A Note on Bantu Education, 1953 to 1970¶
Hermann Giliomee (2009). A Note on Bantu Education, 1953 to 1970. South African Journal of Economics, Vol. 77:1. Blackwell Publishing / Economic Society of South Africa.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | synthesis review |
| Period studied | 1948–1970 |
| Regions | South Africa, Witwatersrand, Transkei, Natal |
| Themes | education human capital, politics ideology elections, business and state, labour markets wages, bantustans removals influx, resistance social movements, inequality poverty unemployment |
| Citation key | giliomee2009 |
Argument¶
Giliomee argues that Verwoerd's 1954 remark that blacks had no place above certain 'forms of labour' is usually read as proof of racist belief in black inferiority, and that this reading is incomplete. He presents Bantu education as a response to the collapse of the mission school system, to urban employers' demand for mass semi-skilled literacy, and to the state's wish to control urbanised black youth. He claims Verwoerd and Eiselen were 'modernisers' inspired by social engineering, not Nazi-style racial ideology. He compares Bantu education with mass schooling in industrialising Britain and the USA. He concedes that funding was grossly discriminatory and that the policy changed after 1970, when secondary education was extended.
Evidence and method¶
Mostly secondary and published sources: Hyslop, Hartshorne, Horrell (SAIRR), Seekings and Nattrass, Feinstein, Sadie's unpublished paper. Also the Eiselen Commission report (1951), Verwoerd's speeches (Pelzer), House of Assembly Debates 1953, and a 1981 opinion survey (Giliomee and Schlemmer). Enrolment, pass-rate and per-pupil spending statistics are drawn from these works.
Place in the debates¶
- Was Bantu education founded on racist beliefs in black inferiority? (Davenport and Saunders, Malherbe vs revisionist-modernising reading) (see Education, Bantu Education and skills). Rejects the view that it rested on inferiority or Aryan-race ideas. Argues that the aim was 'modernising racial domination' and that the policy still perpetuated racial inequality.
- Did the apartheid education system serve capital's labour needs? (functional or cheap-labour reading vs state-control reading) (see Education, Bantu Education and skills). Holds that the system met the 1950s demand for semi-skilled operatives with basic literacy, and that secondary expansion followed business pressure only from the mid-1960s. It also served the state's need for social control over urban youth.
- Comparative framing: Herrenvolk democracy (Van den Berghe) vs mass education in industrialising societies (Hyslop) (see Education, Bantu Education and skills). Accepts some validity in the Herrenvolk comparison but prefers Hyslop's analogy with mass schooling in the USA and Britain, noting that Verwoerd's policy did not draw on National Socialism.
Findings¶
-
Giliomee's thesis: Bantu education must be read alongside labour needs and the control of urban youth, not only racial inferiority. (p. 1)
the need for providing appropriate labour on a mass basis in an industrialising society and for establishing control over urbanised black youths
-
The mission system left a huge backlog: very few black pupils reached post-primary level when the NP took office. (p. 2)
When the NP took over in 1948 only 2.6% of black pupils were enrolled in post-primary standards.
-
Employers did not press for secondary schooling for blacks until the economy boomed in the 1960s. (p. 3)
Pressure from the private sector for the expansion of secondary facilities only began in the mid-1960s after 5 years of exceptionally high, unanticipated growth.
-
State-controlled mass schooling expanded black school places sharply after 1953. (p. 6)
The provision of school places for blacks jumped from 800,000 in 1953 to 1,800,000 in 1963 and expanded even more rapidly afterwards.
-
Bantu education served social control and produced a semi-skilled workforce (quoting Hyslop). (p. 6)
Bantu education provided a mechanism of social control, which could be used to
-
The Eiselen target of doubling secondary enrolment within ten years was met. (p. 6)
The target set in the Eiselen Report of 1951 of doubling secondary school enrolment within 10 years was achieved in 1959: the numbers rose from 20,000 to 43,496.
-
Per-pupil spending fell during the first decade as enrolment surged and the state pegged its contribution. (p. 7)
Per capita spending on black pupils dropped from R17,99 in 1953-1954 to R11,56 in 1962-1963, after which it began to rise.
-
The racial spending gap widened between 1953 and 1968. (p. 7)
Government spending per African child in 1953 was 14% of that for each white pupil and by 1968 thus had dropped to 6%.
-
Black educational attainment in 1970 remained far below that of whites. (p. 7)
79% of urban blacks and 93% of rural blacks had not attained Standard 6 or higher, compared with a mere 4% of the white labour force.
