Around 70 alumni of the Grahamstown Teachers Training College gathered in Grahamstown for the 40th anniversary of its closure.
Around 70 alumni of the Grahamstown Teachers Training College gathered in Grahamstown for the 40th anniversary of its closure.
Alumna Janet Rice, one of the organisers, said they see it as a very important event to catch up and keep contact with each other.
"We normally hold the reunion every two years just so we know we touch base with each other. Lots of us have become good and close friends," she said.
This year's reunion came at a time when there have been calls in some quarters for teacher training colleges to be reopened as a solution to the country's education crisis.
Rice said if negotiations were to take place for the college to be opened, it would be a good thing because of the kind of quality teachers the college produced.
"If that were to happen it would be so fantastic because I think the [Sisters of the Community of the Resurrection] were totally dedicated and they gave unbelievable grounding. It is the same grounding that binds us together even to this day," she said.
Rice said past students from as far as England regularly travel to attend this reunion and share special moments with each other.
The Grahamstown Teachers Training College was founded by the late Annie Cecile Isherwood in 1903.
According to the college website, Mother Cecile went to England soon after the South African war to raise funds to buy land on Grey Street, which was bought between 1902 and 1924.
She bought the land and proposed that a block of classrooms be erected for the aaccommodationof 160 students.
The college closed in 1975 and the building is now used by Rhodes University.
Another former student, Margie Antrobus, said the College's last intake was now in their 60s.
"The old girls are now hitting 98 and 99," Antrobus said. "EEveryone'sgetting on a bit, so this could be one of the last reunions."
