I move—

This motion is in connection with the legislation before us, the Indians Education Bill, and it further relates to the definition of “Indian”. The definition of “Indian” in this Bill reads as follows: “ ‘Indian’ means a person classified in terms of the Population Registration Act, 1950 (Act No. 30 of 1950) as a member of the Indian group”. After that legislation followed, in terms of Section 5 of that Act, announcements in the Government Gazette in regard to the definition of groups of, as that Act stated, Coloured persons, to wit in Government Gazette No. 6191 of 1959, and a republication of it in Government Gazette No. 67) of 1963, and also in the last-mentioned year a republication of Gazette No. 27 of 1961 in connection with the definition of Zanzibar Arabs and other Asiatic groups. In terms of these publications in the Government Gazettes the Indian group is described as follows. It is paragraph 5 of that announcement in the Government Gazette—

It therefore appears to me that the term “Indian” in this Indians Education Bill may be interpreted as referring only to those Indians or Asiatics coming from or who have as their national homes India and/or Pakistan. In South Africa there are, however, related groups of persons who do not fit in with the definition of “Indian” or “Indian group” which I have just read, as coming from India or from Pakistan. In that regard I may just refer to groups of persons who are in this country, coming for example from Ceylon, Burma, Afghanistan, Nepal, Thailand, Iran and Iraq. The State also realized this difficulty. It realized that there are or may be other related groups of persons in South Africa, and it in fact provided for them in the following paragraph, paragraph 6 of the aforementioned Government Gazette of 1959 and again later in 1963, under the heading “Group of Other Asiatics”. Under this heading “Group of Other Asiatics” the position becomes clearer to us in the definition which reads as follows—

In other words, it provides for the other Asiatics who do not come from India, Pakistan or China, for which special provision is made. The same extension of the definition was also made, or was republished in 1963, in the paragraph affecting the Zanzibari Arabs, which was published in 1961. It is, with respect, quite clear in my opinion that the word “Indian” as used in this Indians Education Bill is too limited. It seems to me that the schools under the new set-up may be restricted to only those originating from Pakistan or India, or who had their homes in Pakistan or India. In other words, no provision is being made for the children of the group or groups of “other Asiatics”, to which I have already referred, except of course the Chinese for whom separate provision was made in the aforementioned Government Gazette. Therefore, in order to provide for all Indians, from wherever they might have come, and for all other Asiatics who do not only come from India or Pakistan, or who do not regard only India or Pakistan as their homes, I feel that we should extend the definition of “Indian” or of “Indian group”, as in fact was also indicated in the definition of the “group of other Asiatics” which I have already read, and as asked for by me in this instruction, and also in my proposed amendment to Clause 1—

If we do that I feel it will be wide enough to include in this legislation all those groups which are known or were known to us as Indians. Therefore I move.

The position is as stated by the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp), namely, that a distinction is made in the Population Registration Act between Indians and Indian groups and other Asiatics etc. I do not want to read the provision because he has already done so. He has quoted it quite correctly. The position is, however, that there are two reasons why I cannot accept this amendment.

The first is that this Bill deals with the education of the Indian group and the intention is ultimately, in conformity with Government policy, to place the control over the education of this group in the hands of the Indian Council which will be established in due course. If provision were made in this Bill that other groups which are really not Indians could be brought in under Indian education, you would ultimately have another minority group under the control of the Indian Council which I do not think would be fair. I do not think the Indian Council should eventually have power over groups of people who are not really Indians. That was also the reason why, at the time the Department of Indian Affairs was established, it was stated specifically that the Department of Indian Affairs would concern itself with the interests of the Indian communities in South Africa.

If the Minister’s contention is right who will look after the interests of those Indian groups which are not defined as Indians or Pakistanis?

That was the second reason I wanted to deal with. My first argument is that it is not right to place groups which are not Indian under the control of the Indian Council. That would not be fair, particularly because these people— and I refer specially to those people from Zanzibar to whom the hon. member for Hillbrow has also referred—constitute a small group which are really Arabs or East African negroes or mixed descendents of those races. As far as their descent is concerned they have absolutely nothing in common with the Indians. Their customs and habits, their language, ways of life and culture differ widely from those of the Indians. It is true that for group areas and residential purposes they have been placed in Indian group areas. The intention is, however, eventually to place them as far as possible in a separate section of the Indian group area.

Also the other groups I have mentioned?

As the hon. member knows there are hardly any members of the other groups in this country. There are very, very few of them. Those who are here have been completely absorbed by the South African Indian community and we have no problem as far as they are concerned. In essence they form part of the Indian community to-day. That is why all legislation dealing with Indians which has so far been discussed in this House also applies to those small groups, those minority groups.

Where does that appear in the law?

It need not appear here. There is no other law dealing with Indians but like the Indian community they are subject to all the other laws affecting the Indians. It is not necessary to refer to them specifically in those laws. The only group which really stands apart is the group to which he has referred, namely those from Zanzibar. The position at the moment is that the children of Zanzibaris attend the Indian schools in Natal and the intention is not to prevent them from attending those schools until such time, perhaps, as other arrangements can be made. It is not necessary, however, to put it like that in the Bill. That can be dealt with administratively. I can give an example to illustrate why I say that. A few years ago a law was passed in connection with Coloured education. Although that Act clearly refers to Coloureds and although the definition of “Coloureds” in that Act is the same as that contained in the Population Registration Act, there is a large number of Indian children in those Coloured schools which fall under the Department of Coloured Affairs in the Cape Province and in the Transvaal. It does happen, therefore, because it is possible to make administrative arrangements for such minority groups to send their children to existing schools for other races; just as in the case of the Chinese no provision is specially made anywhere in our legislation regarding the admission of Chinese children to schools but they are administratively allowed to attend the schools which best suit them in the areas in which they live. [ Interjections.] In some cases they are White schools; it may be other schools elsewhere as far as the Chinese are concerned. Similarly administrative arrangements will be made for these minority groups to be taken up but—and this is my most important objection—if you mention them by name, leaving the door open for them to fall under this Act, if that forms part of the Act, you will eventually place them and their interests under the Indian Council and it is contrary to the policy of the Government to mix groups which are different culturally, educationally and as far as their customs and languages are concerned, with the Indians. Effective administrative arrangements can be made to provide for these cases.

I must say that the Minister’s approach to this startles me, because what the Minister is saying in effect is that he is not concerned with all the minority groups; he is only concerned with one specific group which the Indian Council represents, with whom he has consulted. But when the Minister talks about the Zanzibaris and says they will attend Indian schools until other arrangements can be made, the Minister is speaking with an authority which he himself is denying himself by not accepting the motion of the hon. member for Hillbrow; because in this Bill we amend the S.A. Constitution Act, which provides that the provinces shall deal with education of children, and we specifically take that power away from the provinces in this Bill in respect of Indians only, and no other children. In fact the Constitution has been amended to deal with the Bantu and the Coloureds as defined in those Acts so as to deprive the provinces of the power to provide their education, and now it is being amended to deal with the Indians. What happens to the balance? In law the position remains that the provinces not only have the right to deal with them but are obliged to do so. Someone has to provide schooling for them, and who has to provide it but the provinces? When this Bill becomes law the province of Natal and the other provinces will not be able to deal with the matter in respect of Indians as defined in the Act.

May I put a question? Is it not true that after the passing of the Coloured Education Act the obligation remained on the Provincial Administrations of the Cape and the Transvaal to provide education for Indian children, and nevertheless that education, where they were in schools together with the Coloureds, passed over to the Department of Coloured Affairs; and if that was possible, why is something similar not possible in Natal, or does Natal want to retain Indian education?

Surely there are parts of South Africa where Indians are regarded as being part of the Coloured group, but that is not the position in Natal, as the Minister knows. I am putting to the Minister a proposition of constitutional law. It is provided in our Constitution that the provinces, and they alone shall have the power to deal with education. We have gone to the trouble in this Bill to remove from the provinces the power to do so. So the Minister can talk as much as he likes and say what he will allow in his schools, in his Indian schools, but the fact is that the law as it stands to-day provides that the Province of Natal shall educate all children in terms of the Constitution. It is their duty to do so. Now that power is being removed in respect of Indians. Where are these other people to be educated? Listening to the Minister’s second-reading speech, I thought the object of this Bill was to take away from the provinces the power to deal with the education of non-Whites and vest it in the hands of the Central Government. This was the last group, so we are given to understand, remaining over. White education remains. Bantu education was taken away and given to a Bantu Education Department, and Coloured education was given to a Coloured Affairs Department. Now in the last remaining bite the Government has at this cherry it takes away only part of the remaining group and leaves a nucleus, a residue, of non-Whites. If it is the policy of the Government that the provinces should not deal with non-White education, can the Minister indicate to us whether another Department is now to be created to provide for the education of non-Whites who are not Indians but who are Asiatics, or anything else they may discover in terms of these classifications, such as the Zanzibari Arabs? The Zanzibari Arabs, as I understand it, were originally classified as Coloured. Now they are classified as Indians.

No, they are not.

I am sorry. They are classified as the other Asiatic group, but originally they were classified as Coloureds. This is just one example, and there are others. Perhaps the Minister knows how the provinces will now cope with it, but this Bill certainly does not tell us that. The non-acceptance of the hon. member for Hillbrow’s motion means that in Natal the problems of Natal will now have to produce schools for the Zanzibaris and for the Burmese and the Ceylonese and for the persons descended from the inhabitants of those countries mentioned by the hon. member.

May I ask a question? Why did you not advance the same argument in regard to the Cape Province and say that it must provide separate education for the Malays, for example?

If the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) would take the trouble to read the Coloured Persons Education Act, he would find that a Coloured person was defined as a person classified under the Population Registration Act, 1950, as a member of the Cape Coloured, Malay, Griqua, or other group. [Laughter.]

Then how is it possible that there are Indian children in the Coloured schools?

Surely the Minister knows that Indians are regarded as Coloureds for many purposes in the Cape.

Then how is it possible that in the Transvaal schools there are Indians in the Coloured schools?

You are breaking the law.

Indians are even regarded as Coloureds for the purpose of the franchise in the Cape, I understand. But whatever the Minister has done, what we are concerned with is what is proposed to be done in this Bill. This House has accepted the principle of the Bill, that the education of Indians should be in the hands of the Government. Perhaps the Minister will now indicate who will provide the education for the other Asians? According to the law, the provinces are obliged to provide it, and to provide for Zanzibaris and the other groups will constitute an extraordinary anomaly. Or is it the policy of the Government to provide education for the Coloureds, the Bantu and the Indians but not for any other non-Whites who do not fit into this strange classification made by the Government?

It appears that the Minister believes that because the Zanzibari, the Mauritians and the other small groups are related to the Indian group, he is therefore entitled to deal with them administratively, and, by inference, on a temporary basis, until such time as he can make other arrangements in terms of this Bill.

I never said anything of the sort.

If the hon. the Minister could get his Hansard right now, he would not deny that what I have said is correct.

I deny categorically that I said that the Zanzibaris are related to the Indians.

Until this matter can be clarified by way of the record, I must stand by what I have said, and for that reason I have to deal with it on that basis. I want to ask the hon. the Minister, therefore, whether this is an appropriate time to talk of dealing with any group of persons administratively, when, as the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) has indicated, the House has already accepted in principle the legislation to deal with a specified group. Sir, I am sure you will agree that it is well and truly specified in terms, for example, of the title of the Bill, which says that it provides for the control of education for “Indians”. It says nothing about related groups. There is no reference to minor groups.

Order! The hon. member must confine his remarks to the motion.

I will do so, but with respect, I want to emphasize that as far as the Bill is concerned there has never been any hint that it was designed to deal with any group other than the group of people whom we know as Indians, and to whom reference is made in the Bill as being Indians, and who by classification are Indians. It is rather peculiar that at this stage the Minister should resist the proposal of this side of the House, which I would have thought was designed to help him—and not to hamper him. I cannot see how it will hamper him to have clarity in this Bill. Yet he raises the argument that there are related groups which can be dealt with administratively until there is need to deal with them in another way. There is reference here to Zanzibari or Kiwas. We are introducing something here for the Minister’s benefit —and for the benefit of the House, to clarify the Bill. [Interjections.]

Order!

The point surely is that where we have a contingent motion, as is the case here, and in terms of the representations made by the hon. member for Hillbrow and the argument of the hon. member for Durban (North), which I submit is perfectly clear, the first thing the Minister should do is to say that not only does he agree that there is a need for clarification, but that he accepts this method of clarifying the position. I hope he will give us a better reason than he did in the first place, which is that the other groups are “related” groups.

The hon. the Minister said he was unwilling to accept either part of this Notice of Motion, that which relates to the Zanzibari Arabs, or that which relates to others coming from other countries in Asia other than China, India and Pakistan. He says the Zanzibari Arabs have quite different customs, etc., from the Indians. In fact, of course, the Pakistanis and the Indians are different people, and that being so I suggest that the Minister should reconsider it in that light. I suggest that there is probably less difference between the Ceylonese than between those two, and I suggest that the difference is no greater between those two and the Zanzibari Arabs. I think the hon. member is labouring under the happy delusion that the Pakistani and the Indians are identical, but I do not think there is any reason for thinking they are, and indeed, I think that the differences are perhaps greater than between other races of Asian origin.

If ever there was confusion among the Government ranks, it must be on this Bill, and the whole policy of the Government …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the motion. He cannot carry on a general debate.

I am talking on the definition of “Indians”, and the Indian group is here defined. I am talking to the argument put forward by the Minister, which was that of groups similar to the Indians are not included in this definition, they can be dealt with administratively. He went on to deal with Coloured education and Bantu education, and then he spoke about the Chinese. He said that the Chinese are dealt with administratively; they are allowed to go to White schools, in some places. What happens to them in other places?

I am not responsible for them.

But the Minister is justifying the terms of this Bill. We did not raise the question of the Chinese; he did, in justification of this measure. He says that the Chinese in some places go to White schools, and then he suddenly realized he had made a mistake and then he did not know how to finish his sentence. Where do they go in other instances? And what is to happen to these other groups that have been mentioned here? In justifying this measure the Minister says that they are allowed to live in Indian group areas. Some of these minor groups live in the Indian group areas. Is it the Minister’s suggestion that there will be further division amongst these different groups? Will he come with a different Bill just now to separate them? And who will educate them? If he does not accept our amendment we want to know who will be responsible for their education. Will he have an argument now with the Provincial Council of Natal as to whether they are responsible for their education? Surely these different people are entitled to know where they stand. The Chinese must be wondering now what their position is.

They can continue to go to Indian schools and we will arrange it administratively.

If this Bill is passed, it becomes the law, and people are entitled to certain rights under the law, and they are forbidden certain rights under the law. What will the ordinary person know who does not fall under these definitions? Will he have to go to court to find out what his position is? The Minister says that although the law says this he will allow them to be in certain schools. Who is the Minister to allow them? These people want to know what their position is. They do not want to rely on the benevolence of a Minister. In certain places the Minister allows them to go to Coloured schools, and in other places he may say no, and to whom can these people appeal? To nobody. The Minister cannot come along with a Bill of this nature affecting such important rights of people.

I want to appeal to the Minister to review the position. He has made a mistake and if he is going to cover the wide field he referred to in his second-reading speech, I suggest that he accept the motion of the hon. member for Hillbrow. That will take him out of his difficulty, which is a legal difficulty. There has been reference to the Zanzibaris. They were originally the descendants of released slaves. There is also another group. The Minister referred a moment ago to other small groups, as if the fact that they were small groups made them of no consequence. I want to tell the Minister that in this proclamation by the State President, No. 671 of 13 December 1963, specific provision was made for “other Asiatic groups”. The Minister will see that definition No. 6 says: “In the other Asiatic groups shall be included any person who in fact is or is generally accepted as a member of a race or tribe whose national home is in any country or area in Asia other than India, China or Pakistan”. I want to warn the Minister that while we are talking about Zanzibari Indians, there is in Natal a considerable group of descendants of Pathans from Afghanistan who have been here since 1902, and those people and their descendants are not Indians for purposes of this Bill and its definition. They fall into the other Asiatic group. It is an historical fact. Because they do not give trouble, the Minister and his Department may not even know anything about them But I want to warn him that they are a considerable group and that to this day they call themselves “Pathans”. The Minister should accept this amendment we are offering. It will help him out of his difficulty.

Motion put and the House divided:

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Motion accordingly negatived.

House in Committee:

On Clause 1,

I move—

The hon. the Minister in his reply to the second-reading debate gave the House a very emphatic assurance that standards would be maintained as far as education for the Indian population was concerned. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of three things that he said in reply to that debate and which make this amendment very necessary indeed. He said—

Then the hon. the Minister went on to say this—

Then with regard to this question of teachers, which is relevant to this whole question of training colleges and schools, the hon. the Minister went on to say that he was very concerned over the number of unqualified teachers in Natal amongst the Indian population at the present time and that there was a real need to improve the position there. The Minister said—

Sir, this is one of the main reasons why we move this amendment here to-day, and I would like to ask the hon. the Minister if he can tell us why this clause in this Bill is differently worded from its equivalent in the Coloured Education Act which was discussed in this House in 1963; because as the hon. the Minister probably knows, in that Act a training college is defined as meaning an institution for the education and training of student teachers who are Coloured persons and have passed the examinations for the tenth standard or an equivalent examination, and a training school is defined as meaning an institution for the education and training of student teachers who are Coloured persons and have passed the examinations for the eighth standard or an equivalent examination. In those two definitions in the Coloured Education Act, a training college refers only to students with the Std. X certificate or its equivalent, and the training school refers specifically to student teachers with a Std. VIII certificate. In the present Bill there is no mention of the training school at all; it has been left out of the definition clause and perhaps the hon. the Minister can tell us why. There is only this definition of “training college” and there is no specific definition as to the academic qualifications required of students who are to enroll at any such training college.

The hon. the Minister has made great play this afternoon of the fact that there are so many Indians already incorporated in Coloured schools throughout the country, so this is relevant to the matter. Perhaps the Minister knows that the training schools for student teachers as far as the Coloureds are concerned and which enroll students with Std. VIII certificates, are very largely confined to women student teachers and there they take the lower primary certificate, whereas in the training colleges both male and female student teachers are accepted and they take what is known as the higher primary certificate. Sir, we are prepared to take the hon. the Minister at his word when he talks about his desire to maintain standards; he gave us certain assurances in that regard. But if the standards are to be maintained the teachers are the people who maintain those standards in the first place; that is the important thing and we feel very strongly that specific qualifications should be set out in this Bill, as was done in the Coloured Education Act, as to what standard any student teacher must have before having the right to enroll in one of these training institutions. If Indian primary teachers are, as the hon. the Minister says, so very hard to come by, and if so many of them are unqualified, it may be that the hon. the Minister is thinking in terms of a Std. VIII qualification in the first place and not a matriculation certificate. But there will certainly be many others with matriculation who will want to qualify as teachers. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of certain figures with regard to the matriculation passes of Coloureds and Indians. In 1963, according to the Bureau of Statistics, 756 Coloured pupils passed matriculation and 717 Asiatics. As you know, Sir. there are 1,500,000 Coloureds in this country and only 500,000 Asiatics, so it is a very high proportion, relatively speaking of Indian pupils who pass the matriculation examination in comparison with the Coloured people. We want to know from the hon. the Minister why the definition of “training school” was omitted from this Bill; in the second place what basic educational standard he expects from students enrolling in these colleges mentioned here, because we think it is essential that those qualifications should be laid down in the Bill, and we also want to know why in the definition of “training college” which is incorporated in this Bill, no educational qualifications are laid down.

