ARTICLES

 

Archival Practice and the Historiography of Education in South Africa: An Overview of Government Collections on Education

 

 

Bronwyn Strydom

Department of Historical and Heritage Studies University of Pretoria Pretoria Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8019-6995 bronwyn.strydom@up.ac.za

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Archives provide a large part of the raw materials with which historians construct histories. How these repositories arrange this material, and what they consider as priorities for accessioning it, have a profound influence on what material is more within reach for historians. An investigation into the records available at the National Archives and Records Services of South Africa (NARSSA), for a collaborative project focused on researching and writing the histories of universities in South Africa, shed significant light on both the extremely fragmented nature of the record of education in South Africa, as well as on substantial challenges related to its accessibility. Before the historian of education can engage with the government's record on education in South Africa, the splintered timeline of education administration must be reconstructed. Furthermore, once the historians of education then enters the NARSSA space, they are confronted with the fact that only a small fragment of this record has been described in archival finding aids. After pondering this state of affairs, this article considers the historiography of education in South Africa, examining the sources that have been used to construct narratives of the history of education, as well as how trends in this historiography could be viewed as reflecting the state of the archives. The article also offers some thoughts on the potential pitfalls and insights which await the industrious historian of education in these unaccessioned collections of the NARSSA.

Keywords: Archives; history of education; historiography; National Archives and Records Services of South Africa; twentieth century; university histories.

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Introduction and background

This article focuses on research conducted at the National Archives and Records Services of South Africa (NARSSA). This forms part of a collaborative project on the histories of universities in South Africa. The Research Project on the Histories of Universities in South Africa (RPHUSA), launched in 2022 by Prof Saleem Badat, is engaged with the writing of critical histories of South African universities. As part of the project, scholars expressed the need for a "Guide to the Archives for University Histories in South Africa". A first part of this proposed guide focused on collections housed in NARSSA, the purpose of which was to assist scholars in locating relevant collections for their research.

The focus of the latest workshop of RPHUSA was on 'Archiving South African Universities. One of the focus questions was 'How, in what ways and to what extent does the development of South Africa's university system reflect and impact the economic, social and political priorities of the state during different historical periods?'¹ The government record is particularly pertinent to this question, since it documents government actions related to universities, which, for most of the twentieth century, consisted of only public state-aided institutions.

This article issues from this research, as the process of locating records became in itself a significant lens on the history of universities and education in South Africa and the methodology and historiography of histories of South African education. Grappling with the scope and inaccessibility of collections also raised questions regarding archives themselves, and their perceived value for historical enquiry.

I, the author, have a mixed bag of experience which I bring to this paper: my academic path has been as a university historian, however, my career path has mainly been as an archivist. Furthermore, I trained as a teacher and spent a few years on the lecturing staff of the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria teaching history education.

 

Timeline of government structures in South African education

While the focus of this research was to assist scholars in locating records relevant to the study of universities, the survey of the archives' collections tells a wider story of education in South Africa, particularly in the twentieth century. The fragmented nature of the record, obscured both by the systematised segregation of the apartheid state and the lack of finding aids, is in itself a picture of the history of education in South Africa. To successfully navigate the archives, the historian of education must have a clear understanding of the state apparatus, which became progressively more complex and fractured as its organisational structure became more narrowly aligned with categories of race. In this sense, accessing the archives requires reconstructing the splintered timeline of South African educational history.

For this paper, the net was cast wider than just universities by giving a survey of the collections related to all types of formal education. This was a logical step to take as, until 2009, universities fell under government departments which were also responsible for primary and secondary education. This only changed in 2009 when a dedicated Department of Higher Education and Training was established.

The focus of this survey is on the twentieth-century archival record. Prior to 1910, South Africa consisted of four separate British colonies, two of which had recently been independent republics at war with Great Britain. Thus, the South African State only came into being with the Union of South Africa in 1910, and for the first time, the whole region fell under single administrative departments of the exclusively white government. This is confirmed by Behr, who expands on the educational context as follows: "In considering the development of the educational system of South Africa, one has to bear in mind that when the four self-governing colonies came together in 1910 to form the Union of South Africa, each had an established system of education concerned mainly with primary and secondary education and teacher training. University education was still in its infancy and vocational education was hardly known."²

The South Africa Act (1909) stated that provincial councils would be responsible for education other than higher education for five years. Accordingly, the central government would have been responsible for all post-secondary education, and provinces would take charge of the rest. The Act, however, did not define 'higher education', and it became an issue over succeeding ministries of education to wrestle with differentiating between the roles of the provinces and the roles of central government concerning education. Some consistent areas of trouble were those of teacher training and technical and vocational education.³

A government report describes the context as follows: "Until the end of the nineteenth century compulsory education did not exist in Southern Africa and the education ofWhites and non-Whites was not officially separated. Schools were established-by the church, by private enterprise and ultimately by the state-where the need arose, that is, where many families and their children lived in close proximity to each other."⁴ Official government control over education expanded and was progressively cemented in the twentieth century.

There is a need to trace the government control and administration of education to be able to trace the official record. Before one can successfully navigate the collections of NARSSA, the historian of education must have a history of government administration of education to know which collections to consult. In the case of South Africa, tracing the system of state structures involved in education in the twentieth century is not a simple task.

