Laws Affecting Small Business: Schooling was launched by educator Bouwe van der Eems on 8 November 2022. Scroll down for the full text or PDF of the booklet. View the launch here:
SYNOPSIS
Problems
Tax-funded, government-supplied, and compulsory schooling prevents small enterprises from performing a larger role in the education and training of young people. As a result, South Africa is forfeiting jobs that would otherwise have been created, as well as squandering the opportunity to rapidly develop a highly trained workforce.
At present, legislation is a barrier to entry which prevents some private enterprises from entering the education field altogether, and prevents those that do enter it from utilising the best methods available worldwide for teaching literacy, numeracy, communications skills, specific income-earning skills, and other subjects. This is unfortunate. If more enterprises were involved in education, competition would impose greater discipline on education providers and ensure that they supply a high-quality service. Moreover, a larger variety of providers would give parents and their children greater choice and increase their chances of finding a learning environment that is most suitable for the special needs of the individual child. Some skills-training organisations may wish to employ children as part of the skills-training process, and the prohibitions on such employment should be removed to encourage this.
The present funding system emphasises the school and the teacher instead of the pupil. Studies have shown that increased government funding is generally used to pay escalating administration and other costs rather than being spent on improving the quality of education. Private education organisations spend far less per child on administration.
The government’s plans for improving schooling in South Africa will not rapidly reduce the gap between the skilled and the unskilled. The reason is very simple: the proposals say nothing about utilising the skilled to train the youth, yet a massive transfer of skills is precisely what South Africa needs to develop a highly trained workforce. Without it, any education plan is doomed to fail.
Learning to think entrepreneurially – i.e., to recognise opportunities for profit when they arise – should be an essential part of every child’s education. The best way to teach this is on-the-job in an entrepreneurially-oriented private enterprise, but children are not given the opportunity to acquire such experience as part of the learning process. Small businesses could play a vital role in developing future entrepreneurs if the schooling system is changed to make this possible.
Recommendations
- Repeal legislative provisions that make school attendance compulsory.
- Repeal the legislative provisions that prohibit the conducting of independent or private schools without government registration.
- Issue vouchers to all pupils that will allow parents to choose freely the schools their children attend.
- Refrain from prescribing a standardised curriculum or a specific method of learning for private enterprise schools.
- Repeal legislative provisions which require parents who wish to educate their children at home to obtain official exemption from compulsory school attendance requirements.
- Allow employers to employ or provide work to children under the age of 15 years if the employment or work is voluntary, has the approval of parents or guardians, and relates directly to learning and the transfer of skills.
MILTON FRIEDMAN’S PROPOSALS FOR RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF SCHOOLING
The eminent American economist, Professor Milton Friedman, suggested that the twin revolutions in technology and politics that have occurred recently have increased the risk of “serious social conflict arising from a widening gap between the incomes of the highly skilled (cognitive elites) and the unskilled.” He believed that although the educational system has reinforced this tendency to stratification, it is nevertheless the only major force capable of offsetting it. In order to do so, however, schooling needs to be “radically reconstructed”:
“… the only way to make a major improvement in our educational system is through privatisation to the point at which a substantial fraction of all educational services is rendered by private enterprises. Nothing else will destroy or even greatly weaken the power of the current educational establishment – a necessary pre-condition for radical improvement … And nothing else will provide the public schools with the competition that will force them to improve in order to hold their clientele.
… We know from the experience of every other industry how imaginative competitive free enterprise can be, what new products and services can be introduced, how driven it is to satisfy the customers—that is what we need in education.”
Professor Friedman contended that the answer to the problem is the implementation of a voucher system that enables parents to choose freely the schools, private or public, their children attend. Vouchers must be universal, available to all parents, and large enough to cover the costs of a high-quality education. No conditions should be attached to vouchers that interfere with the freedom of private enterprises to experiment, explore, and innovate.
EMULATING THE PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE REVOLUTION
A historical precedent can be found for Milton Friedman’s proposals in the events of the “Knowledge Revolution” of the 18th and 19th centuries. This revolution came to be known, somewhat unfortunately, as the “Industrial Revolution”, the accent on industrialisation obscuring the great leap forward in literacy, knowledge, and skills that was made by people who, in previous generations, would have remained illiterate.
In England and America, the countries that led the revolution, schooling was voluntary and provided almost exclusively by private enterprises or civil society initiatives. Most children attended school, and according to economic historian EG West, levels of literacy in those years compared favourably with current literacy rates. All pupils paid fees, including those attending church schools. The so-called “dame schools” were the backbone of the English system. These schools generally consisted of one room in the teacher’s house set up as a classroom, an arrangement that was convenient for all concerned.
An important aspect of the knowledge revolution was the flood of “how to” publications that appeared on the market. People with special skills wrote manuals on every conceivable subject, imparting knowledge to the general public that had previously been reserved to the fortunate few who were members of guilds. Increased literacy enabled many people to acquire skills and lift themselves out of the grinding poverty in which their ancestors had toiled for centuries. This is a good example of the role that private enterprises can play in transferring knowledge cheaply and effectively to large numbers of people.
In effect, Friedman suggested a return to this system of privately provided schooling, except that he did see a role for the state in the funding of education. As private enterprise is able to deliver higher quality services at lower cost than government is capable of doing, it is probable that the voucher system could be implemented within the existing education budgets, especially once unnecessary layers of bureaucracy are removed.
SPENDING MORE ON SCHOOLING WILL NOT SOLVE THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM
Apartheid and “apartheid education” exacerbated the tendency to stratification in South African society and increased the tensions between the poor and the wealthy. However, the earnings gap has not miraculously disappeared despite the abolition of apartheid more than 25 years ago. To close that gap, far-reaching changes need to occur in South African institutions, and the schooling system requires the most radical overhaul of all. Spending more money on the existing schooling system will not solve the problem. Examination of the American experience tells us why.
America spends more money per child on education than almost any other country. Real expenditure on public schooling grew by 89% from 1965-66 to 1985-86, yet during that same period the average Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of college-bound high school seniors dropped sharply. Federal real expenditure on public schooling grew by 117% per student from 1984 to 2014, but average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for 17-year-olds barely moved during that 30-year period. America spent more money per child on education in 2017 than any country, other than Luxemburg, Austria, and Norway, but the 2019 NAEP science assessment found no significant changes in average scores at grades 8 and 12 compared to 2015.
