SEGREGATION, SCIENCE AND COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY - THE CONTESTATION OVER NATIVE EDUCATION POLICY IN SOUTH-AFRICA, 1930-1936

This is a study of relations bern een English Protestant missions and secular forces in and outside the state in the arena of African educat ion between 1930 and 1936. During these pears both the state and secul ar organisations devoted a great deal of time and money, in the form o f commissions and conferences, to debating and investigating solutions to the 'Native Problem'. Education was seen as key in this debate. Th e article argues that, through these public debates, newly emerging se cular experts attempted to silence the missions and educated African e lite as illegitimate amateurs, no longer able to speak with authority on African education. It shows the way in which new sciences like anth ropology and psychology were used to bolster and hone earlier notions of 'adapted education'. It challenges the idea that the missions accep ted these ideas, showing that a robust critique was emerging which dre w both on missionary opposition to 'adapted education' in British colo nies and critiques of segregationist policy in South Africa.