‘Lasting Inequality Aim Of Schooling’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 11

‘Lasting Inequality Aim Of Schooling’

(N .ZJP A .-Reuter— Copyright) NEW YORK, March 27. South Africa and Southern Rhodesia are practising a “vicious circle” of racial discrimination in their educational services aimed at putting Africans at a permanent disadvantage towards white men, according to a United Nations report.

The report, on “Government Expenditure and Racial Discrimination” in these two countries, was drawn up by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The study concentrated mainly on discrepancies it said existed between the treatment of white and black in the fields of education and vocational training, described as the most crucial factor in drterming the future structure of a mixed society. “Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that European or settler domination in these countries, the whole apparatus of racial discrimination anJ minority rule, finds its deep roots and sustaining force in racially segregated education which is inevitably and inherently unequal." In South Africa, the Government spent about £64 a yea. or. the education of each white child, and about £8 on the African child. In Southern Rhodesia, the

Government spent more than £lOO a head on white children, ana about £8 a year on Africans. The report said that “in this way, in these societies, the Africans are decisively and in many instances deliberately placed at a basic disadvantage to compete with Europeans as factors of production, especially where scientific aptitude, knowledge and skills are called for. “As the racial gap in earnings continues, and with the Government continuing to spend more on Europeans and less on Africans, there is established a vicious circle whose general tendency is to maintain the racial differentials in income and ability to pay tax; the marked differences in quality and quantity of services provided, especially in education; the skill differentials among the different racial groups in their productive and earning capacities, and so on back to racial income differentials. . .”