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Book part
Publication date: 21 April 2022

Emmanuel Innocents Edoun and Genevieve Fotso Bakam

As South Africa (SA) increasingly becomes overwhelmed by natural disasters, understanding disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies, institutions, processes and practices and their…

Abstract

As South Africa (SA) increasingly becomes overwhelmed by natural disasters, understanding disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies, institutions, processes and practices and their effects on disaster risk management (DRM) are incumbent The study reviews and empirically analyses policies, institutional frameworks and processes for disaster management in SA. Content analysis is applied to review topical secondary data, while a structured questionnaire informed by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is used to collect quantitative data from a random sample of 228 disaster policy actors from five disaster-stricken metropolitan cities in five provinces in SA, namely North-West, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Empirical data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Research findings reveal that SA is endowed with rich institutional policy and legal frameworks for DRM, based on the concepts of decentralisation and stakeholder participation. A positive and strong correlation between institutional framework, disaster risk identification and prioritisation, knowledge creation and management (KCM) as well as the disaster governance and DRM in SA (p = 0.000). Although the coefficient of KCM is not statistically significant, DRM behaviour was influenced at 87.2% by all four variables. Based on the recent disaster experiences and the above results, we advocate for DRR to be continuously prioritised at national and decentralised levels, to enhance effective preparedness, mitigation, disaster response and resilience building practices in SA.

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Disaster Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies, Institutions and Processes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-817-3

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Book part
Publication date: 16 August 2023

Kugara Stewart Lee, Mdhluli Tsetselelani Decide, Sekgothe Mokgoatšana and Amaechi Kingsley Ekene

Indigenous health care models have continued to play significant roles in the development and sustenance of livelihoods in African communities. Such models are used not only to…

Abstract

Indigenous health care models have continued to play significant roles in the development and sustenance of livelihoods in African communities. Such models are used not only to provide affordable community health care services but also as an employment resource for traditional practitioners within African communities. Yet, for lack of documentation and lack of discussion in the management and Indigenous Knowledge System literature, the models are hardly incorporated into the official health care services of African countries. This chapter addresses this problem by documenting the benefits and merits of the entrepreneurial principles embedded in the Tsonga traditional health care practice. First, it highlights how the unique indigenous traditional model is used for administering health care in a selected Tsonga-speaking community in South Africa. Second, it analyses the entrepreneurial principles embedded in the model. Finally, it discusses how such principles have been used as tools for entrepreneurship and enhancing the economic upkeep of the traditional health care practitioners (THPs). The chapter's main argument is that even though the Tsonga traditional health care practice model is complex, mystical, and in most cases challenging to explain to a non-native, it presents a great entrepreneurial opportunity for South Africa.

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Book part
Publication date: 21 April 2022

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Disaster Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies, Institutions and Processes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-817-3

Book part
Publication date: 10 August 2023

Maropeng Modiba and Sandra Stewart

Schooling in South Africa represents a history of gains and losses for sections of the society. The colonial, missionary, and apartheid political systems made schooling a weak…

Abstract

Schooling in South Africa represents a history of gains and losses for sections of the society. The colonial, missionary, and apartheid political systems made schooling a weak instrument for mobility for the majority within society. Post-apartheid, although school reform has provided greater access to formal education, it continues to crystallize socioeconomic inequalities. A relatively small number of the previously disadvantaged receive education that facilitates economic and social mobility. The authors examine the new funding system and equity rhetoric that is employed to justify education access to different types of schools and argue that coupling the rhetoric of social transformation with the funding system for schools and thus class, continues the unequal historical education provision. School reform fails to compensate for the adverse effects of apartheid education and is largely reproductive rather than socially transformative. The conclusion is that unless South Africa overcomes the appeasing semantic trap in its policies, historical trends that make the constitutional ideal of equal rights unrealizable are likely to be entrenched.

