP. [Interjections.] It has not, however, replaced it with the flexibility that we believe it should have, and that is the NP’s problem. [Interjections.]

This evening the hon member for Ermelo, who is chairman of that commission, told the hon member for Berea that he was talking about the wrong Vote. I would like to look at that statement, because the chairman and members of the commission decide on boundaries and people’s futures. They push these matters through to the hon the Deputy Minister of Development and of Land Affairs, and the final decisions are taken by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning who is not here tonight. Yet during the debate on this Vote we are apparently not allowed to discuss matters about which those gentleman are making decisions.

It is hideous.

That’s the Nat Government for you! [Interjections.]

That is an absentminded hon member! [Interjections.]

I would like to say to the members and the Ministers who are linked to that commission that they must not tamper with the boundary between East London and King William’s Town.

That’s it! Let them have it! [Interjections.]

There is a better way of going about it, and that is what I would like to talk about tonight. Such incursions into situations in which it has taken a long time to build up security are going to reawaken for no good reason all the insecurity, doubts and broken promises to which the hon member Dr Snyman referred.

As usual, the NP always introduces the right sort of reform when its value is long past. While we in these benches associate ourselves completely with the hon the Minister’s welcome statement concerning freehold title, we have to point out that it would have had a tremendous impact if it had been made some time ago.

We are going to have to move in the same direction as far as the rural areas are concerned. I would like to talk about the remaining Black spots in the border corridor which are in fact the result of a political football game and broken promises. Prior to the change in the NP’s policy whereby forced removal is no longer going to take place, the Ciskei government which administered those areas expected them to be removed and therefore undertook no development. The Government of South Africa, expecting them to be moved, also began no development. The situation now is that no development is taking place, and the Government has no policy to cope with those areas.

I want to suggest how we should go about it, because on the estimates before us today there is no mention of funds available for the developement of those areas. The description of this portfolio reads that it has to do with the promotion of “the development of the various Black national units towards self-determination”, and it also concerns itself with trust land. Now, except for isolated little parts, those areas do not have any thing to do with either of those categories. So, there is no allocation for development in those areas, and whilst I realise that the hon the Minister has the ability to transfer funds for that purpose, it indicates that the degree of planning to cope with this great vacuum which exists in an otherwise stable rural community, has not been forthcoming. [Interjections.] Well, these hon members should just go to live there and see what has happened there, because there is nothing there, and the Government has made no statements about what it intends to do about those areas. For the last four debates on this portfolio we have concentrated largely on the question of rural education which the hon the Minister has mentioned tonight is going to be catered for in a departmental report the target date of which is August of this year. So, we shall leave it it that to see what comes out about the planning for rural education.

However, as far as rural development in the RSA is concerned, there is no clear-cut policy, and we believe that there is a way to do it, particularly in the border corridor where there is a unique situation in which a very narrow part of the RSA is located between two independent states. There is no need to be rigid about this thing. The subsistence farmers in those areas are already integrated commercially and economically. They attend the local stock sales and they were in the past on very good terms with their neighbouring White farmers. If one cuts off that communication by having a department doing development aid there, we are going to recreate a division between people who have to learn to live together.

We would suggest that as far as that area is concerned, it would be right, proper and effective, if that communication is to be developed and assistance is to be forthcoming from the agricultural sector, if those areas were to fall under the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture has a research station at Dohne and a very effective extension office near East London, which are very well established to cope with those areas, to get into those areas and, with the assistance of those farmers and the department—with departmental finance—to reinculcate the concept of co-operation by virtue of their participation in soil conservation, farmers’ committees and even in the agricultural union. If those rural areas are to be stabilised, they will have to be stabilised by virtue of the agricultural input. The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning will have to cope with the villages, the township development and that side of things.

Beyond that one will have to move into the field where Black farmers in South Africa are going to have to be allowed to go into the open market, and buy ground and farm under the same conditions as the White farmers, with access to the same financial assistance in order to stabilise the rural areas as a whole.

We have a marvellous band of loyal, hardworking people who are traditionally bound to the land and, if we make good use of those people’s inclinations to be rural people, they will form a bulwark in the country against the sort of activism that takes place in the urban areas. If we do not act soon and take those steps, we shall not prevent the unrest from spreading out into the rural areas.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for King William’s Town made some sarcastic remarks about the NP, comparing it with a piece of old leather that is worth nothing. [Interjections.] I want to say to the hon member that if one treats a piece of old leather like the NP treats its whole philosophy with reform policies, it becomes flexible again. The difficulty with that hon member’s party is that it is such a rotten piece of leather that one can do nothing with it! [Interjections.]

The hon member for King William’s Town also referred to a number of problems as far as boundaries are concerned. We on this side of the House have sympathy with that argument. We have no problems concerning that argument. However, I want to point out to the hon member that there is an avenue available for everybody in South Africa who experiences difficulties in determining boundaries, to put forward proposals to the commission …

Yes, but you don’t listen!

Of course we listen! [Interjections.] The hon member for Mooi River must bear it in mind that a court of law for example listens to the evidence put forward by everybody, but does not say that everybody is right. It gives its verdict according to the evidence before it in the interest of South Africa as a whole. [Interjections.]

*I do not want to spend any more time on this hon member. I should like to discuss the question of development that is the responsibility of this department. I think we can tell one another that we in this Committee should have consensus about one matter, and that is the necessity of development and work creation within the geographic jurisdiction areas under the control of a variety of Black peoples within South Africa. The hon member for Berea tried to drag ideology in when he spoke about what he called “the independence option”.

We can debate about the participation of people in these areas in the decision-making process. As from Friday we will have three days in which to debate this in the debate on the Constitutional Development and Planning Vote. But we in South Africa should enter into penetrating dialogue with one another about the creation of infrastructures for agricultural development and work creation. Naturally we must expect the Official Opposition’s point of departure to be that too little is done or that it is done with the wrong motives. We can expect the opposition on our right-hand side to argue that too much is being done.

Apart from the TBVC countries, there are also six self-governing national states which together accommodate 50% of the Blacks in this country. These are people who have to eat, who need housing, have to be clothed…

And drink as well?

Yes, they have to drink too, like the hon member for Barberton. They have to go to school …

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: May the hon member refer to an hon member on this side of the Committee in such a way?

Order! The hon member for Turffontein was reacting to an interjection made by the hon member for Barberton.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Barberton said: “And drink?” and I said “Yes, and drink like the hon member for Barberton.” That is all I said.

Order! The hon member for Turffontein may proceed.

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

It is, in fact, this department which should be given credit where it is due. One of the success stories of this department which deserves acclaim is the Government’s special campaign to create work opportunities. Last year R600 million was granted for this purpose, and R38,3 million of the R600 million was granted to the Department of Development Aid for the creation of work opportunities in the national states. With properly co-ordinated action, this department undertook valuable projects, determined needs and identified specific projects. An evaluation was done with the express condition that only unemployed people who do not enjoy unemployment insurance benefits could be involved. The wages that are paid may not exceed the minimum wage and expenditure on wages must make up 50% of each project. When we look at the results of these projects, we must conclude that they have been a phenomenal success. Of the R38,3 million which was allocated to this department, only R22 million has been spent at this stage, and 313 389 unemployed people have been accommodated in this programme in some or other way. What does this mean?

Using R22 million of the allotted amount of R38,3 million, over 300 000 unemployed people have at least been given work. We can expect, therefore, that when the full amount has been spent, more than 500 000 unemployed will have been benefited. This is absolutely phenomenal. Hon members can imagine what this means to people who have no work. What is also important is that attention has now been given to infrastuctures which were either incomplete or are in the process of completion.

I do not know how many hon members went to see the video show across the road about development in the homeland areas. The ordinary people who were unemployed were used in what many people would call the most primitive way. Nevertheless, they were employed in completing nature conservation projects as tourist attractions, establishing water schemes, in lining dam walls, in digging trenches for pipelines and laying pipes for provision of water, in planting trees on the one hand and combating poisonous plants on the other. Refuse was removed and unhygienic irrigation ditches were cleaned. Retaining walls were built to prevent soil erosion. It is true that these are small projects, but 300 000 people, unemployed people, were given the opportunity to work over six million man-days productively. On this basis we want to tell the Government that dozens of amounts of R38,3 million can be allotted if the money is spent in this way.

Another very important aspect in respect of our remote developing areas is the basic foundation of agriculture and industrial development for developing communites. I want to say tonight that any developing community which begins with the philosophical BA degrees in politics, is beginning with the wrong foundation. That is why it is praiseworthy—my friend the hon member for Vryheid referred to this—that this department, in co-operation with the national states, has settled almost 22 000 Black farmers as individual farmers on 27 different projects on over 70 000 ha land. This may sound inferior to critics, but the creation of 37 000 so-called “garden plots”, for example, in which families in the homelands produce vegetables to meet their daily requirements, is of inestimable value to any developing community. We therefore look forward to the results of the projects which are planned by the department and those which they are engaged in, on the Makatini Flats for example.

