Mr. Chairman, I ask for the privilege of the half-hour.

But for the inexplicable and deplorable failure of the Government to respond positively to the recommendations of the De Lange Committee, this debate would have been one of the most exciting, inspiring and positive discussions yet to have taken place in this House in connection with education in South Africa. In June 1980 the Cabinet commissioned the HSRC as follows—

I quote only certain of those assignments, owing to a lack of time, I quote—

The HSRC eagerly responded, and there then followed what must be one of the most remarkable achievements in the field of scientific investigation in the history of South Africa. Both from the point of view of the dimensions and the complexity of the task involved, on the one hand, and the consistent excellence of the work done and the reports produced, on the other hand, this was most remarkable.

An inspired team of South Africa’s foremost educationists, representative of all the population groups, tackled this huge and challenging task with a display of energy and dedication which was most impressive. They worked long hours, and many of them gladly sacrificed their holidays in order to complete the work in the allotted period of 12 months. Individuals and organizations from many fields of activity were involved. Unusual excitement and expectation characterized not only the people directly involved but also all persons and organizations that have an interest in education in South Africa. I believe the De Lange Committee will long stand as an eminent example of remarkable human achievement by dedicated leaders in the field of education, striving unstintingly to improve all aspects of education in the interests of all the citizens of their country. Time does not allow for a comprehensive discussion of the excellent report brought out by the Committee. I should like to quote only two of the 11 principles on which the investigation was based—

I should further like to quote only two of the recommendations, of which there were many made by the Committee that were worthwhile. The first recommendation is “that an Interim Council for Education be appointed by the Cabinet or by a Minister appointed by the Cabinet within the next few months”. That was at the time the report made its appearance, which was towards the middle of 1981. That means it was approximately two years ago. To date nothing whatsoever has come of that very significant and important recommendation.

The second recommendation is “the granting of the right to councils of autonomous educational institutions in higher education to decide who should be admitted as students”.

I believe that these two principles and these two recommendations, are very significant. Obviously there were many more recommendations but time does not allow me to deal with them. These principles and recommendations will form the basis of much of the discussion which will follow in the months and years ahead in relation to the provision of education in South Africa. The first response of the Government to the recommendations of the De Lange Committee was exceptionally disappointing. One got the impression that the Government was determined to nip in the bud some of the most significant recommendations of the Committee relating to the purging of the divisive, disruptive and distrusted aspects of apartheid from the educational structure and system in our country, and that the Government, before having made a study of the recommendations in terms of their educational merit, had barged in with a declaration that these recommendations “were acceptable subject to points of departure already decided upon by the Government”. To put it more bluntly, Mr. Chairman, the Government declared it would support educational reform provided that reform took place strictly within the confines of the policy of apartheid. Secondly, the Government declared that it supported the proposals but took an uncompromising stand against the provision of multiracial schools. In the third instance the Government stated that it was essential that each population group should have its own education group authority. In this way the Government negated the fundamental recommendation of the De Lange Committee, namely that a single Ministry of Education was essential.

That response by the Government, which they brought out very soon after the appearance of the recommendations of the De Lange Committee, was in fact calculated to indicate clearly to the Committee and to South Africa as a whole, to educationists and parents and all other interested bodies and people, that the Government was in favour of reform but that that reform had to take place strictly within the confines of the policy of apartheid, and that the Government was not prepared to go beyond that policy.

I believe that the Government did a great disservice to South Africa and to education by reacting immediately in that way to the recommendations of the De Lange Committee. This hon. Minister will have to decide whether he is going to serve the best interests of the education of the people of our country or whether he is going to serve apartheid. He cannot do both. The two are incompatible. [Interjections.] If one is prepared to serve the best interests of education in South Africa, one must dissociate oneself from apartheid. Those two concepts are contradictory and one cannot serve both. The hon. the Minister will have to decide whether he is in full control of educational policy in South Africa or whether people like Prof. Marais of the Transvaalse Onderwysersvereniging and men of his ilk are pulling the strings of educational policy in this country. The hon. the Minister will have to decide whether he will listen to the legitimate and urgent appeals from parents and children of all the population groups in our country for better and equal education or whether he is going to succumb to the minority of White racial bigots who demand that apartheid and White privilege should continue to survive in education in our country. It is that hon. Minister’s decision which is going to determine what path we take. By applying apartheid at school level to the children of various racial or ethnic backgrounds, the Government is preventing normal and healthy development of respect, understanding and co-operation between the young people of our country. This will ultimately lead to very serious consequences, since conflict and confrontation flourish amongst people who do not understand one another, who do not have contact with one another and who cannot communicate meaningfully with one another.

In 1976 I had an alarming experience when I visited a Black primary school in Soweto, shortly after the unrest, a school situated no further than 20 km from the nearest White primary school. At the conclusion of an address which was aimed at encouraging friendship, understanding and good relations between Black and White, the principal of the school told me he would demonstrate to me why this was impossible under the present policies in South Africa. There were about 400 to 500 children gathered in the school grounds, and to them he put two simple questions. Firstly, he asked them how many of them had seen a White child in their fives. He asked those who had seen a White child to please put up their hands. Approximately half of the children responded. He then asked the children how many of them had spoken to, played with or had contact with a White child. Only four little hands were raised. To me this was a devastating example of the wicked efficiency of the Government’s apartheid policy of preventing people from meeting one another in the normal course of events. In the urban areas as far as the children of the various population groups are concerned, apartheid is as effective as the shameful Berlin wall. I believe that that example—and there are thousands of similar examples—not only indicates the wicked efficiency of apartheid which prevents meaningful communication, but also spells danger for the future of race relations in our country.

The De Lange report was submitted to the Government at the end of 1981. After the initial response in the form of an interim memorandum, to which I have just referred, the Government appointed a working party to assess the widespread reaction to the report and to make recommendations to the Government. These recommendations were submitted to the Government in October 1982. Since that date the Government appears to have been stricken with an inexplicable and ominous paralysis. It has not been possible to get a copy of the report of the working party. I am told that I am not allowed to see it. To date the Government has not published a White Paper. In answer to a question in Parliament earlier this year, the hon. the Minister said that he would probably not be bringing legislation based on the De Lange recommendations before the House this session. There are, however, three Bills on the Order Paper dealing with universities and technikons, which indicate that the Government has already rejected—even before the debate on the De Lange report’s recommendations—one of the key recommendations of the De Lange Committee, namely that there should be autonomy as far as the admission of students to institutions of that nature are concerned. It is clear that the Government is determined to continue with its strict adherence to apartheid, even at the tertiary level. The disillusionment, disappointment, anger and frustration unleashed by the failure on the part of the Government to respond effectively and enthusiastically to the constructive proposals of the De Lange Committee bodes ill for education and race relations in our country. The Government apparently does not realize the harm it is doing and that it is wasting a wonderful opportunity that has been handed to it of bringing about improved education and better race relations in our country. I should like to quote from a statement by Dr. Ken Hartshorne in this connection. Mr. Chairman, as you know he made a very significant and important contribution to the work of the De Lange Committee. He wrote recently.

The hon. the Minister must not think that all is well and calm and that there are no problems on the horizon. If the Government continues to fail to respond to these recommendations it is effectively continuing to fail to respond to the legitimate appeals of the people concerned. Once again the Government will experience unrest, frustration and anger as a result.

Improved education in our country is the springboard which is needed for progress in each of the fields in which we are confronted with major problems. The maintenance of democracy depends on a well educated citizenry. The free enterprise system and the fight against communism depend on economic prosperity, which is directly dependent on sound educational practices. The stabilization of population growth, which is threatening economic growth and the ability of our country to sustain an improving standard of living for all its people, cannot be achieved until such time as the socio-economic conditions of our people are improved. This is directly related to the levels of education for the society as a whole.

Irrespective of what problems we examine, irrespective of what challenges we face in South Africa today, before we can start solving those problems, before we can start improving the situation, at their foundation there is the requirement for better education in all respects, as indicated in the report of the De Lange Committee. I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to take the opportunity of this debate to make a declaration of the Government’s intentions in response to the recommendations of the De Lange Committee. I appeal to him, in view of the delays already caused, to tell South Africa precisely what the intentions of the Government are. When I say this, I am not asking for a learned academic discourse. There is no time for that. What I am asking for is a clear and specific list of undertakings, of actions that the Government intends to take in respect of the major priorities in the educational field. What we want to know, what South Africa wants to know, what every educationist and every parent wants to know, is what the Government is going to do and when is it going to take action in respect of these matters.

Let us look at a few of them. Firstly, will the Government appoint an interim council for education in order to give effect to the recommendations of the De Lange Committee, and when will it appoint such a council? That was possibly one of the most important recommendations, namely that the Government immediately appoint an interim council for education, before a South African council for education is appointed in terms of legislation to be brought before the House, in order to do the planning and co-ordination and to carry out the vast and important task as set out by the De Lange Committee. Why can the hon. the Minister not give an honest, simple and straight answer? Is he going to appoint such a council? When is he going to appoint such a council and what instructions is he going to give to it? What will its mandate be?

Secondly, will the Government create one ministry of education to direct and co-ordinate all educational matters for all groups in South Africa? And if it is going to do so, when is it going to happen?

Possibly the most significant recommendation of the De Lange Committee is the recommendation that education cannot be equal if it is separate, that there is a tremendous waste of time, that there is duplication and that there is a loss of opportunity if education is structured in terms of the apartheid ideology of the Government. In order to bridge all these difficulties, if one wishes to make real and effective progress, one has to begin with the concept of a single ministry for education in South Africa. Is the hon. the Minister going to accept that recommendation or not? I want to say that if the hon. the Minister rejects that recommendation then he is rejecting the De Lange Committee report and he may as well throw it in the ashcan. I say this because that is a vitally important aspect of the recommendations.

What is the Government going to do in order to provide for more effective teacher training and retraining in South Africa in order to wipe out the backlog and improve standards? What actions is going to be taken and what is the programme that the Government has in mind? I should like to mention only a few of the very important statistics mentioned in the report in this connection. In order to achieve parity in respect of “pupil density” by the year 2020 on the basis of 30 pupils per teacher—and this number includes all professional staff in schools—the following number of teachers will have to be trained between now and the year 2020: White, 24 981; Coloured, 22 708; Asian, 6 964 and Black, 245 405—a quarter of a million teachers! Clearly, this is a challenge and a task of huge proportions. What we want to know from the Government is this: Does it accept that challenge? If it does, what is it going to do about it? How is it going to meet that challenge? We do not want silence from the Government; we want to hear from them what their intentions are.

In the fourth instance, I want to ask what steps the Government proposes to take to provide for parity in education in respect of population groups taking into consideration expenditure, facilities and teaching standards, and when the relevant objective will be achieved. One of the most interesting tables published in the report appears under the heading: “Estimated Financial Requirements of Parity in Primary and Secondary Education with Different Pupil-Teacher Rations in the Period 1980-’85-’90”. There are many variations on which these calculations are based but if one uses a pupil-teacher ratio of 30 to one to be reached by all population groups by the year 1990—that is seven years from today—one finds that expenditure expressed in millions of rand will have to increase from R2 138 million in 1980 to R4 031 million in 1990. This is a tremendous increase in expenditure and will place a tremendous financial burden on the country. However, what South Africa needs is a clear statement of intent by the Government that they are prepared to invest what is needed to achieve that objective. If we are not prepared to provide the money that is required, then we are not going to achieve the goal of equal educational opportunities for all our people.

In the fifth instance I want to ask what steps the Government proposes taking in the field of education to provide for the serious shortage of skilled manpower in South Africa, and when these steps will be taken. In this connection I should like again to refer to the De Lange Report because I find it very interesting. The demand for education among Indians, Coloureds and Blacks is clearly illustrated by the fact that the percentage of pupils who started school in 1963 and who then completed 12 years of schooling was as follows: Whites, 58,4%, Indians, 22,3% and Coloureds only 4,4%. These were pupils who started school in 1963 and completed 12 years of schooling. In the case of Blacks, the percentage was only 1,96%. This reveals one of the reasons for the skilled manpower shortage in South Africa. We are not utilizing the human potential that is available to us. These figures show up a tremendous loss of potential high level manpower from the Coloured and Black groups in particular. My question is: What specific steps is the Government going to take to resolve this problem? They must tell us. It is common knowledge that there is a shortage of and an increase in the demand for trained technicians and technologists in our country. At present these occupations are filled mainly by Whites. In 1979, for example, 99% of the engineers, 78% of the natural scientists, 91% of the technicians and 72% of the artisans and apprentices were White. In the light of the above it is important to note that in 1978 there were in total 44 744 White students at technikons, 37 890 at technical colleges and 24 800 at technical institutes. In contrast—this is where the significance is—in the same year there were only 233 women and 2 636 men students at the 16 technical institutes for Blacks. In 1980 the technikon for Coloureds had an enrolment of 1 356 students while in 1977 a total of 3 733 Coloured students were enrolled at the technical colleges and institutes. In 1978 6 827 students were registered at the M. L. Sultan Technikon for Indians. This is the clearest possible indication of the failure of South Africa to provide education and training in the field in which our economic growth, our industrial prosperity and stability demand it. We want to know from the Government what it is going to do about the situation.

Just one quote from one of Dr. Smit’s many interesting papers. This is how he was reported—

The point is that it is the Government’s responsibility to create the machinery to provide those people with the appropriate training they need in order to be productive in our economy.

In the sixth place, I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will show the courage and insight that are necessary to launch a dramatic and comprehensive national campaign involving all the components of our society, public and private, local authorities and the churches, organizations and individuals, in an exciting and single-minded determination to achieve the objectives of the De Lange Committee’s report to ensure a good education for every South African child so that sound foundations will be laid for future interracial peace and economic prosperity.

It requires unconventional means, it requires dramatic action, it requires inspired leadership, and the hon. the Minister is the man who has to do the job. South Africa wants to know if the hon. the Minister is going to do the job.

Yesterday there appeared in Rapport a very interesting article—it could have been coincidence, or it could have been prophetic—by Dr. Jan Mulder from the hon. the Minister’s department in which he advocated the use of television in education. What is holding it up? There is no problem attached to it; it can be done. We have the people, we have the means and we have the facilities to use television and radio, the most effective means of mass communication, in order to provide for education in the non-formal field and back-up support for formal education. Dr. Mulder said—

*That was in 1981; we have still not heard from the hon. the Minister in this regard. Time is very valuable and South Africa cannot afford to waste time.

Last year the hon. the Minister of Education and Training appointed a committee to determine how the existing SABC channels for Blacks can be used to diminish the backlog in adult education. At the moment 91% of the Whites, 87% of the Asians and 83% of the Coloureds live within the area of coverage of TV1, and 25% of the Blacks live within that of TV2 and TV3. This can, of course, be extended considerably. Research shows that in 1981 241 000 Blacks already had TV sets. Moreover, the number is increasing very rapidly. 74% of the people in the ten most important metropolitan areas intended acquiring a TV set before January 1983. It is estimated that by 1986, 1,3 million Black families will be living inside TV reception areas. Proper use of this medium can therefore contribute substantially to solving certain educational problems. I call on the hon. the Minister to make an announcement in this regard during this debate.

*The hon. the Minister must commit himself and then go and talk to the Cabinet. Let him show a bit of courage. [Interjections.]

I turn now to the question of private schools. Will the Government undertake to encourage the creation of private schools? Will it undertake to support these schools financially? That could to a large extent take the burden away from the Government to provide education. It could also allow non-racial schools to develop in a way to which the Government and its supporters cannot possibly object.

The hon. the Minister of National Education is faced with a dramatic choice at this time in the history of South Africa. On the one hand he can take the bull by the horns and use his proven and undoubted organizational and intellectual capacities to give practical effect to the recommendations of the De Lange Committee. If he does so, it will provide for South Africa what I believe will be one of the finest educational systems in the world and certainly the best educational system in any Third World country—South Africa is to an extent a Third World country, or a country with a very large Third World community. If he does as I suggested, it will provide for growth, hope and progress and it will contribute to understanding and peace between the peoples of our country. If the hon. the Minister does that, he will be remembered as a man amongst men and as a statesman. That is the one choice he has.

Alternatively, he could continue to do what I think he is doing at the moment, viz. to kneel submissively at the altar of apartheid and ignore the urgent and heart-felt cry for real reform in education. If he does that, he will be contributing to future conflict, confrontration and unhappiness in our country, in which case he will not do down in the annals of this country as a great man.

The choice is his. If he makes the correct choice, he can depend on the wholehearted and the enthusiastic support and gratitude of all South Africans of goodwill, of all races and all ethnic groups, and also of the members on this side of the House.

Order! Before I see the next speaker, I should like to point out that, while I do not wish to inhibit hon. members in the scope of their discussions, there are two other departments concerned with similar matters. When it comes to the discussion of general policy, for instance, that falls under the Office of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Chairman, to start with I want to tell the hon. member for Bryanston that he, the official Opposition and the country, have no need to feel concerned, because both the hon. the Minister and this Government will take up the challenge, have in fact already taken it up and will also find the answers. The problem is that there are none so blind as those who will not see and none so deaf as those who will not hear. The hon. member for Bryanston referred mainly to the HSRC report and I shall get round to it in a moment. He also referred to the legislation on the Order Paper in connection with the admission of people of colour to universities for Whites. This is also a matter I shall deal with.

At the very outset I want to congratulate the department, Dr. Meyer and his staff, most sincerely on the excellent annual report that has once again been tabled. It is a source of information, and I think that anyone who takes the time to read through it will get a very good idea of the tremendously wide spectrum of activities of this department. I want to congratulate them most sincerely on this.

I should also like to refer very briefly to the appropriation for education. I also want to express our thanks to the hon. the Minister of Finance for the fact that the amount allocated to the Department of National Education has increased by 14,9%, by an amount of R94 058 000. This increase may be chiefly ascribed to the improvement in conditions of employment from 1 April 1982, including, of course, occupational differentiation and also the normal escalation in costs. I should also like to point out that university training receives the highest amount, namely 59,1% of the total Vote. I also want to express my thanks for the additional R1 million which has been paid into the National Study Loan and Bursary Fund, a fund which was first established in 1964 with a contribution of R0,5 million from the Government. At the same time I want to make an appeal to the private sector to come forward once again with the special contributions they made in the past, because it would seem as if the contribution made by the private sector is declining.

I want to refer very briefly to a report which appeared in the newspapers in connection with what I consider to be the unfortunate incident at the University of the Witwatersrand regarding the decision by the student council—unpatriotic, as far as I am concerned—that “Die Stem” will no longer be sung at their graduation ceremonies but that “‘Nkosi Sikelel’i-Afrika” will be sung instead. I want to say in all fairness that I was also most gratified to read that the University Council dissociated itself from this request and immediately rejected it. But I think it is a pity that although the University Council did not accept the request for “‘Nkosi Sikelel’i-Afrika” to be sung, they went further and said that “Die Stem” would no longer be sung either. I feel this is a great pity, because I want to suggest in all modesty that the image of this university will very definitely be impaired by this. I think it is an unpatriotic act, and I hope that other universities will take cognizance of this and that our universities will continue to respect our national symbols.

I should also like to put a request to the hon. the Minister that we endeavour to ensure that salaries are linked to the promotion structures. In pursuance of the Venter report and the adjustments we had, it seems to me as if there are still a few anomalies which will have to be investigated. An important anomaly is that it is an untenable position for a specific post in the establishment to be higher than another post, whereas the salaries remain the same. This simply cannot work in practice. I should very much like the hon. the Minister to investigate and rectify this matter.

I now want to get to the remark made by the hon. member for Bryanston in connection with the admission of people of colour to universities for Whites, a matter which has frequently been discussed in the newspapers recently. Legislation has already been tabled in this connection and I shall refrain from holding an in-depth discussion on this today because we shall have ample opportunity to do so during the Second Reading debate on this legislation. All I want to say now is that the academic freedom of the universities is definitely not being impaired by the principles in that legislation. However, I am willing to concede that the autonomy of universities is being impaired, but suffice it to say that the State very definitely has a responsibility to maintain order and equilibrium between the autonomy of the universities on the one hand and the interests of the State on the other. For that reason I think it is fair and just that the State should at least have a say when it comes to the norms which apply to the admission of students to universities.

I now want to discuss the HSRC report and try to sketch the education dispensation within the new constitutional dispensation which is at hand. Of course, a new constitutional dispensation is an accomplished fact and it is therefore only realistic to accept that within that new dispensation a system for the provision of education will have to establish itself. In this connection I want to say that the following appeal by the chairman of the Federal Council of Teachers’ Associations made in Mondstuk of January 1983 is realistic, responsible and to be welcomed—

I want to state categorically that the Government has respect, gratitude and appreciation for organized education and for the daily task performed by all teachers. The Government also acknowledges the important role played by education in the national economy, and on this basis I agree with Prof. Maree, who asked—

As far as the position of a new education dispensation in the new constitutional dispensation is concerned, I want to point out that the new constitutional dispensation is based mainly on four foundation-stones. The first of these is recognition of the right to self-determination. The hon. member for Bry-anston can grumble and groan as much as he likes. Education cannot be separated from the tradition and culture of a specific people. This cannot be done. A second aspect is that the Government of a country will also leave its mark on the education policy within that country. The hon. member cannot get away from that either.

Order! I am afraid the hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I rise merely to give the hon. member an opportunity to continue his speech.

I thank the hon. Chief Whip for his gesture. When the hon. member for Bryanston refers to the De Lange report and to its terms of reference, he must in all fairness—and he did in fact do this—refer to the guidelines laid down by the Government. Within those guidelines effect has to be given to a new education dispensation. This not only applies to South Africa; it applies to any country in the world.

I have said that the constitutional dispensation is based on four important foundation-stones. As I have said, the first principle is recognition of the right to self-determination. The second principle is sole decisionmaking and preservation of what is one’s own. The third is joint decision-making and joint responsibility for matters of common interest and the fourth is discussions between all the parties involved with the aim of achieving a consensus. Any new system of provision of education will of necessity have to be based on these foundation-stones; otherwise it will not work. It has been stated repeatedly by the hon. the Prime Minister and many other speakers on the Government side that education is a group-specific matter and that each population group will have the exclusive right to decide on this for itselves. This not only applies to school education, but to education in its entirety, from preprimary right through to tertiary education and education outside schools, in other words adult education.

It is now necessary for me to return briefly to the De Lange report. I do not want to repeat the terms of reference of the De Lange Committee. There is no time for that. I shall only quote one of the points in the terms of reference, namely education of the same quality for all population groups. In the report we also find linked to this the principles of the provision of education. Now it is important to note that the Government has accepted all eleven of the principles regarding the provision of education, as they emerged in the report of the De Lange Committee, but naturally within the confines of the specific premises of the Government. I only want to refer to two of these principles. The first is the principle of equal education opportunities, including equal standards of education, which the State will endeavour to realize. After all, the Government has accepted this. There is also the principle that education gives positive recognition to the freedom of choice of the individual, of the parent and of organizations in the community, but yet again within the confines of the premises of the Government. What are those premises? After all, it is important to know what they are. In the first place, the Government remains true to the principle of a Christian character and the broad national character, as is contained in Act No. 39 of 1967—the well-known Education Act.

Every change or innovation in the provision of education will have to take these premises into account, and will also have to take the right to self-determination of each population group into account, which is, after all, the policy of the Government. In those premises recognition is also given to the principle of the well-founded validity of mother tongue education. There is also another important premise namely that the Government has reaffirmed the premise of separate schools for each population group, as well as separate education departments for each population group. As a matter of fact, this is essential in the interests of the right to self-determination, which is one of the foundation-stones of the Government’s constitutional policy as well. However, the Government also recognizes co-ordination; a matter to which I shall return again in a moment. Lastly, the Government also accepts the principle of the freedom of choice of the individual. However, it is also stated quite clearly there—whether hon. members of the Opposition like it or not—that this will take place within the framework of separate schools for each population group. The Government will adhere to that principle. Last but not least, in all decisions in terms of the recommendations of the report, account will have to be taken of and adjustments will have to be made to fit in with the consfitutional framework within which it is being implemented.

However, this does not mean that groups cannot provide services for each other. On the basis of the recognition of that fact we find people of colour studying at universities for Whites. This is already the case because we want to provide a service within specific categories. That is why we also find that there are Whites who are assisting at Coloured and Asian universities, on the same principle. In exceptional cases we also find people of colour attending ordinary schools.

As far as the macro-policy is concerned, in my opinion it is also very important that the ideal of equal education opportunities—as is set out in the De Lange Committee report—including equal education standards for every inhabitant, irrespective of race, colour or creed, etc., can only be achieved by means of the implementation of a central system of education administration which can be co-ordinated meaningfully. This is an absolute necessity. I also want to point out that this common interest also finds expression in the fact that we not only admit people of colour to specifc universities, but also in the fact that the products of the respective education systems have one common labour market at their disposal. This is one aspect. The other aspect is that education throughout the world has become very expensive. After all, we all know that. That is why there is a common interest which requires a joint say and joint responsibility in the following fields in particular: The financing of education services, the standards of curricula, standardized certification, conditions of employment and salaries, services involving research, expensive technology and specialized equipment for education for the handicapped, for example. These things may, for example, be offered jointly for the three separate education systems. In my opinion, an hon. Minister may be made responsible for this field of common interest in education, because the hon. the Minister of National Education need not necessarily be used for this, and this also applies to the Ministers responsible for Coloured education and Indian education. It is not necessary for them to be used to deal with those administrative functions in connection with matters of joint interest in education as a whole. I consider it to be absolutely essential for there to be liaison between the various education systems and also between the autonomous residential universities and the State universities, and we cannot get away from that. That is also the reason why we may need to replace the Universities Advisory Council with a Universities and Technikons Advisory Council which can advise the Ministers responsible for universities and technikons for Whites, Coloureds and Asians, so that there will be one advisory body to provide the Ministers of these three separate systems with advice, in order to bring about the necessary co-ordination in that way.

In addition, all autonomous universities may perhaps obtain representation on the Committee of University Principles—as it is at present constituted. In other words, the University of the Western Cape and the University of Durban-Westville should also have a right to serve on the Committee of University Principals so that one may in this way have the absolutely essential liaison between the various universities, although the unique character of each of them is still recognized. The same thing could be done in connection with a committee which could be established for technikon principals.

Having put these things to this House, I must say that it is my considered opinion that we cannot function in watertight compartments. With this system we are going to create we should not, however, detract from the right to self-determination of any one of these education systems. In my opinion, this is the way we shall achieve what we should all like to achieve.

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

I should like to associate myself with the hon. member for Virginia and express my appreciation to the Department of National Education for this extremely comprehensive and enlightening annual report which has been submitted to us. I agree with the hon. member for Virginia when he says that this report offers the reader a wealth of information, information which gives him an insight into the tremendous scope of the functions of this department. We say thank you very much for this information. This report gives us a review of universities, or differently put, tertiary education, vocational training and technical education. There is also something in connection with the promotion of culture and sport. However, what is of special importance to me—and I have the greatest appreciation for this—is the story of special education which we are given in this report. I think it would be a good thing if we were to place special emphasis today on this special function which is performed on this level by the department in co-operation with the churches and other private organizations. When one thinks of or discusses special education, one realizes that one is dealing with an aspect of society which could be described as a smile emerging from behind a tear. It is concerned with the unhappiness of people from which we are trying to cause happiness to emerge. It is actually concerned with one of life’s tragedies which we see unfolding in front of us, but from which we wish to extract human cheerfulness and success. It is a matter which I believe ought to be a matter of heartfelt concern to everyone in the country. I shall elaborate on this in the course of my speech.