An estimated 21% of adult Americans perform at the lowest levels of literacy. As a result, colleges and businesses have to do the work the high schools should have done. According to an analysis in 2016 by a Washington DC education policy think tank of national datasets from the Department of Education, cross-checked against state higher-education system data, approximately one in four of all college freshmen in 2011 had to enrol in remedial coursework, and 45% of them were from middle- and upper-income families.
South Africa cannot hope to match what the US spends per child on schooling, and even if it could, the evidence shows that the exercise would be futile. As long as we persist with a conventional schooling system, with whatever modifications the central-planning educationists may devise, stratification of South African society will continue.
Another worrying factor is the extent to which an increasing proportion of government education budgets is captured by school bureaucracies. Between 1960 and 1984, the number of teachers in American government schools grew by 57%, but the number of principals and supervisors in those schools grew by 79%, and the number of other staff grew by 500%. Not surprisingly, the percentage of the education budget spent on teachers’ salaries fell steadily in the 1970s from 49.2% in 1970-71 to 38.7% in 1980-81.
David Boaz of the Cato Institute in Washington DC compared the administrative staff of American public schools with that of Catholic schools:
“As of 1987, there were 3 300 employees in the central and district office of the Chicago public school system. By contrast, the schools of the Catholic Archdiocese serve 40% as many students in a much larger geographical area but make do with only 36 central office administrators.
In the nation’s largest school district, New York, John Chubb found an even more striking contrast: 6 000 administrators in the government schools and only 25 in the Catholic schools, although the Catholic schools served about one-fourth as many students.”
Figures from the US National Center for Education Statistics in 2012 showed that from 1970 to 2010, student enrolment at public schools increased by 7.8% but the number of public-school non-teaching staff positions increased by 138%.
The only way to discover whether South African schooling administrations are becoming similarly bloated is to create competition for the government education system and compel it to become cost-and-quality-conscious.
A KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS REVOLUTION LED BY PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
If South Africa follows Professor Friedman’s advice, competitive learning institutions would proliferate. Children and their parents would be able to choose from an array of educational and skills-training alternatives, all competing to meet the requirements of their customers, many of whom would be funded by government vouchers. Some of the providers would be substantial businesses but most would be small. The skills gap would rapidly disappear if the skilled sector were given an economic incentive to transfer their knowledge to the young.
It is unreasonable to expect skilled people to become part of the conventional schooling system and accept lower incomes in order to impart their expertise to children. They would probably not qualify to be appointed as teachers, no matter how skilled they may be, and would probably not be welcomed by existing members of the teaching profession. But the establishment of privately operated learning centres would offer entrepreneurial opportunities to any individual with valuable skills and knowledge.
The main reason why the 1953 Bantu Education Act had such a devastating effect on the education of black pupils was that it limited their choices. It destroyed the private schools many were attending and forced them to use a schooling system that was deliberately designed to be inferior. The recommendations in this entry would have the opposite effect. Choices would be increased and existing schools would be prodded into providing a better education.
It is not possible to imagine what innovations would result if schooling were opened up to the inventive genius of competing private enterprises, given the dynamism and variation that comes about when freedom of choice is unleashed. Entrepreneurship consists of doing things differently, doing the unexpected, and utilising resources more effectively. What can be predicted is that private enterprises would set off a knowledge and skills revolution that would transform South Africa.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING WITHOUT GOVERNMENT PROVISION OF SCHOOLING
Most people are in favour of improving educational opportunities for the young so that their income-earning capacity as adults will be enhanced. However, there is frustration amongst taxpayers worldwide that the taxes devoted to schooling are not producing the hoped-for results.
Government does not have to provide schooling. It can continue to ensure that all children receive schooling by providing vouchers that can be tendered for any form of learning chosen by children and their parents. If government does continue to run schools, it should make those schools compete for voucher-paying students with private enterprise schools. Small businesses would fill the gaps in the learning system and offer attractive alternatives that conventional schools would be incapable of matching. There is solid evidence that competitive private enterprise schools would provide a greater variety of better learning options than government schools at a lower cost to the taxpayer.
COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE
RECOMMENDATION 1
Repeal legislative provisions that make school attendance compulsory.
On the surface, compulsory schooling laws appear to be motivated by compassion for the child who might otherwise be denied schooling by uncaring parents. But there is no reason why all children should be subjected to these laws because of the few parents who may not send their children to school for at least nine years in the absence of such laws. The situation has been compared to sentencing all citizens to nine years of detention without trial because some citizens may commit theft.
Moreover, desirable innovation is prevented by compulsory schooling laws because under such a system the state is compelled to define a “school” in order to apply the law. Acceptable schooling then becomes whatever the current bureaucracy says it is, imposing the rigidities that are inevitably part of any attempt by government to deliver services.
Furthermore, in order to decide whether a child is attending a “school”, the state has to become involved in what is being taught. Few governments are prepared to confine themselves to a simple and adequate requirement that a school should teach numeracy and literacy as part of the child’s learning experience. Instead, most become involved in prescribing a detailed curriculum that smothers experimentation and innovation.
It is clearly impossible to encompass the needs of all children in a single curriculum. The process of selecting what children should learn should be left to parents and their children and not to central-planning educationists.
In the absence of compulsion, learning institutions, and especially those run by small businesses, would do everything in their power to offer parents a choice of high-quality and competitively-priced learning environments for their children. They would cater for niche markets and specialities for which there may not be widespread demand but which may be crucial to the future happiness and success of small numbers of pupils. If all children were offered schooling vouchers, and the choice of educational institutions and opportunities expanded exponentially, there would be no need for compulsory schooling laws. Incentives are far superior to compulsion or force as a method of achieving an objective such as the education of a child, especially when the objective cannot be achieved without the willing cooperation of the parents and the child.
Considerations
Many people believe that in the absence of compulsion many uncaring parents would not send their children to school. As compulsion is now universal, we have to turn to historical examples to find evidence on this important issue. Economic historian EG West writes that before 1870 (the year the state became heavily involved in education in England and Wales) most children attended school for at least six years, literacy and numeracy rates were very high (93% amongst school-leavers), and parents paid the greatest proportion of school fees. America and Scotland experienced similarly high rates of school attendance before government became involved in education.
Considering that the world mean literacy rate was 60% in 1970, private schooling in Britain and the United States in the 19th century produced extraordinary results. Without compulsion, parents ensured that their children received good quality education even though they had to pay the largest part of the cost themselves. As Professor Friedman pointed out:
“The compulsory attendance laws are the justification for government control over the standards of private schools. But it is far from clear that there is any justification for the compulsory attendance laws themselves. … research has shown that schooling was well-nigh universal in the United States before attendance was required. In the United Kingdom, schooling was well-nigh universal before either compulsory attendance or government financing of schooling existed.”
