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Synopsis OBE scuppered by 'pure thought' and political agendas Many commentators contend that failed policy implementation results from technical difficulties, or a lack of resources. Instead, Caroline Kihato argues that the failure to implement Outcomes Based Education (OBE) derives from the ideological and conceptual positions of those who formulated the policy, and the political agendas of those who promote it What is policy about - sound ideas, or ideologies that cannot be questioned? Are policies meant to draw attention to the intellectual superiority of those who formulated them? While these questions may sound facetious, they have been raised by research into Outcomes Based Education (OBE). The disjuncture between policy and implementation is often blamed on the weakness of the latter. More often than not, when policy intentions are not realised, an investigation into why this has happened questions the process of implementation. The reasons for the gap between policy and practice are often placed within the realm of logistics: the lack of capacity, financial resources, expertise or a host of other barriers that are likely to impede the successful execution of policy. But have we been barking up the wrong tree? Could the gap between policy and practice result from a fundamental flaw in the policy itself? Current CPS research on the evolution of OBE suggests a policy whose implementation was never seriously considered, and whose primary intention was not necessarily its successful implementation. OBE originated with COSATU and the notion of a National Qualification Framework (NQF), accompanied by an outcomes-based curriculum. The NQF was an attempt to ensure that workers' skills were recognised by the education system, and would result in increased pay. Labour vigorously promoted NQF because it integrated the system for evaluating qualifications, which historically had been divided between white-collar and skills-based training. In doing this it also sought to close the remuneration gap between those who have a formal, certified education and those who do not. The focus on learnt 'outcomes' emerged from a need to ensure that what was learnt in the classrooms was relevant outside it. There was a need for a core foundation of knowledge and understanding that would support portable, flexible skills adaptable across sectors to insulate workers from the capricious forces of globalisation. The NQF is premised on the assumption that formal qualifications are important, but should not overshadow the 'tangible' outcomes: the tasks an individual can perform. Perhaps the politics of establishing a new curriculum became clear when the process of revamping 'Bantu education' was, in the words of one interviewee, 'taken over by technocrats who had little knowledge of the classroom'. There was little debate on whether an outcomes-based curriculum would best suit SA. People who had played a key role in calling for the transformation of the education system during apartheid through institutions such as the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) and the SA Council for Higher Education (SACHED) found themselves marginalised from curriculum formulation in the 1990s: as a former MEC for education claimed: 'OBE was a 'fait accompli'; there was no room to debate'. On the other side of the coin was a group of new officials in the education department who faced political pressure to deliver a 'liberation' curriculum that would reflect the politics of a new democratic SA. To all intents and purposes, OBE fitted the bill. It is radically different from old teaching methods, which gives it some legitimacy. It promulgates internationally acclaimed learner-centred pedagogy and critical thinking as opposed to rote learning, encourages the professionalism of teaching, and provides a strong base that allows learners (and workers) to branch out successfully into different sectors. But while there is no doubt that a new curriculum was required, substantive deliberation on the content and implementation of the new curriculum was secondary to political agendas. Why was OBE adopted so quickly? The introduction of a curriculum, particularly one that innovates significantly, requires great deliberation, and time to test its efficacy. Yet there were no pilot cases: one of the respondents, an education specialist, stated that an official had made it clear that 'the whole country was a pilot'. Besides the political pressure to deliver a new education system, there was a need for new officials to entrench themselves in the bureaucracy, and, according to educationist Neil McGurk, 'they had to be seen to be doing something'. Further, according to the respondents, any criticism levelled against OBE is considered to be a betrayal of the 'struggle'. They add that critics are 'punished' by not being awarded government tenders. One interviewee states: 'It is about politics and power, and who controls the resources; the outcomes in education are secondary.' But among the political struggles and scramble for resources is a peculiar perception of the purpose of policy. How else can one interpret the remark by a senior official that 'what is all this talk about delivery? - you have got to stay with the purity of the idea'? The statement seems to imply that the primary purpose of policy is to generate grand ideas, which then become 'tainted' by implementation. This point is further strengthened when department officials resign themselves to being the 'generation that sets the policy', and look to 'future generations to tackle implementation'. This begs another question; was OBE ever meant to be successfully implemented? It seems there was little deliberation on the capacity of the system to manage such radical transformation, or, if there was, it was overshadowed by stronger political motivations to put something new on the table. OBE policy was seen as a good in itself. It was perceived as a political tool, which sent signals of a triumph over racist, dogmatic education policy. Meanwhile, its implications on the ground were eclipsed by its political purpose. While the idea of a radical new transformative curriculum is a noble one, it did not take long for a disjuncture between the lofty ideals of the policy and outcomes on the ground to emerge. Our research has shown that few educators and learners understand what OBE requires. Ironically, a former MEC also admitted that policy-makers themselves grappled with the definition of concepts in OBE, and reduced clarity sessions to tautological exercises. Moreover, the Chisholm committee established by the government to investigate the problems in implementing OBE confirmed the flaws in the policy language, whose complex undefined concepts were difficult to understand. OBE may be a work of genius, but SA needs more than superb ideas to transform its education system; it needs policies that can be translated into positive benefits on the ground. Caroline Kihato is a senior CPS researcher.
