The National Development Plan on Education and Labour

Without doubt the strongest policy direction that came out of the ANC National Conference (December 2012) was full endorsement of the National Development Plan. This is great news. Over the last 5 years, South Africa has been in policy drift. In Zuma’s attempts to appease all ideological faction within the ANC, he created opposing ministries, each with their own competing and completely contradictory policy documents. The NDP is the most sensible of the lot and now we know that ANC is serious about implementing it.

So, what does the NDP say? The NDP is a strategic vision for 2030. It encompasses a broad (and quite comprehensive) set of policy proposals and guidelines. On the whole it is a coherent and sensible set of policies. It wants to overhaul public services, so it becomes more technocratic and meritocratic. It proposes sensible measures to hold civil servants more accountable and make corruption more difficult. It wants a more flexible labour market and less regulatory burden to small firms. Our country will be in a far better place in 10 years if we can implement some parts of it. With Cyril Ramaphosa, who was deputy chair of the Planning Commission, elected as deputy president of the ANC, this seems more likely than before.

In education, it wants to introduce more “results orientated mutual accountability” in schools. This entails introduction of better performance indicators, communicating these indicators to the school community, and strengthening of institutions, such as school governing boards, so that parents are in a powered position to demand quality of education. It wants a more transparent process of appointing accountable principals and make it easier to replace under-performing principals.

These are all good proposals. Lots of evidence points that spending more money is not sufficient in improving education in South Africa. South Africa spends 8 times more per pupil than the rest of the Africa, yet poor South African students perform worse than equally poor students in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. Rather, it has a lot to do with school management and teaching activity: teachers from privileged schools spend nearly twice as much time teaching than teachers from disadvantaged schools. The principal and parents can play an instrumental role in ensuring motivated teachers.

In terms of labour policy, it cuts a fine line of a more flexible labour market combined with employer protection. First, it supports the use of labour brokers, but with increased government oversight. The use of labour brokers has become a pretty controversial topic in South Africa, since it allows employers to circumvent labour legislation by continually employing temporary workers. However, these brokers perform a valuable role in matching workers with firms, much needed in a fragmented labour market. The NDP recommends a continuation of these brokers, but combined with basic protection for workers who have been employed for more than 6 months. In another policy that would anger the unions, the NDP wants to make it easier to fire workers, by providing a “probationary period” of employment for 6 months and simplifying dismissal procedures. This is a good idea. One reason for the high youth unemployment in South Africa is that firms are reluctant to employ new workers if they know they cannot fire under-performing ones.

Actual implementation of all these ideas, of course, is a different story. Most certainly there is a role for civil society in implementing some of the education proposals. But the fact that the ANC officially and strongly endorsed this document, is a step in the right direction.