M.A. (Public Management and Governance) / This study focused on perceptions of the role of teacher unions within the basic education system in secondary schools in Soweto, a township in the south of Johannesburg, South Africa. The main aim of the study was to determine whether the role that teacher unions play contributes negatively to the state of education in secondary schools in Soweto. To make this determination, the study focused on two secondary schools in Soweto. The study discussed the key purpose of teacher unions in education, and provides the legislated guidelines as well as perceptions of stakeholders in education in secondary schools in Soweto with regard to the extent of the influence of South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) in two secondary schools in Soweto. As the biggest teacher union in the country with a large following of educators in secondary schools in Soweto, SADTU has significant power which can be directed to either enhance teaching and learning or inhibit teaching and learning in secondary schools in Soweto. If existing accountability processes are not implemented to ensure that teacher unions carry out their mandate in compliance with legislation, the state of education in secondary schools in Soweto may be at risk. The study utilized a qualitative research design, to analyze data gathered from existing literary knowledge on the subject, while qualitative interviews were conducted with respondents to establish their perceptions on the positive or negative contributions of SADTU in secondary schools in Soweto. The findings were that SADTU is perceived to be inhibiting the culture of teaching and learning in some secondary schools in Soweto. However, the study established that SADTU cannot be isolated as the only cause for a poor culture of teaching and learning in secondary schools in Soweto. The cumulative effect of the curriculum changes; lack of training of educators; pressure placed on the teaching and learning through strikes and dissent; and intimidation of some SADTU members are factors that have contributed negatively to the culture of teaching and learning in secondary schools in Soweto.

This study answers the critical question: How do women leaders experience gender equality in the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU)? It focuses on five women leaders in the union, illuminating their experiences and evolving gender consciousness. This qualitative study addresses a gap in research on gender in teacher unions, to understand and reveal how women who have accessed previously male-dominated spaces experience gender equality. The women leaders’ experiences are a prism through which to understand the “depth” of the substantive experience of gender equality in the union. It examines how the union through its organisational bureaucracy, culture and politics shapes their experiences. Through a historical analysis of the gender and liberation struggle, I demonstrate the trajectory of achievements, challenges and visions for gender equity in South Africa within the trade union movement, noting the achievements and highlighting lost opportunities to advance gender struggles of its members. The study theorises different conceptions of feminisms and imagings of organisations to understand the women’s experiences in relation to the union and to broader society, within the culture, politics and bureaucracy of the organisation. I extended this lens by exploring differing conceptions of feminisms to understand the gendered experiences of the women leaders as they traverse life from childhood to adulthood. Conceived with the broader realm of feminist methodology, I use elements of life history research, notably in-depth interviews to produce narratives in the form of “harmonised poems” to illuminate the public and private experiences of the research participants, providing deep insights into their evolving gender consciousness. The analysis is multi-dimensional, traversing the influence of the family, school, and the historical and political contexts that shaped the women’s gender consciousness. The findings indicate that teachers’ contradictory class location, history of patriarchy and acceptance of sexual division of labour contribute to the women leaders’ experiences of gender inequality in the union. These experiences of inequality were magnified by apartheid’s1 structural and ideological roots, which shaped gender roles while simultaneously catalysing the development of gender consciousness and advancing political activism. In this regard, the family served as a crucial site of gender socialisation, while the school formally reproduced a hierarchical gendered society. At the organisational level, hierarchically bureaucratic structures maintained and reinforced particular patterns of control and power through the formal system of trade union governance in which gender oppression is institutionalised and legitimised under its banner of emancipatory politics. However, women in the organisation are by no means innocent victims of hostile patriarchal forces, but are active participants in their own oppression as they strategically comply with institutional norms. Significantly, the findings indicate that equality of opportunity for women leaders in the union does not translate into equality of outcome. This thesis contributes to the theoretical debates on evolving gendered consciousness by advancing an extended conceptual lens to interrogate women’s gendered experiences in predominantly patriarchal spaces. It identifies four domains of evolving consciousness. Starting with the divided self in the domain of home, girl children imbibe the dominant hierarchical social structures, and fixed gender roles are inscribed here. However, the family domain provides the catalyst for a developing consciousness among the women as children. The socialised self emerging in the domain of the school emphasises the gender socialisation, both overt and covert, that occurs in schools. It illuminates their evolving gender consciousness by resisting such subjugation initially as students and later as radical teachers. Progressing to the domain of the union, the women embody a strategic self in response to gender inequality in SADTU, which often takes an organisational form that contradicts its espoused policy and public pronouncements. Armed with the maturity to transcend their individualised gender consciousness, the women leaders emerge with a collective consciousness determined to break down the barriers to equality at the structural level. Finally, in the emerging collective self, the women simultaneously embody elements that constrain their individual emancipatory impulses while trajecting them to potentially higher levels of consciousness as change agents. Their willingness to embrace a shared consciousness and their call for activism indicate a shift towards heightened collective consciousness. As they move from their individual subjugated selves to their heightened collective, transformed consciousness, they express a compelling desire for collective agency to challenge structural drivers of inequality and enact change at the systemic level. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D.(Education Policy))-University of Pretoria, 2007. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This thesis postulates that the inability of the post-apartheid government to deal decisively with the “legacies of apartheid education” is linked to the macro-educational policy trajectory endorsed by the African National Congress government in the early 1990s. It notes that post-apartheid education policymaking shows similarities with the National Party reforms initiated towards the end of the 1980s in education. In the late 1980s the apartheid government implemented a broad educational framework consonant with the rise of neo-liberal restructuring emerging internationally. It is argued that the teacher unions, and the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) in particular, were active role-players in shaping the new educational trajectory and discourse and that it was particularly because of the acquiescence of the unions that the government was able to embark on the road of neo-liberal restructuring with very little organised opposition. SADTU’s weak opposition to the rising influence of neo-liberal educational restructuring greatly facilitated the creation of a two-tier education system that South Africa is grappling with today, one for the rich and one for the poor. / Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to understand what the role of SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union) is in the implementation of the Teacher Redeployment Policy in schools. The Approach to data collection was that of qualitative research. The methods used to collect data were interviews and literature review. The study used the interpretive paradigm. The theory applied is the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) theory. IPA aims to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world. The approach to data analysis was that of a qualitative research. Qualitative data were organised and arranged categorically into themes and patterns emanating from the responses of participants. The data were analysed using descriptive explanations, based on the frequencies and similarities of the responses. The approach was primarily exploratory, just as would be expected of a qualitative research design. A combination of purposive, quota and snowball sampling was used in this research. The main finding in this research is that the role of SADTU in the implementation of teacher redeployment is not limited to observation as the policy prescribes. SADTU members go beyond that role and assume the role of active participation and decision making in the process. The main recommendation was that the policy should be amended to allow SADTU to participate actively in discussions and decision making. This will avert the unnecessary conflicts and instability in schools caused by the suppression of the union to participate actively. When the Teacher Redeployment Policy was conceived, the purpose was to achieve equity in teacher distribution by moving teachers from the historically advantaged White schools to the historically disadvantaged Black schools. The implementation of Teacher Redeployment Policy is causing more harm than good in so far as effective teaching and learning in schools is concerned. For most of the time, teachers are pre-occupied with worrying about how the process of teacher redeployment is going to affect them instead of focussing on delivering quality teaching in schools. Teachers who are most fitting to be the ones identified in excess in some cases enjoy the benefit of escaping redeployment for the simple reason that they are members of SADTU. At the same time, candidates who do not qualify to be placed in specific posts are placed into those posts at the expense of the best suitable candidates because of the biases. The role of the union is not to implement policy, but also to make sure that the policy is implemented in the spirit and letter in which it was formulated. The status of the teacher union in the implementation of policy is that of an observer who only surfaces when an observation is made whether there is unfairness and biases in the manner the Teacher Redeployment Policy is implemented. / Educational Management and Leadership / M. Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management)