On this occasion one also wants to pay tribute to the South African Development Trust Corporation. In respect of agricultural practitioners, this corporation presently accommodates over 5 000 workers and 2 000 seasonal workers. Almost 8 000 are accommodated in respect of mining and associated industries. As far as trade and industry is concerned, hon members should do themselves the favour of reading in this corporation’s report about what has been done in a place like Botshabelo. In respect of transport, probably the most important industry as a lifeline between remote communites and income-generating areas, 284,5 million passengers are transported by 2 330 busses across 156 million km annually.

The leadership, the support, the counsel and the advice of this ministry and this department and its officials, as well as that of the South African Development Trust, who are all entrusted with this great task, deserve absolute praise from this Committee. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Turffontein pointed out the importance of development and the creation of employment in the national states. I should like to associate myself with him in this regard and link up with him in the course of my speech as well.

I also find myself in the uncomfortable position of being forced largely to agree with what the hon member for King William’s Town said but even an old campaigner like him cannot always be wrong. [Interjections.]

The development of the national states certainly remains a cornerstone of the NP’s broader constitutional policy. Obviously it does not supply the perfect answer but, by furnishing the respective Black peoples with the opportunity of determining their development according to their own choice within the framework of their own nationhood, the highest form of self-determination is definitely being expressed. In essence, consolidation involves making viable territory available within which this ideal may be realised. Rather than providing proof of rejection, the continuous insistence on more land by all the national states provides the most positive proof of the acceptance by large sections of the peoples involved of this essential element of an ultimate overall constitutional system for Southern Africa.

Against this backdrop, I should like to refer more specifically to a few aspects of consolidation in the so-called White corridor area. Consolidation and the attendant relocation of people mean dislocation to all those involved. In this way, people who in some cases have owned land for generations have to relinquish it; our farming community in particular has been and is being affected by this.

On the other hand, relocation in and the occupation of these areas also bring hardships and challenges to the Black communities involved. As the hon member for Vryheid indicated, it means far more to everyone than the mere relinquishing or acquiring of a piece of land; it often involves an entire change in life and adjustment.

Uncertainty brought about by the possible consolidation of an area is probably the most disruptive aspect to the people who may be involved. It is essential that finality be reached as soon as possible on the consolidation of the national states. We are all well aware of the great work accomplished by the commission on a continuous basis in this respect and of the considerable progress already made. Viewed in the light of the time which has passed since the inception of consolidation and the uncertainty still prevailing in many areas, this simply has to be expedited.

In addition, it is also essential that, after a final decision has been taken and announced, it is implemented as rapidly as possible. Once an area has been earmarked for consolidation, it should actually be purchased for that purpose even if it should later no longer be consolidated in consequence of changed circumstances or if its consolidation be left in abeyance pro tem for some reason or other. A sharp decline in market value and conditions which greatly hamper normal farming activities—and in some cases even make them impossible—are often a reality in an area which is earmarked for consolidation.

The position of land owners between the Chulumna and Ncera rivers adjacent to East London are a telling example of problems which may arise. Some time ago this area was earmarked for consolidation with Ciskei in conjunction with the resettlement of people from other parts of the corridor. A few farms were actually bought up and valuations were done in other cases or considerable progress made towards this. This resulted in a sharp decline in the value of properties in the area, increasing problems making normal farming activities extremely difficult or even impossible, friction as a result of high-handed demands for the land and the deterioration of the area as a whole. It may be that circumstances have changed and the consolidation of these properties is no longer meaningful but is it unfair to leave land owners in such areas in suspense. It would be equally unfair, with respect, to leave the land owners concerned to their fate and in continued suspense if it were decided that this area would not be incorporated with Ciskei any more or in any case not in the immediate future.

Consequently I appeal to the hon the Minister for urgent clarification of the position and, if circumstances have changed and the area is not to be incorporated in Ciskei now or in the immediate future, to continue with the purchase of these properties in cases where owners still wish to sell. Until finality is reached, they may be let and possibly to some of the larger farmers in the area who can develop them further but in the knowledge that it is a temporary arrangement. The position of this area should be finalised in the interests of all.

The various Black communities which may possibly be affected by consolidation and have to be resettled are also disrupted by uncertainty and are entitled to assurance. Here I wish to associate myself to some degree with the hon member for King William’s Town. The position surrounding the Black settlements such as Newlands, Kwelegha, Mooiplaas and others in the so-called White corridor can serve as an example here.

It has long since been declared policy that these settlements are to be moved and relocated in Ciskei but many of these communities have inhabited these areas for generations. Because enforced relocations are no longer to be carried out, it is most unlikely that people in these areas will settle voluntarily in Ciskei. The uncertainty of their position disrupts communities and creates a breeding ground for unrest which is actually being exploited by revolutionary factions at present. This retards development of these areas which are degenerating into administrative nightmares here and there.

For various reasons which I need not go into at present these areas cannot be added to Ciskei at all. Nevertheless it is also clear that these communities will remain permanently settled within the Republic of South Africa. Here too I wish to appeal that finality be reached as soon as possible so that the uncertainty and friction which are caused may be allayed. If the areas are not to be consolidated, we should say so and their upgrading should be pursued urgently. Attention should also be paid to safeguarding the farming community in these areas, possibly by buying up the immediately adjacent properties for further Black settlement or for the greater unification of states. The uncertainty surrounding these areas not only undermines the communities involved but also leads to unnecessary friction and certainly to the shattering of confidence in the area as a whole.

In conclusion, I wish to refer briefly to the position of Black urbanisation, especially as it affects the East London area once again. As a part of an irresistible urbanisation process, increasing numbers of people are pouring into these areas and adjacent country districts and large-scale squatting is taking place. It cannot be expected that these people merely be left to their fate. On the other hand, the farming community in these areas cannot be expected to accommodate the unplanned increase of unemployed people and the attendant social and economic evils. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member for East London City had better permit other hon members to complete their speeches before proceeding. The hon member may proceed.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, I shall continue.

Provision will have to be made for more and decent living space for these people and that near employment opportunities to enable them to exist meaningfully. Existing Black urban areas have already accumulated an enormous development backlog and there is not even sufficient land for meaningful accommodation of the people living there at present. Consequently it is essential that alternative areas for orderly urbanisation be identified and developed while the development of East London should also receive immediate attention to create a drastic increase in employment opportunities. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for East London City made a very good speech here this evening. It is one with which I can associate myself entirely. In fact, it is not often the case in this chamber that one finds speeches coming from hon members of both the NRP and the Government benches with which one can associate oneself. I would, therefore, also like to compliment the hon member for King William’s Town on his earlier speech,

It is obvious that this whole question of the border corridor and of the black spots within that corridor is a sensitive one which is in need of urgent attention.

The history of the black spots in that area, especially the larger ones such as Mgwali, Kwelega and Mooiplaas, goes back a long way. There have been two significant developments which have affected this history and which have created the kind of problems which were raised in this Committee this evening.

The first development was related to the Government’s campaign against all so-called illegal Blacks who lived in towns and villages in the Eastern Cape and Border areas. As a result of the campaigns which were conducted against these people during the 1960s and the 1970s, tens of thousands of black people were prosecuted and chased out of the towns. There were only two possible places where these displaced people could go. They could go either to Ciskei under President Sebe, or they could go to the black spots in that border corridor. [Interjections.] Significant numbers of these people chose to go into the black spots and to settle there as squatters. This swelled the number of people living in those black spots appreciably and created stresses and strains in those communities with the people who were already there, and also with the farmers in the surrounding areas. I am sure the hon member for King William’s Town has grey hairs as a result of the problems that arose with the squatters living in those black spots. [Interjections.]

Because the tribal authorities that had been set up by the Government permitted this squatting, they too fell foul of the original inhabitants in those black spots who saw the squatters as unwelcome intruders.

The second development was the Government’s plan to excise these black spots and to remove all their inhabitants to Ciskei. As a precursor to this move, certain key administrative functions were handed over to Ciskei. This created tremendous resentment and insecurity in those areas, particularly among the original inhabitants. The squatters themselves were more amenable to the suggested move because they had nothing to lose anyway, and were tempted by offers of land which was apparently going to be made available to them by the authorities.

All those who then expressed themselves as willing to move, were branded as sell-outs by the original members of the community, by the old inhabitants, and this, too, created further problems for them.

This held good for the tribal authorities as well, and severe tensions developed. As the hon the Minister will know, these tensions later exploded into violence and in some cases led to killings.

What, then, is the situation at present? Since the Government’s laudable decision to cease forced removals, a degree of security has returned to these black spots. Administratively, however, they are in a mess. Some services are being provided by Ciskei and some services by the RSA, while some services are in a state of transition between the two.

Furthermore—this was touched on by both the hon member for East London City and the hon member for King William’s Town—because these communities have been under threat of removal for so many years, they are in a sad state of neglect. Schools and clinics are inadequate, and the agricultural infrastructure is, in many cases, run down and needs urgent attention.

Those of us who are familiar with these black spots will know that there is little or no chance at all of ever getting the majority of the people there to agree to move. In view of the Government’s stated intention not to move these people, I believe that the hon the Minister must act now to normalise life for the people in those areas. This is going to mean that the hon the Minister must take the following steps as a matter of urgency. First of all, he must state clearly and unequivocally that the black spots in the border region will remain an integral part of the R S A, and that the legal and civil rights of their inhabitants will be protected under South African law.

