Nathaniel Nyaluza Public Secondary School, in Fingo Village, was the first high school in Grahamstown dedicated to the education of black students. Known only as the 'Native Secondary School', the establishment of Nathaniel Nyaluza was the initiative of the Grahamstown Joint Council of Europeans and Natives. The minutes of the executive meetings between 1936 and 1938, when the school opened its doors, detail the long and involved process of finding and acquiring a suitable location, constructing buildings, and the endless task of fund-raising.
(From the minutes of the executive council, Grahamstown Joint Council of Europeans and Natives)
17th November 1936:
"Arrangements were left in the hands of the Chairman, Secretary and ---, together with ---, who informed the meeting that another concert was to be arranged in the Location for secondary school funds."
Besides staging concerts, the Joint Committee solicited donations and won the support of the local school to reduce running costs.
The decision to establish the Native Secondary School was a progressive step at a time when the advantages and disadvantages of so-called "Native Education" were being widely debated. A speaker addressing the executive of the Joint Committee raised three main objections to "educating the native":
"He becomes cheeky - but that is due only to the wrong type of education. He will compete with Europeans - but wth education his standard of living will be raised. Education is not needed for his work - but then what of the education of those Europeans who do similar work in England?"
(From the minutes of the executive council, Grahamstown Joint Council of Europeans and Natives)
20 April 1937
The Nathaniel Nyaluza school was never intended to provide the kind of education open to students in 'white' Grahamstown. After 1955, the Native Secondary School fell within the mandate of the Department of Education and Training, under the Bantu Education Act 1953, further limiting the scope of the curriculum. However, Nyaluza was still the first black secondary school in Grahamstown. Whatever limitations it did suffer, the establishment and continued operation of the school provided - and provides! - opportunites for further education to the youth of Fingo Village and the surrounding locations.