I think this addition suggested by the hon. member for Wynberg is quite unnecessary. She wants these words added “and who have passed the examination for the eighth standard and/or the tenth standard …” The “and” is completely unnecessary. If a person has Std. X he automatically has Std. VIII. The “and” is therefore quite redundant. As far as the “or” is concerned it amounts to this that the hon. member is pleading for the retention of Std. VIII as the basic standard for the training of teachers in future. We know there are a few cases where only Std. VIII is necessary as basis for the training of female teachers. But the amendment of the hon. member will mean that that will always be retained as the standard. Hon. members of the Opposition are continually talking about standards that should not be lowered and we on this side of the House are anxious to raise the standards as far as Indian education is concerned. That is why we think that before any male or female student can be trained to become a teacher the basic qualification he or she should comply with should be a Std. X or equivalent certificate. The hon. member wants to give them a choice. I think it is quite unnecessary to add the words suggested. I, therefore, ask the Minister not to accept the amendment.

I am surprised that an ex-principal of a high school can advance the argument which has been advanced by the hon. member who has just sat down. This clause merely provides that a training college is an institution for the education and training of pupil teachers who are Indians, but it lays down no minimum academic qualification for the person who will attend those classes in order to be trained as a teacher.

But we surely know what the position is.

I am not talking about what we know. Here we have the Bill before us. The Coloured Education Act and all Education Acts provide that if a person wants to go to a training college or a university he must have certain minimum qualifications, and it is those minimum qualifications which are being proposed in this amendment of ours. I therefore think that the hon. member is giving the hon. the Minister the wrong advice when he asks him not to accept the amendment. What would have been wrong in inserting the proposed words? Supposing there is a technical mistake and that it should be “or” or “and”; that makes no difference either. What we expect in principle is that the Minister should lay down a minimum qualification. If the Minister tells me that the minimum qualification will be Std. 7 or Std. 8 or Std. X, then I accept it, but he should not leave the matter open.

I want to make a friendly request to the mover of this amendment not to insist on it and I shall tell her why—not because I differ from her, but let me deal with the position as a whole. I readily admit that there is a shortage of qualified Indian teachers at the moment but that shortage is not due to the fact that too few Indians have attained matriculation standard. In fact, the hon. the member herself has indicated that the number of Indians who reach matriculation constitutes a particularly high percentage of that national group in comparison with the Coloureds. The reason for the shortage of qualified teachers is due to the ineffective provision of training facilities for teachers which has existed in the past.

Let me first deal with the question put by the hon. member as far as this particular provision is concerned. She asked why provision was made in the Coloured Education Act for training schools and training colleges whereas provision was only made for training colleges in this case. If the hon. member would study the Coloured Education Act thoroughly she will find that training schools are schools where teachers who do not have the matriculation certificate receive their training.

I said that.

But training colleges mean colleges where teachers are trained on a post-matriculation basis.

I also said that.

It is clear, therefore, that the intention in this case is only to train those people as teachers who have passed their matriculation examination, but there is a small problem in that connection; it is a minor problem but it is this that there is still one teachers’ training centre, namely, Fordsburg in the Transvaal, where a small number of students are being trained on an ante-matriculation basis. They have Std. VIII and they are still being trained there. I should like to accept part of the hon. member’s amendment; I do not want to accept the first part, namely “Std. VIII”; that I will not accept in any case. I would rather accept the latter part so that the clause would read “who are Indians and have passed the examination for the tenth standard or an equivalent examination”.

I would have accepted that but then I shall be faced with the practical problem of the number of students who are already attending the Fordsburg training school and who will not have finished their course when we take over and I may not train them any further; I shall have to dismiss them immediately. It is only because of that practical problem that I cannot lay down the qualifications in the law I would have liked to. The moment those who are being trained at Fordsburg have completed their course I intend doing away with all ante-matriculation courses for the training of teachers. That is why I only define “training college” in the Bill. No provision is made for training schools so that it should be clear to everybody that they are only to be trained after matriculation. If I accept an amendment I must accept both amendments as moved by the hon. member in which case the law will provide for all time that students with only a Std. VIII qualification may be trained as teachers and that is a provision which I do not want to have in the law for all time. I cannot accept the amendment I would like to accept because if I did I would be faced with the practical problem of the number who will still be at the colleges on the date I take over. I hope hon. members will take my word in this instance that it is my intention only to teach post-matriculation students as Indian teachers because there are enough matriculants. It is my intention to do away with all training of teachers who have not got the matriculation certificate as soon as those who are at college to-day have completed their courses or as soon as circumstances permit me. I shall in any case not extend it beyond the one class which is at the Fordsburg school at the moment and, if possible, I shall put a stop to it the moment those who are there to-day have finished their course. That is the intention.

I think we are reasonable enough on this side of the House to accept that the Minister is faced here with a practical difficulty and it seems to me that his explanation is a perfectly reasonable and intelligible one. He has given us the assurance that when these people presently doing their courses at a lower level have completed those courses, he will then maintain the standard for the training colleges, and on that basis I am perfectly willing on behalf of this side of the House to accept the Minister’s assurance and to leave it at that. But I would just like to make one comment with regard to the remarks made by the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto). Sir, there was no need, with respect to my colleague, to make that rather cynical comment about “and/or Std. VIII or Std. X”, in my amendment because if they have passed Std. X they would in any case have passed Std. VIII. My reason for putting “and/or” in that amendment in the first place was because there is no definition of a training school in this Bill and, as I said in my opening speech this afternoon, the Minister might quite possibly have wanted to make provision in a training college for two types of students. They have them under the Coloured Education Act, and I was quite entitled to assume that there might be students studying with a Std. VIII certificate, as Coloureds, are doing, for a lower primary certificate, and there might be others with matriculation studying for the higher primary certificate; so with respect to the hon. member for Pretoria (East) I think his comments were quite out of place and I am willing to accept the explanation given by the hon. the Minister.

I accept your apology.

Amendment proposed by Mrs. Taylor withdrawn with the leave of the Committee.

Seeing that we are starting this Committee with such sweet reasonableness—and let us hope that the Minister will continue to make occasional concessions—I wonder if the hon. the Minister, before we leave Clause 1, the definition clause, will explain to me why the definition of “high school” and the definition of “primary school” differ from the definitions of these terms given in the Coloured Education Act. I cannot understand why a “high school” means “a school for the education of Indians up to such standard, not exceeding the tenth standard, as the Secretary may in any particular case determine”; why is the definition simply not confined to “up to Std. X”, which is the usual definition for “high school”. The definition of “primary school” follows the same lines, the maximum standard being Std. VI. In other words, the Secretary may determine to define a “high school” as going up to Std. VII and a “primary school” as going up to Std. IV. Why is this latitude being given in the case of the definitions of Indian primary and high schools and was not given under the Coloured Education Act. Is there a reasonable explanation for this difference in definition?

While the hon. the Minister is working that out I should like to refer to a matter I raised in the second reading and that I raised on previous occasions in Committee when we discussed education, the attempt to define vocational education. If one looks at these definitions, one finds four definitions of vocational education. Paragraph (iii) defines “commercial vocational education”; (v) defines “domestic science vocational education”; (xxviii) defines “technical vocational education” and finally (xxxi) defines “vocational education”. What we are doing is to try to define what is indefinable. All education, as I have said over and over again, is vocational, and these attempts to classify our schools as vocational schools and academic schools must inevitable fail. I should like the hon. the Minister to help me here. Let us take (iii) “commercial vocational education”. They use the magic words “eight hours per week” here; they say, “commercial vocational education” means education and training consisting of a course in which more than a third of the subjects are prescribed commercial subjects or in respect of which more than eight hours a week are devoted to prescribed commercial subjects. Sir, is the English language a commercial subject? Is the Afrikaans language a commercial subject? Does it come within the “eight hours” or is the Minister free to say, “In this case it is commercial, it is vocational”, and “in that case it is not vocational”. What these definitions mean is this: No definition is given but the hon. the Minister will give one later when he prescribes. I think they are quite meaningless and I should like the hon. the Minister to try to tell me. I know it is traditional. We have had it in other Bills and I have raised the question on other occasions. We define vocational education in this narrow manner, especially for Indian schools and for Coloured schools where we wish to give a vocational bias to education. When I say “vocational bias” I mean that it should be education at short-range not at long-range. At long-range we have the education of a doctor. When a doctor goes to university he goes there for narrow vocational education; just as a fitter goes to a technical school. The same is true of a lawyer. He goes to University for vocational education. He is being trained narrowly for his own profession. I would ask the hon. the Minister whether it is worth while trying to define it in this way? I should like to know what my hon. friends who are experts in educational matters think about this. I think it is just a waste of time to try to do so. One could give the school another name but to try to define vocational education is a waste of time. We have three definitions and then they say at the end: Any of those three is vocational education. I think the four are just superfluous.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has put certain questions to me in connection with the definition of high school and primary school. It is mainly due to this problem that Std. VI still falls under the primary school as far as the Indians are concerned. The general trend in education to-day is to place Std. VI under the high school became it is there that the students is prepared for the two or more directions of education given in the high schools. Because the Indian schools do not yet make provision for different directions it has not been necessary to transfer Std. VI from the primary to the high school. That time may arrive, however, and that is why I do not want to lay down a specific standard as the standard separating the primary and the high school. It may also be necessary in some cases, where a new area is developed, to provide a feeder school temporarily where only primary classes will be conducted, for example, to start off with until such time as complete provision can be made. That is why you cannot limit it. The same position applies in the case of a high school. You cannot lay down that every high school must go as far as matriculation because there may not be enough students in a certain area.

Is that the ultimate intention?

Yes. It may just so happen that you cannot establish a school immediately which goes as far as matriculation but that you have to start with a secondary school which only goes as far as Std. VIII. That is why you cannot lay down a definition in legislation. There must be a certain amount of elasticity.

As far as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) is concerned I can only say this to him: When you are dealing with the definition of the various directions of education it is difficult to find definitions which will satisfy everybody. In the end we decided to take those definitions which were currently in use. This definition also appears in the legislation covering the Department of Education, Arts and Science. We took those definitions over because they were the accepted definitions. Had I defined them differently hon. members would have asked why we came forward with something new. That is why I confined myself to those definitions which were currently in use in the legislation of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. If we should find, in the course of time, that those definitions do not serve their purpose we can always amend them at a later stage particularly where the necessary contacts now exist between the various education departments and where we are busy extending those contacts under the wing of the National Education Board. We can now consult one another better on various problems than in the past. We may perhaps in the course of time be able to formulate a definition which will be more satisfactory to that hon. member. I think however, that, for the time being, we should confine ourselves to those definitions currently in use.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 2,

I want to move that this clause be deleted and replaced by the following—

Order! That deals with the principle of the Bill and the hon. member cannot move an amendment to that.

May I not state my case at all? I can only state my case if the clause is rejected. That is why I move that the clause be rejected …

It is not in order. The hon. member may not motivate his alternative clause now. He can just state why he is opposing the present clause, but he cannot move an amendment which concerns the principle.

Then I move that this clause be rejected because …

Order! The hon. member cannot move that. I have already rejected his amendment appearing on the Order Paper.

It has not been rejected. Surely I can move that the clause be rejected?

It concerns the principle of the Bill and therefore the hon. member cannot move it.

Does that mean that this Committee cannot vote to reject Clause 2?

The Committee can vote against the clause. That will be in order.

That is all the hon. member for Hillbrow said, Sir.

The hon. member for Hillbrow wanted to move that the clause be rejected, and that he cannot do.

The hon. member is entitled to speak against Clause 2 because the Committee is entitled to vote against Clause 2.

The point is that he cannot move by way of an amendment that it be rejected; that is all.

Sir, I want to speak against this clause. If I speak against it, surely it means that I want to reject it.

You may vote against the clause.

I therefore want to say that I am opposed to this clause and am of the opinion that we should not continue with it because this side of the House believes in retaining Indian education as it was, viz. in the hands of the provinces. If it cannot be left in the hands of the provinces, it must be transferred to the Department of Education, Arts and Science.

That has already been decided in principle at the second reading.

Please keep quiet. If only my hon. friend would get up and say something.

Order! Let me just put the matter to hon. members clearly: I shall allow the hon. member to speak against it— just the hon. member. It cannot be discussed further because it affects the principle of the Bill which has already been approved of in the second reading.

I thank you for the opportunity, Sir. As I said, we believe that Indian education should remain where it was. We go further and say that if it has to be taken over by the State it should be taken over by the Department of Education, Arts and Science. This side of the House feels very strongly on this point.

The objection of the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) is that if Indian education has to be taken over by the Central Government it should not be taken over by the education department of the Department of Indian Affairs but by the Department of Education, Arts and Science. I think it is necessary for me to say why such a suggestion cannot be accepted at all. Firstly, if that were to happen, it would main that the Department of Education, Arts and Science would have to build up such a colossal educational organization that it would become over-centralized and that it would only again have to decentralize with the result that there would, in any case, be separation and possibly on the basis of different racial groups.

There can be sub-departments.

Both the Department of Education, Arts and Science and the Department of Indian Affairs are departments of the same Government. If the same Government has to have two departments what fundamental difference is there? I really cannot follow the argument of the hon. member. If we were to do that it would mean that, for the first time, we would be placing a very large new group of people under the control of the Department of Education, Arts and Science, a new group for which primary school facilities would have to be provided and that has never yet been the function of that Department. Ninety per cent of the Indian students are in primary schools to-day.

Surely that is not your function either.

Nor has it ever been the function of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. I am taking a function over from the province together with the teachers, officials and so forth. What fundamental difference is there whether it is the Department of Education, Arts and Science or the Department of Indian Affairs which takes it over from the point of view of control? The reason why the Department of Indian Affairs is taking it over, is that it is a matter of principle.

Hon. members must not think that because the Department of Indian Affairs is taking it over there will not be the necessary co-operation and co-ordination between the various education organizations. You have the Bureau of Educational and Scientific Research, you have the Adult Education Board, you have the Joint Matriculation Board, and there is the liaison body of the National Education Council. Because all these bodies consult and cooperate with one another all aspects of education fit into one whole. If we were to place Indian education under the Department of Education, Arts and Science, as suggested by the hon. member, with various sub-departments, we shall be achieving nothing more than we are in any case achieving with a separate department because above all this you have a number of bodies which have to see to it that the necessary liaison is there.

In brief, Mr. Chairman, as you have rightly said, the principle of the Bill is contained in this clause, namely, the taking over of Indian education by the Department of Indian Affairs. I cannot agree with the arguments of the hon. member for Hillbrow.

I want to speak against the principle with a view to its rejection.

Order! I have allowed the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) to state the reasons why he will vote against this clause and I have allowed the hon. the Minister to reply but I cannot allow any further discussion on this. This clause contains the main principle of the Bill. In support of that I may just read a ruling given by a previous Chairman—

I am sorry, I cannot allow any further discussion on it.

I am sorry, Sir, I do not accept that as limiting my right to give my reasons for voting against Clause 2.

I shall not allow the hon. member to do so.

Sir, will you tell me how it is possible for one member on this side and one on that side to be allowed to speak against the principle of the Bill?

I have given my ruling and the hon. member must abide by it.

Sir, I feel that I am being deprived of a right.

The hon. member must accept my ruling and resume his seat.

I take it we can vote against the clause.

That is in order.

Am I not allowed to say why I shall vote against it?

No.

I may persuade hon. members on that side of the House to see my point of view.

No. I have given the hon. member for Hillbrow an opportunity to say why he will vote against it. I am not going to allow any further discussion …

His views are different from mine, Sir.

Order! I have given my ruling. For the information of hon. members I should also read Standing Order No. 58—

Sir, I wish to move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher).

May I ask whether the principle involved in Clause 2 is the control of Indian education by the Department of Indian Affairs or Indian education?

Order! The principle is the control of Indian education by the Department of Indian Affairs.

I want to move the amendment standing on the Order Paper in my name—

shall be an Indian and”.

The clause then goes on to read “with an expert knowledge of education matters”, to which we shall in turn move an amendment.

In his reply to the second-reading debate the hon. the Minister dealt with this question at some length. If the hon. the Minister would cast his mind back he would remember that in the course of his reply. I asked him the direct question whether he would be prepared to appoint an Indian as Secretary of Education in terms of this Bill. I would like to remind the hon. the Minister of what he said—

Then the Minister went on to say this—

Finally the hon. the Minister said—

That sounds fine, Mr. Chairman, but we move this amendment from this side of the House as a means of testing the bona fides of the Government with regard to the application of its own policy.

Why do you want it now?

I shall tell you why, Sir. We have very adequate reasons for suggesting that the head should be an Indian. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of what he said in this House last year—I mentioned it in my second-reading speech—with regard to the powers of the Indian Council. He said—

It is quite clear, if you link that statement with the statement made by the hon. the Minister in his reply to the second-reading debate, that the intention is that this Council will have statutory control over Indian education and will be in a position to appoint an Indian as head of affairs. The hon. the Minister has told us that he has already appointed an Indian professor as an inspector of schools. I find it very hard to believe that, with their academic record—I want to stress this— the Indian community cannot at this moment find an able and fully qualified person, with the necessary academic training, to fill this post.

And what if they can’t?

I want to give the hon. member some figures to prove that they can. I have taken these figures from the report of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. I quoted some of them in my second-reading speech. I want to remind the hon. the Minister that in the 1962 academic year alone, quite apart from any subsequent years, there were 42 Coloured students registered for the purpose of obtaining educational diplomas and degrees at our universities and 88 Indians —more than double the number of Coloureds. I want to tell the Minister that in that one academic year one was studying to become a doctor of education; nine were studying for the M.A. degree in education; nine were studying for the B.A. honours degree in education and 42 were studying for B.A. with an educational diploma attached, which, as the hon. the Minister knows, means an extra year. In other words, in one academic year more than 60 Indians were studying for higher education amongst the Asiatic community and amongst whom the Minister, without question will be able to find someone suitable to fill such a post.

And if the Minister cannot find such a person?

The hon. member says: What if the Minister cannot.

[Inaudible.]

I am not speaking to you.

Order! Will those two hon. members please give the hon. member for Wynberg a chance to make her speech.

I want to remind the Committee of one point I made in my second-reading speech, namely, that although there are three times as many Coloured people in South Africa to-day as Asiatics the number of Asiatics involved in higher education is more than double the number of Coloured people. Perhaps the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Stander) will take that in. He asks whether we can find such a person amongst the Indian community. The hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs is doing his best to promote people in his Department. The Asiatics have a very high academic record indeed in this country—those who have gone to university. Many have not gone that far. I move this amendment because we feel that the Government is merely avoiding the issue by saying that they are unable to find somebody suitable. You see, Sir, there is a safeguard in this clause itself. It says whoever is appointed must have an expert knowledge of educational matters. The Minister cannot just choose anybody. I have given the figures of those who have studied higher education at the university. This seems to us to be a favourable opportunity for the Government to prove its bona fides. The hon. the Minister must not tell us that we must wait till 1978 as the hon. the Prime Minister tells us in regard to other matters.

We want to know two things: Will the Indian Council, with its statutory power, be able to appoint such a person the moment it is established and, secondly, whether the Government is prepared, in this instance, to implement both its promises and its policy by appointing an Indian to this post.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) has started to talk and argue in the vein in which she has in connection with this amendment of hers. It is clear that, in what she has suggested, her motives are not political motives which can be of assistance to her in any way but political motives to try to embarrass the Government. By doing that she reveals her abysmal ignorance concerning the administration of educational matters. It should be clear to anybody with any knowledge of the administration of educational departments that, to appoint a person as head of a Department or of a sub department dealing with education, you have to appoint a person who, not only has the necessary academic knowledge—I admit that there are many Indians who have the necessary academic knowledge—but the necessary experience of the administration of education, experience in connection with educational planning, inspection services and in connection with the various expert services that have to be rendered. Throughout the years the Indians in Natal have not had the opportunity of progressing beyond a stage known in Natal as “Indian supervisor”; that is a kind of under inspector. They could never even become inspectors. After the post of inspector you get a number of other posts before you eventually get to the head of the Department, posts which call for a great deal of experience of the work which has to be done. Therefore, where there has never been an Indian inspector of education in Natal up to the time I appointed one, there is consequently no Indian with any experience of how to administer an education department. Merely for the sake of political gain the hon. member makes this impossible suggestion. Let us confine ourselves to that which is practically possible, Sir. I told the hon. member during the course of the second-reading debate that when the time arrived for the Indian Council to take over Indian education in toto, in other words, when the White Government handed over to the Indian Council, the staff of the Department, from the highest to the lowest, would in time to come all be Indians. The hon. member now wants to bind me in respect of one specific post. I cannot allow myself to be bound at this stage; I cannot fill that post with an inexperienced person. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, I thought we would be able to discuss this clause with a view to improving it but if this is the attitude hon. members adopt they must expect nothing more from me than payment in like coin.