Secondly, the hon the Minister must then set up adequate administrative institutions in these areas. There is no reason at all why these areas should not be declared municipalities and administered as such, with duly elected councils. The tribal system there is outdated. In any case, it is inadequate and has been rejected. The Government will also need to move in order to eliminate the shortage of educational, medical, recreational and other facilities in that area. Mr Chairman, if the hon the Minister does all these things he will have gone a long way towards normalising what is at present a very unhappy situation.

Furthermore, Mr Chairman, I should like to touch briefly on the issue which was raised just now as well, involving the trust land near Kidds Beach. This case is at present sub judice and the subject of a court case between this department and the farming association there. Therefore, we cannot discuss the case itself. I should like, however, merely to make a few comments in connection with general development policy.

First of all, Sir, it is an absolute folly to uproot any settled community in order to resettle it in another locality. This is particularly so when such resettlement is motivated purely by an outdated ideology. Secondly, it is an even worse folly to settle those people in an area in which there is no possibility of finding employment. Thirdly, this folly is compounded even further if the new settlement is planned within a few hundred metres of highly productive fruit or vegatable farms. It is simply asking for trouble. The creation of settlements in such a way that they will almost inevitably turn into rural slums is something which any reasonable government will surely do its best to avoid.

Mr Chairman, I therefore call on the hon the Minister to extend and expand the new urbanisation policy in order to include also those communities and people who over the past years have been shunted and shuttled around the countryside. They must be incorporated, brought back and given security, stability and the chance to reintegrate themselves as productive members of our society.

Mr Chairman, I want to begin by expressing my thanks to the hon the Minister for the year in which we have been able to co-operate, as well as for the guidance which he has given in this department. In the second place I want to address a personal word of thanks to the staff of the Department of Development Aid, the Director-General and his entire staff of officials—both those who are rendering parliamentary service here as well as those in Pretoria—for the work they are doing in the interests of the Black community in particular, but also in the interests of South Africa in general. I should like to convey a very special word of thanks and appreciation to all of them.

Furthermore, Mr Chairman, I should like to associate myself with what the hon the Minister said right at the beginning, when he addressed a word of thanks to Mr Kriel, who retires on pension at the end of June this year after a long period of service in this department. He was born on 8 March 1921 in Germiston, and during his long period of service he also acted inter alia as Accountant-General. Since November 1983 he has been attached to this department, where in my capacity I have also co-operated very closely with him. I think we could convey to him a very sincere word of thanks for the service he has rendered throughout. We wish him a restful period of retirement.

In the second place, Mr Chairman, I should also like to pay special tribute to Dr Hamburger who was specifically involved in Agriculture and who is retiring on pension at the end of this month. He was born in Germany on 25 May 1921—in the same year as Mr Kriel—and also studied in Germany, where he obtained his doctorates degree at the University of Göttingen. In 1954 he accepted employment at the then Department of Native Affairs, and for the past 32 years he served in this department, and worked himself up to the position of Chief Director of Agriculture. During the time in which I have co-operated with him, I must say, one can only speak with the highest praise of the dedicated service he has rendered—dedicated service, not only to the department, but also to those for whom and with whom he worked.

I had an opportunity to travel around in South West Africa with him. I think the then Administrator-General, who was with us at a certain function, will affirm that he found fulfilment in the service which he rendered to South West Africa and its people. We thank Dr Hamburger very sincerely for the service he rendered.

I want to adopt the exceptional procedure of addressing a word of thanks in respect of my personal staff, to Messrs Jaap de Villiers and Jan Serfontein and the ladies. For someone in my position it is difficult to manage all his activities without their dedicated service. [Interjections.]

During the course of my speech I shall try and touch upon certain of the points that were raised, but I want to begin by discussing consolidation and the land purchasing programme. In 1982 the State President, to eliminate uncertainty, gave the undertaking that according to the envisaged programme the purchase of land in respect of consolidation would be completed during the 1986-87 financial year. The inputs made by the Van der Walt Committee and by the hon members for Pretoria West and Ermelo were to have finalised the matter. We have by now reached an advanced stage in the consolidation process, and the land purchases of quite a number of states have already been disposed of. We are also engaged in the transfer of the land. Of the ten states there are still three whose announcement of consolidation proposals is still outstanding. As far as the remaining seven are concerned, the announcements have already been made. In respect of Ciskei, Venda and Qwaqwa we will have purchased all the land according to the announced progiamme this year. As far as Gazankulu and Lebowa are concerned, the total announced programme, with the exception of a few farms, will also have been completed. As far as Bophuthatswana and kwaNdebele are concerned, it will not be possible to dispose of the purchase of land with the present programme. The Rust der Winter area will still have to be finalised, as well as eight areas in respect of Bophuthatswana, which will comprise a total surface area of 102 hectares. According to our programme of purchases, and if the finances are available at the present rate, that programme too ought to have been completed by next year. As far as this area is concerned we shall then have honoured the undertaking.

What about Transkei?

In respect of Transkei, kwaZulu and KaNgwane the commission of enquiry must make its first announcements in regard to the hearing of evidence, and the hon member for Mooi River is specifically involved in the giving of evidence before the commission. After the evidence has been heard and evaluated, a submission will be made to the Cabinet so that they can adopt a resolution in respect of those areas. As far as Transkei is concerned, the extent of the proposals, as announced, is not such that it ought to have any material effect on the total appropriation. This applies in respect of the programme as announced by the commission.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Deputy Minister whether the proposal to consolidate the Weza forest area with Transkei was a part of the original agreement for independence for Transkei or whether this is an additional proposed allocation to Transkei?

I want to tell the hon member for Mooi River that he can present all that evidence before the commission. The commission will evaluate all these matters in order to make a submission. [Interjections.] Yes, I shall reply to him, but first I want to point out to him that the State President in his announcement in 1979, said that we were not going to adhere to the 1975 proposals but that our point of departure was going to be to form economic units and to consider the economic as well as the constitutional form. He said that we were not necessarily going to adhere to the announced independence agreements or previously announced consolidation programmes.

Reply to the question!

I want to refer to the purchase programme of Qwaqwa. During the present year we shall purchase 80 000 hectares, in regard to which we have reached agreements with the farmers there. We are going to make the offers within the next month or two, and during the second half of this year we shall take occupation in order to transfer it to Qwaqwa on 31 December 1986.

As ar as kwaNdebele is concerned, the purchase programme for the Varena area has been disposed of, as well as the area at Maloto. All that remains to be purchased at this stage during the present financial year, is Die Bron. Die Bron consists of 430 improved stands belonging to individuals and 547 unimproved stands also belonging to individuals as such. There are 44 improved stands belonging to the holding company. The evaluation of the land has already been carried out and the offers will be made to the individual persons, as well as to the holding company, and we hope to be able to meet those payments during the course of the year if the owners accept the offers.

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: May the hon member for Jeppe eat bananas in the Committee? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon the Deputy Minister may proceed.

As far as Rust de Winter is concerned, we have already appointed an action committee within that area to plan how the valuation of the land can be proceeded with during the course of this financial year. After the valuation has been made, we will be able to make offers for their land to the owners early next year.

As far as Bophuthatswana is concerned, we shall during the course of this year undertake the planning in co-operation with the people involved.

As far as Lebowa is concerned, there is one important aspect I just wish to mention here in passing. Most of the land has been purchased and the announcement in regard to consolidation has been made. As regards the transfer of the land, we have already agreed politically with the Lebowa Cabinet that we are going to appoint a working group to plan and calculate the method of transfer and the attendant financial aspects.

The Moutse matter is at present sub judice. The consolidation of that area was a package offer made to Lebowa. At this stage we are not proceeding with the transfer of the land, but as soon as the case has been finalised, we shall proceed with the transfer of the land. The total package is in issue, and we cannot dispose of one part of it while the other part is sub judice.

As far as the leasing of the land is concerned, there is one aspect I want to make very clear at this stage. From time to time very great pressure is exerted, even by hon members of the Committee who address representations on behalf of their voters, that we should make the land which we have purchased available for leasing to White farmers before it is transferred to the Black national states.

In this respect I want to adopt the very strict standpoint that this land has been purchased with the specific object of being utilised by Black people and of being transferred to the national states for individual farmers. We are not prepared to lease this land any further, except during the short period after we have purchased the land and until it is practically possible for the farmer to vacate the land. We are going to place it at the disposal of the SADTC or a development corporation which can plan and develop it for the establishment of Black farmers in future.

I now want to raise another matter which has during the course of time elicited a great deal of criticism. It has to do with compensatory land which is purchased. As a result of the Government’s decision in principle not to allow any further forced removals to take place, there was certain of this land on which establishment did not take place and which was therefore trust land. That land we have now transferred to the Department of Agriculture and Water Supply in the Administration in the House of Assembly.

We have also during the course of the year transferred certain land in the Soekmekaar area, which was specifically involved in the Kutama-Senthimula area to the Department of Agriculture and Water Supply to be made available as a whole for redeclaration as White area.

In exchange for what?

