National Council for Adult Education
(Some sources have National Advisory Council for Adult Education)
Contents
The project
This council was a project of the Jan Smuts government to see to the educational and social needs of South Africans after the second world war. It derived from a specific recommendation in the voluminous report the Eybers Commssion (1945) brought out after an investigation of needs in the country. The theatre-loving Dr 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 Naude (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, constituted the core of the controlling body for NTO.
Sources
(See R.Stead in Hauptfleisch 1985; *) [TH]
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