The historical evidence therefore suggests that parents, with few exceptions, would educate their children in the absence of compulsory school attendance laws.
In evaluating this issue, one must not make the mistake of assuming that the compulsory attendance laws ensure 100% school attendance. Myron Lieberman wrote in Public Education: An Autopsy in 1995 that absentee rates in the United States were high, sometimes 25% or higher in inner-city areas. An American study in 2017 revealed that schools with extreme chronic absenteeism are still more likely to be located in urban areas in most states. One can only speculate whether the absentee rate would be that high in a non-compulsory environment in which the young people have a greater choice of educational opportunities.
Whilst this entry recommends the repeal of the compulsory attendance laws, it also recommends that all South African parents be issued with vouchers with which to purchase schooling for their children. Given such empowerment, they would have no reason to withhold education from their children.
REGISTRATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
RECOMMENDATION 2
Repeal the legislative provisions that prohibit the conducting of independent or private schools without government registration.
Prohibiting the establishment or maintenance of independent (i.e., private) schools unless they are registered by the head of a provincial education department constitutes an unnecessary barrier to entry into the business of providing schooling. In the absence of barriers to entry, parents and children would be able to choose from a wide variety of alternatives. Competition would then impose a greater discipline on the individual learning establishments, including public schools, than any form of government surveillance.
There is a real danger that government officials may refuse to register a school for political, religious, language, ideological or other constitutionally unjustifiable considerations, despite the fact that the school has all the qualities that some parents are seeking. Or a school may be denied registration for an equally pernicious reason, even if refusal for that reason is beyond official powers, such as that it would take pupils away from government schools. If small business is to make the substantial contribution to education and training of which it is capable, these uncertainties should be removed. The best way of doing so is to remove the onerous registration provisions from the statute books.
The education clause’s provision in the Bill of Rights which declares that everyone has the right to establish independent educational institutions that “are registered with the state” should be seen in light of the other two subclauses of that provision, which provide simply that an independent school must not discriminate on the basis of race and must provide education at an equal or greater standard than that of public schools. Unless there is evidence that there is discrimination or inferior standards, any school must be registered by default without being required to go through any burdensome application or registration process.
Considerations
There may be some concern that an independent or private school may teach content or use methods that would be frowned on by the government or the educational establishment. Such a view would have to go hand in hand with a belief that parents are incapable of judging the quality or value of schooling being received by their children. It would also have to presume that civil servants are better judges of what is good for the child than parents, and that parents do not have the right to choose schools for their children.
ISSUE OF VOUCHERS TO STUDENTS FOR PAYMENT OF LEARNING FEES
RECOMMENDATION 3
Issue vouchers to all pupils that will allow parents to choose freely the schools their children attend.
Vouchers should be related to the present total cost of schooling, including the cost of premises and equipment, and pupils should receive vouchers valued at their proportionate share of the government schooling budget. Parents should be free to use the vouchers to purchase any form of education they choose for their children, at both government and privately-owned schools. Most importantly, as proposed by Professor Friedman, no conditions should be attached to the vouchers that would interfere with the freedom of private enterprises to experiment, to explore, and to innovate.
School zoning would be inappropriate for voucher-based schooling. Government schools that provide the best quality schooling would have to be allowed to attract larger numbers of students so as to increase their funding. In order to enable government schools to compete with private schools to attract voucher-funded students, the government schools would have to be given greater autonomy and especially the right to provide incentives to teachers. Competition between all schools would improve the quality and standard of teaching more rapidly than any other programme intended to achieve that objective.
Considerations
Critics are likely to suggest that a voucher system would lead to the establishment of myriad fly-by-night schools that would provide an inadequate service, fail due to inefficient or dishonest administration, and perhaps leave pupils with neither schooling nor vouchers halfway through the year. There is no doubt that some new schools would experience difficulties and that parents would have to exercise care in choosing schools for their children. Vigilance is the price that parents and their children would have to pay for the privilege of being able to choose from a greatly-increased variety and quality of learning and skills-training options. Independent schools perform a service that would otherwise have to be performed by the provincial education departments.
It must be stated that a voucher system is not ideal. The optimal solution would be for parents to bear the entire cost of their children’s schooling; the market for schooling would then be more responsive and innovations and increased choices would develop more rapidly. However, many South African children would be at a disadvantage if their parents did not receive state aid because their parents would not be able to pay for their schooling.
The state could, of course, confine funding to poor families, identified through means tests. Taxes could then be reduced to enable the rest of the parents to pay for their children’s schooling out of their after-tax incomes. Poor families could be given either tuition vouchers or cash grants with which to purchase schooling for their children.
Professor Friedman’s requirement that no conditions should be attached to vouchers that interfere with the freedom of private enterprises to experiment and innovate is a vital component of his proposal. It nevertheless appears to ignore the history of government administration. For instance, government currently insists on inspecting private schools before granting them subsidies. Schools wishing to apply for subsidies consequently dare not depart too greatly from whatever may be the accepted school formula. Yet the government acknowledges that subsidies to independent schools cost the state considerably less per learner than if the same learners enrolled in public schools, and that it is therefore cost-efficient for the state to provide subsidies.
Notwithstanding the valid arguments against the defining of “schools”, the possibility therefore exists that if government were to introduce a voucher system it may prescribe the type of institution at which schooling may be purchased with the vouchers. If so, schools that rely entirely on fees and other private income and that do not accept vouchers should be exempted from the rules that apply to voucher-recipient schools. This would give families that decline to use the voucher an exit option.
A NATIONAL CURRICULUM
RECOMMENDATION 4
Refrain from prescribing a standardised curriculum or a specific method of learning for private enterprise schools.
Centralised control of schooling places strict limitations on what may be taught and how it may be taught. Invariably, a curriculum is imposed which dictates not only what subjects must be taught but also the detailed content of the subjects. The most serious problem with the imposition of such a curriculum is that there is no way of establishing the “truth” or the “optimal method” of conveying that truth. There is also no selection method that could successfully determine an “optimal content” for a curriculum that would be suitable for more than a small fraction of the pupils on whom it is imposed.
In the United Kingdom, an attempt was made to establish a basic syllabus that would allow schools a great deal of flexibility in deciding what to teach and how to teach it. The national curriculum that resulted has caused much frustration and anger amongst educationists and proved to be what a British educationist Dr James Tooley described as a “bureaucratic monstrosity”. Five years after it was imposed, Sir Ron Dearing (as he then was) was appointed to slim it down and simplify testing.
