In May 1948 the National Party of Dr D F Malan came into power in South Africa on the basis of its apartheid policy. In February 1990, Mr F W de Klerk, the leader of the same party, announced in Parliament that the apartheid era was to end. As I write this, a year has passed since the first democratic election on 27 April 1994. The country is ruled now by a multiparty Government of National Unity under the Presidency of Mr Nelson Mandela, the leader of the majority party, the African National Congress.

During the apartheid era, the National Party Government, in their attempt to entrench political rights and economic privileges in the hands of the whites, inflicted injuries of the most abominable kind on black South Africans. In the process, the country earned international condemnation and was isolated and rejected by the world community.

These events did not leave the universities of South Africa untouched. During the apartheid era, the residential universities could be divided into three categories. There were the English-language so-called ‘open universities’ – Cape Town (UCT), Natal, Rhodes and Wits – whose doors were, at least in theory, open to all who were academically qualified for admission. From the promulgation of the Extension of University Education Act 45 of 1959 until 1984, the admission of black students was severely restricted. The second group of South African universities included the Afrikaans-medium institutions – Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Rand Afrikaans University, Orange Free State, Stellenbosch and, despite its nominal ‘dual language’ designation, Port Elizabeth, all of which supported the Government and apartheid education. The third category comprised the universities that were the creation of apartheid tertiary education, established to provide separate institutions for African, Coloured and Indian South Africans. They were rigidly run by administrations appointed by the Government, whose educational policies they implemented with fervour. Those established for Africans were located in areas so remote that they were referred to contemptuously as ‘bush’ colleges. Today, most of them are under enlightened and progressive administrators who are strongly committed to transforming their universities in such a way as to redress the apartheid legacy, and are referred to with some pride as the historically black universities, or HBUs.