Equal schooling for blacks promised

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 21

Equal schooling for blacks promised

From

ALLISTER SPARKS

in Pretoria

After four years of research and debate, the South African Government has announced that it will reform its educational system to provide “separate but equal” schooling for the country’s different race groups.

It thus committed itself to upgrading black education. The respected Institute of Race Relations estimates that current spending on each black child is_a sixth of the amount spent on each white child in the State-run schools system. However, the Minister of National Education, Dr Gerrit Viljoen, rejected a recommendation by a Government-appointed commission that the segregated education departments for whites, mixed-race “Coloureds,” Indians, and black Africans should all be brought under one Cabinet Minister.

The commission made the recommendation two years ago, saying differences of race could not justify unequal treatment and that a single Minister would be able to bring about greater equality. Instead of doing this Dr Viljoen announced a new and more elaborate system of segregation under South Africa’s proposed new constitution, which will result in a total of 15 different educational Ministers and nine advisory and professional councils on education in a country which has a total population of 29 million.

Dr Viljoen’s policy announcement, contained in a White Paper giving the Government’s official response to the commission’s recommendations and those of a second study committee which followed it, said the Government accepted the principle of equal education for all.

“Equal opportunities for education, including equal standards in education for every inhabitant irrespective of race, colour, creed or sex, shall be the purposeful endeavour of the State,” he said. Even so, he added that under the new constitution, which white voters ratified overwhelmingly in a referendum on November 2, the Government was committed to the principle that each “population group” should have its own education department. It accepted the need for coordination between these departments, however.

Dr Viljoen pledged the Government to “eliminate the backlog" in black schooling to achieve the goal of equal education, but said this would have to be done “within the restrictions imposed by the financial capability of the country.” He also pledged that it would not be done at the cost of lowering the standard of white education.

The proliferation of education departments which Dr Viljoen announced gives the first indication of the bureaucratic explosion likely to result from the new constitution, which Prime Minister P. W. Botha has said will come into effect during the second half of next year. There is already a Department of Education, with its own Minister, in each of the 10 tribal “homelands.”

Now, in the main part of South Africa, there are to be separate white, Coloured, and Indian Education Ministers in the Council of Ministers of each of the three racially based chambers of Parliament, Each will run separate educational systems. There will be a Minister of General Educational Affairs in the main Cabinet, headed by the President. This Minister’s job will be to co-ordinate the activities of the different racial ministries and the tribal “homelands,” as well as to provide back-up services for all of them. There will be a second Education Minister in the “general” Cabinet, heading a department that will run a separate educational system for half the black population who do not live in the “homelands.” Copyright — London Observer Service. u.