Don’t start threatening.

Then you must not threaten either.

I want to move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) (in his absence)—

I should like to join issue with the hon. the Minister, not on the principle of dismissing the other amendment, but on his ideas of the organization of an educational department. That is the point I should like to discuss with him. I am not concerned with whether it is a Coloured man, an African, an Indian or a White man. This amendment does not deal with that. The direction of education in any department should be controlled by two officers, one professional and the other administrative. To look for the two in the same officer is always a vain search. Not always perhaps; there have been one or two distinguished exceptions in South Africa.

Was the one Mr. Moore?

Oh well! In the Transvaal and in the Free State and in Natal the professional officer at the head has been called the Director of Education. In the Cape Province he has been called the Superintendent of Education. We think he should be a professional man, a man who has distinguished himself in the profession of education. The most senior officer after him should be an administrative officer. In other words, in the Transvaal they have a Director of Education. I believe they even have now an assistant director of education, but after that comes the Secretary for Education and he is the administrative officer. He is concerned with the administration of the department. But the man who gives direction, who addresses conferences, who gives the tone and interprets the policy of his administration—or in our case the Government—should be a professional man. And I should like to tell the hon. the Minister that in my profession, the education profession—there are some distinguished members in this House and they will all agree with me —there has always been friction between the professional side and the administrative side. We are anxious in our profession to have as head of the department a professional man.

That is exactly what I aim at.

Well, we have tried to help the hon. the Minister by defining this type of officer much more clearly. I will define therefore the type of man we have in mind. We want to omit “expert knowledge of education matters”. “Education matters” does not go far enough. “Education matters” may mean the administration of education in his department only, and we want to substitute “distinguish himself in the field of education or who, in the opinion of the Minister, is otherwise specially qualified in some aspect of the work of the department”. We are leaving the discretion to the Minister; that leaves it open to the Minister. Let me give a perfect example of director, or superintendent or head: the officer who has just vacated the post, Dr. Meiring, who is now head of the university college. It is that type of man I have in mind. I did not want to mention names, but that illustrates what I have in mind. He is a distinguished educationist. He is the type of man we have in mind, and I should like the hon. Minister to accept this definition. It gives the assurance that the Director will be a professional man of high standing.

I fully agree with what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) has said but I do not see how he can make the speech he has made in defence of the amendment appearing in the name of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) because that amendment amounts to something totally different from what the hon. member has pleaded for. If the amendment of Mr. Streicher were accepted the clause would read—

What does that mean? As I am composing the Education section there will be an undersecretary (administrative) who will come from the administrative section of the Public Service. He has already distinguished himself in the work he has done in drafting or preparing regulations and in framing this Bill. He has already distinguished himself in some aspect of the work of the Department. In other words, if I accepted the amendment it would be possible for me to appoint him—he has no professional knowledge of education, in other words, he is not a professional teacher —as head of that section. And I do not want to do that. I want to appoint a person who is a professional person, a person with expert knowledge. That is why I suggest that the head of the section should be a person with expert knowledge of educational matters. In other words, somebody with professional knowledge. I, therefore, want to limit it so that the head of the Department will be somebody from the ranks of the professionally trained teacher. However, before he can be appointed to that post he must have had some administrative experience and must have acquired some knowledge and had some experience in exercising control and so forth. With this wording I want to make it impossible for a person who started in the Public Service purely as an administrative officer, a person who has distinguished himself and climbed to the top, an extremely efficient person, to be appointed as head of the Department because I personally do not think that is right. Some people may differ from me but that is my personal opinion.

The Bill does not say that.

Of course it says so. It says “with expert knowledge”. What does “expert knowledge” mean other than that?

It is a pity that the hon. the Minister is now getting slightly hot under the collar! We have only just started, and we should come to a clear understanding: We are proposing these amendments because we think they will improve the Bill. It is certainly not a matter of “showing complete ignorance”. The hon. the Minister spoke of experienced people, administrative and professional. We cannot do without them; they are essential. Now the hon. the Minister says: We therefore cannot employ an Indian. But surely the hon. the Minister should know that that is not true. Surely he knows that there are highly educated, cultured, skilled people in the Indian community. Has he never heard of Dr. Lazarus, or of Mr. Naidoo, eminent authorities in the field of education?

What are they doing at the moment?

They are very capable indeed. Why does the hon. the Minister not tell us: I do not want to appoint an Indian at this stage? Then I would be able to follow the argument; otherwise I cannot. I think it was quite correct of the hon. member for Kensington to point out to the Minister that we should not only consider professional people, but also people with administrative experience.

Now I come to the “expert knowledge” mentioned by the Minister. But “expert knowledge” does not mean the best knowledge of the Department’s administration. In my opinion, “expert knowledge” means knowledge of one’s subject, of one’s profession. That is called “vakkundige kennis”. I admit that the Afrikaans “vakkundige kennis” is a better term than the one used in the English text. The English text uses “expert knowledge”. What does that mean? I do not know what it means, but “vakkundige kennis” I can still understand. We already have those people in the Indian community.

We also propose the amendment printed under Mr. Streicher’s name because these words would be more descriptive, more definitive; because they give us a much better idea of exactly what we want. We are in good company, for my hon. friend will recall that the very clause proposed by us as an amendment here as accepted by another Minister in the case of the National Advisory Education Council Bill. There it appears as Section 2 (b), and to my mind the Minister made a wise decision at that time, because that is a much better description. The Minister should not think that everything we propose here is proposed simply for the sake of opposition. Our sincerity is evident from the fact that on our recommendation this Section 2 (b) was accepted in the National Advisory Education Council Act. It is already incorporated in our legislation, and I think the hon. the Minister would be well advised to accept this amendment by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West). I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to take this view of matters, that we on this side, who also have educationists among us, are merely trying to improve this Bill.

The hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) has now presented us with an amendment which means, in effect, that an Indian is to be Director of Education for Indians immediately after this Bill has been passed. Is that correct?

Yes.

An Indian is to be appointed immediately. Why does she ask for that? What is her object in asking for that? Why does she want an Indian in that post (whatever it may be called) immediately after this Bill has been passed? I presume she wants him to be an Indian immediately because there are at present so many capable Indian educationists. Is that not so? In fact, she spoke of brilliant educationists. Now I ask her this: What position do they at present occupy under the United Party rule in Natal?

That has nothing to do with the Bill.

But the hon. member wishes to test the bona fides of this Government, and it is because she wants to test it that she has someone in mind who can be Director of Indian Education immediately after this Bill has been passed. Now I should like to test her bona fides as well as those of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). That man whom they want to have as Director of Indian Education: What position does he occupy under the United Party régime in Natal at present? These capable people mentioned by the hon. member for Hillbrow, those doctors and professors; what positions do they occupy? Are they school inspectors? Are they school principals? What position do they occupy under the rule of the United Party in Natal?

I told you: Principals of secondary schools.

Now they are to be appointed directors immediately. The hon. member for Wynberg wants to test our bona fides. Let us test their bona fides if they have anything of that nature. The hon. members want Indian Education to remain under the Natal Provincial Council.

Are you aware of the fact that there are Indian school inspectors?

Of course I am aware of that. But they have an Indian in mind, whom they would like to appoint Director of Education immediately. That will come in due time. There is no doubt about it. That is the policy of this Government. And there will be a Coloured Director of Education. That is the policy of this Government. But the hon. gentlemen want to test our bona fides. They want Indian Education to remain under the Natal Provincial Administration. How far can the most brilliant Indian educationist in Natal go? I am now bringing their bona fides out into the open. Can an Indian go any higher than school inspector? The hon. member for Hillbrow referred to an Indian who is an expert. I am quite prepared to accept that. They want those people to become directors of education under our policy, and I now tell the hon. member for Wynberg that under our policy they will be able to become directors of education. But how far can they go under the policy of the hon. member? How far can those people go whom the hon. member for Hillbrow lauded in order to embarrass us? Can any of them ever become Director of Education in Natal under his policy? I demand a reply to that. The facts of the matter are that those hon. members over there have imposed a limit on those Indian educationists. They are told: You may become inspectors of schools, you may attain to some heights, but there are certain heights to which you may never attain, heights which are attained only by Whites in Natal. And then the hon. member tries to test our bona fides. She has the audacity, the insolence, to test our bona fides while her own bona fides bear no testing at all. Those Indians may be ever so capable, they may be the most brilliant authorities on education, and yet the hon. member for Wynberg tells them: “You can never become Director of Education in Natal.” Is that so: Yes or No? Of course that is so. If the Indians are in this position, why do we now hear: They have not progressed as far as the Whites yet; we have a great deal to teach them; the White educationists can teach them a lot more? That is why we refuse to limit the wording to the effect that the Director of Education has to be an Indian. Why should it be limited in this way? That will come in due time, as the hon. the Minister said, when the Indian Council has developed into a legislative council, and then, finally, all matters concerning Indian education will be taken over by the Indian Council, and then there will not only be a Director of Indian Education, but virtually the equivalent of a Minister of Indian Education. That is what we offer the Indians. Imagine the hon. member trying to test our bona fides! She, of Luxurama fame! She who places herself on such a high moral pedestal! Let her get up, and let the hon. member for Hillbrow get up—I do not mention the hon. member for South Coast; he does not have much time for Indians anyway—I challenge them to get up and tell us: How far can the most brilliant Indian educationist go under the policy of the United Party in Natal?

You are asking for it, and you will get it.

The hon. member was Administrator of Natal. How far did Indians go under him?

Go on.

Of course I am going on; only, I do not march like the hon. member. The only difference between us is that I am marching with success, and he does not. The hon. member need not challenge me. He is the Leader in Natal.

Why do you not speak of Coolie inspectors?

“Coolie”? That is the hon. member who told his people: “You must not wallow in the waves with the Coolies”. That is the hon. member who places himself on such a high moral pedestal. That is the hon. member who speaks of a “Coolie inspector”. He is back in the days before his marching, when he warned people that “they must not wallow in the waves with the Coolies”. Those were his words.

Your words.

I can see the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) is relishing all this. I am relishing it quite as much as she is. They who want to test our bona fides! The Indian has no future under their policy. They are prepared to impose a limit on the Indian. He cannot go any further than school inspector; he cannot become Director of Education. He will remain an inferior being as long as the hon. member for South Coast —the Leader of the United Party in Natal— regards him as a Coolie, and as a Coolie inspector, and talks of “wallowing in the waves with the Coolies.” Those are the words he uses. Never have they been exposed so badly, never has their audacity been as evident as today. This is how far their political immorality goes. Out of sheer mischief—she proposes it out of sheer mischief—the hon. member proposes that an Indian should now become Director of Education, while under the policy of her party she is not prepared to grant an Indian educationist any responsible position.

I would like to have a word with the hon. member who has just rushed in where angels fear to tread and I want to say at once that I have given an explanation in this House before in regard to hon. members opposite who continually use the word “coolie” as applied to the Indian people. They continually talk about the “coolie” in Natal “wat op sy plek gesit moet word”. That is the statement we get over and over again from that side, and that is why I say to the hon. member why does he now become so mealy-mouthed about this question of Indians? Why does he not use the language that he is used to using? He is ultra good all of a sudden.

Such a humbug!

I want to deal with this question.

Order! Did the hon. member for Wynberg say that the hon. member is a humbug?

I did.

The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw.

I suggested in an interjection when the hon. member for Vereeniging was speaking that he should learn his facts. He asked whether under the United Party administration in Natal an Indian could become inspector.

A director.

The hon. member did say “inspector”.

On a point of explanation, the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) asked we whether I knew that there were Indian inspectors of the schools in Natal. The question I asked then was: Can there be an Indian director of education in Natal.

I accept that. Let us get this clear. The hon. member ought to know that the director of education and the deputy director of education are positions that fall under the Public Service Commission. It has nothing to do with the policy of the Provincial Council of Natal.

I accept that.

What was the trouble in Natal about the Deputy Director who was appointed by the Public Service Commission over the will of the Executive Committee? The Executive had nothing to do with the policy in that regard in Natal. The hon. member has rushed in where other fools fear to tread, because he should know his facts before he tries to suggest that the policy of the United Party in Natal was to prevent Indians becoming director of education. They had nothing to do with that. The director and deputy director, and for that matter the inspectors, come under the Public Service Commission, and it is the Public Service Commission that determines this.

I agree with the hon. member entirely. All I am asking is this: Are those appointments not being made on the recommendation of the Executive Committee in Natal? That being so, can the hon. member visualize at any time that the United Party Executive Committee in Natal will recommend an Indian as Director of Education?

The answer is perfectly simple. In the case that we actually had, the case of the Deputy Director, what the Executive recommended has nothing to do with it. The Public Service Commission made the appointment over the head of the Executive Committee, without regard to their wishes. But here is the point. …

Answer my question.

Yes, the hon. member has the wit to ask me a question, I have the brains to answer it. Listen a moment: The position then is that the moment the Public Service Commission agrees to the appointment of an Indian as Director in Natal, he will be subject to transfer, e.g., to the Free State, or the Transvaal or the Cape. Would the National Administration of one of those provinces then accept him as Director of Education? They would have had to. The Public Service Commission would have compelled them to, in the same way they made Natal accept a Deputy Director they did not want. The hon. member has slipped completely, and the whole of his criticism is based upon a false premise through lack of knowledge and understanding of the true facts of the case.

If the hon. member for South Coast thinks he is going to find it so easy to get out of the dilemma in which the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) has landed them, then he is greatly mistaken. Let us have the facts. The hon. member for Wynberg is proposing that as soon as this Bill has been passed, the Director of Education (I call him the director, although the name has not been fixed) should be an Indian. That is her proposal. The hon. member also said that she proposes this with a specific object in mind, and that is to test the bona fides of this Government. The bona fides she seeks to test are these, that during the debate on the second reading the hon. Minister said that when the Indian Council has developed, when it becomes a legislative council, when it has reached a stage of development where it can take over Indian Education, then he envisages, under those circumstances, and I think we can say so with certainty—that we shall have an Indian as Director of Education. So there is nothing to be tested as regards the bona fides of this side of the House. It is the policy of this side of the House that eventually, when the Indian Council has developed to the stage where it can take over Indian education, there will be an Indian Director of Education. The point I am making is this, that the hon. member for Wynberg said that she moved this proposal in order to test the Government’s bona fides, and then she said there were terribly capable Indian educationists, and the hon. member for Hillbrow went on from there and even mentioned some names of terribly capable Indian educationists.

I said extremely capable.

Oh, extremely capable and not terribly capable. Well, that is extremely stupid and not terribly stupid. I am not serious, but if my hon. friend wishes to split hairs, by insisting that he said these people were extremely capable and not terribly capable, well, if he wishes to talk that kind of nonsense …

“Onsin.”

I am glad the hon. member is in good health this year, but now he is really becoming pathetic again.

*The MINISTER OF INFORMATION: He himself has called it nonsense.

You see, the high morality of that side has now landed them in a terribly difficult position. The hon. member for Hillbrow lauded certain capable Indian educationists as extremely capable, and not terribly capable, and under the policy of this Government those extremely capable Indian educationists can develop into directors of Indian Education. But the hon. member for Wynberg comes and tells us she wants to test our bona fides, and proposes that an Indian should be appointed Director of Education immediately, which of course is a nonsensical proposal. They have now tested our bona fides, and I think we have withstood that test very well. But now I should also like the privilege of testing their bona fides, and I ask this: These terribly capable people, or rather the extremely capable people, cannot become Director or Deputy-director of Education in Natal, for these appointments are made by the Public Service Commission. I am quite aware of that. But those appointments by the Public Service Commission are not made without a recommendation by the United Party Executive Council in Natal. This is my question to the hon. member for South Coast: Can he honestly envisage these capable Indian educationists ever being recommended by his Party's Executive Committee as directors of education, or do they impose a limit on those people? May those people never go any further than to be inspectors of schools? Are these extremely capable Indian educationists to have only those limited prospects? If they have better prospects, let the hon. member of the United Party in Natal tell me whether he has any objections to it. I shall make matters easy for him. He is the leader of the United Party in Natal. Would he have any objection if his Party’s Executive Committee in Natal recommended an Indian as Director of Education? I have another question. Do they wish to bring these people in immediately as directors of education? I ask the hon. member for South Coast this: If his Executive Committee in Natal consider these people as capable as the hon. member for Hillbrow thinks they are, capable enough to become Director of Education, would he have any objection if his Executive Committee recommended them as directors of education? I shall now sit down, and he may reply to that.

Before I make an announcement in this connection, I should like to take a hand in the scrap between the hon. members for South Coast and Vereeniging. The hon. member for South Coast said that we should know that in terms of the regulations—namely, that the Public Service Commission has the supreme power—the Natal Executive Committee simply could not recommend a man for a directorship in education because the Public Service Commission would never approve. But the hon. member should know that for several years the regulations have provided that the Public Service Commission has a say only in promotions above the rank of Inspector of Education. In other words, up to the rank of Inspector of Education the Public Service Commission has no say in the appointments in Natal, and under the Natal Provincial Administration no Indian has to date been appointed Inspector of Education.

I did not say there was one.

The hon. member took refuge behind the Public Service Commission, but he cannot do so as far as the appointment of inspectors is concerned, for these appointments are made purely by the Provincial Administration.

I was just explaining. Reply to my point, and tell me where I was wrong. But you cannot.

In connection with the appointment of the head of the Division of Education in the Department of Indian Affairs, I wish to announce that I have, on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission, appointed Mr. Philip Rudolph Theodorus Nel as the first Director of Indian Education. Mr. Nel was educated at Greytown High School and at Vryheid High School, where he matriculated. He qualified as a teacher at the Natal Training College, now the University of Natal, but then known as the University College of Natal. His qualifications are B.A., M.Ed., plus several specialist courses. He taught at various schools as an assistant teacher, and after only five years of teaching he became the principal of a school, and he was the principal of six different primary and secondary schools in Natal. In the meantime he was also a lecturer at the Natal Training College and a parttime lecturer at the University of Natal. He was appointed Inspector of Schools in Natal in 1961, and in 1964 became Chief Planner of the Department of Indian Education. During the course of his career he performed the following special tasks: He was examiner and moderator for Natal in the Taalbond Examinations. He was a member of the Committee on Differentiation in Secondary Schools in Natal. He was a member of the Natal Examinations Board. He was a member of the 1962 Commission of Inquiry into educational standards regarding the teaching of the official languages and the medium of instruction in the Transkei. He was a member of various other educational planning committees. His membership of other bodies is, inter alia, the following. He is a former Vice-Chairman and now honorary member of the Natalse Onderwysersunie. He is a member of the South African Academy for Arts and Science. As members will know, this is something which cannot be applied for and his membership was offered to him on the grounds of his achievements. He was secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Natalse Saamwerkunie. He is an executive member of the Helpmekaar Studiefonds. He is a member of the executive council of the University College for Indians. He served on various committees for Natal school rugby and was an executive member of the Pietermaritzburg Rugby Sub-Union for seven years. Mr. Nel has distinguished himself in the field of education in Natal and has a special knowledge of Indian education. The point I want to make here is that there are no Indian educationists, whatever, their professional qualifications might be, who can compare with the knowledge obtained by Mr. Nel in the various posts he has held during the course of his career. I hope he will have a happy and successful term of office in his capacity as Director of Indian Education.