At the time of the Union of South Africa, responsibility for education resided mainly with the provincial education departments of the country's four provinces. This included education for all of the racial and ethnic groups of the country, although the development of schools for various population groups differed. The newly formed and centralised Union Education Department was responsible for post-secondary education, although, as mentioned earlier, definitions of what this and 'higher education' encompassed, would become a source of conflict between this department and the provinces.⁵ Black, coloured and Indian education, along with white education,⁶ fell under provincial departments, although schools were mainly segregated by race, particularly following legislation like the 1905 School Board Act, which had been passed in the Cape Colony and the 1907 Education Act in the Transvaal Colony. Churches and missionary societies bore a large responsibility for black and coloured education. This responsibility would gradually pass to the state, as the government became increasingly involved in financing mission schools.⁷

Education did not develop rapidly during the decade after 1910. Booyse points out that "[v]arious factors, such as World War I, the influenza epidemic, large-scale urbanisation and industrialisation following the discovery of gold and diamonds in the latter half of the 19^th century and the economic depression, seriously hampered the development of education for all population groups".⁸

In this period before the advent of apartheid, the control and administration of education appeared to have been more fluid. More efforts were made to define 'higher education', which meant that the central government's Union Department of Education gradually took control of the schools of art, domestic science, music and technology, among others. In 1925, this expanded to include not only technical colleges and schools of home industries and housecraft, but also schools for learners with special needs. As one source explains, "... the central government gradually assumed responsibility for more and more of the country's educational obligations and the provinces lost control over one facet of education after another".⁹

In terms of segregation, while schools became increasingly segregated, the administration of education was not always divided by race. In many instances, how white children were educated was merely adapted to the educational needs of the various ethnic groups. For more than a century, the administration of coloured education, which mainly took the form of state-aided mission schools, was a part of the Cape Department of Education. White and coloured schools followed the same curricula and were visited by the same inspectors, and finances of coloured schools fell under the same departments as those of white schools.¹⁰

Behr sums up the situation during this period as follows: "The education at primary and secondary school level of various racial groups was at the time of Union, and for a half century thereafter, under provincial control. Black, Coloured, Indian and White children attended separate schools, but came under the same rules and regulations of the provincial authorities involved, and were under the supervision of the same inspectors of education in the geographical areas concerned."¹¹

With the National Party coming to power after the 1948 elections, an era of more systematised and differentiated government control of education began to develop. White tertiary education was taken over by the Department of Education, Arts and Science in 1955. In 1967, the control of all white education in all the provinces was transferred to this department following the passing of the National Education Authority Act. The administration of education, however, remained the responsibility of the provincial departments of education.¹²

The status of black education very quickly became a matter for investigation by the new dispensation. The recommendations of the 1951 Eiselen Commission set up the framework for the passing of the Bantu Education Act of 1953 (Act 47 of 1953). This act transferred control of black education to the central government in the form of the Department of Native Affairs: Bantu Education Section, and later, in 1958, the Department of Bantu Education.¹³

Centralised control of Indian and coloured education followed suit. In 1966, the Department of Indian Affairs: Education Section took over education for Indians in Natal. Indian education in the Transvaal moved to this department in 1967 and likewise in the Cape in 1970.¹⁴ Despite reports from the Schumann Commission (1960) regarding the expense of centralising control of coloured education, after the passing of the Coloured Persons Education Act, 1963 (Act 47 of 1963) "... the responsibility for the education of the Coloured community was transferred from the provincial administrations to the Department of Coloured Affairs of the Central Government in 1964".¹⁵ Another official body that would exercise influence over coloured education was the Coloured Persons Representative Council. This council was formed in 1969 with the task of advising the Minister of Coloured Affairs on, amongst others, matters on education. Booyse points out that with the addition of the council to government systems, "the administration of coloured education became a very complicated affair."¹⁶ Educational administration and control in South Africa were set to become even more complicated as the apartheid machinery gained momentum and expanded its reach.

From 1963, as the apartheid government's homeland policy began to be implemented, separate departments of education were established in the self-governing states and the later independent homelands. In 1967, the Department of National Education was formed to coordinate white education. In 1978, the Department of Education and Training took over responsibility for the education of black learners living in the urban areas, which were allocated for whites under the Group Areas Act. In 1980, the rationalisation of government departments led to the amalgamation of the Departments of Coloured Affairs, Indian Affairs and the Interior to form the Department of Internal Affairs. Education remained segregated, however, coloured education fell under the Minister of Internal Affairs, while Indian education fell under the South African Indian Council.¹⁷

The introduction of the 1983 Constitution was a final complication in the system of educational control and administration in South Africa. The new national constitution led to the creation of three houses of parliament, each representing the white, coloured and Indian electorate, respectively. Under these new houses of parliament, new departments of education were created in line with the view that education was an 'own' affair for each of these population groups. There was the Department of Education and Culture of the Administration House of Assembly (whites), Department of Education and Culture of the Administration House of Delegates (Indian) and Department of Education and Culture of the Administration House of Representatives (coloured). Coordinating these three departments from a policy framework perspective was the Department of National Education, which, according to Behr, ".. .in respect of certain important matters 'serves the country as a whole, and consequently all population groups'".¹⁸ Due to the viewpoint that black representation and thus administration, resorted in the six self-governing states and four independent homelands, each with its education department; black education was not included in the constitutional changes.¹⁹ The Department of Education and Training did, however, continue to administer black education in so-called white areas. All these developments meant that by 1986, eighteen different departments of education were operating in South Africa.

