A rapid policy change in public policy: The case of access to higher education in South Africa.

Abstract

This chapter reports on a case study of an instance of rapid policy change in South Africa, namely the South African government’s policy process following a constitutional obligation to make further education progressively available and accessible through reasonable measures. The study on which this article reports focused on the rapid and radical change in government’s policies to meet this constitutional obligation. The multiple-streams approach applied in this study revealed three perspectives of this instance of rapid policy change, namely that of a problem, solution and politics. The study showed that the intersection of these three streams constitutes a critical juncture. By applying the critical junctures theory and the multiple-streams approach, this case study analysed the series of events of this case in order to obtain a deepened understanding of the critical pressures, key actors, and definitive consequences related to this juncture. It was determined that this instance of rapid and radical policy change indeed constituted a critical juncture of the problem, solution and politics streams of higher education funding in South Africa; a juncture that irreversibly changed the direction of this policy. The study confirmed that although complex public policy processes may be guided by strong, over-arching problems, goals and diverse rational policy actors, political power and dynamics ultimately determine the direction of policy renewal and policy implementation. This case study contributes to the literature related to the multiple-streams approach to, and the critical junctures theory of, public policy and public policy change by providing a rich description of the application of these theoretical approaches to making sense of an instance of policy change.