Dr Tooley argued that a national curriculum neither raises standards nor promotes equality of opportunity. What was needed for both was improved teaching techniques and targeted resources. Problem schools, he maintained, needed specific solutions, and a national curriculum did not help them in any way. Using probability theory, he demonstrated that a committee charged with setting a national curriculum was highly likely to make at least one mistake, and perhaps more. These mistakes were then implemented in all schools and were much more difficult to reverse than errors at the individual school level. He concluded that decisions regarding the curriculum should be taken at the school level where the decision-makers are continually interacting with pupils and are aware of the multiplicity of their experiences. They can respond quickly if either problems or opportunities arise, and can more successfully innovate, learn from successful experience elsewhere, rapidly reject failed experiments, and adapt to the particular needs of individual students.
Teaching methods are crucially important, and prescriptions regarding method are as counter-productive as prescriptions regarding curriculum. The outcomes-based system that was implemented in South Africa was not a great success; prescribing such a system on such a vast scale was problematic. Its lack of success will probably have a detrimental effect on the country for years to come. The development of many private enterprise alternatives should therefore have been encouraged as a safety measure.
If private enterprise schools and learning centres were allowed to develop without interference, many parents would demand that they focus on turning out young adults with income-earning skills. As literacy, numeracy, and communication skills are essential to income-earning, these basics would be a fundamental part of parents’ demands. A myriad skills-training courses could then be on offer, covering a vast spectrum of income-earning possibilities. As most people today have many distinctly different careers during their lifetimes, pupils could acquire multi-disciplinary skills. On the other hand, they could specialise at an early age as a modern young Mozart would probably insist on doing.
Considerations
Some central-planning educationists may contend that parents do not have enough knowledge to guide their children in the selection of subjects. Illiterate parents, especially, would be at a disadvantage. Yet illiterate people find their way around large cities, purchase items ranging from property to everyday necessities, and run businesses. They have to compensate for their illiteracy by being astute in obtaining guidance from people around them. In a society in which private enterprises provide most of the schooling, there would be place for agencies that provide information on schools and other learning centres. Parents would consult recent school-ranking surveys and ratings, and they would also solicit information from parents of children already attending the schools they are considering.
South Africa also possesses an active educational civil society with an acute focus on the vulnerable. It is inconceivable that civil educational institutes will not provide guidance to parents struggling to navigate an educational environment characterised by freedom of choice.
What may prove worrying is the possibility that schools may make invalid claims about their capabilities. Naturally, any school that professed to offer what it patently could not deliver would lay itself open to criminal prosecution for fraud. Just as the media are very involved in monitoring the services provided to consumers in other fields, they would probably monitor very closely the services provided by schools. Extensive publicity for both good and bad schools would be of great value to parents.
HOME SCHOOLING
RECOMMENDATION 5
Repeal legislative provisions which require parents who wish to educate their children at home to obtain official exemption from compulsory school attendance requirements.
No government official can know better than a parent what is best for a particular child. Home schooling should therefore be an automatically available option with which the state should not interfere. This issue should not be confused with measures intended to prevent child abuse, which are dealt with in other legislation.
Home schooling is an essential part of the private enterprise alternative, and a one-child/one-parent school is the smallest possible educational unit in the spectrum of private enterprise possibilities. In addition, a qualified teacher who teaches his or her own children at home may over time accept other people’s children as pupils and eventually establish a formal school. Home schooling is therefore an important entry-level option for private enterprise schooling.
In most cases, adherence to the curriculum followed by state schools would represent a burdensome restriction on the quality and range of learning experiences that could be provided by home schooling. Far from providing a minimum standard, this requirement would merely consume valuable time that could be better spent by the learner, with the assistance of the parent, in developing his or her potential to the utmost. What is to be learned and how it is to be learned should therefore be left entirely in the hands of the parent and child. The child’s proficiency in mathematics, reading, writing, and communication skills could easily be assessed through tests set by an outside agency. Private enterprises, no doubt often with the active participation of South Africa’s universities that seek to eventually attract competent undergraduates, would be quick to offer a testing service if a demand for such testing developed. No state involvement would be necessary.
Considerations
What about parents who have strange ideas, who would limit their children’s opportunities if they were allowed to keep them at home? What about parents with extreme religious views who believe that sending children to school would expose them to evil ideas?
These questions have to be separated from cases of ill-treatment and abuse of children that would be matters for attention by social workers or the police. Compulsory school attendance does not protect children from abuse. Critics may say that a child is being “deprived” if it is denied the experience of attending school, and that this deprivation is tantamount to a form of abuse, no matter how high the quality of the child’s home education. And then there could be cases where, according to any objective assessment, a child is receiving an inferior education at home (for example, a ten-year-old child who reads and writes with difficulty, struggles to do arithmetic and spells very badly). Does such a possibility justify the imposition of compulsory school attendance laws?
People who wish to assess this issue must bear in mind what they are comparing. They are not comparing a few potential home-schooling cases that deprive a child of educational opportunities through parental neglect or faulty judgment with a perfect government schooling system that will assure those children of a high-quality education. On the contrary, study after study shows that a large percentage of children who have spent twelve years in government schools are neither literate nor numerate. South Africa’s universities without exception have courses that all first-year students have to take to bring them up to standard when it comes to basic arithmetic, comprehension, and writing skills.
What has to be considered is whether the state has the right to interfere with the decisions of concerned parents regarding the education of their children. In the United States, by 2014, an estimated 2 million children were being taught at home. SAT results show that these home schooled children outperform pupils taught in the public schools. The National School Boards Association responds: “We think that children should be in the traditional setting because home schooling takes away from a child’s social skills and isolates children racially and ethnically.” David Boaz of the Cato Institute comments: “Home-schooling parents take pains to see that their children spend time with other children, but – given that most families are indeed monoracial – they would probably have to acknowledge that during school hours their children are ‘racially isolated’.”
A question that consequently arises is whether compulsory school attendance laws are intended to ensure that children receive some form of education (literacy, numeracy, etc.) or whether they are aimed at bringing about some other outcome. If the latter is the case, are parents not justified in resisting the imposition of these other agendas, whatever they may be, and taking personal responsibility for the educational, emotional, social, cultural. and ethical development of their children?
ALLOWING CHILDREN TO DO PAID WORK
RECOMMENDATION 6
Allow employers to employ or provide work to children under the age of 15 years if the employment or work is voluntary, has the approval of parents or guardians, and relates directly to learning and the transfer of skills.