Booyse summarises government control of education during the apartheid period as follows:

"Although during the four decades of NP rule, central control over all education in South Africa had been considerable, structural, political and resource constraints had prevented total control. During the same period, paradoxically, the national system of the country became excessively fragmented. It resulted in extensive white and black bureaucracies which aggravated the typical evils of bureaucratisation, namely poor communication, a wastage of resources, inefficiency, inflexibility and conservatism."²⁰

Following President FW de Klerk's speech to Parliament early in 1990, in which the then president announced the beginning of the transition to a democracy, the ending of apartheid and the unbanning of various organisations, education became an intense source of debate. In the few years leading up to the 1994 democratic elections, various organisations and the government led a range of commissions and investigations into educational policy and strategies. After 1994, educational policy, norms and standards became the responsibility of a single national Department of Education. The administration of education other than universities, however, remained in the hands of provincial departments of education, of which there were now nine under the new constitution of the country. In 2009, post-school education became the responsibility of the separate Department of Higher Education and Training, while schooling was placed under the Department of Basic Education.

In summary, the twentieth century saw the growth of mass education in South Africa with the introduction of compulsory education and the establishment of schools and universities. In terms of administration, this became more centralised as the state took control over all spheres of education, however, also more fragmented as the system of apartheid gained momentum and was implemented in increasing measure.

The post-apartheid government saw the unification of an extremely segmented government sector, also developing systems to streamline and merge the structures inherited from the previous regime.

 

NARSSA situation

The NARSSA mainly houses records generated by governmental bodies in the course of carrying out their activities.²¹ Thus, records held by NARSSA offer a window on the functioning of the South African government over time. As highlighted in the focus question of the RPHUSA, mentioned earlier, this archive offers the potential to uncover dimensions of the relationship between education and the economic, social and political priorities of the state, since it offers a record of state activities. Furthermore, there is also the prospect of engaging with an unpublished, and perhaps by extension unfiltered, record of these activities due to the predominance of primary government records held by the NARSSA.²²

For the historian of South African education and university history, however, engaging with this record is not that simple for several reasons. At a fundamental level, the first constraint relates to the type of records kept by NARSSA. South African archival theorist Verne Harris has demonstrated how the system of appraisal and retention carried out traditionally by NARSSA in itself has already limited the type of records preserved by the National Archives: official bureaucratic records which reinforced power, race and gender relations were favoured rather than those capturing voices from grassroots levels and of interest to social and revisionist historians.²³ Harris argues powerfully that archives in general and the National Archives in particular "offer researchers a sliver of a sliver of a sliver".²⁴ Certainly, when I carried out a randomised perusal of files generated by different departments tasked with education, a large proportion of these dealt with rather mundane administrative matters. There was, for example, a whole archival box dedicated to purchases of curtaining for schools and technical colleges.²⁵ Other files consulted included inventories of furniture and stationery, financial claims and expenses, and administrative documents dealing with promotions and travel allowances. While no record is without some kind of historical value, these bureaucratic documents offer limited voices and perspectives on critical educational questions.

The second difficulty is mainly one of relevance to the historian of universities. Until 2009, universities fell under the successive, and for most of the twentieth century, segregated government departments of education and were also included under the vague and rather broad term 'higher education. This means that to find records related to government policies and actions regarding universities, researchers must wade through a large number of collections of education and higher education records. As the overview of South Africa's education administration demonstrates, these records emanated from a changing number of departments and subdivisions of departments, which became more and more fragmented with the passage of the twentieth century. The NARSSA List of Archivalia gives details of seven different education department collections for the period 1911 to 1990.²⁶

For scholars of the history of education, the situation is little better, as only three out of the seven departments in question have finding aids. The rest of the collections, which represent almost seven decades of records, are without any kind of finding aids. This equates to roughly 658 running metres of documents produced by various departments of education with no finding aid of any sort. Only two education department collections have been described and are available on the NARSSA online database.²⁷ These departments are the Union Department of Education collection (UOD) which includes documents from 1911 to 1968, and the Department of Bantu Education (BO) with records from 1942 to 1976.²⁸ Archival theorist, Terry Cook highlights how archival records "are continually reappraised for their 'value' when the archivist decides ... which records are to enjoy all or many of only some of numerous subsequent archival processes" which may affect the accessibility and visibility of records to potential researchers.²⁹ In short, there are records on education, however, as they lack processing, they are not very accessible and a researcher will need to work through entire collections in the hope of finding material.

In addition, each time I have requested boxes from the unaccessioned collections, the reading room staff have struggled to locate them in the appropriate strong rooms of the archives. This situation creates a 'silence' in the archive, which while perhaps the "result of passive or unconscious decisions" stemming from "[l]imited resources and/or a lack of understanding", nonetheless has "great implications for the state of societal memory."³⁰

Furthermore, not all the government departments mentioned in the above chronological overview appear to have collections in the National Archives. For example, the Department of Coloured Affairs does not appear as a collection and neither does the South African Indian Council feature in the List of Archivalia published by the NARSSA.³¹