Formal state-controlled education has been a central element for social development in South Africa since the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The establishment and promotion of a culture of learning and teaching is regarded as a pre-condition for high educational standards. This thesis is a study of the role of the state in the establishment of a culture of learning and teaching in South Africa from 1910 to 2004. To understand the role that the state played in promoting, or inhibiting, a culture of learning and teaching, a historical review was taken of the state's role in formal schooling in the period of the Union (1910-1947), the era of apartheid (1948-1989), the transitional period (1990-1994) and in the era of the democratic South Africa. As an ideal, the state has a responsibility to ensure the establishment of a culture of learning and teaching. The historical review revealed, however, that the state used its policies to promote political rather than educational ideologies - and in the process, there was a complete breakdown in a culture of learning and teaching. The establishment and promotion of a culture of learning and teaching towards the maintenance of high academic standards in South African state schools was the motivating force behind this study. Therefore, this study concludes with guidelines and recommendations grounded in the historical review that will hopefully promote a culture of learning and teaching in South African schools in future. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (History of Education)

Formal state-controlled education has been a central element for social development in South Africa since the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The establishment and promotion of a culture of learning and teaching is regarded as a pre-condition for high educational standards. This thesis is a study of the role of the state in the establishment of a culture of learning and teaching in South Africa from 1910 to 2004. To understand the role that the state played in promoting, or inhibiting, a culture of learning and teaching, a historical review was taken of the state's role in formal schooling in the period of the Union (1910-1947), the era of apartheid (1948-1989), the transitional period (1990-1994) and in the era of the democratic South Africa. As an ideal, the state has a responsibility to ensure the establishment of a culture of learning and teaching. The historical review revealed, however, that the state used its policies to promote political rather than educational ideologies - and in the process, there was a complete breakdown in a culture of learning and teaching. The establishment and promotion of a culture of learning and teaching towards the maintenance of high academic standards in South African state schools was the motivating force behind this study. Therefore, this study concludes with guidelines and recommendations grounded in the historical review that will hopefully promote a culture of learning and teaching in South African schools in future. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (History of Education)