The rationalisation of teachers and the quest for social justice in education in an age of fiscal austerity

Equity and redress have been identified as the operational building blocks for the realisation of social justice in education. This chapter begins by arguing that educational reform in South Africa is situated within a policy frame that privileges cost reduction and fiscal austerity measures linked to a voluntarily imposed structural adjustment policy. It traces and analyses the dynamics of the teacher rationalisation process, meant ostensibly to equalise education between rich and poor schools through the redeployment of teachers from schools with low pupil-teacher ratios to schools with high pupil-teacher ratios. The chapter goes on to contend that apart from long-term pedagogical considerations, the rationalisation policy has failed even as a short-term cost-reduction exercise. The redeployment policy has also raised the issue of the powers and responsibilities of national and provincial levels of school governance. The inadequate co-ordination between the two levels, and between the design of policy and its application, makes the quest for equity difficult.