THENEWSOUTHAFRICA
apartheid state. The country had one of the greatest gaps in the world be-
tween rich and poor, and although new multiracial classes were forming,
the gap marked primarily a division between races. The most accurate
measure of these differences was provided by a detailed census that was
held in 1996-before
substantial changes had taken place since the trans-
fer of political power. That census revealed the enormity of the problem.
Most white South Africans were well-to-do, well educated, and well
housed. Most Africans, like most people of tropical Africa, were poor,
badly educated, and ill housed. The conditions of the Coloured and In-
dian members of the population were in between those of Whites and
Africans.j
The Mandela government inherited a particularly intractable educa-
tion situation: nineteen separate education departments-one
for each
race and one for each Homeland, and so on; immense disparities between
the buildings and the equipment in schools created for Whites and those
created for Blacks; a dearth of qualified teachers; and the inordinate cost
of raising the "black" schools to anything like the level of the "white"
schools. Moreover, the established syllabi and textbooks were devised un-