Reflections on School Integration

Colloquium proceedings

Spanning pivotal years in the historic democratisation of South Africa, the essays collected in Bounds of Democracy provide a trenchant reflection on Higher Education in transition.

Analysing the extent and severity of HIV/AIDS among educators without looking at the broader context within which schools operate, provides only a partial understanding of the immense challenges facing the education sector in South Africa. This study examines material issues affecting the quality of teaching and learning in our schools, both within and external to the classroom environment. The findings reveal significant disparities in conditions, both within and between provinces. Compounded by the effects of ill-health related to HIV/AIDS, these disparities are likely to hamper any efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning in South African public schools, and therefore require serious attention.

Being pregnant and a young parent in South African schools is not easy. Books and Babies examines why this is the case. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative research conducted in secondary schools in Durban and Cape Town, the book explores how teachers and principals respond to the presence of pregnant learners and young parents in school, and surveys the attitudes of fellow learners towards them. Interviews with the young parents themselves yield rich narratives which, accompanied by a visual essay, invite the reader into their lives as they confront the demands of pregnancy, parenting and school. Books and Babies provides a finely textured analysis of these demands and shows the ongoing need to challenge the unequal and gendered load of pregnancy and parenting, both in schools and the broader social context.

All countries, and South Africa is no exception, face acute dilemmas in modernising their systems of upper secondary and further education and training. Faced with pressures from the fast changing world of work, this education sector has become characterized by political slogans stressing skill development, improved access and participation, and the accountability of providers through some form of market. On the other hand, the phenomenon of academic drift reveals that students increasingly see their future as progressing to higher education. Policymakers attempt to resolve these competing demands by calling for transferable, portable outcomes and qualifications as the new currency of an increasingly market-type system.