3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Corporate social responsibility in literacy: empowering change in South Africa(2009-02-17T10:32:03Z) Nzekwu, DeliaAbstract A critical equity and change enabler, literacy/education continues to prove very challenging to transform in South Africa. Having been a major apartheid resource through Bantu Education in entrenching South Africa‟s existing two worlds, business intervention in this crucial sector is the overriding interest of this research. How corporate social responsibility in education, assisted by public policy, reinforces inequality in the South African society, even as it attempts to alleviate poverty, is the thrust of the argument here around which many questions evolve. Some of the questions to which this thesis attempts to offer answers, therefore, are: What informs how business invests in education? How is public policy not an enabler of business investment in education? The objective is to determine the extent to which business investment in literacy/education can empower meaningful change in a market-driven South African society. The argument reiterated in this thesis is that Corporate Social Investment (CSI) in education has the potential to be a strong change driver. Unfortunately, its current positioning in the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BB-BEE) strategy is weak and its effect on change equally weak. The extent to which CSI in literacy can facilitate transformation in South Africa is highly dependent on the elimination of the many challenges beyond the scope of business endeavour. The challenges include the low weighting of CSI in the BEE agenda which is a hindrance to mind-set change about the relevance of education to South Africa‟s transformation. Employing the qualitative method, using elite interviewing, and relying on written records, this thesis starts off by finding the South African definition of the word Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) vis-à-vis global definitions. While Corporate Social Investment (CSI), it was discovered, is the preferred word in the private sector, findings here reveal that irrespective of what it is called in South Africa, CSR or CSI, both terms are fundamentally the same because, more in South Africa than anywhere else, the moral values that drive CSR or CSI are the same. That is, social justice, equity, and transformation. In order to determine its potency in the change process, a cursory assessment of CSI in the various sectors of education reinforces the place of the definition in that process. As an „investment‟, CSI is driven by market forces. Inherent in these forces are the inequalities that motivate capitalism and CSI is not insulated from those forces. Findings here emphasise that CSI, as yet another capitalist means of intervention in education, is thus severely challenged to be more than a tip of the ice-berg in the nation‟s change process. Very importantly, this thesis shows how paradoxically, public policy through the DTI Codes of Conduct for BB-BEE further disempowers CSI in education. As a “residual element” with an insignificant weighting on the BEE Scorecard, this research argues that legislation diminishes the importance of education as an empowerment driver. The inadequate creation of jobs further makes the benefit of education to transformation even less stimulating. It concludes that although CSR or CSI has enormous potential to drive change, the BEE legislation, the conceptualisation of CSR, and other micro issues evolving around poverty conspire to limit the extent to which CSI can empower change.Item Education transformation in South Africa: the impact of finance equity reforms in public schooling after 1998(2008-08-25T09:07:14Z) Motala, ShireenABSTRACT Using the lens of school finance reform, this thesis analyses the progress towards equity in public schooling in post-apartheid South Africa. It distinguishes between equality and equity and argues that that redress, positive discrimination or differential distribution must become part of a meaningful definition of equal education. This thesis utilises recent quantitative data and empirical methodology to explicate the patterns and typology of inequality in public schooling in one province in post-apartheid South Africa, and to deepen our understanding of the construct and application of equity within that milieu. It does this by establishing a key equity indicator, per capita expenditure, for each of the approximately 1900 schools in Gauteng in 1999 and 2002, and by carrying out various school-level analyses on this data. This approach quantifies inequity and progress towards equality, and establishes a broader set of variables and correlates with which to comprehend school finance equity. This is particularly significant because data of actual school-level expenditure as an outcome of merging various databases did not previously exist for Gauteng province, nor did an understanding of the role of private income in differentiating public schooling, particularly on the basis of fees. For the first time, the actual expenditure for each school in Gauteng is established, allowing an assessment of the variability of financing in public schooling. The disaggregated analysis illustrates that the race-based hierarchy of school finance expenditure has been replaced by a new typology of schools based on new categories of privilege and disadvantage. After eight years of post-apartheid education, an important achievement in the public schooling sector is convergence or equalisation in state expenditure. Differential distribution, a notion of equity which includes what is socially just, has been slow to develop. Moreover, while old racial patterns of distribution have shifted, private inputs into public schooling change the picture of “sameness” to one of substantial differentiation. An emerging feature is the evidence of intra-race differentiation, illustrated by the growing spread of expenditure within former African schools. There is also empirical evidence that the emerging education system in postapartheid South Africa has continued to favour the deracialising middle class, despite policy intentions which promote redress for the poor. Unequal education still continues, bur for a different set of reasons. At an empirical level, the research shows that while there has been significant progress towards same spending on average, specific type of schools have benefited more or less. There are policy and management explanations for this. Equity as differential distribution is yet to be achieved. At a methodological level, the study shows both the feasibility and utility of using disaggregated approaches and the ingredient method for fiscal research. At a conceptual level, the study shows the need to go beyond existing categories when exploring equal education, to look at the newly privileged and the newly disadvantaged. This contributes to our understanding of a more complex typology of public schooling in South Africa.Item Land reform, equity and growth in South Africa: A comparative analysis(2006-03-23) Weideman, MarindaIn this thesis, the following methods were used to assess the South African Land Reform Programme; historically important documents, policy papers, library research, qualitative interviews and a comparative analysis, which included a wide range of African, Asian and Latin American countries. The aim of the thesis was twofold. First, to assess whether an essentially market-based land reform programme might bring about equity and growth. Second, to draw lessons and make recommendations based on an analysis of land reform programmes in other countries, as well as on South African case studies. Emerging issues related to farm size, food security, poverty alleviation, appropriate credit policies, the limitations of market-based reform, the problems relating to bureaucratic reform programmes, the importance of beneficiary participation, the necessity to develop a gender sensitive programme and, finally, the undeniable relationship between violence and land reform. This thesis highlights the link between the omission of gender in policy development and subsequent policy failures. It highlights the relationship between land reform and violence and, it points to the varied nature of rural livelihoods. There is also a focus on how South African land reform policies developed and an analysis of the influence that the various actors, who participated in this process, had on subsequent