Bantu education Act, 1953 - wikipedia Bantu education Act, 1953 Bantu Education Act, 1953 Act to provide for the transfer of the administration and control of native education from the several provincial administrations to the Government of the Union, and for matters incidental thereto. Citation Act No. 47 of 1953 Enacted by Parliament of South Africa Date of Royal Assent 5 October 1986 Date commenced 1 January 1954 Date repealed 1 January 1980 Administered by Minister of Native Affairs Repealing legislation Education and Training Act, 1979 Status : Repealed The Bantu Education Act, 1953 ( Act No. 47 of 1953 ; later renamed the Black Education Act, 1953 ) was a South African segregation law which legalised several aspects of the apartheid system. Its major provision was enforcing racially separated educational facilities. Even universities were made `` tribal '', and all but three missionary schools chose to close down when the government no longer would help support their schools. Very few authorities continued using their own finances to support education for native Africans. In 1959, this type of education was extended to `` non white '' universities and colleges with the Extension of University Education Act, and the internationally prestigious University College of Fort Hare was taken over by the government and degraded to being part of the Bantu education system. It is often argued that the policy of Bantu ( African ) education was aimed to direct black or non-white youth to the unskilled labour market, although Hendrik Verwoerd, at the time Minister of Native Affairs, claimed that the aim was to solve South Africa 's `` ethnic problems '' by creating complementary economic and political units for different ethnic groups. The national authorities of the time is often said to have viewed education as having a rather pivotal position in their goal of eventually separating South Africa from the Bantustans entirely. The Minister of Native Affairs at the time, the `` Architect of Apartheid '' Hendrik Verwoerd, stated that : `` There is no place for ( the Bantu ) in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour... What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it can not use it in practice ? '' The introduction of Bantu Education led to a substantial increase of government funding to the learning institutions of black Africans, but it did not keep up with population increase. The law forced institutions under the direct control of the state. The National Party now had the power to employ and train teachers as they saw fit. Black teachers ' salaries in 1953 were extremely low and resulted in a dramatic drop of trainee teachers. Only one third of the black teachers were qualified. The schools reserved for the country 's white children were of Western standards. 30 % of the black schools did not have electricity, 25 % no running water and less than half had plumbing. The education for Blacks, Indians and Coloureds was subtantially cheaper but not free. In the 70s, the per capita governmental spending on black education was one - tenth of the spending on white. In 1976, the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use both Afrikaans and English as languages of instruction beginning with the last year of primary school, led to the Soweto Uprising in which more than 575 people died, at least 134 of them under the age of eighteen. The act was repealed in 1979 by the Education and Training Act, 1979, which continued the system of racially segregated education, while also eliminating both discrimination in tuition fees and the segregated Department of Bantu Education and allowing the both use of native tongue education up to the fourth grade and limited attendance at private schools as well. Segregation became unconstitutional after the introduction of the Interim Constitution in 1994, and most sections of the Education and Training Act were repealed by the South African Schools Act, 1996. References Jump up ^ Nadine L. Moore, Faculty of Humanities University of Pretoria ( 2015 ). `` IN CLASS OF THEIR OWN : THE BANTU EDUCATION ACT ( 1953 ) REVISITED '' ( PDF ). ^ Jump up to : Clark, Nancy L. ; Worger, William H. ( 2004 ). South Africa - The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Seminar Studies in History. Pearson Education Limited. pp. 48 -- 52. ISBN 0 - 582 - 41437 - 7. Jump up ^ Timeline of the University : 1959 Archived December 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine... Official website of University of Fort Hare. Accessed 2007 - 12 - 03. ^ Jump up to : Byrnes, Rita M. ( 1996 ). South Africa : A Country Study. Washington : GPO for the Library of Congress. Jump up ^ Giliomee H, 2009. A Note on Bantu Education 1953 - 1970 South African Journal of Economics, March 2009. Jump up ^ `` The Afrikaans Medium Decree that Led to the Soweto Uprising ''. about.com. Retrieved 15 September 2017. Jump up ^ ( U.S. ), Study Commission on U.S. Policy toward Southern Africa ( 15 September 1981 ). `` South Africa : Time Running Out : the Report of the Study Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Southern Africa ''. University of California Press. Retrieved 15 September 2017 -- via Google Books. http://nmmu.ac.za/documents/mward/Bantu%20Education%20Act%201953.pdf External links Article on apartheid and education that mentions the Bantu Act ( in Dutch ) Text of the act Apartheid legislation in South Africa Precursors ( before 1948 ) Hut tax ( 1884 ) Franchise and Ballot Act ( 1892 ) Glen Grey Act ( 1894 ) Natal Legislative Assembly Bill ( 1894 ) Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act ( 1906 ) South Africa Act ( 1909 ) Mines and Works Act ( 1911 ) Natives Land Act ( 1913 ) Natives ( Urban Areas ) Act ( 1923 ) Immorality Act ( 1927 ) Native Administration Act ( 1927 ) Representation of Natives Act ( 1936 ) Native Trust and Land Act ( 1936 ) Native ( Urban Areas ) Consolidation Act ( 1945 ) Asiatic Land Tenure Act ( 1946 ) Malan to Verwoerd ( 1948 -- 1966 ) Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act ( 1949 ) Immorality Amendment Act ( 1950 ) Population Registration Act ( 1950 ) Group Areas Act ( 1950 ) Suppression of Communism Act ( 1950 ) Native Building Workers Act ( 1951 ) Separate Representation of Voters Act ( 1951 ) Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act ( 1951 ) Bantu Authorities Act ( 1951 ) Native Laws Amendment Act ( 1952 ) Pass Laws Act ( 1952 ) Public Safety Act ( 1953 ) Native Labour ( Settlement of Disputes ) Act ( 1953 ) Bantu Education Act ( 1953 ) Reservation of Separate Amenities Act ( 1953 ) Natives Resettlement Act ( 1954 ) Group Areas Development Act ( 1955 ) Riotous Assemblies Act ( 1956 ) Industrial Conciliation Act ( 1956 ) Natives ( Prohibition of Interdicts ) Act ( 1956 ) Immorality Act ( 1957 ) Bantu Investment Corporation Act ( 1959 ) Extension of University Education Act ( 1959 ) Promotion of Bantu Self - government Act ( 1959 ) Unlawful Organizations Act ( 1960 ) Indemnity Act ( 1961 ) Coloured Persons Communal Reserves Act ( 1961 ) Republic of South Africa Constitution Act ( 1961 ) Urban Bantu Councils Act ( 1961 ) General Law Amendment Act ( 1963 ) Coloured Persons Representative Council Act ( 1964 ) Post-Verwoerd ( 1966 -- 1994 ) Terrorism Act ( 1967 ) Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act ( 1968 ) Prohibition of Political Interference Act ( 1968 ) Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act ( 1970 ) Bantu Homelands Constitution Act ( 1971 ) Aliens Control Act ( 1973 ) Indemnity Act ( 1977 ) National Key Points Act ( 1980 ) - List of National Key Points Internal Security Act ( 1982 ) Black Local Authorities Act ( 1982 ) Republic of South Africa Constitution Act ( 1983 ) Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bantu_Education_Act,_1953&oldid=830434509 '' Categories : 1953 in South African law Apartheid laws in South Africa 1953 in international relations Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from October 2016 Articles with permanently dead external links Talk About Wikipedia Afrikaans Deutsch Italiano 日本 語 Suomi Edit links This page was last edited on 14 March 2018, at 20 : 13. 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Question: what was the purpose of the bantu education act
Answer: legalised several aspects of the apartheid system; enforcing racially separated educational facilities; enforcing racially separated educational facilities