Inequality in Education: What is to Be Done?

Abstract

This closing chapter offers both a generative synthesis (what do we now know?) as well as a catalytic synthesis (what is to be done?) of the research contributions to this book on education and inequality in South Africa. The key findings confirm the entrenchment of inequalities in South African schools by race and class despite successive waves of policy reform in pursuit of educational equity. Neither of the two main categories of intervention, curriculum coverage and teacher competence, seem to have had any marked effects on closing the gap in learning outcomes between privileged and poor schools. The research presented in this book suggests that considered actions to redress inequality would require a combination of political, policy and planning instruments focused on building the foundations of education in the pre- and primary levels of schooling.