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Post Apartheid Education in South Africa: Home

Year 12 Society and Culture

Resources in Accessit

Here are some books that you may find useful during your studies.  Search the Bennies catalogue Accessit for more, or browse the Non-fiction collection NFS.

TED Talk

Tobie Openshaw speaks about growing up in South Africa during the time that Mandela was in prison. Tobie’s current passion lies with the marginalized indigenous people of Taiwan, with several documentary projects on the subject in the works. He is a committed defender of human rights, a storyteller, and a proponent of using social media for social change.

history.com

           

Brown v. Board of Education of Topekawas a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.

New York Times

Thousands of schools across South Africa are bursting with students who dream of being the accountants, engineers and doctors this country desperately needs, but the education system is often failing the very children depending on it most to escape poverty.

UNESCO

Britannica

In the early post-apartheid period, class differences and geographic considerations began to become more characteristic of social division than race in South African schools.

OECD

Reforms of education, training and human resource development are integral parts of a market economy. South Africa has made progress in all these areas since reform began in 1994.

A New Dawn for Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Expanding access to quality and affordable education is a central element to eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. In developing countries, private education providers play a critical role in the delivery of education, skills, and training that is affordable and relevant to the needs of the labor markets. The IFC education practice is developing several case studies that showcase success stories in the IFC education portfolio around scale, skills, and affordability. The case studies highlight how IFC clients have contributed to meeting IFC’s strategic goals in the education of (1) developing skills and enhancing employability of graduates and trainees, and (2) increasing reach and impact at all levels of education. 

You Tube

Two decades after Apartheid was apolished, Some Children are More Equal than Others focuses on how the educational system in South Africa relates to the flagrant inequalities in the country and its still growing wealth-gap. In a nutshell, education in SA operates as a "Tale of two Systems." On the one hand there are 20 % of privileged people who send their children to a functioning schooling system. On the other hand, education is drastically failing 80 % of the children in South Africa. This self-perpetuating circle results in over 50 % youth-unemployment. The serious challenge of fixing the educational system is over-due and it is up to everyone to stand up for their right for basic education, a right enshrined in the constitution of South Africa. Some Children are More Equal than Others is an independently produced one-man-film-project and was realized as a non-commercial documentary film. The human rights law firm "Legal Resources Centre" generously supported the filmmaker in order to raise awarness of the challenges faced in making South Africa a better place.

This week Learning World is getting to grips with the state of education in South Africa. From the early days of schooling through to university graduates euronews' Maha Barada has explored the highs and lows of a system only liberated from apartheid some 20 years ago.

Almost 20 years after the end of apartheid, black pupils still generally fare much worse than their white counterparts. The vast majority of poor black children continue to go to severely deprived, overwhelmingly black schools. Money is not the main problem: education already gobbles up about 20% of the government's budget, representing over 5% of GDP. But attitudes, training and technology, particularly those of the teachers will have to change.

Education is the key to success or so we are told, but as the lock changes the traditional key is becoming increasingly obsolete. Just like the adage that we require African solution for Africa, education is a domain that needs to be redressed with a local perspective. In Africa traditional classroom education is not always possible, and with a burgeoning population new solutions need to be adapted to provide real education. But what are the options for Africa and do these options present a unique investment opportunity?

Niall J. Mellon is an Irish entrepreneur, property developer and founder of the Niall Mellon Township Trust, which provided homes to impoverished communities in South Africa's townships. Now he runs Mellon Educate, a development charity that strives to solve the education crisis in South Africa. At Google, Mellon talked about how he originally got inspired to help in South Africa, how his charity is helping in the region since the early 2000s, and how everyone can get involved to change many lives for the better.

Information for parents and learners about their rights and obligations in an inclusive education system.

Post Apartheid Education in South Africa: A Review of Progress and Pitfalls

Abstract: This paper explores the educational changes in South Africa twenty-one years after the end of apartheid. The paper will examine progress that has been made as well as highlight some of the lingering pitfalls with regards to marked differences in state funding, affecting the overall quality of education.

Spreen

 The 10-year anniversary of the first democratic elections in South Africa in 2004 provoked much reflection and fuelled new policy debates on both the progress and failures of educational reform. 

Fiske

A major issue facing education policy makers in South Africa since 1994 has been the appropriate balance to strike between reliance on public and private funds. Despite growing international pressure for developing countries to provide free basic education and the language of the new South African Constitution affirming the right of individuals to basic education, South Africa has chosen to encourage primary and secondary school governing bodies to supplement public funding with revenue from school fees or other sources. 

Abdi

The Conversation

Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa 20 years ago, pass rates in the country’s end-of-school exam – commonly known as the matric – have been steadily on the rise, despite indications that the schooling system is failing in many other respects.

Bekisizwe S. Ndimande

This paper examines the consequences of the new policies of school choice in post-apartheid South Africa and the reasons they have largely failed to achieve greater educational equality – their stated purpose.

BBC

South Africa's minister of education openly admits that the country's schools are in a state of crisis. How did we get here and what needs to be done?

Education Africa

      

Established in 1992, Education Africa strives to reach and uplift the poorest of the poor. We aim to assist disadvantaged South Africans in their quest to obtain a quality, relevant education in order to ensure that they are in a position to become global citizens and a competitive, productive element in the local job market.

Equal Education

Equal Education (EE) is a movement of learners, parents, and teachers striving for quality and equality in South African education through analysis and activism.

A democratic movement, EE collectively identifies systemic and localised problems affecting the quality of education being provided to learners throughout South African schools and then undertakes strategic actions to remedy these identified problems. Issues of inequality in education are address through public action and advocacy using mass mobilisation and traditional and new media to build public pressure on the relevant stakeholders to address problems.

ERIC

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