27th Annual Student Research Conference
The Persistence and Implications of Unequal Educational
Opportunities in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Connor P. Maguire
Dr. Elaine McDuff, Faculty Mentor
This paper seeks to address the continued racial inequalities within the South African education system. Despite immense progress towards equality in the past two decades and a constitution which is one of the most progressive in the world in its promise of education for all, blacks still receive an overall inferior education to whites. These current inequalities stem from both past inequalities formed by the Bantu Education Act as well as current policies which implicitly favor schools in predominantly affluent white areas. These current inequalities, and how they have come to be, are manifested at Thandokhulu high school. Observations at Thandokhulu, located in the Mowbray suburb of Cape Town, specifically highlight how user fees negatively impact predominantly black and lower income schools by providing affluent white schools with disproportionate funding.
Keywords: educational inequalities , user fees, Bantu Education
Topic(s):Democracy and Human Rights in South Africa
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 405-3
Location: MG 2090
Time: 3:00