South West Africa is in many instances a unique land. Its topography, climatic conditions, rainfall and vegetation are all facets of extremes.
As far as it could be established the three European groups,
the three Coloured groups and the eight Black nations (except
perhaps the Bushmen) have all inhabited the land within the period of one century and they were still in the process of settling down during the nineteenth century. Each group and nation brought with them their own habits, language, religion and culture.
The history of formal education in South West Africa dates from 1805, after trading and hunting expeditions from South Africa, as well as crew members from foreign ships visited the country and reported their findings. Prior to that, the country was
unknown to the outside world. After the report of these expeditions were received in the different countries, missionaries were sent to South West Africa by various societies. Initially
the missionaries carne from the London, Rhenish, Finnish, Wesleyan and Roman Catholic Missionary Societies. Missionaries from other societies followed later.
After arriving in South West Africa, the missionaries found the
country to be vast and inhospitable, with the most severe and
extreme climatic conditions. Several of the native tribes were
at war against each other and some were hostile towards the missionaries. No school buildings, furniture or equipment was available and the missionaries had to contend with only the basic amenities.
The missionaries' initial attempts at formal education consisted
of the study of the Bible, reading, writing, handcrafts and
general discipline. There were virtually no text books available
for school use and the lack of funds further hampered the
educational movement tremendously.
The nomadic nature of the inhabitants of the country made the
missionary effort none the easier and the missionaries had to
move with the tribes from place to place in an endeavour to
continue the education of the tribes. The face that the different
tribes were constantly in a state of war against each other,
regarding territorial occupation and cattle thieving, also
hampered the missionaries efforts.
Communication in the educational process proved to be a major
problem for the missionaries. There were no less than nine different
Black nations in the country, each with its own language.
Although these nine nations were in most cases territorially
separated, it often happened that when a school was established,
two of three different languages had to be spoken at the school.
The inability to communicate in the mother tongue of each group
at these schools caused further problems in educating the people.
Because the missionaries could not speak the languages of
the Blacks, they resorted to teaching through the medium of
Dutch, which was the language most commonly spoken by the Whites
who entered the country. A few of the tribes in the south,
mostly of mixed origin and known as Coloureds, could speak Dutch
because of their contact with the Whites of the Cape.
Germany proclaimed South West Africa as a German colony in 1884.
During the German occupation there was no mentionable advancement
in the education for the Blacks in the country.
The Germans did not find their stay in South West Africa a peaceful
one. The occupational period was for the greater part, a time
of turbulence, with wars between the tribes as well as between
the Germans and several of the native inhabitants. This resulted
once again in the scattering and dispersal of the different
tribes. The only advantage to the missionaries during the German
occupation, was a feeling of relative safety.
The German government made a small grant available to the missionaries,
on condition that German was taught and used as the
medium of instruction at the missionary schools instead of Dutch,
as had previously been the case.
During the German occupation the need for schools for immigrant
German children arose. Several schools were established with
German as the medium of instruction. There were at that stage
a number of Afrikaans speaking farmers as well as English speaking
residents, whose children had to attend the schools established
by the Germans and where they had to be taught through
the medium of German. This caused conflict between the different
White language groups, as each group felt that its culture
and identity was being undermined. As a result, private schools
for certain sections of the White population were established.
When the South African forces conquered the territory in 1915,
South West Africa became a mandate of South Africa through the
treaty of Versailles. During the mandatory period the peoples
of the country entered a period of peacefulness, stability,
prosperity and security. Education progressed and an inspector
of Education was appointed to investigate the educational system
and the possibility of education for all the population
groups at South West Africa. This investigation resulted in
the publication of the first proclamation regarding education
in 1921. Another proclamation followed in 1926 and in later
years more educational laws, proclamations and ordinances followed,
which were for the most part based on the original two
proclamations or were supplementary to them.
During the German occupation the Afrikaans speaking community
entered into a language conflict that lasted for almost three
decades. The Afrikaners insisted that their children be tutored
through their mother tongue and by their own teachers.
After 1915 when South Africa became the Mandator, the position
was completely reversed and for decades the German speaking
community pleaded for their children to be taught through the
medium of German. Their pleas eventually proved fruitful and
German schools were established.
The Central control of education for the three main population
groups, namely the Whites, Black, and Coloureds, was vested in
the Department of education of South West Africa under the control
of the Director of Education. It was only after 1958 that
local control in the Non-White schools was granted to parents.
It was, however, the duty of the Education Department to ensure
that the prescribed policy of education was carried out.
The control of Black and Coloured education changed hands at
the beginning of 1969. It was felt that it would be more beneficial
to both the Black and Coloured groups if Black education
was controlled by the South African Department of Bantu Education
and if Coloured Education was controlled by the Department
of Coloured Affairs of the Republic of South Africa. Thus,
since 1969 the South West African Department of Education has
only controlled the education of the white inhabitants of the country.
This study also illustrates the growth and expansion in the
numbers of pupils of all the nations of South West Africa, the
number of schools and of teachers. It was no mean task to comply
with the demands that resulted from the extraordinary growth
in education. Different types of schools became necessary as
modern needs demanded and these were established according to
the needs of the pupils. In order to provide teachers at the
same rate in which the number of pupils and schools expanded,
proved to be a further problem and a formidable task. Every
possible effort was made to equip the schools with well qualified
and well trained teachers as the demands increased. Other
factors, namely differentiated education, community schools,
parent participation, teaching through the mother tongue, development
of orthographies for the different Black languages,
the demands made by the United Nations, the intervention of
other countries and tile new dispensations in South West Africa
all added to make education a formidable task. / Proefskrif (DEd)--PU vir CHO, 1986
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/8971 |
| Date | January 1985 |
| Creators | Niemand, Cornelis Meyer |
| Publisher | Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | other |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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