Educational change in South Africa 1994-2003: case studies in large-scale education reform
Jansen, Jonathan | Taylor, Nick
The focus of this case study of education reform is limited to three specific interventions by the South African government: education finance reform, curriculum reform, and the teacher rationalization process. These three interventions were sampled from a rich mix of reforms because they were initiated very early in the democratic transition and because there is a reasonably sound empirical base from which to make judgments about the efficacy and effectiveness of these interventions. This case study of educational reform in South Africa will present a critical analysis of the reform goals, design, implementation, and impact for each of the three interventions. In the end, the objective of this case report is to contribute new insights and understandings to the global knowledge base on education reforms in developing countries. The post-apartheid government of 1994 inherited one of the most unequal societies in the world. Decades of social and economic discrimination against black South Africans left a legacy of income inequality along racial lines. Furthermore HIV/AIDS constitutes a massive threat to development in Southern Africa. In the general population, 11 percent of South Africans from all walks of life are HIV positive, with 15.2 percent of this group aged between 15 and 49. Higher rates of infection are found in children aged between 2 and 14. HIV/AIDS impacts education policy reform goals in a number of ways. It erodes participation gains that resulted from reform attempts to broaden access to primary, secondary, and tertiary education given that more and more students either die or drop out of school because of personal illness (HIV/AIDS infected) or family illness (HIV/AIDS-affected). Indeed high infant mortality rates mean that fewer students than expected show up for the first year of schooling. Second, HIV-AIDS erodes quality gains premised on the availability of trained and experienced teachers to deliver on new curriculum or assessment reforms in the sense that more and more teachers are leaving the education system because of illness or death.
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