Welfare and education in British colonial Africa and South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

Contemporary educational policy discourse in South Africa that seeks to serve the poor and address equity issues needs to engage with the roots of twentieth‐century social reform debates if it is meet its goals. One of the weaknesses of the templates for reform at the present time is that they often fail to engage with progressive traditions which have a long history. Present‐day reforms look to agency recommendations or comparative examples of “successful” emergent economies, but often fail to recognize the value and significance of previous initiatives which sought to address these issues. The long debate over the need for social welfare and educational reform in British colonial Africa has some significance in this regard. The period between 1930 and 1950 marked a key turning point in such policy in colonial Africa, and significant reform initiatives in South Africa from the early years of the Second World War provide the benchmarks for such investigations. The social welfare policies and the educational policy initiatives of the United Party government during the 1940s provide important signposts for such policies. This article attempts to investigate that legacy.