THE JUSTICE SECTOR From labyrinth to ladder Despite a plethora of new policies, the justice system is in crisis. Louise Stack identifies some of the problems relating to policy and its implementation in two areas - the functioning and management of the courts, and increased access to justice for women and children - and suggests how they may be addressed The crisis in SA's criminal justice system is well known. Less obvious are the reasons for the underperformance of the courts: the prosecution rate is lower now than in the mid-1980s, yet they remain backlogged. Our study of gaps between justice policy and its implementation in the lower courts, where 97% of cases are heard, focused on policies to improve court functioning and management, as well as access to justice for women and children. On court functioning and management, the study examined four policies: the introduction of the Integrated Justice System Programme (IJSP) involving the integration of related functions throughout the system, the freeing of judicial officers of their administrative tasks to enable them to spend more time in court, creation of the National Prosecuting Authority to address prosecution problems, and pre-trial services projects aimed at facilitating bail applications. In relation to increasing access to justice for women and children, it focused on the Domestic Violence Act, Maintenance Act, the constitutional provision for detention of children only as a 'last resort', and the creation and development of sexual offences courts. An analysis of the evidence revealed several factors hindering policy implementation: A failure to prioritise and fund justice adequately. The
sharp drop in numbers of justice administrative personnel, the loss of prosecutors,
the reliance on numerous voluntary workers, the periodic funding crises
experienced by many courts and consequent court backlogs and overcrowded
awaiting trial sections of prisons, are all indications of a lack of adequate
funding for the justice function. If the justice system is not functioning
smoothly, the whole criminal-justice system suffers which in turn impacts
on economic productivity and potential to attract investment. This has been
recognised: the medium term expenditure estimates for justice have been
revised upwards by the National Treasury from about 1,25% to about 1,45%
of the national budget from 2001/2. Louise Stack is a senior CPS researcher. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMMUNITY-BASED PUBLIC WORKS Lessons from the RDP's failure Tobias Schmitz and Claude Kabemba analyse the implementation of the RDP, and identify four key factors that created gaps between policy and its implementation Our study of the new government's flagship Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) has revealed several gaps between policy and implementation that hold important lessons for government endeavour. Here, the lessons are illustrated with examples drawn from a key RDP programme, the Community Based Public Works Programme (CBPWP). The CBPWP combined three major aspects of reconstruction and development: job creation, skills and job training, and the labour-intensive creation of infrastructure. This was done by making public investment in community assets subject to conditions that would result in skills training and in creation of employment. The apartheid legacy of unequal access to basic infrastructure such as roads, clinics, schools, and water could be addressed in a way that stimulated economic growth while uplifting the poor. The government kick-started the programme in 1994/5 by allocating R250m to it from the RDP fund; however, it did not yet have an overarching, publicly consulted, policy document. A white paper only emerged in 1997, three years after implementation began. The programme was implemented via the provinces. However, because of a lack of capacity, the provincial offices farmed out some of their activities to civil society organisations. The most prominent was the Independent Development Trust (IDT), which received R70m. Next, a problem emerged in the area of targeting. At the national level, this did not present a problem, and provincial allocations of CBPWP funds were inversely proportionate to their levels of poverty. But the provinces had no clear criteria for targeting poverty. This resulted in a tendency to concentrate projects geographically rather than targeting the poor everywhere. At the local level, the selection of beneficiaries was based on 'pot luck', although in most cases beneficiaries were drawn from the marginalised; efforts were made to include women, youths, and the infirm in the labour needs of each project. As noted earlier, the CBPWP was not guided by a policy document that included consultation with civil society. Rather, it used the IDT's Programme Management System (PMS) as a proxy for policy. At the provincial level, CSOS' views on implementation were overridden by government policy, making way for a supply- rather than demand-driven programme. The IDT, for instance, had avoided paying members of project steering committees for their services, arguing that they should be accountable to the community and not implementing agents. However, this was overridden in