Hoërskool Montana, in Montana, Pretoria, was a predominantly Afrikaans-medium school with mainly white pupils and a sprinkling of a few coloured pupils.

Montana is a well-equipped public school built in the apartheid era by the government of the day.

It is heartening to see a growing - though not so significant - number of black pupils at this school.

Montana Poort Secondary School, less than a kilometre from Montana, is built with board material by "liberated" South Africa's democratic government.

It is predominantly an English-medium school where most of the pupils are black. I have learnt that a proper school will be built in the near future but I am sceptical. I know of many other "tin-shack" schools in Pretoria that are still the same after more than 10 years.

The sad part is that all these inferior schools were built for black people by a predominantly black government.

We recently learnt that black pupils were denied access to a predominantly Afrikaans-medium school. Perhaps a "tin-shack" high school nearby would solve the problem?

The government must build good, well-equipped schools so that we don't have to go cap-in-hand to beg for our children to be admitted to "apartheid" schools.

A Mukhari

via e-mail