Equity of access to schools for classroom-based research in South Africa

Hlengani Baloyi
University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Promoting equal access to schools for researchers wishing to conduct educational research was one of the key tasks embedded in the educational transformation mandate of the new government of South Africa when it came to power in 1994. Drawing on data from five different research projects, this paper evaluates progress made by the democratic government of South Africa towards achieving that goal. Gaining access to schools to conduct classroom-based research was difficult and frustrating to researchers during the apartheid era. This paper finds that the government has succeeded in increasing access to schools and fair treatment of researchers who wish to conduct classroom-based research. This was achieved primarily through the government's non-discriminatory policies and the pressure exerted by the issue of South Africa's poor performance in international learner achievement studies. The paper also finds that South Africa is still struggling to find effective strategies to address this issue.
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Author: Dr Hlengani Baloyi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies, University of Johannesburg. With over a decade of research experience in both the education and legislative sectors, Hlengani has co-authoured several research reports and contributed to the writing of a few books. ORCID: https:/orcid.org/0000-0002-6160-8517 Email: hlenganis@yahoo.com Please cite as: Baloyi, H. (2021). Equity of access to schools for classroom-based research in South Africa. Issues in Educational Research, 31(2), 371-386. http://www.iier.org.au/iier31/baloyi.pdf