Internationally people range from accepting racial discrimination as a way of life to utterly rejecting it and defining it as criminal. Racism occurs world-wide and is manifested in every continent. In Europe, extreme racist groups have gained more and more acceptability in countries like France, Germany, and Austria. In the United Kingdom despite having a vibrant diversity of people from different countries, racism is still too common. The recent influx of immigrants into Europe has once again uncovered the deeply ingrained racial intolerance that exist in some countries.

South Africa like these European and other countries share a legacy of deep rooted oppression and racial inequality. Many South Africans have lost trust, not only in the governance and leadership of the country, but in the capacity of the country to produce effective leadership at any time in the future (Smetherham, 2008; De Lange, 2008: 4). 

Racial integration in South African schools is fundamental as it is about creating desegregated and equal institutions as envisaged by the constitution in a society that has always been divided by race (Nkomo, 2004). Although South Africa has a long and complex multiracial history, the end of apartheid (segregation) and the accompanying desegregated education has brought new challenges for educators. Many educators came from isolated backgrounds and was required to teach learners from different races. Similarly most learners for the first time are being taught by educators from different race group to themselves (Pather, 2005). Studies by Vandeyar (2006, 2009) and Meier (2006) done soon after desegregation took place found that most educators lacked the knowledge of the cultures and customs of other racial groups. They were also not professionally prepared to teach racially diverse students, where they were required to create a conducive educational environment for their learners in a society that is fundamentally unequal (Liston & Zeichner, 1996:84).

From the international studies it was established that the approaches to managing racial integration are assimilation, colour-blindness; contributionism, antiracist education and multicultural education. These dominant approaches underpin the debates on managing racial integration in public secondary schools. These approaches explain and illustrate how complex interrelatedness of socio-economic, historical and cultural values influence school life of learners and educators.

In South Africa a plethora of policies and legislation were developed to augment significant reform in the education system (Jansen, 2004).  However, the problem with implementation still persists which, undermines the realisation of an impressive policy architecture required to make a profound difference in the management and facilitation of racial integration in public secondary schools and the way in which school structures impact on the daily lives of these learners (Sayed & Vellanki, 2013).

Critical issues which must be taken into consideration when implementing policies that intend to address racism are:  (1) school managers and educators are not equipped to deal with learners from racially diverse backgrounds;  (2) school governance structures cannot cope with the challenges of successfully integrating racially diverse learners and educators; (3) racism still exists in schools that reduces the process of achieving  racially integrated public secondary schools; (4) the problem with implementation of policy and legislation still persists which creates a problem to effectively integrate racially diverse learners and educators in schools (Vally and Dalamba ,1999; Jansen, 2004; Meier, 2005; Aveling, 2007). 

This presentation will seek to address the following research questions:

•How effective are school management and governance structures in managing and facilitating racial integration in public secondary schools?

•Is there a need for a racial integration intervention programme at the school level and what should be included in such a programme?