Pupils are frustrated at the inequality of the education system. Schools for black Africans are run down and overcrowded.

The government says that children must be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the white government. They don’t want to have to learn in a language which is not their own, and they organise a peaceful protest march in Soweto, the black township near Johannesburg.

The protest march of 10,000 school students is broken up by the police, who shoot several students. In the years after the march, thousands of black children stay away from school as a protest against the government.

The United Nations adopt the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children in South Africa want their own Charter of Rights. A Children’s Summit is organised where a Children’s Charter of Rights is written.

Nelson Mandela is elected President and a new Constitution is written that includes the Children’s Charter of Rights. This includes the right to a free, equal, non-racist, and non-sexist basic education.