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Teaching and Teacher Education in International Contexts
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-471-5

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Book part
Publication date: 3 July 2018

Mobarak Hossain

School inspection or supervision is one of the core institutional mechanisms for ensuring the quality of education. While analyzing the practices of this quality assurance tool at…

Abstract

School inspection or supervision is one of the core institutional mechanisms for ensuring the quality of education. While analyzing the practices of this quality assurance tool at the basic education level in six developing and emerging economies, this paper found that there has been a major shift in exercising supervision system pushed by the policy dynamics of both international actors and state institutions. The school supervision system has been shaped by decentralization, school-based management, monitoring, data gathering, and output-focused governance. These are also known as the elements of New Public Management (NPM). The growing practice of NPM in all these countries has made the external supervision a less prioritized issue, which is evident in its stagnated and sometimes deteriorated state. On the other hand, the pro-NPM management system advocating for greater autonomy, decentralization and results has not evidently yielded any major positive outcomes, especially in lower-income countries. Thus, the absence of an effective supervision system, both support and control, has created a vacuum in the educational quality assurance instruments. By oversimplifying local contexts in situating NPM, this foreign-emerged management system also has shown reluctance toward fundamental crises of weak institutions in lower-income countries, including resource constraints, skills shortage, and service recipients’ lack of trust, among others. In short, developmental level and institutional capacity matter for the successful implementation of NPM.

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Cross-nationally Comparative, Evidence-based Educational Policymaking and Reform
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-767-8

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Book part
Publication date: 11 May 2007

Chijioke J. Evoh and Noxolo Mafu

Satisfactory provision of basic education is a way through which social inclusion and economic growth can take place in post-apartheid South Africa. Although the country embraces…

Abstract

Satisfactory provision of basic education is a way through which social inclusion and economic growth can take place in post-apartheid South Africa. Although the country embraces the principles and guidelines for EFA declaration, making basic education available to the present school-age children, and to adults who were denied the opportunity during the apartheid era, has remained unrealized. The gap in basic education has persisted despite notable improvements in the educational sector in South Africa. To address this challenge, this chapter seeks to reconceptualize and expand the meaning of “basic education” within the context of South African society. It argues that the meaning and the practice of basic education in South Africa is inseparable from the historic experiences and the socio-economic dynamics that shape the present society. Besides, to realize the goal of improved quality, the role of non-state institutions in basic education provision needs to be redefined.

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Education for All
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1441-6

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Addressing Xenophobia in South Africa: Drivers, Responses and Lessons from the Durban Untold Stories
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-480-9

Book part
Publication date: 2 December 2016

Johann Maree

This paper examines the exercise of Black employee voice in South Africa over the past 53 years. Black workers constitute almost 4 out of every 5 workers in the country and…

Abstract

This paper examines the exercise of Black employee voice in South Africa over the past 53 years. Black workers constitute almost 4 out of every 5 workers in the country and experienced racial oppression from the time of colonisation up to the end of apartheid in 1994. They are still congregated around the lower skilled occupations with low incomes and high unemployment levels.

The paper draws on the theory of voice, exit and loyalty of Albert Hirschman, but extends voice to include sabotage as this encapsulates the nature of employee voice from about 2007 onwards. It reflects a culture of insurgence that entered employment relations from about that time onwards, but was lurking below the surface well before then.

The exercise of employee voice has gone through five phases from 1963 to mid-2016 starting with a silent phase for the first ten years when it was hardly heard at all. However, as a Black trade union movement emerged after extensive strikes in Durban in 1973, employee voice grew stronger and stronger until it reached an insurgent phase.

The phases employee voice went through were heavily influenced by the socio-political situation in the country. The reason for the emergence of an insurgent phase was due to the failure of the ruling African National Congress government to deliver services and to alleviate the plight of the poor in South Africa, most of whom are Black. The failure was due to neo-patrimonialism and corruption practised by the ruling elite and politically connected. Protests by local communities escalated and became increasingly violent. This spilled over into the workplace. As a result many strikes turned violent and destructive, demonstrating voice exercised as sabotage and reflecting a culture of insurgence.

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Employee Voice in Emerging Economies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-240-8

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Abstract

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Teacher Preparation in South Africa
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-694-7

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