South Africa: Education in South African rural communities

The Education Portfolio Committee was on May 31 briefed on 'Emerging Voices: Report on Education in South African Rural Communities' which was a study on rural education in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. The Nelson Mandela Foundation, the University of Fort Hare, the Human Sciences Research Council and the Education Policy Consortium had been involved in producing the survey and report. The presenters covered the philosophy underpinning the research methodology and did not provide any hard findings, although these do exist. The philosophical approach of the Report was based on looking at rural communities as having potential within themselves to challenge problems of poverty and not looking at them as "deficit models" (communities where resources are so lacking that the only solution is to provide them with resources from outside).