Section 43(1) of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act provides that no person may employ a child who is under 15 years of age or who is under the minimum school-leaving age in terms of any law. However, amending the legislation as proposed would allow small enterprises wishing to teach special skills as part of the learning experience to pay children for work performed as an incentive to them to increase their proficiency.
School-leavers generally acquire two-thirds of their income-earning power during on-the-job training and only one-third during formal education, according to research conducted by Nobel Prize-winner George Stigler. Allowing children to engage in productive work during their learning years would enable them to acquire valuable skills at an earlier age and give them the opportunity to earn an income at the same time.
Some people cite horror stories about child labour during the 18th and 19th centuries as an argument against allowing children to carry out productive work today. But this is ludicrous. We are talking about children operating computers, using their artistic talents, developing their sporting abilities (swimming, tennis, gymnastics, etc.) and engaging in other “soft” skills, not about children being forced to work in dangerous coal mines, carry out dangerous work in dingy factories or sweep chimneys. Existing safeguards against the abuse of children who are over 15 years of age (or over the minimum school-leaving age in terms of any law) could very easily be adapted to apply also to children who are under 15 years of age (or under the minimum school-leaving age in terms of any law).
Children need the opportunity to be allowed to develop their talents in real-life situations and this option is not permitted under the present schooling system. That the motivation for the deprivation is concern for the welfare of the child, or fear that a small minority of parents may abuse their parental authority, is little consolation to the child whose life is destroyed by frustration.
Opposition to the above proposals can mainly be expected from two sources: labour organisations and teachers’ organisations. Labour organisations are likely to be opposed to the concept of the working child because of the perceived competition for their jobs. However, children would not generally be competing for existing formal jobs. They would be doing newly-created work designed specifically for carrying out on-the-job training.
Teachers, on the other hand, usually oppose child labour because they do not want to see a decline in the numbers of children attending school. If on-the-job training is an adjunct to schooling and not an alternative, there should be no decline in the demand for the services of teachers.
Considerations
There are two main perspectives from which the issue of the working child can be considered, one negative and the other positive. Many people will immediately conjure up visions of an unfortunate child, compelled to contribute to the family income by uncaring and perhaps dissolute parents, prevented from receiving an education, with the possibility of the child remaining illiterate and forever resigned to occupying the most menial jobs.
Another view is of concerned parents, caring passionately about their child’s future, knowing that their child will learn best by doing, knowing that their child will be bored to the point of destructive behaviour by conventional schooling, attempting to assure a bright future for their child by finding a learning environment in which the child can earn and learn at the same time.
What must be considered is whether a prohibition on the working child will successfully prevent damage to the child by the uncaring parent and whether the possibility of the prohibition protecting such children warrants the closing of opportunities for learning-by-doing for all other children.
Select sources
Statutory
Constitution, 1996—
Chap 2 (Bill of Rights)—
s 29 (Education)—
(1) (Everyone has the right)—
(a) (to a basic education)
(b) (to further education, which the state through reasonable measures must make progressively available and accessible)
(3) (Everyone has the right to establish and maintain, at their own expense, independent educational institutions that)—
(b) (are registered with the state)
(c) (maintain standards not inferior to those at comparable public institutions)
(4) (State subsidies for independent institutions are permitted)
s 28 (Children)—
(1) (Every child has the right)—
(f)(ii) (not to be required or permitted to perform work or render services that place the child’s education at risk)
(2) (Child’s best interests of paramount importance in matters concerning child)
s 15 (Freedom of religion, belief and opinion)—
(1) (Everyone has right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion),
s 44(1)(a)(ii) and (b)(ii) (national legislative authority includes power to legislate on matters in functional areas of concurrent national and provincial competence),
s 100 (national intervention when province fails to fulfil obligations),
Sched 4 (areas of concurrent national and provincial competence) part A (education, other than tertiary education),
South African Schools Act, 1996—
s 2 (application of Act) —
(2) (MECs and HoDs to exercise powers conferred on them by this Act after taking full account of applicable policy determined i.t.o. National Education Policy Act, 1996),
(3) (nothing in this Act prevents a provincial legislature from enacting legislation for school education in a province i.a.w. the Constitution and this Act),
s 3 (compulsory attendance from first school day of year in which learner reaches age of seven years until last school day of year in which learner reaches age of fifteen years, or ninth grade, whichever occurs first),
s 4 (provincial department head may exempt learner from compulsory attendance),
s 6A (Minister must determine, for public and independent schools—
(statement of minimum national curriculum outcomes or standards),
(national process for assessing achievement),
(curriculum and assessment process must also apply to independent schools),
s 45A (admission age to independent school)—
(a)(ii) (grade 1, is five turning six by 30 June)
(b) (independent school may admit under-age learner if)—
(i) (good cause shown, and)
(ii) (learner complies with criteria prescribed)
(c)(i) (Minister may prescribe criteria for admission at lower age)
(d) (“good cause” means)—
(i) (admission would be in learner’s best interest)
(ii) (and refusal would be severely detrimental to learner’s development),
s 46 (1) (no person may establish or maintain unregistered independent school)
(2) (MEC by Gazette notice determines grounds on which registration of independent schools may be granted or withdrawn)
(3) (provincial head of department must register an independent school if satisfied that school complies with grounds for registration)
(4) (establishing or maintaining an unregistered independent school is an offence),
s 47 (withdrawal of registration of independent school),
s 48 (subsidies to registered independent schools)—
- (Minister may determine norms and minimum standards for the grant of subsidies to independent schools after consulting the Council of Education Ministers and the Financial and Fiscal Commission and with concurrence of the Minister of Finance)
- (Member of the Executive Council may, out of funds appropriated by the provincial legislature for that purpose, grant a subsidy to an independent school)
- (the Head of a provincial education department may terminate or reduce a subsidy if a condition on which it was granted is not complied with),
s 59(2) (every school must provide information reasonably required by HoD or Director-General of national Department in consultation with HoD)
s 61 (Minister may prescribe, for public and independent schools—
(c) (a national curriculum statement)
(d) (a national process for the assessment of learner achievement)
(g) (the age norm per grade);
Govt Notice 2433 of 19 Oct 1998 (admission age to public schools),
Govt Notice 869 of 31 Aug 2006 as amended to 2 Feb 2018 (national school-funding norms and standards)—
(2. policy framework)—
(State subsidies to independent schools)—
(par. 48. independent school enrolment amounts to about two percent of total school enrolment and may be increasing; independent-school enrolments vary in different provinces from a fraction of a percent of total school enrolment to several times the national average; if all learners were to transfer to public schools the cost of public education in certain provinces might increase by five percent)