Another complication related to the accessibility of education records is that the latest inventory of collections for the central government archives was published in 1996, thus, making it unclear how to access collections of records from the post-1994 period. Government records are subject to a twenty-year embargo, which means that one should be able to access records up to at least 2004 at the NARSSA-the first decade of democracy. A search on the electronic retrieval system of NARSSA is encouraging as it does yield references to records related to education for the late 1990s and early 2000s. These references, however, do not refer to Department of Education records, but to records found in other collections which relate to education. Efforts to locate some of these records, based on the database references were also fruitless, as archival staff were unsure where to locate them. The presence of these records from the post-apartheid era is heartening, however, they represent only a minority of records produced in the post-1994 period. Larger difficulties with NARSSA due to the lack of funding, space and staff has meant that the archives depot in Pretoria can no longer accommodate new records, and government departments have been tasked with storing their records with private service providers.³² Concerns over the state of affairs at NARSSA have been raised in recent decades by the professional historical community and other stakeholders, highlighting the challenges and failures in the state's archival sector.³³ South African historian, Christopher Saunders, describes his experiences with NARSSA as follows, "That there is a dire shortage of staff and great disorganization in the archives is abundantly clear. There is a backlog in processing material of years, if not decades and no proper system to find what one is looking for."³⁴ In a country grappling with the legacies of the colonial past and apartheid, it is striking that the record itself is opaque on several levels.

 

Histories of education

Despite the difficulties associated with accessing these collections efficiently and strategically, a range of scholarship and writing is available on the history of education in South Africa, although scholars also maintain that it is an underdeveloped field of study. An introduction to a handbook on South African educational history points to the "severely marginalised" place ofhistory of education in teacher training programmes at South African universities resulting in the "immensely impoverished" state of the historiography of South African education.³⁵ One could argue that both the records and the narrative have been neglected. Kallaway laments the failure ofhistorians from a range of schools of thought and paradigms to have "placed education at the centre of the historical picture".³⁶ The author argues that particularly the history of mass education systems of the twentieth century "has not fully taken its rightful place as a central aspect of mainstream history".³⁷

Despite this negative assessment of the field, some work has been done to explain the course of South African education and the histories of South African universities have more recently been receiving fresh and critical attention. Considering the inaccessible condition of a large portion of official documents on South African education and the complications associated with locating these records, I was curious to understand which sources had been used by scholars in the writing of these histories of education.

An examination of South African university histories shows that these mainly rely on primary records housed in their institutional archives. As far as government records are concerned, some collections from provincial archives have been consulted. The only education collection from the central archives depot that appears in the source list of these histories is the Union Education Department collection, one of the only ones which is included in the NARSSA computer list.³⁸

A 1975 publication attempted to address the problem of "access to original materials"³⁹for the historian of education by reproducing sections of significant documents in an edited volume. This publication by Rose and Tumner, entitled Documents in South African Education, is intentionally limited to official documents which are described as "Reports of Commissions, Acts of Parliament etc."⁴⁰ and to statements by influential groups. Unfortunately, for the sake of efficiency, in many cases, the authors reproduced selections from documents and not the entire documents. It is still a useful volume, covering important documents on education including landmark debates, speeches and legislation. It is also striking that this volume appears frequently on the source list of subsequent histories of education, thus, filling a gap in the need for primary material.⁴¹

One of the earliest histories of South African education is the 1934, A History of Education in South Africa (1652-1932), by ME McKerron. The pattern of sources used in this history represents a model of the methodology employed by later twentieth-century historians of education. The sources used by McKerron appear to mainly be secondary sources: other education histories, general histories, histories of Christian missionary societies and biographies. McKerron also consulted volumes of published primary sources.⁴² Reference is made to "Reports and correspondence of the Superintendents in the four provinces",⁴³ however, there is no indication regarding where these sources may be located. Many of the sources in the bibliography are also government publications.

This book still falls into the Union Education Department era, which is an accessioned collection. McKerron, already in this early part of the twentieth-century comments, "As the texts in the history of education in this country are little known, and often beyond the reach of the student, I have of set purpose quoted extensively from them."⁴⁴

A pioneering historian of twentieth-century South African education is without doubt EG Malherbe. The very detailed second volume of his study of South African education matters, covering the era 1923 to 1975, deals with a wide range of critical matters which make up the education landscape such as nationalism, language, technical and vocational training, school through-put, differentiated education, assessment policies and economic aspects of education.⁴⁵ A similarly groundbreaking study was that of AL Behr, Education in South Africa. Origins, Issues and Trends: 1652-1988.⁴⁶ These two authors structure their discussions of twentieth-century education quite differently, however, their source lists reveal many similarities. They both include very long lists of secondary sources as well as lengthy references to published government records. These include commission reports, bulletins, occasional publications, annual reports, white papers and parliamentary debates. Neither refer to primary material in their reference lists. In his acknowledgements, Malherbe thanks "the various education departments, provincial and national, the Department of Statistics and the Joint Matriculation Board for making available to me information not usually available in their publications."⁴⁷

An active contributor to scholarship in the field of South African history of education is Peter Kallaway. Apart from editing two volumes focusing on apartheid-era education, Kallaway has also contributed to critical appraisals of the field.⁴⁸ Kallaway's writing also emphasises the difficulties of access to state documentation.⁴⁹ A helpful feature of Kallaway's edited volumes on South African history is the additions of bibliographies of education. The bibliography in the author's 1984 book on black education is detailed and varied. As far as state records are concerned, however, the references are mainly to publish government records, including parliamentary records and reports.

