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South Africa: The Education Struggle Continues

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Education Policy Reform Trends in G20 Members

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Abstract

There has been a plethora of education legislation and policies gazetted in South Africa since the end of apartheid and white minority rule in 1994. This chapter focuses on three main policy thrusts. These are structural and systemic changes, financial and pro-poor measures, and curriculum reform. This chapter argues that there remain gaps in the delivery of the policy framework, including the professionalisation of school management, use of national tests diagnostically, empowerment of education districts, and linking education and skills training. Finally, the author suggests some areas where change could improve performance of the system, including opening the debate on the future and purpose of education in South Africa and closing the gap between policy and practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Fundamental Pedagogics (FP) was the dominant theoretical discourse in teacher education and in schools under apartheid (Enslin 1990, p. 78). It claimed to be value-free and apolitical (De Vries 1978). However, with its own language, techniques, and instruments, it was political, endorsing the status quo (Enslin 1990). FP started from the assumption that babies are born sinful and that the teacher is knowledge provider and moral guardian of the helpless, ignorant, and incompetent child: this justified authoritarian methods. Christian Nationalist Education (CNE) was the white supremacist ideology underpinning FP which condemned blacks to a subordinate place in society and the economy. It was the prevalent ideology in most black teacher training colleges until the early 1990s.

  2. 2.

    The Department and Ministry of Education was divided in 2009 into the Department and Ministry of Basic Education and the Department and Ministry of Higher Education and Training.

  3. 3.

    These were teachers who had been selected by their provincial departments of education for the project, on the basis that they were good teachers who could teach their peers once they had passed through the course.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Martin Prew

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  1. Martin Prew
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Correspondence to Martin Prew .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International Cooperation, National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China

    Yan Wang

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Prew, M. (2013). South Africa: The Education Struggle Continues. In: Wang, Y. (eds) Education Policy Reform Trends in G20 Members. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38931-3_4

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