It was done because no forced removals took place. That land was originally purchased as compensatory land when Kutama and Senthimula were to be relocated. Because this is no longer going to take place, as a result of the Government’s altered standpoint, that compensatory land will now be re-declared a White area.

The planning of trust land takes place as follows: After the land has been purchased and before transfer occurs, it is planned by the Agricultural Division of the Department of Development Aid, in consultation with the agricultural authorities of the national state for which it is intended. A very important principle involved is that various types of farming are accepted. Consequently provision is not only made for one type of farming.

What type of farming is carried out depends on the capital available to the farmer. Certain farmers are granted land tenure and establish themselves as individuals. Within a group context there are independent farmers who farm collectively, and those who farm as a group. The scope of project farming is such that if the individual farmer is not sufficiently endowed with capital to carry out such activities on his own, it can be done on a company basis. We intend to see to what extent individual Black employees can acquire a shareholding in the company in order to obtain an interest in the project in this way. The eventual form of farming therefore depends upon its nature and extent.

As far as this process is concerned, our Agricultural Division and the SADTC, which plays an enormous role in this regard, deserve a generous compliment. In the case of Qwaqwa, for example, the total land potential of an area of 80 000 hectares was analysed in co-operation with the White farmers even before we purchased it. Soil classifications were made and after the soil series had been determined, potential fertilisation levels were established to bring about optimum production in that area. On that basis the scope of a land unit was determined which could provide the individual Black farmer with a minimum expendable income. The norm is determined in co-operation with the government. Consequently the area was divided up into 270 individual units. All this was done by our department and the University of Potchefstroom, in co-operation with the national state. Everything was worked out arithmetically by a computer, and every farm was planned. On the strength of this I think we are far ahead of even White agriculture in South Africa when it comes to determining the potential of a large area and indicating how an individual farmer can utilise his specific land to its optimum. There is a very great success story which one can tell about the utilisation of land over a period of the RSA. The hon members for Vryheid and for Turffontein referred to the establishment of individual farmers.

As far as the Makatini Flats are concerned, there is once again a specific case in which particular success was achieved. During the mini-exhibition—we must congratulate our staff on the way in which they succeeded in depicting a great measure of success in the department on a small scale— it was pointed out that we were cultivating rice in the Makatini Flats on a paddy basis and obtaining a yield on 10 tons per hectare, which is competitive by world standards. This was done by making use of experts from Taiwan to do research into the production potential. Since the cultivation of paddy rice involves high capital costs, rice was also planted in natural wetlands with heavy soil, and there the yield was even more than 10 tons per hectare, at lower operating capital costs. Alternative methods are therefore being tried out.

On the Makatini Flats the SADTC is developing core units on which the corporation itself farms, and Black farmers are established on adjoining land. We have now, with approval of the hon the Minister, started an undertaking in co-operation with Safprod. We are co-operating with Safprod to see to what extent private initiative and capital can be involved to develop the entire 21 000 ha in the process. However, this is only one of the facets we are developing.

There are also the Nguni cattle of that part of the world. I do not want to elaborate any further on the Nguni cattle, but there is one aspect to which I want to refer, and that is that it is a large area with a tropical climate in which there are problems with overpopulation and a lack of human development, and in which there is inter alia going to be a need for milk production. The department has at this stage already taken the initiative of crossing the good inherent qualities of Nguni cattle, such as resistance to disease and heat, with the good qualities of Jersey cattle, in order to breed an indigenous milk-producing animal in this way. This year they will also have the first F1 generation with which to build up a registered herd to take the initiative in this area and to allow Black farmers to continue the project.

Sugar projects, as well as coffee projects, are being initiated in Lebowa and kaNgwane and citrus projects in Gazankulu. What principles are taken into consideration in respect of the establishment of Black farmers? The lack of technological as well as managerial skills among many of these Black farmers must be taken into consideration and admitted as a fact. To be able to overcome this problem, those farmers must be trained and that is why there are training centres to train these people to operate as farmers, but also to enable them to act as extension officers among their fellow farmers in their own community.

The selection of commercial farmers is being done in co-operation with the national states and the traditional tribal chiefs, but the training and knowledge of the farmers, as well as their dedication and initiative is also taken into consideration. Then there are also the supportive and extension services which they must provide within the area, as well as the making of managerial inputs which can on a reciprocal basis be recovered from the people as they come into production.

As far as long-and short-term financing is concerned, I want to say that it is a great need in White agriculture, but that in Black agriculture the need is even greater. Our total appropriation for agricultural financing in this department is inadequate and we need more capital to be able to undertake expansions. However, I think we should try to supply this deficiency by seeing whether we cannot obtain capital from abroad in order to carry out this development. If the persons and bodies concerned abroad are honest in their approach to development they will also be able to make a contribution here. I really think this is an area in which they can make a contribution.

There is one other aspect I want to mention in this connection. After all these services have been rendered, there is one important aspect which should not remain in abeyance, namely the after-care service which must be provided after the establishment has been disposed of. After-care service must be made available to the individual farmer, but it is also essential in respect of the total planning and the initiative taken by the national states. On this high managerial level, too, after-care service should not be neglected. The right to use their judgment is placed on their shoulders, but with it goes the responsibility and the obligation to ensure that these projects which we initiated are carried on, and that they are taken further. Organisations involved in this are firstly the Department of Development Aid, and secondly the national states on whose behalf the projects had been initiated. The SADTC is enduring a great deal of criticism from various quarters. We have been involved in this project for a long time. The land is purchased with bridging finance, it is developed, and the application of project farming is initiated. Then, too, the subsequent establishment of the project can never be overemphasised. On the other hand the private sector is also involved in this, and in certain cases we make use of private agents.

As far as property ownership is concerned, the hon the Minister has set out the approach of the department as such. In this regard I want to say in conclusion that if there is one aspect which may not be underestimated in all our calculations, it is the attitude which the staff involved in the discharge of these duties, do their work. I am not referring only to the officials in this department, but also to the officials in the national states, who are also rendering dedicated service in this connection. If we weigh up this dedication and the attitude of these officials against even that of private enterprise which makes a great fuss of their contribution, it is my opinion that the dedication among the officials will never be found among those in the private sector who are involved in these projects. I do not think we can ever overemphasise this.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Deputy Minister a question?

Mr Chairman, with your permission, I shall first deal with the other matters.

I wish to convey a special word of thanks to the hon members who participated in this debate. Not all of them spoke about my section of the work, but I just want to make a few observations to those who did say something about my department.

Firstly I want to thank the hon member for Ermelo for the fine sentiments he expressed in his speech. Although the Commission for Co-operation and Development is criticised a great deal, and was even criticised again here this evening, I believe that their contribution in regard to communication with the Black people as well as the Whites should never be underestimated. The aspects with which those officials deal are always a contentious matter. There is never unanimity on what the answer to such a delicate matter ought to be. Nevertheless decisions have to be made. There will always be people who are unhappy about the decision that was made. A most important factor, however, is that a decision has in fact been made. That is why I want to congratulate the deputy chairman and all the other hon members very sincerely for the co-operation we have received from them in this process.

The hon member for Pietersburg did not speak about my work. The hon member for Vryheid spoke about agriculture and leasing, and pointed out the serious need for land. I just want to say—and I have said the same thing on a previous occasion—that in my opinion we are approaching the end of the process of the consolidation of national states. The one process which we are, on the other hand, now beginning to deal with— although at this stage it does not rest with this department—is the land need which exists in respect of Black people in urban complexes. I want to tell hon members that if we examine the expansion of industries and the need for workers within the industrial complexes, we can accept that there is going to be a problem in that respect as well which we will have to address urgently in future. That is why I want to say that the need which exists in that respect will have to be addressed by the commission in its entirety. I want to tell the hon member for Vryheid that he also made his contribution in this respect. He also spoke about Qwaqwa’s land purchases, and about the planning, the resettlement and the land for urbanisation. I have already reacted to that.

I want to come now to the hon member for King William’s Town. I think he has stiff limbs as well. I think that if there is one party which can talk about rustiness and obsolescence, it is the NRP, particularly if one looks at their numbers. [Interjections.] I want to tell him that not everything he said was all that wrong. He is simply in the wrong party, and on top of that he is led in the wrong direction from time to time. [Interjections.]

The hon member spoke about the remaining Black spots in the corridor from East London to Queenstown. The hon member for Albany also spoke about them. I am prepared to have penetrating talks on that aspect, but this department does not make announcements in respect of the boundaries involved. Nor does this department take the decisions. [Interjections.] The decisions is taken by the department of Constitutional Development and Planning. The decision is taken there, and we ceded those functions as from 1 September. The hon member for King William’s Town has been sitting next to the hon member for Sasolburg for too long, and that is why he is falling behind the times. [Interjections.] He must try to be a little more progressive, and not be so far behind the times. Nevertheless I am prepared to look at that entire project with the hon member for King William’s Town during that debate. In general I want to say—as I said at the beginning of my speech—that the certainty which has to be created in respect of Ciskei, will have to be provided, as has been announced at this stage. Certain points are uncertain, however, concerning the removal of the Black spots and the clear policy statement of the Government that no further compulsory removals will take place. On those grounds there are also aspects in respect of the finalisation of the boundaries of the Ciskei which are also in issue, and which we will also address in that debate. I am fully prepared to discuss the matter.