Before doing so, however, I want to place on record my appreciation for the fact that, judging from the appearance of the annual report, the department had it in mind to economize. I have appreciation for that. The exterior of the report does not testify to luxury. It is in its contents that its importance and worth lie. The emphasis is not on outward display; it is instead a source of very important information. I want to congratulate the department on having, in this way, given us an important piece of work, while at the same time setting about it in an economic way.

I should like to dwell for a few moments on the appropriation for education as such. This year, in total, R94 million more was appropriated for this Vote than last year. The department is therefore benefiting by a considerable amount. Most of it, R35,7 million, is being appropriated for universities. An amount of R29,9 million is being appropriated for post-school education; R11,9 million for the education of the handicapped child and R2,7 million for the education of committed children. The remainder of the amount is being made available to other branches of the department. This increased amount applies in particular to current expenditure, and in that way the administration, universities, the education of handicapped and committed persons, as well as sport are benefitting. As far as the other divisions are concerned, when compared with the appropriation for 1982-’83, cut-backs are being affected. I am a little concerned about this.

I know that savings have to be effected and that, as far as this budget is concerned, we must try to economize as much as possible. In respect of the current costs of the divisions in regard to which there have been cut-backs, what I am concerned about, is that, in view of the high cost of living and the high inflation rate, these divisions might perhaps be prejudiced as a result of the savings that have been effected. I do not think we should allow divisions such as the promotion of culture to be prejudiced in any way as a result of cut-backs with a view to economizing, in spite of the difficult circumstances in which we are living. What causes me concern is that these cut-backs might cause us to have to vote additional amounts at a later stage. These cut-backs simply cannot be allowed to prejudice the functioning of these branches in any way.

As far as transfer payments are concerned, all divisions were benefited to an amount of R91,5 million. In this respect it seems to me as though the appropriation is such that it seems unlikely that we will subsequently have to make additional appropriations in this respect. It seems that no provision is being made for capital expenditure.

In particular I want to express my pleasure at the fact that attention is being given to the building of industrial schools. According to the annual report it appears that four industrial schools have, respectively, been improved with a new school building, with a school under construction, with classrooms and with a laboratory complex and renovations. I shall refer later to the living conditions of committed children. At this stage I wish to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is satisfied that the conditions of the buildings and facilities of the other industrial schools, in particular the hostels, are such that they do not need any improvement at this stage. I believe that for these children, who are unhappy persons in their own category, we should establish that best buildings and facilities in order to make them happy in those circumstances in which they find themselves so that they will best be able to utilize the facilities and the education which is being made available to them and so that they will not, in those circumstances in which they are already unhappy, be burdened with further unhappiness.

While I am discussing the provision of buildings, I also want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is really happy in his own mind that the museum buildings and facilities which fall under this department are such that they comply in all respects with the requirements of a museum building, and whether there is certainty that these buildings are of such a standard that those important treasures of the past which are accommodated there—and I am referring specifically here to the storing of such treasures—cannot possibly be damaged at some stage or another, or something like that.

As far as the appropriation is concerned, I wish to put two questions in regard to the rationalization of the Public Service. I want to ask whether the hon. the Minister and his department are satisfied that the National Game Reserve, in connection with which there are deviations from the other functions of this department, as well as the Table Mountain Conservation Board, even if it is a historical monument and as such can fall under Historic Monuments, should rather not be transferred to the Provincial Council of the Transvaal and the Provincial Council of the Cape. I do not know to what extent it could possibly fall under the Department of Environment Affairs and Fisheries.

I want to return to the question of the smile emerging from behind a tear, which I have already mentioned. I am referring here to the provision of educational facilities for handicapped children. What we are concerned with here, is the aurally handicapped, the visually handicapped, the cerebral palsied, the physically handicapped, epileptics and the children committed in terms of the Children’s Act. Consequently we are dealing in the first place with education for those unfortunate children in our community who were either born with a form of handicap or who subsequently became handicapped as a result of some circumstance or other—a disease which they contracted or an injury which they sustained. The fact of the matter, however, is that probably all of these children in reality find themselves in that situation that they are handicapped in one way or another without their having been responsible for it themselves. This is something which simply happened to them and they will probably have to live with it for the rest of their lives. As a result of these handicaps, these children are eliminated from normal society and to a large extent they live an abnormal kind of life. They cannot enjoy life normally as a healthy person can, nor can they receive normal education as a healthy person can. As a result of their handicap these people are in fact pushed out the periphery of society. They are to a large extent outcasts who live on the verges of society. In a certain sense—and I mean it very well, because I do not wish there to be any unhappiness whatsoever in connection with what I now say—these people are a “burden”—I say again, I mean this in a very good sense—in society. It is the task of the parents, it is the task of the church, it is the task of society and it is the task of the State to help these people in such a way that they are relieved of this burden and that they become an asset to society. It is absolutely essential that they receive the necessary education by means of which they can be turned into useful citizens in society. Care must be taken that financial provision is made available to them in all respects. It is true that the churches, private associations, private undertakings and the State go to a lot of trouble to create educational facilities for these unfortunate people so that they can be brought back into society to become full-fledged citizens who can in some way or other perform a worthy task in society.

I want to thank the department for the fact that with its subsidy and other provisions it supports private enterprise and the churches in the provision which is made by them. The work which is done at schools for special education, that difficult tuition, that individual attention that has to be given to these children, those special facilities, compel me today to pay tribute to those principals and teachers, men and women, who perform this task in society.

It is not easy; it is an extremely difficult task which they have taken upon themselves. It is different to the task of the ordinary teacher who stands in front of the normal class of ordinary, normal children who are in no way handicapped. Each of these handicapped children, whatever the nature of the handicap may be, actually require individual attention so that he is able, through that individual attention which he receives, to make the best progress on his way back to a normal life. I think it is time that not only we in this House, but also the general public outside, should place on record our appreciation for the service which these particular staff members of such schools are rendering.

Can you imagine the time, the dedication, the love, the sympathy, the patience which those people have to display to make these unfortunates in society happy, to lead these people who are handicapped back to a normal life in society. In other words, to bring them back from the periphery to the centre of society where they can live a decent human life and make a standard contribution to society? It is no small sacrifice which these people are making, and I believe this is the smile which emerges from behind these tears of society. This is the happiness which lies within unhappiness, the joy which lies within the tragedy which we see taking place in front of us.

The financial contribution of the State to these children is probably one of the best ways in which the State could spend taxpayers’ money. One takes cognizance of this with pleasure. In particular, I want to place on record the special additional facilities which are now being provided for the Transoranje School. In particular I want to point out the additional provision which is being made for the building programme for the Sonitus School for the aurally handicapped in my constituency. At present 300 of these unfortunate children are accommodated and their needs taken care of in this school. When this additional provision has been made, it will be possible to cater for 350 aurally handicapped children. I want to ask that if the State is in any way capable of making a larger contribution for this very important cause, the State should not hesitate for a moment to thrust its hand deeply into its purse.

In the report it is stated that in connection with the 11 schools for cerebral palsied there is the prospect that when it has been possible to remove the pupils with learning handicaps in those schools, that there will then be enough accommodation for the cerebral palsied children themselves. I want to ask whether the hon. the Minister can give us an indication of the extent to which provision has already been made or to which progress has been made with the envisaged removal of children with learning handicaps to a school of their own. I think it is very important that we should afford the child with learning handicaps in particular an opportunity to receive the special attention which he requires in his own school so that he, too, can assume a worthy place in society. These children occupy a very important position in our society.

I must make haste because I have very little time left. I still wish to refer to the Children’s Act Schools. Here we are dealing with children committed in terms of the Children’s Act to industrial schools or to reformatories. This is in fact a matter which the department inherited from the Department of Health and Welfare because in most cases they, in the first place, deal with these children. The Department of National Education has therefore inherited from that department the task of providing these children with education and training. Some of the committed children in industrial schools are there through their own doing. These are children who have been committed to such schools as a result of their own actions and behaviour. Some of those children, however, are there through no fault of their own, but as a result of domestic circumstances or circumstances in society. They are then removed from their normal domestic circle and placed in the strange atmosphere of the school where they are subjected to very strict discipline. The disrupted and confused child is placed in such a school, and he is frequently maladjusted, and has to deal with psychological problems. That is why I wish to express my particular appreciation for the fact that so much trouble is done in regard to the establishment of specialized diplomas for the training of these people who have to work with those children. I wish to express the hope that the department will do everything in its power to cause every teacher involved in this matter to be integrated into this special tuition, because only in that way can they give these children the best in the society.

Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate what the hon. member for Koedoespoort said in connection with the training of handicapped children. In my own constituency, too, there is an excellent institution which undertakes that important work.

I have said before in this House that no Government, no State authority, can engage in cultural activities itself. The Government can only provide protection and the necessary incentives and create a favourable climate in which the cultural activities of a people can develop and flourish through that people’s own endeavours. We in this country are fortunate in having had a Government over the past few decades which is extremely sympathetic to the cultural activities of all peoples within the borders of our country. Here I want to pay tribute to the important work which is being done by the Cultural Affairs Branch of the Department of National Education. It is impossible, in the short time available to me, to give a full account of all the spheres in which this branch of the department is active and of everything which is being done to promote cultural activities in our country, especially with regard to the preservation of our artistic and cultural treasures. One of the factors which determine the quality and standard of the cultural life of a people is the quality of its creations. What is equally important, however, is the attitude towards the preservation of artistic treasures and cultural treasures for posterity. In respect of conservation in particular, the State can and must play a role which is of decisive importance. How grateful and proud we are in this connection of the achievements of the Cultural Affairs Branch of the Department of National Education! We think of our art galleries, of our historic open-air museums, of our national monuments and so on. But in addition to this, the Government, through this department, has since 1964 made available a total amount of R1 927 773 for the purchase of artistic and cultural treasures. I shall mention only a few of these treasures. We may think, for example, of the Piemeef collection, the Jansen collection, the William Fehr collection, the Roy Campbell collection, the collection of precious Chinese porcelain plates, historic film material and so on.

It is very important to remember that these treasures would have been lost to posterity if they had not been purchased by the State. Through these acquisitions, an irreparable loss of cultural possessions was prevented by the intervention of a sympathetic Government. However, it is not only the State which has a responsibility in respect of the preservation of our artistic and cultural treasures. The individual must also accept responsibility. Every individual should have a positive approach to the preservation of cultural possessions and should jealously guard against the loss of any cultural possessions of whatever nature. Fortunately, we find commendable, examples of large and valuable collections being built up by individuals during their lifetimes. The danger always exists, however, that such valuable collections may be lost or neglected after the decease of their owners, because of a lack of interest or dispersal among heirs. Therefore I want to make a serious appeal to collectors on this occasion to bequeath their collections to the State in their wills, in order to ensure that these treasures will be preserved for posterity.

Now I wish to refer with great appreciation to the Sidney Mendelssohn bequest to the Parliamentary library, a collection consisting of a large number of valuable and irreplaceable books and a large number of paintings. I want to submit, in all humility, that hon. members of this House are not doing justice to this valuable and irreplacable bequest. Many of the paintings have not even been unpacked. Some paintings have been hung in the passages of this building, in co-operation with the Art Gallery, but who notices paintings in passages? In this connection I want to ask: What has become of that part of this library which used to be housed in the town of Sydney-on-Vaal? A further question in connection with this bequest: The library is housed in a place which few of us ever visit, and where it is even more difficult for us to appreciate and comprehend its inestimable value. I urge that the Library Committee of Parliament, in co-operation with Mr. Speaker and the Secretariat, should try to find a room in the Parliamentary building where these works can be properly displayed. I am thinking, for example, of the reading room of the old Senate. This is a beautiful room which is not being utilized at the moment. Boland Bank recently donated a beautiful painting of Paul Kruger to the House of Assembly. Let us try to find a room in this building where such donations can be displayed.

Hear, hear!

I am convinced that if we are able to provide such an art gallery in this building, the example of Boland Bank will be followed by other institutions, and just think what an invitation this would be to our artists to donate works of art to be hung in that small and exclusive art gallery of this House. And what living evidence such a gallery would be of the fact that politicians, too, are people who believe in the truth that beauty is an eternal fount of joy!

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the hon. member for Kimberley North that we take note of his representations to the hon. the Minister in connection with finding a suitable display area for works of art in the Houses of Parliament. We support him in that. As a member of the parliamentary committee on this matter, the hon. the Minister will certainly be able to take the matter further. As usual, the hon. member made a well prepared and enlightening speech on art and culture, giving his views on these subjects here in South Africa. It was interesting to listen to him and let us hope that his representations will bear fruit.

†There are two matters I should like to address myself to this afternoon because I believe they are of the utmost importance. In the first place let me say that there is no greater priority at the moment in so far as tertiary education is concerned than for the Government and other appropriate institutions and officials to take the necessary steps to depoliticize and deradicalize the attitude of certain university authorities and their students to their own affairs and those of South Africa. In this respect the Government has a particular responsibility to ensure that everything possible is done to depoliticize the atmosphere and the environment in which tertiary education is presented at university level. The hon. the Minister will be well aware of the fact that in 1959 the Government took a political decision that it was going to determine, to a greater or lesser extent in detail, whom universities should be allowed to admit as students. That decision has had quite considerable repercussions throughout the past two decades and has finally resulted in a radicalization, an alienation and politicization of certain university campuses in South Africa. In today’s age of “verligte” thinking I hope the Government will recognize the need for common sense to prevail in this respect. The very act of interfering with university autonomy as far as the admittance of students is concerned, that very act creates a reaction which is counterproductive not only to the image of universities in South Africa but also to universities themselves.

The NRP believes that the State has two primary functions when it comes to university education and neither of these two functions entail interference with university autonomy when it comes to the enrolment of students. We believe that the State has two primary functions in this respect. The first is to ensure an adequate fiscal policy so that all sectors of the community can benefit from tertiary education, in particular from university education. In this respect I believe we are very fortunate in South Africa in that we have a formula for subsidising and financing universities which makes it possible for every student of the necessary intellectual capabilities to pursue a career and advance himself academically without great, if any, expense to his parents. Secondly, we believe that a complementary responsibility of the State is to ensure that universities maintain certain academic standards. That should be done through a co-ordinating council which can monitor the standards of physical environment, access to and availability of the necessary infrastructure, the standards as far as lecturers are concerned, in other words the standards universities apply and maintain in their choice of lecturers and professors and, perhaps even more important, the standards of examination in the various faculties.

These are the only responsibilities the State should exercise as far as university education is concerned. The NRP will continue to support and fight for the ideal that university autonomy should include the autonomy of a university to decide whom to admit as students purely on the criteria of education and the ability of the student to benefit from tertiary education. Unless we as a State are able to respond in that manner, I am afraid the process of radicalization and politicization of universities will continue apace. As evidence of this I need only refer to the recent decision of the Students Representative Council of Wits to discontinue the singing of “Die Stem” and that “ ’Nkosi Sikelel’i Afrika” should be sung instead. This is a symptom of an illness in the system and we can only appeal to the hon. the Minister to see that common sense prevail in this instance.

There is an additional priority which should enjoy the attention of the hon. the Minister and the department, and that is that we should work towards an integral system of tertiary education. Please note that I have not said an “integrated” system of education but an integral system of education. If one examines the student figures, the pass and failure rate at most of our universities, it will be seen that we have a shocking first-year failure rate, as high as 50% in some faculties with a decreasing percentage up to the final year of examination. These students are lost to society as far as their tertiary education is concerned, and I think we should have a real look and re-examine our strategy in respect of tertiary education along lines which have been manifested and applied in Bophuthatswana. I think we can learn from their experience and their courage in introducing an integral system of tertiary education. What they have done there is that they have recognized that a student who enrols for instance in the faculty of medicine and fails at the end of his first year, should leave the university and choose another career. In most cases, as far as most medical students are concerned, they become medical representatives, salesman. But their actual education in the field of medicine is almost totally lost to society, and that costs an awful lot of money. What I recommend is that those students, if they fail after their first, second, third or fourth year, should be encouraged to continue their education at technikon level and that they should change the emphasis from a purely academic education to a greater technically orientated education. That input in the initial year will then not be lost entirely to the community. We think for example of engineering students who may get to their second year and then find it too tough to continue, which means that at an academic level that student is unable to pursue his career. That student and society could well benefit, however, if he were then to be channelled, with university credits, to a technikon in order to pursue a more technical engineering career. In this respect one could also think of students of the fine arts, students of languages, students of philosophy and students of music, who could well convert to a diploma in education if they failed in their first, second or third year and were channelled with some credits to a teaching career, or something on those lines.

I should also like to compliment the Department of National Education of Bophuthatswana for the foresight and the courage they displayed by attenting to design an integral system of education, and particularly in the field of tertiary education. The cost to the State is really considerably in respect of every university student who fails. The subsidy at the moment is well in excess of R3 000 per student per year, and going up to R4 000 if inflation is taken into account. We simply cannot afford to lose the investment we have made in that student, in particular the investment made in respect of the 50% of students who fail and are then lost entirely to the society of South Africa. My appeal to the hon. the Minister—and I see he has taken note of this direction; we note that there is a Bill coming to the House which is aimed at the creation of a co-ordinating council between technikons and universities, a Bill of which we will be able to discuss the merits and demerits at a later stage—is firstly for a common sense approach to university autonomy regarding their role for the students, and secondly, to encourage the concept of integral education at tertiary level.

Mr. Chairman in the first place I should like to convey my sincere thanks to hon. members who have already participated in the debate, for their contributions which were well-considered and very thoroughly prepared throughout. Unfortunately there was just a little barbed wire and vinegar in the introductory contribution of the hon. member for Bryanston. Allow me too, in the first place, to associate myself with the hon. members by conveying my thanks to the Director-General of the department and to his staff, to the top officials of the department, for the excellent work which they have once again done, and also for the extremely professional and competent way in which they have supported me so loyally in the task I have to perform.

Just as other hon. members did, I referred last year to the large number of people from the private sector, people from outside, who in their spare time and in a voluntary capacity help on various bodies to further the task of the Department of National Education. This year I should like to address my words of thanks to a greater extent to the inner circle. I wish to refer here to a number of regular meetings which are of very great value, and from which I myself benefit greatly, and which I find instructive. In the first place it has now become the practice for the three responsible Education Ministers in the Cabinet, to hold regular talks on matters of common educational concern, and the stimulus and co-ordination emanating from these talks are definitely a very great asset. Furthermore, I wish to refer to the regular so-called Ministerial Administrators Conference, a conference held by the Minister of National Education with the various Administrators, the responsible members of the Executive Committees and the Directors of Education with a view of furthering educational matters between the Central Government and the provincial administrations.

Next I also wish to refer with very great appreciation—and here I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Virginia in his remarks—to the regular talks which I have with the chairman and senior members of the Federal Council of Teachers’ Associations, people who in these times in which the teaching profession, apart from its normal difficult task, is also subject to particular tension owing to the transitional phase, the uncertainty which is an inherent part of the expected changes and adjustments in education, have a very important task as leaders to establish equilibrium and levelheadedness among their colleagues. For that I wish to convey to them my profound thanks. During the past year I have also had closer contact with the chairman and senior members of the S.A. teachers’ Council for Whites which is promoting in particular the image and the standing and the status of the teaching profession in the eyes of the South African public. I wish to convey my sincere thanks to all these organizations.

I should also like to refer to the fact that during the past year I have had the privilege of paying personal visits to a great many of our special schools, Children’s Act schools and cultural institutions, so that I could attend personally to matters such as those to which the hon. member for Koedoespoort referred, as well as to some physical facilities. At this stage already I can inform the hon. member for Koedoespoort that I am not satisfied at all that we have, as far as physical facilities are concerned, accomplished as much as we should, and here I am referring to the schools and the museums. At the same time I must point out that a start has already been made on a major building project for the South African Museum here in Cape Town. This will bring about a dramatic change in that institution’s facilities. In Pretoria we are also giving shape to an idea which the hon. member for Rustenburg raised last year, namely to establish new premises for the Cultural History and Open Air Museum in Pretoria, in the so-called Kruger Square complex. It is being planned for a site between Vermeulen Street and Pretorius Street, around the Kruger House, and the, shall I say, Kruger Church. Our aim is to finalize this matter as soon as possible.

These visits to the schools were of very great value to me, and I should also like to express my thanks here for the work which is being done there, as well as to the museum administrations for the excellent research work which their staff are doing.

The hon. member for Bryanston and the hon. member for Virginia both dealt with the HSRC report. The hon. member for Bryanston expressed his dissatisfaction at the fact that the Government had not yet reacted to it. I should just like to place this matter in its time perspective again. Immediately after the report was released in October 1981, the public were first afforded an opportunity for six months to comment on the report. It would therefore have been improper for the Government to react during that period. In fact, on the one hand the hon. member for Bryanston objected because there had been no reaction, while on the other he also objected to the fact that there had been reaction in advance in regard to premises when the report was released. Towards the end of March, after comment had been received, the interim Education Task Group under the leadership of Prof. De Lange, worked hard from April to November to process that comment and submit recommendations to the Government. I want to say straight away that it is my interpretation that the idea of an interim South African Council for Education, which had to assist the Government in dealing with this report, was in fact anticipated by the appointment of this interim Education Working Party which was constituted on as broad and comprehensive a basis as the envisaged temporary South African Council for Educaiton. The task group completed its assignment by November 1982 and has since then, together with the HSRC, been carrying out certain follow-up investigations. Consequently it has only been since the end of last year that my colleagues and I could ourselves begin to determine the Government’s further reaction to the HSRC report.

The Government, and in particular the three Education Ministers concerned, have been working since the beginning of this year on the preparation of a White Paper—ultimately White Papers—which will set out the Government’s policy and decisions in connection with the findings and recommendations of the De Lange report, on the basis of the public reaction and comment on it, and as processed in the recommendations of the interim Education Working Party which were received towards the end of last year. I expect that a White Paper, possibly more than one White Paper, will be ready in the near future. In the meantime the work on the White Paper has already produced a basic input, in the first place in connection with the definition of education as a groupspecific matter in the new draft constitution which is going to be introduced in this House this week, as the hon. member for Virginia has already indicated in general terms. Secondly, various important recommendations of the HSRC report have already been accepted and put into operation. In the discussions of the Votes of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs in respect of Coloured and Indian education and of the Minister of Education and Training, I am certain that several extremely important, spectacular innovations and progress—which their departments have already implemented in the wake of the HSRC report—will come up for detailed discussion. I am referring here briefly to what the hon. the Minister of Education and Training has already announced, namely to the programmes in connection with the acceleration, improvement and expansion of teacher training, the in-service training of teachers, programmes in connection with the preparation of children for school attendance, programmes in connection with more extensive orientation in the sphere of technical and vocational education and programmes with a view to the improvement of the flow of pupils to the secondary schools. As hon. members know a virtual explosion has taken place in this sphere during the past decade, particularly at Coloured and Black schools. I am also referring to programmes in connection with the promotion of literacy and, in particular, of adult education. These are only a few examples which, so I believe, will come up for discussion in other Votes.

†I was also asked for a statement of intent on the part of the Government on the achievement of parity. A statement of intent has in fact been reiterated three times in this much decried interim memorandum which was published at the time of the release of the HSRC report. In no fewer than three separate paragraphs—I quoted them repeatedly before—the Government not only accepted the first of the De Lange principles, namely that there should be a purposeful endeavour on the part of the State to strive towards equal opportunities and equal standards in education for South Africans of all population groups; that fact has been reformulated in this interim memorandum in no fewer than three different paragraphs. So the intention, the commitment of the Government in this respect can in no way be doubted.

*Hon. members will recall that the HSRC Report, which was the first to do so on the central level of the administration of education, recommended that a single ministry and a single Department of Education should be created. This was the terminology that was used. The objective of this ministry should then be—

The basic responsibility of the central ministry should therefore be the determining of a so-called macro-education policy—that is the term used—in regard to certain specifically defined matters. Mention was made of changing priorities in the provision of education, formulas and norms for the financing, current and capital of “the realistic provision of the basic functional educational needs on all levels and in all sectors”. And also of the basic conditions of service of teachers, national standards in education and examinations, the collection of data for the determination and evoluation of policy, international education relationships and the promotion of the so-called co-operative education services.

This important recommendation of the HSRC Report concerning a single central education department was immediately seized upon at the time for two basically divergent and totally different interpretations. There is a certain ambiguity and vagueness in the formulation of the report itself which to a certain extent gave rise to this. On the one hand there was the liberal school of thought, strongly championed by the official Opposition. It interpreted the HSRC recommendation in the sense of one central education department in which the overall management and administration of education for all population groups should be centralized and integrated, even if provision were apparently still to be made here and there for separate schools. I argued here in this House last year already that such an arrangement was totally unacceptable. It is unacceptable from a managerial point of view because it will result in an administratively unmanageable monster department. It is also unacceptable from a pedagogical point of view, because it will not promote specialized attention to problems as a result of the various levels of development of the various population groups.

Never. It is because it is in conflict with apartheid.

It is also unacceptable from a cultural point of view because it does not take into account the diversity of cultures on which the provision of education must in the nature of things be based. It is also unacceptable from a political point of view because it will make self-determination for population groups, each over its own education as a group-specific matter, impossible.

On the other hand there was the interpretation which Prof. De Lange himself also attached to this recommendation when the report was released, namely that a single central education ministry should be established for certain defined macro-policy matters only. This macro-policy will in fact apply to the education of all population groups, according to the recommendation, but education departments having executive or operational responsibility for education will be able to exist, or continue to exist parallel to it. These operational departments would own and run the schools and employ the teachers, as it was stated, while the new central macro-policy department that was being proposed would have no school or teachers of its own. Allowance was made in the report for so-called second level executive education departments which could be based on a geographic or regional or on the other hand a demographic or population group orientation, or both, according the interpretation of the HSRC Report as I understand and also as Prof. De Lange stated it at the time of its release.

Against the background of this uncertainty and these differences of opinion, the Government stated, in its provisional memorandum on the HSRC Report in October 1981, a definite and clear point of departure for its consideration of the HSRC Report. Inter alia, it laid down the principle of a policy of separate schools for each population group, controlled and managed by separate departments of education for each population group, but with recognition of the need for structures for central co-ordination and cooperation between the education structures for the various population groups. Therefore it is the policy of the Government that in the new dispensation the existing separate central or first level education departments for the four population groups in the Republic of South Africa, the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians and the members of the Black peoples, will be maintained, and that the first three of these departments will be dealt with as departments of group-specific matters on a legislative and executive level. However, the Government also accepts that alongside the central separate education departments dealing with education as groupspecific matters, there should also be a central joint Ministerial function which will have the responsibility for macro-education policy as a matter of common concern. This will be macro-policy in respect of the limited and specifically defined function of, for example, the determination of standards in respect of norms for the financing of education services; in respect of syllabuses; examinations and certification in the education of all departments; and in respect of the determination of conditions of service and salaries—basically therefore the functions as recommended in the HSRC Report and endorsed by virtually all persons and bodies in their comment on the report. Naturally, as the hon. member for Virginia also indicated, such a central ministry would also be able to promote the general co-operation between the separate education departments, as in the case for example, of the so-called co-operative education services mentioned in the HSRC Report, co-operating if and to the extent to which the authoritative bodies responsible for control over education as a group-specific matter were to decide upon and agree to such co-operation.

According to the constitutional guidelines of the Government, the provincial system will at first remain unchanged, and therefore, until such time as further consultation on this matter has taken place, the system of White provincial educational authorities will at first remain unchanged.