I shall be very brief. I think it is regrettable that the hon. the Minister has mentioned the name of this gentleman and has read out all these qualifications. I want to say that from this side of the House we welcome the appointment and wish nothing but the best of luck and good fortune to the gentleman whom the Minister has decided to appoint to this position. We believe that he will make a first-class job of it, and I may say that the good wishes of the Natal Provincial Administration also go to him. Whatever we may be doing in connection with this Bill, which we oppose bitterly, it has nothing to do with the officials at all. I repeat that I am sorry his name was mentioned, but that gentleman can take it from this side of the House and from the Provincial Administration that we know of his worth. We believe he will do a good job. We do not think the Minister could find a better man for the job and we will do all we can to help him in the difficult task that lies ahead.

Amendment proposed by Mrs. Taylor, put and negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Moore put and negatived. (Official Opposition dissenting.)

Clause, as printed, put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Clause, as printed, accordingly agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I should like to move the amendment standing in my name—

There are actually two parts to this amendment. Firstly, I propose to omit “may” and substitute “shall”, in line 9. The object is to give practical implementation to the assurance given by the Minister in the second reading and also on his behalf, I take it, by Mr. Nel, when he was the Chief Planner for Indian Education. At the time he addressed the Natal Indian Teachers’ Society on 13 June, inter alia, Mr. Nel mentioned that building programmes would be required for the primary schools to provide some 800 classrooms in order to eliminate double sessions, which of course is the system obtaining at present because of the shortage of classrooms. He also gave the assurance that it would be necessary to have bold and full-scale planning backed by the necessary financial action regarding the provision of suitable high schools, since about 2,000 more Indian pupils were arriving at the gates of high schools every year. If this is so, and of course there is no question that it is so, it seems to me that there should not be any “may” about the provision of new schools; I believe that this should be a duty laid upon the shoulders of the Minister, and therefore I propose that he shall not be given the option of providing schools but that he shall do so.

The second part of my amendment is to add a proviso at the end of sub-section (3), which reads as follows—

My amendment simply adds a proviso stating that the Minister must show for such schools, etc., or that alternative accommodation is being provided. I think this is self-explanatory.

I do not want such wide powers to be given to the Minister, not that I question his good intentions at this stage, but I believe that his powers are too wide and it should be incumbent upon the Minister, before he is able to close down any existing school or establishment, to show that there is no need for such a school or that he has provided suitable alternative accommodation.

I wish to speak to the clause itself. Sub-section (1) says that the Minister may in consultation with the Minister of Finance and out of moneys appropriated by Parliament for the purpose establish, erect and maintain training colleges, part-time classes, hostels, school clinics and any other accessories. I was unable to gather from the Minister’s reply to the second-reading debate whether it is the intention of the Minister to adopt the scheme of finance which applies to Bantu education, namely the provision of a fixed annual amount supplemented by a direct contribution from taxes paid by the Bantu; or is it the intention of the Minister to come to Parliament and seek annually an amount to cover the requirements the Minister considers necessary in this new Department of Indian Education? I believe it to be a very important matter because up to the present the position has been vague. Reference was made in a Press report to the expression of opinion given by the Chief Planner, where he said he took it that it would be a charge on general revenue. This is a serious matter and I think that in the interests of the House and of the Indians themselves, who at the moment appear to be willing to go along with the Minister in this respect, the Minister should give us a clear exposition of his policy. It can affect many things. It can affect the matter of school feeding, and the amount of money available for bursaries and free books and school libraries. I want to refer to a Press report which appeared in the Natal Mercury on the 27th. It said—

I believe that the Minister should give this House an explanation as to what his intentions are in regard to financing Indian education.

As regards the amendments by the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman), I regret that I cannot accept them. They would amount to changing the permissive provision in Clause 3 (1) into a compulsory obligation on the Minister. But the hon. member should bear in mind that if one compels the Minister to establish schools, one cannot do so without also defining fully the circumstances under which the Minister would be compelled to establish schools. For if there were such a compulsory obligation, then surely it would also be reasonable to indicate under what circumstances that obligation would have to be carried out. In other words, one would have to specify how many children there would have to be before the Minister would have to establish a school, and one would have to include many other provisions in the Bill, which makes our task practically impossible. The hon. member should also bear in mind that much more than ordinary schools are included in the definition of “schools”; it includes special schools, continuation classes, etc. If a compulsory obligation is to be imposed on the Minister, it would mean, if one did not define it more closely, that I would have to establish a school wherever one single Indian child wanted a school of a certain kind.

Is it not possible to lay that down in the regulations?

No, the regulations cannot exceed the provisions of the Act itself. In other words, one cannot impose a restriction on the powers of the Minister by means of the regulations. One may define the powers, but one cannot impose restrictions on them. That is why it is a permissive provision in all education legislation. I trust the hon. member will accept the fact that it is impossible to accept that proposal, for practical reasons.

The same basic objection applies as regards the proviso, namely, that if one defined it, you would also have to specify what circumstances would have to arise before a school could be closed down, and including all this in the Act would pose a very awkward problem. That is why the usual provision, which is found in all other legislation, was used here. I regret that for practical reasons I cannot accept it.

In regard to the hon. member for Berea (Mr. Wood), I think I should reply to him in English, because apparently he did not understand what I said in Afrikaans in my reply to the Second Reading debate, where I very clearly stated that no special account would be created for Indian education, but that Indian education would be provided for in the same way as Coloured education, i.e. by appropriation by Parliament out of moneys coming from the General Revenue Account. So there is no question whatever of fixing a yearly amount or anything of that nature. I already gave that assurance in reply to the second reading. I hope the hon. member will be satisfied with my assurance.

I think I was fully aware of what the Minister said in the second reading, but I thank him for his courtesy in explaining it again in English, although I do not think it was really necessary to do so. But what I am still not quite clear about is this. Is it going to be the intention that further extensions to Indian education will be subject to some direct tax contribution by the Indians themselves? I asked that question because the Minister of Finance made it clear that that was the attitude he adopted in regard to the facilities provided for other races, and a highly placed member of the Nationalist Party made such a statement in the Press. I inferred from it that that would ultimately be the effect, that the Indians would find themselves pegged to a certain level and after that it would depend more or less on their own tax contributions. I should like that point to be made clear.

I think the hon. member is referring to the fear that exists that a further extension of Indian education will be subject to more direct contributions by the Indians themselves, and he basis this fear on the grounds of what a member of the National Party said just before the election. I think he was referring to what was said by Senator Groenewald, but when Senator Groenewald made that remark he was referring to hospitalization and to certain problems in connection with hospitalization, where the non-White races are given expensive treatment at a nominal fee, and he said that it was the policy of the National Party that the Indian should make a larger contribution towards hospital and health services. But he was not referring to education specifically and I can give the hon. member the assurance that it is not the intention to link up an extension of Indian education with larger contributions by the Indian community. I want to state emphatically that I am satisfied that the Indian community has always in the past made a large contribution in respect of the provision of education facilities, schools and so forth. I am convinced that where circumstances allow, they will continue to do so as far as they can: we shall give them the opportunity to do so if they want to do so, but it is not our policy to insist on a larger contribution on the part of the Indian community as far as the provision of schools in their regard is concerned. The hon. member can rest assured as far as this is concerned.

Must we take it from what the hon. the Minister has said that the intention is to treat the Indians on a basis different to that on which other population groups are treated as far as hospitalization is concerned?

Order!

Just for the sake of the record I have the article which was published in the newspaper, written by Senator Groenewald, and I cannot place quite the same meaning on it as the hon. the Minister. This is what the article actually says—

Then much later in the article he refers to hospitalization and he says—

I believe therefore that the reference to which I referred in the first place was to services and not just to hospital services, and I feel that I am right in assuming that education could have been included in those services.

I think I know better than that hon. member what the policy of the National Party is and I think that he must accept my assurance that that statement referred specifically to hospitals and health services, and not to other services.

Amendments put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 5,

I move the amendment standing in my name—

The clause then would read—

I need hardly say that in stressing “agreement” as we do, we are less concerned with the standing of the Minister of Finance than we are with that of the governing body of a state-aided school—because presumably the Minister of Finance, in any negotiation with the Minister of Indian Affairs, can take care of himself! The Minister seems to have a doubt; perhaps I am making a wild guess! But the position of the governing body in such a negotiation is another story. I am impressed with the attitude which the Government has officially displayed towards the Indian community, especially with regard to education. I have here the publication “Indian South Africans” which is the property of the Department of Information, but from which I am authorized to quote according to the inscription on the back of the cover. There are so many tributes here to what the Indian community has done for itself, lifting itself up as it were, by its separate but unequal bootstraps in the field of education, that one must assume that to be the present official attitude towards the Indian community—and therefore of the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs. It says, for example—

to stress their interest in education—

The hon. the Minister confirmed that just a few minutes ago—

Sir, Government-aided is “state-aided” in this clause; I want the hon. the Minister to mark that—

The hon. the Minister knows something about this publication, which, incidentally, has a very fine section in colour—this is a case—as I said last year about the brochure, “The Coloured people of South Africa” in technicolor—this is the Indian in technicolor. The hon. the Minister will be the first to confirm that the Indian community is deserving of this very reasonable treatment from the hon. the Minister and the Government—that where there is a proposed take-over of a state-aided or Government-aided school, there should be not only negotiation, but agreement with the governing body, because clearly in the final issue, as the hon. the Minister knows, the Government, to put it very crudely, holds the whip hand. The Indian community—and therefore any governing body of a schoffi— has little to gain from what the Minister might call an “opsetlike” dispute with the Minister about the take-over of a school. It will therefore surely be in a position where it will negotiate on the most reasonable terms so that the Minister in terms of this clause can take over his state-aided school with the consent of rather, than in the face of opposition from, the governing body. Sir, I do not want to prolong the discussion or my own statement on this matter. [Interjections.] Some hon. members are in favour of my sitting down; I was about to do so. I merely want to say that I shall only rise again, as far as this clause is concerned, if the Minister is as adamant in his refusal of any amendment as he has been up to now.

The hon. the Minister will remember that I raised this issue during the second-reading debate. This was something that worried me because I know it is something which worries the Indian community particularly. As the hon. the Minister will know all state-aided schools in Natal, and there are 219 state-aided schools in Natal, out of a total of 281 schools for Indians; the others are 50 Government schools, a training college, two Government-aided religious schools and nine private schools—have been built on the rand for rand basis, so the Indian community indeed has a very big vested interest in these schools. As I mentioned at the second reading and as has been repeated here this afternoon, the Indian community has spent well over R2,000,000 on schools. Quite obviously therefore people are worried the compensation which should be paid when the State takes over the control of these schools. If it is the intention of the State that in future the Government is going to provide all the revenue required for new schools and maintain them on that basis, then, of course, it is not quite so vital and one is not so worried about it, but if the intention is to continue to rely on the State-aided rand for rand system which has obtained in the past, then of course it is very important indeed that compensation be paid for school buildings now being taken over so that this money can be reinvested in future schools. I am sure the hon. the Minister will appreciate that. I tried, when the Coloured Education Bill was before the House, to get some form of compensation stipulated in the relevant clause, and the Minister in charge of the Bill replied that any take-over of land or property, in terms of that Act, would be done through the Department of Lands and that the common law procedure with regard to compensation would apply, that is to say that the compensation would be arrived at by agreement or, failing agreement, by arbitration. Therefore what I want is an assurance from the hon. the Minister that exactly the same procedure will be adopted here when these schools are taken over by the Government. Will the same civil law protection be granted to the part-owners, anyway, of these schools and full owners, of course, if any private schools are taken over? Will protection be given by making provision for the payment of compensation as of right as I was assured would be the case where Coloured mission schools were going to be taken over by the Department of Coloured education. I think this is very essential; I know that the Indian community is worried about it and they are entitled to be worried because of the enormously large contribution which they have made in the past towards the building of State-aided schools. I should like the hon. the Minister to give us an assurance in this regard at this stage.

I would like to follow up what my colleague the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) has said in connection with the expenditure by the Indian community on their own educational institutions. I want to make it clear that I am now dealing with the interests of the State-aided schools. I am sure the Minister of Finance will be able to look after his own interests when it comes to dealing with the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs. I am not concerned with that part; I am concerned with the State-aided schools. I doubt in view of their numbers and their economic status whether any community has done more to help forward its own education than the Indian community in Natal. I have in mind the amount of money that has been spent from the Kahn trust and other similar bodies, which have given such a tremendous impetus to Indian education, which has sprung entirely from the Indian community—in the main very poor people, people at a very low economic level, who have had to battle and themselves continually take the lead in providing education for their own people. I realize that a clause like this, subject to whatever the Minister may say in explanation, can have a most devastating effect so far as the finances of those people are concerned.

Actually when I first read this clause I wondered whether it was not a hybrid Bill because of the amount of money involved. I believe it runs to-day into millions of rand, and that is private money. These State-aided schools were provided initially with funds which came from private people who happened to be Indians. Committees get together and subsequently when they have reached the stage where they think that they can approach the present Education Department in Natal, they go to them with their request for help, and help is then accorded to them or it is refused, as the case may be, depending upon the circumstances. I had a tremendous amount of experience of these people at a time when money was very short, and I want to pay a tribute to the manner in which they were able to raise money even when the amount of help they got from the province was a relatively small proportion of the whole.

I think under those circumstances this side of the House is entitled, to say seeing that there is no provision whatsoever here for compensation—if the amendment is not accepted, although I sincerely hope it will be accepted, or even for that matter if it is accepted, it will allow these people the right not only to be consulted but to obtain their approval of any decision that may be arrived at—but in the absence of that and in the absence of any provision for expropriation and compensation or anything of that kind in the Bill—that it will be a shoddy repayment for the manner in which these people have helped themselves over the years and for the vast expenditure of their own money which they have put in merely to help forward the education of their own children. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to clarify this position and make it clear that the State-aided schools are to get adequate recompense and compensation for the money which they have themselves invested in these schools which are now to be taken over hereafter as State-aided schools.

I want to repeat that I said most emphatically during the second-reading debate that it was not my intention to take over State-aided schools; that this provision had only been inserted because cases do arise in which the owners of schools do not see their way clear to continue, and request the Department to take over those schools. We have already received two requests from them to take over schools. We negotiate with them in regard to compensation. One of the institutions actually indicated that it did not want any compensation. Let me make the position clear once again: It is not my intention to take over State-aided schools. It is only if they ask to be taken over because they cannot continue to control the school for some or other reason that I consider taking it over, and then I am willing to take it over on the conditions agreed upon. For this reason I am quite prepared to accept the amendment. Originally, we inserted the word “consultation” with exactly the same intention, but I accept the fact that the amendment will give these State-aided schools a greater degree of certainty as far as their position is concerned.

Did the hon. the Minister say that in the two cases which have thus far arisen, they did not ask for compensation?

In neither case do they want compensation.

In both cases?

Yes.

I want to raise a matter which I also raised at the second reading and that is the question of the use of school halls. Where the Minister does take over certain schools, will he see to it that the existing practice of allowing schools halls to be used for functions other than actual educational functions will continue? Because that is the practice to-day. I am referring particularly to religious and cultural purposes. It has been the practice in the past, particularly where State-aided schools are concerned, to allow the community which has contributed towards the cost of building those schools, to use the halls for purposes other than educational purposes. I hope that will continue.

I may just say that it will be my policy not only in the case of State-aided schools but also in the case of State schools, where there are no other suitable facilities available for the Indian community, to allow them to use their school halls for public purposes, in the interests of the community, provided the conditions we set are complied with.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 10,

In the absence of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss), who is unfortunately ill, I should like on her behalf to move the amendment printed in her name—

I think that this is an amendment which the hon. the Minister can accept—that when a school is taken over, there will be no change in the conditions of service of such persons without his permission. These people are being taken over by us and if they have any objection I think that they should have the opportunity to resign or leave.

I think hon. members opposite are rather under a misapprehension in regard to the proposals they are making in this regard. Clause 10, to which this amendment has been moved, does not deal with the transfer of officials or teachers from the provincial service to the Department of Indian Affairs; it deals with the position of a small minority, those in private schools, schools which up to the present have not received State aid. The position is that if I accept the amendment, which is to the effect that there shall be no reduction in their earnings or curtailment of their privileges or change in their conditions of service without their permission if such school is taken over, it may happen that such private school may immediately before the take-over summarily raise the remuneration of, for example, its assistant teacher to a fantastically high amount, let us say R5,000 per annum, a far higher salary than is paid to other teachers in the service of the Department. If I accept the amendment I shall be bound to take them over on the same conditions as those which held good in private schools. Hon. members must remember that neither my Department nor I, nor, at least, the Provincial Administration, has any say in regard to the conditions of service of the staff of private schools. There may be all kinds of conditions of service in existence and if I am not able to change any of those conditions of service, the position will be impossible. I may say that this was one of the objections advanced by the Natal Indian Teachers’ Society. They also asked for what is provided for in this amendment, and after I had explained the position to their executive committee, to their representatives, they accepted the fact that it was not possible to add this proviso.

I want to remind the hon. the Minister that he has just accepted an amendment by us in regard to State-aided schools.

State-aided schools but not private schools.

Clause 10 provides—

In other words, they cannot summarily, as contended by the hon. the Minister, increase the salaries of teachers because an agreement has to be reached and so I am all the more grateful that the hon. the Minister accepted our amendment to Clause 5. The objection advanced by the hon. the Minister will, of course, fall away because the hon. the Minister will then simply not take over such a school. This clause deals with the transfer of persons in the service of State-aided schools and I think therefore, with all respect, that the hon. the Minister can accept this amendment.

Hon. members must remember that there are various kinds of State-aided schools. There are State-aided schools which receive only a grant-in-aid, and in their respect the conditions of service of their teaching staff are not subject to what the Provincial Administration determines or pays. But the vast majority, probably 95 per cent, of State-aided schools receive a subsidy from the Government, a subsidy which includes teachers’ salaries; indeed, included in this 95 per cent of the State-aided schools in Natal are the teachers on their staffs in the service of the Provincial Administration. They have been sent to those State-aided schools by the Provincial Administration. But there is a small percentage of State-aided schools which do not receive a subsidy, only a small grant-in-aid, and in those cases the control board can offer any fantastic salary to the teachers.

When you speak of grant-in-aid, are you referring to those schools?

It is to them that we are referring here. The hon. member must remember that the teachers at other State-aided schools are already officials of the province and they are being taken over under Clause 9.

When the clause similar to this One, in the Coloured Education Bill, was discussed here in 1963, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) made some very pertinent observations and I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to one that seems to me to be of particular importance in this instance. The hon. member said in that debate—and I think he was quite right—that once these private institutions are transferred in terms of Clause 5, the teachers employed in these institutions would be transferred to the Government service and that they would then become statutory employees instead of contractual employees, which is a very different situation. In terms of the present Clause 10 the individual will have no choice at all: he will automatically be transferred and if that is the case I think we should be absolutely certain or as sure as we can that there is no diminution of rights.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 1,

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

I think this amendment makes our intentions quite clear, and the intention is that it shall not lie with the Minister to determine whether there is to be a change, under subsection (1) of Section 11, in the conditions of service, salary scales and allowances and so on, or whether under sub-section (3) of Section 11, a person’s salary shall be adjusted to another salary scale. In other words, he is entitled to the salary scale and the service conditions which he enjoyed at the time when the school was taken over. Sir, here is the point that I want to put to the Minister. Subsection (1) of Section 9, referred to in subsection (2) of Clause 11, which we seek to amend, refers to any person other than an officer or employee who immediately prior to the commencement of this Act is employed by the Provincial Administration in a school referred to in sub-section (2) or (3). Those schools are virtually, in the aggregate, the present Government schools. It is a person than an officer or an employee who is employed by the Provincial Administration. The clarity I seek is in regard to who it could be who is neither an officer nor an employee, who is virtually, in terms of the clause which we seek to amend, Clause 11, transferred now in terms of this Act to the Department of Indian Education.