The hon member for Albany spoke about the administration of the areas and the takeover of the administration. That section is the responsibility of this department, which has already announced that it is in the process of taking over all the administrative functions of all those areas. In the take-over process, however, there are health services, pensions, education and various departments involved, and several disciplines have to be co-ordinated in this process. Nevertheless the Government is doing this. We are going to do it. Then there will be greater certainty about this entire process. As for the remainder of those arguments, I shall be able to reply to them in the other debate.

There was one point which the hon member for King William’s Town made very clear. He said that agriculture would bring stability to these areas. I am in full agreement with that, but concerning the involvement of agriculture, stability is not only dependent upon the work and the inputs which the department and the Government make. The farming communities in the area must also contribute their share. [Interjections.] The greatest degree of tranquility and peace that can possible be established there will not only be established by boundaries or fences. It will be established by the attitudes of the farmers on both sides of the borders. We must, however, create an opportunity by means of the existing structures to make this possible in the process. The Government is prepared to participate as instrument to make this possible.

Now you are listening to the NRP!

Purchasing principles are at issue here, as well as the involvement of Black farmers everywhere in the Republic.

I want to make one thing very clear. Since 1936—the hon member Prof Olivier opposite will be able to confirm this—there has been released or scheduled areas. Since 1936 the intention with the released areas has already been that Black farmers should, on their own initiative, purchase land there and acquire ownership. In practice, however, how many of the Black farmers have bought land there?

If the area were to be released, I now want to ask whether the Black fanners will be able to purchase that land in the midst of competition such as this. [Interjections.] If the hon members propose this as an alternative to consolidation, I say they are doing that section of the community a disservice!

[Inaudible.]

If the area is released, an uncertainty is created in respect of the general way in which land is going to be occupied in South Africa, this will also be a disservice. [Interjections.] There are various facets one must look at.

With these few words I think I have replied to all the hon members in respect of aspects that were raised in this debate. I also wish to express a special word of thanks to hon members on this side of the Committee—I think they were the hon members for Vryheid, Turffontein, East London City and Ermelo—for the contributions which they made to the debate.

Mr Chairman, I wish to thank the hon the Deputy Minister for the very fine positive picture he sketched here on the development in the national states; it is certainly most gladdening.

I should also like to thank the hon the Minister for announcing the purchase of the Qwaqwa lands. I think it is encouraging news to the people for Qwaqwa and Free State farmers that this matter has progressed so far.

The problem of urbanisation has become very real after the announcement that influx control would be abolished and after the appearance of the White Paper on Urbanisation. One probably does not require a prophet to predict that urbanisation—especially Black urbanisation—will become one of the greatest population problems in South Africa in future years. The future of South Africa and the maintenance of stability will depend to a great degree on our handling of the urbanisation process. Urbanisation will influence the lives of all the people in this country more than every other socioeconomic process.

We shall have to open up the inherent development potential of urbanisation in such a way that it will benefit all the communities in South Africa. Urbanisation is something we have to accept. Overurbanisation in the large metropolitan areas can result in many problems such as unemployment, crime, large housing backlogs, slum conditions, unrest and even urban decay as is found is some African countries. One may ask how urbanisation takes place. It does so in two ways. In the first place, by the migration, the influx of people from rural areas in search of work and better living conditions. In the second place, urbanisation occurs through the natural increase of people who are already in cities and towns. At present 32% of the Black population in South Africa is urbanised; this increases to 46% if we add informal urbanisation in the national states. We may expect this figure to increase even further; we may also expect a large component of new urbanites to be drawn from rural areas. It is unavoidable that these people from rural areas will go to the cities.

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Could you please ascertain whether there is a quorum present in the Committee?

Quorum:

The attention of the president officer having been called to the absence of a quorum, the division bells were rung.

A quorum being present, debate resumed.

Mr Chairman, I hope I am entitled to injury time.

I wish to tell hon members we shall have to act fast because, if we do not improve the living conditions of people in the rural areas speedily and purposefully, we may be faced with conditions of overurbanisation in metropolitan areas. If we cannot make a real impact on the so-called less developed areas, the stream of migration will obviously flow more strongly to the cities and create bottlenecks.

We shall have to accept that, whatever we do in an attempt to keep people in rural areas, migration to the great metropolises will continue at an increasing tempo. We have to accept that further urbanisation will take place in metropolises such as Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, the PWV area and Durban. I wish to appeal here tonight that the impact be turned away from these metropolises as far as possible and that urbanisation be channelled as a high priority to what I shall call second-order cities. I shall enumerate these cities of the second order; they are places such as Seshego at Pietersburg, Nkowakowa at Tzaneen, Giyani in Gazankulu, Kabokweni at Nelspruit, Ekangala near Bronkhorstspruit, Qwaqwa near Harrismith, Botshabelo near Thaba Nchu, Ezakheni near Ladysmith, Madadeni near Newcastle, Enseleni near Richards Bay, Sundumbili at Isithebe/Mandina as well as places like Mdantsane at East London.

We should create a development and urbanisation climate at these places so that they will have the necessary attraction to draw migration from rural areas to the places mentioned, the so-called second-order cities. The advantages of the approach of attracting urbanisation to second-order cities are legion; it results in diffused urbanisation. In addition it creates an even distribution of the population; this will eliminate overconcentration of people and promote regional development.

A good example of how this approach can succeed is the rapidly growing city of Botshabelo near Thaba Nchu. Within a year this city grew from the ground at a tempo of 51% per annum to a population of approximately 300 000 people. The urban settlement and the urbanisation at Botshabelo are such a success that it attracts people from far beyond the borders of the Orange Free State. This city has drawn the impact of Black urbanisation away from Bloemfontein to a great degree and it has provided a refuge to thousands of homeless people.

Diffused urbanisation has an added benefit in that it promotes urbanisation and development of underdeveloped areas. It also promotes local government in these places and the concentration of people makes it possible to provide services more cheaply.

Tonight I want to request that the development of these second-order cities receive priority and strong encouragement. We could encourage this primarily by supplying adequate land for it, especially in the national states where tribal possession limits urbanisation in these places.

It is important for industries to be established at these places, that employment be created through them and that people receive the opportunity there of operating their small industries without restrictive measures.

In the USA, the most advanced economy in the world, 600 000 new business enterprises were established in the first year after deregulation and no fewer than 40 million new employment opportunities were created. Deregulation could provide an enormous impetus to growth in these Black cities.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Bloemfontein North devoted his speech to diffused urbanisation which is a very real subject in the light of our increase in population. I wish to confine myself to the creation of infrastructure, however, especially as far as it affects this department.

The activities of the Department of Development Aid are directed more at encouraging and supporting Black communities and furnishing them with the opportunity of preferably improving their living conditions themselves in social, economic and physical spheres. This is done by a combination of economic and non-economic factors to provide the needs of those people as such and to enhance the quality of life of people in less developed areas in particular. The State, the private sector and the community each has a very important role to fulfil in such an action; the State should have only a supporting function as far as possible.

This therefore necessitates joint planning and action. Planning has to be preceded by research, however, so I am very pleased to see an appropriation for a new service, that of research, in the Budget. In the explanatory memorandum provided to us, this service is described as:

A further new service follows, that of Management Data. It is described as:

As I said, these are both new services and I hope the appropriated amounts for the first year will be adequate. The importance of these services is such that there will have to be a future correction if the appropriated amounts appear inadequate because research and the retention of that expertise are of the utmost importance. Research ensures that money is applied where it has the greatest impact in promoting economic development in individual development regions, in eliminating regional disparity and in ensuring more balanced economic development and fairer participation of all groups and areas. It is therefore no use saving on this item. Partnership means that a development climate is created to enable private initiative to participate rather than relying on State-aided corporations like Sasol to initiate settlement. In addition, proper investigation and research obviates mistakes.

Community development has many facets and it may differ from one community to the next. As regards infrastructure, such programmes have a twofold purpose: The creation of employment opportunities during the construction period and the subsequent stimulation of growth. The predetermination of the impact and improved infrastructure will have on a community is not always a very easy task; nor is it so easy to establish how cost effective it will be. The consequences of the creation of an infrastructure first have to be observed over a period and then determined. This does not produce immediate and visible results such as the establishment of industry yet it has to be the first step. It is of a supporting nature to further development in other spheres which is why very thorough research has to precede decision-making and it should not be done on an ad hoc basis. Consultation with local communities is of the utmost importance; such a community may possibly have a distinctive need which is not always known to outsiders. The people should define their requirements themselves and establish their priorities according to their own social, economic and cultural values. These are often distinctive so there is no blue-print approach which may be carried over from one community to the next. The planner should consult community councils or other organisations and bodies. Decisions should be taken in conjunction with the local community on priorities and on what should receive preference, as well as on its execution. The functionary’s task is hampered greatly where these structures do not exist because he then has to rely more on his own observation in investigation and consultation has to take place on an individual level. This ensures involvement of the local community in the decision-making process and its administration and execution. This is the only way of ensuring that community preferences are being satisfied and this is very important.