(par. 50. subsidy levels have differed by province, but extreme pressure on provincial education budgets has resulted in sharp decline of independent-school subsidies per learner, and considerable uncertainty about the future trend of funding of independent school by provincial education authorities)
(par. 51. fees in independent schools have tended to rise in response to subsidy cuts; some independent-school proprietors have applied to be taken over by provincial education departments, which have been slow to comply)
(par. 54. independent schools perform a service to their learners that would otherwise have to be performed by the provincial education departments; public subsidies to independent schools cost the state considerably less per learner than if the same learners enrolled in public schools; it is therefore cost-efficient for the state to provide a subsidy)
(par. 55. But apart from that fiscal argument, extreme inequalities and backlogs in the provision of public education and pressure on public-education budget allocations dictate that public subsidies to independent schools should serve social purposes)
(par. 56. independent-school-subsidy allocations must therefore prefer schools that are well managed, provide good education, serve poor communities and individuals and are not operated for profit; these standards must be measurable by objective, transparent and verifiable criteria)
(7. subsidies to independent schools)—
(par. 176(f). an independent school may be considered for subsidy if it agrees to unannounced inspection visits by provincial departmental officials or authorised persons)
Children’s Act, 2005—
s 1(1)—
(“child” means person under 18 years of age)
(“child labour” means work by a child which—
(a) is “exploitative”, hazardous or otherwise inappropriate for person of that age; and
(b) places at risk the child’s well-being, education, physical or mental health, or spiritual, moral, emotional or social development)
(“exploitation” includes child labour which is prohibited under s 141)
s 141 (no person may employ a child for “child labour”)
s 305(1)(c) (a person who employ a child for “child labour” commits an offence)
Basic Conditions of Employment Act, 1997—
s 1 (“child” means a person under 18)
s 43 (prohibition of work)—
(1) (prohibition of work by children under 15 or minimum school-leaving age i.t.o. any law)
(2) (a person must not require or permit a child to perform any work or provide any services—
(a) (that are inappropriate for a person of that age)
(b) (that place at risk the child’s well-being, education, physical or mental health, or spiritual, moral or social development)
s 44(1) (regulations on work by children) (Minister may, on advice of the National Minimum Wage Commission, make regulations prohibiting or placing conditions on work by children “at least fifteen years of age” and “no longer subject to compulsory schooling” i.t.o. any law),
read with
Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993—
s 43(1)(b), (2), (3) (the Minister may, after consultation with the Advisory Council for Occupational Health and Safety, make regulations necessary or expedient in the Minister’s opinion in interest of health and safety of persons at work or i.c.w. use of plant or machinery, and apply any differentiation the Minister deems advisable),
Hazardous Work by Children Regs (Govt Notice R7 of 15 Jan 2010 i.t.o. Basic Conditions of Employment Act s 44 and Occupational Health and Safety Act s 43):
reg 1 (“child” means a person under eighteen)
reg 2 (purpose and interpretation)—
(1) (these regulations prohibit or place conditions on work by child workers, and which is not prohibited i.t.o. any law)
(2) (these regulations do not permit the employing of—
(a) (children under 15 or subject to compulsory schooling),
(b) (children aged 15 or older and not subject to compulsory schooling, in work which is prohibited i.t.o. any law)
regs 3–10 (risk assessment, respiratory hazards, work in elevated position, lifting of heavy weights, work in a cold environment, work in a hot environment, work in noisy environment, power tools and cutting or grinding equipment)
National Education Policy Act, 1996—
s 1 (“education institution” means any school contemplated in South African Schools Act)
s 3 (Determination of national education policy by Minister)—
(1) (Minister to determine national education policy i.a.w. Constitution and this Act)
(3) (national policy to prevail over a provincial policy if conflict)
(4) (Minister shall determine national policy for the planning, provision, financing, co-ordination, management, governance, programmes, monitoring, evaluation of education system including determining national policy for)—
(d) (innovation and development in education)
(e) (ratio between educators and students)
(f) (professional education and accreditation of educators)
(g) (management, funding, establishment, registration of education institutions)
(h) (compulsory school education)
(i) (admission of students to education institutions, which shall include admission age)
(j) (minimum number of hours a day and days a year when education to be provided)
(l) (curriculum frameworks, core syllabuses and education programmes, learning standards, examinations and certification of qualifications)
(m) (language in education),
s 4 (directive principles: national education policy must be directed to—
(a) (advancement and protection of fundamental rights of every person guaranteed in the Constitution, and international conventions ratified by Parliament, and in particular rights inter alia of)—
(iii) (parent or guardian in respect of the education of his or her child or ward)
(iv) (every child i.r.o. his or her education)
(v) (every learner to be instructed in the language of his or her choice where this is reasonably practicable)
(vi) (every person to freedoms of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression and association within education institutions)
(vii) (every person to establish, where practicable, education institutions based on a common language, culture or religion)
(viii) (of every person to use the language and participate in the cultural life of his or her choice within an education institution),
(e) (providing opportunities for and encouraging lifelong learning),
(f) (achieving integrated approach to education in national qualifications framework),
Gen Notice 647 of 2000 (national education policy stipulating age requirements for admission of learners to independent schools),
National Minimum Wage Act, 2018—
s 8 (establishes the National Minimum Wage Commission)
s 11 (the functions of the Commission are inter alia to—
(g) (advise the Minister on any matter concerning basic conditions of employment)
(h) (perform any function required of the Commission i.t.o. any other employment law)
School Education Act (Gauteng), 1995
Kwazulu-Natal School Education Act, 1996
Caselaw
In re National Education Policy Bill 1996 (CC) (nothing in Bill obliges provinces to act in conformity with national education policy, or empower Minister to require them to adopt national policy or amend their own legislation),
Minister of Education v Harris 2001 (CC) (national education policy stipulating age for admission to independent schools (Gen Notice 647 of 2000 supra) declared invalid, in that policy purported to have binding effect),
Schneider NO and ors v Aspeling and ano 2010 (WCC) (“this is not a test case about home schooling or an evaluation of its merits or demerits, and determines only the best interests of two vulnerable young children”),
Federation of School Governing Bodies and ors v MEC Basic Educ and ors 2011 (EC) (decision of Department not to renew contracts of temporary teachers set aside as being unlawful and irrational and depriving learners of their right to education),
Centre for Child Law and ors v Minister of Basic Education and ors (National Assoc of School Governing Bodies amicus curiae) 2012 (ECG) (applicants sought orders to compel Eastern Cape government to implement the educator post establishment by appointing teachers to vacant posts, to pay salaries of temporary teachers who had not been paid, to employ and pay teachers appointed by school governing bodies to vacant posts, to make appointments to all vacant posts, and report to court on progress),
