State of transition: Post-apartheid educational reform in South Africa

Australian Journal of Education, Nov, 2004 by Leesa Wheelahan

Clive Harber Oxford: Symposium Books, 2001.

Teachers, democratisation and educational reform in Russia and South Africa

Michele Schweisfurth Oxford: Symposium Books, 2002.

Globalisation, enterprise and knowledge: Education, training and development in Africa

Kenneth King and Simon McGrath Oxford: Symposium Books, 2002.

Each of these three books analyses societies facing massive social, political, cultural and economic challenges in building education and training systems able to contribute to the creation of sustainable, democratic and socially just societies. Each describes conditions of life and challenges facing government, civil society and those who work in education and training, the scale and magnitude of which are beyond the experience of the privileged west. Yet each also has lessons and raises issues and debates that are relevant more broadly. This is because globalisation, the knowledge society and rapid technological, cultural and economic change are challenges affecting all countries. Schweisfurth (2002) explains that 'more general understanding of the implementation of reforms to education policy may be enhanced by learning from situations of extreme, rapid change such as those in this study [Russia and South Africa] (p. 128).

Each book analyses the nations they study, with the aim of advancing an argument. The normative basis underpinning each is that education and training are important in helping to build inclusive, democratic societies. Reforms are analysed against this criteria, and to what extent they have achieved these goals. This is followed by a discussion of how policy can be more effectively aligned to these goals. All three books discuss the consequences of neo-liberal reforms that have been implemented in each of the case-study countries and the problems that ensue in achieving equity and social justice objectives, and all find that neo-liberal market reforms have been at the expense of achieving these objectives.

Both Harber and Schweisfurth are more modest in the goals they set in their respective books: they rely on detailed analysis, and consider the lessons that can be drawn from these analyses. King and McGrath, on the other hand, are explicit about their purpose: education and training have not yet responded to the challenges posed by globalisation, the knowledge society and post-Fordism and, as a consequence, fundamental reorientation is required to help African nations compete in what is an essentially Hobbesian and globalised world. The Harber and Schweisfurth books will be considered first, as the focus, tone and approach of each is similar, and this will be followed by a discussion of the King and McGrath book.

Harber and Schweisfurth both draw on the work of Cowen, who used the term 'transitology' to describe societies which are:

   defined as a situation where over a short time span there occurs the
   more or less simultaneous collapse and reconstruction of state
   apparatuses, economic and social stratification systems and the
   central value system, especially the political value system, to
   offer a new vision of the future. (Harber, 2002, p. 7)

Harber looks at schooling in South Africa in this context, whereas Schweisfurth has undertaken a comparative study of the responses of primary teachers to education reform in South Africa and Russia. Harber's book is a detailed analysis of the policy changes, the sharing of responsibility between provinces and central government, curriculum reforms, funding levels, infrastructure of schooling and the state of teacher education in South Africa, interspersed by case studies that illustrate his analysis.

Schweisfurth's approach was different--her comparative study of primary teachers in Russia and South Africa also drew on the national political and policy context and examined the way in which reforms had been implemented; but this was through the eyes of the teachers in her case studies. Her method was an in-depth case-study approach that presented coherent narratives of the lives of these teachers and their sense of social agency as teachers, drawing on their life history, personal perceptions, and classroom observations, all of which were integrated and then discussed with each individual teacher as a way of authenticating the end result.

Her book is interesting, not just because of the content and findings, but because it represents an innovative approach to comparative education. She locates her work as 'part of an important intellectual movement in qualitative research, and within comparative education, in bringing together biography and pedagogy (Schweisfurth, 2002, p. 127). Although this must be contextualised by a broader analysis of the national context, policy and the role of the state, Schweisfurth argues that using teacher biographies and self-perception allows a more coherent understanding of the effects of policy, and the reasons why it often results in unintended consequences.

The study thus calls into question discourses about teacher 'resistance' to change, and about the 'conservatism' of schools, both of which belie the complexity of the process and disown the flaws which originate with policy itself and with strategies for implementation (Schweisfurth, 2002, p. 127).