ABSTRACT
The architects of apartheid were determined to divide the inhabitants of South Africa so that political and economic power remained the prerogative of people classified as 'white', that is people of European descent. Black children had no compulsory schooling and the voluntary institutions open to them offered an education designed to fit them largely for labouring tasks on farms and mines Coloured children, which in South Africa means children of mixed racial characteristics, received a slightly more generous provision and could therefore generate slightly higher employment aspirations. Crudely expressed, many black teachers receive half the salaries of their white counterparts yet teach classes twice as large. However if student militancy declines and some form of educational sanity begins to surface, the prospects for a fundamental reform of teacher education are not unencouraging and even within the divided colleges there are potentials for fairly rapid change.
