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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

1959. Extension of University Education Act No 45

This act made "it a criminal offence for a non-white student to register at a hitherto open university without the written consent of the Minister of Internal Affairs" (Lapping 1986: 184).

It also "provided for the establishment of a series of new ethnically-based institutions for Blacks, together with separate universities for Coloureds and Indians" (Christopher 1994: 152). "The Afrikaans-medium universities - Potchefstroom, Pretoria, Orange Free State and (after Afrikaans had become an established language) Stellenbosch - had from their foundation restricted admission to whites. Of the English-medium universities, Rhodes was all-white and Fort Hare in practice non-white; the remaining three, while more open, were by no means fully multi-racial. Natal admitted non-whites, but kept its classes racially segregated. Cape Town and Witwatersrand admitted students to courses without regard to race but applied a strict colour-bar in social and sporting events" (Lapping 1986: 183). New universities were established at Bellville in the western Cape for Coloureds, Ngoye in Zululand for Zulus, Durban in Natal for Indians, Turfloop in Transvaal for the Sotho-Tswana population, while Fort Hare (formerly, Lovedale Mission College) became restricted for Xhosas (Lapping 1986: 184; Davenport 1987: 380).

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