On completion of his Primary School Education he acquired the Junior Certificate of the Cape Education Department and proceeded to the Newell High School in Newell High School in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth where at the end of two years he successfully matriculated with a First Class under the Joint Matriculation Examination Board (JMB) in 1952. Like most people during his era, his parents were people of modest means who could not fully fund his education. His academic performance earned him the Cape Education Departmental bursary for Secondary Education, and his First Class pass in the Joint Matriculation Examination Board secured for him a Bursary to the University of Fort Hare. He graduated with a BA degree in 1955 followed by a BA Hons in 1956. In 1957 he completed the University Education Diploma.
After completion of his studies at Fort Hare, he was offered an appointment as a Research Fellow of the Nuffield Foundation where he did an in-depth analysis of education issues in the schools system and their implications for quality education.
In 1959 he took up an appointment as a History Teacher at the Lovedale College where he worked until 1962, when the authorities of the Department of Bantu Education to terminate his employment on account of his opposition to Bantu Education-a stand perceived as subversive, leftist and likely to have an inflammatory influence on his students. He was subsequently banned from holding a teaching position anywhere in South Africa. This 'fore closure' of his options as a teacher in the Republic of South Africa prompted him to seek employment opportunities outside South Africa.
