Education, Employment and Development in Southern Africa: The Role of Social Policy in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe

This chapter follows a funnel-like approach to the vexed questions of social policy, education, employment and development in Southern Africa. Starting with broad conceptual questions, the chapter ends with country case studies on the experience of implementing various policies on education in relation to the labour market. The chapter is divided into three sections. It starts with a conceptual discussion of the role of social policy in the development process by assessing the impact of public expenditure on the creation of livelihoods, on the possibilities for enhancing long-term legitimacy and, most importantly, on the process of economic growth itself. It highlights the emergence of a new broadside in development thinking that seeks to shake social policy loose from its social work and remedial moorings and to anchor it instead to a central role in the development process. Seen from this perspective, social policy is not merely a compensatory measure designed to deal with the failures of the market by distributing welfare, but, rather, a defining feature of the development itself because of its impact on the extent of social differentiation and inequality.