According to the proposals of the HSRC Report the central ministry for macro-policy on education should be supported and supplemented by a number of expert specialized bodies representative of all the executive education departments and with experts from the various population groups to make recommendations on or take decisions on specific aspects of macro-policy.

The Education Ministers concerned and the Government have already made progress with the preparation for and even the implementation of a few of these recommended central bodies to which I should like to refer briefly.

Firstly, with a view to co-ordinated inputs in connection with salaries and conditions of service for educationists on all levels, it was decided, with effect from 1 May 1983, to expand the structure and functions of the Committee for Education Structures, known as CES, and its Research Committee for Education Structures, or RECES, so that they would no longer advise only the Minister of National Education only on the conditions of service in White education, but would in future provide co-ordinated advice in respect of salaries and conditions of service to all three Education Ministers in respect of all educationists for which the Education Departments for all four population groups were responsible. The three Ministers would then, in close consultation with one another, make inputs to the Commission for Administration in the preparation of which by means of the new CES experts from the education systems of all the population groups will have been involved, and will have had a say from the beginning. This innovation was cleared in advance with the organized teachers profession and with other interested bodies.

Furthermore, to enhance the objectivity of the advice furnished by the Committee for Education Structures, experts from Government sectors other than education, and in addition experts from the private sector were appointed, in addition to the interested educational organization already represented on the committee, and whose representation will continue. As chairman it has been decided to appoint the well-known Dr. Dawie Gous of the firm Personeelkonsultante (Edms) Beperk and in addition as a member, Prof. Bill Sutton, head of personnel of the S.A. Breweries and at present attached to Unisa’s School of Business.

There is a second central expert body. In principle it has been accepted that, as proposed by the HSRC Report, a central statutory certification body should be established to co-ordinate standards for examinations and certification in respect of all population groups on a national level. An interdepartmental inquiry was instituted into the precise functions, composition and functioning of such a body. Attention will also have to be given to the amalgamation with or incorporation of the Joint Matriculation Board. I realize that a great deal of negotiation and consultation will still be necessary to bring this envisaged body into existence.

In the meantime, however, it has been decided that the candidates of all population groups of all education departments will, as from this year, as an interim measure in respect of all post-school and tertiary national certificates and diplomas, write the examinations of and receive certificates from the Department of National Education which on this level will, as it were, act as an agent for the education departments until such time as the new joint statutory certification body has been established.

In the third place hon. members are aware of the fact that a Bill has already been introduced for the replacement of the Universities Advisory Council which advises only the Minister of National Education in respect of universities for Whites. In its place a new universities and technikons advisory council is being established which will advise all three responsible Ministers in respect of the total tertiary education development comprising both universities as well as technikons and in respect of all population groups. In this way it will be possible to promote a better co-ordinated policy and better planning, and consequently an overal view of the country’s universities and technikons in conjunction with one another.

In this respect, therefore, the Government is deviating from the HSRC proposal of a committee for higher education which had to serve as a specialized committee of the proposed central South African council for education, and preference is being given to a specialized body for the special task of universities and technikons. In addition the Government is not adopting the HSRC recommendation that the autonomous higher education institutions should apparently fall under the central education department of macro-policy, but is of the opinion that they should continue to be managed by each population group and education department as an essential part of the total education spectrum as group-specific matters.

In the fourth place, in the draft legislation already before this House, the HSRC proposal for the establishment of a committee of technikon principals, as well as that the Committee of University Principals should be extended to include the principals of all South African universities, is also being implemented.

The Government is still giving attention to the further HSRC proposals for other central expert or advisory bodies in connection with macro-policy in education, and its decisions will be made known in the envisaged White Paper. These include for example, the proposed professional registration body, the proposed committee of heads of all education departments and the proposed SACE, the South African Council for Education.

There are also further investigations in pursuance of recommendations contained in the HSRC report with which my department, in co-operation with other departments, is making good progress. Inter alia, proposals in connection with a co-ordinated policy for direct financial contributions by parents to the cost of the education of their children are being discussed in terms of the amendments effected to the National Education Policy Act in 1981.

In addition there is also the matter raised by the hon. member for Bryanston, i.e. proposals for a co-ordinated policy in connection with the recognition of and State aid to private schools. These are matters which are at present being dealt with in a rather divergent way by the various departments. The Government has accepted in principle the recognition of and the granting of State aid to private schools and the policy in that connection is at present receiving attention.

The HSRC, in co-operation with the interim Education Working Party—in fact this is a directive I gave them in December 1981 to be dealt with as a matter of priority—and also in co-operation with bodies such as the SABC and the telecommunications industry are engaged in research and inquiries in nine different fields of inquiry in connection with educational television programmes and in connection with education technology, particularly computer-assisted tuition, both matters which, as the hon. member for Bryanston correctly stated, are of fundamental importance in expanding the effectiveness of our available teachers’ corps so as to be able to reach a larger number of pupils. I have caused the report of the inquiry into proposed specifications for micro-computer systems which can be used in schools to be made available to interested parties. I expect reports on the remaining eight projects to have been completed by July this year. Initially I had hoped that they would have been ready at the beginning of the year, but unfortunately it was just not possible because the complexity of the matters that have to be investigated kept on causing new problems to emerge.

The hon. member for Bryanston said to me “commit yourself’ in connection with the use of television—and I can add the utilization of technology and computers—in education. When I issued this directive in December 1981, I also committed myself in this regard. There can be no doubt about that. It is essential and it goes without saying that this matter must be set in motion very urgently and effectively. However, if one goes about it in an over-hasty way, one could burn one’s fingers. In particular the acquisition of “hardware” as it is called, from competing companies, could eventually lead to non-compatible systems. One must also be careful with the purchase of programmes on “software”, because that material has to be adapted to the unique background of the educational situation in South Africa.

That is why South Africa waited 30 years for television.

There are quite a number of other investigations which are being carried out by the Education Task Group in co-operation with the HSRC and which I do not wish to mention here at the moment.

I should also like to refer to a very important publication on a project which the HSRC disposed of in connection with non-formal education. This publication appeared under the title “The Promotion of Literacy in South Africa”. It is in fact a key to the promotion of literacy education in future.

I also wish to refer to the fact that the new Promotion of Culture Act which was past earlier this year in the House, opens up the field for the application of HSRC recommendations in respect of the extension of non-formal education for all population groups.

Then, too, I can refer to a seminar which was held on a very high level at the end of last year under the guidance of the Director-General of my department. The seminar was attended by 50-odd top experts who contributed to a debate on the teaching of science and mathematics, indicated in the HSRC report as being a very critical problem. The Scientific Advisory Council of the Prime Minister is also working on this matter and the HSRC is at present carrying out a survey of everything that has already been said about this. Unfortunately this is a subject which has already been keenly disputed in the past and in regard to which a great many seminars and conferences have been held. We hope that with the material which we now have available, my department will, in co-operation with the Science Planning Branch and the Science Scientific Advisory Council be able to make material proposals towards solving this urgent problem of the teaching of science and mathematics. Already it is almost insolvable in the medium term, and it will only be in the long term that we will be able to remedy it. I am referring to the shortage of expert teachers in the field of science and mathematics.

From the foregoing it will be clear to hon. members that it is extremely irresponsible of some journalists and commentators, as well as of hon. members such as the hon. member for Bryanston, to allege that the recommendations of the De Lange Report are being shelved somewhere and forgotten. My strong impression is that such crititcs have very little interest in the promotion of education as such and are primarily interested in using education as an instrument to achieve their specific integrationistic political goals. If matters do not move in that direction, they allege that nothing is happening.

I should also like to make a few comments on the appropriation as such. A few hon. members have already referred to this. I should very much like to illustrate once again the high priority which the Government gives to education in its overall Government spending and national economy. The hon. the Minister of Finance stated in his budget speech that the total provision for education to all population groups this year was considerably more than that for Defence. The amount allocated to education was R3 410 million, which comprised 16,1% of the total budget and was 13% higher than the figure for the previous year. This includes all educational spending, including provincial subsidies, the fiscal transfers for education in regard to national States and provison for education under the Community Development Vote. Compare this with the R3 093 million for Defence, which comprises 14,6% of the total budget and which is 15,9% higher than the figure for the previous year. Education with its total increase of 13% therefore compares very favourably with the total national budget which is only 10,3% higher than the total expenditure for the previous year. These figures demonstrate, as I have said, the high priority which education rightly receives, and it does so in a country which owing to a comprehensive on-slaught on our security, from outside and even within the country, should, and rightly so, accord the highest priority to the financing of its security services. When the budgets for Education and Training and for Coloured and Indian Education are dealt with, it will also become apparent that the improvement of educational opportunities for the other population groups in recent times have shown a relatively even greater and in many respects even spectacular increase in appropriated funds than the already well developed and established educational services for Whites. This priority is also reflected by the unprecedented increase of 283% in the total spent on education during the past eight years, from R890 million in 1975-’76 to this year’s R3 410 million.

As far as the National Education Vote is concerned, the aggregate increase is 14,9%. In reality the department’s budget this year has been subjected to a very strict discipline, so much so that almost no room is left for the expansion of existing services or for new services, as the hon. member for Koedoespoort correctly, but I also think with understanding, albeit with a measure of concern, observed. The increase is primarily attributable to the 15% salary increase of last year which at the time was separately appropriated and has now been included in the National Education Vote. As everyone knows, no provision has been made at this stage, in education as in the rest of the Government services, for a general salary increase for the 1983-’84 financial year. However, it is a pleasure for me to announce that the Government has decided to take its already announced intention to phase in salary parity for fully qualified women in education a step further this year by extending it to the third post level in education. This means that parity for post levels two and one is still to come. I also want to refer here to the fact that through the intervention of the Department of National Education we have also succeeded in obtaining the approval of the Commission for Administration for the level of Deputy Director of Education in the various provinces to be moved one post level upwards, although the designation remains unchanged. This has led to a number of comparable posts in the central Education Departments being adjusted to the level of Chief Director. This afternoon I should like to extend my sincere congratulations to Dr. Eksteen, who benefited from this move in that he will be promoted Chief Director Educational Planning in the Department of National Education on this promotion. In addition, I should like to repeat the earlier announcement of the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs, namely that if, later in the financial year, there should be a significant improvement in the economic situation which may make additional funds possible, the Government will then consider a general salary increase or further occupationally differentiated salary improvements in the Government sector to be an important priority.

At this stage I should like to express my great appreciation for the confidence which the teachers corps have again generated during the past year through their excellent service and dedication. I want to repeat what I said at the beginning, that besides their normal task, they also have to take the lead in the community, in a balanced and responsible way, in the midst of the tension which exists there in general in connection with a new constitutional dispensation and, specifically, in their professional circle, in connection with the degree to which this new dispensation affects the administration of education and the future of education in this country.

I should like to draw hon. members’ attention to a few items in the budget which differ noticeably from the average percentage increase of 14,9% in the Vote as a whole. I want to refer in the first place to the universities which, as has already been said, require not less than 59,1% of the department’s total budget, but which this year show an increase of only 9,09%. This relatively slight increase in the appropriation for universities is attributable in the first place to the relatively low estimated growth rate of less than 2% in student numbers to an estimated total of 80 400, and in the case of Unisa, 50 000. Student numbers, as hon. members know, comprise an important component of the subsidy formula for universities.

Secondly, this is attributable to the fact that the salary component, which is a major factor in the formula, remains unchanged this year. As I envisaged last year, the subsidy formula for universities has in the meantime been revised and refined to a drastic extent. I shall dwell on this at greater length in a moment.

The average subsidy per student at our universities this year already amounts to R4 647 per student for residential universities and R967 per student for Unisa. The estimated total average cost per student for the residential universities amounts to R6 933 for 1983—that is to say almost R7 000—to which student fees contributes only R935 and other income of the university an amount of R351 per student. This amount does not include hostel fees, nor the so-called unsubsidized expenditure. With its contribution of R4 647 per student the State is this year contributing an average of 78% of the recognized tuition costs per university student.

In the second place the total increase in post-school education—technikons and technical colleges—this year is 29,3%, a total increase of 34,8% at the technikons and 21% at the technical colleges. Incidentally, hon. members should note that a shift in funds has occurred in that departmental technical colleges have been converted to State-aided technical colleges. The exceptional increase in the case of technikons is attributable to the growth rate in student numbers there of 14,2%, and also to the capital projects for the establishment of completely new campus complexes in Durban and Pretoria, while those in Johannesburg and Cape Town are also beginning to make progress now.

An additional growth factor is the series of new advanced post-diploma courses which have been established at technikons since 1981—57 higher national diplomas, 20 national diplomas in technology and 7 national laureats in technology—coupled with the introduction of project for applied and complex research.

Against this background it is clear how important it is that greater autonomy should at present be given to the councils of technikons, as envisaged in the proposed legislation already introduced in this House, and in addition that technikons, together with universities, should be seen as part of the overall picture by the new advisory council which will scrutinize the level of tertiary education. Compared with the figures which I have just furnished in regard to universities, the estimated average cost per technikon student this year is R4 446, compared with the universities’ figure of almost R7 000 per student, of which the State by way of its subsidy contributes 84%, or R3 713, and the student fees R628, and other income R105. Unlike the universities, this amount also includes certain hostel expenditure.

I should like to refer to one other programme. Let me point out here that the appropriation of the National Monuments Council increased by 46,14% this year. Last year various hon. members expressed themselves to be in favour of greater support for the important work of this council, and I hope that they will be satisfied with this reply which their representations elicited. The high priority which the Government accords to the conservation of our cultural heritage is also apparent from the additional amount of R200 000 which accrued to the National Monuments Council from the salary increases which Ministers and other high office bearers decfined in favour of cultural conservation projects during the previous financial year.

Next I should also like to refer to the large increase in the provision made for the so-called Sabinet.

†During last year’s discussion of the National Education Vote I announced that a computerized bibliographic and information network was to be instituted for South Africa in 1983, and that this network would be known as Sabinet—the South African Bibliographic and Information Network. Sabinet will help libraries and information services to reduce their costs of indexing, to streamline procedures, to avoid duplication of purchases and to make staff available for more productive services. Libraries and information services will gain access, by means of Sabinet, to approximately 3 million titles of books and pamphlets of importance to research. Institutions participating in Sabinet will be mainly library services, information services and allied institutions. It has now been decided that Sabinet will be administered as a non-profit or utility company which will depend on State aid during the initial years. An amount of R1 598 500 has been budgeted for Sabinet in the current financial year. Delegates from 47 organizations throughout the country and in the independent and national States attended a meeting at the end of February of this year in Pretoria in order to discuss the organization and financial planning of Sabinet and to decide about their own commitment. These 47 organizations, many more than had initially been anticipated, have now formally committed themselves to participation in Sabinet, and it was agreed that the Government subsidy for the network be restricted to a 10-year period during which it will decrease from 100% to 10%. The future participating parties have declared their willingness to contribute the balance for this period, and thereafter to accept full responsibility for the costs. The scheme has now been finally approved and the green light has been given for the project to go ahead. If everything goes according to plan, Sabinet services will begin in October 1983.

*In the appropriation for the Regional Councils for Performing Arts there was an increase of 22,8%, which inter alia makes possible the introduction of an extremely necessary improved pension scheme. The Scientific Publications Bureau, which screens and publishes South Africa’s national research periodicals, had an increase of 36% and the HSRC, the Human Sciences Research Council, had, for their third successive year, a relatively big increase, viz. 40,5% which was partially—only partially—brought about by the initial expenditure in regard to the construction of this council’s own new building in Pretoria. With this I want to indicate that the Government does in fact attach very great value to the importance of human sciences research, not only the research being done by the HSRC, but also the research being done by universities and other institutions, for which the State makes funds available to the HSRC so that the other institutions may be provided with finance for research.

I should also like to refer very briefly to the new subsidization formula for the current expenditure of the universities, a matter to which the hon. member for Durban North also referred. This is something which was very strongly advocated in this House last year. Last year I intimated that I had issued directives for the subsidy formula of the universities to be revised in such a way that it would be associated to a lesser extent with a growth in numbers. In the meantime, under the guidance of the Universities Advisory Council, a report known as Sapse—110 has been completed under the title: “An Investigation into Government Financing of Universities.” The Committee of University Principals studied this report and accepted the most important aspects of the proposals unanimously. They did, it is true, request on behalf of the universities that lesser aspects of the formula should be further investigated, but that the introduction of the new formula should not be delayed because of this. Consequently the finalization of the new formula is at present being cleared with the Treasury. Because such a new subsidy formula gives an indication of the policy which the Government is pursuing in respect of the universities, I want to outline a few of the most important new features of the formula.

The formula is a continuation of the old, proven Van Wyk De Vries Formula, but in the first place has the new element that it is based on the new Sanso information system with its basic structure of various programmes from university services, on the basis which it is determined which activities of the universities come into consideration for a Government subsidy and which do not. The point of departure for the subsidization of universities is that the individual who completes his studies derives considerable private benefit from his studies, something for which he can be expected to pay himself. Although it is extremely difficult to measure, there are also public or social benefits in the interests of the general community and the State, and benefits of this kind are an important reason why the State should subsidize universities and therefore bear a part of the students’ expenses. Consequently, a subsidy is also necessary to reduce the cost of university education for the students to the level where it is in his opinion worthwhile from an economic point of view. The establishment of the subsidizability of specific activities at a university and also the establishment of the degree to which universities should be subsidized is of course a case where the so-called public benefits and the private benefits associated with the education have to be weighed up against one another. It is in fact in this field that an authoritative body such as the Universities’ Advisory Council has a very important assessment function, a balancing function—one could almost say a cushioning function—between the competing universities and the competing State in the formulation of a justifiable formula.

Furthermore, the new formula is based on statistics provided by universities in terms of the new Sanso information system. Another important innovation is that provision is now being made in the formula for the cost of certain fixed assets. This is now being included in the formula of current expenditure, while previously everything had to be covered of capital loans. In future, therefore, funds will be available annually from the formula in terms of which universities can plan for the renewal of their equipment and fixed assets, and also for the purchase of additional equipment and fixed assets in view of the growth in student numbers.

Because it was not possible during the past few years to grant adequate loan authorization annually, on each occasion when this was necessary, it was not possible to keep the condition of equipment and buildings at universities on the desired level. This is also one of the reasons why the growth in the university budget has shown a relative lack of movement in comparison with the rest of the department. By means of the new arrangement, however, the universities will receive funds for this purpose according to the formula and they will therefore be able to plan more effectively.

The aim of the new formula is the conscious promotion of studies on higher academic levels. That is why the subsidy per student for the level 1 curriculum is being placed on a appreciably lower level than on the level 2, 3 and 4 curricula into which student programmes are divided according to the formula.

Last year I also directed that the formula should not prejudice universities that wish to select students on academic grounds and that it should move away from being linked with a mere growth in student numbers. Students will now be counted in a new way. In the first place students will no longer be counted on a per capita basis, but as full-time equivalents in accordance with the weight of the various subject courses for which the students register. A student who therefore takes only three of the four subject courses in the first year of, say, a B.Sc. degree, only counts for three-quarters.

In the second place—this is very important—the numbers will in the future be calculated according to enrolled students as well as according to students who have passed. The number of subsidy students is therefore half of the enrolled credits plus half of the pass credits. In brief what it amounts to is that it will not pay universities who register poor students, because a university earns only a half unit of a subsidy on students who fail. This innovation is being introduced in the full knowledge that it could be abused if universities lowered their standards to allow as many students as possible to pass for the sake of a higher subsidy. However, I have confidence in the academic integrity and self-respect of universities to maintain proper standards and, where necessary, to intensify and improve their tuition and to ensure pass rates through the maintenance of standards.

A final important innovation is the way in which research is being accommodated in the subsidy. Up to now the formula has subsidized all universities to an equal extent according to enrolled students, despite the fact that some universities are far more productive in the sphere of research than others. The Universities Advisory Council therefore recommended that in the formula a reduced amount per enrolled student should be included as a “blind” provision for normal research activities but—and this is the innovation—that every university, in accordance with the number of publications by its staff and students, which appear in recognized professional publications in South Africa and abroad, can earn an additional subsidy for research. This will emphasize the fact that the value structure of the university, in the opinion of the State, should be built on scientific work of a high academic standard.

I wish to let these few comments suffice. The full report is available to hon. member who want more particulars. I expect that the new formula will not only bring about a better dispensation for universities but is also a more responsible division of the available means among the various competing universities. To give hon. member a overview of the concrete improvements which are being pursued with the proposed formula: The present dispensation, expressed in terms of 100, plus 2 added for the provision for capital items which may in future be included in the formula, therefore comprises a total of 102. It is calculated that an additional two units may be added to that for income on the basis of research merits and an additional 15 units with a view to renewal and the replacement of fixed assets, including hostels. This brings the new formal up to a possible 119 units as against the present 100. By means of these figures hon. members can compare the effect of the new formula with that of the existing one. I hope that this formula will enhance the standard of universities, intensify their internal disipline and accountability to themselves and to the public, and that it will ensure that justice is done to truly productive work by granting the greatest financial assistance in those cases. For the time being I shall let this suffice.

Mr. Chairman, having listened to the hon. the Minister, especially the part where he dealt with the report of the HSRC and the new policy of the Government, it is very clear to me that the Government has already decided to go more than halfway in the direction of total integration in the education policy. Of course, the official Opposition is disappointed about the fact that the hon. the Minister has not announced at this stage that the Government is going to bring about full integration. When the hon. the Minister spoke about the macro policy, he said that the policy would apply to all. There is one aspect which I would like him to clarify. It is not clear to me whether the Blacks will also be involved in the central co-ordination which there will be. I should appreciate it if the hon. the Minister could furnish a reply to this later. The central joint policy in terms of which the standards, salaries and syllabi have to be determined means that the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians will have a say in that policy. In respect of the situation of central co-ordination, I should like to know whether the Blacks will also have a say.

The widows of White teachers who were employed in education and who retired before 1960 do not receive a pension. I am very worried about these people because many of them have to do without the barest necessaries of life. These are widows of professional men who rendered professional services to a community, and it is regrettable that they should have to live under such circumstances today. Among those teachers were the true educators of our people. In spite of the small salaries of that time, these people gave of their strength, their knowledge and everything they had in the interests of the education of our children. They were dedicated people, dedicated also to the education of the children of our own people. There is only a small group of these widows left, and it is only a small amount that is involved here. I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister today that these women should also receive a pension which does justice to the service which a professional man rendered to his people.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer. The hon. the Minister has already referred to parity. I am very glad that progress is being made in respect of parity between the salaries of men and women. I should like to express the hope that full parity will now be reached in this connection.

I had hoped that general salary increases would be announced on this occasion. However, the hon. the Minister said that if circumstances allowed, he would make a statement in this connection on a subsequent occasion.

Another aspect to which I want to refer is the question of raising the limit of the housing subsidy for teachers. I believe that it would be realistic to raise that limit by at least R20 000.

I see in the latest report of the department, on page 42, that good use is being made of the camping sites. There have even been cases where people could not be accommodated. I want to suggest that the responsible persons in the department should contact the Venterstad municipality, which has ideal accommodation at Oviston, on the banks of the Hendrik Verwoerd dam, which is particularly suitable for this purpose. I also want to suggest that the department should contact the Vanderkloof town council—this is the small town at the P. K. le Roux Dam. There, too, ideal accommodation for this purpose is availabe. Both these towns can be used for that purpose. At Vanderkloof, there is also a very fine game reserve, as well as the fish research station, where very interesting experiments are conducted. I want to repeat that an ideal camping site is available there, where all the necessary facilities are being provided. I believe that the Vanderkloof municipality would like to co-operate with the department in that connection.

I should like to congratulate the Cultural Affairs Branch on the fact that under difficult cirumstances, as a result of a shortage of funds, among other things, they have nevertheless been able to make specialized services available to cultural organizations. The possibilities in the cultural sphere are almost unlimited, and this cultural university of the people should not be prevented by a lack of funds from throwing in its full weight behind the voluntary cultural organizations of our people. Culture is part of man. Culture is not only the finer expressions of the human spirit; it is much more than that. God is the Creator of nature, and man, his creature is the creator of culture. Those things which are brought into being by man, those things which he preserves and promotes in order to preserve his civilization, constitute culture. Therefore culture is actually as wide as the human spirit. The person who retains his cultural ties with his people is the person who retains his conservative values. This is the person who equips himself better intellectually, spiritually and physically, and who does not capitulate in the face of onslaughts from within and without which threaten to uproot him. He who alienates himself from the culture of his people will be rejected by his people. Those people at Wits who recently decided that the national anthem of the Republic of South Africa would no longer be sung have already broken their ties with the culture of their people, and in the place of their own culture they have accepted an alien culture. Those persons will be rejected by their people.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for De Aar commenced with his party’s customary distortions and irresponsible statements. I listened attentively to see whether I could find any motivation for what he said initially, but he had simply sucked that statement out of his thumb. There was no attempt on his part to motivate it in any way. After that, he discussed a number of insignificant and less important matters. Consequently, I do not intend reacting further to his speech.

Probably the most critical sector in our provision of education is the university. The hon. the Minister has just indicated that the Government is acutely aware of this and is recognizing this by spending heavily in this regard. Every adjustment to the policy or structure of universities has a direct influence on and is reflected in every sector of education. A study of the flow of products from universities clearly indicates that the university sector is the only sector which supplies its products to the community in general, as well as to itself and education, in the sense of technicons, training colleges and high schools. Obviously, every adjustment to the structure will therefore have far-reaching consequences and it is essential that the university sector be structured in such a way as to take fully into account the demands of the community. A purely operational view of a university’s position in providing education leads to the conclusion that a university occupies a terminal position in our provision of education, since the highest educational qualifications are obtained there and it is also the endpoint of the formal education process.

What is even more important is that a university is pre-eminently that component of our education system which teaches people to teach themselves. This kind of education is aimed at conveying the general principle of basic disciplines. This kind of knowledge is not subject to continual changes; it has stood the test of time and enables the student to deal with a wide variety of problems. I refer in this regard to the requirement for a university as stated by the English mathematician and philosopher, A. M. Whitehead, viz. that it should be steeped in a spirit of universality. A further implication is that a university should avoid the type of field of study of which formal retraining is an essential component.

Now the question arises as to which fields of study should be formally offered at universities with the status of fully-fledged departments, and how the production of qualified people should be distributed. As far as the first matter is concerned, I am of the opinion that universities should avoid offering courses which are essentially of a technological nature, which are basically occupationally orientated and which are highly inter-disciplinary from the point of view of already established fields of study. The purely technological fields are very much subject to the vicissitudes of practice. Such training is therefore aimed at the “here and now”, and it is moving away from the imparting of general principles. Therefore this education is mainly of a short-term nature. Of course, it is also essential, but in my opinion it does not belong in universities.

I should like to associate myself with a speech made by Mr. Visagie, Deputy Director-General of National Education, as reported in Die Burger of 18 August last year. He said—

He pleaded that occupationally orientated training of a theoretical and practical nature should rather be provided by the technikons. I agree with this and I wish to support it. Fields of study which are highly inter-disciplinary ought at most to be offered at the post-graduate research level at universities, or preferably at institutes. Such fields are uneconomical as far as the utilization of education manpower is concerned. Here I have in mind, for example, nursing, journalism, the art of writing reviews, etc.