provincial policy. At the local level, many communities had competing and conflicting needs, and experienced difficulties in selecting the most appropriate project. A further complication arose in institutional design. At the national level, the programme was implemented by a temporary task team rather than a permanent unit. This was not conducive to continuing national co-ordination. At the provincial level, the project facilitators appointed to initiate community projects were not trained to intervene in projects in a technical sense, which undermined sustainability. The facilitators merely facilitated community deliberations over project selection and implementation. They depended on the approval of technical design by other departments (on health for clinics, for example), which was often delayed as these departments tended to prioritise their own projects before dealing with the requests of others. At the local level, delivery was hampered by difficulties in acquiring building materials, and a lack of local artisans' skills in producing quotes. Lastly, problems arose in staffing and capacity. Generally, the department did not inherit much capacity in development programme implementation. At the national level, only in 1996 were the first appointments for CBPWP made: that of a director and secretary. At the provincial level, technical support staff were neither sufficient in number nor adequately skilled to offer effective technical support to all projects. Locally, it was found that expenditure on skills training was too small to ensure employment or project sustainability. Although the CBPWP has generated jobs, these have been mostly temporary, and skills transfer through on-the-job training has been weakened by the limited duration of training exercises. Trainees generally did not get a firm grasp of the subject matter, and, as a result, project sustainability has often been compromised by shoddy work. This analysis suggests that gaps between RDP policy and its implementation were caused by the style of management of RDP finances; a lack of people-driven development; improper co-ordination between institutions, and insufficient staffing and capacity in all spheres of government. If policy is to be implemented effectively, attention must be paid to these four areas. Financial planning needs to take account of the difficulties involved in targeting specific social groups at various levels of government. Secondly, the participation of civil society is important, as it can help to formulate policies that will enhance project sustainability. Thirdly, a clear vision of the co-ordination among institutions tasked with delivery is needed. And lastly, institutions cannot function without enough skilled staff. Tobias Schmitz is a senior CPS researcher, and Claude Kabemba a CPS researcher. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAND GRABS IN SA AND ZIMBABWE A settler on the landing? Why are South African land grabs, such as that at Bredell, not comparable to those in Zimbabwe, and why are they occurring here? Tobias Schmitz and Dumisani Hlophe analyse the reasons, the flaws in SA housing policy, and propose alternatives The high-profile occupation of land at Bredell, Kempton Park, in July has brought land to the forefront of public debate. But why, if peri-urban land invasions occur almost daily in SA, did this one capture the attention of local and international media to the extent that it did? Perhaps the most prominent aspect of the occupation was that it was sanctioned and orchestrated by individuals wearing t-shirts bearing the name of an opposition political party. This seemed to signal the start of a civil disobedience campaign aimed at drawing attention to the slow delivery of land to those dispossessed by apartheid. But the PAC rapidly distanced itself from events at Bredell, and indicated that it would not be orchestrating such a campaign. Moreover, the government acted swiftly and forcefully to uphold property rights, and told occupiers to go back where they had come from. This underlines the fact that SA is a fundamentally different case from that of Zimbabwe, and its land politics operate according to fundamentally different rules. First, whereas most land invasions in Zimbabwe are rural, in SA they tend to be urban and peri-urban. This is partly because it is easier to organise urban invaders than to mobilise a dispersed rural population. Rural-urban migration is also driven by the need for jobs. With 50% of GDP produced in the smallest province, Gauteng, huge pressure is being exerted on a small amount of land in urban and peri-urban areas. Secondly, SA's aspirations to first-world status have informed an approach to housing and urban planning that does not take account of the lack of state resources, or the depth of rural poverty. The elites in government and the ANC that drive land reform and town planning operate at a conceptual remove from the day-to-day concerns of the poor, and as a result the policies and strategies they design tend to be inappropriate and misinformed. Housing policy, for instance, is inseparably linked to home ownership despite the fact that many rural-urban migrants lack the secure jobs needed to acquire home