School Reform in South Africa: A Struggle for Mobility

Abstract

Schooling in South Africa represents a history of gains and losses for sections of the society. The colonial, missionary, and apartheid political systems made schooling a weak instrument for mobility for the majority within society. Post-apartheid, although school reform has provided greater access to formal education, it continues to crystallize socioeconomic inequalities. A relatively small number of the previously disadvantaged receive education that facilitates economic and social mobility. The authors examine the new funding system and equity rhetoric that is employed to justify education access to different types of schools and argue that coupling the rhetoric of social transformation with the funding system for schools and thus class, continues the unequal historical education provision. School reform fails to compensate for the adverse effects of apartheid education and is largely reproductive rather than socially transformative. The conclusion is that unless South Africa overcomes the appeasing semantic trap in its policies, historical trends that make the constitutional ideal of equal rights unrealizable are likely to be entrenched.

Citation

Modiba, M. and Stewart, S. (2023), "School Reform in South Africa: A Struggle for Mobility", Craig, C.J., Mena, J. and Kane, R.G. (Ed.) Teaching and Teacher Education in International Contexts (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 42), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 117-129. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720230000042016