Tiger Kloof Educational Institution
Vryburg district,
North West
| Tiger Kloof Educational InstitutionVryburg district, |
 Oblique view |
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Notes: It all started in 1895, when three Batswana chiefs, on a trip to London, met with Queen Victoria, to talk about establishing a school across the waters. Eventually, in 1904, Tiger Kloof Educational Institution was opened by the London Missionary Society and educated the elite of the Batswana people for 50 years, including the first two presidents of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama and Sir Quett Masire. In 1953 the South African government passed the Bantu Education Act, which made it illegal to teach academic subjects to black children. The missionaries, refusing to compromise with the apartheid government, withdrew in 1955 and the school finally closed down in 1962. The landowner was instructed to bulldoze the buildings. Fortunately he got cold feet and most of the buildings survived. And then!! In 1990, following the release of Nelson Mandela, Old Tigers and local businessmen got together to make a plan to reopen the school. The old buildings, abandoned for thirty years and used as sheds for livestock, were renovated and the school was reopened in 1995. Tiger Kloof Educational Institution is a registered NPO and caters for children from pre-primary to matric with a total of 800 students. Tiger Kloof, is no ordinary school. It’s a place of rebirth, a story of hope and a testament to what is possible in this beautiful country of ours. (Sunshine Simplicities, October 2023) See also the Arthington Memorial Church. ___________________________________ MOEDING – the ‘Place of Running Water’ – is the SeTswana name of TIGER KLOOF near Vryburg, which was established by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in 1904 as an Educational Institution – which because of the railway passing by was more accessible to students than was the Kuruman Mission (where a school was started in 1829). From its inception the Tiger Kloof committed itself to excellence in academic and technical training. From 1914 it was expanded to become a centre for elementary, higher and specialised education with a teachers’ training college, a bible school for theological training, and an industrial school incorporating domestic science, spinning and weaving, masonry, carpentry, leatherwork and tailoring. Alumni of Tiger Kloof would include Sir Seretse Khama and Sir Ketumile Masire, the first and second presidents of Botswana and almost the entire first cabinet of the Republic of Botswana. Another of the alumni was Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, one of the organisers and leaders of the 1956 Women’s March in Pretoria and, post-1994, a Member of Parliament and afterwards South African Ambassador to Switzerland. Mompati qualified as a teacher and taught at nearby Dithakwaneng, but after moving to Soweto, and acquiring shorthand skills she was employed as typist for Mandela and Tambo Attorneys – inevitably her entre into politics. In 1956 the LMS withdrew from Tiger Kloof in protest against government interference via the Bantu Education Act - which was notoriously intended to put black South Africans in their place as “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. Now under state control, both students and alumni, the ‘Old Tigers’, resisted political manipulation. Several of the buildings were torched, and Tiger Kloof was eventually closed in 1963, the property declared a “black spot” in terms of the Group Areas Act. In anticipation a replacement school had been developed at Otse, on the road to Gaborone, being named Moeding to symbolise its continuity from the original Tiger Kloof. In 1991 steps were taken by a gathering of Old Tigers with the Revd Joe Wing of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (with roots in the LMS), UCCSA) to investigate possibly reopening Tiger Kloof where the ruins of the original school stood. Retired principal of Maru a Pula school in Gaborone, David Matthews, headed a Board of Directors who then facilitated the rebirth of the Institution. Ruth Mompati, George Mosiapoa, Archie Mogwe and others guided its reconstruction. The official opening of the new partly restored Tiger Kloof Educational Institution was celebrated in October 1995 - rededicated in a ceremony led by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, whose own mother had attended the school. Restoration of buildings laid to waste by the apartheid regime continued over the following decades. Today Tiger Kloof is one of South Africa’s historic schools reborn, serving the communities around Vryburg. It is run as a government school on private property, funded partly through school fees, partly through the support of an educational trust and partly through fund-raising initiatives both in South Africa and internationally. Supplementing its academic programmes, the school also uses its 1200 ha grounds to subsidise the kitchen by way of a herd of cattle, along with chickens, and vegetables from its garden, with learners acquiring farming skills and environmental awareness. “In some ways Tiger Kloof is just a rural school in a very remote and poor part of the country,” chief executive Mark Boobbyer has remarked, while, “In other ways it offers something unique… not just a good education, but also … opportunities to link with schools overseas and engagement with service projects within the local community.” (Posted by McGregor Museum Kimberley on the Artefacts FB page) |
 Side elevation  Gateway  Foundation stone  50 Year memorial stone  1995 Memorial stone  Oblique view of building with clock tower  View of building from sports field  Building before restoration  Building after restoration  Interior of building during restoration |
 School emblem  Early photograph |