Kallaway also makes extensive use of the collection of published records by Rose and Tumner, referred to earlier. As far as collections of primary records are concerned, Kallaway lists a range of collections from both inside and outside South Africa: mission society newsletters; the South African Institute for Race Relations; Carnegie Corporation of New York files, New York; Booker T Washington Papers; Anson Phelps-Stokes Family Papers; the Rheinallt Jones Collection at the University of the Witwatersrand and the International Missionary Council Papers. This bibliography raises two matters: in the face of the wealth of sources gathered by Kallaway, one wonders whether it is still necessary to access and consult the records of NARSSA. On the other hand, the presence of primary records from other archival repositories also highlights the potential contribution that the state primary record could make and one wonders whether this record would have been used more if it were more accessible.⁵⁰ The only NARSSA collection which is referenced in Kallaway's second volume on the apartheid era is the Union Education Department which is on the Archives' computer list.⁵¹

From the above brief overview of histories of South African education, it is clear that these studies seem to be based mainly on sources beyond the primary material of NARSSA, relying on published government sources and contemporary secondary sources. The authors of Kallaway's more recent edited study, The History of Education Under Apartheid, 1948-1994⁵² also make use of personal testimonies and alternate archives. This provides a rich and varied narrative regarding the history of education in South Africa during the apartheid era, giving voice to marginalised roleplayers and communities, and providing an alternate narrative to traditional triumphalist or apologetic narratives of South African history generated during the apartheid era. It is curious, however, that in the historiography of South African education, this official narrative is largely missing. In the sphere of archival methodology, the official record and archive usually precede the search for alternate archives.⁵³ In this case, the order seems reversed and the memories and voices of the alternate and counter archives can only engage with part of the official narrative, in the form of government publications.

On the one hand, publications such as those mentioned above, demonstrate the possibilities of researching education beyond the confines of NARSSA collections. On the other hand, it does seem that there should be some engagement with official records to properly understand the functioning and purposes of government departments of education. More worrying is the lacuna of such records for the period from around the late 1980s. In a country still coming to terms with the effects of colonialism and apartheid, a strong argument can be made for the need for more historical research to properly understand these events and their impact on education. How can problematic legacies be uprooted if the past is obscured and the record inaccessible?

Kallaway comments on the lack of attention to the past and a kind of purposeful amnesia that has characterised thinking around educational policy in the post-apartheid era. He points out that, "the attempt to characterise the whole history of education as flawed on account of its association with apartheid led to the wholesale abandonment of educational traditions built up over two centuries."⁵⁴ He explains further, "We did not take the trouble to understand with care what was wrong with apartheid education before we set about attempting to remedy the problems through grand plans which included the reform of governance and curriculum."⁵⁵ This state of affairs is echoed by another author who describes "history of education as a grossly neglected field of study".⁵⁶ My own recent experience of engaging with colleagues at a nearby university on the prospects of postgraduate research in the history of education was similar-fields like comparative education and sociology of education were drawing more postgraduate students than the history of education, with little realisation that these fields themselves should reside on a historical understanding of contemporary issues. Kallaway similarly concludes by identifying "an unwillingness to see contemporary political culture through the lens of past experience."⁵⁷

History of education certainly should have a role in informed debate on education and education reform. As Wolhuter further points out, on the practical side, the field may shed light on contemporary education issues and provide helpful insights for those tasked with future educational design. As far as the theoretical contribution of the field, it represents a kind of collective memory and a civic sense of the development of the nation-state with its national educational system. The latter two aspects could explain the neglect of discipline due to South Africa's problematic and controversial past and the role government systems played in education.⁵⁸

Another characteristic of the histories considered above is that they tend to cover long periods. The absence of primary records is, therefore, not very surprising as these histories focus on the essence of events, policies and their consequences. For this, one could argue that a government report or published legislation is sufficient. I then considered a sample of dissertations and theses with topics related to South African history of education, reasoning that as these would probably focus on smaller periods, they may offer more depth and evidence of more focused archival research. What I found was that there was also little use of NARSSA records. A PhD on the Soweto Uprisings of 1976 makes use of legal records, legislation and newspapers, yet, it shows no reference to NARSSA collections.⁵⁹ Another doctoral thesis focusing on the transformation of black school education in South Africa does indeed use collections of NARSSA. These, however, are only collections which can be accessed through the computer finding aid: BO; UOD; Foreign Affairs (BTS); National Social Research Council (NRSN). The study also used the private collections of some members of former homeland administrations, for example, the collection of the former Minister of Education for Qwa Qwa. This dissertation also made use of a range of primary sources from other archival repositories mainly based at South African universities.⁶⁰Another dissertation looking at the origin and development of the psychological and guidance service of the Transvaal Education Department, used a collection named after this department, but does not give any indication of where it is housed.⁶¹ Thus, seemingly the unaccessioned education collections of the NARSSA remain unexamined.

 

Archives and histories

After the above investigations, I started to question the value and necessity of the official records housed at NARSSA. If scholars have managed to construct the narrative of South African education, in some cases in impressive detail, without these records, I began to wonder what was missing by their omission and whether it was important.

I also realised that as an archivist, I perhaps have too much of a fascination and potential preoccupation with the primary record. In compiling the research for this paper, I was impressed with the value of contemporary secondary sources and their potential to shed light on developments in and perspectives on education during their period and was also impressed with the range of organisations and repositories whose records also contribute to the story of education in the country.⁶²

On the other hand, the predominance of certain secondary histories of education as almost seminal source texts in later studies, could be considered problematic. Works like those by Malherbe and Behr dominate the references of most other histories of education. The influence of these sources, in the absence of other voices, could potentially result in a single prevailing narrative. Although Cross points out the progressive aspects of the historiography of South African education, there is still a preponderance of certain sources which appear to form a base for subsequent histories of education.