The provisions of Clause 11 (2) quite clearly can only apply to the persons referred to in Clause 9 (1), namely, persons other than an officer or an employee. Who can such a person be who is neither an officer nor an employee? If we could have clarity on that point, Sir, I could perhaps deal further with my proposed amendment. I see the hon. the Minister is in difficulty. May I simply reaffirm that our objection is to any diminution in the rights of any person who is taken over.

The hon. member should read these provisions in the light of the definition clause where “employee” is defined. If you read those two together it means that this Clause deals with the conditions of service of teachers. It excludes others. Clause 11 (1) says—

In other words, the salary scales of teachers shall be prescribed by the Minister subject to the provisions of sub-section (2). If I accept this amendment it would mean that it would be impossible for me to prescribe higher salary scales than those at present in operation. Theoretically it is possible for me to prescribed a lower salary scale but the legal interpretation is that if I were to accept the hon. member’s amendment it would be impossible for me to prescribe higher salary scales for teachers than those obtaining at the moment.

I am sorry, I cannot accept that. I don’t think the hon. the Minister has really dealt with the point I raised which is the application of Clause 11 to the people defined in 9 (1). The hon. the Minister has referred me to Clause 11 (1) but 11 (1) has in brackets (other than officers). Clause 9 (1) says, “other than an officer or employee”. The Minister then referred me to the definition clause where “employee” is defined as “any person who is an employee as defined in Section 1 of the Public Service Act of 1957”. Is the position this that the people referred to in 11 (2)—the clause we are suggesting should be amended—do not include an officer or an employee? It therefore only has importance in regard to somebody who is not an officer or an employee. An employee, according to the definition, appears to be someone who occupies a classified or specified post. That is really what it amounts to. The officers and the employees are people who are not in specified or classified posts in terms of the Public Service Act. In other words, they are people employed on various tasks without being specified or classified. The Minister says this is going to prevent him prescribing a higher salary. I think the hon. the Minister is wrong. If he chooses to establish a salary scale for such people—I doubt very much indeed whether there is in fact at the moment much in the way of a salary scale for such people—all our amendment says is that he may put them on a lower notch in that salary scale than they are at the present moment. I don’t think there will be any objection if he chooses to put them on a salary scale that is higher. Let us get the class of person right first. They are obviously not officers; they are not employees; who are they?

Teachers.

May I say that I was afraid of that, Sir. Teachers don’t of course, fall under the Public Service Commission. They are not officers or employees but teachers because they fall entirely under what I will call the provincial public service. The position is therefore that new salary scales can now be prescribed for teachers and the object of the amendment is to prevent any new salary scales which place teachers at a lower notch than the notch they are on at the time they are transferred from the provincial service to the Central Government service. It is as simple as that. If the Minister has any intention of putting them on a higher notch than the one they enjoy at the present time I hope that won’t deter him from accepting our amendment because it will obviously apply to those people we have in mind, namely, those who may possibly be placed on a lower notch. I can’t see any human being, in ordinary circumstances, objecting to the Minister putting them on a higher notch than the notch they are on at the present time.

I shall not be able to place them on a higher notch; that is the legal interpretation of your amendment.

No, Sir. I suggest that the starting notch must be the same. We have no complaint in that regard. If the Minister is contemplating taking over the existing salary scales it is for the Minister to decide how fast they progress. On the other hand, if the Minister introduces new salary scales of his own then the normal method of adjustment would be to put every teacher on the notch nearest the notch on which he is at present moment. Then they will all start square. There can then be no question of one teacher getting preference over another teacher when the transfer takes place. We are concerned with the matter at the time of transfer because the moment transfer takes place the teacher is established on that notch nearest to his existing notch and that is the end of the matter. There is nothing to prevent the Minister from proceeding to push him up that salary scale as far as he wishes to take him. But there must be no undue discrimination in regard to the position of each teacher relative to his salary scale at the moment of transfer. That is all this amendment seeks and that is all the amendment gives, Mr. Chairman, with respect.

I want to make it clear that in terms of the provisions of the Public Service Act, teachers are not included under the definition of “officer”. This is also the case in regard to teachers in the employ of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. They fall into a different category.

I accept that.

Clause 9 contains sufficient protection as far as the taking over of the teachers is concerned. There is adequate protection to ensure that their conditions of service may not be interfered with. What the hon. member wants to do is to remove from the clause the right which the Minister has to determine that their salary scales, allowances and leave privileges can be changed. We have considered this matter very carefully. I have also consulted the law advisers in order to make sure that my interpretation and that of the Department is correct. They assure me that if I accept the hon. member’s amendment, an amendment which is intended to give protection, it will mean that I shall never at any time be able to prescribe higher salaries for teachers. It will also have the effect whereby I shall not be able next year, the year after I have taken over, to give teachers their ordinary one notch increase. That will be the effect which this amendment will have and so I want to ask the hon. member to accept the fact that it is not my intention to lower conditions of service. Indeed, I have already stated that I shall improve the conditions of service of the teachers whom we are going to take over. I have already stated that we are going to improve these conditions of service to bring them into line with what is being done in regard to Coloured education. If I accept this amendment I shall not be able to do that.

I accept the hon. the Minister’s assurance.

With the leave of the Committee, the amendment proposed by Mr. D. E. Mitchell was withdrawn.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 13,

I wish to move the amendment standing in my name—

The reason for this amendment is that it may happen that after take-over some of the teachers or other staff may leave the service or die before they have had the opportunity to make an election. It is to protect these people that I am inserting this proviso—that if the Secretary for Social Welfare and Pensions is satisfied that there are valid and adequate reasons why the official or the person did not make an election, the Secretary may then grant such person the full benefits. This is a further protection for persons who, because of circumstances cannot make their election in time.

We on this side of the House feel that this is a definite improvement and we shall not oppose it.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 14,

I think this amendment of mine will be acceptable to the hon. the Minister—

1. (5) If a person is, in terms of sub-section (1), transferred, without a reduction of his pensionable emoluments for the purposes of any law, to a post of a grade lower than that of the post which he occupied, he shall, as soon as a suitable vacancy occurs, be re-transferred to a post of a grade appropriate to his salary.

The Clause deals with the transfer of teachers to posts of lower grades. There are three occasions on which a teacher can be transferred to a post of a lower grade. The first is under Clause 17 where he can be transferred for misconduct, such as habitual drunkenness, for example. The second is under Clause 18 where he can be transferred because of inefficiency, i.e. if he has not been able to discharge his duties as a teacher efficiently. The third is the case I wish to deal with. That is where the exigencies of the service require that the man should be transferred. The exigencies of the service would cover, for example, the reclassification of a school, a school where the numbers had gone down, as they say, and it was necessary to re-classify it It would then be necessary to transfer the person, the Head, to a lower grade. I am pleased to say that the Clause is a reasonable one. My amendment is simply to add another sub-section providing that, after he has been transferred to a post of lower grade, he should be placed in a post, at the first available opportunity, of the grade for which he receives his pensionable emoluments. I think as ordinary routine the Department does that.

In this case the Minister will not be risking anything at all. There will be no difficulty in the administration of the Department. It says very clearly in my amendment not that the person shall be transferred immediately—that is not my suggestion—but that he shall, as soon as a suitable vacancy occurs, be transferred. A suitable vacancy is naturally something on which the Department will decide finally but they will decide on it in consultation with the teacher himself. So I see no risk whatsoever in this. It is customary for education departments to do this. If a man is classified as a No. 2 teacher and he is transferred to a class 3 post he still receives his class 2 salary. That is his pensionable salary. When a class 2 post becomes available the Department can then say the man can now go back to another school and get his old post back. That is my suggestion and I think the Minister and the Administration will run no risk in in accepting it.

I do not agree with the hon. member. There is a particular reason why I cannot accept his amendment and it is a reason which is in the interests of the teacher himself. As the hon. member said, it is of course normally not the practice to transfer teachers to lower posts but it does sometimes happen that it is in the interests of education or of the teacher himself to do so. If I accept an amendment which compels me to reinstate his as soon as a suitable vacancy arises in his grade, it can frustrate the whole aim that we wish to achieve. Let me tell the hon. member what our intention is in this regard. It sometimes happens that a teacher appears promising and, because of this fact, is appointed vice-principal. But after he has been appointed as such one discovers that he is not at all qualified to occupy the post of principal or vice-principal. He may be a good subject teacher but he does not have the ability to occupy a principal’s or vice-principal’s post. One can get rid of him in one of two ways. One can tell him; “We appointed you with the best of intentions but it appears now that you are not suited to this particular post and it is better for your future that you return to your ordinary post”. Agreement is reached and he returns.

If one cannot reach agreement with him in this regard the only alternative is to charge him with inefficiency and for an investigation to be made. If the accusation is found to be true, one has by way of penalty, to appoint him in a lower grade. The purpose of this clause is to try to avoid anything of this nature and to provide a solution which will prevent one dealing with these people so severely and to enable one to negotiate with them. That is why we have this restriction whereby it can only be done with such person’s permission.

And if he does not give his permission?

If he does not give his permission then of course an enquiry is made in terms of Clause 18. This is an attempt to avoid having to take action in terms of Clause 18. I hope that the hon. member will admit that we should rather not bind ourselves any further than we have already bound ourselves, namely, as far as the question of such person’s permission is concerned.

I don’t think the hon. the Minister is bound and that the Department would have the slightest difficulty. Under my amendment they have to decide whether it is a suitable post. They can discuss it with the person concerned. I see no difficulty at all. The point is this: that as soon as they have decided that there is a suitable post for him he can be transferred back. I am very anxious that the man should not be discouraged and led to believe that he goes into an inferior post permanently. I don’t want to hold up the Committee, Sir. I think I have stated my case as clearly as I can.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister one question with regard to this amendment of ours. I can’t really see the validity of his arguments. How can his arguments apply any more pertinently to the Indian community than, say, to the Coloured community? The terms of our amendment, namely to add this sub-section to the end of the clause, are identical with sub-section (3) of Section 14 of the Coloured Persons Education Act. They read exactly the same. We would like to know why, if this provision we want included in this Bill was applicable to the Coloured community, where practically the same situation regarding the transfer of teachers exist, it does not apply to the Indian community? The hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs was satisfied with such a section but in this instance the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs is not prepared to have the same safeguard incorporated. I hope he can give us an explanation in that regard.

I think we are grateful to the hon. the Minister for the way in which he has set out his case. As the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) said, no difficulty will be experienced either in reinstating or not reinstating such person. It will not be difficult because the amendment states clearly “If a suitable vacancy occurs”. I think that it was those words which tipped the balance on a previous occasion, as the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) has also indicated. The hon. the Minister will not find himself in any trouble because the amendment speaks of a “suitable” vacancy. If there is no suitable vacancy, in the opinion of the hon. the Minister, nothing will simply happen and the teacher can still be protected as the hon. the Minister wants him to be protected.

I should just like to point out to the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) that there is a very great difference between Indian education and Coloured education as far as the control over teachers is concerned. Indian teachers will be full-fledged officials of the department as they are at present officials of the Province. It will be the department which places them at particular schools just as it is the Province which places them at particular schools at present. There is a completely different system in the Cape where school boards have a partial say over their placement. There is at present no school board system in Natal as far as Indian education is concerned. That is why it differs completely from Coloured education. Other amendments of the hon. member in which she seeks to protect school boards and so forth make it clear to me that she does not understand that difference. We are not dealing with school boards; we are dealing only with the department. That was why it was necessary in the case of Coloured education to make available some measure of protection in connection with reinstatement. One often finds that a person has to be transferred because problems arise between him and the school board. One can then simply transfer him to another school board area. In the case of Indian education, where it is simply a problem of environment, the department simply transfers the teacher to another school, without a reduction in grade, when the time too do so is ripe.

As I have said, this provision deals simply with the desirability of eliminating formal inquiries in terms of Clause 18. Hon. members now say that if I accept their amendment, we will not find ourselves in any difficulty because the words „suitable vacancy” provide ample protection. I am afraid of this because it means that every vacancy which arises may be a suitable one in the eyes of that teacher. One will then in any case again have to persuade him that it is not a suitable vacancy. In other words, one can make a great deal of trouble for oneself in this regard. I may just say that I discussed this whole matter with the Natal Indian Teachers’ Society. After a full discussion with them in which I gave them the explanation which I have given this Committee to-day, they intimated that they were in agreement with the clause as it stands here. They said that they were fully prepared to abide by it and they hoped, according to the way in which it was drawn up, that it would be an improvement on what would have been the case if it had been compulsory to reinstate such person and one had eventually to resort to an inquiry. They accepted it in this way and I hope the Committee will accept it in the same way.

I regret I don’t quite follow the hon. the Minister’s argument. This clause deals with two types of teachers. It deals with the teacher who has to be removed with his consent and it also deals with the teacher who has to be removed in terms of Clauses 17 and 18. They are two different groups of teachers.

No; you are wrong.

I am not wrong; the Minister is wrong. Let me just develop my argument. Clause 14 (2) says—

That is the first teacher. The second teacher is—

That is the other teacher. The teacher who has to be demoted in terms of Sections 17 and 18 does not have to give his consent. Why do you want the first portion of this clause in his case? The first portion of this clause applies to the person who is not subject to 17 and 18.

That was what I said.

The hon. the Minister is beginning to see it in the right light. Let me just go further. With respect to the Chair, that was not what the hon. the Minister said. When I asked the Minister what happened to the teacher who did not give his consent, he replied that he was dealt with under Clause 18. I cannot accept that because the Minister does not need his consent if he has to deal with the person in terms of Clauses 17 and 18.

Of course not; you are right.

Of course I am right; I am never wrong. Therefore, the teacher whose consent you require, is a teacher who is not to be investigated in terms of Clauses 17 and 18. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) now suggests that, where a man is not investigated in terms of Clauses 17 and 18 but who has to be demoted, it should be laid down in the law that at some time in the future he will get his post back. That will make it easier for the man to give his consent to be demoted. Put it into the law. We can appreciate such a case where a man has to be given a lower grade for administrative reasons or other reasons, a man who is not subject to Clauses 17 and 18. Make it easier for him to give his consent. Because if he does not consent, he will get the sack; you won’t keep a man whom you want to demote and who will not agree; you won’t keep him.

No, then I institute an inquiry in terms of Clause 18.

But you cannot. He is not subject to Clause 18. He is not the type of man that falls under Clause 18. May I draw the hon. Minister’s attention to Clause 18? It says: “If it is alleged that any person referred to in sub-section (1) is unfit for, or is incapable of performing efficiently the duties attached to his post. …” That I can understand. But that is not the man whose consent you want because you do not need his consent to be demoted. I am referring to whom you want to give a lower post and whose consent you require. Surely there is nothing wrong in promising him that he will be restored to the same grade as soon as there is a vacancy in that grade in the service. That is the wisdom of the hon. member for Kensington’s amendment and, therefore, I think the hon. Minister of Coloured Affairs accepted that provision when he saw the wisdom of it, and I think the Minister of Indian Affairs should consider very seriously not to make it impossible for a teacher whose consent you require to give that consent. I think the hon. Minister will do the right thing if he accepts the amendment of the hon. member for Kensington.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 15,

Meneer die Voorsitter, Mr. Chairman …

On a point of order, the hon. member started his speech in Afrikaans.

I want to draw the attention …

The hon. member began his speech in Afrikaans. …

No, all he said was “Meneer die Voorsitter”.

The hon. member must continue his speech in Afrikaans.

I move the amendment standing in my name—

I hope the hon. the Minister will accept it. I need not discuss it now, because I think it is self-explanatory. I shall wait until the hon. the Minister has expressed an opinion in regard to the amendment.

I move as an amendment—

This sub-section deals with the discharge by the Minister of a female teacher if she marries. I move the deletion for very obvious reasons, because, as with European education, I am quite sure the hon. Minister is aware that he simply is not going to be able to staff the schools under his Department of Education with single women teachers only. I would like to add that in no other profession, with the exception of the Public Service, are women expected automatically to resign on marriage. In any event our contention on this side of the House is that that is a decision that should be left to us and not to the Government or to any provincial administration or any legislative body. If we had a superfluity of teachers in South Africa, well that would be another matter, but in many cases, as the hon. Minister knows, these married women teachers are more mature, they are more experienced, they are more painstaking than a great many of the single teachers with whom they have to work. Sir, this is something to which we are opposed, whether it applies to European education or any other form of education, and it seems to me that the really intelligent thing to do would be to launch a campaign to attract married women back to the profession rather than to do everything you can to drive them out, as is intended in this clause. Let me make one more point before I sit down. As far as women teachers are concerned with school-going children, when the children are at school she is at school, and when they came home she comes home. So there is no question of their being neglected in the family sense, and even then I do not think that is a matter for the Government to decide. This is an outdated type of provision, and it gives me great pleasure to move its deletion.

The amendment of the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) amounts to this: She wants to omit paragraph (g) of the clause which refers to the discharge of a female if she marries. The hon. member must realize that this does not place an obligation on the Minister; it is purely a permissive clause, and so it does not follow from this that when she marries a teacher will necessarily be discharged. It simply means that it is possible to discharge her. If we do not have that right and a female teacher were to marry and, in reality, go and work for another employer, and she were to be anxious to leave the service, and she were to resign, this could affect the question of pension benefits. But if she is discharged, she receives her full pension benefits. So, in actual fact, it is in the interests of female teachers that this provision should remain in order to give the Minister this permissive power. It is not by any means the intention to discharge every female teacher who marries; this provision simply means that that is what can be done.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether he can give us the assurance that he will use his discretion in this connection?

Yes. It is generally accepted that, because of the shortage of teaching staff, when a female teacher marries and she is willing to continue teaching, we make provision in various ways to retain her service. We will do everything in our power to retain her services as long as possible.

As far as the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) is concerned, I think I should deal with his amendments one by one, because they affect three separate matters. Firstly, he wishes to insert the words “or retired or transferred” after “discharged” in line 48. Unfortunately, I am unable to accept this amendment because “transfers and appointments” are controlled by Clause 8 of the Bill. Clause 15 deals only with the termination of service, and it would not be advisable to insert any provision in regard to appointments or transfers in this clause. We are dealing here with the discharge of persons. Transfers fall under Clause 8, and it would not be desirable to insert any provision in this regard here. The hon. member also moved, in line 56, after “question” to add “if such person is given at least three calendar months’ notice”. This refers to the discharge of a person because of the abolition of his post or a reduction, re-organi-zation or re-arrangement of the staff of the school in question. The position is that this wording is precisely the same as the relevant provision in the Public Service Act, as that in existing Natal ordinances and as that in all other laws referring to staff, not only teaching staff, but also public servants, and if we now insert a provision of this nature here, it is going to have a chain reaction as far as ail the other laws which control staff are concerned. I may just add that the circumstances in which such person can be discharged in terms of this sub-section, or the period of notice which he must be given, are not defined in the Public Service Act or the Natal Education Ordinances or in any of the other laws governing staff, but in the regulations, and there will be provision in the regulations regarding the period of notice to be given as is done in regard to all other staff in all other services. If we insert it in this Bill while it is normally provided by regulation, we shall at a later stage have to include in the Bill all the other circumstances which have to be covered, and that is going to make matters very difficult. I think it is desirable that we should retain the method followed in other legislation simply of inserting the principle here but of prescribing the conditions and circumstances by way of regulation. The hon. member’s third amendment is in line 63, after “question” to add “and if his case has been the subject of an inquiry in terms of Section 17”. This amendment refers to the paragraph dealing with discharge for reasons of efficiency or economy. Sir, such an inquiry cannot be made in terms of Clause 17 because Clause 17 deals with misconduct, and there is no mention of misconduct in this provision. We are dealing here with the question of efficiency or economy. The hon. member will find similar provisions in the Public Service Act, in the Natal Education Ordinances, in the Vocational Education Act and the Coloured Persons’ Education Act—in other words, in all the other laws which deal with services, the Public Service and education services. They all have similar provisions, and if, in this case, we make it subject to an inquiry, particularly where the inquiry referred to by the hon. member deals with misconduct and while there is no mention of misconduct here at all, we are going to make the whole matter very difficult. I am sorry, but I cannot accept these amendments.