As regards the production of students and their distribution across the various field of study financed with public funds, in my opinion the State has a duty to see to it that these funds are spent in accordance with the needs of the community. At present the universities are financed mainly in accordance with enrolment. I was very pleased that the hon. the Minister announced a new formula here this afternoon, or at least he gave an indication of how the new formula of financing was going to work. My plea is for a system in which the free market system will, in fact, play a role—and I think this is what the new system the hon. the Minister announced this afternoon allows for—since the emphasis is now on production, i.e. on the number of students who pass. The pass rate is regarded as a criterion of productivity. As the hon. the Minister quite rightly said, there are risks attached to this, since it is difficult to determine accurately the quality of the production unit. A drop in standards, which is not easily detected, could occur. However, as the hon. the Minister rightly said, the ultimate salvation is the quality and integrity of the academic staff. Those people are the only guarantee against the lowering of standards.

I should like to see subsidization on the basis of production also reflecting the scarcity of professional categories. In my opinion, this could be done by instituting differentiated subsidies for the various fields of study. By making the subsidization on the basis of production for certain fields of study higher than for others in which there is overproduction, the universities will be encouraged to furnish a supply in accordance with the demand, and we shall be spending public funds in accordance with the needs of the community. It is no simple task for a university to engineer a shift in production, but by providing proper career guidance in the first year, and through a greater degree of horizontal mobility, they could move in that direction. However, I am convinced that the greatest contribution the State could make to bring production into line with the needs of the community, is to subsidize the student directly. Then, if there are shortages, students should be attracted by way of lower class and residence fees or by direct bursaries.

Of course, we have to contend with the dangers of acute shortages in certain sectors, as well as acute surpluses in other sectors. In this regard one need only refer to the problems which have been and are still being experienced in Italy. It is no coincidence that there has also been a large overproduction of students in Italy for whom there have been no specific employment opportunities. Of course, subsidization on the basis of production in a uniform way would only be justified if there were no significant differences in enrolment figures at the various universities. However, if a particular university serves a community with an educational disadvantage, that university will have a lower production than one which serves a more privileged community, provided they maintain the same standards. Since it is essential that uniform standards be maintained by universities, a uniform subsidization on the basis of production would mean penalizing the university with a disadvantage. I am thinking here in particular of the University of the Western Cape. The university should be compensated financially for its relative disadvantage concerning its enrolment figures, although it should also be rewarded for productivity. The State has already shown that it is extremely sensitive to the needs of this kind of university. The University of the Western Cape has already adopted a leading position in educational technology by making large-scale use of computerized training, with, of course, a considerable degree of assistance from the State. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I take pleasure in speaking after the hon. member for Uitenhage, particularly since he spoke about university financing. I should like to continue where he left off as regards the matter of the subsidization of the universities. I wish to express my gratitude to the hon. the Minister, the department and, in particular, the experts who drew up Sapse 110, on which the new subsidy formula is based. Then, too, I wish to ask the hon. the Minister—although I think that according to the Committee of University Principals, certain minor adjustments have to be effected, to it—to have this formula cleared with the Department of Finance as soon as possible, and hopefully the Department of Finance will find the funds to put the new subsidy formula into operation. I think this subsidy formula solves a number of major problems. One of these major problems it solves is the problem of the pursuit of students. I say this with all due respect to the universities, since they have had to do this. Until now, the formula for the subsidization of universities has not permitted aspects such as quality to be taken into account as well. It was based mainly on quantity. Now that the emphasis has shifted from quantity to quality, I wish to thank the department for introducing this new formula. Together with Bill No. 74 of 1983 which is on the Order Paper at present, and which effects a devolution of power from the Minister to the Rectors, this will also provide a solution to this problem. We are going to discuss the merits of a quota system for people of colour at the various White universities, but I think we shall obtain further support for this devolution of power in view of the new subsidy formula.

I should now like to come to the speech of the hon. member for Bryanston in which he bandied about the concept “academic freedom” somewhat freely. I regret that the hon. member is not present at the moment; I shall nevertheless take him to task. I think that for the sake of this Bill, one which elicits a considerable amount of emotion—so much emotion, in fact, that various standpoints are being published in advertisements in newspapers—I request that all hon. members, and the hon. members of the official Opposition in particular, take another look at the concept “academic freedom”, since this concept is abused to a considerable extent as far as the requirements of university admission and administration are concerned. I am convinced that we should reconsider the concept “academic freedom” to determine what precisely it entails. I agree with what the hon. member for Durban North said when he spoke about the large numbers of students at our universities, and said that a large number of them were not qualified to study at a university, but were there simply as a result of the pursuit of numbers. Consequently, there is merit in taking the standpoint of the hon. member for Durban North further, viz. that a student who does not pass his first academic year and who wishes to study further, should be encouraged to go to a technikon. When one considers that it costs R7 000 to keep a student at one of our residential universities for one year, we cannot simply write off that R7 000. We should try to plough back that R7 000 in some way, even if it is via a technikon where the student can progress further in his particular field.

I now wish to dwell for a moment on the new subsidy formula. The new subsidy formula makes provision for a number of very important aspects. The provision which is now being made for the purchase of fixed assets will make an enormous contribution to the renewal of laboratories in particular, as well as other equipment.

The second aspect I wish to mention here and which is also very important, is the fact that for the first time, research is being given its rightful place. The hon. member for Pretoria East will elaborate on this at a later stage. However, I wish to say that I am extremely grateful that for the first time, research now has a place in the history of the universities as part of the specified task of a lecturer. Furthermore, I should like to dwell for a moment on Sapse’s report 007, which is eliciting a considerable amount of reaction from academic staff. I should like to ask former colleagues of mine who are still attached to universities not to be so sentimental simply because they have to furnish a certain minimum amount of information to the university authorities, who, in turn, convey this to the departments concerned. I believe that this is essential, particularly since the amount voted for universities in this year’s budget amounts to approximately R427 million. This R427 million is a large amount, and approximately 55% of this R427 million is spent on staff salaries and benefits. In every industry in the private sector, when there is a cost item which involves 55% of the total cost, one certainly makes very sure that that amount which is being spent, has an optimum utilization value and one also makes quite certain that one obtains the best value for the amount which is thus invested in the person concerned. This 55% is a relatively large amount. I do not wish to say that the amount is too large or too small, but we are, in fact, dealing here with the problem of highly specialized people who are essential in the process of training. However, when one considers that 55% of this amount being spent is required for salaries, I believe that it is no less than fair that the hon. the Minister and the department should at least know how these people are utilizing their time.

The second advantage we derive from this—if we obtain the information required—is that what makes this new subsidy formula possible now, can only be possible if we know, and if the Government knows, precisely how members of staff make absolutely certain that their time is properly spent. We must know how much of the lecturer’s time is spent on formal teaching, how much on post-graduate teaching, etc. We must bear in mind that the subsidy formula now provides for a larger component at the postgraduate level. This is therefore essential, and I want to make an urgent request to those people to grasp that they must provide the department with that information. In addition, I also want to say that much of the existing misapprehension in this regard is due to the fact that the universities also require information. This information is requested in conjunction with the information the department requires in terms of the Sanso report. Therefore I ask the hon. the Minister to direct the various rectors, via the CUH, to draw a clear distinction between information given to the CUH and information required for the purposes of the department in terms of the Sapse system.

Finally, I should like to request that since, as I have already said, post-graduate levels and research are being concentrated on in terms of the subsidy formula for the first time, the hon. the Minister must please see to it that it be recommended to the CUH that at the post-graduate level in particular, there should be a greater measure of specialization in teaching and in research; that one specific university does not do all the research, but that the various universities specialize in the various fields so that we can have better utilization of, firstly, the limited manpower at universities in South Africa and, secondly, the increased funds which are now being granted to these people. This new subsidy formula benefits the people involved, in that they are able to specialize.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Welgemoed will excuse me if I do not react to his speech because I should like to say a few words to the hon. the Minister in connection with national monuments. As the hon. the Minister probably knows, I represent the constituency of Parktown in this House. Parktown has quite a number of historical buildings and urban development obviously poses problems there. I believe an association in Parktown did write to the hon. the Minister about this a year or so ago. The hon. the Minister acknowledged their letter but has, so far, not reacted to it any further. Therefore I should like to discuss a few aspects of this problem with the hon. the Minister today.

†The National Monuments Council’s annual report for the year ended 31 March 1982 contains various statements by the chairman. Although he puts his case very tactfully, if one reads the report very carefully one sees that there is a great lack of money and staff. I should like to quote a few excerpts from various parts of the report—

Further on it is stated—

Also—

Later the report goes on to state—

Later there is again mention of the shortage of staff, and then the following—

Lastly there is the following comment—

Those were various statements that were made, and I would be glad if the hon. the Minister could tell us whether there have been any answers to the various requests made. The chairman concludes that it is a very unhappy thought that the relative contribution of the general public to the cause of conservation outstrips that of the State and many local authorities. The question to be asked of the Government is therefore: Does the Government have no genuine interest in the preservation of our historical and cultural heritage? Then I come to my question to the hon. the Minister himself: If he can publicly offer funds to the S.A. Cricket Association for its organization of the West Indies tour, is it not also possible to find more funds to preserve our beautiful heritage?

I knew they would not be needing any funds.

In his speech today the hon. the Minister announced a 46% increase in the funds made available, but if one looks at the budget as a whole, one sees that this increase of 46% is very little indeed. I think that the budget for the year 1983-’84 is R1 394 000, but this includes money for, amongst other things, the War Graves’ Commission. Let me therefore put the following question to the hon. the Minister: How can the council buy property and carry out expensive restoration work with this small amount of money? I believe that the Daljosafat project alone will cost R150 000. That leaves very little for other projects.

The shortage of funds and staff will result firstly in difficulties when it comes to the expropriation, restoration and maintenance of national monuments, secondly a lack of necessary research and thirdly a lack in the spheres of publicity and education. Does the hon. the Minister not agree that paralysis in regard to action being taken in connection with buildings of great worth, has resulted in many important buildings being lost to us. The hon. the Minister has the power to declare these buildings without the consent of the owner, but he does not do so, and why? Because there is no money.

The report indicates a fair amount of staff at the national office in Cape Town. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister, however, what the staff position in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Pretoria is like. I should like to go further and ask him what the staff position in Kimberley is like, an area that I think is historically of great value to South Africa. And what about Durban? From what I have heard the staff there is virtually nonexistent.

This brings me to the question of the necessary research. The National Monuments Council is the one body that should lead in this field, but it does not have sufficient money. It is obvious that the proper listing of buildings throughout our country is of paramount importance and must be done in areas where developers are really a danger, especially in the cities and towns. A good example of this is to be found in Johannesburg, where RAU is doing the listing. Although few of the buildings have been declared monuments, they can be considered when it comes to forward planning.

The purpose of education is, first of all, to dispel the image that declaration makes life impossible for the owners involved. Guides and booklets are needed to educate the public, and there is education material needed for schools. There is also a lack of money for maintenance. Unfortunately time does not allow me to expand on this. However, one only heeds to look at a building in Parktown which houses a Jewish orphanage to see how the lack of money for maintenance is leading to the unnecessary destruction of a building of great wealth. I believe hon. members will agree with the principle that there should be sufficient funds to preserve everything of national value. I therefore want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to help the NMC to carry out this important task.

Mr. Chairman, the subject which the hon. member for Parktown raised is certainly an important one. However, I want to say to him that although it is an important task, it is definitely not the responsibility of the State alone.

I agree.

It is definitely not the sole responsibility of the department either. It is also the responsibility of the general public and the private sector. I think we can consider with gratitude the work which private organizations, voluntary organizations, are doing in this very field.

We are simply asking the State to provide more assistance.

The hon. member knows as well as I do that the source from which everything has to be financed has a limited capacity. It is a matter of weighing up priorities. The hon. member was complaining about the lack of staff at a number of the offices of the department. Where are additional staff to be obtained? The hon. member is aware of the problems concerning the availability of manpower in this country. I do not think it is any use complaining about it. What is more important is that we should rather join forces with the private sector and the voluntary organizations outside in order to reinforce this task about which we are all undoubtedly in earnest.

This afternoon I wish to speak about a subject which, I believe, is of importance and ought to be raised in this House. I am referring to what in my opinion will probably be the most important need for us in South Africa in the years ahead, viz. the need for leadership in all possible spheres. I am not only referring to leadership in the political sphere, but also to the need for leadership throughout the entire spectrum of national life, including all the disciplines. It is a need for managerial ability, entrepreneurship and for guidance in general.

The hon. member for Parktown referred to the shortage of manpower in a particular department. I want to refer to the need for managerial ability. It appears from the results of the 1980 census that out of a total of 8,6 million economically active people, only 137 000 people belong to the corps of managerial and administrative workers. Of these 137 000 people, almost 126 000 are Whites. This represents 6,6% of the number of economically active Whites, and 1,6% of the total econonically active section of the population. I concede that this figure does not necessarily reflect the total picture in respect of the management corps, since, of course, there are other people in the management fine in other occupational groups. However, the fact of the matter is that people in management posts are largely responsible for formulating policy in the various sectors of the country and it is they who constitute this small percentage of 6,6% Whites, and 1,6% of the total economically active population.

The question for the purposes of this argument with regard to the discussion of this Vote, is where these leaders come from. Are they born or made? The point I wish to make in this regard, is that no one can deny that the making of leaders at school is probably one of the most important sources of leaders. It is here that the important function of the teacher, as a leader of leaders, as an educationist, as a moulder, as the influence behind future leaders comes to the fore. Each one of us in this House can bear witness to the formative role one or more teachers has played in our personal lives. On behalf of everyone in this House I should like to pay tribute to and thank these people for this important role they played and the task which they have performed for many years and which they are still performing in teaching. However, it is also true that the responsibility of the educationist, against the background of the need to provide leaders for the future, is certainly greater than ever. That is why it is important that we, as leaders in the political field, gathered together in this place, should embrace the teacher as an educator of leaders, in a team effort to produce and nurture leaders. I believe that a matter about which we should all be concerned is the possible gap which has arisen between the leader in the political sphere and the leader in the educational sphere, particularly over the past few years. I think we have here a specific field in which we can meet one another, regardless of political standpoints on preferences and in which we can make a team effort to provide and nurture leaders for the South Africa of tomorrow, leaders who will use their spiritual and leadership abilities on behalf of their own cultural groups, but also for the benefit of and on behalf of South Africa as a whole. In this regard the question we as individuals should ask is: How do we motivate our young people to give of their very best to South Africa? How do we motivate our young people to be prepared to give their all for South Africa in the future? I think that question can be answered by saying that it is important to us—and I think this is where the team effort with the teacher corps comes into the picture—and that it is our responsibility, to give young people a vision, to set them the ideal of making South Africa a great country and of wanting to be leaders on a continent that cries out for leadership. If we do not succeed in developing a partnership between those of us who find ourselves in this particular sphere of national life, and the educationist, the teacher in his particular field, we are going to fail in our efforts to increase the number of 137 000 so as to be able to meet the demands of South Africa to provide leaders in all possible spheres of our society. If we do not succeed, we have no hope of fulfilling our objectives with regard to the leading role South Africa should and can play on this continent.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Johannesburg West made a very good contribution to this debate in connection with a heart-felt need in our country. However, I want to come back to the hon. member for Bryanston, who fired so wildly at the Government, that is supposed to have been negligent in respect of the provision of education in that we have supposedly failed to train sufficient teachers to an adequate educational level in the profession. I think that it has been characteristic of this Government since 1948 that one of its cornerstones is, in fact, the training of teachers and enabling education to teach the nation’s children and guide them to become mature, right-minded and creative persons. This, indeed, is one of the characteristics of the NP Government. Over the years this Government has sought to meet these needs with strong initiatives. Perhaps one of its major problems has been that its ability to achieve what it must have has been in direct proportion to its financial means, because this is an expensive component.

I should just like to retrace once again the steps this Government has taken in respect of the training of teachers. I can still clearly remember the 01 and 02 teachers whose hands I passed through at school. They were people with a relatively meagre academic training, but people who had a monumental impact due to their splendid work in the educational field.

In the fifties, when there was suddenly an acute shortage of teachers and especially women teachers in certain parts of the country, we went and fetched students at colleges and asked them whether they would not enter practical education at the end of their second year of study. These people too, with just two years training, performed a splended job of work in education. They left the colleges and were prepared to come to the nation’s aid. In the middle of the fifties the so-called “after supper teachers” followed. They were people who worked for the SAR and H, the Public Service, etc. Everywhere there were people like these who wanted to sit down and study for a diploma after a day’s hard work. In this way they qualified and entered education. These men and women also did magnificent work in the field of education. Using their own time and their own money they enrolled in degree courses and extra-mural studies to qualify themselves for the work they would be doing. What I find praiseworthy about these people is that they paid for their own studies. From 1956 the Government entered the fray and offered to discharge these people from their obligation to repay the loan they obtained from the State where they were not in a position to pay for their studies themselves. We told them that if they were prepared to teach for the number of years they attended university, that would be adequate. This is a contribution made by the State in providing education.

At the beginning of the sixties we came forward with the junior intermediary course for the junior secondary phase of the high school. We had a shortage of teachers in this respect. Once again we introduced a new stimulus by instituting this particular three-year course. From this group of people, too, an excellent group entered the field of education, a sufficient number to enable us to meet our needs. In other words, the shortage of teachers is not a current problem; it is something which has developed over the years, in the same way as the manpower needs of a developing country like South Africa have developed along the way.

However, it is also true that the State realized at the end of the seventies that on this road there was a group of people to whom it could be of assistance in a different way. During the seventies we started the so-called in-service training centres, by means of which we accommodated teachers by sending them to colleges for further training, so as to improve their teaching qualifications. In this way they were able to acquire further qualifications. The State went so far as to give these people a full year’s salary while they were studying. Thereafter they only had to complete their degrees in their own time. Furthermore, the State made bursaries available to them to help them to qualify themselves as better teachers.

In this regard another problem has, to my mind, simultaneously come to the fore. We made an arrangement with regard to the incentives and stimulants introduced by the State. I want to quote from the Kriteria vir die Erkenning van die Suid-Afrikaanse Kwalifikasies en Indiensneming van Onderwysers. In this respect we have actually created a problem for ourselves. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that it is something which the Committee of Heads of Education will have to deal with timeously. I want to refer to two examples. Teaching candidate A obtains a university exemption certificate and attends a university, where he enrols for a degree and a diploma course. Teaching candidate B did not obtain a university exemption certificate in matric and starts a four-year diploma course, the so-called senior teaching diploma, at a university. Both are categorized as D teachers. They get the same salary and they go and teach at a school under the same conditions of service. We say to candidate B, because he does not have a degree, but if he is going to qualify himself further for this purpose, he may extend his diploma by following a degree course as long as he takes other additional courses, at least two at second-year level and two new major courses, to complete the degree. What happens then as a result of this arrangement, is the following: He is promoted to a higher category if he completes five courses at the university, one of which is a second year course. He then falls into category E. He still does not have a degree, but he is financially one category better off than the graduate teacher who obtained his degree right at the outset. If he should complete the degree subject to the conditions I have referred to, he gets another category and will be in category F. Moneywise he now has an advantage of two categories over candidate A, who studied for a degree and a diploma course from the outset. They work under precisely the same circumstances and most probably do precisely the same sort of work.

I think this is a matter which we should do something about in good time. It is a matter about which we want to say on behalf of the teachers that at one time or another a step will have to be taken so that parity is once again established between these two groups of teachers. The intention was noble and praiseworthy. We offered a large group of people an opportunity; we did this by way of all these incentives we made available to enable them to qualify themselves and to do excellent work in education. However, I am pleading for that group who qualified from the outset, but who now find themselves at something of a disadvantage in education.

From these years, and against this background I carry within me a deep feeling for the concept of “meester” in the community. There is no communtiy in South Africa in which “meester” did not feature prominently. I recall the years when the teacher, the magistrate and the dominee were the three key figures in our community. Is it not time for us to erect a small monument of remembrance to “meester” in the nation’s thoughts? We should elevate “meester” and give him the opportunity at, let us say, a State banquet, or some other function, to look back with pride on a community which he has formed and reformed to make it a better community than the one he came from. “‘Meester’ on the road of South Africa which we have travelled”, we say to these people in gratitude for what they have done for the South Africa of today. If “meester” were to attend certain functions today, there would be a gleam of pride in his eye when he looked at the sons and the daughters for whose education he was responsible. He would say to them: Well done, you have fulfilled what was expected of you. However, sometimes when I look at the antics of certain people on our platforms, I believe that even “meester”, seeing this, would say: Truly, neither my teachings nor my example are responsible for you acting the way you do.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with great appreciation to the hon. member for Brentwood and I agree with him whole-heartedly about the role of the teacher, which was also the theme of the speech by the hon. member for Johannesburg West. I want to refer to one example from a country which is situated on the other side of the world, with which we have no diplomatic ties and towards which we are not at all well-disposed. Nevertheless, there is one positive point which one could take over from the budget of Russia, and that is that education is actually their biggest item. That shows the importance they attach to the education of their future leaders. This is perhaps one good thing which one could learn from those people.

I should very much like to refer to one of the characteristics of the South African dispensation which always strikes overseas visitors to this country. This is that here at the southern tip of Africa there is a small country with unique problems and with a great deal of potential, but above all, a country with its own Western language. When one goes to the big new world of America, one is struck by the fact that there is not a single new language there.

American is a new language.

In the USA they speak a kind of English; in Canada they speak English and French; in South America they speak Spanish and Portuguese. Here in a small country at the southern tip of Africa, however, we have our own language. It was influenced by the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the English and by Eastern countries, but we really do have our own language here at the southern tip of Africa.

That it is a new language of our own with its own grammar, its own idiom and its own character, cannot be doubted for a moment. That it is a beautiful language which we may rightly be proud of is certain. That it is a language which has really welded us into a nation is also very certain. I know of very few English-speaking people, of very few immigrants and of very few people of colour today who do not make a point of also claiming Afrikaans as their own. I believe, too, that there is not a single member in this House who is not fully bilingual—and this is something which one could probably not have said ten or twenty years ago. No wonder that the original Patriot —I am not talking about the new Patriot —the first Patriot of 1876, contained a short poem by C. P. Hoogenhout—

This is something we can really be proud of.

Hon. members know that the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners was formed on 14 August 1875; that exactly a hundred years later, the Language Museum was established in Paarl and that the Language Monument was inaugurated some time afterwards. The responsibility for this rested on the Afrikaans Language Monument Committee, a committee which report to the hon. the Minister of National Education every year. That is why I feel at liberty, Sir, to request your attention for this matter under this Vote.

The original committee was formed in 1942. It was realized that something had to be done to pay homage to the Afrikaans language, to pay homage to the original pioneers of the Afrikaans language and to start a study fund for prospective students. Hon. members will realize that the year 1942 was not an easy one in the history of Afrikaans-English relations in South Africa. Therefore it was really an act of faith which was begun in 1942. That committee was very successful in its activities, until the stage was reached where the building of the Language Monument became a reality. Then it was found that it had become essential that the committee be established on a wider national basis. In this way, the Volkskomitee came into being, the Volkskomitee which had the then Prime Minister as its patron and the late Minister Jan de Klerk as its chairman. The five Administrators, the various universities, the education departments, the FAK and similar institutions were all represented on that committee. Over the years, that committee has accomplished two wonderful things. I hope you have all visited the Language Monument at Paarl, the dignified monument on Paarl Mountain, and the Language Museum, the old Westfalen House in which Gideon Malherbe used to live. This museum contains the work of the pioneers which led to the birth of the Afrikaans language.

Those two physical tasks have now been accomplished. Now we are concerned with the continued activities of the Language Monument Committee. I want to mention these briefly. Firstly, there is the restoration of certain buildings and properties which played a role in the history of the language, such as the historic farms in Dal Josafat and some buildings in the town itself. Secondly, there is the important aspect of the promotion of Afrikaans, by means of bursaries awarded to students, for example.

Now it has been urged over the years that the Language Monument Committee should help to honour other people as well—from language pioneers to Bible translators, and even political figures from the Second Afrikaans Language Movement, etc. Now I want to point out that the Language Monument Committee, of which I am a member, has considered the matter very seriously over the years, and has also taken cognizance of the existence of the Afrikaans Literary Museum in Bloemfontein, of which Prof. Petrus Nienaber is the director. Both the Language Museum in Paarl and the Literary Museum in Bloemfontein are institutions which are subsidized by the State, so it is very important that there should be no duplication of functions between the two.

Now it is a fact that the Literary Museum in Bloemfontein gives specific attention to the Second Afrikaans Language Movement and the people involved in that movement. Concensus has now been achieved, and I should like to place on record the fact that the Language Monument is a tribute to the language pioneers of old, and also a symbol of faith in the future of the Afrikaans language, but that it remains the purpose of the Afrikaans Language Monument Committee to do homage to Afrikaans and not to people.

When construction had been completed, a continuation committee was nominated by the Volkskomitee. This continuation committee consisted of seven representatives of seven national organizations, such as the FAK, the Akademie, the ATKV, etc. There are 20 members who resign in rotation, and what is also very important, in my opinion, is the co-opting of five Coloured members, including Dr. Beets, the Reverend Mr. Strauss, Mr. Pat Sonn, and now also Mr. Les du Preez, a member of the President’s Council. This is in fact the first multiracial Afrikaans cultural organization, and I believe it is very important that one should take cognizance of the fact that our mother tongue, Afrikaans, is also the mother tongue of at least 80% of the Coloured population of South Africa.

In recent years, this committee has made financial aid available to the university of Stellenbosch for its department of translation; a total amount of R60 000 over a period of six years. Unisa has been awarded an amount of R30 000, the Akademie has received an amount of R30 000, and the University of the Western Cape has also received an amount for the translation of their Plato system for computer-assisted teaching methods. At the moment, attention is being given to requests received from the Rand Afrikaans University—the hon. the Minister will be grateful for this—as well as applications from the University of Cape Town and the University of Fore Hare.

Now there are three final points which I should like to refer to. This committee has decided to change its name—now that construction has been completed—into the Afrikaans Language Fund, because the promotion of Afrikaans will now be its most important task. It has an amount of R500 000 available after completion of the structure. It is spending the interest on that money. The idea expressed by some people, i.e. that the full amount should simply be doled out, is quite absurd, as hon. members will realize.

The second point to which I should like to refer in passing is the fact that it has now been decided, in co-operation with the control board of the Language Museum—and I should just point out that the Language Monument was transferred to the Department of Community Development upon completion, and the Language Museum to the Department of National Education—to establish a Language Route, on which tourists will be able to visit all the places of interest with regard to the history of the Afrikaans language.

Finally, I should very much like to mention—and I am announcing this on behalf of the Afrikaans Language Fund—that at the annual meeting of the fund, which was held on 12 April this year, it was decided to invite the hon. the Prime Minister to become the patron of the Afrikaans Language Fund. It is with very great appreciation that I am now able to announce, with the consent of the hon. the Prime Minister, that he has just accepted this nomination.

With the establishment of the Afrikaans Language Monument Committee, therefore, care was taken to ensure that this wonderful treasure of ours, our own mother tongue, would be protected and preserved forever.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Paarl has spoken this afternoon about matters that obviously are close to his heart. However, I do not intend to follow him on that particular subject. I wish to return to the broader aspects covered by the hon. member for Bryanston and the hon. the Minister himself when they spoke earlier this afternoon.

I would suggest that this Government has become a Government of reaction. It tends to react to crises and to issues forced upon it. It lacks a sense of direction and it is not giving leadership in many spheres, in particular in the field of education which is what we are discussing this afternoon.