With this background in mind, I carried out a random exploration of the unaccessioned education collections to get a sense of what type of records they contain and what 'missing' dimensions they may contribute to either reinforcing, countering or adding nuance to existing narratives. As expected, a large amount of the records are administrative and do not seem to offer very much to researchers: stocktaking; budgets; receipts and order forms. On the other hand, the brief exploration of the archives revealed some real gems. An Department of Eduation and Training (OEO) file from 1994 included the lengthy arrangements for the use of schools as polling stations for the first democratic elections. These documents give a sense of different school districts, regions and departments at the closing of the apartheid administration. The file also contains documents motivating the distribution of voter education materials in schools of the Department.⁶³ This box also contained a document showing the transfer of schools in the region to the Gauteng Department of Education, highlighting the new era in terms of structure and administration.

Another OEO file is a gem waiting to be mined-this covers the school boycotts of the 1980s, and in particular, unrest in schools on the East Rand in 1984 and 1985. The file includes day-by-day reports of the situation at schools during the unrest, including attendance, school atmosphere and the number of matrics writing exams. There are also some intriguing documents showing opposition to apartheid education, criticism of the boycott and official recommendations on how to deal with the unrest and the boycott.⁶⁴ I also discovered a file where in 1982, the Department of Education and Training school inspectors were asked to motivate whether women should be appointed as school inspectors or not. Overwhelmingly the respondents answered in the negative, giving motivations.⁶⁵ A study of these motivations promises to be interesting, particularly as the context of this department was that of mainly white men administrating black urban education.

My brief exploration also revealed more recent documents in the archives, however, these do not appear to be in abundance. Files in the Certification Council for Technikon Education (CTO) collection cover the formation and work of the Council for Higher Education (CHE) and Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC)-both important bodies in the restructuring ofhigher education after apartheid. In addition to administrative records found regarding office furniture and stationery, the files include minutes, agendas and progress reports of the HEQC from 2000.⁶⁶

The availability of these records is encouraging, however, one senses an uncomfortable crossing over from one archival era to another. The source codes for these more recent collections are not readily available, therefore it is not always clear what collection the records in the database form part of, and it seems that some of these more recent records have been added to existing series in the archives, however, not always successfully. For example, attempts to locate files in the State President's collection (SPT) for the mid-1990s dealing with Gauteng education, led to much discussion among the reading room staff and eventually the files which were retrieved, based on the codes given on the database, were files of the State President's speeches from the 1960s.

An interesting side effect of the varying degrees of accessibility of primary records can be detected in the topics or eras which have received the most attention from historians of education. In a survey of the historiography of South African education, Kallaway points to considerable attention which has been given to the period 1910 to 1948, which is the period of the Union Education Department. Kallaway also draws attention to the major focus on the history of black education and resistance to Bantu Education, stating that "[c]uriously, there is very little material on the period 1948-1994" and that what has been written on this era is not based on original archival research.⁶⁷ This is confirmed by Booyse who remarks, "The history of education in South Africa during NP rule has been dominated by a focus on the education of black people and resistance against the type of education provided to non-whites by the government."⁶⁸

Based on what has been discovered in the current research about the accessibility of the archival collections on education, this state of affairs is not that surprising as it seems that the scholarship has developed in direct relation to the accessibility of the official record. This situation is also mirrored in the source lists of a range of education histories, where the only two NARSSA collections of primary records which are referenced are the UOD and BO collections, both of which are the only accessioned education collections. The only other state-generated sources which appear are in the form of government publications. Concerning black education, it is a curious paradox that some of the traditionally marginalised voices of the South African past have the most accessible records and have seemingly received the most attention.

Furthermore, the increasing use of electronic search engines and databases has also distorted understanding regarding the process of archival research. It was surprising to find that researchers in the RPHUSA project had not searched beyond the NARSSA database which only represents a fraction of records housed in the archives. As an archivist, I regularly meet with an assumption that all our material is available in a digital format. The digital information age creates an expectation of instant answers when in the case of South African history of education, a large amount of tedious labour is needed to access the record(s). Furthermore, the digital record often lacks the context which an engagement with the files and volumes of an entire collection can give.

The exploration of NARSSA did bring to light a more easily accessible set of records which should be of great interest to historians of education. These are the collections of the state's Commissions of Enquiry. They are of interest as they are based on specific enquiries made by the government, highlighting what the concerns and priorities of the state were. The chronology of these collections list in the NARSSA List of Archivalia is in itself a history of state intervention in education. One can trace the developing priorities of the state, particularly after the 1948 election and its extending reach into all groups and facets associated with education.⁶⁹ Many of the commissions' records also do not have finding aids, however, they are more easily accessible due to their limited scope and size. A sample of material kept in these collections shows that they vary in what kind of material was kept. Some collections merely contain a final report, whereas others include inputs from a wide range of stakeholders, highlighting the range of influences on educational matters and providing evidence of a range of perspectives regarding the matters under examination.

What the NARSSA documents also offer is the potential to not only engage with larger state decisions and actions related to education, but also to construct microhistories of events and developments within the sphere of education. Microhistories offer historians and policy-makers a window into the complexities of events and decisions as they often focus on individuals or events by placing them in a rich social and cultural context.⁷⁰Further exploration of the Archive may offer historians and policy-makers a more nuanced and layered understanding of education and provide insights into aspects of education which have not yet been considered in an historical context.