loans. In fact, many migrants and other poor people prefer rental and informal settlement precisely because they do not bear the risks of long-term loans. For these and other reasons, many other African countries have adopted a sites-and-services approach to urban planning, providing land and access to roads, water and electricity but not pretending to have the resources to provide housing. The advantages are that rural-urban migrants can build on their allocated sites as and when they can afford it, neighbourhoods become architecturally more diverse, and urban planning is able to provide basic infrastructure ahead of settlement, thus avoiding most of the problems normally associated with informal settlement. SA, by contrast, has only begun to delink land from housing, and it is precisely the construction of houses that causes much of the delay and civic frustration around land and housing issues. By dropping the standards of urban planning to a low-cost sites-and-services approach, and endorsing the establishment of informal settlements, SA would move closer to models adopted by neighbouring countries, and parallels drawn with other states on land issues would become more legitimate. Thirdly, SA policy upholds property rights, while Zimbabwe's does not. In fact, the existing legacy of highly inequitable land distribution is the government's point of departure. The willing seller, willing buyer model of land redistribution which SA seems to have adopted from World Bank policies predicates reform on the ability of the state to buy land for the poor. Although both policy and legislation allow expropriation, the willing seller, willing buyer model has thus far taken precedence over expropriation in practice.3 A cheaper, parallel, option is to transfer state land to the landless. In both cases, the existing distribution of productive land alienated during and before apartheid remains the point of reference. Rather than launching a programme of intervention that would alienate the landholding elite but lead to the meaningful redistribution of a key resource, the nature of SA's transition has meant that, in practice if not in law, the legacy of expropriation of African land since the 1913 Land Act has consciously been left intact to contribute to the peaceful nature of the transition. The slow pace of land reform, in other words, is a function of land policy itself. Furthermore, the willing buyer, willing seller model is strangely inappropriate to SA, which has parallel legal systems of tenure that in part serve to legitimise land invasions. On the one hand, SA law upholds private land ownership, and on the other, much land is communally held. The willing seller, willing buyer concept make no sense in either rural and peri-urban communal areas where occupation is subject to the will of the chief. In these areas it is the insecurity of tenure under traditional systems that is a key obstacle for the rural poor - for instance, no credit can be obtained form the Land Bank for land held under traditional tenure. Despite this, the department of land affairs has shied away from any position that would erode the power of chiefs over access to land. Rather, it has tended to focus on both the legalities of land tenure, and has predicated land reform on the achievement of consensus on the terms of transfer at community level. Both these approaches tend to obscure the fact that land reform will in most cases not be without opponents - at the national level, rapid land redistribution conflicts with the vested interests of white commercial farmers and traditional leaders, and at the local level, there may be similar conflicts between landholders and aspirant settlers. Effective land reform policy needs to be principled and firm, and it needs to be implemented with the recognition that it will face opposition. To appropriately address the politics of land, the government needs to tackle at least three issues. First, it must be recognised that the land issue is not just a question of property rights, but was a key issue around which the liberation movement mobilised its support. This requires the government to address the basic conflict between landholders and the historically dispossessed, most of whom are black, and to take a clear position in respect of it. Second, it must consider a sites-and-services approach in urban planning, and the idea of zoning off land for informal settlement. In this way, the war against informal settlement, which town planners have lost all over the world, can give way to a win-win situation in which both the government and settlers achieve some of their goals. And third, the willing seller, willing buyer model should begin to make way for a system in which the state expropriates with compensation in cases where negotiations on the terms of transfer take too long. This would constitute a compromise on the issue of property rights. On the one hand, property rights would be upheld, but on the other, action would be taken in all cases in which local conflict stands in the way of the government's goal of distributing land more equally. Tobias Schmitz and Dumisane Hlophe are senior CPS policy analysts. Endnotes
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