I believe that the Government’s reaction to the education crisis, that is still with us and has been with us for years, has been a grave disappointement. In the period 1976-1980 there was on-going turmoil in Black and Coloured education and as a result of this the De Lange Committee was appointed in June 1980. I think the hon. the Minister and many others seem to have forgotten that that turmoil was the result of a complete rejection of separate, discriminatory educational systems. It was not merely a peripheral matter. The De Lange Committee had very wide terms of reference and a sense of urgency was brought to the situation by it being required to report within 12 months. Many poeple were cynical abut its appointment, but were neverthelesss prepared to give it a chance.

It is now nearly three years later and I believe that at the heart of the matter there has been very little Government action. Today the hon. the Minister has made certain announcements and has referred to certain things that have been done to date. However, I believe that the spirit of the De Lange Committee, the essential core of its recommendations, has been lost and that the De Lange report in many respects has been buried. I think there is one particular point that illustrates this, and that is that educationally irrelevant criteria are obviously still the overriding consideration of the Government, namely apartheid.

In relation to what the hon. the Minister announced this afternoon in terms of the new constitutional dispensation in so far as it affects education, I should like to ask him two question. First of all: Is it proposed that Black education, in terms of the structure that he was talking about, is to be a matter to be handled by only one of the racial groups in Parliament or is it going to be a communal matter that will be handled by all three groups in Parliament? Secondly: In the structure that the hon. the Minister outlined—the hon. member for De Aar asked a similar question—which Minister or Ministers are going to be responsible for Black education?

We have had far too little action. I believe there is a dangerous complacency merely because right now we do not happen to have boycotts and rioting in our schools. I do not think that we should forget the lesson of the Soweto riots and the question of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at that time. I want to remind hon. members that a finding of the Cillié Commission was that a problem that figured so largely in the few weeks before the eruption of violence was solved by the hon. the Minister within a few days of June 16. Let us not wait until we have problems and crisis and then have to react to them. I believe that the goodwill emanating from the De Lange report has to a large extent already been dissipated, and we need action not coyness right now.

It is interesting to note that the De Lange report itself seemed to anticipate the Government’s lack of courage in this matter. I should like to quote just a short section from the recommendations on priorities—

I suggest that that is exactly what we have had today, namely sluggish and feeble attempts when one looks at the heart of the De Lange Committee Report. The hon. member for Virginia, I think would have preferred the De Lange report to have been thrown away altogether. In fact, after one of my hon. colleagues had heard the hon. member for Virginia speak about De Lange, he said that he wondered how the governing party could spare him from Waterberg. [Interjections.]

There is a thread that runs through the whole De Lange report, and that involves the need to make optimum use of all our resources in the field of education. Today I should like to mention three areas of underutilization.

The first two relate to teachers. Firstly, women teachers. They are the backbone of our school system, yet they are discriminated against in numerous ways. This is not only unjust, but also results in the serious underutilization of valuable assets. It is also a waste of the taxpayers’ money.

Let us consider the position of women teachers. Currently many of them still get less pay than men, and I welcome the news—announced by the hon. the Minister today—that the gap is being closed even further. We look forward to the gap disappearing altogether. They nevertheless still have fewer promotional opportunities. They get no breadwinners’ allowance, even if they have a number of dependants. They risk dismissal if they marry and they have much less chance of getting permanent posts. The disastrous result is that in a country with an acute shortage of qualified teachers, large numbers of qualified women teachers are unable to obtain a suitable post. I am pleased that the Committee of Heads of Education is investigating the question of the employment of women teachers further, but I have doubts about the outcome of that investigation. Discrimination against women teachers, especially those who have dependants or are married, should be removed. We do not want to look towards merely getting uniformly discriminatory practices to apply throughout the provinces. We want to remove completely the discrimination to which women are subject. I believe that in the choice of teachers for any school, the school committees can be left to decide. They will know what is in the best interests of their school.

The second matter related to teachers is the question of aliens. I think one needs to have another look at this. It makes no sense to have a highly qualified teacher in English, science or of mathematics, who is fully proficient in either English or Afrikaans but is not able to take up a permanent post merely because the person concerned is not fully bilingual. I believe that those people are often lost to teaching, and yet we need to make use of every qualified teacher we can lay our hands on. The De Lange report outlines, over and over again, the importance of the teaching corps, stressing that flexibility and differentiation will have to be keynotes in education.

The third aspect I wish to refer to involves the use of facilities. The Government is wasting millions of rand each year by insisting that expensive facilities be under-utilized or remain unused altogether. Throughout South Africa there are vacancies at White teacher training colleges. Some colleges are nearly half empty, but the Government refuses to allow students of other races to be admitted, even on a quota basis, in contrast, it seems, to their thinking in other spheres. At the very least, colleges should be allowed to admit students of other races if they have the necessary vacancies. Prof. De Lange has said that we must work together before we can ask children to do the same. Having children do it first is cowardice.

Another point relates to physical facilities in other spheres. At the Free State congress of the NP last year, the hon. the Minister stated that it was not Government policy to turn over empty White schools for use by Black or Coloured pupils in the area, even if there were no Black schools available. I hope he is ashamed of those words and regrets ever having used them. Do they not epitomize the racism, greed and intolerance of apartheid? Are those sentiments not the sort of thing that harms race relations in South Africa and gives our critics overseas all the ammunition they need? Those remarks, I believe, show the same insensitivity as the Pretoria city council’s park apartheid policy. They are not worthy of the hon. the Minister. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I believe the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens will forgive me if I do not react directly to his speech, since I intend to discuss a more general subject.

As the representative of a constituency whose character is to a very large extent determined by the university which is situated in it, I wish to convey my thanks and appreciation to the hon. the Minister and to the Government for the interest they take in this university and for their understanding of the problems which arise from time to time. We in Stellenbosch owe a debt of gratitude to the State for generous financial assistance which is not accompanied by any unacceptable restrictions on the autonomy of the university. Furthermore, I should very much like to place on record the fact that we are very happy with the hon. Minister who is in charge of the National Education portfolio at the moment. Because of his background, he understands the situation of universities in today’s society, and he does not hesitate to take a strong and clear stand again and again on behalf of our universities.

I was not present in this House earlier this afternoon, since I was in the Senate, where a Standing Committee is sitting. However, I assume that the De Lange Report has been mentioned frequently. That report emphasized the fact that serious shortages of skilled manpower at all levels were hampering the development of the South African economy. The report pointed to the so-called neglect of career education as a direct cause of the shortage of skilled manpower. The emphasis placed on the realities of the South African situation could not have been more timely. It was necessary to do this. The Government’s reaction also deserves the appreciation of us all. All that is being done today to remedy the situation deserves our support. However, we must guard against creating an imbalance between career-orientated training and academic training. Statements have been made by some business leaders, for example, which indicate that they have to some extent lost their sense of proportion under pressure of the realities. I am referring, for example, to a statement made by the vice-chairman of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut a year or two ago, when he said—

This statement probably contains an element of truth. However, its general tone is too disparaging and too negative to be productive. Moreover, it does not show a sound and balanced approach. Our universities have their failings. I concede that sufficient provision has not always been made, perhaps, for new demands. It is necessary that our universities should take account of the demands of our times and that their academic activities should take cognisance of practical reality. Therefore our universities should also take into consideration the manpower requirements of our country. Courses should be organized in such a way that students who have completed their studies should be able to apply their knowledge in practice. However, what we dare not expect of our universities is that they should be merely career-orientated. It would be unfair to our academics and it would be the beginning of a process of spiritual impoverishment of our people. We must not underestimate or disparage the university’s primary function of conveying knowledge, and of acquiring new knowledge through research. The technical and technological cries of distress of the moment must not make us oblivious to the demand that we should also invest now in the cultural and intellectual development of those people who will have to guard against the spiritual impoverishment of our population for the next 40 years.

We live in a developing country. We are developing more rapidly than most other developing countries. This is the way it should be. Our population structure and our numbers make demands on us which are not made on other countries. Therefore we need men and women who can do things—men and women of action—and that is why the need for trained and competent technicians, managers and technologists is so prominent in our country. But in a society such as ours, with all its material challenges and its multiplicity of frequently unique problems which continually have to be grappled with, we run a real risk of spiritual stagnation. That is why we need our thinkers as well, leaders who can see into the future, leaders who are able to identify challenges, who are able to analyse future problems in a broad perspective and to convert those problems into opportunities. It is and remains the task of the university to help create a balance between these two sets of requirements, between the doers and the thinkers, between the people of the moment and those who read the future.

Prof. De Vries, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch, summed up his view of the essence of a university as follows in a speech on 3 December 1981—

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for the fact that we have an hon. Minister and a Government who understand this lofty calling of our universities and who wish to encourage them in the fulfilment of their calling, while at the same time—and this is important—not ignoring the demands of our time, but accommodating them in other ways.

I conclude with a quotation from Vincent Massey—

Mr. Chairman, before hon. members go off to fortify themselves for tonight’s gathering when, it is to be hoped, things will become more sporting, I should like to avail myself of the opportunity to reply briefly to the contributions of some of the hon. members.

I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Stellenbosch and thank him sincerely for emphasizing—and it is urgent and imperative that this be emphasized—that whilst the De Lange Report rightly warned us that our system of education was excessively academical and that more attention should be given to technical education, we must take care not to create an imbalance in the other direction. I just want to refer to the fact that I underlined this very issue at the opening of Unisa’s new academic building on Friday evening.

The hon. members for Bryanston and Virginia will, I hope, concede that I have already reacted to their contributions, which for the most part dealt with the HSRC Report, in my explanation of what the Government has been doing lately in connection with this report. As far as the hon. member for Virginia is concerned, however, I just want to refer to his remark in connection with salaries which were not in relation to promotion structures or to the relative levels of responsibility. Here he was probably referring to the salary of an Inspector of Education, which at present has the same maximum as that of a Headmaster:S.l. I am aware that this creates uneasiness and I have already requested the Commission for Administration to give urgent attention to this matter and to see whether corrections can be made.

I also agree with the hon. member for Virginia in regard to the doubts he expressed about the extremely unfortunate decisions taken recently at the University of the Witwatersrand. I have no misgivings about ’Nkosi Sikelele. I think it is a worthy prayer for the welfare of Africa, which can surely be sung by White South Africans as it is sung by Black South Africans. However, I think the universities will have to realize that if they allow highly esteemed national symbols such as our flag and our national anthem to be attacked in their communities without dissociating themselves clearly from those attacks, almost unbearable pressure is brought to bear on the Government by public opinion as well as by former students, the financial supporters and the corps of parents of such universities, to take such action as to make those universities thoroughly aware of the displeasure of the State and the community. Consequently I want to appeal to university authorities to show the courage to apply disciplinary measures, when necessary, against those militant elements at universities that abuse academic freedom for matters which have absolutely nothing to do with academic freedom, and to show respect for the symbols of South Africa as a country and as a nation, as befits an academic community.

As far as the hon. member for Koedoespoort is concerned, I want to refer to his question about the appropriateness of the national zoological gardens and the Table Mountain Preservation Board within the context of my department and to point out to him that my department and the board of control of the zoological gardens agree that although the zoological gardens have an important educational task it would probably belong better in a rationalized set-up in the nature conservation company of the Department of Environment Affairs and Fisheries. The Table Mountain Preservation Board will also be dissolved at the end of June and taken over by the board of control of the newly proclaimed Table Mountain conservation area, which will also be a matter for the Department of Environment Affairs and Fisheries.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort went on to comment on education for the handicapped, which I think all of us appreciate very much and with which we should like to agree. I want to make a few comments with reference to that and point out that my department has recently done a few important things in this area. In the first place, provision has now also been made for post-school education for the aurally handicapped in Worcester; in other words, technical college education for the aurally handicapped. This is a unique post-school education which is being offered on this level for the first time, which is of very great significance. Furthermore, as far as the aurally handicapped are concerned, particular attention is being given to the use of the computer in their education and also in their vocational schooling with a view to various computer professions. As far as the child in need of care under the Children’s Act at schools of industries and reform schools are concerned, particularly important research has been done lately by the educationists responsible for taking care of them—the hon. member also referred to this—to render that education even more effective. For example, as a result of an investigation into desertion at these schools it has been established that one of the problems is that as far as the care of these children within the hostel context—which to these children in a very special sense is a substitute family—is concerned, the staff appointed there, because of inadequate salary scales, are not on a suitable professional level, not having received the appropriate training which the difficult task imposed on them requires. We as a department are negotiating with the Commission for Administration to rectify those staffing problems.

The need to regard the handicapped or the mentally retarded person as a human being whose life is continuous, from the cradle to the grave, is very important. Although different departments are responsible for the care of those people at the pre-school, school and post-school levels, viz. initially Health and Welfare, then National Education and then Health and Welfare again and Manpower as well, my department is at present negotiating with these two departments on an interdepartmental committee level to make arrangements for the greatest possible co-ordination and continuous treatment of these unfortunate people when they pass from the pre-school to the school phase and from the school phase to the after-care or post-school phase. It has happened in the past that such people have fallen between two stools, as it were, occupied by different departments. This matter is now being rectified. This is a venture which I was able to initiate together with my hon. colleague who is now the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications but who was responsible for the Department of Health and Welfare at the time.

I now want to refer to the national plan my department is working on to provide education for the handicapped on a more rational nation-wide basis. It deals with questions such as whether those schools—as hon. members know their establishment depends on local private initiative to a large extent—are properly distributed geographically, in view of the population distribution, whether they are the correct sizes whether they are not sometimes too small and therefore uneconomical, and in other cases too big and therefore diffficult to control in an educational sense, whether the various types of handicapped children placed together in one school can in fact always be dealt with together in an educational sense, and whether smaller schools should not be combined by means of centralization in order to establish educationally better manned units.

The hon. member for Koedoespoort put a question in connection with the centres to which pupils with learning disabilities are admitted. In reply to that I can tell him that at present there are four schools in operation for pupils with specific learning disabilities. They are the School of Achievement in Germiston, the Prospectus Novus School in Pretoria, the Kenmont School in Durban and the Tafelberg School in Cape Town. There are also four schools in the planning stage: One on the West Rand, one on the East Rand, one in Port Elizabeth and one in Bloemfontein; in other words, in the most important metropolitan areas. The withdrawal of pupils with learning disabilities from schools for the neurally handicapped is still in the investigation stage and cannot take place before proper alternatives have been provided. I want to thank the hon. member sincerely for his comments in this regard and his appreciation which he expressed to the department and the special teaching staff.

The hon. member for Kimberley North made a very fine contribution in regard to cultural advancement. He emphasized, inter alia, how important it was that not only the State, but the private sector, too, should contribute to cultural advancement. It is with great pleasure and pride that I can mention two magnificant offers which have been made to my department lately by private collectors who wish to assign their works of art to the care of the State. We are busy negotiating to finalize those donations.

The first is Count Labia, who offered his house in Muizenberg to accommodate his collection of paintings and works of art as a national asset. This offer is at present being investigated and finalized in consultation with the Minister of Community Development. It will be a beautiful asset which could in this way be preserved for posterity.

Then a very prominent art connoisseur and collector, Dr. Silberberg, who lives in Tulbagh, offered to hand over to the State his unique collection of paintings by a number of our leading South African artists, which he had collected, provided that the State can find accommodation for the collection as a unit.

I should like to mention these two beautiful examples, which may be compared with the best which may be found it. this regard in a country such as the USA, with very great appreciation and to join the hon. member in saying that it is an example for the other private individuals and for the private sector as such.

I take the hon. member’s comments in regard to the desirability of the Mendelssohn donation receiving better accommodation, to heart. I undertake to raise this matter with the Select Committee on the management and control of the Parliamentary library.

†The hon. member for Durban North referred to the need that academic standards of the universities should be maintained. I think that my reference to the existing Universities Advisory Council and the proposal to reconstitute the council as an advisory council for universities and technikons deals with this matter, acknowledges the point that he has made and particularly also endorses the provision for comprehensive planning in the tertiary sector to ensure a more open channelling of students between technikons and universities.

*The hon. member for De Aar and the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens asked whether the Black inhabitants of the Republic would also be involved in decision-making about the macro policy for education. Decisions about the macro policy will naturally be decisions taken by the central Government. As the hon. member for De Aar ought to know full well, the Government’s guidelines for constitutional development do not provide for the involvement, now or in the future, of the Black population in parliamentary (legislative) or executive decisionmaking in this regard. However, my colleague’s Department of Education and Training is at present developing machinery—consequently I do not wish to discuss this here because it can be discussed under his Vote—to involve the various interested parties in Black education in the advisory process and the expert planning of education which is taking place, to seek links between the planning within the RSA and that in the national States and eventually, too, to effect international agreements with the educational bodies of our independent neighbouring States.

The hon. member for De Aar also asked a question about pension benefits for widows of teachers who retired before 1960. This actually falls under the Department of Health and Welfare which deals with pensions. Unfortunately, therefore, I cannot make a statement in that regard.

Then I want to express my deepest appreciation to the hon. member for Uitenhage and the hon. member Dr. Welgemoed for their contributions in connection with universities, and particularly the subsidy formula for universities. The hon. member for Uitenhage dealt with the types of course which belong at Universities. The hon. member for Stellenbosch also raised this matter. In this regard I want to refer to the so-called Sapse 115 report. This is a report which was compiled under the leadership of the Universities Advisory Council and which dealt with qualifications and study programmes of the universities in South Africa. This report, by means of an international comparative study and also an historical study in South Africa, attempted to lay down norms with which certain degrees and diplomas should comply, norms on the basis of which one could decide whether one should introduce an undergraduate diploma for a new Baccalaureus degree for a specific study programme at a university; or whether one should introduce a post-graduate diploma or a new honours degree. This report emphasized, inter alia, that fundamental study courses had to form an important component of all study programmes at universities. This report has already been submitted to the Committee of University Principals and the CUP disagreed with some of the recommendations but nevertheless expressed their appreciation of the fact that the problems were analyzed in the report in this manner. The CUP acknowledges that the present confusing situation in regard to norms for university qualifications is not satisfactory and that more standardized qualification structures should be worked out. The CUP is now giving attention to this matter by means of various expert speciality committees, and I believe that as a result of the interaction between the UAC and the CUP, fruitful results will be achieved in the near future concerning this subject which the hon. members mentioned. It would then be possible to leave the future university planning of new study courses and the structure thereof to the autonomous decision-making of the universities to a much greater extent once there are clear guidelines and structures. At the moment the Minister has to decide about each new variation in a course, while the universities may be granted greater powers for decision-making provided that they remain within recognized guidelines once such guidelines have been laid down. Therefore I welcome this development in the planning of qualification structures.

I want to agree with the hon. member for Uitenhage that universities which draw their students from communities where the opportunities for education are less developed, should be accommodated in the eventual application of the new subsidy formula and should not be penalized when the criterion of student successes is applied. This is the sort of transitional phase which could easily be accommodated in the formula. In the same way that, because of new establishment circumstances, there is an inherent establishment factor, a cultural-educational establishment factor, if I may put it like that, whenever a new university is established, such establishment factor could also be inherent in this case.

The hon. member Dr. Welgemoed referred to, inter alia, the complaints voiced by the universities in regard to the fact that in terms of the Sapse system an account has to be given of how the time of staff members is spent at universities. He rightly pointed out that there are various considerations which make this accountability essential. I want to express my appreciation to him for that contribution and also make it clear that in my opinion there are few exercises which are more beneficial to any university academic than to go and sit down for once and give account of how he spends his time. I did this myself when I was at RAU and I also made my staff do it repeatedly and it was always an extremely beneficial exercise in self-correction and self-discipline.

I agree with the hon. member’s remark in connection with greater rationalization of and specializing in post-graduate and research work at universities and I believe that the research grants made by research councils such as the HSRC and the CSIR effect at a very important canalization of research in a rationalized direction.

The hon. member for Parktown had a lot to say about the National Monuments Council.

†I am afraid that the hon. member complained in a rather negative manner about the activities of this council and I think completely underestimated the importance of the increase of 46% in the appropriation for the activities of this council. I should like to thank the hon. the Minister of Community Development for the initiative that his department also takes in this regard, for instance in the restoration of Newlands House and also his department’s contribution to restoring the old gaol in Grahamstown.

*I am convinced that within the means of the State we have really greatly improved on the funds that have recently been made available to the National Monuments Council. However, people should also display initiative of their own. The hon. member referred here to the survey made by the Rand Afrikaans University of the historical houses and buildings in Johannesburg, in Parktown, among other places. This university did not go and beg from the nearest State institution but obtained the necessary support to finance the whole project from the private sector. I think we should intensify the sense of responsibility of the South African nation for its cultural conservation and not always shift all responsibility on to the State.

I want to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Johannesburg West for his particularly effective emphasis on the importance of the development of leaders on school level and of our responsibility as politicians to participate in this in a balanced team effort.

The hon. member for Brentwood referred to various methods which were followed in White education in the past to make up the shortage of teachers in times of crisis. It struck me that his historical review actually reminded one of what is being done in the Department of Education and Training and the section for Coloured education to make special attempts in similar circumstances to make up the leeway in teacher training and add to the number of teachers. This problem which is now being experienced in these developing education communities is the same problem as that which was experienced in White education years ago. I am thinking of the Afrikaner community in particular. The problem the hon. member mentioned in regard to the salaries of teachers who initially qualified on a diploma level and afterwards obtained their degrees and then overtook their colleagues who had degrees to start with is a matter which concerns me and I undertake to refer it directly to the Committee of Heads of Education for their attention.

I want to agree most sincerely with the hon. member for Paarl’s explanation of the important work done by the Afrikaans Language Monument Committee. I want to congratulate him and his fellow trustees there with the positive way in which they are promoting Afrikaans as a living language now that the monument has been built. I am also in full agreement with him when he says that the “Nasionale Afrikaanse Letterkundige Museum” in Bloemfontein is the obvious place to honour individual language heroes further and that at this stage we should allocate a higher priority to the advancement of the living Afrikaans language under all population groups. I have full confidence that the Afrikaans Language Monument Committee consits of the kind of community and cultural leaders who can deal with this matter with good judgment.

†The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, in a very negative contribution …

True to form.

… put some questions to me about future ministerial and governmental responsibility for Black education. I accept that this matter should be dealt with when the Education and Training vote is discussed here in the House later. His complaint about the inefficient use of female teachers I do share to a certain extent. I am concerned about it, and I have given instructions to the Committee of Heads of Education to investigate this matter, and when they submitted proposals with which I was not quite satisfied I asked them to re-investigate. Some rectifications are very urgently called for in this respect.

I should like to point out, however, that there is a certain section of the community that is doing a sterling job in this respect. I am referring now to the wives of farmers on the platteland. Many farmers’ wives who are qualified teachers and who find it impossible or inconvenient to teach at White schools in the towns, are making an invaluable contribution to the schools for Black children and for Coloured children, where they teach and where they give of their experience and of their background and also of their sympathy.

The remark by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens regarding a statement I am supposed to have made at the Free State NP congress about empty White schools was quoted completely out of context. What I did say there was that when a White school in a rural area was no longer used, the residential situation and the position of that particular school vis-á-vis the local Black or Coloured or White townships would determine whether such a school could be made available for members of one of the other race groups. The Government is sympathetic in its approach towards making available such schools, provided it does not disturb the residential pattern to which we adhere as a basic component of our policy.

*I have already dealt with the hon. member for Stellenbosch’s contribution and therefore I should just like to thank all hon. members very sincerely once again for their positive, well-considered and well-prepared contributions to this debate.

Mr. Chairman, like the hon. member Dr. Welgemoed, I also wish to express a few thoughts in connection with research. I want to begin by making certain general philosophic remarks about research, remarks which are often made.

The economic importance of research can be measured in terms of what it produces in the form of increased intellectual capital and knowledge, which form the indispensable basis for new technological, and therefore economic, progress. Furthermore, it is often said that an investment in research is an investment in human material, and that an experienced and active community of researchers is the key to future progress in the country.

Often, in speaking of research, the speakers, as well as those who write about it, omit to say who should undertake the research, how it should be done, and in what culture and under what circumstances it should be done. I want to request hon. members’ attention today for a discussion of the aspect of a research culture which is favourable to the carrying out of research in South Africa.

In the first place, the question is what the present state of research in South Africa is. A professor at Unisa, Prof. Reynhardt, made an analysis in his inaugural speech last year in an attempt to answer this question. He took the number of publications on research from a specific country which had been published in internationl professional journals and which was mentioned in the Science Citation Index as his norm in determining the research output of that country. In comparing the various countries with one another, he gave the number of publications per million inhabitants of the countries concerned. I want to refer briefly to only three of the conclusions he drew. Firstly, he said that if one looked only at the Whites in South Africa, we compared favourably in the field of research with Western countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Holland and West Germany. By the way, Israel’s productivity in this field is about twelve times higher than the world average. Western World. South Africa itself, he found, showed phenomenal growth during the period between 1967 and 1974. In the period between 1974 and 1979, there was a slight drop in the annual rate of increase in research publications, but he found that between 1979 and 1981, research entered a period of decline, judging by the number of publications published internationally. It was also found that certain English-language universities, such as the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand, did much better in the sphere of research in South Africa than the Afrikaans universities such as Stellenbosch, Pretoria, etc.

It would appear that we are experiencing a period in South Africa in which, in response to appeals from society, the pendulum is swinging too far in the direction of career-orientated, applied and technically orientated training. It is in the interests, not only of the universities, but of society as a whole, that there should be a swing back to basic or fundamental science so as to restore the balance.

For research to be possible, financing is required, and I want to say something briefly about the financing of universities. Universities are the biggest single source of researchers, and a university must be imaginatively and adequately financed in order that this source may be properly utilized.

As far as this is concerned, I just want to refer briefly to the position of the engineering faculties in South Africa. The pass rates in those faculties are very low indeed. Let me mention only two cases. At the University of Pretoria—and the situation is more or less the same at all the universities—approximately 52,6% of the students who register do not succeed in obtaining their degree at all. At Stellenbosch, the figure is 41%. In other words, about half the number of first-year students eventually succeed in obtaining their degree. Furthermore, there is the fact that only 16,2% of the students at the University of Pretoria obtain their degrees in the minimum period of four years. At the University of Stellenbosch, the figure is 26%. In other words, only about half of the students who register ever obtain the degree for which they register, and only a quarter of them obtain it within the minimum period. [Interjections.] Up to now, the Van Wyk de Vries Commission’s formula has determined the subsidy for the financing of an engineering faculty, among others, and according to this, a student:lecturer ratio of 16:1 has been the norm, while the accepted norm in the Western countries is 10:1. The hon. the Minister has made certain announcements this afternoon concerning the Sanso 110 Report, which was not available to me. According to that report, there is a new formula which will usher in a more beneficial period for the universities, and I hope a much more beneficial period for engineering faculties as well.

I should just like to mention a few figures in connection with the department of civil engineering of the University of Stellenbosch, in order to indicate that there has been tremendous growth in the research culture or activities in that department over the past 10 years. In 1971, there were only seven post-graduate students in the department of civil engineering, while in 1983 they have more than 70 such students.

On the strength of the more than 10 years’ experience which I have as a researcher, some of it as a research manager, I wish to mention briefly a few requirements which I believe must be met in order to do good research.

Firstly, there must obviously be a good research project. It must be a project of sufficient importance and magnitude. Secondly, one must have good staff, thirdly, good management and fourthly, adequate and imaginative financing; and this goes with good management, of course.

I now wish to mention a few examples of successful research projects or “centres of excellence” at certain universities, in this country as well as abroad. At the University of Christchurch in New Zealand, for example, the engineering faculty specializes in concrete science. That university has now reached the position where it is the world leader in the field of concrete science, and one may ask oneself: But why? In reply to my enquiries I was told that this was because the university had been chosen as the primary centre for developing concrete science for that country.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Chairman, when business was suspended for supper, I was telling the House about the University of Christchurch, where an outstanding unit for concrete science came into being because it had been agreed in New Zealand that all research relating to concrete science would be undertaken at that university. The State and other organizations award bursaries to students to go and study there and not abroad.