 

Conclusion

Based on what has been discussed above, there remains a vast region of unchartered records and material for historians of South African education. Buried in the shelves of NARSSA is a wealth of primary material waiting for scholars to retrieve and unlock. This will require some grit and determination as researchers navigate the fragmented record located in an assortment of collections, and scholars will also need long-term vision to wade through the unpromising files of administrative documents. These collections, however, offer the potential to uncover hidden histories and to shed new light on the history of South African education. A systematic study of these records will ensure that the role of government in setting the course for South African education, can be more thoroughly investigated. This will go a long way to understanding the legacy of twentieth-century educational practices and should add nuance and depth to existing narratives of education. An awareness of these seemingly untouched collections will hopefully cause more scholars to brave the archives and reclaim some of the missing voices and perspectives from educational histories and debates.

 

 

 

1 RPHUSA Programme: Archiving South African Universities, 18-19 March 2024, University of Johannesburg.
2 AL Behr, Education in South Africa: Origins, issues and trends, 1652-1988, (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 59.         [ Links ]
3 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), pp. 59-60.         [ Links ]
4 The Education Bureau, Education for Life. The education of the Coloured population group in the Republic of South Africa, (Cape Town, Department oflnternal Affairs, 1981), p. 1.
5 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), pp. 59-60.
6 The reader is warned that because of the racial polarisation and systematic segregation in South Africa during the period under review, racial terms and designations will be used in this article in outlining developments in the past. Some racially insensitive terms and classifications may appear, but should be within the thematic context of the study. In South Africa, the term 'black' is used to refer to people of African descent. 'Coloured' refers to those of mixed ancestry, including people ofMalay heritage. 'Indian' refers to those whose forebears moved to South Africa from India and Pakistan and 'white' refers to those of European descent.
7 JJ Booyse, The provision of education during the first half of the 20 century, in JJ Booyse, CS Le Roux, J Seroto and CC Wolhuter (eds.), A history of schooling in South Africa. Method and context, (Pretoria, Van Schaik Publishers, 2011), pp. 201-203.
8 JJ Booyse, The provision of education..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaik Publishers, 2011), p. 203.
9 The Education Bureau, EducationforLife..., (Cape Town, Department oflnternal Affairs, 1981), p. 2.
10 JJ Booyse, The provision of education..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaik Publishers, 2011), p. 199; JJ Booyse, Education provisioning during the period of National Party rule, in JJ Booyse, CS Le Roux, J Seroto and CC Wolhuter (eds.), A history of schooling in South Africa: Method and context, (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), p. 234.
11 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 60.
12 AL Behr, Education in South Africa...,, (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 60; JJ Booyse, Education provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaik Publishers, 2011), p. 226.         [ Links ]
13 JJ Booyse, Educational provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaik Publishers, 2011), pp. 240-242.
14 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 61.
15 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 61; The Education Bureau, Education for life..., (Cape Town, Department of Internal Affairs, 1981), p. 2.
16 JJ Booyse, Education provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), pp. 237-238.
17 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 61.
18 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988), p. 74; JJ Booyse, Education provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), p. 230.
19 J Booyse, Education provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), p. 230.
20 J Booyse, Education provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), p. 264.
21 National Archives and Records Service of South Africa, "What records does the National Archives and Records Service keep?", February 2015, (available at https://www.nationalarchives.gov.za/node/1212, as accessed on 1 November 2024).
22 The focus of this research is on collections housed in the Central Archives Depot of the NARSSA in Pretoria. The author is aware that other relevant collections may be found in the various Provincial Archives Depots and at other parastatal or private institutions.
23 V Harris, "The archival sliver: Power, memory and archives in South Africa", Archival Science, 2, 2002, pp. 73-74.
24 V Harris, "The Archival Sliver...", Archival Science, 2, 2002, p. 65.
25 Central Archives Depot (SAB), Department of Higher Education (DHE) 205, D2/5/4/246.
26 ME Olivier (ed.), List of Archivalia in South African Depots. Central Archives Depot, (Pretoria, State Archives Service, 1996).         [ Links ]
27 The other relevant collection with a finding aid is the Department of Native Administration (BAO) who were responsible for black education before the establishment of the Department of Bantu Education.
28 See Table of NARSSA collections in Addendum.
29 T. Cook, "The archive(s) is a foreign country: Historians, archivists, and the changing archival landscape", The American Archivist 74(2), Fall/Winter 2011, p. 606.         [ Links ]
30 RG Carter, "Of things said and unsaid: Power, archival silences, and power in silence", Archivaría, 61, Spring 2006, p.219.
31 References to a limited selection of records from the Department of Coloured Affairs do appear on the Cape Archives website and at the Archive for Contemporary Affairs and Special Collection at the University of the Free State. There also appears to be a collection of South African Indian Council documents at the Cape Archives and in the Ghandi-Luthuli Documentation Centre of the University of Kwazulu-Natal.
