National Council for Adult Education

National Council for Adult Education was a project of the Jan Smuts government to see to the educational and social needs of South Africans after the second world war.

Some sources have National Advisory Council for Adult Education or refer to it by the acronym NACAE.

The project

The council derived from a specific recommendation made in the Eybers Commission (1945), a voluminous report about an investigation of the needs in the country after the war. The theatre-loving Dr G.W. Eybers, was appointed the first Director of the council in 1946, with the chairman of FATSSA, P.P.B. Breytenbach, as a member.

NACAE and theatre in South Africa

In January 1947, at Breytenbach's request, the Council set up a sub-committee to study theatre matters. Chaired by Breytenbach and made up of Myles Bourke, Anna Neethling-Pohl, Donald Inskip and Steve Naudé. (secretary), it submitted a proposal for a state-funded theatre - based on an outline by Myles Bourke - to the government. It was through this proposal that FATSSA obtained its first grant of £400, plus a loan of £3,600 in 1947, to organise professional tours in 1948, and - in effect - to establish the National Theatre Organisation (NTO). The sub-committee itself initially found itself acting as a mediatory body between the amateur organisation and the professional performers, and once NTO had been formed, it constituted the core of the controlling body for the organisation.

[TH & JH]

Sources

Rinie Stead in Hauptfleisch 1985

P.J. du Toit, 1988

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