Pedagogy of Poverty: School Choice and Inequalities in Post-Apartheid South Africa

• Main Author: Bekisizwe S Ndimande
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mercy College 2016-04-01
• Series: Global Education Review
• Subjects: School Choice; Black Parents; Poverty; Neoliberalism; Post-Apartheid South Africa; Education Policy
• Online Access: http://ger.mercy.edu/index.php/ger/article/view/203

This paper examines the experiences of Black children in schools with inadequate resources in post-apartheid South Africa. It draws on the perspectives of the parents whose children attend schools that have inadequate resources in poor neighborhoods, known as the townships. I argue that the resource situation in these schools directly contributes to poverty in these childrens lives. Further, I posit that the challenges of resources in these Black and segregated schools are inextricably connected to the larger neoliberal agenda of privatization and markets that has since influenced the social policy in post-apartheid South Africa. The influence of neoliberal policies in education has encouraged school choice as a way to desegregate schools and reform education. I conclude that the school choice policies have marginalized Black children in poor township schools and this has an adverse impact on the future of these children in terms of their educational opportunities and their rights to quality education.