- Email: [email protected]
State of Transition: Post-Apartheid Educational Reform in South Africa
700
Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 22 (2002) 689–703
tone allows it to accomplish a devastating and necessary undermining of liberal-humanist politics. In its attempt to propose alternative ways forward that combine theory and practice, it is post-structural feminism at its best. For those who are dismissive, sceptical or uninspired by a post-strucutralist politics, this could just be the cure! E. Priyadharshini, University of East Anglia, School of Educatin & Professional Development, Centre for Applied Research in Education, Norwich, NR4 7TJ UK E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S0738-0593(01)00073-6
State of Transition: Post-Apartheid Educational Reform in South Africa Clive Harber, Symposium Books Oxford 2001, ISBN 1 873927 19 3, 95 pp No. price given Here is a book that sets out to “provide a relatively concise overview of educational transition – to document, discuss and analyse key changes (and continuities) in South African education since the end of apartheid” (p 9) in the space of approximately eighty pages of text. Given the task, the author provides a clear orientation to both the legislative and structural changes in the field and their relationship to broader social and economic issues. The monograph is divided into five brief chapters and opens with an outline and discussion of major features of policy, finance and governance that have defined the emerging South Africa and which provide the backdrop for the specific educational changes. The second chapter deals with the issues of race, language and gender – locations of persisting problems that require careful analysis, and the author is to be congratulated on the way in which these issues are dealt with. His recognition that these features, so often celebrated in the discourse of the rainbow nation, are often the sites of real oppression and are only concealed by the rhetoric of equal opportunity and multiculturalism.
The central chapter deals specifically with the reorganisation of schooling within the country and focuses on qualifications, curriculum and assessment. There is a description of the struggle to establish national systems with the introduction of a National Qualifications Framework and an ambitious outcomes-based schooling model (Curriculum 2005). The discussion neatly encapsulates the issues arising for an emerging state when it attempts to reform a dysfunctional and in the case of South Africa openly oppressive educational system into a state of the art “first world” model. The international themes of human capital and the “educational economy” are made clearly visible. The fourth section of the book concentrates on the realities of classroom life in South Africa. By analysing the impact of the government’s attempt to change the general culture of schools via a national project (‘The Culture of Learning and Teaching’), the author gives an honest and bleak insight into the lived experiences of teachers and pupils. While recognising some successes, the image is one of underfunding, internal violence and unprofessional behaviour on a massive scale. The case of the teaching staff is taken up in the final chapter, which outlines the current state of teacher education. It is here that the pernicious effects of apartheid are most in evidence. Trained within very strict limits, many teachers are in desperate need of professional development and are faced with reforms of hopeless complexity. The picture presented is one of a lack of confidence and low morale. Teachers, ill equipped in underresourced schools, are the would-be change agents of the government’s plans. The implications are that, for many South Africans, it will be a long time before things improve. In a three-page Conclusion, the author declares there will be no instant miracles and goes on to produce twelve bullet points of key issues confronting education in South Africa – each one of which constitutes a major challenge in its own right. This stark honesty is one of the great merits of this book. It is well informed, and the comments are based on extant information and research in the field. It serves to set the reality of life in the educational system alongside the rhetoric of policy and is an excellent introduction to the topic.
Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 22 (2002) 689–703
The discussion in the book also highlights the way in which education can serve as a very accurate indicator of the key shifts in society as a whole. There is great care taken to link the problems in education to the economic decisions of the South African government. Careful reference is made to the way in which the aspirations outlined in the Constitution of South Africa and the Reconstruction and Development Programme – the ANC blueprint for the nation – stand in tension with the largely monetarist economic policy adopted in the late nineties. This awareness gives the book much greater range, and the working out of this tension will resonate in many other countries around the world. In many ways the book is valuable for the way it provides an interesting case study of the contradictions of the globalising tendencies that have been so powerful in recent years. The question is posed concerning the extent to which emerging nations can or should copy the social and economic policies of the powerful nations — or indeed whether they have any choice. The rhetoric of lifelong learning and the centrality of education in the economic future of the nation will be familiar to many readers, but the question remains as to whether future prosperity lies in human capital assumptions and the slavish copying of models of education developed in different economic and cultural contexts. These larger issues are a consistent sub-text in this book and make it of relevance to anyone interested in the broad issues around education and its place in the order of things. Much has been written about South Africa and there is much more to say than can be covered in a brief text of this kind, but this study provides an excellent introduction to both what has been done since liberation and to education’s relationship to the broader issues of economics and politics. Such critical accounts are of great value in any context but in the case of South Africa, where myth has often refracted reality, they are to be applauded. What is strongly implied in this study is that we are seeing a re-stratification of South African society with perhaps more emphasis on class than race, but with the education system acting as a powerful engine in the re-ordering. At the moment, South Africa is governed by a tri-partite alliance
701
of organisations whose credibility was forged in the struggle; consequently they can rely on goodwill while limiting the nature of opposition. If the social circumstances of the mass of people do not markedly improve in the near future – and again education may be a good bellwether – what is an increasingly fragile unity may fracture. This book gives us a very real insight into that possibility. J. Wallis, University of Nottingham, School of Continuing Education, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB UK E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S0738-0593(01)00074-8
The Rhetoric and Reality of Mass Education in Mao’s China By Vilma Seeberg, Volume 14, Chinese Studies Series, The Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, Wales, U.K., 2000, ISBN 0-7734-7638-5 (Vol.), ISBN 088946-076-0 (Series), xvi & 562 pages, clothbound. Price not given. This is an interesting and informative book on a still controversial topic. It addresses issues of importance to several audiences, those with interests in Chinese studies, in international development education and in the social sciences generally. It sets out to show “what happens when ideology and policy are more or less inconsistent with cultural tradition, when ideological rhetoric and enacted policy diverge, when economy and education are divorced, when educational quality and content differ from cultural expectations and when traditional concepts of education are disparaged”. This is a challenging, indeed almost ideological agenda in itself and one which places itself in contradiction to other more positive interpretations of the experience of mass education in communist China, especially during Mao Zedong’s period of ideological dominance. (Pepper, S., 1996) As is well known, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when it came to power in 1949 began a
Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 22 (2002) 689–703
tone allows it to accomplish a devastating and necessary undermining of liberal-humanist politics. In its attempt to propose alternative ways forward that combine theory and practice, it is post-structural feminism at its best. For those who are dismissive, sceptical or uninspired by a post-strucutralist politics, this could just be the cure! E. Priyadharshini, University of East Anglia, School of Educatin & Professional Development, Centre for Applied Research in Education, Norwich, NR4 7TJ UK E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S0738-0593(01)00073-6
State of Transition: Post-Apartheid Educational Reform in South Africa Clive Harber, Symposium Books Oxford 2001, ISBN 1 873927 19 3, 95 pp No. price given Here is a book that sets out to “provide a relatively concise overview of educational transition – to document, discuss and analyse key changes (and continuities) in South African education since the end of apartheid” (p 9) in the space of approximately eighty pages of text. Given the task, the author provides a clear orientation to both the legislative and structural changes in the field and their relationship to broader social and economic issues. The monograph is divided into five brief chapters and opens with an outline and discussion of major features of policy, finance and governance that have defined the emerging South Africa and which provide the backdrop for the specific educational changes. The second chapter deals with the issues of race, language and gender – locations of persisting problems that require careful analysis, and the author is to be congratulated on the way in which these issues are dealt with. His recognition that these features, so often celebrated in the discourse of the rainbow nation, are often the sites of real oppression and are only concealed by the rhetoric of equal opportunity and multiculturalism.
