Abstract:
At the best of times, education policy implementation is a difficult and
uncertain process. Taking this as a point of departure, the researcher
advanced the hypothesis that education policy implementation in a society
in transition:
is accompanied by a fragmentation of the pre-transition coherence in
interpersonal relations among policy actors;
is affected by a heightening of value conflicts and the emergence of
competing interpretive schemes;
is influenced by the perceived self-interest of policy actors;
is affected by changing power relationships and structural
adjustments; and
reflects a general weakening of interpersonal, cultural, and
structural linkages that had evolved in pre-transition years.
The Indian education system in South Africa was studied as an exemplar
of a system located in a society in transition.
The data collated by means of three research strategies - historical report, questionnaire, and structured interview - gave strong support to
the hypothesis. In addition, they pointed to the significance of
variables such as policy content and policy quality, political interference and pressure, bias and favouritism among senior officials,
religious, sectional, and language loyalties of participants, and loss
of job satisfaction and morale among policy actors.
These findings were discussed against the background of relevant
literature. This concluded in the development_gf a theoretical model to
explain education policy implementation in a society in transition.
Basically, the model suggests that socio-political struggles in the
larger society tend. to be replicated in the micro-contexts of the education system, producing fundamental alterations in the interpersonal,
cultural, and structural aspects of the system, a general weakening of
system linkages, and a progressive de-coupling of system components. All
these changes recursively impact on and are impacted on by policymaking
and policy implementation processes and outcomes. These impacts,
however, tend to occur in a non-standard, nonlinear manner. The
theoretical underpinnings of the model emerge from general systems
theory, modern social systems theory, chaos/ complexity theory, conflict
theory, structuration theory, organisation change theory, and loosely
coupled systems theory.
Finally, the study concludes with general propositions relating to
education policy implementation in a society in transition and a set of
research and management-oriented recommendations.
