Autonomy and accountability in the regulation of the teaching profession: a South African case study

Abstract

This article examines the struggles of the South African government to establish school‐wide evaluation policies within post‐apartheid institutions. It is demonstrated that even when such evaluation policies promise teacher development and whole‐school improvement, there is significant resistance to government intervention in the school environment. It is also shown that even when individual schools express a willingness to participate in such evaluation actions, they remain deeply suspicious of, and even subvert, the original goals of these policies. The explanation for such behaviour is lodged within the troubled history of the apartheid inspection system, on the one hand, and on the underestimation in policy design of the deep‐rooted suspicions of state surveillance systems even under the terms of a new democracy. In conclusion, the article shows how this fierce—though understandable—contestation of school‐level autonomy actually works against the long‐term developmental interests of both teachers and learners in South Africa’s 29,000 schools.

Keywords:

• Accountability
• Autonomy
• Whole school evaluation
• Teacher development
• Regulation
• Education policy

Notes

* Dean’s Office, Faculty of Education, Groenkloof Campus, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa. Email: [email protected]

The examination system functioned in ways that reinforced the content of the state curriculum (or syllabuses as they were called). In other words, the examination system, based largely at the time on rote reinforcement of content knowledge, ensured compliance with official knowledge.

The immediate causes of the Soweto Uprising was the enforcement of the Afrikaans language (the dominant language of the state) but the deeper causes lay in the rejection of the education system as a mechanism to enforce subservience of black people—and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire apartheid system.

This was the department with administrative control over the education of ‘urban Africans’ as distinct from those black persons restricted to the ethnic and rural ‘homelands’ of apartheid.

The apartheid administration structures were slowly dismantled in early transition, with old style officials remaining in many senior positions during the first 2–3 years. This gradual transformation was in part a response to the political environment that required reconciliation and gradualism given the negotiated terms of the settlement between (in the main) African and Afrikaner nationalists. By 1999, the distribution of personnel had changed dramatically even though the administrative culture of the previous system still extended into many parts of the new government bureaucracy.

One such attack was made by ANC President Mbeki on the occasion of the Fourth National Congress of the South African Democratic Teachers Union in September 1998, where he urged SADTU to ‘purge itself of its image as a toyi‐toying teachers union that cared only about salaries.’ (Mbeki, 1998, p. 1) Toyi‐toying is a political dance, often accompanying protest marches, and associated with the liberation movement from its days in exile.

In post‐apartheid South Africa, the provinces were at liberty to approach and receive funding from foreign governments for provincial functions like teacher development and curriculum reform.

The dramatic improvement in results, as shown later in this paper, was artificial and therefore not sustainable. It certainly was not the result of alterations in the substance of teaching or the meaningfulness of learning that characterize ‘deep change.’

Whole School Evaluation, like so many other evaluation policies of the new government, did not flow logically from either changes in school examination performance or emerge in articulation with existing policies. It had its own life cycle, and this remains at the route of much confusion among schools.

The data represented in Table 1 shows an incline in matriculation passes and a corresponding decline in the number of candidates showing up to write the Grade 12 examinations over the five‐year period. There is as much speculation about the reasons for the drop in candidacy (such as the impact of HIV/AIDS, the dropping out of boys into gang cultures etc) as there is for the rise in passes (such as the ejection of ‘repeaters’ from schools and the enrolment of learners on lower subject grades—making passes easier). There is, however, little research to make definitive statements about the actual factors at play—though commonsense suggests they all play some role in this regard.

It is not immediately clear why this province did not resist WSE but possible reasons include the rural character of the province and the relative lack of strong union influence in this particular setting—compared to the volatile urban settings like Gauteng province.

It is a sad commentary on the quality of the examination itself that such dramatic improvements in Grade 12 results can be stimulated by superficial changes in educator and institutional behaviour. In other words, examinations continue to privilege content and rote learning—which makes such results possible.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan D. Jansen *

* Dean’s Office, Faculty of Education, Groenkloof Campus, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa. Email: [email protected]