Literacy at South African Mission Stations
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP06/2013Publication date: 2013
Author(s):
[protected email address] (Deapertments of History, Universities of Leiden and South Africa)
[protected email address] (Department of History, University of South Africa)
Measures of education quality – primarily, years of schooling or literacy rates – are widely used to ascertain the contribution of human capital formation to long-run economic growth and development. This paper, using a census of 4,678 mission station residents, documents for the first time literacy and numeracy rates of non-white citizens in nineteenth-century South Africa. The 1849 census allows for an investigation into how the mission stations influenced the growth of literacy in the Cape Colony. We find that age, gender, duration of residence, whether the individual arrived at the station after the emancipation of slaves or was born there and, importantly, which missionary society was operating the station, matter for literacy performance. The results offer new insights into the comparative performance of missionary societies in South Africa and contribute to the debate about the role of missionary societies in the development of a colonial society.
JEL Classification:N37
Keywords:human capital, South Africa, missionary, literacy, age-heaping
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Monday 21 July 202512:00-13:00
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4 Jul 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act passes as tariff pause deadline loomsThis week brought a flurry of data releases alongside a heavy dose of political drama, both locally and globally. Yesterday’s stronger-than-expected US jobs report was the standout global data release. Domestically, tensions persisted in the DA-ANC relationship. On the international stage, headlines were dominated by the passage of the One Big Beautiful...
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