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MDLL1016: Lecture 5
The History of (Special)
Education in South Africa (2)
Lecturer: Naomi Janse van Vuuren
naomi.jansevanvuuren@wits.ac.za
Introduction
HF VERWOERD: “What is the use of teaching
a Bantu child mathematics when IT cannot
use it in practice? ... That is absurd.”
khubazeka x isilima
(‘it’)
isi = unusual / strange
OBJECTS
umu = HUMAN BEING
• Four phases (Naicker, 1999)
• Phase 1 (1700-1800)
• No provision
• Phase 2 (1863-1963)
• Establishment of special education
• Phase 3 (1963-1994)
• “Separate development”; impact on Special Ed & ESS
• Phase 4 (1994)
• New democracy
• Phase 2 – Establishment – special education
• Stage 1: Church provision; the racist nature of the state
• Stage 2: development of tests as precursor to
institutional special education & education support
services
• Stage 3: the genesis of the medical model
• Phase 2, Stage 1
• No special education provision by the state for African
children (only in 1963)
• Churches - important role – special education both
white & non-white children
• Act 29 of 1928 Education Department established
“vocational schools” and “special schools” for white
children.
• Special Education assumptions
• Phase 2, Stage 2
• 1920’s - first development of intelligence tests in South
Africa
• 1928 - SA Group Test of Intelligence – first connection -
education & labour market in South Africa – precursor to
aptitude tests
• Phase 2, Stage 2 (cont.)
• 1926 first standardised arithmetic test in South Africa for
whites
• 1928 - Scale of General Intelligence for SA Schools - used
until the mid-60’s
• Precursor to categorisation, labelling exclusive to special
education system
• Phase 2, Stage 3
• Act Nine of 1948 - ‘the education of the handicapped
child’
• Groundwork for a medicalised approach to separate
special education for children with disabilities
(Magnusson & Walton, 2023)
• Child cannot benefit from ‘normal’ instruction
• Should not attend ‘ordinary’ classes - would be harmful to ‘him’
or others
• Phase 2, Stage 3 (cont.)
• Impact of 1948 Special Schools Act
• Individual viewed helpless and dependent.
• Result - person requires treatment & assistance outside regular
education
• Regular education teachers believe it is beyond their level of
expertise to teach learners who are classed as disabled; this
has to be done by specialists.
• Phase 3 - “Separate development”; impact on
Special Ed & ESS
• Stage 1: Evolution of “education support services (ESS)”
• Stage 2: Segregated education departments in control
of special education & ESS
• Stage 3: bantustan or “homeland” phase
• Phase 3, Stage 1
• Concept of ESS – precursor was psychological services
initiated after introduction of “separate development”.
• Act No. 39 of 1967 for Whites – elaborate system of
child guidance clinics & multi-disciplinary teams
• Psychological services - major discrepancies along racial
lines.
• Phase 3, Stage 1 (cont.)
• Assessing and placing pupils needing special education.
• Little comparison between resources of white education to
those of other race groups.
• Insufficient provision, poor supervision of adaptation classes,
remedial education & facilities at special schools (if at all)
• Phase 3, Stage 2
• Education supported “separate development”
• Coloured Persons Education, Bantu Special Education
and Indian Education Acts in 1963, 1964 and 1965 –
disparities in special education were clearly racial
• Bias towards Whites - worse than it looked - non-white
special schools - initiated by churches, not the state
• Special education for Whites had been provided mainly
by the State.
• Phase 3, Stage 3
• Bantustans - six “homeland” government departments
with separate education departments in 1968.