I must say there is a great deal of reason in the Minister’s argument against these amendments. There is, however, one point to which I would like to draw his attention when he refers to Clause 8 (2) and says that provision in regard to transfer or discharge is already made in that sub-section —which, of course, is correct—I want to ask him whether he should not arm himself with exactly those same powers in this clause. You see. Mr. Chairman, it refers here to the Minister’s right to discharge, whereas in Clause 8 it says that he cannot only discharge, but that he can also promote or transfer. Now I recognize that the sub-sections here don’t hold any prospect of promotion for a person. For example, if he is found to be unfit, the question of promotion does not arise, but the question of transfer, I think, is of importance. I refer, for instance, to 15 (1) Cb)— that he may be discharged on account of continued ill-health. Now I am uncertain about the definition of “continued ill-health”. I want to put this example to the hon. the Minister: Assuming there is a teacher who teaches at a school in Durban, whose duties have been performed properly, who has been a good member of the staff, but who contracts some kind of illness, and as a result of medical treatment and examination over a period, he is advised that if he would live at a higher altitude, his health would improve. His health, shall we say, has continued to be bad for a year or two and he has therefore suffered from “continued ill-health”, and at that time the Minister, in terms of this clause, may do certain things to him and about his position. On the other hand, if he were to be transferred—a satisfactory teacher who suffers from ill-health because he is teaching in a school in Durban where, possibly, humidity affects him if he were to be transferred to an Indian school in Johannesburg, the question of “ill-health” might fall away.

That is the reason why it is a permissive clause.

I agree entirely, but since the Minister himself has drawn my attention to Clause 8 where he has triple powers, as it were—“to promote, transfer or discharge”, I think it would be reasonable in this particular clause of the Bill to arm himself with exactly the same permissive rights. I recognize that they are permissive, but why is there any objection to saying that the Minister may discharge, or he may retire, or he may transfer a person for a number of reasons fand I refer particularly to continued ill-health), “if his case has been the subject of an inquiry”?

There is an inconsistency in this Clause 15. In line 47 it says “may be discharged by the Minister” and then follow a number of cases, and then we come to (e) where it says “if for reasons other than those referred to in paragraph (d). his discharge will, in the opinion of the Secretary promote efficiency …” Now I put to the hon. the Minister that to conform with what has happened in other Acts of a similar nature, he should be prepared to say here “his discharge will in the opinion of the Minister, promote efficiency …” Then it would be possible for us. if there should be such a case, to raise the matter in this House and to ask the Minister to give us the reasons, but if the Minister is going to discharge a teacher because of the opinion of the Secretary, then we shall not be able to do so. Therefore, whatever the hon. Minister does about the amendments, he should at least accept that change in the wording.

I think the hon. the Minister should reconsider this whole matter. I think that he confined himself more particularly to the Afrikaans text. I want to refer to the English text. The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) is: In line 48, after “discharged” to insert “or retired or transferred”. In the Afrikaans text the amendment is to insert “of afgedank word” after “ontslaan”. But “afgedank” is not “retired”. “Retired” means that he is compelled to resign. It is a far milder term and it can mean a great deal to such teacher if instead of his being discharged, he is compelled by circumstances to resign, perhaps with the retention of all his pension benefits, while if he is “discharged”, he can lose all those pension benefits. I want therefore to suggest that the translation in this regard should be reconsidered and that the hon. the Minister should give his attention to this matter. The hon. member’s next amendment is: In line 56, after “question” to add “if such person is given at least three calendar months’ notice”; he can then be discharged. One does not discharge a person because of the abolition of a post or because of “reduction”, or “reorganization” or rearrangement of the staff” in a particular school. One may then compel him to resign but one does not “discharge” such a person. The word “discharge” is far too strong. “Discharge” is a nasty word. It often happens that a person is given the opportunity to resign and he then retains all his pension benefits and so forth. I ask the hon. the Minister therefore, with all respect, to reconsider our amendment.

I should also like to refer to paragraph (g). I am thinking in this regard of the great shortage of teachers which we have in South Africa. Although it is not binding on the hon. the Minister, although this is a permissive provision. I still maintain that we should not not necessarily discharge female staff if they marry. People have been discussing this matter in South Africa for hundreds of years and I think that in this enlightened age we must decide that it is not necessary to discharge a female when she marries. The hon. the Minister has told us that he has inserted this provision for the teacher’s sake so that she can still receive her pension benefits. But I am sure no woman usually marries once she has reached the age of 60 years or more! Prior to that she is only entitled to what she has paid in; she receives no pension. I should also like to point out that as far as the Afrikaans text is concerned there is no such thing as “vrouspersoon”; it should be “vrouepersoon”. I hope that this printing error will be rectified.

I now wish to move the following amendment—

May I just say in regard to the request of the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) in connection with female staff, that I have already stated in reply to the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) that this permissive power will not be made use of to discharge them in all cases; it will be used to discharge them when it is in their interests to do so, when they want to leave the teaching profession, in which case they must then be discharged in order to receive their pension benefits, if any. This is a technical point which makes it necessary to discharge them in such cases and not simply to leave it to them to resign. This is also tied up with the language difficulty which the hon. member has in regard to the term “kan ontslaan word” in the Afrikaans text. I may just point out that this expression is used in all the legislation dealing with these matters, and in the Natal Ordinances as well.

I was speaking about “retired”.

Where is that?

The amendment seeks to insert the words “or retired or transferred” after “discharged”. The translation of “discharged” is completely wrong.

I am not accepting that amendment and so we need not discuss it any further. I told the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) why I could not accept his amendment. It is because what he is dealing with here is the question of “transfer”, and this matter is dealt with under another clause. It is not necessary to make provision for transfers in this clause. That can be done under Clause 8 and so his amendment is not necessary.

That is my argument precisely. The hon. the Minister regards “afgedank” and “ontslaan” as being the same thing, and that is not what we are asking for. The English version mentions “discharged” and “retired”—he is compelled to resign. There are not only two things mentioned here. Three things are mentioned—there is the question of resigning, being compelled to resign and then there is the question of transfer. I can understand the last mentioned one but I think mention is also made in other clauses of “retired” or “is compelled to resign”. It is to the benefit of the teachers themselves that this provision be inserted. If the hon. the Minister will accept this amendment, such teacher will retain his pension benefits.

I shall accept the amendment of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). The intention was that it should be “Minister”. I am sorry that I cannot agree with the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp). I have had another quick glance at the provision. There is no difference as far as pension benefits are concerned between “discharge” and “resign”. Indeed, in all the laws which deal with reasons for discharge, and they are all precisely the same, mention is made of “discharge” and “ontslag”. We also have the Public Service Act, Act No. 54 of 1957, Section 14 (6) of which provides: “Every officer may be discharged from the Public Service”, and then they give similar reasons to those mentioned here. There is also the Vocational Education Act. Section 27 of Act No. 70 of 1955 gives the same reason for discharge and here too it is provided that a person “may be discharged by the Minister”.

The person.

Yes. This term is used throughout our legislation and in all those cases where such person is discharged, he is discharged with the retention of his pension benefits.

The hon. the Minister has not yet replied to part of the amendment to Clause 15. This part reads: In line 56, after “question” to add “if such person is given at least three calendar months’ notice”; in other words, if he is retired or discharged, as is provided here, because of the abolition of his post or a reduction, reorganization or rearrangement of the staff of the school in question, we want to add at the end “if such person is given at least three calendar months’ notice”. In this case it is the discharge of a person who has no guilt. He is discharged because his post has been abolished or because there has been a reduction of the staff, or a re-organization. I think it is no more than right that in such cases a person should be given three months’ notice.

Perhaps the hon. member did not hear my explanation. I have already explained that there are similar provisions in other laws dealing with the control of teachers and public servants. Not one of those laws lays down the conditions to be complied with on discharge because provision is made for many other things, not only for notice. All these things are not defined in the law but are defined in the regulations under the law. Accordingly, provision will be made in the regulations which we are drawing up at present for notice of this nature to be given. In terms of the Natal regulations which are of application, the period is not three months but a school quarter. It may therefore be necessary to provide in the regulations that this period shall be a quarter and not three months.

Amendments in lines 48 and 56, proposed by Mr. Gorshel, put and negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Moore put and agreed to and remaining amendment proposed by Mr. Gorshel put and negatived.

Question put: That paragraph (g) of subsection (1) stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: N. G. Eaton and A. Hopewell.

Question affirmed and amendment proposed by Mrs. Tayyor dropped.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 16,

I wish to move—

1. (f) he propagates any idea or takes part in or identifies himself with any propaganda or activity or acts in a manner calculated to impede, obstruct or undermine the activities of any department of the State;
2. (g) he uses his position as a teacher to further private or party-political aims, or encourages disobedience to or resistance against the laws of the State;

and to omit paragraph (m) and to substitute the following paragraph:

1. (m) he, with a view to obtaining any privilege, advantage or enrichment, or to causing prejudice or injury to the Department or any school, discloses or uses information gathered or obtained by him through his employment in the Department or at any State-aided school.

When the Coloured Education Bill was under discussion in this House two years ago, we had quite a lot of argument about a very similar clause in that Bill and I moved an amendment very similar to the one I am moving now. The reasons are clear. I believe that the portion of Clause 16 which attempts to define misconduct on the part of teachers goes much too far. Hence I have moved the deletion of sub-sections (f), (g) and (m) and the substitution thereof by the amending paragraphs. I do not want to go into a long detailed reasoning as to why I am doing this. I think it is self-evident. I cannot see why we need (f), because it is very far-reaching. It says that a teacher shall be guilty of misconduct if he publicly, otherwise than at a meeting convened by an association or organization recognized by the Minister as representative of persons contemplated in the sub-section (1) of Section 15, criticizes the administration of any Department, office or institution of the State other than at a meeting of teachers. I feel this is very far-reaching and I want it deleted and substituted by a much narrower clause, which will mean that the teacher will only be guilty of misconduct if he propagates any new idea or takes part in or identifies himself with any propaganda or activity or acts in a manner calculated to impede, obstruct or undermine the activities of any Department of the State. That is the Cape Ordinance. I am trying to get that substituted for this sub-section which the Minister proposes to insert. I feel it goes much too far. Why is a teacher unable to criticize the administration of any Department, office or institution of the State? Surely this is a democratic right as long as he is not actually undermining the State, or does something to impede the activities of the State. I believe there should be no obstacle placed in the way of a teacher so doing. I was upset to read the other day about a Fort Hare lecturer who had been dismissed because at a meeting of a study committee of the University of S.A. in Pretoria he was asked to speak about the problems experienced with tuition of Native administration and the Bantu University Colleges. In the course of giving that speech he spoke about amending the syllabus and he made a few comments which were adverse to the Native Administration Department of the University, and for that he was dismissed as a teacher.

That is an absolutely incorrect statement.

What is incorrect?

The report you referred to. The report in the Eastern Province Herald which you read is definitely not correct.

Obviously I must accept what the Minister says, but I am worried about the length to which this sub-section can be used. Perhaps the Minister will tell us why this lecturer was dismissed. But anyway, I do not think that as the clause stands in this Bill it should be as wide as it is. I prefer the Cape regulation in this regard, and that is why I moved the deletion of (f).

Now (g) is the same also as the clause which appears in the Cape Education Ordinance. I move the deletion of that and I insert instead a much narrower clause which, instead of making it possible for a teacher to be considered guilty of misconduct if he is a member of any party-political organization or of any organization which the Minister may by notice in the Gazette declare to be an organization which he does not approve of—I substitute a clause which says that if a teacher uses his position to further private or party-political aims or encourages disobedience to or resistance against the laws of the State, he is guilty of an offence. I think that goes quite far enough, and that, too, is the Cape Provincial Ordinance. I know of course that the existing (g) is in the Natal Ordinance, but if I had to choose between the two, I infinitely prefer the Cape Ordinance and I hope to persuade the Minister to prefer it too. I cannot see any reason why a teacher should not be allowed to be a member of a party-political organization. What is going to happen if the Indian Council is constituted and there might be teachers elected or nominated to that Council? Surely that could be a party-political organization. This can go to any lengths. I certainly prefer the narrower definition of political activities of teachers as defined in the Cape Ordinance. Therefore I move the deletion of (g) and the substitution therefore by the (g) found on page 355 of the Order Paper.

Finally, I want to move the deletion of (m) because I believe that this, too, is a very far-reaching provision indeed. I want to omit (m) and to substitute that a person can be considered guilty of misconduct if he, with a view to obtaining any privilege, advantage or enrichment, or to causing prejudice or injury to the Department or any school, discloses or uses information gathered or obtained by him through his employment in the Department or at any State-aided school. If the Minister will look at (r) of this clause he will see that a person who makes a false or incorrect statement knowing it to be false or incorrect is deemed to be guilty of misconduct, and only then, but under the existing (m) as it stands, if a person makes a statement of fact i.e. says something which is factually correct, he can still be considered to have committed a misconduct. The whole thing is illogical and much too far-reaching and therefore I ask the Minister to accept my amendments.

I am afraid that the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has destroyed her whole case by quoting the example of Mr. Ndamze at the University College of Fort Hare. By doing that she destroyed her whole case.

I only mentioned it as an example.

Yes, but that example destroys the hon. member’s whole argument because that man made his speech at that gathering as a representative of the University College of Fort Hare and he did so without the approval and knowledge of his Department at the University and without consulting the head of that Department. His actions in this regard were calculated to bring not only the University College of Fort Hare into discredit but the Department as well, and so he was guilty of the gravest form of insubordination. [Interjections.] This particular case which the hon. member seeks to use as an example as to why people should have this right, led to the fact that this particular person was warned three times that what took place there was private and confidential, but in spite of this fact, while the investigation was in progress, he made these things public to a certain newspaper in the Eastern Cape. He made public the whole procedure and everything that had happened there in a way which made it very clear that he was the only person who could have done it. This is the person whom she is seeking to protect. There are people whose intention it is to bring our universities into discredit and to make use of their positions as teachers at these universities and colleges in order to act as party-political propagandists. These are the people she wishes to defend, people who misuse their position to bring the Government, the State, the Department and everything else into discredit, instead of confining themselves to their academic work. I am speaking from a particular knowledge of that matter. I myself was a member of the ad hoc committee which investigated the matter. [Interjections.] The hon. member mentioned this case as justification for her premise. She used it as an example but by doing so she destroyed her whole argument. She is defending people who are guilty of the gravest form of insubordination and unacademic conduct, people who seek to use their position to subvert the State instead of confining themselves to their work. These are the people whom she wants to protect. As long as she uses this case as an example I say that she is destroying her whole argument. We must ensure that people at universities or colleges confine themselves to their academic work and curricula and submit to academic authority and discipline. We simply cannot tolerate arguments in favour of people who do not wish to do this. I do not think any thinking person or any academic person would approve of that sort of conduct.

I have no desire to discuss the case of this senior lecturer at Fort Hare, but I think it is most improper of the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker), to tell us that he was one of the persons concerned in the investigation, to make this statement in the House to-night.

Why?

I hope the Minister will in due course make a statement in the House and give us the opportunity to debate it. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) just mentioned this matter in passing. I am not defending that lecturer. I do not wish to discuss the matter, but I hope the Minister will make a statement, not an hon. member who happened to be a member of the investigating committee, because that is certainly unfair to this lecturer.

I think the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton is an improvement on the provisions of Clause 16. There could be other suggestions for improvement. I want to remind hon. members opposite that they are the advocates of a policy of separate development, equal but separate, and now we have a new version of apartheid.

It is still the old version.

Let me read to them what conditions the teachers in the Transvaal have, many of whom support that party very enthusiastically. Here is the relative clause in their conditions of service. I am quoting from Section 85 of the Ordinance of 1953—

In other words, they are given full political rights, but South West Africa, governed completely by Nationalists, goes very much further. There they say that the teacher may stand for Parliament without resigning his post. The hon. member says that the hon. member for Houghton is going too far with her suggestions. I think her suggestions are modest. They are based on the Cape Provincial Ordinance, and I hope the Minister will be prepared to accept them.

This is the clause which might be termed the mouth zip-fastener clause. This is the clause which completely silences the teacher.

I hope someone will silence you.

This is the clause which makes it an offence publicly to criticize the Department or any office or institution of the State. I want to ask the Minister, who I think is very fair and straightforward, to answer this question. If the permit system which has been introduced in this city is protested against by teachers in his Department, will he sack them? You know, Sir, there has lately been introduced in our public life the permit system in regard to mixed audiences. Some Coloured teachers have publicly stated that they oppose that. Will an Indian teacher who gets on a platform and says that he protests against this new system of permits in regard to mixed audiences be guilty of criticizing any department, office or institution of the State, and will the Minister sack him under this clause? Because if that is so, then some of our intellectuals among the Coloureds and the Indians will be completely silenced.

Who is the United Party chairman of the Coloured group?

I do not talk to radicals. [Laughter.] I merely wish to say that this type of embargo on the democratic rights of citizens of the country is wrong. I agree with some of the clauses here. I do not oppose the whole of Clause 16, but I do want to say that we do not show a spirit of democracy if we have to silence the intellectual section of the community in regard to what they consider to be the democratic right of protest in the interest of their community, and I have given the Minister an example of what has happened and what can happen.

Now I want to refer to paragraph (h). The Minister will remember that I referred to it in my second-reading speech. I should like him to consider very seriously whether he wants to have the power as set out here. I want to give the Minister some of my own personal experiences as a representative of the Coloured people. They interpret this clauses as meaning that a teacher cannot come to a Member of Parliament to complain about anything which affects him in his school. A very strict interpretation of this clause would be this. There do arise occasions when a teacher wants to come to his Member of Parliament or to go to an association or to an attorney in regard to a matter which affects him and his position. Let us read this. It says that if he attempts to secure intervention through any person who is not in the employment of the Department in relation to his position and conditions of service, unless it is done to obtain redress of any grievance through Parliament, he commits an offence. I have given examples of the position which occurred lately where numerous teachers did not receive their salaries for some time. Many of them have written to us. [Interjection.] Mr. Chairman, we are trying to be constructive, and hon. members do not want to appreciate that we are trying to be constructive about a Bill which will in due course become law. If the hon. the Minister will inform me that that is not envisaged in the Bill, but that a teacher will be able to make representations to his Member of Parliament or go to some organization or other to put his case to the Minister, then I have no objection. As I read this clause, however, it seems to me that a man will, in the event of his having a complaint against the head of his department, be required to go to that head to make his complaint. And one can imagine how this man might prejudice himself by doing that. So, he might not want to go to the head to make his complaint because he feels such action might harm him. Consequently I feel this provision is far too stringent. If my memory serves me correctly, I think I already pointed out when the transfer of Coloured education was dealt with in this House, that it was an unfair restriction on the democratic right of a teacher, the right to seek redress in regard to any matter affecting him as a teacher—provided he does not undermine the State or does not do anything derogatory to the school or to the Government, he should have that right.

Accordingly, I ask the Minister to give us the assurance that the provisions of this clause will be applied very, very sparingly. I do not want to move that this provision be deleted, because I know that will, in any case, not be effective, but I do ask the Minister to act along the lines I have suggested.

I should just like to point out to the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) in regard to his objections to paragraph (h) that the present Natal Ordinance provides that a teacher will be guilty of an offence if he tries—

The provisions of paragraph (h) are therefore precisely the same as those to which Indian teachers in Natal have been accustomed over the years. It is my view that, generally speaking, Indian teachers ought not to approach members of Parliament with their problems. Departmental channels are available to them in this connection along which they can make all their representations in order by so doing to bring these matters to the attention of the authorities. Moreover, it will be possible for them through the medium of their teachers’ associations, for the recognition of which I am making provision, to make the necessary representations in connection with their problems. Under the circumstances I cannot entertain the suggestion of the hon. member that we should effect an amendment in this respect.