All these principles were taken into account in the appointment of the kwaZuluNatal Planning Council in July 1984. The appointment was done jointly by the Cabinets of the RSA and kwaZulu with terms of reference to inquire into and make recommendations to the two Governments on ways in which the living conditions of Black people in parts of kwaZulu and Natal could be improved. The kwaZulu-Natal Planning Council carried out its activities by creating six work groups to conduct the investigative work and, after their reports had been studied, in-depth discussions followed with the communities involved. Various meetings were held with community councils and other organisations and bodies in this area. The first report of the kwaZulu-Natal Planning Council was accepted by the Governments of the RSA and kwaZulu at the end of 1985. A joint co-ordinating project committee was then established to carry out the projects and co-ordinate the planning and its rapid implementation. It also identified financial sources which could finance the upgrading projects and details of the programming and its implementation are being continued. The Government of kwaZulu and the Department of Development Aid will be jointly responsible for the implementation of the project in kwaZulu.

In addition, a co-ordinator has been appointed in Natal to assist the committee for the entire project to ensure continuity and co-operation. I believe these proposals will influence kwaZulu very materially and will also lead to further self-development. I also believe they will succeed, especially because joint decision-making was involved in their identification, planning and implementation and that they resulted in the very statement the hon the Minister made in the House of Delegates yesterday. The hon the Minister announced projects in kwaZulu and in Natal amounting to R55,2 million, of which R24 million has already been appropriated this year. This is an amount in excess of the previous sum announced of R17,3 million. The normal allocation for the creation of infrastructure is being improved by a further increase of R15,1 million.

I believe the fact that that committee complied with the basic principles of co-operation and consultation may be attributed to this and that it is already a true success story for this reason.

In conclusion, Mr Chairman, I should like to range myself with all the hon members who congratulated the department on its recently concluded exhibition in the HF Verwoerd Building. I think we all agree it was an outstanding presentation. The negative aspect of underdevelopment comes in for considerable attention and I believe it right and proper that better publicity be given to what is actually being done. Consequently I wish to propose that a similar exhibition also be presented in areas in which more people will have the opportunity to seeing it. There was mention here earlier this evening that education had been politicised but circumstances in less developed areas have also been politicised. I therefore believe it will assist greatly in improving the political climate if greater clarity may be attained as regards the very important work this department carries out in the upgrading of such areas. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I regret that I do not have time to discuss with the hon member for Ermelo the remarks which he made earlier regarding Botshabelo. I do not mind the remarks he made about me because what he says about me is of no consequence, and totally irrelevant. In due course though we will have the opportunity of talking about Bothsabelo, and at that stage we will debate the matter of its merits.

I am sorry to see the hon the Deputy Minister has left the Chamber, Sir, because I wanted to talk about forced removals. I must say it is quite extraordinary that he should leave a debate halfway through the proceedings, particularly when a matter is discussed with which he is so intimately connected. [Interjections.] I will, however, continue to raise the matter, and I hope the hon the Minister will be able to respond.

You look like a forced removal!

You should stick to Radio 5! [Interjections.] Sir, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the question of removals, and I was hoping the hon the Minister would take this opportunity of dispelling any doubts regarding the policy and the direction of the Government in this regard. A number of spokesmen for the National Party have often said there will be no forced removals. From leading Cabinet Ministers to ordinary members of Parliament the word has gone out that the policy of forced removals has been terminated. Even the hon the Deputy Minister, who has left the Chamber, is on record in this regard.

Forced removals have been condemned by all shades of opinion, both internally and externally. Even Dr Willem de Klerk, in his column in Rapport on 5 August last year noted that there were elements of inhumanity in the programme of forced removals. In fact, Sir, forced removals have caused untold misery, unhappiness and hardship to an estimated 3,5 million people, as this is the figure that was mentioned in the document produced by the Surplus People’s Project a short while ago. The Surplus People’s Project was one of the numerous studies undertaken into the policy of forced removals. In addition, a large number of support groups have been established to monitor the Government’s actions in this regard. A wealth of information has been built up over the years, and I would recommend to the Government’s spokesmen and apologists that they examine the files on removals and establish for themselves the extent of the misery they have caused. I do not use the term “Nat Party doublespeak” lightly. The activities of the Government over the past few months lead one to believe that, although the policy may have been abandoned, the practice continues.

On 26 February 1985, the then Minister of Co-operation, Development and Education advised me that 67 Black spots remained to be removed as at 31 December 1984, and that the decision to remove all 67 was being reconsidered.

In answer to a question on 8 April this year, the hon the Deputy Minister provided me with a list of the names of each of the 67 Black spots. Of these, 64 were in Natal and would be affected by the consolidation proposals for kwaZulu. The Black spots at Sterkfontein near Volksrust and at Boschbokkopen near Humansdorp in the Cape were doomed to removal in spite of the assurance that the inhabitants would be negotiated with. No details were given concerning Koekemoersfontein in the Orange Free State.

With reference to this reply, I subsequently asked the hon the Minister whether there were any other Black settlements or communities still to be removed or resettled. I was extremely pleased that his answer was in the negative, but this in itself raises a whole host of additional questions. I am glad that the hon the Deputy Minister has returned to the Chamber.

What, for instance, is to happen to Mathopestad and the many other communities under threat of removal? As we all know, Mathopestad is a settled community living in peace with its neighbours and determined not to move to Bophuthatswana.

There are many other similar communities, and I ask the hon the Minister to make use of the opportunity he has tonight to reassure communities living with the threat of removal hanging over them that they will be permitted to remain on the land which some of them have held for generations.

Part of the problem that the Government is experiencing these days is credibility. There has been so much subterfuge and double-talk in the past that the Government’s critics simply do not believe them when they give vague assurances. Their statements are therefore carefully analysed. I hope the hon the Minister will take this opportunity to spell out in unambigious terms that nobody will be forcibly removed or encouraged to move against his will.

In this connection, I want to discuss the position of the inhabitants of Bloedfontein and Geweerfontein. In 1917 a group of Ndebeles settled on the farm Bloedfontein beyond the Rust de Winter dam. Apparently it was a lovely farm with a strong water supply, rich soil and an attractive koppie to break the monotony of the landscape. They decided to buy the land and subsequently purchased it from a gentleman by the name of David Schuuman. Later they bought the farm next-door known as Geweerfontein where they have lived happily ever since. Many people worked hard on the farm and in Pretoria to earn money with which they built houses, bought seed and dug wells.

All of a sudden, they read in The Star last September that they were to be moved. They wrote to the hon the Minister explaining their situation and appealing for assistance.

In response, the hon the Deputy Minister wrote to them on 18 December 1985 advising them that the fate of the farms Bloedfontein and Geweerfontein “had been determined by an agreement between the South African and kwaNdebele Governments.” He advised further that the decision to include the farms in Bloedfontein could “unfortunately not be reconsidered.” He added that he trusted that “you will find it ultimately possible to accept the decisions as well as the compensatory land to be made available in the Rust de Winter area.”

The farmers in the Rust de Winter area are opposed to this move as well. I have in my possession a memorandum from the Waterberg and Warmbaths District Agricultural Union and the Pretoria District Agricultural Union expressing opposition to the idea of the removals. They say that 60% to 70% of them wish to remain where they are.

The community at Bloedfontein are completely taken aback as they say they have never been consulted. I believe the hon the Minister should advise the Committee how this situation has been allowed to develop and what he intends to do about it.

Mr Chairman, I want to ask the hon member for Johannesburg North—or is he the hon member for Mamelodi?—the following question: Where is Koekemoerfontein? Does he know where Koekemoerfontein is? Has he ever been to the Koekemoerfontein he was talking about? Does he know where it is? Does he know where Geweerfontein and Bloedfontein are? Does he know where the other places are he talks about? I think the hon member should take more interest in his constituents in Johannesburg North and leave this matter to the Government; we shall do the necessary work.

I invite you to come to Johannesburg North.

I am pleased at the end of this debate to have been part of a team which projected a spirit of positivism in its debating.

Hear, hear!

This is the case for no reason other than that we on this side of the Committee are interested in only one matter and that is speaking of total human development in discussing people. In talking of total human development, we should take stock again in the process as matters change from time to time. We should ask ourselves whether we are on the right road, whether we are taking the right steps. Are our acts producing the fruits we expect of them? Are we reaping the fruits of our labours?

In replying to that question, I wish to refer obliguely to kwaNdebele. I think if a person where to ask the average Ndebele in the street whether he was living better today than 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, whether he was living better than his mother or father and whether he felt that he was faring better, his answer would be “yes”. One cannot hide it and does not wish to do so when one is faring well; when one is faring well, one shows it. In travelling through kwaNdebele and viewing it with a different eye from that of the hon member for Johannesburg North, we see from those people’s faces and by their clothing that they are faring better. One sees children coming from school in neat uniforms and one sees school buildings. One sees motorcars travelling on the road and one sees a tractor parked next to a house or working in a field. One sees small industries developing in back yards. One travels the Roodeplaat road between Pretoria and Dennilton and the microbuses and LDVs are loaded with provisions, furniture and building material because they are building every second residential unit. We saw all this in kwaNdebele and it filled us with hope that our action was right.