I want to mention a further example of a very successful scientific project in this country, an example which I encountered during my study of pelagic fish. I am referring to the Benguella Ecological Programme. This programme came into being on the initiative of professors at the University of Cape Town and is being financed under the Co-operative Scientific Programes of the CSIR. The main organizations involved are the University of Cape Town and the Sea Fisheries Institute. The Sea Fisheries Institute falls under the Department of Environment Affairs and Fisheries. Co-ordination and administration, as well as funds, come from the CSIR. About 60 scientists are involved in the project. I want to emphasize that this programme came into being as a completely private project on the initiative of scientists at the University of Cape Town. What is very interesting is that several scientists from abroad are involved in this project. One actually has the situation, therefore, that we have a research project in this country which is attracting scientists from abroad.

This immediately reminds me of the great benefit which the USA derived after the Second World War from the fact that many European scientists had been induced by the war conditions in Europe to flee to the USA to continue their research there. I may just mention the names of Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi. There are many others, of course. The USA experienced the additional advantage that students from all over the world came to the USA for research purposes, to study there in the post-war period. These projects were of direct importance to the USA. Financing was provided partly by the student’s country of origin and partly by the USA. However, the party which benefited most from this research was the USA itself.

Finally, I just want to mention a few points which universities in our country must take into consideration if they wish to establish suitable research cultures. In the first place, they must expect members of staff to do research, to publish their results and to maintain a high production output. Secondly, they must be able to identify and support good researchers. Thirdly, they must lay down as a requirement that all contract research and consulting work should lead to publication. Finally, I believe that greater emphasis should be placed on concentrations of good researchers in teams or units, such as the Benguella Ecological Project.

Mr. Chairman, being an ex-academic myself I find myself in agreement with most of the points raised by the hon. member for Pretoria East. However, I should like to change the topic of the debate at this point by coming to sport and matters related to sport.

First of all, sport represents a common interest between most South Africans in this, as people say, sports-crazy country of ours. As a common interest it unites people and emphasizes that what we have in common. It cuts across many of the prejudices which have been built up during the years, prejudices based on race or language. As such we in this party believe that sport should be encouraged and actively promoted.

As a background to what I am going to say tonight and to emphasize a few points which I wish to make later on, I want to outline in a nutshell what the policy of this party is towards sport.

Our policy is, firstly, to promote the playing of sport by all South Africans regardless of colour in an atmosphere of reality and non-racialism. I will come back to that. Secondly, it is our policy to ensure that all South Africans have a full and equal opportunity for achieving excellence and the chance to represent their country. Thirdly, our policy is to create a climate in which South African sportsmen will be welcomed in competitions anywhere in the world and, fourthly, to ensure that sportsmen alone should be able to decide on club or team membership, fixtures, seating arrangements, spectator facilities, before and after match entertainments and venues without being hindered in the pursuit of the above by any form of interference. Other speakers tonight will elaborate on that point. Finally, to press for the establishment of a statutory independent sports body funded by Parliament whose function would be to promote the above objectives by providing expertise in respect of different sports, but without affecting the autonomy of any sporting body.

One of the interesting events which has taken place since the last sports debate in this House was the tabling of the investigation into sport by the Human Sciences Research Council. I have not the time to go into any great detail on that report tonight, but I want to refer to Chapter V of the main commission report. The recommendations in that chapter are virtually exactly the same as the policy which I have just laid down. Over the course of the past month I have also taken an opportunity of writing to every single national sports body in South Africa and I have outlined those policy objectives exactly as I quoted them here tonight. Almost without fail, with a few reservations on the part of the National Sports Council, those sporting bodies have written back to me and I have a huge file of letters from them with me, identifying themselves with the objectives which I have just mentioned. From this there is little doubt in my mind that sportsmen and sportswomen have turned their backs on discrimination in sport and are doing as much as they can to further non-racial sport. The report which I have just mentioned also indicates that the vast majority of Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Blacks in South Africa are in favour of non-racial sport at all levels. The question then arises as to why, in spite of the above, we find that we are becoming more and more isolated than we have ever been. A recent example is the cancelled French tour which is a great disappointment to all rugby enthusiasts. This is also happening at a time when we are producing some of the best sportsmen in the world. We only have to look at what is happening in the field of athletics to confirm that. It is also happening at a time when—we must give a bit of credit where it is due—the Government is in fact amending certain items of legislation to cater for sports. For example, the Liquor Act was amended in 1981 and the Group Areas Act was amended in 1982. The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development has indicated that the Blacks (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act is to be amended this year. We only hope that when those amendments are brought to Parliament we in this party will be able to approve them. Unfortunately, the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act still remains. Unfortunately too there are certain provincial ordinances which enable local authorities to set aside and reserve separate amenities. These still remain. We should like to make a plea to the hon. the Minister tonight for all sportsmen and sportswomen in South Africa to ensure that these regulations are in fact dispensed with. We in this party would obviously like to see most of these Acts dispensed with in their entirety, but we shall accept whatever comes our way.

Why then, many South Africans ask, are we faced with the current hostile attitude from the rest of the world? Daily one sees in the Press articles about the double standards which are applied to us. I have no quarrel with many of these articles. I think many of these articles are correct. However, I think we should also have a very close look at ourselves. I say this because if there is anybody who applies double standards, if there is anybody who invented double standards, it is ourselves. I should like to give a few examples in this regard. Firstly, is not the mere fact that sportsmen and sportswomen are treated differently to anybody else, the mere fact that we amend legislation simply in order to cater for sport, a double standard on its own? There is also the fact that a Black in a sporting team cannot for example travel on the same train and the fact that the same Black is unable to go to the same cinema. We have the example of the recent débácle in connection with the Gandhi film premiere. There is also the fact that we have segregated beaches and, most shameful of all, the most recent incident relating to the parks in Pretoria. Presumably Blacks will not be allowed into those parks either. These are all examples of double standards. When overseas governments look at sport they find it difficult to put sport into one very small compartment on its own, and it is hard to believe that incidents such as I have mentioned do not influence to a greater or lesser extent their attitude towards South Africa. Another example is the recent event involving the hon. the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning in relation to including clauses in leases for sporting facilities in Black group areas so as to compel the use of those facilities by all groups of sportsmen and sportswomen. We have no quarrel with that but why then do we have no statement to a similar effect regarding sporting facilities in White group areas? It is incidents and double standards such as these which do not even relate to so-called grand apartheid, that cause so much trouble. They do not even relate to petty apartheid but they do us irreparable harm in the eyes of the world and also, I believe, when other governments come to decide on our sporting contacts.

My time is running out but I should like to make a brief appeal to the hon. the Minister to consider very seriously the establishment of a national sporting council. My colleague the hon. member for Sandton in fact even tabled a draft Bill to this effect in 1980. That shows that this party has always been in favour of such a step and we believe that it would in fact go a long way towards rectifying many of the vast discrepancies and imbalances that exist in sport in South Africa. We are also in favour of the establishment of a sporting pool by means of which to channel additional funds through to the national sporting council, other than Government funds that would be voted for it as in the case of any other statutory body.

I should also like to comment briefly on the question of school sport. We also believe that incidents at school level do us irreparable harm in this country. As a first step—we do not see this as a final solution—we would like to see schools being left alone to decide on their own sporting fixtures and to make their own sporting arrangements.

Local option.

I hate even to acknowledge the expression “local option”. In actual fact, the hon. member for Umbilo will never tell us where he stands in respect of any issue relating to local option. He always says that we must leave it to the people but he never tells us what he thinks about it himself.

Finally, I want to express the hope that sportsmen in this country realize that the position in which they find themselves is in fact due entirely to the policy of hon. members opposite. They have given a lead and I think it is up to the Government to give a lead at this particular time. If they do not, sportmen will in the future certainly register their protest at the appointed place and that is at the ballot box.

Mr. Chairman, I have pleasure in following upon the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. However, as I do not wish to comment on his party’s sports policy, he must forgive me if I do not follow him any further in his remarks.

*Mr. Chairman, I should like to discuss the activities of the Cultural Affairs Branch of the Department of National Education, and I want to deal in particular with the role played by the Cultural Affairs Branch in the promotion of music.

I want to begin by saying that the function of the Cultural Affairs Branch is to preserve, develop and promote the culture of the White population of the Republic of South Africa. A very clear characteristic of culture is that it is of a comprehensive and all-encompassing nature, but in spite of this, culture can be divided into identifiable social or professional disciplines, such as the natural and human sciences as well as music.

It is not the function of the State or of the Cultural Affairs Branch to form clubs or societies and to control them directly, but to help organizations which have come into being voluntarily and autonomously to achieve their objectives. For this reason, these autonomous and independent organizations are subsidized where this is justified. Co-ordination, advice, project planning and so on are also provided.

The Cultural Affairs Branch has eight regional offices and six sub-offices as well as a head office component in this country, while there are four cultural attachés abroad at the moment, and a further two appointments will be made shortly. Then there will be cultural attachés in London, Rome, Brussels, Bonn, Vienna and Buenos Aires. These attachés introduce South African culture to people abroad and initiate contact with individuals and organizations abroad.

During 1982, the Cultural Affairs Branch launched 111 projects in all rendered assistance involving a total number of 48 170 young people and adults. During this year, South Africans were enabled to introduce South African music to audiences abroad at the Don Musica Festival in Italy, inter alia, and by means of concert tours undertaken by choral groups. The Natal Youth Choir, the choir of Paarl Girls’ High School, the Adlibitum Choir and the Zululand University Choir undertook overseas tours during 1982-’83. The OFS Youth Choir, the Harmonia Juventia Youth String Orchestra, the RAU Choir and the Stellenbosch University Choir were chosen to undertake overseas tours during the 1982-’83 financial year. Individuals also received financial assistance to enable them to participate in international competitions. An amount of R4 500 was used to enable four talented young musicians to participate in competitions. For the 1983-’84 financial year, an amount of R105 000 has been appropriated for subsidizing approved choirs and orchestral groups and enabling them to undertake concert tours abroad.

This brings me to the specific implementation of the musical aspect in this country. By way of illustration, I want to indicate how the department may become involved in a particular deserving project. The town of Roodepoort, in the region where I come from, decided in 1981 to revive the Eisteddfod in South Africa. After this wonderful first attempt—this attempt is justly referred to as the wonder of the Eisteddfod—it was decided to make it a biennial event.

†This was the beginning of the Roodepoort International Eisteddfod Association, known worldwide as Riesa. This year’s Eisteddfod will be held from 1 October to 8 October in a tent which will be able to house some 4 000 people and which will be the largest locally made tent. This tent will be pitched at the Florida Lake. This is a beautiful lake within the Maraisburg constituency. I wish to urge hon. members to come to see for themselves this very beautiful recreational development on the Rand. Perhaps they should make a point of visiting this year’s Eisteddfod and enjoy the music and singing as well as the hospitality of Roodepoort and the facilities of one of the most beautiful lakes on the Reef. It is estimated that some 1 000 people of all races and nationalities will participate in this year’s Eisteddfod. All participants will be housed free of charge in Roodepoort in private homes. Can you imagine, Sir, what it means to South Africa to send some 1 000 friends to virtually all corners of the earth? Do you remember the Welsh choir which participated in 1981 and won many South African hearts when some 60 members all became known as “Mr. Jones” in order to avoid repercussions overseas? The 1981 Eisteddfod was held in the coldest weather in 102 years and this resulted in a deficit of R160 000. However, this deficit has been reduced to a mere R12 000 since then, and it is hoped that this year’s Eisteddfod will have an income that will allow the committee to fund future Eisteddfods itself. This year’s budget is in the region of R300 000 and the Department of National Education will contribute R15 000 towards the costs. The patron of the Eisteddfod is the State President, Mr. Marais Viljoen, and the International Eisteddfod Association is above politics.

*Entries have already been received from a Spanish choir, three Argentine choirs, a choir from the Republic of China and choirs from England, North and South America, Europe and Israel. There may also be entries from Australia and from Malawi and other African States. This shows that this music festival, which has no political undertones, has already struck a telling blow for South Africa against those who want to isolate this country.

It is interesting to note that the countries which participate in the Eisteddfod have no sporting ties with South Africa and that in addition, there are far more participants than could be involved by means of sporting ties. The Department of National Education has played no inconsiderable role in establishing and developing the Roodepoort Eisteddfod. Today this music festival, which is two years old, is already a national asset, thanks to the contribution made by the Cultural Affairs Branch. In addition to the contribution of R15 000, the Department of National Education has offered to make one or more officers available to serve on the committees of the body involved. The acting regional head of the Southern Transvaal is involved in the project and a cultural officer is already serving on a committee. A cultural officer will also be involved on a full-time basis as soon as the Eidsteddfod events commence during October. The Chief Cultural Officer (Music) is an adviser, and he can act as a member of the panel of judges if this is requested. The head office will help to advertise the Eisteddfod and will assist with the distribution of brochures by the regional offices. To pave the way for future Eisteddfods, the department will publish an article on the body involved in the quarterly magazine Education and Culture. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South challenged the Government to discuss sport in this debate. Thereupon the hon. member for Maraisburg stood up and spoke about culture. I want to tell him that if I had been in his shoes, too, I should definitely have run away from sport, because the path the NP is following in connection with sport, is a path of abdication and a path one can certainly run away from. [Interjections.]

But you were chairman of the sports group. [Interjections.]

Two important reports have been tabled by the Department of National Education. The one was the De Lange report, on which the hon. the Minister replied to questions, and the other was the report on sport in the Republic of South Africa. The hon. the Minister said that he considered the approach and liberal ideas of the PFP, in terms of which there would only be one Department of Education under one administration for all population groups, to be unacceptable. He said he found it unacceptable from an educational viewpoint, from a cultural viewpoint and from a political viewpoint. The hon. the Minister identified education as a group-specific matter. We thought as much, because this was one of the few matters which could be identified as a group-specific matter in the blue booklet. I take it, then, that in view of this identification there will be three Ministers of Education. When the President appoints his Cabinet, there will be three Ministers of Education in that Cabinet, namely a Coloured, an Indian and a White Minister.

And a Black as well?

Yes, and possibly a Black as well. Is it not ridiculous to have three Ministers of Education in one Cabinet?

Four.

Yes, four. [Interjections.] Now, one of them will be a Coloured and one an Indian. As far as culture is concerned, the NP said through the hon. the Minister that Whites and other groups would have their own cultural institutions. However, the hon. member for Paarl announced here last night that the first multiracial cultural organization has been established in Paarl and that the hon. the Prime Minister is the patron of that organization.

Sport is a very important branch of the Department of National Education. Let us consider the history of the sports policy of the NP. When I joined it, the NP was in favour of separate sport. After that there was multinational sport, and now it is multiracial sport. I want to tell the hon. the Minister of Community Development that this is one of the main reasons why I am sitting here today and am not with that party, which is following the path of integration in sport. [Interjections.] The NP has normalized sport by progressing from separate sport to multinational sport to multiracial sport. I repeat that this is one of the main reasons why I am sitting on this side of the House today. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I am sorry; I have too little time. I should now like to quote from the report of the Head Committee of the HSRC investigation into sport in the RSA. The following appears on page 15 of the report—

Who says that?

It says so here in the report. That is one of the findings. The report states that culture and education are part of sport. The hon. the Minister says that one Department of Education is unacceptable for educational, cultural and political reasons. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he has already taken certain decisions in connection with this report, because in the meanwhile certain sports control bodies are going ahead and implementing some of the important proposals made in the report. For example, they are implenting them in respect of to school sport. I should again like to mention hockey as an example. I read in Die Transvaler of Saturday, 26 March 1983 that—

It goes on to say—

This is school hockey. Now I want to ask the hon. the Minister: Is he in favour of this decision of the South African School Hockey Association? Furthermore, what steps does the Government intend to take in cases where integration in school sport is being rammed down the throats of Whites? What is he going to do to prevent this? I have here a letter from the South African Rugby Union.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, I cannot reply to questions now. [Interjections.] As far as the policy regarding junior rugby in South Africa is concerned, the following is said in this letter—

One of the points raised here is the following—

That means Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Blacks. [Interjections.]

Are you going to make a law against it? [Interjections.]

I now want to ask the hon. the Minister what his Government’s standpoint on this is. Is he giving the go ahead for this to be done? [Interjections.] The example given here is how the Free State team may be selected. It is stated here—

Mr. Chairman on a point of order: Is the hon. member not supposed to address the Chair? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Kuruman may proceed.

I am still quoting, Mr. Chairman—

I now want to know from the hon. member for Virginia whether he objects to this. Mr. Chairman, I want to know from the hon. member for Virginia whether he objects to the Free State team for the Craven Week being selected on merit from among Whites, Coloureds and Blacks. [Interjections.] No, I am aware that there are no Indians in the Free State. [Interjections.] Does the hon. member for Virginia object to this? [Interjections.] I feel he should reply to this question, Mr. Chairman.

Sporting bodies are ramming integration in sport down the throats of schoolchildren. The hon. the Minister said in the classroom …

You are talking nonsense, man.

I have just quoted it, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member for Johannesburg West would do well to listen. The hon. the Minister said that children in the classroom have to attend separate schools, but on the sportsfield he does not mind if national sporting bodies ram integration in sport down the throats of those children.

That is not true. [Interjections.]

I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he has already decided to establish a national sports council. Has the hon. the Minister already decided to establish a national sports council “a council with the objective of bringing about and promoting sport, physical recreation and fitness among all the inhabitants of South Africa, taking into account the accepted principles and guidelines of sport”? [Interjections.] I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister whether since it is recommended here that in connection with school sport—this is a recommendation in this report—an umbrella sports council should be established. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is striking that nowadays the hon. member for Kuruman is using speech after speech in this House to try to cover up his own tracks. We have already watched him trying to run away from his own creation in connection with the proposed … [Interjections.] … in connection with the proposed … [Interjections.] … Mr. Chairman, I did not interrupt those hon. members when they were speaking; I therefore do not know why they do not want to give me a chance to make my speech. [Interjections.]

Order!

As I have already said, the hon. member for Kuruman has tried to cover his tracks in connection with the investigation into environmental conservation … [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: May the hon. members over there in the comer say I am a “bitterbek”? [Interjections.]

Which hon. member said that?

Mr. Chairman, I said it, and I withdraw it. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: The hon. member for Wellington referred to “’n ou bitterbek”, and not merely to “bitterbek”. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Sundays River may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, so much of my time has been wasted that I do not want to waste any more of it on the hon. member for Kuruman. I shall therefore not deal any further with his attempts to cover his own tracks. I shall do so on another occasion.

I should now like to discuss a more peaceful topic. I want to point out that to date we have approximately 1 200 national monuments in this country. The majority, approximately 750 are in the Cape, whereas there are 160 in the Transvaal; 35 in the Free State; 120 in Natal and approximately 90 in South West Africa. I want to say a few words about one of these monuments, in fact our oldest monument which is linked to European activities in South Africa. It so happens that that monument, number one in that category, is in my constituency. I am referring to the so-called Diaz Cross at Kwaaihoek in the Alexandria district. When Diaz was forced by his crew to turn back when he was in the vicinity of the Kowie or Keiskamma River, he erected three of these crosses along the South African coast, and the first of these was at Kwaaihoek. On 12 March 1988 it will be exactly 500 years since this historic event took place. It is so important to us that it is simply unthinkable that a nation which is so culture and history conscious would allow this date to pass unnoticed. It may seem a little early to be thinking about this already if the event is only to take place in 1988. Admittedly, it is a little under five years hence, but in view of the nature and the magnitude of the festivities which such a major event will justify it is definitely not too early to begin giving attention to this matter now. It is therefore understandable that we have already heard from various quarters about activities in this connection. Indeed, in some instances planning and preparations are already at an advanced stage.

Perhaps I can just mention a few of these. The National Monuments Council, which is the obvious body to co-ordinate such activities, has been giving serious attention to the various aspects of the matter for some time now, in consultation, naturally, with all interested persons and bodies. In the Eastern Cape a steering committee has already been appointed to arrange the festivities at Kwaaihoek and in Algoa Bay. In Mossel Bay a body called the 1988 Association has already been established. Together with the provincial administration they are planning major and imaginative developments in the vicinity of the post office tree. They have already appointed the well-known conservation architect, Mr. Gawie Fagan, to plan the whole thing. We all know Mr. Gawie Fagan as a consultant. He has already made a complete report to the province, a most impressive report. In addition, application has already been made for the issue of a series of extraordinary commemorative stamps to commemorate this event in a dignified way, and this application will be considered in 1986. Another imaginative idea was to have a caravelle built similar to those the Portuguese explorers used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and to retrace in it Diaz’s voyage from Portugal to South Africa. One or more large groups of companies have already been approached in an effort to persuade them to sponsor some of these undertakings. Of course this is a matter which is not only of local, regional or even national interest. It also has international significance, for example, as regards diplomatic relations between the RS A and Portugal. This could be an opportunity which could be used to very good effect to strengthen our ties with Portugal and, indeed, to give an added dimension to those relations. The last mentioned aspect would seem to be within the ambit of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but the festivities should primarily be seen as a cultural matter. I assume that the hon. the Minister and his department will co-ordinate matters, at least in connection with the local activities being planned. In addition, it would be a good thing for the hon. the Minister to consult the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, too, regarding the possible joint commemoration by South Africa and Portugal of this major event.

In the short time at my disposal I should like to discuss one further idea, namely that we should perhaps take the initiative and make a suitable tangible gesture to Portugal on that occasion. Perhaps it could take the form of a donation to Portugal of a statue of Diaz. There were very good precedents for such a gesture. I refer to the major contribution we made years ago to the impressive monument to Prince Henry the Navigator which was erected in Lisbon. This was a gesture for which there is still general recognition and great appreciation in Portugal. The donation of such a statue by South Africa and its erection somewhere in Portugal could serve a good purpose in at least two ways. In the first place it could have a beneficial effect on relations between our country and Portugal. Of course, we cannot merely assume that such an offer would be accepted by the Portuguese Government. This depends on the political climate at any given time. Recent political developments in Portugal may have an adverse effect on this, but I do feel that the climate is reasonably favourable at present. I think that if we were to make such a suggestion it would quite possibly be considered favourably.

In the second place such a gesture could serve as a small down payment on a debt of honour that Portugal itself owes Diaz, the forgotten hero of his people. The position is that there is not a single monument or other public mark of honour or recognition of this great explorer. I think it would be a good thing for Portugal to be given an opportunity, through South Africa, to right an old wrong done to a great son of that nation, at least to a modest extent.

Perhaps it is a little too early to bring up this matter but I know that a considerable degree of attention is already being given to this matter in various circles. I am also certain that the department has taken cognizance of this and that they will co-ordinate matters for us in connection with the countrywide and the international activities being planned. I hope that the hon. the Minister will take cognizance of this timeously and that in due course progress can be made in the matter I have just referred to.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Sundays River will forgive me if I do not react to his speech because although I listened very attentively, I found his speech inaudible and incomprehensible. However, I do hope the hon. the Minister will reply to him fully in the same spirit as he offered his speech to the House.

Much that is good is and has been happening on the sports front in South Africa. Sportsmen themselves have taken positive initiatives internally in South Africa to eliminate apartheid in sport and, I believe, are slowly succeeding in that goal. They have also taken initiatives to break the sporting boycott of South Africa with some measure of success. The internationally drawn up black list has met with stiff resistance abroad and has been correctly, properly and roundly condemned by many of our friends in other countries. I think people are beginning to realize that once South Africans are allowed to be blacklisted, this disruptive, subjective and selective form of punishment can easily be extended to others on political grounds, to other sportsmen, to people other than South Africans as well as to other countries. It could disrupt sport throughout the world for years to come.

Looking at positive developments on the sporting front, one finds that in past months the Human Sciences Research Council has come up, after careful study, with several helpful recommendations, nearly all of which have achieved wide acceptance in sporting circles by all races and certainly by nearly all political persuasions. I venture to say that the Government is still lagging behind in its response to the mood and the actions of the sportsmen of South Africa. The Government still believes that it can practise discriminaition in every field of human endeavour and yet, paradoxically, ask sportsmen to forget about colour for those few hours that they are on the sports field. I would like to mention a few examples of this.

I notice that the two hon. members sitting over there find this all very amusing. I thought that the hon. the Minister of Industries, Commerce and Tourism was very interested in sport, but he is obviously not very interested in the affairs of sportsmen at the present time.

I would like to mention a few examples of this lagging behind the mood of sportsmen by the South African Government. The first example is that of Mr. Hassan Howa, who, despite having made several applications, is still without a passport without any reasons being given to him as to why that passport is being refused. The very fact of the refusal of a passport to Mr. Howa is used against South Africa throughout the world. Let us not be mistaken, it is. Because of his opposition to the South African Government over the years, it is believed abroad, and I think correctly, that the real reason for the deprivation of travel opportunities for Mr. Howa, is to stop him from saying abroad that which he already says in this country. Even the SABC has given Mr. Howa a hearing. Surely, Mr. Chairman, greater damage is done to the cause of South African sport…

He got thumped in the interview.

Yes, I agree with the hon. member for Durban North. Mr. Howa’s point did not come across very eloquently in that interview. The argument that I am putting to this Committee, is that more damage is being done to South African sport by the denial of that gentleman’s passport than by allowing him to go overseas to be seen and heard in the way in which we have seen and heard him in this country. Certainly much more harm is caused in this way. I want to say to the hon. the Minister directly, although it is not his responsibility to issue passports, that it is time that the Minister of National Education who is in charge of sport made his voice heard and his influence felt in this regard.

The second example to which I would like to refer, relates to an incident which has already been debated. That is the Prison Service’s action in forcing a Cape prison officers’ club to disband for political reasons and only allowing it to reconstitute itself provided it affiliated itself to the approved establishment rugby union. This was a most high-handed action and very intolerant. It makes nonsense of the proclaimed NP policy of sports autonomy. Here too, the hon. the Minister should not remain silent and he should move to stop this form of Government interference in sport.

The third example relates to the spending of public moneys for the furtherance of sport. All in all, I would like to say that I believe that the department is doing its best to allocate its very limited funds as fairly as it can. I do not intend here tonight to take small points on minor ambiguities in the spending of the department’s money. Yet, the department, apart from its own funds, I believe, has a broader responsibility of liaison and co-ordination in relation to public spending on sport. Only by working positively, over a period of time, will it come to pass that members of all communities enjoy an equal opportunity to gain skills and to excel in their various sports.

In answer to a question put by me on 16 February 1983 the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs disclosed that the four provinces together spent R9 868 658 in 1982 on the promotion of sport among White schoolchildren. I say that that sum of money is well spent and I do not criticize it. However, on 20 March 1983, in answer to a similar question of mine, the hon. the Minister of Education and Training revealed that in 1982 there were an estimated 900 000 Black schoolchilren who played sport and that his department had in that same year spent the princely sum of R14 700 on the promotion of sport among those Black schoolchildren. That amounts to less than one and a half cents per child per year, and that is a statistic that was given to us by this Government. Surely this is a figure to be ashamed of and it speaks volumes for the total lack of interest the hon. the Minister of National Education is showing in the sporting activities of Black schoolchildren.

