ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by outlining the context of change in education as apartheid ended, and the establishment of new administrative structures and new legal framework for a single system of education for all. It argues that changes in education were fundamentally shaped by decisions taken in the domain of constitutional negotiations and the battle between political interests, rather than the domain of the education policy process, and that policy implementation was thwarted by the agency of local interests fighting against it. At opposite sides of the town of Carnarvon stand its two schools. On the northern side, in the former Coloured township of Bonteheuwel, are the banks of face brick classrooms of the primary school, once the secondary school that was purpose-built by Coloured Affairs on the southern side, near where the now dry spring of Harmsfontein once attracted settlers, are the extensive but older buildings of the former white school, currently the town’s secondary school.