Why is this happening? We are carrying out a process of co-operation between White and Black in development actions to prepare the ground for total development which can and will also lead to total development in the constitutional sphere. In spite of what is said overseas and even by some Ndebele, those people are privileged. Each person to whom a hand is reached in aid, in friendship, in support or assistance, is certainly privileged.

We are favoured people. The Whites want to help Black people on the road of South Africa by the policy in which we believe and which we wish to carry out regarding Black people. We want to assist in having them travel the road of South Africa with us. We need not place them on that road; they are already on that road with us. Surely it is the same road we are following, that to peace and progress which we all desire.

Part of the columns of Black people on that South African road themselves choose to follow the road to independence. We may well ask in whose interests it is that this choice will be a happy one. Obviously we hope in this specific case it will be in the interests of kwaNdebele but we also hope it will be in the interests of the whole of South Africa because happiness, prosperity and progress will flow from it. These are certainly contagious and know no borders but flow across boundaries. That is why we are fortunate in that sense too and believe in converting words to deeds and preparing the ground. Hon members may well ask what this will cost; where the money is to come from. The hon member for Sasolburg’s leader wrote a letter to the hon the Minister of Finance in which he asked where the money would come from to place White and non-White education on an equal footing. He could have put the same question on where the money was to come from to do all these things we want to do. Those hon members are perpetrating political fraud, however, because they did not ask their people at that same meeting whether they had ever calculated what it would cost if there were no peace in this country and in kwaNdebele. They do not put that question to people.

It may well be asked why the Department of Development Aid is prepared to spend part of the money made available on kwaNdebele. KwaNdebele has land and human potential at its disposal; it has the Eland and the Moses River running through it and is near the PWV area. Those people have a will; they have the will to make something of what lies ahead of them. They have the will to undertake construction in the context of their own state and, if this is all true, those who have to plan will have to provide an answer to the question to which kwaNdebele lends itself. The answer to that is easy, namely the settlement of people, cropping and stockbreeding—to mention only three. That is why the Department of Development Aid is the Government’s instrument in ensuring effective development aid in such a state. It therefore not only acts in an advisory capacity but also in real development actions. I wish I had the time to refer to more specific development projects but it comes down to the fact that the department is attempting to show permanent results in the process which will be self-generating as regards further development.

After discussions between the department, the SADTC and the kwaNdebele government service it was decided to establish the kwaNdebele Agricultural Company to investigate the agricultural potential, carry out planning and establish a progressive farming community in kwaNdebele.

The SADTC is concerned in fulfilling the Tomlinson philosophy this year, which is to devote attention to total human development in the agricultural sector; this obviously includes community development. Actions launched by the SADTC in support of the initiative of the community in providing them with the opportunity of satisfying their needs for the improvement of their welfare in this way appear to be very successful.

This Government’s reform actions and plans are not only aimed at satisfying people’s right to vote and make decisions. It not only offers states the opportunity of exercising their right of becoming independent if they wish; we believe in total development and total reform which includes the development of human communities. This will result in what I want to call participating reform in the true sense of the word.

The department is an instrument which assists in fulfilling this ideal by means of the co-operation of dedicated officials. We are grateful for that effort and therefore thank those people. We also wish to express our gratitude for the new instrument we have acquired to convey our message.

I have a telex here in connection with the visit of the hon leader of the CP to the king of the Zulus. The telex runs:

We thank the hon leader of the CP that he conveyed the National Party message so clearly to the king!

Mr Chairman, I should like to thank the hon member for Rustenburg for his very clear emphasis of the importance of looking at development within the context of total human development. I think this is an important facet, because the technical aspects of development are sometimes emphasised unilaterally. As a previous speaker also emphasised—it was the hon member for Nelspruit—one must in fact ensure, by incorporating the communities concerned into the planning of development, that the development is community-orientated, so that it can also activate the community. These are two extremely important facets concerning the entire development problem which were emphasised by the two hon members, and I want to thank them for doing so.

Before I go into hon member’s observations in greater detail, I should just like to point out to the committee that although it did not emerge again in this debate the impression pression is frequently created that the self-governing national states are places where money is wasted, places where unnecessary bureaucracy is maintained, with what is merely a group of officials who are simply there to be officials and simply to be a duplication of government organisations.

This evening I want to emphasise in what a clear, development-orientated way the appropriations of the national states are being spent. If we take the total appropriations of the self-governing national states of last year, and analyse them, it becomes apparent that 29,8% of their expenditure was on health, welfare and pensions, and 29,5% on education and culture. In addition 18,4% was spent on the general category of works, which include infrastructure development such as roads, water-works and so on, as well as township development, which means urbanisation. Approximately 6,5% of their appropriations was spent on agriculture and forestry. In this respect I think the Deputy Minister of Development and of Land Affairs is quite correct when he says that we should channel more money in the direction of agricultural development, both in the trust areas as well as in the national states. Although these states, in their outonomy, take decisions on how they wish to allocate their overall finances, it is clear that we are apparently initiating an erroneous pattern, which is being continued in the national states, in that insufficient amounts of money are being spent on the important matter of agriculture and forestry development.

What remains for other purposes is 15,8%. This is not for administrative purposes only. For example, there are also police, justice and similar other services, which every orderly state needs.

From this it is therefore clearly apparent that the preponderance of finances in the national states is in fact earmarked for community development.

Now anyone who examines the estimates of the department carefully will note that in the department’s appropriation just over R75 million has been set aside for the salaries of seconded officials; that is, officials who have been seconded from RSA departments to the national states. People will quite probably say this hidden expenditure on what is merely a duplicated bureaucracy. But when we examine the amount which is spent on seconded officials, we discover that the two largest items are once again development-orientated, because R358 million of that amount has been set aside for education purposes; in other words, for the salaries of teachers and educators who have been seconded to those national states. An amount of R20,6 million is going to be spent on health, in other words, on the salaries of doctors, nurses and other health scientists who have been seconded to those states.

It is therefore very clear that in both the overall appropriation of the national states as well as in the departments’ secondment of officials, the greatest emphasis clearly falls on development-orientated expenditure.

However, I want to highlight another aspect of the total responsibility of the national states in respect of their appropriations. It is that they do not merely prepare their budgets and spend their money on the basis of what is allocated to them by the South African Parliament through the Department of Development Aid as budgetary assistance, but that they also provide an average of approximately 30,83% of their total expenditure needs from their own revenue. In fact, it has at times been closer to the 33%. When one examines this, one sees that it varies between 17% and 53%, which is generated by means of own revenue, additional to the allocations made by Parliament. In the case of Gazankulu it is 32%, of kaNgwane 25% of kwaNdebele 20%, of kwaZulu 17%, of Lebowa, 44% and Qwaqwa 53%. These additional supplementations consist of revenue derived from their own sources, levies, the costing of specific services, loans and also of amounts carried over from the previous financial year.

With these few observations, I should like to bring it to hon member’s attention that we are dealing here with a responsible spending pattern, and with communities which not only receive their financial allocations from the central Parliament, but who also draw on their own sources in a responsible way to supplement their money supply in order to meet their own needs. That is as it should be. In negotiations concerning budgetary planning with those states, it is also one of the responsibilities of the Department of Development Aid to point out clearly to them their needs and also to indicate to them where they can derive additional amounts from their own sources to supplement the Parliamentary allocations in a proper manner.

I should also like to dwell briefly on the individual contributions made by hon members. On this side of the Committee I want to refer in the first place to the contribution by the hon member for Ermelo, who in his capacity of Chairman of the Commission of Co-operation and Development, also makes a very great and very important contribution to the entire matter of the development and promotion of the national states. I want to thank him for the way in which he dealt with township developments here, and the way in which he emphasised the necessity of urbanisation within the national states. As for the question of urbanisation, I should like to point out that the Department of Development Aid has considerable conditional amounts of money available this year to further Black urbanisation in the national States as well as in the trust areas.

The hon member for Nelspruit has already indicated to what extent the recommendations of the kwaZulu-Natal Planning Council can be put into operation. He also mentioned that owing to the considerably increased finances this year, considerably more can be spent on township development and urbanisation in kwaZulu and in the trust areas of Natal. However, it is also interesting to point out that unusually higher amounts for township development had been distributed throughout the area of responsibility of the department.

In this way, for example, an amount of R227 million is available for township development in Soshanguwe, R12,2 million for Lethlabile, near Brits, R36,1 million for Botshabelo, which is one of the largest and most dynamic growth points. Township development in Gazankulu is being assisted by way of an appropriation of R24 million, apart from the money being provided by the national state itself. Also in the case of Lebowa, township development is being furthered by way of an amount of R12 million which is additional to their own finances. In kwaNgwane an amount of R20,8 million and in kwaNdeble an amount of R14,4 million is being spent on township development.

All these things, Mr Chairman, have been made possible thanks to the implementation of the undertaking given by the State President in August last year that during the course of the next five years, at least altogether R1 billion would be spent on the upgrading of infrastructure and the expansion of urbanisation possibilities for Black communities.

