South Africa’s Outlaw Educators
Keywords:
child law, curriculum, home education, parental care, unschoolingAbstract
Since the 1994 change in the constitutional dispensation in South Africa, the quality of education has remained at a very low level. In consequence, there is an increasing tendency of “middle class flight†from the state schools system. The home and private school sectors have expanded rapidly. Attempts to resolve this have led to the implementation of a rigid regime of overregulation of both state and private schools, without commensurate increase in results. Consequently, desperate children and parents are increasingly moving beyond the purported limits of the law to find education that meets the needs and preferences of children and their parents. There is now a substantial and rising number of unregistered home learners and private schools. The article considers the protection that these outlaw educators may find in human rights law. The argument hinges on what the definition of education is, and who defines it.
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