Schooling For All In South Africa: Closing The Gap

Abstract

It has been widely assumed that South Africa has achieved universal basic education. Through an analysis of the 2001 census and two national enrolment datasets rather than statistical projections, this study re-examines this assumption and provides new estimates of enrolment levels in primary, basic and secondary education. Using GER, NER, and ASER indicators, disaggregated by gender and province, the study shows that access to education in South Africa is not as widespread as published sources note. While statistics show that national access levels are lower than prevailing estimates, the relatively high levels of access in some of the most disadvantaged provinces suggest the need to re-evaluate assumptions about targets for universal access for developing regions. In addition, the analysis reveals South AfricaÕs unexpected and provocative gendered patterns of access and participation.

The Policy of Universal Secondary Education: Its Influence on Secondary Schooling in Grenada

“…Writings and research on universal access to education have been mostly centred on the broad concept of UBE rather than specifically focused on Universal Primary Education (UPE) or USE (Cohen, 2006;Spring, 2006;Shindler & Brahm, 2007). This is largely due to challenges in developing a universal consensus on the extent of schooling that should comprise a basic education.…”

Citizenship, Social Justice, and Evolving Conceptions of Access to Education in South Africa

“…Nonetheless, some researchers have continued to focus on enrollment as an important measure of the extent to which the new democracy is realizing its commitment to eliminate injustices in the provision of access to schooling. Shindler and Fleisch’s (2007) study of school enrollment at the national and provincial levels questioned the widely held assumption that South Africa has achieved universal basic education (i.e., 9 years of compulsory schooling). Their analysis revealed that access to education, in the most fundamental sense of students enrolled in and physically attending schools, is not as widespread in South Africa as previously believed.…”

“…For the past two decades, the literature on access to education in South Africa has been concerned with the extent to which South Africa’s education system could meet obligations to citizens set forth in the White Paper on Education and Training (Republic of South Africa, Department of Education, 1995), the Constitution, and other legislation aimed at reforming the education system. The overwhelming consensus that has emerged from scholarship of this kind is that the South African education system has made laudable progress in removing barriers that restricted physical access to schooling on the basis of race (Fiske & Ladd, 2004; Lewin, 2009; Motala et al, 2007; Shindler & Fleisch, 2007). For example, South Africa now boasts an overall enrollment rate of nearly 100%.…”

Human capital formation: History, expectations, and challenges in South Africa

“…3 Even though African children can commute to formerly white schools, in so doing This chapter is reproduced in part from an article in the journal Economics of Education Review (Yamauchi 2010). 1 For accounts of the general situation in South African education, see Kriege et al (1994); Crouch (1996); Bot, Wilson, and Dove (2000); Shindler and Fleisch (2007); van der Berg (2007); Bloch et al (2008); and Fleisch (2008). As van der Berg (2007) argues, race still remains a major factor in explaining school performance.…”