HC Deb 23 March 1950 vol 472 cc135-7W
105. Mr. Sorensen

asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what consideration has been given recently to the means by which the economic, educational and social needs of Bechuanaland can be more fully assisted; to what extent literacy and education have progressed in the last 10 years; and what developments have taken place during that period in respect of medical services.

Mr. Gordon-Walker

Besides the limited activities which the Protectorate Government is able to promote from its own ordinary revenues of under half a million pounds per annum, the Bechuanaland Protectorate has enjoyed and enjoys generous assistance from grants under the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts. The total amount available under 1944 Act is over one million pounds.

These grants are being used firstly for the development of water supplies, both surface and underground, which is the primary need of the territory. Other uses are: control of the tsetse fly in the North West; the extension of livestock and agricultural services; the improvement of roads and medical and educational services. A geological survey at a cost of over £98,000 to investigate the mineral resources of the Protectorate is in progress. The Administration hope also to investigate the possibilities of controlling and using the waters of the Okovango Delta in the north for schemes which, if successful, would prove of very great advantage.

The Colonial Development Corporation is investigating large scale cattle-ranching and cold storage projects which might prove of great benefit to the economy and well-being of the territory.

With regard to literacy and education, no figures of adult literacy are available; but the following comparative figures between 1939 and 1948 illustrate the progress made.

1939 1948
(a) total education expenditure £22,000 £60,000
(b) number African teachers 264 464
(c) primary schools for Africans 137 152
(d) secondary schools for Africans nil 2

Progress is illustrated more clearly by the following developments:

(a) A Government Teacher Training College for African teachers has been recently established;

(b) A modern Government Primary School for Europeans has been built at Lobatsi;

(c) At Mochudi a Homecrafts Training Centre has been established for African adolescents;

(d) Some £5,000 is expended on a bursary system to enable European and African pupils to follow post primary courses outside the Protectorate. This amount is-divided approximately evenly between the two races;

(e) As a result of a tribal cattle levy, the Bamangwato have raised over £100,000 to establish a tribal secondary school which was opened at the beginning of 1949;

(f) Aided by Government grants, which this year will total £1,000, an African Secondary School has been firmly established at St. Joseph's Mission, Khaleb;

(g) Under the native authority system the Tribal Committees established to administer primary schools in tribal areas have grown in responsibility and the Treasuries concerned vote increasingly large sums of money for education.

Medical expenditure has risen from £31,000 to £60,000 per annum in the last 10 years. The African medical staff has been increased from 68 to 152, including one African doctor. A scheme for the training of African nurses has been established. More equipment and drugs have been provided, and the number of beds at Government hospitals has been increased.

Considerable progress has been made in the preventive field, and trained staff are undertaking active measures to prevent and control malaria, sleeping sickness, plague and smallpox.