Last year the Division of Sport spent R129 000 of its own small budget on grants-in-aid and direct financial assistance to further the sport of cruising. Cruising is a form of yachting, a rich man’s sport, a sport enjoyed by only some 1 700 South Africans. 1 700 South Africans obtained R129 000 for this sport. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Sandton did concede in his speech that the Republic had had certain successes in the field of sport. However, he emphasized every negative aspect he could find, as hon. members on that side of the House and the Press which supports them like to do. I should like to draw attention to a few of our recent successes in the field of sport.

The dismal failure of the UN’s black list, which already contains hundreds of names—these are the names of persons who have contact with South Africa in the sporting and cultural fields—is emphasized by the constantly growing number of sports tours to and from the RS A. I want to refer to some other successes such as the rebel cricket tours from England, Sri Lanka and the West Indies, the motorcycle Grand Prix, two world title boxing matches, world-class tennis tournaments, as well as swimning and cycling, in which there has been international competition in spite of their expulsion. All in all, South African participants in 62 sports have competed in 36 countries during the past calendar year, while participants in 50 sports from 44 countries have competed against South Africa within the boarders of the Republic.

†Mr. Chairman, a further very important sporting fink which is not often properly acknowledged as such and which gives us an introduction to and a connection with international sporting associations is the Maccabi Association. This contact should never be underestimated because it takes place on a regular basis in various sports. In fact, every four years South Africa takes her place at the Maccabi Games in Israel. We owe a great deal to this association which strengthens our international contacts.

*I want to proceed to another matter, because requests are made from time to time for the provision of more and better smallboat harbours along our coasts. I am referring to ski-boats and fishing boats as well as fixed-keel motorised boats and yachts. The former group can be transported by road and they are usually boats of a small type, but the latter group consists of heavy, expensive boats which can only be transported over land with the greatest difficulty and at great expense. These boats also require permanent protected moorings.

Small-boat activities meet extremely important needs. Firstly, they play an essential role in our commercial fishing industry, and in addition, they perform an increasing and important recreational function, which also benefits our tourist industry. These smallboat activities have also given rise to a considerable ship-building industry with obvious further implications. In this connection I quote—

It is essential, therefore, that the necessary infrastructure be created to encourage and develop these activities.

At the moment, the existing facilities are inadequate and the demand for these facilities is increasing enormously. Such a smallboat harbour must in the first place provide protection from storms. It must be able to provide year-round moorings. There must also be adequate ground and accommodation for the staff required to organize it properly. Many other supporting facilities must be provided, none of which is more important than meeting the needs of the tourist industry. Many overseas pleasure-boats visit our existing harbours every year, and South African yachting is increasingly becoming involved in international yacht racing competitions. However, this supporting infrastructure for small boats is extremely capital-intensive, which places it beyond the reach of local authorities or private organizations, and the State will have to accept responsibility for this. Then I am sure that the private sector will also be motivated to make their investment inputs.

In advocating a further development of small-boat activities, I want to suggest in the same breath that this should be undertaken on a properly planned basis and that all the priorities should be fully taken into consideration. I have read up the debates conducted in this House in recent years, and I have found several well-motivated pleas for the location for small-boat harbours at specific places. In deciding where they should be located, however, I believe that there are two primary factors which must be borne in mind, i.e. cost and control. I have already referred to the first aspect, but everyone realizes, too, that control is vital. In this connection it is disquieting to see how many accidents involving small boats take place at sea. Apart from the tragic loss of fife, this has a negative effect on our tourist industry as well, and it creates enormous problems for the Sea Rescue Institute, of course.

The aspect of control over ski-boats and other small boats is receiving more and more attention, and I am referring here to the declared intention of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Environment Affairs and Fisheries to introduce licensing of and control over vessels. In the light of these two factors alone, it is obvious that certain further facilities which are urgently necessary will have to be provided, and in my opinion this should be done at already existing facilities or in close proximity to them, in our bigger metropolitan areas. Existing harbours are located where they are precisely because they are best equipped to provide what is required of good harbours. It would be much cheaper to adapt these harbours or to provide complementary facilities nearby. The greater population density in and around the metropolitan areas will mean that the largest number of people will be able to make use of these facilities. In my opinion, it would be absurd to provide these facilities in a relatively undeveloped region or at a remote place for a few privileged, wealthy people who would use it once a year or in any case only now and then. The bigger areas already have the infrastructure, large concentrations of tourists occur in those areas and the biggest concentration of our own people is already present throughout the year.

As far as the Cape coast is concerned, I believe that such expansion should therefore take place in the Cape Peninsula, at Mossel Bay, Port Elizabeth or East London. Although Mr. J. A. Zwamborn has done extremely valuable work in evaluating potential small-boat harbours, I believe that we should be extremely careful before taking any final decisions. The socio-economic factors should not be lost sight of either. In the present financial climate, it is quite clear that it will not be possible to provide more than one or two of these harbours in the foreseeable future. Therefore it will be necessary to ensure that the greatest benefit is derived by all from the capital used in this way. The provision of slipways for ski-boats is a different matter, however. It is much cheaper to provide these, because no permanent moorings, etc, have to be provided. All it does is to provide better and safer access to the sea. Here, too, it is extremely desirable that the matter should be thoroughly investigated before the building of these slipways is approved. However, if this aspect is not investigated in good time, fatal accidents will undoubtedly occur more frequently. We find at the moment that ski-boats and other small boats are launched from beaches under extremely dangerous circumstances. The selective provision of slipways along our coast will do much to promote control and safety in this sport.

Mr. Chairman, I shall not be following on the hon. member for Uitenhage on the subject of yachting. I wish in fact to elaborate further on a matter that was raised this evening by the hon. member for Sandton with regard to facilities. I believe that, when it comes to sport, one thing is quite clear, and that is that we have our priorities all wrong. Why do I day this? If one looks at the HSRC report on sport issued last year, the point is made very clearly: “Sport can be regarded as a catalyst for the elimination of tension and conflict, and it is a factor of real importance in a heterogeneous community such as that of South Africa. However, opportunities for sport are created through the availability of sports facilities and sport can only flourish if the necessary facilities exist.” Normal or open sport, as we now have it in general, is only the first step. Without equal facilities there can be no equal opportunity in sport.

Let us look at the Cape Peninsula. In answers to questions this session I discovered that for the 226 000 Black people living in the Cape Peninsula there are a total of 12 sportsfields. This fact not only makes claims of no racial barriers in sport almost meaningless, but it is also an absolute disgrace and, I believe, a scathing indictment of this Government and its policy down the years.

There is a desperate need for facilities, not only in the Cape Peninsula but also in many other parts of the country, yet we find in the department’s budget only R250 000 allocated for sports facilities and apparatus, the same amount, I may say, as was allocated for this in the previous budget year—and this out of a budget of R5,7 million for sports activities. That means that 4,4% is allocated to facilities, which is the critical aspect of what is required. We can compare that with the amount of R448 000—that is nearly double—spent in 1982 on financial assistance for tours to South Africa, often in connection with relatively obscure sports and sports with very few participants. We can also compare that R250 000 with the grants-in-aid amounting to R1,7 million for the administration of sport. I think that it is a gross misallocation.

Next I should like to look specifically at schoolchildren, a question to which the hon. member for Sandton also referred. In the Cape Peninsula there are over 3 000 Black high-school children and between the high schools there is only one sportsfield in the Cape Peninsula. Therefore if they want to participate in sport they have to compete with nearly 250 000 people for the 12 sports-fields that exist in the Peninsula.

Taking the Republic as a whole there are just about 1 million White schoolchildren, i.e. primary and secondary, and out of public funds R9,9 million was spent in 1982 to further their participation in sport. One can contrast that with 3,6 million, i.e. three and a half times as many, Black schoolchildren in primary and secondary schools, where an amount, as the hon. member for Sandton mentioned, of R14 700 was made available in 1982.

In comparison with that amount of R14 700, what other money are we spending on sport? For visits to South Africa, on cycling we spent R47 500. On fencing, in which there are only 600 participants in the whole of the country, we spent R20 000. On gliding with 600 participants, we spent R15 000. On tug-of-war we spent R35 000. This was what was spent in 1982. Surely there is something seriously wrong with our priorities if we spend more on tug-of-war visitors to South Africa than on 3,6 million Black schoolchildren when it comes to sports activities?

When one looks at the per capita figures, one sees that for White schoolchildren there is an amount of R9,84 per child for sport. For Black children it is 0,41 cents, i.e. less than 0,5 cents per child. This Government is spending 2 400 times as much furthering the participation in sport of each White child compared with each Black child. It is an estonishing manifestation of selfishness and greed and it is also a crystal clear example of what happens to a community that has no political rights worth talking about.

To return to the HSRC report on sport, they say—

In the department’s explanatory memorandum on the budget this year it says—

I am not quite sure how that relates to the R250 000, but irrespective of how it relates to it, it is obviously a very different priority from that given by the HSRC to facilities. I believe that when it comes to expenditure on sport the provision of facilities should enjoy the highest priority.

I call upon the hon. the Minister to reallocate the money available and to concentrate on providing facilities, to make public the Government’s plans to redress the gross inequalities in sports facilities that exist between races and to remove all barriers that militate against the optimum utilization of existing facilities. There has been welcome progress in the development of non-racial sport in South Africa, but the obscene discrepancies in facilities make a mockery of the concept of equal opportunity and merit selection.

Mr. Chairman, the NRP’s sports policy has always been guided by two cardinal principles.

Local option.

Yes, local option, as the hon. member for Kuruman says, but in a different form. The first is that sport should be left to sport administrators and that we should take politics right out of it. The second cardinal principle that we have always supported is that sporting associations or groups should in fact become involved in self-help schemes as far as finance and infrastructure are concerned. The self-help scheme includes gaining assistance from the State, or various departments, on the basis that that sport would be viable enough to pay back its loans together with any interest. I think those are two cardinal principles that the Government could well try to emulate because it would avoid encountering pitfalls of precisely the nature that the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens has illustrated here, i.e. that he has once again tried to inject a manipulative effect into sport in order to attempt to apply the PFP policy. That means that one must at all costs have affirmative action and spend more on Blacks than one spends on Whites just because that is PFP policy. I believe that is as much as travesty of sport as it is for organizations overseas to bar South Africa from Olympic sport or to blacklist sportsmen who have played in South Africa before. The PFP is doing in South Africa precisely what our enemies are doing overseas.

We believe that sport should be a natural extension of the value system of a particular society. [Interjections.] It may well be of interest to any university student doing a thesis on sport, if that were possible—I am not sure that any university is offering this course—to examine what different nations use as an extension of their value system by way of sport. I think the sport practised by a nation as a national sport could be very revealing of the character and the value system of that particular society.

One thinks, for instance, of the martial arts practised in Japan and in the Far East. It is a vicious sort of sport, controlled without passion, conducted according to very strict regulations. One thinks of the British and their cricket; a gentleman’s game, which is based entirely on two principles, namely that of the team spirit and that of the personalization of leadership. I think it speaks volumes of the British character that their sport indeed reflects the national character of the British; that it is gentlemanly and that it is based on the team spirit.

Just like pig-sticking.

That is obviously a past-time of the hon. member for Greytown. He finds himself in very good company with the members of that team. [Interjections.]

Then, I believe, one can also examine, the robust sport of rugby, which characterizes the value system of the Australians, the New Zealanders and the South Africans—a team spirit which is certainly based on an aggressive approach to life. It is based on winning the game as a team playing with robustness. I think the outside world must indeed notice the fact that South Africa has excelled at rugby despite the boycotts from overseas. If they did they would learn something about the character and the determination of all South Africans in trying to triumph over the boycotts which have been instituted against us in sport.

With the recent controversy regarding the professionalization of a certain South African rugby player who decided to accept the offer from the “Texas Cowboys”, it will be seen that American rugby-football, which is the national sport, next to baseball, would rival a ticker-tape parade in Wall Street for the public relations type or razzmatazz which is revealed there. All of this, Sir, leads me to the cardinal question: What precisely is the national sport of the non-White group in South Africa?

If we look at the rest of Africa we must ask ourselves the same question because if we are to provide, facilitate and encourage the development of sport as an extension of society we must ask ourselves these questions in terms of priority. The expenditure of moneys, about which the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens was so concerned, leads me to another question. Where would he advocate we spend money in respect of the Black groups in South Africa?

Ron, have you actually read …

Yes, I have read it. Of course, I have read it. I know the obvious answer in connection with the expenditure is going to be that we should spend it on soccer, and I shall come back to soccer in a moment. However, if we examine historically the traditional sport of nations in Africa I challenge the hon. member for Greytown, who is so vociferous here, to tell us what the national sport of the Zambians is. What is the national sport of the Zimbabweans, and the Tanzanians and the Malawians?

Boomerang throwing.

The hon. member for Greytown, Sir, is exactly 15 000 kilometres off target. He is getting the Australian aborigines and the Malawians mixed up, just as he always has his policies and his politics mixed up as well. [Interjections.] It is a very real issue that one should ask oneself the question of where one should spend money as a priority in order to facilitate sport amongst the non-White groups in South Africa because the only manifestation of sport amongst non-Whites in South Africa, especially the Blacks, is their participation in soccer.

What about asking the Blacks what they would like money to be spent on?

That is an idea, Sir. I am delighted to hear the hon. member for Bryanston express his beliefs in local option because that is what it amounts to. [Interjections.] The gravamen of my argument here is that I believe we must beware of doing what the colonial powers have done in the past, and that is to force the sport of the relevant colonial powers onto the local population, saying: That is the kind of sport they want to participate in because that is the kind of sport we approve of. The hon. member for Bryanston has, probably inadvertently, given us the key to all this, and that is consultation with the other groups regarding priorities and expenditure.

That is a good start now!

The hon. member for Greytown now agrees with me. Obviously his attendance here is improving his ability to perceive and understand what sport is all about. My question to the hon. the Minister in this respect is: What depoliticized structures are there—not Sacos and those people who are using politics—available to the hon. the Minister to get to know what the aspirations and needs of all the population groups in South Africa are when it comes to priorities of expenditure and the creation of infrastructure? The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens made a great deal of the question of expenditure on institutions such as schools, but do the schools really represent the needs of the community? Do they want to play soccer? Do they want to have boxing? Do they want to play cricket or do they want to play baseball? It would be very interesting to know what the results of such negotiations would be.

My appeal to the hon. the Minister is therefore to let us know how he intends to negotiate with the various communities, in conjunction with the hon. the Minister for Co-operation and Development, to determine what the priorities of the other race groups are. I say this, not in the sense that the hon. the Minister is entirely responsible for expenditure on that side of the House. The hon. the Minister of Education and Training is also responsible for expenditure on that side. Here there is also a great need for co-ordination between the different bodies. Unquestionably the HSRC report will go a long way towards giving us guidance in this respect, but there is no substitute for real negotiation with the different population groups to discover what their priorities are. I say this in all sincerity, because sport epitomizes the healthy body and the healthy mind. [Interjections.] Participation by all population groups in what may be called normalized sport is a measure of the success that we are achieving in interracial relations in South Africa.

Your racquet needs to be restrung.

That hon. member of the PFP is obviously amused by small things such as racquets and their strings. [Interjections.] Let me, however, tell the hon. the Minister that sport—despite the fun that the hon. members of the PFP are making of it—serves a very real and vital function in healthy relations in South Africa, and we in the NRP will always support any expenditure by the Government in promoting sport and creating infrastructure for the different population groups. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, these days everyone is interested in some sport or other. What is more, most people participate in some sport or other. The matter I wish to raise now is probably one which not all of us are going to agree on. As far as I am concerned this has nothing to do with politics. It is a matter purely concerned with sport. I am referring to the question of professional as opposed to amateur sport. I am convinced of the fact that amateur sport is a kind of sport in which everyone can participate. Professional sport, on the other hand, is not accessible to everyone. It is only a certain group of people who can go in for professional sport. Professional sport has in a certain sense become a form of employment, a business by means of which one can earn money and enrich oneself. Indeed, some of the people who participate in professional sport do indeed become very rich. This is not intended for the amateur. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister to what extent the department gives financial support to professional sport. I am of the opinion that the department should not support professional sport financially, i.e. with the taxpayers’ money. The department should employ all the money made available from the Exchequer to promote amateur sport. Financially, professional sport must take care of itself. I am saying this particularly with reference to the fact that during the visit of the West Indian cricket team to South Africa it was reported that the hon. the Minister had allegedly said—I do not want to accuse him of something he did not say—that he was prepared to help the South African Cricket Union financially if it should become necessary. I do not think that the visit of that team, consisting of professional players for whom a great deal of money was paid, was in fact a breakthrough for us in the field of sport. The question is whether those people, if they had not been paid so much, would still have taken the trouble to come and tour in this country in order to bring about a sport breakthrough. I should like the hon. the Minister to give us a clear indication of the extent to which his department, in his opinion, ought to support professional sport with taxpayers’ money, and to what extent the money should be utilized exclusively for amateur sport.

Another matter I wish to raise was also discussed in this House last year. The hon. the Minister, at the time, adopted a standpoint in this connection. However, in view of what happened subsequently, I feel much concern in this connection. I am referring to the question of organized sport on Sundays. In this respect, too, we may differ from one another, but I am of the opinion that the Republic of South Africa is in the first place predominantly a country occupied by people who are adherents of the Christian faith. On that basis the Biblical norms and creeds apply to us in this connection. In the second place I am absolutely convinced that the government of the country is in the hands of persons who recognize the Word of God and who endorse the tenets of Christianity. On these grounds I do not now wish to talk about a Christian country or a Christian government, because I do not wish to start another dispute. I just wish to say that on the grounds of the statement I have just made I believe that it is the task of the Government to help the church to observe the Sabbath. Consequently I feel that in this respect the State should adopt a stronger attitude in respect of observing the Sabbath. We must not allow sport to deprive us of this important religious matter. There are many people who are able to argue that they have no fault to find with the practise of sport on Sunday. Within the church to which I belong, however, with its particular views on Sunday, with its particular views on the Bible and its particular doctrines, there is no real room for the practise of sport on Sunday.

I wish to point out to hon. member specific judgments in this connection and to works written on this subject. There is firstly, a work written by Rev. Rassie van Niekerk, a Defence Force Chaplain. As far as I know he is at present in charge of hospital visits. He wrote a very meritorious piece of work in this connection. Another very meritorious work appeared from the pen of Mr. Willie Marais, former president of the NG congregation of Pretoria East. At present he is connected with Trans-World Radio.

Then there is also the work of Prof. F. J. M. Potgieter, former lecturer in dogmatics at the University of Stellenbosch, all these people provide us with a very level-headed and clear-cut view of the way in which Sunday ought to be spent by each one of us.

Now I know that all of us are in some way or another guilty of not always spending Sundays as we ought to do. However, this does not detract in any way from the fact that we should not promote what has in fact been disapproved by the church, viz. practicing of sport on Sunday. In particular it worries us that organized sport is being practised on Sundays to an increasing extent.

I think that as the servant of the Lord the church has a task of warning people. It is a fact that the message is emanating from the church to its congregation members to ensure that they really keep the Sabbath holy in this respect and do not abuse it, but that it’s also true that there are people within the State who are to an increasing extent organizing these things and who are even going so far as to request permission for the attendance of sports meetings on a Sunday. I think as a partner of the church in this respect and as a fellow servant of the Lord ought to state in this connection that this thing should not be taken too far—in fact I am not saying that this thing should not be practised—but that it is becoming impossible for the church to achieve any real success with that message which it ought to convey in respect of its religious convictions and those of its congregation members.

I want to say that one becomes concerned when sport subsequently enjoys such a high priority in society that religion has to begin to suffer as a result. We all know that in Rome—and the hon. member knows this very well—the cry for bread and games was very loud just before Rome began to decline. I believe that hon. members will agree with me that now that the cry for games has become so vociferous that it has become a problem to the church, the State ought to adopt a very sympathetic attitude in this connection.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Koedoespoort touched on two matters. I want to refer to the first of these.

The hon. member started off quite responsibly by saying that he would like to promote amateur sport. He then posed the question whether amateur sport was now going to receive a subsidy, that is to say, Government aid. Subsequently, however, he came forward with what was the barb in the question. He said he really did not believe that professional sport should be subsidized. Then he mentioned an amount of money and referred to a report which had appeared in the newspapers according to which the Minister had allegedly made a pronouncement in respect of aid to the West Indian cricket team. Now I want to tell the hon. member—the hon. the Minister himself will answer the hon. member in this regard—that the Government naturally attaches major importance to the existence of amateur sport. It is, of course, also the policy of the Government to render State aid to amateur sport only. However, I do not want to make the unqualified statement that Government aid to professional sport is something evil, because I think that there could be circumstances in which it would be justified to render Government aid to professional sport as well. However, the hon. the Minister will probably deal with this.

Now I should like to come back to the hon. member for Kuruman. To me it is astonishing that hon. members of the CP avail themselves of every possible opportunity to try to find something which will enable them to heap coals of fire on the head of this Government, irrespective of whether or not the matter has substance. I do not know whether they do this because they want to conceal the deficiency in their own policy by these means. [Interjections.] Just see what the hon. member is doing now. [Interjections.] I sat quietly while the hon. member for Kuruman was speaking. I shall appreciate the hon. member for Kuruman showing me the same courtesy. What did the hon. member for Kuruman do? He commenced by expressing his resentment of this side of the House because there would be three Ministers of Education in the new dispensation. He emphasized the matter of the three Ministers of Education. [Interjections.] In one Cabinet. The hon. member did not emphasize the matter of the different population groups but said that it was ridiculous that this Government wanted to appoint three Ministers of Education to the Cabinet. Last year that hon. member was still sitting on this side of the House when this Cabinet as constituted at present, the existing Cabinet, also contained three Ministers of Education. [Interjections.] What is the hon. member talking about now? [Interjections.] The argument concerned the matter of the three Ministers.

The hon. member also had a great deal to say about multiracial sport. Now it is no longer multinational sport, but multiracial sport. I want to ask that hon. member across the floor of the Committee in what respect the sport policy of the NP has changed since that hon. member decided to leave the NP. The hon. member must tell me that, but he cannot do so, as the policy has not changed. Up to the stage when the hon. member left, he was chairman of the sport group. [Interjections.] He endorsed all these matters and defended them with acclamation across the floor of the House. Now the hon. member comes along and wants to accuse the Government of multiracialism in sport. If this is so, then that hon. member was jointly responsible for this situation, indeed jointly responsible to a very large extent since he was the chairman of the sport group on this side of the House.

The hon. member also said that this side of the House was ramming mixed sport down the throats of the schools. I want to reply to him in the words of his present leader. I have here in my hand a photostatic copy which I made from the book Skewing of Messrs. Snyman and Co. It deals with a meeting held by Dr. A. P. Treurnicht on the eve of the general election of 1981. In the book it is referred to as a boisterous meeting in Randfontein. He addressed this meeting. It is with reference to a report which appeared in Rapport. Dr. Treurnicht said—

The issue was Craven Week. He was being attacked about Craven Week and about what the hon. the Prime Minister had said in that regard. Dr. Treurnicht went on to say—

In reply to an interjection Dr. Treurnicht said—

When people shouted at him he said—

He concluded as follows—

This was said at the time by the leader of the hon. member for Kuruman and today the Government’s standpoint is exactly the same. The hon. member for Kuruman wanted to ask me across the floor of the Committee whether I would have any objection if the Craven Week team from the Free State were to be a mixed team. I shall reply to that question. The fact of the matter is that the Craven Week team is not a school team in the sense that it plays in the schools league. However, that hon. member as chairman defended this very same standpoint not only across the floor of the House, but also outside this House, viz. the standpoint that when a Craven Week team is selected it represents that particular school union and falls under the S.A. Rugby Board. The standpoint of this side of the House was that it recognizes the autonomy of the controlling body and in this instance it is the S.A. Rugby Board. Therefore Craven Week as such has nothing to do with the representation of schools and if it were to be decided to select a Craven Week team in that way, it would have nothing whatsoever to do with school sports. [Interjections.] The hon. member knows this full well. [Interjections.] I want to leave the matter at that.

I want to address two requests to the hon. the Minister. My first request is that the hon. the Minister should order an investigation and give attention to the possibility of establishing a sports school in South Africa as well. That is the first point. The second point is our holding South African Games on a continuous and fixed basis every four years. I am saying this especially in view of the fact that sport is a particularly important instrument for bringing about good relations, not only amongst peoples, but also amongst countries. I recall press reports which were published at the time when we were attending a gymnastrada in Zürich last year, reports in which glowing reference was made to the gymnastrada team from the Republic of South Africa. In fact, it was a mixed team and as top team this team actually stole the limelight in Zürich. This meant a very great deal to the Republic of South Africa.

The hon. members of the official Opposition said that we were still being bled dry. There were strong boycotts against us and the number of sportsmen visiting us was declining. This, of course is not correct. As was pointed out by the hon. member for Uitenhage we are still achieving tremendous success as far as international competition is concerned. What is important is that we shall get international competition only if we also have sportsmen and sportswomen in the top ranks. For this reason I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister for consideration to be given to the establishment of a sports school in which we can involve the best talent in the Republic of South Africa.

I do not want to deal in detail with what I mean by a sports school of this kind, but I want to say at once that I do not mean that the sports school should replace the academic school. What I mean thereby, on the basis of examples of this we have abroad, is that we offer young people with outstanding talents in the field of sport the opportunity to be boarders at such a sports school. They should be conveyed by bus to the nearest secondary or primary school, but on their return all of them will be together where they can obtain the best specialized and controlled coaching in sport, so that they may eventually develop into the pride of South Africa on the basis of their achievements in sport.

Further to this I also want to ask that we hold a South African Games every four years.

Would it be a mixed school?

That hon. member is too stupid; he would not understand. If one peruses our history, one finds that the idea that such South African Games should be held every four years was originally expressed by a previous Prime Minister. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, before coming to the subject I want to discuss, I just want to say that the attitude of the hon. members of the CP towards sport and race is offensive, but that the attitude of that hon. member of the NP, the hon. member for Virginia, is embarrassing as he does not want to say whether he is in favour of or opposed to mixed sport. I ask the hon. member whether or not he is in favour of mixed sport at school level. Is he in favour of or opposed to schoolboys playing mixed or integrated sport? Is that sports school which he is advocating and which is to be incorporated with the secondary schools, to be a multiracial school or an apartheid school? [Interjections.] He is running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. He need only say what he favours. Does he want us to be admitted to world sport or are we to be isolated once again?

†I want to raise two subjects with the hon. the Minister in the couple of minutes available to me. Both of them relate to a very sensitive area of Cape Town, the area known as Granger Bay. They fall under the Branch Sport and Recreation of the department of the hon. the Minister. First of all I want to refer to the section of the report of the department which deals with the South African Merchant Navy Academy General Botha at Granger Bay. A very disturbing state of affairs is revealed, it is quite clear that because of a serious staff shortage the effectiveness and the usefulness of the General Botha Academy is being undermined. In the annual report it is said (page 15) that “owing to a shortage of staff the second-semester course was cancelled”. That is the course for “B”-course cadets. On page 16 one reads that “owing to a shortage of staff the following courses were cancelled”. Then seven courses are listed. Under “Fishing grades” one reads that “owing to the shortage of staff all applicants were diverted to the Training Centre for Seamen in Bellville”—none qualified at the General Botha. Under “Correspondence courses” one reads that the figure for 1982 is zero as compared with 69 for 1981. Finally, one reads that the galley catering service was stopped because of staff problems. Under the seven heads, five were negatively affected by staff shortages. We want to know from the hon. the Minister how he intends making good those staff shortages, how successful he has already been with that and, in fact, what the Government’s plans are for the future of the General Botha Academy. Quite clearly, seamanship and marine administration should be considered strategic fields of employment. We want to know from the hon. the Minister what the Government is doing to see that the General Botha Academy functions with full effectiveness in the interests of seamanship and marine navigation.

