It is easy to become cynical about education policy in SA. The minister of basic education published the first two out of 11 regulations emanating from the Bela Act that was approved towards the end of 2024.
She might as well have saved the ink and the printing costs because both regulations are completely meaningless but more importantly, leave undisturbed the deep inequalities that still separate the elite public and private schools (about 20% of total schools) from the majority of our primary and secondary institutions.
It is truly stupefying that the minister urges public participation (Have your say) on these impotent announcements.
To the public I say, don’t be duped again.
The first regulation concerns capacity, mainly regarding the proposed classroom size.
For the reception year (grade R), the norm is one teacher to 30 children. For grades 1-12, it is one to 40.
Now think for a moment. For 30 years, we have had norms for classroom size in place.
And as I write this column, I remember recently seeing a primary school class in KwaZulu-Natal (not even deep rural) with about 80 children and a diminutive teacher at the front trying her best to teach mathematics.
How, a policy evangelist might ask, will these norms be enforced?
They will not for two reasons.
An implementable plan would require more teachers, as well as more classrooms.
The severity of recent budget cuts makes those outcomes impossible.
The white and privileged schools will use their fee income to hire more teachers and keep reception year class size to 12-15 children with a similar scale of reduction in the higher grades.
In the process, the rich get richer and the poor and working classes remain stuck in place. But hey, we have a policy!
The second regulation concerns admissions.
My heart sank when I read that not only had nothing changed to broaden access and equity, the regulatory statements actually reinforce apartheid-era race and class segregation in schools.
Listen to this: zoning still applies, which means that children living near the school have preference and if they have a sibling already enrolled, they are locked in to the same institution.
To add insult to injury, it helps if your parent/s work in the area.
It should not be necessary to remind you that the apartheid-era housing patterns remain more or less in place in middle class and wealthy areas, with the black nouveau riche entering the neighbourhood.
Put bluntly, this regulation means a child from Manenberg or Gugulethu in Cape Town would not stand a remote chance of getting into schools in Upper Claremont or Rondebosch ‘proper’. But hey, we need your participation!
The question scholars of politics and policymaking ask of these scenarios is: Why?
Why make all these announcements about big and important changes on the education landscape when in fact, the new policies and regulations that follow mean nothing changes?
First, the government makes policy to show it is busy. They have little to do but policy generation makes officialdom look very important.
It is from beginning to end a performative process meant to impress you with shiny policy lights while inviting you to the dance (public participation).
Second, policymaking and the attendant announcements are also symbolic processes; they are meant to signal what is important to the modern state such as the UN’s sustainable development goals in education, most of which will not be realised by due dates.
That is why, shamelessly, you still see ample wording about equity and access in the regulations when in fact the very instruments of policy implementation, such as zoning, keeps the status quo humming in place.
Third, policymaking is also a political process, which means the interests of the powerful set the limits on what is possible.
The government will not deal with the inequalities in the schooling system for obvious reasons.
There will be political and legal backlash if they tried to change the unfair admissions policies of the former white state schools; the fear of parents going private is real to those in power.
And their own children are in the privileged, well-resourced schools with racial and class-selective admissions policies.
Do you know any of our politicians who place their children in township schools or African language schools?
No, that is why they don’t care about the inequities in the school system.
So do not waste your time responding to these regulations or the other nine coming. These politicians are messing with you.
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