Mediation as the Management Strategy for Policy Implementation

Prospects for Religion-in-Education Policy

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The Education Systems of Africa

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Abstract

Debates with regard to the implementation of religion-in-education policy have become a worldwide phenomenon. An increasing number of costly and protracted court and legislative battles between schools and parents over religion in schools are being reported. The aim of this chapter is to highlight some of the school management issues surrounding the implementation of religion-in-education policy in some selected South African schools. Based on mediation theory, individual interviews were used to gather data from 12 purposively selected school principals on how they implement the religion-in-education policy in their respective schools. The findings show that despite their legislated position in education, schools remain unconstitutional and ignore such policy. It was also found that when confronted by tensions and dilemmas, principals in this study avoid them by either ignoring them completely or partially subcontracting into the policy directives. The implications of the findings are discussed.

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Correspondence to Maitumeleng A. Nthontho .

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Nthontho, M.A. (2021). Mediation as the Management Strategy for Policy Implementation. In: Adeyemo, K.S. (eds) The Education Systems of Africa. Global Education Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44217-0_4

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