Disengagement in Development: Do Aggregate-Level Policies Neglect Urban Poor Students in South Africa? (original) (raw)

South Africa’s education system remains one of the most unequal systems worldwide, despite over 20% of national GDP being spent on education. Although the government in recent years has generated much educational policy, scant real improvements in learner success rates and labor market returns are realized. Especially worrisome is the effect urbanization plays upon education, given the extremely unequal divide between wealthy cosmopolitan areas and urban slums on city peripheries. This research examines how the South African government addresses concerns for urban pupils through policies and reports. It questions whether policy is formulated from appropriate research, and why it routinely ignores students residing in urban fringes. Drawing on research conducted during the past year in Washington and Cape Town provide a mixed methods approach to data collection. Reports utilize quantitative regressions of educational indicators that behave differently when analyzed between national, Provincial and urban spatial areas. Findings indicate that policy inherently failings students in urban poor schools, due to complete lack of adequate data reporting specific to urban areas, as well as a lack of monitoring programs. Without explicitly defined municipal responsibilities, national policies are applied vigorously and without local case studies and impact assessments. It points to the vitality of city-specific research, calling for a comprehensive installment of monitoring and evaluation assessments for the Department of Basic Education.

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