Education in South Africa: 1990 to Present

The white education system in South Africa was restructured, in anticipation of democracy, by the apartheid government. From the beginning of 1991, white schools were required to select one of four “Models”: A, B, C, or D. “Model C” was a semi-private structure, with decreased funding from the state, and greatly increased autonomy for schools. Although most white schools opted for the status quo, by 1993, due to government policy, 96% of white public schools became “Model C” schools. Although the form of “Model C” was abolished by the post-apartheid government, the term is still commonly used to describe former whites-only government schools, as of 2013. Under Apartheid South Africa, there were eight education departments that followed different curricula and offered different standards of learning quality. This included nationwide departments for coloured people, for Indians and for black people, a department for independent schools, and provincial departments for white people in each of the former four provinces. Some of the Bantustans that were incorporated back into South Africa in 1994 also had their own education departments. In terms of the Interim Constitution, the Mandela government restructured these departments as well as tertiary education departments, splitting responsibilities between nine newly formed provincial education departments and a single national education department. It also set about reforming the educational system by first removing all racially offensive and outdated content and then introducing continuous assessment into schools. The South African Schools Act, 1996 was promulgated to “provide for a uniform system for the organisation, governance and funding of schools”. In 1997 the government launched its new education system called Curriculum 2005, which would be based on “outcomes based education” (OBE). By 2006 it was clear that OBE as a social experiment had failed, and it was quietly shelved. South Africa has 11 official languages and the first year of schooling is provided in all these home languages. Before 2009, schools serving non-English speakers had to teach English as a subject only from grade 3 and all subjects were taught in English from grade 4 (except in Afrikaans language schools). Since 2009, all schools teach English as a subject from grade 1 and all subjects are taught in English from grade 4. Afrikaans language schools are an exception, in that all subjects (other than other languages) are taught in Afrikaans. THE END Source: https://www.k12academics.com/Education