Salim Vally

Prospects and pitfalls: A review of post‐apartheid education policy research and analysis in South Africa

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. While a myriad of achievements have been touted and are well‐known to international audiences, a swelling critique from inside South Africa shows that much work remains to be done. By glancing backward as a way to understand how to move forward, we review several important recently published books on post‐apartheid education policy to learn how policies were conceived, what went well and what went seriously wrong. In engaging this extended analysis we provide a glimpse into the unique set of circumstances and challenges faced by the South African government over the last 15 years (namely the tensions between equity and redress and global competitiveness), while offering a sustained critique of the resulting policy outcomes through a social justice lens.

“Until We Get Up Again to Fight”: Education Rights and Participation in South Africa

This article reflects on the possibilities for democratic and direct participation that have emerged through socially engaged research on education rights in South Africa. The Education Rights Project is located in a university-based research and advocacy center for education rights and social justice that has been working with township communities to monitor the implementation of right to education legislation. In this article we examine the ways in which rights-based participatory research combined with citizen struggle and community mobilization can contribute to new understandings of rights-based education policy, citizen participation, and democracy.

Human rights in the world bank 2020 education strategy

At the outset of the World Bank’s new Education Strategy 2020. Learning for All (hereafter, WBES 2020), the right of all children to access education is proclaimed together with a ringing endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, human rights do not feature again in the document. Our critique concerning the rhetoric behind the World Bank strategy as an attempt to colonize the human rights discourse, embraces Uvin’s sardonic sentiment “like Moliere’s character who discovered that he had always been speaking prose, that human rights is what these development agencies were doing all along. Case closed; high moral ground safely established” (Uvin, 2010, p. 165).

Education for hospitalised children: Lessons from Philo Impilo

Abstract The futures of children around the world are often hampered by a lack of education. Two millennium development goals (MDGs) aim to address this situation. In South Africa, although the targets set for universal access to primary education for boys and girls (MDG 2) and gender equality at all levels of education (MDG 3) are reportedly on track, there is a disparity in educational solutions for hospitalised children. In the KwaZulu-Natal province, where scores of children are hospitalised with HIV, tuberculosis, and other critical illnesses and injuries, the trend has been to close hospital schools. Previously, hospital schools provided for early childhood development, primary and secondary education. Currently, mainstream schools are expected to be inclusive and educate children in hospitals. We use the Phila Impilo (Live Life) initiative to offer insights into how childrens own experiences can be used to inform best practices for their treatment, care and education while hospitalised. We suggest...

Employment, Democratic Citizenship and Education

Toward the end of 2011, four South African progressive research organisations with staff members steeped in the struggle against the erstwhile apartheid system’s education policies formed a consortium called the Education Policy Consortium (EPC). The EPC embarked on a five-year research project entitled ‘Building a Progressive Network of Critical Research and Public Engagement: Towards a Democratic Post-Schooling Sector’. It was understood that research which has an orientation to the wider political economy examining the intersection of the labour market, education and training requires systematic analysis including its limits and possibilities in the context of national and global development. In effect our approach was to provide insights for longer term policies and strategies and institutional interventions to build an enduring platform both for the genuine transformation of the present system and for its sustainability over time. Our primary concern revolved around the pervasive problems of unemployment, inequality and poverty and its relationship to education and training in post-apartheid South Africa.