MEC Education Gauteng and ors v Governing Body Rivonia Prim School and ors (Equal Education and ors amici curiae) 2013 (CC) (director of education can order school to admit learners in numbers exceeding its capacity),
KwaZulu-Natal Joint Liaison Committee v KZN Education MEC (Centre for Child Law amicus curiae) 2013 (CC) (impermissible for State to reduce promised subsidy to independent schools after scheduled date for payment),
Madzodzo obo Parents of Learners at Mpimbo Junior Secondary School v Min of Basic Education 2014 (ECM) (Eastern Cape education department’s failure to provide school furniture violates learners’ right to an education),
Minister of Basic Education and others v Basic Education for All and ors 2015 (SCA) (Limpopo department’s failure to provide textbooks violates learners’ right to education),
Tripartite Steering Committee and ano v Min of Basic Education and ors 2015 (ECG) (Eastern Cape government must provide transport where scholars’ access to schools is hindered by distance and inability to afford transport costs)
Media and other reports
The Washington Post, 19 Feb 1995, “Public Schools: Make Them Private”,Daily Maverick, 7 July 2010, “Analysis: RIP outcomes-based education and don’t come back” (Andy Rice),
PolitiFact Virginia (partnershipbetween Richmond Times-Dispatch and Tampa Bay Times’s PolitiFact.com website) “Brat: U.S. school spending up 375 percent over 30 years but test scores remain flat”, 2 Mar 2015 (Warren Fiske),
Intellectual Takeout, 26 Aug 2015, “32 million U.S. adults are ‘functionally illiterate’… What does that even mean?”(D Lattier),
Education Reform Now, Apr 2016, “Out of pocket: The high cost of inadequate high schools and high school student achievement on college affordability” (Mary Nguyen Barry, Michael Dannenberg),
Business Insider Australia, 23 Jan 2017, “Americans are rejecting the ‘homeschool myth’—and experts say the misunderstood education might be better than public or charter schools” (C Weller)
The Australian, 23 Apr 2018 “Unhappy parents embrace home schooling in record numbers”, Rebecca Urban, national education correspondent, Melbourne (families are home-schooling children in record numbers amid growing dissatisfaction with teaching standard and lack of discipline in mainstream schools; number of children being taught at home has soared more than 80 per cent over past six years),
Library Journal, 29 Apr 2020, “How Serious Is America’s Literacy Problem?” (Amy Rea), “According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), 21 percent of adults in the United States (about 43 million) fall into the illiterate/functionally illiterate category)”,
National Review, 21 Mar 2021 “Bureaucracy Has Conquered Schools. Joe Biden Won’t Fix It”, Martha Bradley-Dorsey & Robert Maranto (the public-school system is the most layered, centralised and massive bureaucracy in America, and, with the system’s government monopolies, makes it nearly impossible to advance academic standards)
Official reports
School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, London. “The Dearing Review (1994)”. The National Curriculum and its Assessment: Final Report, Ron Dearing, Dec 1993—
(par 1.7: the national curriculum was defined by the Education Reform Act 1988)
(par 1.8: the national curriculum is structured in four phases of learning: key stage 1 – pupils aged 5 to 7, key stage 2 – ages 7 to 11, key stage 3 – ages 11 to 14, key stage 4 – ages 14 to 16)
(pars 2.1 and 3.3: urgent action is needed to reduce the statutorily required content of the national curriculum’s programmes of study and to make it less prescriptive and less complex; a review of the statutory curriculum orders should be put in hand, guided by the need to reduce the volume of material required by law to be taught, simplify and clarify the programmes of study, reduce prescription so as to give more scope for professional judgement, and ensure that the orders are written in a way which offers maximum support to the classroom teacher)
(pars 2.2, 4.16 and 4.29: the primary purpose of the review at key stages 1, 2 and 3 should be to slim down the curriculum; make the orders less prescriptive; and free some 20% of teaching time for use at the discretion of the school)
(pars 2.3, 4.3 and 4.4: the review should, therefore, be primarily concerned with dividing the content of the present curriculum orders between a statutory core and optional material for use at the discretion of the school)
(pars 2.4, 3.26, 4.46 and 4.47: the first priority for discretionary time must be to support work in the basics of literacy, oracy and numeracy. Beyond this, the bulk of the time released should be used for work in those curriculum subjects which the school chooses to explore in more depth)
(pars 2.14 and 5.17–5.26: at key stage 4, schools should have greater opportunity to offer a curriculum which meets the distinctive talents and individual aspirations of their students; the mandatory requirements should be limited to English, mathematics and single science, physical education and short courses in a modern foreign language and technology; these minimum requirements will allow greater scope for academic and vocational options)
(pars 2.21 and 3.34–3.40: the increased trust placed in schools and teachers by reducing prescription in the curriculum and freeing up time for use at their own discretion should be complemented by proper accountability to parents and more widely through the provision of information, including that from simple, national tests in the core subjects, about progress and achievement)
U.S. Department of Education (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center For Education Statistics) Adult literacy in America: A first look at the findings of the National Adult Literacy Survey (Apr 2002), I. S. Kirsch, A. Jungeblut, L. Jenkins, A. Kolstad,
Office of the President of the United States, Aug 2012, “Investing In Our Future: Returning Teachers To The Classroom”,
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills”,
US Department of Education, 11 Feb 2014, “Statistics About Non-Public Education in the United States”,
US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, July 2019, “Adult Literacy in the United States”,
US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2019 Science Assessment, “Highlighted results for the nation at grades 4, 8, and 12”
Economic, academic and thinktank analyses
Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy, E G West, 1965 (The Institute of Economic Affairs, London),
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, Milton Friedman, 1980 (Harcourt)
“The compulsory attendance laws are the justification for government control over the standards of private schools. But it is far from clear that there is any justification for the compulsory attendance laws themselves. Our own views on this have changed over time. When we first wrote extensively a quarter of a century ago on this subject, we accepted the need for such laws on the ground that “a stable democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens.” We continue to believe that, but research that has been done in the interim on the history of schooling in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries has persuaded us that compulsory attendance at schools is not necessary to achieve that minimum standard of literacy and knowledge. As already noted, such research has shown that schooling was well-nigh universal in the United States before attendance was required. In the United Kingdom, schooling was well-nigh universal before either compulsory attendance or government financing of schooling existed. Like most laws, compulsory attendance laws have costs as well as benefits. We no longer believe the benefits justify the costs.” […]
“Private schools now are almost all either parochial schools or elite academies. Will the effect of the voucher plan simply be to subsidize these, while leaving the bulk of the slum dwellers in inferior public schools? What reason is there to suppose that alternatives will really arise? The reason is that a market would develop where it does not exist today. Cities, states, and the federal government today spend close to $100 billion a year on elementary and secondary schools. That sum is a third larger than the total amount spent annually in restaurants and bars for food and liquor. The smaller sum surely provides an ample variety of restaurants and bars for people in every class and place. The larger sum, or even a fraction of it, would provide an ample variety of schools.”
Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman,1962/1982 (Univ of Chicago Press):
“Why is it that our educational system has not developed along these lines? A full answer would require a much more detailed knowledge of educational history than I possess, and the most I can do is to offer a conjecture. For one thing, the “natural monopoly” argument was much stronger at an earlier date. But I suspect that a much more important factor was the combination of the general disrepute of cash grants to individuals (“handouts”) with the absence of an efficient administrative machinery to handle the distribution of vouchers and to check their use. The development of such machinery is a phenomenon of modern times that has come to full flower only with the enormous extension of personal taxation and of social security programs. In its absence, the administration of schools was regarded as the only possible way to finance education.” […]
“Any subsidy should be granted to individuals to be spent at institutions of their own choosing, provided only that the education is of a kind that it is desired to subsidize. Any government schools that are retained should charge fees covering the cost of educating students and so compete on an equal level with non-government-supported schools.”
Public Education: An Autopsy,Myron Lieberman, 1995 (Harvard University Press),
Education Without the State, 1996, James Tooley, (The Institute of Economic Affairs, London):
(Functional illiteracy, youth delinquency and lack of technological innovation all point to the failures of state schooling. They raise the question of why governments should be involved in education at all.
(One justification for state intervention in education is that, without it, there would not be educational opportunities for all. However, the great majority of people would not need state intervention for funding or provision of educational opportunities. Intervention would at most be required for a minority in need of financial support.
(This conclusion is supported by historical evidence from Victorian England and Wales, and from more recent experience around the world, of educational entrepreneurs stepping in to provide desired opportunities where state education is failing.
(A second justification offered is that equality of opportunity requires state intervention in education. When the record is examined, it is not clear that states anywhere have been able to provide equality. Strong theoretical arguments undermine the suggestion that they ever would.
(Moreover, arguments against ‘markets’ in schooling which purport to show how they increase inequality actually point to problems not with markets, but with state regulation and provision themselves.
(Many influential philosophers and economists agree that justice or fairness requires that everyone has adequate opportunities. But markets – with a funding safety-net – could provide adequate opportunities for all, and more effectively than further state intervention.
(A final justification is that state regulation of, inter alia, the curriculum is required. Lessons from the recent history of the national curriculum illustrate the general undesirability of government intervention in the curriculum. The problems of ‘competing visions’ and the ‘knowledge problem’ and considerations of the nature of education point to the folly of not leaving decisions to parents and young people themselves.
(If state intervention in education is not justified, except for a funding safety-net, how can we move towards markets in education? A simple proposal is put forward, linked to recent discussion of the learning society and lifelong learning accounts.
(Lowering the school leaving age to 14, and simultaneously giving young people two years’ state funding for them to use in a Lifelong Individual Fund for Education (LIFE) would help liberate the educational demand side which, coupled with liberation of the supply side, would lead to an enlivening and nurturing of the enterprise of education)
Government Failure: E. G. West on Education,2003, J. Tooley and J. Stanfield (eds.) (The Institute of Economic Affairs, London): Ch 4 (the spread of education before compulsion: Britain and America in the nineteenth century),
The International Labour Organization’s Concept of Child Labour, Milla Mäkinen, 2006 (MSc thesis, Dept of Social Sciences & Philosophy, Jyväskylä University, Finland):
(“[T]here is no universal definition of ‘child labour’ due to the tremendous complexity of the concept. What child labour means to different people, how do we define a ‘child’ and ‘childhood’ and what we consider ‘labour’ or ‘work’ varies tremendously from continent to continent, country to country, town to town, village to village and, even, family to family…”),
Liberating schools: education in the inner city, ed. David Boaz, 1991, Cato Institute, Washington D.C.,
Cato Institute, Washington D.C., 10 Nov 2007, “Deregulating Education” David Boaz,
The Heritage Foundation, “How Escalating Education Spending Is Killing Crucial Reform”, 15 Oct 2012 (L Burke),
International Business & Economics Research Journal (2012)“A Historical Analysis of the Post-Apartheid Dispensation Education in South Africa (1994-2011)”, M. Mouton, G.P. Louw, G.L. Strydom,
South African Journal of Education (Feb. 2015) “Some aspects of education litigation since 1994: Of hope, concern and despair”, J. Beckmann, J. Prinsloo,
(We probed the opinions of a sample of high-profile and influential role players in education about aspects of education litigation in South Africa in which they were involved in various capacities. In their opinions almost all disputes were between the state and citizens, and the state lost virtually all cases. Officials often ignored legal advice and acted on “imagined powers”, causing embarrassment to the state where they seemed insensitive to the needs of the people, and sometimes deliberately transgressed prescripts and provisions, abandoning its mandate to children and the country. There is extreme concern about the tendency of officials to ignore court orders. No lessons seem to have been learned from judgments and infractions of the same kind occur repeatedly, even if litigation seems to have consumed 4%–6% of the education budget. Cases dealt almost exclusively with disputes about official powers, and few human rights and social issues have been litigated. Individual officials seem to suffer no consequences from unlawful actions and show apparent lack of professionalism in failing to acquaint themselves with the legal prescripts that govern their professional work. The destructive role that unions and politicians seemed to play in education caused concern for our respondents. However, litigation has nonetheless led to clarification of some issues.)
CDE Insight, Jan 2016, “The real cost of compliance: the impact of South African regulatory requirements on independent schools”, Centre for Development and Enterprise (regulatory framework not enabling, high compliance costs, demands more of independent than public schools, small independent schools experience higher relative compliance costs)
Portraits of Change: Aligning School and Community Resources to Reduce Chronic Absence, Sep 2017 (Attendance Works; Everyone Graduates Center at School of Education, Johns Hopkins University)