32 R Munshi, Archives, In defence of memory, Financial Mail, 31 August 2017, p. 56; C Saunders, National archives are a national disgrace, Business Day, 15 August 2011.
33 The Archival Platform, State of the archives: An analysis of South Africa's national archival system, 2014, (Cape Town, The Archival Platform, 2015).
34 C Saunders, National archives are a national disgrace, Business Day, 15 August 2011.
35 CC Wolhuter, History of education as a field of scholarship and the historiography of South African education, JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), p. 1.
36 P Kallaway, "The forgotten history of South African education", South African Review of Education 18(1), 2012, p. 15.         [ Links ]
37 P Kallaway, "The forgotten history...", South African Review of Education, 18, 2012, p. 9.
38 M Boucher, "The University of the Cape of Good Hope and the University of South Africa, 1873-1946. A study in national and imperial perspective", Archives Yearbookfor South African History 35(1), (Pretoria, The Government Printer, 1974); P Maylam, Rhodes University, 1904-2016: An intellectual, political and cultural history, (Rhodes University: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 2017); B Guest, Stella Aurorae. The history of a South African University, Vol 1-3, (Pietermaritzburg, The Natal Society Foundation, 2015); BK Murray, Wits. The Open'years, (Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand, 1997).         [ Links ]
39 B Rose and R Tumner (eds.), Documents in South African Education, (Johannesburg, Ad. Donker Publisher, 1975), p. 7.
40 B Rose and R Tumner (eds.), Documents in South African Education, (Johannesburg, Ad. Donker Publisher, 1975), p. 7.
41 P Kallaway (ed.), The history of education under apartheid, 1948-1994: the doors of learning shall be opened, (New York, Peter Lang, 2002); JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011).
42 GW Eybers, Select constitutional documents illustrating South African history, 1795-1910, (London, George Routledge & Sons, 1918); Various volumes ofpublished primary records by HCV Leibbrandt (includes journals ofVan Riebeeck and Zacharias Wagenaar as well as volumes ofletters); GM Theal, Abstract of the Debates and Resolutions of the Council of Policy, 1651-1687, (Cape Town, Saul Solomon and Co., 1881).
43 ME McKerron, A history of education in South Africa, 1652-1932, (Pretoria, J.L. van Schaik, 1934), p. 182.
44 ME McKerron, Preface, in A history of education in South Africa, 1652-1932, (Pretoria, J.L. van Schaik, 1934), p. 7.
45 EG Malherbe, Education in South Africa, volume II: 1923-1975, (Cape Town, Juta & Co Ltd, 1977).
46 AL Behr, Education in South Africa..., (Pretoria and Cape Town, Academics, 1988).
47 EG Malherbe, Education in South Africa..., (Cape Town, Juta & Co Ltd, 1977), p. xi.
48 P Kallaway, "The forgotten history...", South African Review of Education, 18, 2012; R Swartz and P Kallaway, "Imperial, global and local in histories of colonial education", History of Education 47(3), 2018, pp. 362-367.         [ Links ]
49 P Kallaway, "The forgotten history..." South African Review of Education, 18, 2012, p. 17.         [ Links ]
50 P Christie, C Collins and P Kallaway (eds.), Apartheid and education. The education of black South Africans, ( Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1984)
51 P Kallaway (ed.), The history of education under apartheid..., (New York, Peter Lang, 2002).
52 P Kallaway (ed.), The history of education under apartheid..., (New York, Peter Lang, 2002).
53 See for example, C McEwan, "Building a postcolonial archive? Gender, collective memory and citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa", Journal of Southern African Studies, 29(3), September 2003, pp. 739-757.
54 P Kallaway, The forgotten history of South African education..., (New York, Peter Lang, 2002), p. 12.
55 P Kallaway, The forgotten history of South African education..., (New York, Peter Lang, 2002), p. 12.
56 JJ Booyse, CS Le Roux, J Serato and CC Wolhuter, Preface, JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaik Publishers, 2011), p. xii.
57 P Kallaway, The forgotten history of South African education..., (New York, Peter Lang), p. 18.
58 CC Wolhuter, History of education as a field of scholarship, JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa..., (Pretoria, Van Schaick Publishers, 2011), pp. 2 & 8.
59 AMS Majeke, "The 1976 Soweto uprisings: Education, law and the language issue in South Africa", (DPhil thesis, University of Iowa, 1994).
60 MSP Rakometsi, "Transformation of Black School Education in South Africa, 1950-1994. A historical perspective" (PhD, University ofthe Free State, 2008).
61 EM Coetzee, "Die ontstaan en ontwikkeling van die sielkundige en voorligtingsdiens van die Transvaalse Onderwysdepartement, 1914-1981" (The origin and development of the psychological and counselling service of the Transvaal Department of Education, 1914-1981), (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria, 1984).
62 JE Holloway, American Negroes and South African Bantu, (Pretoria, Carnegie Corporation Visitors' Grants Committee, 1933); ME McKerron, A history of education in South Africa, (JL van Schaik, 1934); EH Brookes, Native education in South Africa, (Pretoria, JL van Schaik, 1930).
63 SAB, Education and Training (OEO) 56, Schools policy, formulation, decisions and tasks.
64 SAB, OEO 56, Skole Boikotte.
65 SAB, OEO 20.
66 SAB, Certification Council for Technikon Education (CTO) 771, Skakeling binnelandse: Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC).
67 P Kallaway, "The forgotten history...", South African Review of Education, 18, 2012, p. 17.
68 JJ Booyse, Education provisioning..., JJ Booyse et al., A history of schooling in South Africa, p. 264.
69 See Table in Addendum.
70 CA Brewer, "Historicizing in critical policy analysis: The production of cultural histories and microhistories", International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 27(3), 2014, p. 274.         [ Links ]