Browsing by Author "Roussouw, Paul"

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    An Investigation Of The Extent To Which Liberal Principles Shaped The South African Schools Act Of 1996
    (University of the Western Cape, 2002) Roussouw, Paul; Bak, Nelleke
    By November 1996 the vision of an equitable South African education system moved closer to becoming a reality with the establishment of the South African Schools Act (SASA). The SASA can be seen as a definitive break from apartheid education. The perception that liberalism has generally not received a warm reception amongst South Africans might not be entirely convincing. However, we have in South Africa a Constitution and a Bill of Rights which display liberal features. I argue that liberal features of our government are also present in the SASA. It would appear that liberal principles are very generic values, but I do conclude with a typology of Gray (1986) onto which I build a framework of liberal principles for my purpose, viz. individualism, freedom, autonomy, egalitarianism, meliorism and universalism. On the basis of these principles, the purpose of a liberal education is to develop the learner into a person who is able to act freely, rationally, autonomously and who has concern for the intrinsically worthwhile rather than the solely utilitarian. The various characteristics of a liberal education, I argue, can be brought under two main principles: liberal education is antidiscriminatory by protecting learner's rights, and it develops autonomy of the individual through the development of a learner's rational, aesthetic and moral capacities. This frame of liberalism and liberal education is used in Chapter 5 to analyse the SASA. My mini thesis suggests that liberal principles are implicit in the SASA of 1996.