Fiske, Edward B., Ladd, Helen, F. (2004). Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Reviewed by Mitiku Adisu, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Fiske, Edward B., Ladd, Helen, F. (2004). Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Pp. xiii + 269 n.p. (Hardcover)   ISBN 0-8157-2840-9 Reviewed by Mitiku Adisu Peabody College of Vanderbilt University March 17, 2005 Equity is at the center of the debate on education reforms worldwide (Reimers, 2000). Certainly, race, gender, resources, culture, geography, demography, etc., make these debates and their resolution complex. A gainful research must, therefore, be specific without oversimplifying the complexity that surrounds the issues. Elusive Equity seeks to “describe (South Africa’s) post-apartheid strategies for transforming its education system in the context of the nation’s history and to evaluate their success in promoting a more racially equitable system” (p. 3). The study focuses on school governance, funding, and curriculum for the period, 1994-2002 (Ibid). The uniqueness of South African situation requires that equity more than free market models should drive the education policy (p. 14). As Harber (2001) argued, neoliberal policies are likely to substitute race-based inequalities with one based on wealth disparities. South Africa’s attempt to control costs and reorganize higher education to fit market demands, for example, only led to student exodus. Introducing user fees became a deterrent to low-income enrollees. Lifting user fees, on the other hand, brought about exponential growth in enrollment. Hence, educational outcomes are best sustained in the context of improving overall school quality, including teacher retraining and upgrading of the infrastructure (Chapter 9-10). The theoretical framework for this study is based on Rawls’s and Gutmann’s propositions of what constituted a socially just system. Hence, the question: Does the policy recognize and respect individual rights? Are opportunities open to all? If not, what is being done to rectify the problem? Lastly, do the educational services enable the full participation of individuals in the socio-economic and political life of the society (pp. 5-10)? The study begins with the transfer of power to a black majority government (Preface). One quickly observes that the towering leadership qualities of Nelson Mandela and the battle hardened popular base of the African National Congress (ANC) created the requisite environment for the transitional state. Equity disadvantages the poor as well as the nation of its human and social capital. Hence, reforms must aim to foster national cohesion and development. The constitutionally mandated education policy for post-Apartheid South Africa dictated that enrolment be race-blind and that well-functioning white schools need not be downgraded in the process. On the other hand, it made provisions for user fees to sustain the public school system. In other words, the new policy addressed access to opportunities in the process of erecting the democratization project (Chapter 5-9). Equity is hampered by three factors. First, there is the failure of not making interconnections between research and policy, and between policy and educational goals. This is especially a perennial problem in Africa. Frequently, the policy is not homegrown or has only minimal local input (Samoff, 1996). Generally, there was never a shortage of good ideas and, in some cases, not even funds but the will to organize and implement those ideas. Second, there is often inconsistency in the manner and pace organizational practices are contextualized. Third, consequent to budgetary constraints, the system falls prey to a plethora of contradictory and redundant methods. Demand for education and/or emerging government priorities may concede an unproductive autonomy to non-government and religious societies. Funding sources, fund volumes and preconditions for their allocation also play a significant role in how equity is achieved. For example, Research Triangle Institute’s (RTI, North Carolina) two contracts with USAID in the amount of $46.7 million to help the “reconstruction” and “quality” of education in South Africa does not exactly adhere to the notion of equity. What portions of such monies get expended on the projects themselves or find their way back to the donor country is a serious issue in itself. Educational finances are only effective when they are consistently applied to programs meaningful to target communities, dovetail with current efforts, and retain most of their impact. Important as educational finances may be, there are also evidences where they actually end up perpetuating inequity (Reimers, 2000). Despite the fact that South African public expenditure on education as percent of GDP is nearly 2 percent more than those in the industrialized and SSA countries, realizing the new policy will remain elusive (UNDP/HDR 1997). And because of a uniquely diverse society, equity will continue to define future education agendas. In addition to psychological scars carried over from race-based housing and education systems, the pervasiveness of drug use among low-income school children in particular and the out migration of teachers and doctors is becoming a national problem. If not arrested in time, the current trend will amount to storing one’s treasures in pockets full of holes. According to the Minister of Education, Kadar Asmal, nearly 7,000 teachers were “poached” or “raided” by