3.5.3 What Can South Africa Learn from the Red Dot on the Map? A Comparative Study

This analysis was premised on the view that there is something that South Africa can learn from the Singapore education system. Our particular focus was on gifted education given global consensus that gifted students become the critical human capital needed for driving modern day, conceptual economies. Yet South Africa's gifted students are neglected in the inclusive classrooms where no special provision is made to help them develop to their full potential. Three frames gave structure to our analysis. With reference to the political contexts of the two countries, our analysis shows that at attaining independence from colonial rule, both shared a history of commodity and colonial exploitation, where the conquerors were sharply divided from the conquered by race. Both implemented inclusive education as a remedy for these inequities. However, South Africa took inclusive education from an equity perspective at the exclusion of excellence. The end result has been that skills development has remained elusive. Singapore has demonstrated an unfailing commitment to equity and meritocracy. Singapore's leadership argued that ruthless pragmatism was the only way to survive. Leadership mobilized its multiple religious and ethnic groups around the Singapore pledge: "One united people regardless of race, language or religion." Under this pledge there was a shared view to intelligence as an important national and international human resource and as possible vehicle for the advancement of society. Gifted education was accepted as reasonable and not elitist. Thus, educational investment had to be directed toward providing a suitable educational environment to prepare talented youth for responsible leadership and service to country ad society. Lastly with reference to current recommendations about gifted education in South Africa, our view is that it is a noble vision, but our fear is that it might never translate into practice. In South Africa there is an enormous gap between policies and their implementation at school level. Yet, in Singapore, whenever a policy is developed or changed, there is enormous attention to the details of implementation - from the ministry of Education, to the National Institute of Education, cluster superintendents, principals and teachers. The result is a remarkable fidelity of implementation and relatively little variation across schools. While different mechanisms would be needed in larger, more multi-layered or decentralized systems, finding ways to bring greater alignment and to make all parts work together is essential for producing results in the classroom. All these are lessons for South Africa to learn.

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