Phase 1: No Special Education before
1900
Slave education
Missionary Academic
(1795 – 1854)
None – ‘divine
displeasure’;
killing of people
Phase 2: Establishment of Special Education
1863– 1963
‘MAINSTREAM’ EDUCATION SPECIAL EDUCATION
• Industrial Training
(1854–1922)
• Native education (1922-
1953)
• IQ Tests (1920-1926)
• 1948: APARTHEID
• Bantu Education (1953 -
1994)
• Dominican Grimley (‘1863’)
• State – 1900 (white)
• Churches – ‘non-white’
children
• Special Education Act (1928),
1948: MEDICAL MODEL
(Special Schools Act)
Phase 3: Separate Development (1963-1994)
BANTU EDUCATION SPECIAL EDUCATION
• Six “homeland”
government
departments
• Separate education
departments – 1968
• Psychological services -
discrepancies - racial
lines
• Act No. 39 of 1967 for
Whites - child guidance
clinics
• Multi-disciplinary teams
• Disparities special
education - racial
Special Education
and Deaf children in
South Africa
• 1863 Dominican Grimley, Cape Town
• Multi-racial
• Irish Sign Language
• 1880 – Milan Congress
• The congress, considering the incontestable superiority
of speech over signs, for restoring deaf-mutes to social
life and for giving them greater facility in language,
declares that the method of articulation should have
preference over that of signs in the instruction and
education of the deaf and dumb.
• Considering that the simultaneous use of signs and
speech has the disadvantage of injuring speech, lip-
reading and precision of ideas, the congress
declares that the pure oral method ought to be
preferred.
1881
• Worcester
School for the
Deaf and Blind
Oral, white
(Afrikaans)
1905
• Split - De la Bat
School
• 1884 German Dominican school, King William’s
Town
• Oralism
• European white
• Later – Jhb – St Vincents
• 1928 - The Special Education Act
• Vocational training and so-called ‘special schools’ for
white disabled children
• Churches continue support for ‘non-white’ children
• Athlone School for the Blind - Coloured children
• Worcester School for Coloured children with epilepsy
• 1933 Nuwe Hoop, Worcester
• Coloured
• 1934 - St Vincent, Jhb
• White
• English; Oral
• 1937 – The Special Schools Amendment Act
• Residential schools for white disabled children – end of
multi-racial education in mission schools
• 1937 Dominican Wittebome
• Coloured and African
• 1953 – Coloured only
• 1941 Kutlwanong
• First school for Black-only Deaf learners SA
• 1948: Institutionalised Apartheid
• Enforcement of existing policies of racial segregation
becomes a system of legislation
Bantu education
and Deaf education
Bantu education & Deaf
education
• "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 cannot use it in
practice? That is quite
absurd.” (HF Verwoerd)
• “Without artificial signs,
and perhaps with spoken
signs, there are no
abstract ideas, and
without abstract ideas,
no deductions.
Therefore, even after
education the deaf have a
much more limited ability
to think than we do.” (Du
Tracy) (Lane, 1984 –
French philosophers)
• "I have not consulted
the African people on
the language issue and
I'm not going to. An
African might find that
'the big boss' only
spoke Afrikaans or only
spoke English. It would
be to his advantage to
know both languages.“
(Janson, 1974)
• A teacher in the pure
oral school who
understands the sign
language is out of place
... He might demoralize
the school in a very
short time.”; “Since
when do we consult the
patient on the nature of
his treatment?” (Lane,
1984 - Milan)
• “Education must train
people in accordance
with their opportunities
in life, according to the
sphere in which they
live.“ (HF Verwoerd)
• The Deaf must be
taught manual labour
(Congress of Hearing
teachers, shortly after
Milan) (Lane, 1984)
• Deaf children until 1994
• No state education until 1928 – only churches
• Initially signing, until Milan-impact after 1880
• Mission schools – multi-racial until 1937
• Non-mission schools – single race
• Apartheid - Black Deaf children x white Deaf
children
• signing x oralism
• By the end of the apartheid era
• 17 different education departments
• Divided according to race, ethnicity and disability
PHASE 4 (1994 - ): NEW DEMOCRACY
▪ Unification of 17 education departments – one
ministry of education
▪ National commission on Special Needs in Education
and Training – National Committee on Education
Support Services. (NCSNET & NCESS )
summarise