-
No evidence that the architects intended a system premised on black inferiority. (p. 8)
no proof exists that Verwoerd or Eiselen intended to create a system based on the assumed inferiority of blacks.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| House of Assembly Debates, 1953 (Verwoerd's speech on Bantu Education, cols. 3585) | parliamentary debates | 1953 | Documents Verwoerd's criticism of the earlier education policy as uneconomic and frustrating to educated blacks, and his call for education rooted in Bantu society. |
| Report of the Commission on Native Education (Eiselen Commission), Union Government 53/1951 | commission or official report | 1951 | Shows the commission found no distinct intelligence in black children and recommended state control, mother-tongue instruction and a doubling of secondary enrolment, undercutting the racial-inferiority reading. |
| Pelzer (1966), Verwoerd Speaks: Speeches 1948-1966 | secondary literature compilation | 1948-1966 | Source for Verwoerd's 1954 'forms of labour' remark, his 1948 maiden Senate speech and his statements to the Natives Representative Council. |
| Hyslop (1999), The Class Room Struggle, including evidence on the De Villiers Commission (1947) and mission school troubles | secondary literature compilation | 1940-1990 | Supplies evidence on the collapse of mission education, the 1946 unrest at Lovedale and Healdtown, the 1947 Native Affairs testimony and the social-control and semi-skilled-labour rationale. |
| Sadie (2005), Economic Demographic Aspects of school education in South Africa (unpublished paper) | secondary literature compilation | 1948-1994 | Provides the enrolment rate (24.5% in 1948, 84.5% in 1994), population growth of school-age children and average enrolment growth. |
| Financial Mail Supplement, 14 July 1967 | newspapers periodicals | 1951-1960s | Source for the white employment figure in 1951 and the roughly 36,000 white jobs taken over by non-whites in the 1950s. |
| Horrell (1968), Bantu Education to 1968 (SAIRR), including the 1967 article in the journal Bantu Education | secondary literature compilation | 1948-1968 | Used for school location policy, SAIRR's view of the syllabuses, the triple-medium policy and the shortage of mathematics and science, including the 1967 article. |
| Hartshorne (1992), Crisis and Challenge: Black education 1910-1990 (enrolment and examination figures) | secondary literature compilation | 1955-1966 | Source for secondary enrolment growth (20,000 to 43,496), Matric/Senior Certificate passes and pass rates, and the quality of syllabuses. |
| Giliomee and Schlemmer (1989), From Apartheid to Nation-building (education spending figures and 1981 opinion survey) | secondary literature compilation | 1953-1967; 1981 | Supplies per capita spending on black pupils, real spending growth for 1952-1967 and a 1981 attitudinal survey linking schooling to rejection of segregation. |
| Seekings and Nattrass (2005), Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa (per-pupil spending ratio) | secondary literature compilation | 1953-1968 | Provides the ratio of per-pupil spending on African relative to white pupils (14% in 1953, 6% in 1968). |
| 1970 Population Census (education attainment) as analysed by Feinstein (2005) | secondary literature compilation | 1970 | Shows persistent educational inequality: 79% of urban and 93% of rural blacks had not reached Standard 6, against 4% of the white labour force. |
| Departmental nation-wide survey of parents' language preferences (reported by Rousseau, 2001) | interviews oral history | c. 1950s | Offered as the probable basis for the triple-medium policy; the author notes nothing more is known about it. |
| Verwoerd's lecture notes and memoranda at Stellenbosch (as reported by Millar, 1993) | secondary literature compilation | 1930s | Used to rebut the claim that Verwoerd's policy rested on racial-biological ideas. |
| Sunday Times, 17 August 2008 and The Citizen, 9 November 2008 | newspapers periodicals | 2008 | Reports remarks by Ramphele and Luhabe comparing Bantu education favourably with present-day township schools. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Interpretive historiographical note: it re-reads Verwoerd's quoted remarks and the Eiselen Commission's findings against the labour-market and social-control context of the 1950s. It relies on selected published statistics and secondary studies, with comparative reference to mass education elsewhere. There is no systematic dataset or formal testing.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Bantu education aimed at mass basic literacy for semi-skilled labour and social control of urban youth, not simply at preserving black servitude. (p. 195) | Hyslop (1999) on social control and semi-skilled labour; Posel on employer demand; Financial Mail on slow occupational advance; Eiselen Report. The evidence is interpretive rather than a systematic data test. | Partial data |
| The policy did not rest on racist assumptions of black inferiority; the Eiselen Commission and Verwoerd's own earlier writings rejected biological difference. (p. 193) | Eiselen Commission 1951 quotations; Millar (1993) on Verwoerd's lecture notes; Pelzer speeches. These are selective textual quotations, set against contrary readings by Malherbe and Davenport and Saunders. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Mass school provision expanded rapidly, and secondary enrolment and matric passes rose under the new system. (p. 195) | Enrolment and examination figures from Hartshorne (1992) and Sadie (2005). | Partial data |
| Funding was grossly insufficient and discriminatory: per capita spending on black pupils fell in the first decade and the racial gap widened. (p. 196) | Spending series from Giliomee and Schlemmer (1989) and Seekings and Nattrass (2005). | Partial data |
| The mission education system was in crisis by 1948, with low enrolment, short schooling and poor facilities, so state takeover was widely accepted. (p. 190) | Enrolment statistics from Sadie (2005), Hyslop (1999) and Horrell (1968). | Partial data |
| Employers' demand in the 1950s was for unskilled and semi-skilled labour; pressure for secondary education emerged only in the mid-1960s after unexpected high growth. (p. 192) | Posel (1997) quotation, Financial Mail (1967), Hartshorne (1992) on the 1967 announcement; no employer-level data. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Verwoerd was a social-engineering moderniser who sought to reconcile white political supremacy with industrial needs, and the policy shifted after 1970. (p. 198) | Pelzer speeches, Van de Wall (2001), Adam (1971) and general secondary literature; mostly asserted by the author. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The author notes that nothing more is known about the departmental parent-language survey. He acknowledges that spending was low and that much of the evidence comes from selectively quoted speeches and secondary summaries.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument would be better tested with primary archival material (Native Affairs/Bantu Education Department files, Eiselen Commission evidence, cabinet and NP caucus records) to show what Verwoerd and officials actually intended. It would also need time-series data on enrolment, teacher numbers and expenditure by race, plus employer or industrial-council evidence on demand for literate labour. These sources existed then and are available in South African archives and in published Department of Bantu Education and Union Statistics series, but they are used here only second-hand.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.