Equal Educational Opportunities: Comparative Perspectives in Education Law — Brown v Board of Education at 50 and Democratic South Africa at 10 edited by Charles J Russo, Johan Beckman and Jonathan D Jansen (Van Schaik)
The focus of this collection (comprising two main sections, 17 chapters and a synthesis) is the commemoration of 50 years since the passing of judgement on Brown v Board of Education in the United States in the landmark court decision against segregation in education. The conference on which this book is based took place in South Africa, and its publication coincides with the 10-year anniversary of South Africa’s change to democratic education after the abolition of apartheid, which promoted separate education.
The collection has two sections that mark these two occasions in terms of reflections, recollections and thematic chapters all linked to the manifestation of equal education. While the first part reflects on equal educational opportunities and non-discrimination as opposed to the experience of separate education, the second part considers thematic issues on equal educational opportunities and non-discrimination in relation to issues of education financing, values, discipline, language and accountability. The collection ends with a synthesis by Jonathan Jansen (dean of education at Pretoria University).
The foreword to this collection is written by the secretary general of the South African National Commission for Unesco, Stranger Kgamphe. He highlights the importance of Unesco’s global monitoring report and the achievement of Education for All (EFA) in relation to the experiences of the two countries. He notes that quality education needs to be matched by educational access, despite the problems facing the sector, such as inadequate funding and poor human resources.
Justice Albie Sachs opens the reflections, recollections and pers-pectives with a chapter that relates to how the judicial system has managed to grapple with educational change in South Africa since 1994. One of the major points of focus in this presentation is the way that the Constitutional Court of South Africa endeavours to address issues of substantive justice as a means of making equality effective in the process of change.
Boyce Wanda considers the role of religion and language in building a nation, although these factors ironically work towards dividing a nation. In general the article promotes an ethical, moral and civic approach to the teaching of religion education. To my mind, the view of religion education propounded here could possibly contribute towards enhancing diversity in the country, because what is promoted is not a single religion and its values, but rather an understanding of different religions. This could in turn create opportunities for sharing both commonalities and differences.
Jan de Groof and Graciene Lauwers explore the issue of increasing access to education throughout European society. These authors stress that the right to education does not in any way indicate the state’s obligation to provide education for any specific stage of development, except indicating that education should be accessible to all.
Kishore Singh’s investigation of Unesco’s normative action on non-discrimination and equal educational opportunities affirms its role of ensuring normative action in a bid to secure equal education. He sums up this mandate as part of Unesco’s constitution and tries to bring out the principles of non-discrimination and equality as they are linked to state obligations.
Charles Willie takes a summative approach in the chapter ‘Brown v Board of Education: A Restoration of Equity in Public Education”. He argues that the judgement in the Brown case harmed no one but helped everyone concerned. In remembrance of this case, the author recalls that Brown marked a fulfilment of a theory of complementarity where no group reigns superior over another.
In the second part of this collection, the first section by Rassie Malherbe evaluates the constitutional framework within which equal education opportunity is pursued in South Africa. In the second section Charles Russo and Brian Perkins provide an American perspective of the same. Russo addresses educational equality against the background of South Africa’s racial and discriminatory past of inequality, largely promoted by apartheid. He notes that the central theme that runs through most parts of the Constitution is the idea of the equality of human beings, the source of all human dignity.
In the following chapter, Russo and Perkins review how the Brown v Board of Education decision has transformed educational reform in the United States. According to these authors, the court noted the importance of public education, in particular the role of the state, and that any segregation would affect African-Americans psychologically.
In section II of the second part, William Thro explores issues surrounding financing and funding of education in order to achieve equity. Moreover, Russo and Perkins also compare how private financing of education has been carried out in the US, thereby offering it as an example to the emerging South African private education sector. In order to address issues of performativity, the American government opted to fund schools from public coffers that showed that they are committed to educational excellence and greater community involvement, even if such schools were privately owned.
The Brown case stands as a landmark case championing legal redress in education. In addition, Frank Brown writes on the privatisation of elementary and secondary education in the US in accordance with the constitutional provision that leaves individual states to determine the conditions of their education system, thereby allowing them to exercise choice of educational model.
Jan Nieuwenhuis titles his chapter ‘From equality of opportunity to equality of treatment as a value-based concern in education”. He reckons the debate on values in education has a long history, mainly centering on what values need to be included and how they should be taught. Furthermore, Mawdsley and Russo reflect on religion and American public education. They note that issues of litigation are linked with values of religion in the American education system, but they also note that there is judicial tension in religion litigation.
In the following chapter Nelda Cambron-McCabe and Martha McCarthy argue, on the one hand, that the question of discipline is used to deny learners equal educational opportunities. They make a conceptual distinction between the idea of discipline and punishment, and they propose that the legal structure of discipline in schools needs to promote equal opportunities.
Henk Kroes examines the constitutional provisions on language that would address equal educational opportunities. He notes that language issues in South Africa had been handled in a way that militates against equal educational opportunity. What is crucial in this chapter is the emphasis the author places on the protection of minority languages, which in itself also protects the identities of the people using these minority languages. The concluding chapter provides an analytical conception of issues of accountability regarding equal opportunities. In this case, Beckman and Prinsloo regard accountability against the background of the democratic dispensation in South Africa. They consider the political, legal, symbiotic, selective statistics and policy-based nature of accountability.
Jonathan Jansen’s summative chapter brings together a number of important similarities between South Africa and the US. He does this as a reflection on his experiences of managing change and also as a way of thinking about change in South Africa. Despite the imperatives in many policy shifts and comparisons, he seems to suggest that there is more of a symbiotic intention than delivery of practical consequences. For instance, he observes that when all is done and said, the white minority still remains largely advantaged in today’s South Africa, a point not many would take comfortably. It is interesting to note that Jansen observes, as I would, that most authors are not at ease drawing simple implementation lines between education policy and practice, signalling the obvious lack of progress in achieving good intentions, given the acclaimed quality and equality of opportunity touted in current educational policies.
For me, the crucial question remains: how has South African public education since 1994 responded to the notion of equality of opportunity for all? It seems — as vindicated by Jansen’s scepticism — that equality of educational opportunity for all primarily involves formal structures such as the state, educational institutions and other educational bodies which have to effect just actions.
What I do not read in the collection is any discussion on whether individuals for whom equal educational opportunities ought to be provided are in fact capable of changing their inadequate (if so) situations. This is because of a different notion of justice, which calls for the consideration of people’s capabilities — what they can do, rather than what we expect should be done to them. In other words, 10 years down the line, what capabilities have people actually demonstrated to indicate that they have utilised the equality of educational opportunity for all to enhance justice in society. I would have wanted to read more about how people’s capabilities have contributed to their enhancing justice in education and not just about the possibilities of equalising education for all.
Yusef Waghid is dean of education at the University of Stellenbosch