The influence of politics on the formulation and implementation of national policies on education in South Africa from 1953 to the present

Education is entangled in the matrix of political, economic and educational ideologies, attitudes and prejudices which make up the South African scene. Any education scientist seeking to describe and analyze the influence of politics on the formulation and implementation of national politics on education in South Africa has to acknowledge this matrix. If one looks at the education as the focal point of analysis, it has both a conserving drive and a creative drive. In its conserving role it inevitably reflects social, economic and political order: education systems are used as instruments of national policy and therefore have a strong tendency to maintain and protect the status quo. Consequently, when one is concerned with fundamental change and transformation in education, one must avoid the trap of searching for a purely educational answer to a problem that has social, economic and political as well as educational dimensions.