Britain between 1990 and 2000. It is not just the pay benefits that lure teachers away but also the general insecurity at home and persistent shortages in Britain. Since the policy debates over public/private financing (Chapters 6-7) were caused by revenue shortfalls, the exodus of trained professionals is bound to aggravate systemic disequilibrium. In 2001 alone Canada recruited 1,500 doctors. Training one doctor costs South Africa over 150,000 dollars. The result is, as in other SSA countries, importation of costly expatriates whose employment is tied to donor funding regimes. What should be done to center equity in transnational relations? Fiske and Ladd write with the understanding that equity is elusive. They rightly locate education in its apartheid South African reality. The problem of racial equity is so entrenched that their observations and conclusions, justifiably, become tentative and the reforms a “work in progress” (p. 5). Fairness and thoroughness is what comes to mind in assessing this book. A look at the bibliography would show that the works of South African scholars is equitably represented. Recognizing and crediting native scholarship for its output is indeed a rare sign of humility (p. xi). Though the issue under consideration was complex, the unusual collaboration of a trained education journalist and a skilled economist immensely succeed to wade through data and documents (Ibid). The primary utility of this book may lie in what it evokes. It could be a decisional source of information for funding agencies. For those in comparative education, it illustrates the possibilities of Africans taking leadership, dispensing judiciously their hard earned socio-political capital, and of broad basing power and negotiating with multiple interest groups. Indeed, South Africa would not have made it thus far had not its leadership anticipated the efficacy of including disparate communities (p. 154). Unlike other sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries, legitimacy and power in South Africa was not imported from abroad or induced through external funding mechanisms. The cover photograph adequately sums up present realities of education in South Africa. Two lovely grade-school girls of the same age, one white and the other black are seated at a desk in a classroom. They both wear identical dresses in own colors and have similar sets of learning materials at their disposal. The black girl is slightly to the left of the white girl; the white girl looks more self-assured than her classmate. Indeed, only a few decades ago the posting of this picture would have been illegal. The African story is such that struggles for national freedoms often degenerated into native forms of injustice and corruption. The multiplicity of the challenges in South Africa demands that the leadership remain sober and vigilant. For example, there is danger in simply designing curriculum to enhance assimilation of the races instead of taking the proactive stance of an anti-racist pedagogy (pp. 154-155; Harber, 2001); in mistaking leadership for a percentage increase in black representation (Henig et al, 1999); and in the words of Robert Moses, employing policy as a rescue operation, or in lieu of transnational labor demands, to introduce a ‘sharecropper education system’ whereby “people are assigned a certain class of work or to a certain economic level” (Starchie, 2003). Equity requires keeping national goals in perspective and balancing with the ‘demands’ of international education commerce. Education is a process and thus cannot be rushed. Immediate and quantifiable results have their uses as well as their limitations. In the end, nothing can take the place of objective and continuous reassessment of the evolving needs of target communities. Fiske and Ladd rightly conclude that history, resources and implementation of policies go hand in hand (Chapter 11). One last comment: the map of South Africa (opposite p.1) could have benefited from a continental inset. References Harber, Clive. (2001). State of Transition: Post-Apartheid Educational Reform in South Africa. Monograph in International Education. Oxford: Symposium Books. Henig, Jeffrey R., et al. (1999). The Color of School Reform: Race, Politics, and the Challenge of Urban Education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pp. 209-243. Moses, Robert. Interviewed by Stephanie Starcher. (2003). Robert Moses sheds light on math literacy. Rural Mathematics Educator. Posted on http://www.acclaim-math.org/docs/html_rme/rme3/02.01res_robertmose.html Reimers, Fernando. Ed.).(2000). Unequal Schools, Unequal Chances: The Challenges to Equal Opportunity in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center, Harvard University Press. RTI International. RTI to Assist South Africa Reform Education (01.21.1998); RTI Continues to Support South Africa Education Reform (06.23.2004). Posted at http://www.rti.org. Samoff, Joel. (1996). Analyses, Agendas, and Priorities for Education in Africa: A Review of Externally Initiated, Commissioned, and Supported Studies of Education in Africa, 1990-1994. UNESCO: Working Series Number: ED-96/WS/12(E) UNDP, Human Development Report, 1997. About the Reviewer Mitiku Adisu, a doctoral candidate, has leadership experience in vocational education and indigenous development. His interests are in international aid to education, indigenous development initiatives, political leadership, and the impact of education on social cohesion in the Africa region.