Books

It is generally accepted that the gap between the earnings of unskilled and semi-skilled workers on the one hand, and skilled and highly skilled workers, on the other, narrowed in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. This paper investigates whether the gap between the real earnings of highly skilled and low-skilled workers in the formal sector of the South African economy continued to narrow after this countrys transition to democracy.

The connection between poverty and lack of education seems entirely self-evident, yet real progress in overcoming the obstacles to education and economic affluence has eluded governments and social activists worldwide for decades. This book interrogates the link between education and poverty reduction and highlights the role of cross-sectoral co-ordination and policy coherence in breaking the poverty trap.

This co-authored book re-lives the experiences of young South African exiles at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) in Tanzania. South Africans from all backgrounds and solidarity workers from many parts of the world showed what new ways of thinking about teaching and learning could achieve.

This book reviews curriculum policy, reform and implementation in South African education. This is an edited compilation of the key presentations and discussions that took place between education policy-makers and researchers at the HSRC-sponsored Round Table in September 2000.

Education plays a key role in the development of any society. Responding to the need for empirical evidence on the demand for and supply of public educators in South Africa, the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) commissioned the Human Sciences Research Council-led consortium to conduct nation-wide research on the factors determining educator supply and demand in South African public education system. Growth demand for educators depends on learner enrolments and the learner-educator ratio, while replacement demand for educators depends on employment trends, demographics and attrition (including morbidity and morality). Educator supply depends on a number of factors, such as education graduates, morbidity and morality, and educators returning after a break from the profession.

Teachers spend slightly less time on their activities overall, but much less time on teaching than policy requires. There is a serious erosion of instructional time in the majority of schools, but it is worst in rural and semi-rural African schools.

This comprehensive volume brings together contributions and diverse opinions from leading and emerging South African and international scholars to assess the quality of democracy and the electoral process in South Africa over the past ten years, with particular emphasis on the 2004 elections. The book speaks to a broad range of topics, all linked through the electoral theme, which get to the heart of many issues in contemporary South African politics.

Although Africa is the most under-supplied region of the world for electricity, its economies are utterly dependent on it. There are enormous inequalities in electricity access, with industry receiving abundant supplies of cheap power while more than 80 per cent of the continent's population remain off the power grid. Africa is not unique in this respect, but levels of inequality are particularly pronounced here due to the inherent unevenness of 'electric capitalism' on the continent.

Elusive Equity documents South Africas efforts to create a racially equitable state education system from the ashes of apartheid education. Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd describe and evaluate the strategies that South African policy makers have pursued in their quest for equity. They draw on previously unpublished data, interviews with key officials, and visits to dozens of schools to describe the changes made to school financing, teacher allocation, governance, curriculum, and other areas.

One of the greatest challenges South Africa faces is rural poverty and education. This book graphically illustrates the conditions that make the dreams of a better life for all virtually unrealisable in rural areas. Through the voices of rural people themselves, the reader is told not only what the problems are but also what can and should be done. Emerging Voices is a richly documented portrait of the lives of communities in selected rural areas, and specifically their thoughts and feelings about education. It is a book that can come at no better time as South Africa is poised to launch a major offensive against poverty in rural areas. Education, this book shows, must be a central component of such an initiative. Collectively, the chapters illustrate the complexity, interconnectedness and intractability of the challenges that face rural communities and education in South Africa in particular and less developed countries more generally.