The second point relates to the question of a possible small-boat harbour at Granger Bay. There is a need for a small-boat harbour on the Atlantic seaboard. This has been recognized for some time. It could have been at Rietvlei, but that is now to be an inland vlei. It could have been at Hout Bay, but that is being used for commercial purposes. Much attention is being given to the development of a small-boat harbour in Table Bay.

What about Port Elizabeth?

I am talking about the Atlantic seaboard. It could be the Duncan Dock; it could be the Victoria Basin; it could be the fishing harbour or the tank farm if it were filled with water; or it could be the under-utilized area of Granger Bay-itself. We want to know from the hon. the Minister what progress has been made either with the examination of Granger Bay as a suitable area for a small-boat harbour or, more important—this is a matter I raised under the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Transport—with a comprehensive investigation into the various alternatives. I have mentioned four of those. What is even more important is that one visualizes not just the development of a small-boat harbour on its own, but the integration of that harbour development with the area north-west of Cape Town, linking it up with the centre of Cape Town itself. If one looks north along Dock Road one sees there the power station area, the old fishing harbour, the Albert Basin and the Victoria Basin, and one sees quite clearly that this piece of real estate has gone derelict. Under-utilization by the SATS, changes under the Group Areas Act and the town planning in Cape Town has left a big area of Cape Town virtually derelict. It is perhaps one of the most important areas in the city for future development. The key to this development lies in what is going to happen to the Granger Bay, Victoria Basin and the tank-farm areas. I know that the hon. the Minister’s department has applied its mind to this for some time and we should like to know what the situation is as regards plans for Granger Bay. If there are plans for Granger Bay, to what extent does the hon. the Minister see those plans as part of an integrated development not just of Granger Bay, which is at the extremity of this area, but of Granger Bay as an integral part of the renewal, the redevelopment and the upgrading of the whole important North-Western area of Cape Town. I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to give us some information on this when he replies to this debate.

Mr. Chairman, once again I want to convey my sincere thanks to hon. members for their contributions and for the exceptional trouble they took to identify interesting matters and prepare themselves on them. I want to assure them, too that the contributions made here will be utilized by my department and myself in our planning. We shall also inform hon. members in due course about follow-up work carried out with reference to their valuable suggestions.

To begin with I should just like to deal with a few aspects which, shall I say, cropped up in the pre-sport phase of the debate, before I deal with the sport phase as such. With regard to the exceptionally authoritative contribution of the hon. member for Pretoria East concerning research matters, suffice it to say that I agree with his summary of the matter at the end of his speech. He said that the universities should expect their staff to do research; they must single out and support good researchers; and they must see to it that the results are published. What the hon. member said is a reflection of an attitude which in my opinion is correct, and that is that universities should not simply let matters ride, but should call their staff to account as regards not only effective training but also effective research. A research climate at a university must be promoted by judicious leadership and structured influencing from the top management downwards. In my opinion, the three points put forward by the hon. member sum the matter up concisely. In this regard I also wish to remark in passing that universities also have the responsibility, with a view to the promotion of research, to see to it that in the case of professional lecturers at the universities in particular, when they are permitted to conduct an outside practice, thus earning extra remuneration, such a practice should not be developed to such an extent as to detract from their academic responsibility. I am convinced that it is enriching for an academic to have contact with the practice of his profession as regards both his educative and his research work. However, in such a case it should not be simply any practical experience just for the sake of extra income. It must be practical experience that is relevant to his specific function as an academic, viz. either with regard to his lecturing work or something that concerns his research. I shall let this suffice, although there is a great deal more in the hon. member’s speech that one could dwell on. I thank him most sincerely for his contribution.

The hon. member for Maraisburg referred to the work of the Cultural Affairs Branch, and I want to comment on two aspects of it. I agree with the hon. member that we have achieved a breakthrough in the past year and a half and that with the assistance of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information and the Commission for Administration, we have expanded our cultural representation abroad considerably. Two years ago we had only one representative overseas, a cultural attaché in Bonn. At the moment we have cultural attachés in London, Bonn, Vienna and Buenos Aires. We are now also getting one in Brussels and we are negotiating to have cultural attachés in Rome and in the USA as well. This expansion of our foreign representation in the cultural sphere is of importance not only as regards promoting stimulating reciprocal cultural contacts between South Africa and abroad, but is also a significant aspect of South Africa’s overall promotion campaign and therefore an important component in our struggle to frustrate the efforts of our enemies to isolate us. Furthermore, I should like to express the profoundest appreciation for the contribution of these skilled persons to our work abroad.

As regards the reference by the hon. member for Maraisburg to Riesa, the Roodepoort International Eisteddfod activities, I want to state briefly that at the time when this matter was submitted to the Director-General and myself by the initiators of the project, I said to them: “Your plan is so idealistic and you want to tackle this thing on such a large scale that it is in fact foolish to approach the department for assistance. We cannot support such a dream project”. I was really impressed by the common sense, the practicality and the vigour with which these organizers of Riesa succeeded in recruiting large-scale support in the private sector, to such an extent that they were only dependent to a limited degree on the support of the State, in particular that of the department. I want to convey my cordial congratulations to them and assure them that my department will continue to support them in every possible way.

In conjunction with that, I should like to point out to hon. members another important internationally-oriented musical project, the international piano competition undertaken by the University of South Africa in co-operation with the department’s Cultural Affairs Branch, which will take place again shortly and which, it is hoped, will be extended this year so that apart from piano competition it will also promote international competition in the field of singing.

The hon. member for Sundays River raised a very important matter here when he pointed out that in 1988 it would be 500 years since Dias planted his padrao at Kwaaihoek. The hon. member argued that planning should begin now for festivities whereby to commemorate that occasion. He made an exceptionally fine contribution. I want to assure him that I have already discussed this matter with the Administrator of the Cape. I am also aware that various bodies have already initiated activities in this regard. The hon. member for Mossel Bay and the hon. member for Albany, too, have approached me in this regard. I am convinced that this is a matter of national interest, although the Cape is the province that would be primarily involved. I therefore hope that in co-operation with the Administrator of the Cape, we shall be able to set machinery in operation soon to organize this matter.

However, it struck me that in 1988 we shall probably have quite a strong dose of celebrations, because that will also be the tri-centennial celebration of the arrival of the French Huguenots at the Cape. There will be some irony in the process of finding a suitable combination and appropriate balance between the commemoration of the arrival of the Roman Catholic Portuguese seafarers on the one hand and the coming of the Protestant refugees from France on the other. Nevertheless, 1988 promises to be a very interesting and stimulating festive year. Therefore we shall certainly consider the suggestions and give attention to them.

It will also be 150 years since the Voortrekkers trekked away for the sake of their freedom.

That is correct, yes. However, we must not have all our celebrations in one year. I should also just like to refer briefly to the further contribution of the hon. member for Uitenhage in regard to small-boat harbours. It was an authoritative contribution for which I thank him. The CSIR, by way of its oceanographic division, has already carried out various investigations into the demands for and possibilities of small-boat harbours, for use by pleasureboats as well, along the coast of South Africa. As far as possible these harbours have to be planned in such a way as to meet the needs of both the commercial fishermen and pleasure-boats or small boats. This involves great expense, and the reason why progress has not really been made yet is that the millions of rands that would be necessary for an infrastructure for small-boat harbours would be such a tremendous sum of money that with the kind of budget that has been available to the Sport Promotion Branch of the Department of National Education in the past, this has not even approached the realms of the feasible. Therefore I intend to consult in due course with colleagues in related departments to determine how we can further this matter more effectively in the future.

†This also links up with the question put to me by the hon. member for Sea Point about the Granger Bay development. The Granger Bay development plan was first referred to the city council of Cape Town, and the Cape Town city engineer provided an evaluation report on that development. There were several reactions from the public as well as the private sectors and we are now awaiting the comments of, amongst others, the provincial authorities, which are involved owing to the proximity to that area of the Somerset Hospital, and also the Department of Transport Services, in respect of the land involved for a possible Granger Bay development scheme.

I can assure the hon. member that I am personally very keen that this matter should be brought to finality, and that a decision should be taken in this regard. On the other hand the costs involved are considerable. In 1980 it was assessed at about R20 million, and in terms of the 1982-’83 estimates the amount increased to about R33 million. It is clear therefore that it is a considerable project.

I can, however, give the hon. member the assurance that alternate sites besides the Granger Bay scheme have in fact been considered by the project committee and also by the oceanographic experts. As far as a linkup with the broader development of what the hon. member called a derelict area of Cape Town is concerned, I am afraid this matter has not figured prominently. There is an idea—of which the hon. member may perhaps be aware—that the cost of the Granger Bay small-craft harbour as such could be compensated for by expanding the scheme to include a sort of marina-development with residential, recreational and small-shop facilities. This could then compensate, as it were, for the development costs of the total project. But this is an aspect that elicited considerable opposition from the Somerset Hospital Board and the local residents there.

I just briefly want to refer to the General Botha Academy. The staff shortage problem there was caused, in particular, by inadequate salaries, and in the course of last year I decided, with the approval of the Commission for Administration, that most of the teaching posts at that Academy could be rated on the same level as technikon posts because those lectures are, in fact, responsible for post-Std. 10 training courses. We hope that this has enabled the control board of the academy to expand and improve its efforts to recruit staff, and I therefore hope that the cancelling of courses will be something of the past as the vacancies become filled by suitable applicants.

*I now come to the true sporting matters, and to begin with I must join the hon. member for Virginia in considering what I regard as the really shocking opportunistic remarks by the hon. member for Kuruman. It is a long time since I have encountered such a spectacle. I think the only recent display that came anywhere near being equally pathetic was that of the hon. member for Rissik the other day when he took part in the debate on the motion concerning the appointment of a Select Committee to investigate matters relating to the hon. the Minister of Manpower. [Interjections.] I want to dwell briefly on the speech of the hon. member for Kuruman. He says that the National Party—with a sport policy that has not departed one iota from what it was 18 months ago—is on the road to a policy of sport abdication and that it is specifically the sport policy of the NP that is the reason for sitting there now.

One of the reasons.

And that is the former chairman of the sport group of the caucus of the NP! [Interjections.] Therefore, he sat there without turning a hair while a policy was being implemented which all of a sudden he finds so terrible that it has become the reason why he left the party. [Interjections.] What is the reason? Why did he sit there quietly? Was he too afraid to speak at the time? Was he too confused or too stupid to see what was going on? [Interjections.] Or was he simply not frank enough to say what he thought? Did he, therefore, conceal his true feelings? [Interjections.] That, then, is the bull of the Cape. The CP bull of the Cape … [Interjections.] … such a scabby old beast that in fact one has to put a label on him stating: This is a bull! I really do not think one need take any further notice of the kind of debating or mentality which characterize that hon. member’s contribution. [Interjections.]

†The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South referred to the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act… [Interjections] …

Order!

… and also to restrictive regulations at municipal level affecting the use of sports amenities. I should like to mention that the technical committee investigating the Group Areas Act is also charged with a comprehensive investigation into the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, not only as far as sport is concerned, but indeed on a much wider basis, as was in fact recommended by the HSRC expert committee on legislation affecting sport. In so far as there are restrictive regulations or policies at municipal level, I should like to give this Committee the assurance that when cases of undue restriction of available facilities by municipalities have cropped up, we have found that we could, without exception, get the co-operation of the relevant municipalities by negotiation.

Like the Pretoria city council.

Here I am talking about sport facilities, yes. We have had no problems whatsoever with reasonable requests about the availability of facilities.

The question of a national sports council which the hon. member has asked for, is one of the points on which there is some difference of opinion—I am putting it mildly now—among sporting bodies. We are still awaiting their final comments. Again some hon. members of the official Opposition have demanded that the Government should have reacted immediately upon receipt of this report, but the sports bodies themselves asked for an opportunity to comment on the report until the end of last year. Then they asked for a further postponement of the closing date until the end of March, and now some of them have asked for a few more months before we decide. Therefore we are giving them an opportunity to submit their comments before we take a final decision. I should like to express the opinion, though, that the problem of devising the composition of such a national sports council which would be really effective and representative of sportsmen’s opinion and which would be accepted as authoritative, is not a very easy one.

Are there not many examples of this overseas?

Yes, there are examples. They are discussed in the HSRC report. However, this is one of the points in the report which I do not find very convincingly argued because the argument in the report is against a council representing the sport bodies since this would lead to a conflict of competing interests. On the other hand, though, the possibility that the council be composed by Government appointment, as is the case in Great Britain, is rejected for fear of creating the impression of the politicization of sport. This is therefore a difficult dilemma which one has to solve somehow.

You must just keep Jannie le Roux away from the thing.

There are other ugly fellows, too, who should be kept away from it as well.

The hon. member and the hon. member for Kuruman also referred to school sport. I think that the hon. member for Virginia dealt effectively with the question of school sport.

He said that the Minister was going to reply on that.

I want to emphasize afresh that in the policy of the Government there is a clear distinction between normal school sport which forms part of the educational programme of a school and which as a result, just like education, must be pursued separately, except in cases for which special permission is required, and this is readily granted on application by the administrators, and sport which does not form part of the normal school programme. As far as the latter is concerned, even if it is practised by school children and even if teachers take the lead—for example, interprovincial sport or sport at a national level such as the Craven Week, the Nuffield Week, national hockey tournaments, and so on—it is the standpoint of the Government that because it has nothing to do with the normal school sport setup, the sport control bodies concerned must deal with the matter themselves. The pupil and the parent must be free to decide whether the pupil is to take part or not. It is my conviction and that of the Government that there is nothing wrong with that. Indeed it is healthy if inter-ethnic sport takes place at that level and teams from various provinces are chosen on merit. If people do not want to take part in that they are free to refrain from doing so. They are even free to establish alternative competitions or leagues at the national or inter-provincial level. The Government has stated its standpoint on this matter so often now that one is in fact amazed that it is necessary to repeat it once again.

†The hon. member for Sandton referred to the case of the Prison Services Club in Cape Town. As I see this matter, it is a clear case of that club functioning within its own autonomy according to its constitution. Since this is a services club—it is not an open public club but a club which is part of one of the services—it is obviously subject to the disciplinary and hierarchical control of the higher authorities of that service. This is part of the constitutional set-up of the club and is the way in which that club exercises its autonomy. It is therefore not a matter for the Government to concern itself with such a decision.

The hon. member also referred to the “huge sum” spent on cruising. I would like to explain here that this is an exceptional, one-time and unique expenditure in connection with the Cape to Uruguay yachting race. This was not decided upon in terms of the number of participants, but in terms of the international importance and the overall publicity that this matter would give to South African involvement in this kind of sport.

I did not criticize it.

No, but the hon. member mentioned it. He said that this was a low priority.

I relate it to what the Government…

Very well. But this is the reason why, within the context of assistance for other sport bodies, this is a relatively large sum for a sport which involves a relatively small number of people.

A similar case in point is the something more than 200 000 that was spent last year in order to enable more than 400 participants to take part in the gymnastrada in Zurich, Switzerland, which was again an event of outstanding success and very good international publicity for South Africa and for its sportsmen and sportswomen.

*Mr. Chairman, the hon. members for Sandton and Cape Town Gardens emphasized that expenditure on facilities for sport for non-Whites is inadequate in the extreme. I concede that without hesitation; that is so. It is a backlog that must be rectified and a gap that must be narrowed. The HSRC Report on sport puts this very clearly, too, and refers to the figures in this regard. The hon. member for Sandton also said that the Department of National Education had to perform the function of, if I understood him correctly, liaising between the departments concerned in order to promote the best coordination and the right priorities in this regard. I agree with him that this is an important matter which we must consider and which we are, indeed, already considering.

I just want to refer to two spheres. The first is that we—myself and my hon. colleagues—who are responsible for the education of other population groups, are aware that there is a backlog as regards the provision of sport facilities at school, a very big backlog. This matter has also been investigated by the inter-departmental committee which tries to establish norms towards which the Government can move in terms of common norms for the provision of facilities for all population groups.

Is that the Hoek Report?

No. This is a matter that we are tackling now by way of a special committee composed of all interested parties. At the time the Hoek Report probably considered the matter as well.

May hon. members on this side of the House see a copy of that report?

The report has not yet been made available. It is an internal departmental report.

May we see it then?

We shall see in future, when it is time for decisions. As far as this matter is concerned, there is no doubt that there is a considerable need at least to make a start with significant expansion of facilities at Coloured and Black schools. There is a backlog in regard to Indian schools as well. However, the problem is that there is also a backlog in regard to housing, school facilities and so on. It therefore becomes a question of priorities. The three Ministers jointly agreed that however urgent the other priorities are, we insist that something at least must be done to reduce the backlog in respect of sport facilities at schools. Urgent attention is now being given to this matter.

A second matter which has cropped up is the unacceptable duplication of sports facilities between institutions situated close to one another. We shall, as has in fact been recommended by the HSRC Report, have to give more attention in future to joint or communal use of facilities. By communal I mean between the community, viz. the local authority, and the various schools, and perhaps, too, among neighbouring schools. In this regard, too, certain schemes are being worked on, at the suggestion of the HSRC Report. The Provincial Administration of the Orange Free State has already achieved a great deal of success in this regard. They have established such communal schools in various towns by way of co-operation between the local authority and the provincial education department.

†However, Mr. Chairman, I should like to put the matter into somewhat more complete perspective. The R250 000 for facilities made available this year on the Vote of my department—which I agree is a very, very small amount—should be seen in the light of the fact that the Administration Boards and the Department of Co-operation and Development through the fund that is popularly known as the Punt Janson Fund also provide considerable sums for the provision of sports facilities for Black people. For instance, recently I was at Senekal in the Free State where the sports complex which was used formerly by the White community was transferred to the Black community and where, on a co-operative basis, the high school sports complex was expanded so as to serve also the whole of the White community. This was a very sensible and relatively inexpensive arrangement. I also want to refer to the George Gough Stadium on the Rand and the Attridgeville Stadium and the new Orlando Stadium, all of which have been made possible in, I think, the past two years, by special funding from the Administration Boards and the Punt Janson Fund. Then, there is also in the Department of Community Development the Community Facilities Fund which in the development of new residential areas is intended to provide for community facilities including sporting facilities. From these two sources we are trying to bring about more co-ordinated planning for the provision of sporting facilities for the non-White communities. However, I admit quite frankly that there is a tremendous task which calls for urgent attention and an amelioration of the situation so that comparable opportunities can be provided for sportsmen from all population groups.

I should like now to refer to a point raised by the hon. member for Durban North.

May I inquire whether the hon. the Minister will say something about Mr. Howa’s passport?

No, I do not want to say anything about that.

Are you not going to say anything about it?

No. I have taken cognizance of what the hon. member said.

So you take no interest in the matter?

No, I am very interested in the matter. At this stage I am convinced that it was the correct decision.

So you helped to ban Mr. Howa? [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to refer to a question that was asked by the hon. member for Durban North. He asked what structure the Minister envisaged to determine the needs and the wishes in respect of expenditure on sporting facilities for the various communities. This is in fact a very pertinent question. The way in which the department sets about it when it decides on financial grants to the various sporting bodies is to consult with a joint committee of the S.A. Olympic Association and the S.A. sports Federation on an umbrella basis and then also to consult the national control bodies of the various sporting codes. However, we have sometimes found that when facilities for the community had been provided, it appeared that what was provided was not what they really required. For example, tennis courts were provided where they really wanted a soccer field. This happened because there was no real community involvement. My department is very much aware of this and we believe that the best basis for negotiation is on local government level which is the representative body that can assess the needs and wishes of the community. However, this is a pertinent point which is taken and which will be given attention in future, even more than was the case in the past. I thank the hon. member for Durban North for his remarks.

*The hon. member for Koedoespoort referred to professional sport. The policy of the department is not to provide finance for professional sport, but to limit its financing to amateur sport. However, the prospect I held out in a statement I in fact issued at the beginning of this year to the effect that if the South African Cricket Union were to encounter problems with the West Indian tour, the Government would consider sympathetically requests from them, was by way of exception, because the Government profoundly appreciated the exceptional initiative displayed by the cricket chiefs in achieving this breakthrough. Therefore, even though this was in respect of sport which to a very large extent is professional sport, it achieved a great deal for other types of sport as well and struck an important blow not only in the sporting field but also in general, against the concentrated effort to isolate South Africa internationally. However, the basic policy of the Government is still to make funds which come from the taxpayer, available for amateur sport.

The hon. member also referred to the question of organized sport. I want to say once again that it is wrong to imply—I think I am quoting the words of the hon. member correctly—“that the State promotes Sunday sport”. It is not true that the State promotes Sunday sport. The fact that organized sport takes place on Sunday is not something that happens with the approval or agreement of the Government.

The standpoint of the Government is that observing the Sabbath is primarily a question of personal attitude and personal conviction, and that that personal attitude and conviction must be instilled by the churches. At the same time, as the hon. member said, the State also has the responsibility of ensuring that there is no activity on Sundays that has a disturbing effect on the practice of religion and observing of the Sabbath as the Day of Our Lord. The State does not support any Sunday sporting activities, either financially or administratively. The State has also stated very clearly that it withdraws all services such as safety, traffic control and transport services and so on from competitions arranged for Sundays on an organized basis.

It is true that there is legislation that prohibits commercially organized sports meetings on Sunday, except in the province of Natal. However, the problem is that the provisions of that legislation are such that sports organizers can get around them by holding the meetings on property which by law is private property, or by not charging any admission fee on Sundays, instead granting admission on the basis of a season ticket sold in the course of the week, for example. This is unsatisfactory, and one would like to rectify this legislation.

However, I must remind hon. members that from the early sixties, and throughout the time of Dr. Verwoerd until the early premiership of Mr. Vorster, there were parliamentary committees investigating how the Sunday legislation could be improved. Eventually no satisfactory formulation was found. Two of the problems which those committees came up against were, on the one hand, that there are different sincerely Christian interpretations of how the Sabbath is to be observed. There are also practising, serious Christians whose interpretation of the observance of the Sabbath is different to that of the hon. member and I, as Reformed Christians. There are even Christian sportsmen who have no objection to practising sport on Sunday, and go to church before or after doing so.

Then, too, there is the fact of the longstanding pursuit of large-scale sporting activities, particularly in the cities, on Sundays, and the fact that specifically in the Black and Brown residential areas, Sunday is the most important sports day for these people. Therefore, if control were to be intensified so that they were deprived of Sunday as a sports day, this could lead to very strong opposition even from believing sportsmen and women in those communities.

Therefore it is by no means easy to rectify this matter. What the Government is therefore trying to do is, firstly, to discourage it by withdrawing its support to organizations that practice sports on Sundays and, secondly, by persuasion as well. I want to point out to hon. members that I succeeded, by way of discussions and persuasion, in obtaining the co-operation of the South African Cricket Union in that they agreed not to hold any competition on a Sunday in the course of either the Sri Lanka or the West Indian tour, except in Natal, where there was no statutory limitation. Therefore, by doing so they condeded that in the case of an important matter such as an international cricket tour, the sensitivity and sincere convictions of a large section of the population, that would like to associate themselves with such an international competition, had to be respected by avoiding the holding of competitions of this scope on a Sunday. This also shows what can be achieved by way of negotiation and co-operation.

I also wish to remind hon. members that last year in April, when he dealt with this matter during the discussion of his Vote, the hon. the Prime Minister pointed out that for the State, too, it was important that the church should not be hindered as regards the practise of religion on Sundays, that the church should not be disturbed and that accordingly, any sporting activities that caused a disturbance—apart from the existing Sunday legislation—would be restricted by the Government on those grounds. Therefore this is a matter about which the Government, like the hon. member for Koedoespoort, feels strongly, but it is also a case in which the practical means of action by the State are not so easy or obvious, as was also found by this side of the House in the ’sixties under other Prime Ministers.

In conclusion, I want to thank the hon. member for Virginia for his suggestion as regards a sport school in South Africa, a suggestion which I shall consider. I take it that he was not referring in this regard to the school level as such, but rather to a school in the sense of a training institution that for the most part concentrated on extramural activities—the kind of institution one encounters abroad. I see that the hon. member is nodding his head. I should also like to confirm that it is the intention of the Department of National Education and the Government to continue, as far as possible, with the cycle of quadrennia South African games because this affords an important opportunity for sportsmen from all fields of sport in South Africa to compete intensively with one another at a high level within this country—particularly in view of our problems with regard to international competition.

I think I have now replied to the questions concerning sporting matters asked by all hon. members. In conclusion, I should just like to say a few words about an organization which we have often discussed before in this House. I refer to Sacos, the S.A. Council on Sport, which at this stage is once again trying to establish itself overseas by claiming to be the so-called representative of South African sportsmen and which—like Swapo in South West Africa—seeks to present itself as the “sole authentic representative” of the sportsmen of South Africa. How representative is this Sacos?

†How representative is Sacos really? Sacos can only claim to represent 20 different codes, whilst the recognized national sports umbrella bodies, the S.A. Olympic Council and the Sports Federation, represent more than 90 different codes. And the 20 codes that Sacos represents, include only a few clubs. In fact, in each case they represent a mere splinter organization. There are only two Sacos members—table-tennis and darts—which have real international affiliations, whilst the recognized South African governing bodies in sport include no fewer than 53 members which still retain their international affiliations. A further 13 members are formally affiliated, but have had their participation restricted. Sacos has often been challenged by the S.A. Olympic Council to submit evidence of its numerical strength to objective arbitration under the supervision of the International Olympic Council, but Sacos repeatedly rejected it. It plays the numbers game in a wild and extremely irresponsible manner, but judging from its own statistics, submitted to its biennial conference in 1981, in the five main codes which it organizes it represented just less than 14% of the total South African sports participation in those codes. In soccer, for instance, Sacos has 65 000 participants, as aginst the 430 000 of the other bodies. That represents only 13%. In women’s hockey the figure is only 14,6%, in cycling only 7,4%, in rugby only 15% and in tennis only 19%. This averred representativeness also falls flat if one carefully analyses the membership of Sacos and then finds that it consists predominantly of Indians from Natal and Coloureds from the Cape with virtually no meaningful participation by Blacks and none whatsoever by Whites. More than once the South African Olympic Council has publicly suggested to Sacos that a “one man, one vote” election could be held in every code of sport under international supervision in order to reconstitute a new umbrella body, but again this has been rejected out of hand. It has been said—and I refer here to a pamphlet drawn up by the South African Olympic and National Games Association—that the whole stand taken by Sacos as being representative of the vast majority of Black and non-racial sportsmen in South Africa is “nothing but premeditated fraud and deliberate deceit eagerly swallowed by a gullible outside world”.

I should also like to refer briefly to the fact that Sacos’s claim of being non-racial is also an empty claim. Its former president, Mr. Hassan Howa, was reported in 1979 to have stated that he was against a “one man, one vote” system because he feared being swamped by the African Blacks. Also in a recent television programme he reiterated that he was not in favour of Black majority rule. This is apparently the reason why until very recently no single African Black or White person served on the central controlling body of Sacos. Very conveniently they list all African Black sports organizations as racist in order to keep them out of their own organization. This is the organization that claims to be representative of sportsmen in South Africa whilst in fact it represents only a clique of politicians who want to use sport as an instrument to promote their political ends and by no means and in no sense whatsoever to do anything for the promotion of the interests of their sportsmen.

Once again I wish to thank all hon. members for their participation.

Vote agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.