This year the hon the Minister of Finance made an amount of R320 million available for this purpose, and the portion of that amount, i.e. R130 million which has been allocated to the Department of Development Aid, has enabled us to initiate these extended activities this year, which are the most extensive in the history of this Department, thus contributing to the important point in connection with urbanisation which various hon members on this side of the House—including the hon member for Bloemfontein North mentioned, viz that we must spread urbanisation evenly, and not cause it to take place in the large metropolitan areas only, but also in the decentralised development points, particularly on the borders of and inside the self-governing national states.

Furthermore I should also like to give recognition to the information conveyed to us here by the hon member for Vryheid in connection with the work associated with consolidation, the implementation and finalisation thereof and particularly the transfer of land after having first been properly planned and developed for the establishment of Black entrepreneurs. This hon member, too, as Deputy Chairman of the Commission for Co-operation and Development, is making an extremely important contribution, for which I wish to thank him.

The hon member for Turffontein referred to the job opportunity campaign, and I am very pleased that he made the füll particulars in that regard available, because it is really a great success story. He, too, dealt with the establishment of small Black farmers, but that hon member also emphasised the importance of the work being done by the South African Development Trust Corporation. I should also like to refer here with appreciation to the work of the SADTC, under the direction of its managing director, Dr Van Marie, and the chairman of its board of directors, Dr Kerneels Human.

This corporation was in fact established as a transitional body to deal with certain untransferred activities that were left over from the old Economic Development Corporation, after most of the activities had been transferred to the corporations of the national states. Because it is an expert body, with exceptional development skills, there have in the meantime been two areas in which the SADTC has been making extremely valuable services available—actually as a business development arm of the department.

The one is particularly in the area of agricultural development, which was mentioned here by various hon members and by the hon the Deputy Minister. In addition the SADTC has been exceptionally successful in connection with industrial development in Botshabelo.

It is interesting that while there is under utilised capacity in most of the decentralised industrial development points at present as a result of the economic depression, there is no spare capacity available in Bothsabelo. There is an oversupply of work. It is an exceptionally gratifying fact that the industrial development in Bothsabelo, which was launched there by the SADTC, has not only been brought about at a very low cost per job opportunity, but that it is also being managed at a sustained economic success rate, for which we are very grateful.

I should like to express my special appreciation here to the top management and staff of this corporation for the valuable contribution they are making in the interim.

The hon member for East London City dealt in a comprehensive way with the problems of the so-called corridor area in the Border region. I think my hon colleague replied to him, as well as the hon member for King William’s Town and the hon member for Albany—a kind of “tripartite convention” action here—and explained what the position was. I should also like to emphasise that, as a result of the court judgement by means of which the continued administration by the Ciskei over the Black areas in that corridor was declare invalid, the South African Government has in fact taken over that administration. That was also the question put by the hon member for King William’s Town. The education administration is in the process of being taken over by the Department of Education and Training, while the Departments of Development Aid, of Constitutional Development and Planning and of Health Services and Welfare are administering the matters for which they are responsible.

As my hon colleague said, finality will be reached as soon as possible over the future of those areas. I want to make it clear that the appeal made by the hon member for King William’s Town that a planned rural development for Black people should also take place outside the national states in areas where they are established, is something which I fully accept. Particularly since the restrictions on relocation have become considerable, and many former relocation decisions are now having to be reviewed and repealed, we shall have to give attention to a properly planned expansion of the agricultural promotion activities in those areas. As the hon member for Albany said, the urbanisation of those areas must also receive attention, for there will of course not be much sense in proceeding with agricultural planning only in densely populated areas.

I want to thank the hon member for East London City for a very skilful and thorough contribution, and deal at the same time in this way with the observations of the two other hon members to whom I have already referred.

The hon member for Bloemfontein North also made a capable contribution here, and I want to thank him for it. He emphasised the importance of improving the circumstances of life in the rural areas in order to prevent further migration to the cities. The hon member knows just as well and better than I do that the dilemma, however, is that if one does not make provision for urbanisation opportunities, this in fact results in overcrowding of a rural area which impairs and impedes the continued responsible agricultural utilisation of that area. That is why attention must also be given to that matter.

I have exceptional appreciation for the positive standpoint which he stated in regard to urbanisation to second-order cities. He explained this very well, and therefore I do not want to repeat it. I am in full agreement with him on that matter.

Pursuant to his reference to Botshabelo I also want to point out to hon members that an area is going to be purchased near Harrismith in terms of announced consolidation decisions. A new residential and industrial area, adjoining the railway line, is going to be developed within Qwaqwa. The industrial area at Phuthaditjhaba is already full and the residential area is also densely occupied. That is why I think the new extension will be an important urbanisation development, which can go hand-in-hand with industrial establishment. In fact it will offer a splendid illustration of the principle stated by the hon member.

I have already referred to the speeches made by the hon members for Nelspruit and Rustenburg. I should like to tell my colleague, the hon the Deputy Minister, that this evening it was really a personal stimulus to me to listen to him. His infectious enthusiasm and his expertise is proof of the very thorough work he has done. Although we are members of the same team it astonishes me very time that when one begins to talk to him, one rediscovers every time the interesting things he and the agricultural men are doing.

I also want to rectify an omission. I made a mistake at the beginning when I referred only to Mr Kriel. I should also like to associate myself with what my colleague had to say about Dr Hamburger, for whom I have very great appreciation.

As far as the hon member for Berea is concerned, I want to point out that the matters which he raised related strictly speaking to the constitutional development of the national states, which is the responsibility of my colleague the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. I believe that most of those matters can better be dealt with when his Vote is being discussed. Let me make it very clear, however, that the policy of this Government, as the State President has also made it clear throughout, is that the option of independence has not been rescinded and that the national states which wish to accept independence are free to do so. The Government will not oppose it, nor will it compel any national state to accept independence.

Furthermore, talks with all the national states were held under the direction of the State President last year to establish whether they wished to maintain their status as autonomous self-governing national states. They all said yes, they wished to do so. Most of them also indicated, however, that they had no intention of accepting independence, and that they were interested in the extension of autonomy as is at present being envisaged in a Bill which is in preparation and which will go before the standing committee for discussion soon. However, I do not think it is in my domain to reply in further detail to the hon member for Berea’s questions here.

I also owe the hon member for Pietersburg a number of replies, in spite of the quite personal remarks which he made about me at the beginning of his speech, with an exceptional eloquence of sharp words. I make no apology for the fact that I differ with specific standpoints of Dr Verwoerd and dissociate myself from them. I shall also regard it as a miracle if, in the circumstances of South Africa and in the changing circumstances of the world, every word a man uttered had to be affirmed and reaffirmed afterwards by everyone, 20 to 30 years after he had reached the peak of his career. I do not think it detracts at all from any statesman if we clearly dissociate ourselves from specific aspects of his policy a number of years later. [Interjections.] Consequently I cannot see how the remarks I made can in any way be regarded as derogatory of a great statesman.

The hon member also put various questions with reference to the commission report on the Lebowa Development Corporation. The important point of that commission report is that all the suspicion-mongering and the rumours that were spead, and which were also repeated by him and other hon members in this House during the time of my predecessor, Minister Koornhof, have been clearly demonstrated by that commission to be untrue. Quite a number of the cases were specifically dealt with and demonstrated to be untrue. [Interjections.]

It is also true that commission pointed out specific problems. [Interjections.] I also want to point out that one can only assess the recommendations of the commission correctly if one weighs them up against the findings, particularly towards the end of the report, in which the commission expresses appreciation for the chairman of the board as well as the managing director and other persons involved.

On the other hand specific disciplinary measures were also proposed. Those measures were accepted, and have in all cases already been put into operation. I must concede to the hon member that the hon the Minister at the time, in respect of the reply which he gave the hon member in this House on a certain occasion in connection with fringe benefits, had incorrect information. Furthermore I want to concede to the hon member that it was in fact my duty, when I first received the report, to have brought it to the hon member’s attention immediately. I should have pointed out to him that erroneous information had been furnished with reference to that question. I apologise for that, but I do not think the finding detracts in any way from the basic integrity of the people involved.

The hon member also asked how it was possible that the relevant letter from the Minister, in which the instruction was given to the directors not to serve in subsidiary companies, was only brought to the attention of the corporation at the end of 1984. It became apparent afterwards that it had been an administrative error. The Minister wrote a letter to the then chairman of the Economic Development Corporation. This body should have distributed it among the corporations of the national states, but an omission apparently occurred. There was nothing irregular about it; it was merely a human error.

The hon member also asked on what grounds the Government, in terms of the White Paper, condoned certain recommended repayments—one in the case of directors’ emoluments, and the other in the case of a special tariff for overseas visits. In regard to the first case, it was done because the directors’ emoluments for the chairman, in terms of an unfortunate formulation of the instruction, were less beneficial for additional meetings than for ordinary members, and since the board had acted contrary to it, we felt it would be a good thing to condone it. As far as the overseas visit was concerned, we also felt it was a completely justified visit.

I think I have with this dealt with the most important aspects of the observations made by all the hon members, and at this stage I want to thank everyone sincerely for their contribution to the debate.

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

I do not think there is any time left, Mr Chairman.

Vote agreed to.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No 19.