As far as the amendments of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) are concerned, I must say that I am sorry but I am unable to accept any of them. I shall try to give my reasons for not being able to accept her amendments. I am aware that she bases her proposals on the Cape Ordinance while the Bill is based on the Natal Ordinance, an Ordinance to which the Indian teachers are accustomed. The Indian Teachers’ Association asked me specifically, and I gave them an undertaking in this regard, as far as misconduct and conditions of service were concerned, to adhere as closely as possible to the provisions of the Natal Ordinance.

Also as far as this clause is concerned?

Yes. They had no objection at all to this clause and particularly to paragraph (f). The gist of these provisions is completely in conformity with the corresponding provision in the Natal Ordinance but it goes further and it makes a concession to Indian teachers, a concession which the Natal Ordinance does not make. A case arose in which an Indian teacher criticized the Provincial Administration on the occasion of a meeting of the Natal Indian Teachers’ Society. A charge of misconduct was brought against him on the ground of the criticism which he expressed there. I am making specific provision in paragraph (f), however, that a teacher will have the right to express criticism at the meeting of a body which is representative of teachers. This is a right which I think teachers ought to have and if they are critical of the Department, the annual meeting of their teacher’s association is the place for them to express that criticism. The matter can be thrashed out there and any decision can then be brought through the correct channels to the attention of the authorities. That is why I am making this concession to them.

The proposed amendment will mean if it is accepted, that in every case in which it is alleged that an offence has been committed, it will have to be proved that it was the intention of the teacher to discredit the Department or to do those things which are considered to be wrong. To prove intention in any case is almost impossible. That is why the Cape Provincial Administration is powerless to act when it should act.

My objection to the proposal of the hon. member in regard to paragraph (g) is, if it is accepted, that we shall have to prove that the teacher committed the alleged offences—in other words, that he promoted party political aims, encouraged disobedience to or resistance against the laws of the State, and so forth. We shall then have to prove that he committed these offences and that he committed them in his capacity as teacher—in other words, in terms of the hon. member’s proposal, a teacher can do any of these things outside the classroom; he can participate in a public meeting and he can criticize the State or encourage people to break the law as long as he can say that he did not do these things in his capacity as teacher. If he can prove this, he gets off scot-free. That is what the hon. member wants.

That is precisely what is provided in the Cape Ordinance.

As I say, that is what the hon. member wants us to allow them to do. But we are not going to allow this under any circumstances.

Just because you are dealing here with non-Whites!

If we accept the hon. member’s suggestion in connection with paragraph (m) it will also place an extremely difficult onus of proof on the State. Her amendment is also in conflict with the accepted principle of secrecy and the use for private purposes of information gained in State time and at State expense. Moreover, this paragraph is almost word for word the same as the corresponding provision in the Natal Ordinance. I want to say again that these provisions have been accepted by the Natal Indian Teachers’ Society. They raised no objections at all to these provisions and they did not ask for these provisions to be amended in any way. The fact that the hon. member for Houghton is asking that we should water down these provisions is, as far as I am concerned, sufficient reason not to accept her amendments.

Question put: That paragraph (f) stand part of the Clause, and a division demanded.

As fewer than four members (viz. Mr. Barnett and Mrs. Suzman) supported the demand for a division, Question affirmed and amendment negatived.

Question put: That paragraph (g) stand part of the Clause, and a division demanded.

As fewer than four members (viz. Mrs. Suzman) supported the demand for a division, Question affirmed and amendment negatived.

Question put: That paragraph (m) stand part of the Clause, and a division demanded.

As fewer than four members (viz. Mrs. Suzman) supported the demand for a division, Question affirmed and remaining amendment negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 17,

Mr. Chairman, I move the second part of the amendment standing in my name on page 363 of the Order Paper, viz.—

The effect of this amendment will be to shorten the period during which the Secretary could make a recommendation in terms of sub-section (23) of this clause. When one refers to that sub-section, Mr. Chairman, one sees that various charges could be brought against a teacher. If a teacher has admitted a charge of misconduct as contemplated in sub-section (3) or has been found guilty on a charge of misconduct in terms of sub-section (13) but has not appealed against it within the period prescribed … in all these cases the Secretary can make recommendations. If we look at the penalties prescribed we will find that they range from a caution and reprimand to a fine of R200, or to a transfer, or to a reduction in grade and emoluments, or to a dismissal, or being called upon to resign. Well, Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether it is in the interests of either the teacher concerned or his pupils that he should be subjected to the uncertainty of having to live for a whole year under the strain of not knowing whether the Secretary will consider his case in his favour or against him. I believe that, by and large, such a state of affairs will not be in the interests of the teacher’s students, and on that basis I ask the hon. Minister to consider reducing the period from 12 to three months.

I wish to refer to another precedent concerning this matter. When the Education Bill for Coloured persons was discussed in this House, the original Bill also provided for a period of 12 months, but the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs was prepared to accept an amendment which reduced the period to three months. For these reasons, Sir, I appeal to the hon. the Minister to accept also in this case an amendment entailing a reduction from 12 to three months during which the Secretary can consider the matter.

Mr. Chairman, I think that the hon. member misunderstands the intention of this provision, and, in particular, the intention of sub-section (24). The reason why a period of 12 months has to elapse before the Secretary makes a recommendation to the Minister concerned, is as follows: It often happens that a teacher commits some or other less serious offence or is guilty of some or other form of misconduct and there is a possibility that he can rehabilitate himself. Let us say, for example, that he is guilty of the misuse of alcohol but that it is possible for him to rehabilitate himself. Evidence is obtained over the course of time that he has tried to overcome his weakness and has mended his ways. He was guilty of misconduct and it has been a good thing that a sword has, as it were, been hanging over his head for a long period, a period which has been given in which to try to rehabilitate himself. If a period of only three months has to elapse, it may perhaps not be long enough to give him the opportunity to rehabilitate himself. But if over a period of a year he shows that he has mended his ways, that he is acting more responsibly and is conducting himself better, that he will not again commit the type of offence of which he was found guilty, it may happen that the recommendation which refers to him may be withdrawn completely or perhaps amended. That is the intention of this sub-section. It is not the intention to wait for a long time and then to penalize him at that stage, but to give him the opportunity to rehabilitate himself in cases where he has been found guilty of less serious offences.

I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I cannot accept the hon. the Minister’s explanation. I have had practical experience of this type of case. After the inquiry has been disposed of—irrespective of whether the teacher concerned has been found guilty or not guilty—the Secretary can postpone his recommendations for not more than 12 months. The accused has been charged, the inquiry has been disposed of, the report has been brought out or completed and the recommendations have already been put in writing, but he can wait for 12 months before taking further steps. According to the hon. the Minister the teacher has all this time at his disposal to rehabilitate himself, and, if circumstances warrant his so doing, the Secretary may revise or amend his recommendations as he deems fit. This means therefore that the Secretary has to decide whether his original report should be sent through unchanged or not. I think that a recommendation should be made as soon as possible. The recommendation can state that the teacher ought to be given the opportunity to rehabilitate himself within a certain period. This is the practical aspect of this procedure and this is indeed what happens in practice. To keep the teacher on tenter hooks for 12 months without his knowing what is to happen to him is sufficient reason for him, if he was guilty of the misuse of alcohol previously, to drink even more! Accordingly, I want to suggest that the hon. the Minister should accept this recommendation. This will mean that the Secretary can inform the Minister that he finds the teacher concerned guilty but recommends that such teacher should not be discharged or suspended immediately but be given the opportunity to rehabilitate himself within nine or 12 or even 24 months. If this procedure is followed, I do not think that the teacher will have any grounds for dissatisfaction.

I do not think a teacher should have a sentence hanging over his head for a period of 12 months. I do not think that is reasonable. In my view the obvious thing to do in a oase such as the hon. the Minister has described is to warn the man and tell him that if his conduct does not improve, serious steps might have to be taken against him. He will then have been warned and will know what his position is. But I think it is grossly unfair that he should have a sentence hanging over his head for 12 months. It can hardly be said to be the application of justice as we like to see it applied.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think that hon. members are interpreting these provisions correctly. Sub-section (23) reads as follows—

Can the Secretary withhold his recommendation for 12 months?

Yes. The relevant portion of the Natal Ordinance reads as follows—

Yes, the director can postpone his recommendation for 12 months, and that is precisely what I am suggesting should be done here.

No, that is not what the bon. member is suggesting.

I am suggesting that either the Minister or the director can tell the teacher that, although he has been found guilty, he will, nevertheless, be given the opportunity to rehabilitate himself, and that if he conducts himself well for a period of, for example nine or 12 months, his punishment will not become operative. That is what I am suggesting.

No, Mr. Chairman, this is not a case for either the Minister or the director. In this case it is not the director, but the Secretary, because the Secretary will be the head of the department.

The Secretary will make the report, is that not so?

Yes. the Secretary will make the report, but in this case the Secretary means the director, because of the delegations which will be made. This will bring about the same position as is operative under the Natal Ordinance. In terms of the Natal Ordinance the director makes a recommendation to the Administrator. When the recommendation is made, the Administrator takes action and the teacher is not given a chance. But before the director reports to the Administrator he informs the teacher that he will be given the opportunity to rehabilitate himself and that his rehabilitation or otherwise will also be mentioned when the report is submitted. That is precisely what we want to do here. It is envisaged here that the Secretary—who in this case is the department, cr the officer in charge of the department, the director—will not report to me until he has given deserving cases another chance. That is the whole intention of this provision—to give the teacher another chance. In cases where a teacher is not given another chance, I shall try to dispose of these cases as swiftly as possible. That is the policy of all the education authorities. The swift disposal of a case will mean that the teacher will not have to live for some time with, as it were, a sword hanging over his head. He will be notified timeously that it has been decided to give him another chance so that he can rehabilitate himself. We do not want to deprive ourselves of the right to give such person a period of 12 months in which to rehabilitate himself.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 18,

Anybody who has read this Bill will not want any extensive explanation from me on the meaning of the amendments which I have proposed on this clause and which I now move as follows—

As this clause now stands, it refers to teachers who are not charged with misconduct under Clause 16. The teachers dealt with in this Clause 18 are those who are unfit for or incapable of performing efficiently the duties attached to their posts from causes not within their control and not attributable to the performance of their duties in the employment of the department or the school. There is therefore no question of misconduct involved here. As the clause stands now, any action on these grounds follows on allegations because the clause provides … “If it is alleged …” My proposal now is to insert the words “under oath” after the word “alleged”. The intention with this ought to be self-evident, namely to prevent wild and unfounded allegations being made by irresponsible people. As the clause reads now any person can come and make allegations in regard to the performance by a teacher of his duties, e.g. he may allege that that teacher suffers from some malady or other which impairs his faculties and renders him incapable of carrying out his duties satisfactorily. This procedure we think is wrong and we submit that if anybody wants to make an allegation of this sort against a teacher, he must be required to do so under oath.

With the transfer of Indian education to the control of the Central Government an entirely new set of circumstances are created, a situation in which all sorts of cross currents may be present. In the circumstances we believe that it is only fair to the person concerned that any allegations against him should be made under oath—allegations which might have those serious consequences dealt with in this Bill.

In sub-section (1) of this clause it is also provided that the Secretary may appoint a person to inquire into the allegation. Here I have moved an amendment to the effect that the word “person” be deleted and be substituted by “an inspector of the department”. In terms of sub-section (2) the Secretary may appoint one or more persons to sit in an advisory capacity as assessor or assessors with the person who is to hold the inquiry. That may well be the case because an assessor with certain particular professional qualifications in the world of medicine or in another field might be required to give an expert decision in respect of that teacher who is the subject of the inquiry. We feel that the inquiry should be conducted by an inspector of the department. By suggesting this I do not imply that the Secretary will appoint a person of no consequence or one without any understanding or sense of responsibility. This is not at issue and should not be inferred from what I have suggested. I admit that he might appoint a person of great consequence and with a well-development sense of responsibility. However, as I said, that is not the point at issue. We feel that an inspector of the department should deal with a teacher under these particular circumstances because any allegation made can lead to serious consequences for the teacher accused. If an inspector is to hold such an inquiry and he is assisted by an assessor with special professional qualifications, then we are satisfied that as far as the teacher himself is concerned, he will, in so far as it is within the realms and boundary of human capacity, be subjected to an inquiry with which no one can justly quarrel.

I hope therefore that the hon. the Minister is going to accept these two amendments I have moved and thereby to put our minds at rest and not only that but thereby also to make the position as far as his own administration and the teachers are concerned abundantly clear. I think it is clear enough who the people are to whom reference is made in this clause. They are not those who are guilty of some crime or other misconduct of any kind and here especially we think it is necessary that the most scrupulous care should be exercised so as to ensure for them a fair and just inquiry. The Minister should, in the interests of all concerned and particularly in view of the new set of circumstances which is being created, accept these amendments.

I wish to support the amendments moved by the hon. member for Natal South Coast, and I hope the spirit of sweet reasonableness which has permeated the Opposition this evening will communicate itself to the hon. the Minister, and that he will accept these amendments. On the face of it, this clause permits any person for any reason whatsoever to make the most serious allegation against, for example, a colleague, and yet, if that allegation is found to be completely unfounded and frivolous, or even malicious, the person making the allegation suffers not at all for the damage he has done to the person concerned in the allegation—and he gets away with it literally without suffering any punishment whatsoever.

Nonsense.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad and the hon. member for North-West Rand have joined in a duet—they say “nonsense!” We are used to hearing remarks of this nature from the direction of the benches they occupy. I should like to bring to their notice the example of a person who is alleged to be unfit for or incapable of performing efficiently the duties attached to his post, etc. Without being personal about this at all, Mr. Chairman, I could easily assert right now that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad is incapable.

Nonsense.

I could—and I could in fact take an oath that he is incapable. The point is that if I were to take the oath I might be held responsible for the allegations, whereas if I did not make that allegation under oath, I bear no responsibility at all, and I cannot be punished in any way for the damage I may have done my hon. friend from Wolmaransstad.

In the nature of things, in any staff of any size, there are rivalries and jealousies which lead to one individual regarding another one as a possible menace to his own advancement. He then discovers that an easy way to stop the progress of his rival is to make an allegation against him on the ground that he is unfit or incapable of performing his duties efficiently. Without any evidence whatsoever, this person is then under the stigma, whether he is cleared of the allegation or not, of it having been alleged that he was incapable. Surely the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast would eliminate the possibility of this kind of allegation being brought frivolously and burdening the Secretary of the Department who has better things to do than to inquire into allegations which in many cases prove—on inquiry—to be without any substance. Put everybody who wishes to make an allegation into the position where he will have to swear that he has certain facts which he can substantiate, before an inquiry is instituted.

As for the investigation itself, where the Secretary has the authority to appoint a person, we will assume at this stage, as the hon. member for South Coast has rightly said, that this hon. Minister and the Secretary of the Department will not, in the nature of things, appoint a junior official to investigate such an allegation. But nowhere do you find a definition of “person” in Clause 1—as “Officer” is defined. The hon. the Minister has gone to great pains to define all sorts of functions for all sorts of persons, but “person” can literally be exactly what it means, namely, just anybody at all. In these circumstances, I think that in order to ensure that, firstly, no miscarriage of justice can arise as a result of the wide ambit of this clause, secondly, that nobody can use this to damage the position of a rival, thirdly, that the Secretary of the Department will not be burdened with frivolous, whimsical or malicious allegations, the Minister would be well advised to accept this amendment, as we are asking him to do.

It is not for me to pass judgment on the group of people to whom this legislation will apply, but I once had a friend who was a member of the Indian Civil Service—he was a school friend of mine; a South African—and when he came back to this country he said to me, as a doctor: “It is amazing what the climate and the health services of this country have done to the Indians of this country as compared with those I knew in India when I was in the Civil Service there.” He was a Judge in India. Amongst other things he said they had developed in moral and physical stature. He told me that as a Judge he got to know those people in India fairly well. He told me that it was a habit among them to send bribes to a Judge, in the name of the opposition. I believe our Indian people have improved beyond that stage. But nevertheless there may be backsliders among them and in those circumstances I feel the request by the hon. member for South Coast that these allegations should be made under oath is one which should be seriously considered by the hon. the Minister.

After I had seen the hon. member’s amendments on the Order Paper I seriously considered accepting the first portion of the amendment, that portion which provides that charges shall be made under oath. I considered this very seriously because I personally was very much in favour of it. But I was informed that it is not the practice in Natal to have these charges made under oath, particularly because the Indian community in general is not willing to or in favour of taking an oath. There are practical difficulties in this connection.

Let me explain to hon. members what the procedure will be. If it is alleged that such person is not able to do his work properly, an inquiry will not be ordered on the grounds of that allegation alone, as is provided here. The Department will immediately send an inspector to that school to ascertain whether there is any substance in the allegation. It is only when he finds that there is some substance in it that a formal inquiry will be instituted in terms of this clause. In other words, in the normal course of events action will not be taken in regard to every allegation. The allegation will first be properly investigated, unofficially, by the officials.

Unfortunately, I cannot accept the second portion of the amendment—that the inquiry be instituted by an inspector of the Department— because the nature of the complaint or the nature of the incompetency of the person concerned may be of such a nature that it is necessary for a medical officer to make the inquiry. Hon. members must remember that the person can be assisted by an assessor or assessors but the assessors do not have the same status and the same opportunity to cross-examine the witness and to lead the inquiry in the direction in which it ought to go as the inquiry officer has. If it is a matter dealing with the mental condition or health of a person, the best thing will be to have a person qualified in that direction to make the inquiry. Wien this was explained to me—originally it was proposed that one person be appointed— I said that there should be an assessor or assessors so as to enable us to ensure that at least one inspector would be present at every inquiry. If he is not the inquiry officer he must at least be an assessor. That is what I have in mind here.

I hope hon. members will accept the fact that this is the intention. If they can assist me in finding an acceptable amendment setting out this position properly, I am quite prepared to consider it and to move it in the Other Place. I hope that hon. members will accept it as such in the light of my explanation. If they feel strongly about the matter and can formulate an acceptable amendment which does not place insurmountable difficulties in our path and make it impossible for us to take action, I shall consider moving it in the Other Place. Hon. members must remember that it will be the duty of the Department to take action even if there is a rumour of incompetency. The Department must then give attention to the matter. We cannot bind ourselves simply to cases which are brought to our attention under oath. If we were to provide that such an inquiry could only be made if an allegation was made under oath, this fact would bind the Department to a very large extent. Let us say, for example, that someone who has nothing to do with the school comes to the Department and says: “I drove by school X and I gained the impression that there was something radically wrong with teacher A.” Such person does not, however, have sufficient evidence to make a statement under oath. If, in pursuance of this allegation, my Departmental inspector arrives at the school and finds that there are circumstances to justify the allegation, it means that the inspector will have to make a statement under oath, and one does not expect this of one’s inspectors. This is one of the reasons why action has always been taken in this way in Natal in the past. It is not the intention to institute an inquiry in pursuance of every piece of gossip. When an allegation is made, it is first investigated unofficially to ascertain whether there is any justification for an inquiry.

I am sorry that the hon. the Minister had second thoughts after his first ones as he has told us. I think his first impression was the right one. I want to deal firstly with the question of the oath. The hon. the Minister himself says that a complaint can be made but that that does not, ipso facto, lead to an inquiry being held. In that sentence the hon. the Minister admits the very case we are trying to put from this side of the House. He and his Department feel that that is not adequate. When a loose accusation is made which can have serious effects to the person concerned, the Department will then set to work to look for other evidence to bear out the allegation made in the first instance.

