Realising the right to basic education in South Africa

"Realising the right to education examines the crucial roles of civil society and courts in developing the right to education in South Africa amid substantial and persistent inequalities in education provisioning. Unlike other socio-economic rights in the constitution, the right to basic education is framed as an unqualified right - it is not subject to qualifiers such as "progressive realisation" and within the state's available resources. Yet, two and half decades in South Africa 's constitutional democracy, the apartheid legacy of unequal education still lingers. Poor predominantly black learners continue to attend historically disadvantaged school that are often severely under-resourced, producing poor learner outcomes. This has given a rise to a wave of civil society activism since around 2008 - and organisations have been schools utilising legal mobilisation as key as key tool to effect change in historically disadvantaged schools. The litigations initiated by these organisations has contributed to a rich and evolving jurisprudence on the right to basic education as a substantive right. However, in a significant number of these cases, the relevant education department have not complied with the court order, requiring litigation to seek increasingly innovative, experimentalist and even coercive remedies to ensure that judgment is implemented."-- Back cover.