Cape Town - Several thousand trade unionists marched noisily through Cape Town's centre yesterday insisting that black and mixed-race children be given a fair deal in the country's school system.
Mr Tony Ehrenreich, local secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), said the apartheidera disparity between black and white schools remained, four years after the country elected its first democratic government. Pupil-teacher ratios in predominantly white schools were around 25 to one, while in black schools they were as high as 60 to one. The national average for the country's 27,000 schools was 32 to one in 1996.