The hon. Minister then went on to say that the particular people with whom we were dealing were very reluctant to take the oath. If I understood him correctly that was the point he made. May I say, Sir, that that strengthens our argument tremendously. If a man is reluctant to take an oath presumably he will be most careful as to the contents of the affidavit to which he has to swear. It is not a case of his having to take a Christian oath. Day after day we literally have hundreds of cases in our courts of law where Asiatic witnesses have to go into the witness box and they take the oath provided for in terms of the law, an oath which carries with it all the responsibility and all the pealties if they are found guilty of perjury. This is not something which is completely foreign to our method of administration throughout South Africa. It is common place; it is an everyday occurrence. I think the fact that the hon. Minister makes that point that the particular people we are talking about are reluctant to take an oath is the very reason why we should insist upon it. If we do insist on an allegation being made under oath, people will appreciate the significance of it and they will realize that they cannot make frivolous allegations. After the matter has been brought to the attention of the Department a few times it will very soon spread around. The time when allegations are more likely to be made out of a spirit, other than an honest spirit, shall I say, based upon a true knowledge of the facts—I go no further than that—is at the time of change-over from the provincial administrations to the Central Government. We have therefore to be doubly careful, in my opinion, that we do not lightly accept a charge as a basis for further investigation against a teacher who is possibly in an extremely difficult position vis-à-vis the community he is serving. We should be. from the very first, most careful of his reputation and not be prepared—word will go round that the Department is not prepared to do so—to take lightly allegations not made under oath.

As far as the inspector is concerned I hope the hon. the Minister will reflect upon this particular point. Even in regard to Clause 16, the misconduct clause, there is no greater need to have an inspector of the Department itself than in this case in charge of such an investigation, not necessarily the inspector in charge of that school. That was not our habitual habit of dealing with these inquiries in the past. Another inspector was brought in who could deal objectively with whatever the allegation was. The assessors are the people who can give specialist assistance in regard to the mentality of the man who is virtually on trial for natural incapacity, the inspector being the strong link with the Department on whom the parents of the children and the Department ought to be able to rely upon. It need not be the inspector of the school because it may be that he is prejudiced for some reason or other. It may even be that he is the man who made the complaint in the first place.

I am glad that the hon. the Minister has indicated in his reply that to some extent he feels that we are correct. He even went so far as to say that if we could draft an amendment which had his approval he would move it in the Other Place. I just want to pass a few remarks in regard to what he said here. In the first place, I think that his argument in regard to the oath, as the hon. member for South Coast has already said, strengthens the standpoint adopted by this side of the House. If the Indians do not lightly take an oath, that is all the more reason why an allegation should be made under oath. Unless we say that it must be made under oath, the inspector whom the Minister says he will send to the school when an allegation of inefficiency is made will have his hands full if he merely has to investigate allegations. I cannot therefore see how the Minister can refuse to accept this amendment. Accusations may easily be made, particularly if it is not necessary to make them under oath. They can come from the person’s own colleagues who are jealous of him; they can come from the parents of a child who has perhaps been punished by that teacher: and they can come from the child who has been punished. I agree with the hon. Minister that the Indian population does not easily take an oath, and therefore I think it is essential for us to insist that allegations should be made under oath.

The person who is par excellence able to investigate an allegation that a teacher is unfit to perform his duties is an inspector of schools. I know other legislation also makes provision for “somebody” to be appointed, but that is dangerous. The Minister says the assessors can be the experts if he is not accused of inefficiency in so far as his work is concerned. If he is physically unfit, one of the assessors can be a medical man or the medical inspector of schools. If he is psychologically disturbed, one of the assessors may be a psychiatrist.

In view of the fact that the Minister has already expressed doubt and is convinced that we perhaps have a good case, I wonder whether the Minister will not promise to go into this matter, particularly if we can draft an amendment which will improve the position.

I want to make it clear again that I am not wedded to the wording of the clause as it stands here. That is why I said that if hon. members could produce a reasonable amendment I would consider it. In the meantime I have looked at the Vocational Education Act, and the corresponding section in that Act seems to me personally to be much more acceptable because it states the position much more positively. I shall read it—

Personally I like this wording better. It has precisely the same effect as the wording of this clause, but does not mention that there should be an allegation. It simply states that if after due inquiry it is found … I think that eliminates all the other problems. I am inclined to think in that direction and I can assure hon. members that I shall go into the matter. If other suggestions come from the Opposition I will consider them in the Other Place.

We are grateful to the Minister for having made this suggestion. Although I do not accept that that section is better than ours, I think that under the circumstances we can accept it. I just want to ask the Minister—I cannot remember at the moment—whether that teacher will have the right of appeal to the Minister or to the director or to the secretary if he is found guilty. I cannot remember having seen anything in that regard. I wonder whether the Minister will not insert that also.

One very important element has been omitted from this clause. The clause makes provision for an inquiry if an allegation has been made. But before that inquiry is made the teacher should receive a copy of the allegation and his reply should be sent to head office. Only after the Department has seen the teacher’s reply to the allegation should the steps proposed in this clause be taken. May I just give an amendment, on the spur of the moment, which will explain what I have in mind: “In line 15, after the word ‘may’ to insert ‘after having furnished the teacher with a copy of the allegation and having perused his reply’. No teacher and no servant should have an allegation made against him, and conclusions drawn from that allegation, without the man himself having had the right to reply to it. I think that is essential if we want to protect any public servant and it is essential if we want to protect the teacher.

Does the hon. member move accordingly?

No, Sir, I have accepted the hon. Minister’s assurance that he will go into the matter of framing something along those lines.

Mr. Chairman, with the leave of the Committee I would like to withdraw my amendment in view of the assurance given by the Minister who, I take it. will take the necessary steps in the Other Place.

Amendment withdrawn with the leave of the Committee.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 21,

I want to move—

1. (5) In the exercise of the powers conferred on him by this section the Minister shall not depart from the standards, curricula or examinations laid down by the Department of Education, Arts and Science for the education and training of persons in special schools, homes, vocational schools, schools of industries and reform schools, or by the provincial administration of Natal for the education and training of persons in other State schools and State-aided schools.

In essence, what my amendment does, is to attempt to remove the right of the Minister to change the standards which have been set by the Department of Education, Arts and Science as far as the education of Indian children is concerned, and also to attempt to ensure that the standards as now set for special, vocational schools etc. shall be maintained according to the standards at present applied by the Administration of Natal.

I know the hon. the Minister gave us an assurance in the second-reading debate that it was his intention to maintain standards as far as possible. I also think that the same assurance was given to the Natal Indian Teachers’ Society which was naturally much concerned about the standard of teaching of their children. That being the case I cannot see why the hon. the Minister requires the powers under Section 21 (4) to change the course and training and to conduct the examinations etc. in place of the established Department of Education. Arts and Science or the Province of Natal in the case of schools other than the secondary and primary schools. The operative phrase “until the Minister otherwise determines” leads one to believe that at some stage or other the Minister may indeed decide to institute causes, set examinations and control the certification of students. The clause does not even say “unless the Minister otherwise determines”; it says “until the Minister otherwise determines”. So it appears to me that there is just a time factor before the hon. the Minister takes over the courses, the laying down of curricula, the setting of examinations and the examining itself of Indian students. My amendment simply means that in the exercise of the powers conferred on the Minister by Clause 21, the Minister shall not depart from the standards, curricula or examinations laid down by the Department of Education, Arts and Science for the education and training of persons in primary, secondary and special schools, etc. or by the Provincial Administration of Natal for the education and training of persons in other State schools.

I move the amendment standing in my name—

It will mean that the Department of Education, Arts and Science will in future control the courses for the training and education of persons in special schools, etc. I think this is a sound amendment because it will leave that aspect of our education in the hands of a department which already has the experience and knows how to regulate examinations, training, etc. It is for that reason that this side of the House feels that it will be a good thing, that it will be in the interest of the Indians and of education in general, to allow this Department to continue to prescribe the training, courses, etc. for persons in special schools, etc.

I could not make out whether the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) moved both parts of his amendment or only the first part. He moved only the first part.

There is only one amendment.

Yes, but it consists of two parts.

It simply changes the words. The first part “until the Minister otherwise decides” is omitted and then the sentence will begin with “the Department of Education, Arts and Science” will determine the courses, etc. Then the Provincial Administration comes into it later.

That is what I should like to emphasize. In terms of the hon. member’s amendment, the courses for Indian teachers must be determined by a provincial administration. The Bill says “until such time as the Minister otherwise decides”. A provincial administration will be responsible for determining these courses, the writing of examinations, etc. The hon. member now wants the Provincial Administration to do it forever, and the Department of Education, Arts and Science to do it forever. In other words, the proposal of the hon. member for Hillbrow will result in Indian educationists never being able to make a contribution towards the setting up of their own curricula. The only possibility there is for their making such a contribution is when the department under which they work itself sooner or later assumes responsibility for that matter.

Can there not be a sub-department?

It is clear that in terms of the hon. member’s amendment the Indians will be completely and forever denied the privilege of participating in the provision of their own curricula. For that reason it is impossible for me to accept it. As I said during the second-reading debate, I have consulted with the provincial administrations; they are prepared, as an interim step, to set the examinations, and therefore the curricula they prescribe will also have to be followed until such time as other curricula are prescribed, and then we will make other arrangements. In so far as the Department of Education, Arts and Science is concerned, in regard to the courses for special schools, vocational schools and industrial schools and reformatories, etc., I readily concede that under present circumstances there is no real reason for deviating from the courses prescribed by it, but we cannot adhere to those courses only because there are other courses given at an Indian training institution, for example, which are not prescribed by the Department of Education, Arts and Science anywhere, courses which have already been instituted at the M. L. Sultan College. We must have the right eventually to take over those various obligations.

But I also want to refer to the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton. She says that in the exercise of these powers in terms of this clause we should not deviate from the standards, curricula or examinations prescribed by the Department of Education, Ants and Science or by the Provincial Administration of Natal. But at the moment the curricula and the courses prescribed by the Provincial Administration of Natal for Indians differs from what is prescribed in their White schools. In the high schools the curricula for the Indians, for example, do not provide for a full stream of advanced pupils or just an ordinary stream, as is provided for Whites, and it is consequently impossible to link it up with what a provincial administration does in a certain province. I again want to emphasize that there need be no cause for concern at all in regard to the question of standards. Hon. members are surely aware that the Joint Matriculation Board is at present busy drawing up basic curricula with which all education departments will have to comply, and those basic curricula can be adapted; additions may be made, but there may be no omissions. Things may be added, but in future all education departments will have to adhere to the basic curricula of the Joint Matriculation Board. There is, therefore, no opportunity here to do things in regard to curricula which will result in a lowering of the standard. And even after an education department has made additions to the basic curricula of the Joint Matriculation Board, the curriculum of that department of education must again be submitted to the Joint Matriculation Board for approval. In other words, no education department will in future be allowed to do just as it likes in regard to its curriculum. It is wholly and completely controlled by the Joint Matriculation Board. I therefore do not know why hon. members are concerned. Surely that is the best guarantee we can have for proper standards, and I hope hon. members will accept it as such. We are dealing here with the necessity of being able from time to time to make the necessary adaptations and changes without being bound by what the provinces or other departments do.

The hon. Minister has told us something to-night about the courses to be instituted for Indian education which, I think, shows a great discrepancy with the stated intentions of the Government as expressed in the Official Handbook “Indian South Africans”, to which I have to return. The hon. Minister of Information will not deny that in this book a great effort is made to equate Indians with South Africans. To give an example, Mr. Chairman, in the introduction there is the following statement—

Who are they, Sir? Other South Africans, obviously. On the same page there is reference to this “virile section of the South African population”.

Order! The hon. member must return to the clause.

Sir, I am trying to illustrate …

Yes, but the hon. member must return to the clause.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, I am dealing with the clause on the basis that the intention of the Government as expressed here is that, to the greatest possible extent, the education of Indians should be as South African as possible. The statement actually occurs in this book. Now, Sir, if that is the position, where is there a department of education which is more typical of this policy than the Department of, Education, Arts and Science? This is the State Department of Education, and the courses set by that department will be as truly South African as this policy statement in “Indian South Africans” (this is what they are called) has intended them to be. Mr. Chairman, if this is not wrong— and if you will permit me to read further, I can demonstrate that this is not wrong—then surely the reservation that the Minister makes here “until the Minister otherwise determines, the Department of Education, Arts and Science shall institute …”, is unnecessary. The hon. member for Hillbrow is quite right: if you delete these words “until the Minister otherwise determines”, you have the simple statement in this clause (sub-section (4) of Clause 21) that “the Department of Education, Arts and Science shall institute the courses for the education and training of children in special schools … and so on and so forth. Unless the hon. Minister can reasonably say that he has no confidence in the Department of Education, Arts and Science, he has no valid objection to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Hillbrow, and the only attempt he has made to state an objection is that if he accepts that amendment, then Indians will have no opportunity, as he intends them to have, to take part in the work of setting up the courses and training, and so on, and in that way will not gain experience.

Purely theoretical.

Yes. If this is true, then the hon. the Minister can still cover himself, as it were, in accepting the amendment and leaving it to the Department of Education, Arts and Science, that is the State Department for Education in South Africa, to do this work—he can still cover the position by providing that there shall be some co-operation with the Division within his own Department, which is already set up; that there shall be consultation, that there shall be, to some extent, the opportunity for training those very people whom he wishes to train on the lines that he says he wants them to be trained, until they will be able to set up the courses themselves. But if that is not the case, then clearly the Minister intends to freeze the position in order to make quite sure that his Department, or the division of education within his Department, will be able to deviate, as is considered politic, from the norm that has been set by the Department of Education, Arts and Science. That is the only reason, and I maintain—I say this with great respect to the Minister— that the Minister cannot really object to the Department of Education, Arts and Science doing this work, and unless he gives the Committee a better reason than he has done up to now, I am afraid that we shall have to press our amendment for a very good reason.

Question put: That the words “Until the Minister otherwise determines” in line 70, stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Question affirmed and amendment negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 22,

I move the following amendment—

1. (2) (a) The Minister may appoint one or more persons to investigate and to report to him on the affairs of any board, committee, school or hostel and for that purpose such person or persons may call as witness and administer an oath or affirmation to any person present at such inspection or inquiry who was or might have been summoned in terms of sub-section (3).
   1. (b) Any person appointed under paragraph (a) shall have access to all books, minutes, documents, accounts and other records relating to the matter being investigated,
   2. (c) Any member of a board or committee, or any member of the authority managing a school or hostel, or the manager of a school or any person on the staff of or employed in connection with the affairs of a board, committee, school or hostel shall, when called upon to do so, furnish to a person appointed under paragraph (a) all information in his possession and produce to him all books, minutes, documents, accounts and other records relating to the matter being investigated.
   3. (d) Any person who fails to comply with the provisions of paragraph (c) shall be guilty of an offence.

The wording of our amendment in this instance is in line with the wording contained in the Cape Education Ordinance dealing with the inspection of schools and any investigation or inquiry that may be necessary as a result. In fact the amendment is identical with Chapter I, Section 8 of the Cape Education Ordinance. Now we consider, Mr. Chairman, that there are two specific things provided for in this clause. The first deals with the inspection of schools, and the second an inquiry into matters relating to any such inspection or in regard to the schools involved. We take the view that the two things should be completely separate.

To deal with the first one, the inspection of schools, I would like to ask the hon. Minister whether he thinks it necessary to have all this legal procedure involved in connection with an ordinary inspection of the school. One almost wonders whether he is anticipating trouble in view of this extraordinary complicated legal procedure; do we have to have all this tough stuff about “powers to administer an oath or an affirmation” simply in regard to what should be a normal inspection of schools? You see, Sir, sub-section (3) reads—

I would like to know whether the hon. the Minister really thinks that it is necessary to word this clause as though it were a law to be applied in a criminal court and link it with an inspection of schools, even where an inquiry may be necessary under certain circumstances? You see, Mr. Chairman, Clauses 16 and 17 seem to us to make quite adequate provision for any irregularity on the part of any teacher or teachers employed in any educational institution, and I would like to tell the hon. the Minister, in case he is not aware of it, that in the debate on the Coloured Education Bill in 1963, the hon. Minister of Coloured Affairs when we queried this issue, undertook to raise this matter with the law-advisers and to come back to the House and see whether the clause could not be differently worded. I want to read to the hon. Minister just a few sentences of what his colleague at that time had to say when we raised this self same issue. The Minister of Coloured Affairs said—

Then the hon. Minister went on to say—

But we have no record, Sir, that as a result of that debate the hon. the Minister ever came back to the House with any new suggestions. In fact I can find nothing on record that anything was ever done about it. But we would be glad if the hon. the Minister on this occasion would consider one of two things: Either consulting his law-advisers on this issue in order to have the clause more suitably worded, as the amendment stands in terms of the Cape Ordinance, or perhaps to accept our amendment which is already incorporated in an ordinance which has the force of law. There is a last point I would like to make and it is that all the stipulations set out in Clause 22 are safeguarded as it were by sub-paragraph (d) of our amendment which says that any person who fails to comply with the provisions of paragraph (c) shall be guilty of an offence. So in effect what we are saying is that the provisions shall remain the same but that the wording should be slightly less drastic and not phrased in these legalistic terms. And, as I have said, the safeguard lies in paragraph (d) of our amendment.

I support the amendment. I do not think it is necessary at this stage to say more before the Minister has replied. but I should like to refer him to his wording and I should like to hear his explanation in that regard. The Minister says in Clause 22 (1)—

What does the hon. the Minister mean? He says in sub-sec. (1) that the Secretary may inspect any school or hostel, and then in subsec. (2) he talks about “any person who inspects any school or hostel”. Surely it is the Secretary. Why does the Secretary now inspect schools or hostels? I should like to have an explanation from the Minister.

I should just like to say a word or two about sub-section (1). The “Secretary”, as defined is not the Secretary of the Education department. He is the Secretary for Indian Affairs. I cannot quite see why the Secretary for Indian Affairs should be inspecting schools and carrying out investigations. Surely it is a matter to be arranged under Clause 2. We were told that under Clause 2 there is to be an officer at the head of the department who will give the policy for the department. Surely he is the man to direct the inquiries.

The intention right throughout the Bill is that the powers be given to the Secretary, but the power is also granted to the Secretary to delegate his powers. It should be remembered that the Director of Indian Education is an official who is subordinate to the Secretary for Indian Affairs because the Indian Education Division is only part of that Department. Now powers of delegation are given to the Secretary and he will delegate powers to various officials giving them the right to carry out inspections. There will be various kinds of inspectors, etc.

In what clause is it provided that powers may be delegated?

Clause 32. That is why sub-sec. (2) refers to “any person”. It means the person authorized by the Secretary to carry out the inspection. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Wynberg is based on the Cape System, where one has to do with school boards and school committees, and which was apparently drafted to give school boards and school committees a certain amount of protection because one does not like summonsing members of school boards, etc. It is an old practice in the Cape to do it in this way. But the way in which we propose to do it here is the way it has been done for all these years in Natal. The Natal Ordinances provide in various sections for this same procedure which we have summarized here in one section. But it is not necessary, in the case of an inspection, for people to be summonsed and documents to be called for in the way a court can do so, in every case. Normally it will all be done in the usual manner, as an inspection is held at school. But it may happen that there are irregularities at a school and that a person does not make available documents which are essential in order to carry out a proper inspection. Then the official must have the power to summons any person who may possibly be able to give information, or to call for documents. It is necessary for him to have those powers in order to carry out a thorough inspection. I can assure hon. members that this clause is based on the practice prevailing in Natal. It is also similar to the section in the Coloured Education Act, and which remained there after the Minister of Coloured Affairs at the time investigated the matter properly with his law advisers and found that it was in fact necessary to put it in this form in order to provide for all the possibilities.

Question put: That sub-section (2) stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 23 put.

Business interrupted to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.