The central chapter deals specifically with the reorganisation of schooling within the country and focuses on qualifications, curriculum and assessment. There is a description of the struggle to establish national systems with the introduction of a National Qualifications Framework and an ambitious outcomes-based schooling model (Curriculum 2005). The discussion neatly encapsulates the issues arising for an emerging state when it attempts to reform a dysfunctional and in the case of South Africa openly oppressive educational system into a state of the art “first world” model. The international themes of human capital and the “educational economy” are made clearly visible. The fourth section of the book concentrates on the realities of classroom life in South Africa. By analysing the impact of the government’s attempt to change the general culture of schools via a national project (‘The Culture of Learning and Teaching’), the author gives an honest and bleak insight into the lived experiences of teachers and pupils. While recognising some successes, the image is one of underfunding, internal violence and unprofessional behaviour on a massive scale. The case of the teaching staff is taken up in the final chapter, which outlines the current state of teacher education. It is here that the pernicious effects of apartheid are most in evidence. Trained within very strict limits, many teachers are in desperate need of professional development and are faced with reforms of hopeless complexity. The picture presented is one of a lack of confidence and low morale. Teachers, ill equipped in underresourced schools, are the would-be change agents of the government’s plans. The implications are that, for many South Africans, it will be a long time before things improve. In a three-page Conclusion, the author declares there will be no instant miracles and goes on to produce twelve bullet points of key issues confronting education in South Africa – each one of which constitutes a major challenge in its own right. This stark honesty is one of the great merits of this book. It is well informed, and the comments are based on extant information and research in the field. It serves to set the reality of life in the educational system alongside the rhetoric of policy and is an excellent introduction to the topic.
Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 22 (2002) 689–703
The discussion in the book also highlights the way in which education can serve as a very accurate indicator of the key shifts in society as a whole. There is great care taken to link the problems in education to the economic decisions of the South African government. Careful reference is made to the way in which the aspirations outlined in the Constitution of South Africa and the Reconstruction and Development Programme – the ANC blueprint for the nation – stand in tension with the largely monetarist economic policy adopted in the late nineties. This awareness gives the book much greater range, and the working out of this tension will resonate in many other countries around the world. In many ways the book is valuable for the way it provides an interesting case study of the contradictions of the globalising tendencies that have been so powerful in recent years. The question is posed concerning the extent to which emerging nations can or should copy the social and economic policies of the powerful nations — or indeed whether they have any choice. The rhetoric of lifelong learning and the centrality of education in the economic future of the nation will be familiar to many readers, but the question remains as to whether future prosperity lies in human capital assumptions and the slavish copying of models of education developed in different economic and cultural contexts. These larger issues are a consistent sub-text in this book and make it of relevance to anyone interested in the broad issues around education and its place in the order of things. Much has been written about South Africa and there is much more to say than can be covered in a brief text of this kind, but this study provides an excellent introduction to both what has been done since liberation and to education’s relationship to the broader issues of economics and politics. Such critical accounts are of great value in any context but in the case of South Africa, where myth has often refracted reality, they are to be applauded. What is strongly implied in this study is that we are seeing a re-stratification of South African society with perhaps more emphasis on class than race, but with the education system acting as a powerful engine in the re-ordering. At the moment, South Africa is governed by a tri-partite alliance
701
of organisations whose credibility was forged in the struggle; consequently they can rely on goodwill while limiting the nature of opposition. If the social circumstances of the mass of people do not markedly improve in the near future – and again education may be a good bellwether – what is an increasingly fragile unity may fracture. This book gives us a very real insight into that possibility. J. Wallis, University of Nottingham, School of Continuing Education, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB UK E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S0738-0593(01)00074-8
The Rhetoric and Reality of Mass Education in Mao’s China By Vilma Seeberg, Volume 14, Chinese Studies Series, The Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, Wales, U.K., 2000, ISBN 0-7734-7638-5 (Vol.), ISBN 088946-076-0 (Series), xvi & 562 pages, clothbound. Price not given. This is an interesting and informative book on a still controversial topic. It addresses issues of importance to several audiences, those with interests in Chinese studies, in international development education and in the social sciences generally. It sets out to show “what happens when ideology and policy are more or less inconsistent with cultural tradition, when ideological rhetoric and enacted policy diverge, when economy and education are divorced, when educational quality and content differ from cultural expectations and when traditional concepts of education are disparaged”. This is a challenging, indeed almost ideological agenda in itself and one which places itself in contradiction to other more positive interpretations of the experience of mass education in communist China, especially during Mao Zedong’s period of ideological dominance. (Pepper, S., 1996) As is well known, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when it came to power in 1949 began a