Adult Education South Africa (ADEDSA)

Archive - 1920s

Main Content

This archive collects together publications, papers, reports and documents on adult education or related topics mainly from South Africa and by South African authors.

Apart from being listed, all of these texts are downloadable in Adobe Acrobat format. These downloadable texts are intended to serve as a resource and readers are free to make a limited number of copies of these texts for non-profit educational purposes.

Copyright resides with the individual author(s) or the specified copyright holder.

Educators or publishers wishing to reproduce any of these texts in publications or compilations of readings should contact the individual authors or publishers where possible.

By year:

1926  

Keywords:

adult education, conferences, extension lectures, extra-mural studies, plan, policy, WEA (Workers Educational Association), worker education, universities, university extension

Year

The 1920s

1926

The Organisation of Adult Education in South Africa

Author: M.P.
Date: 1926
Reference: M.P. 1926. The Organisation of Adult Education in South Africa. Voorslag, Volume 1, Number 4, pp. 28-38

Description: Provides a description of adult education in the mid-1920s though with the main focus on the Workers Educational Association, of which the history and development of in the United Kingdom is described. The writer notes that the WEA is weakly spread in South Africa and too closely modelled on a university extension tutorial system and lacking the political education aspects of the WEA in the United Kingdom. It is also very urban centred. There is no university extension system in South Africa. The writer also notes "the need of an adult education league catering for all white persons interested, but working in the spirit of thoroughness, good fellowship and democratic control of the W.E.A. rather than in the spirit of dilettante superiority of the University extension movement. ... Such a league would invite affiliations from all bodies who are or might be interested in adult education - churches, farmers' associations, trade unions, local halls, temperanc,e societies, co-operative societies, library committees, women's institutes, etc." Organisational principles and the role of tuors are also examined.

This article appered in the literary journal Voorslag, started by William Plomer, Roy Campbell and Laurens van der Post in 1926. "M.P." is probably Mabel Palmer, who began teaching at the Natal technical College and was tasked with teaching adult education courses through the Workers Educational Association. She also taught courses at trade unions and the YWCA on themes dealing with banking, currency, industry and the cost of living. She is best known for her role in the struggle to gain access for black Africans to the University of Natal.

Keywords: adult education, WEA (Workers Educational Association), worker education, universities, university extension, extra-mural studies

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