SALIM VALLY, ENVER MOTALA, BRIAN RAMADIRO AND CAROL ANNE SPREEN

POVERTY, SOCIALLY ENGAGED RESEARCH AND RESISTANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA’S POST-APARTHEID

EDUCATION

Politics in Organizations

By Sehriban Bugday

OUTLINE

-The Purpose of the Article

-The Policy Issues in the Article

-Effects of Global and Local Discourses

-Results and Influences of Participatory Researches in South Africa

-Conclusion

The Purpose of the Article

-South Africa is known for its resistance in post-apartheid education in its history.

-This resistance has created several movements against racial capitalism such as the Peoples Education Movement, the Worker Education Movement and the Community Education Movement.

-South Africa also struggles against the impact of neo-liberalism, growing poverty and inequality.

-This article explains the correlation between poverty, participatory action research and resistance ,and also it focuses on what these case studies suggest about educational changing.

-Socially engaged researchers and activists in South Africa have joined several research projects in education and other areas of social policy.

-This is a positive development because they can provide a more detailed understanding of the issues and possible solutions.  A traditional research that does not take into account local nuances, history and culture often presents only a simple view of the problem, which leads to ineffective and even harmful solutions. 

-This article emphasizes the importance of socially-based researches that help to understand poverty and its social effects radically.

-Also socially-based research can help engage with the policy and decision-making agencies of the state and with public representatives.

-Moreover, such research can provide the necessary background to help resist the power of dominant discourse.

The Purpose of the Article

What is the dominant discourse in the article?

-The dominant discourse in much of the research presents a very simplified analysis without considering local culture, history, and the experiences of the people.  -A simplistic understanding of the policy makes up the dominant discourse. The simple analysis influences government policy, resulting in solutions that don't work.

-The result is continued inequality and poverty. -Involving local groups in the social research should make for a more sophisticated analysis, leading to more practical solutions.

-South Africa suffers from levels of social inequality, income poverty and unemployment.

Issues

Post-apartheid Education-the existence of undemocratic and unrepresentative school policy-unaffordable school fees, transport and uniforms.-use of corporal punishment in schools

Unemployment-poorly paid work-intermittent employment-insecure jobs

The Policy Issues in the Article

How local and global discourses influence the policy?Local Discourses-First action was made by Poverty and Inequality Hearings organised by the South African Non-Governmental Organization Coalition (SANGOCO).

-People took to the streets and joined in public hearings.

-The purpose was to increase the policies which provide to improve conditions for accessing people’s socio-economic rights.

-All these responses brought public attention and pressure on government officials and politicians to revise the neo-liberal macro-economic strategy and it’s negative effects.

Result-Despite the hearings, the impact was limited, actually even three years after the Hearings, Department of Education’s survey showed that negative conditions continued and in some cases had increased.

Global Discourses

-Education Rights Projects (ERP) and social movements pressurized the state to organize the education rights(2002).

-The intense press campaigns against the government position provided that government set up a reference group of 27 members including a core team from Department of Education, and economists and managers from inside and outside government as well as the World Bank.

Result-Although these discourses provided clear evidence about the effects of the policy choices of government and showed that school fee is a barrier to the right to education for poor working-class communities, the goverment stayed stable about a fee policy.

How the participatory researches effect the policy?

-Education Rights Projects (ERP) 2002.

-worked closely with the social movements.

-case studies- Durban Roodepoort Deep and Rondebult.

-asserted the need for civil society to access independent of government, and right to education.

-facilitate a social response to complex policy issues.

-indentify real barriers to basic education and deal with by meeting with local education officials.

Result-these case studies showed that the policy issues can not solve alone through education policy reform.

Solution-is a broader and more purposeful approach to social reform and strategies

-require the voice, knowledge, experience and information gathered by locally-based social movements.

CONCLUSION POLICY, DISCOURSE, POWER AND RESISTANCE

-In South Africa, in spite of the promise of apartheid reform, democratic accountability still remains a serious problem.

-Despite the new educational changing, inequity never disappears in South Africa.

-The effects of post-apartheid education still remain in South Africa and it is difficult to remove them completely.

-But it can be found solutions through engaging in participatory researches which are based on the voices of the communities.