Free Essay Sample: Education in Non-Western Culture

Non-western education has been continuously evolving for the last few decades due to economic and social factors changes. Social factors such as civilization level, cultural norms, and general attitude towards education are the main aspects impacting a given society's education. Economic factors such as economic preferences and quality affordability impact education, especially when individuals are unable to get access to basic needs; they are more likely to prefer education as a secondary need (Vandeyar, 2018). Education can be affected by an array of factors. Government legislative impact on imposing education on society plays a central role in how the general public is likely to perceive education. The paper focuses on analyzing the education system in South Africa and how factors such as diverse cultural and social aspects have affected the overall education system in the area.

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Study Method

The study focuses on an in-depth assessment of various measures currently being practiced in South Africa society concerning education. The study will then analyze how the various measures in practice impact the social-cultural factors identified. Lastly, the study will make a brief comparison of Western education and South African education culture and identify the fundamental similarities in addressing societal factors.

Education in South Africa

For the last few decades, South African education has been defined by the desegregation aspect. Desegregation refers to aiming to ensure diversity in the current South African Society is well represented. South Africa homes a diverse cultural society; as a result, institutional and educational changes have been significantly characterized by the imposition of new legislative measures, curricula change, and increased school population. In late 1994, the desegregation policy was imposed in South Africa, which has led to the adoption of diverse methods of addressing different cultural backgrounds in society. An assimilation policy was implemented, which called for students getting used to attending classes that had already been established. South Africa is characterized by diverse cultural background (Castagno, 2019). More than eleven ethnicity groups are practicing over eleven national languages. Every individual community claims rights to representation in the education system. Therefore, in developing an education system, the diversity issue has to be adequately represented.

South Africa also uses the Contribution approach where learners from diverse cultural differences as well as minority group representation in a dominant group allow accommodation of minority group culture into the system. The use of a Multicultural teaching approach enhances the learning process by incorporating diverse cultural backgrounds in a given society hence promoting equality. The contribution system is, however, highly questioned for being unable to create structural reforms which are essential in addressing racial differences present in society (Lemmer & Meier, 2017).

To address the growing concern about the earlier adopted education systems in society, South Africa has recently developed a decentralization policy aiming at offering an equal, compulsory, and free education system. The implementation of a decentralization policy was built on establishing leadership and authority devolved in schools, which resulted in regulating race-defined society by offering the equal opportunity. Formulation of the South African School Act in 1996 aimed at giving parents the sole role in school management through government agencies' policies. The policy also grants schools absolute power on defining their respective society and parents have control over defining their respective language orientation.

Among the factors that have contributed towards excluding multilingualism in South Africa, is its socio-political history. In the past, South Africa had only two official languages; they were English and Afrikaans. The other local languages were neglected to be incorporated into the school curriculum. However, the language rights of 1994 have led to the emergence of complications and challenges. It is because of the linguistically diverse learner population currently in the country.

Due to the language rights of 1994, further implications concerning teacher training and the publication of teaching materials have suffered a significant blow. It is because students have different competency levels when looking at the languages they are capable of speaking. It becomes hard to support language development while the students are learning. Apart from that, black African languages are viewed as unsuitable forms of communication to all students who are schooling. Claims concerning the challenge are that the African languages lack the necessary scientific vocabularies that would enable students to have a common understanding of the concepts being taught.

Comparing the education in the U.S. and that of South Africa, they both have had an increased number of culturally diverse students in their schools. In the U.S., such changes in the education systems have been received mixed reactions from the press, government, and schools. Some view it as an opportunity and an open chance to grow culturally. Others, including teachers, find it to be the opposite (Vandeyar, 2018). Teachers perceive it as a challenge to deal with the new system. It is a challenge that has been debated over and over through personal culture engagement. It has been confronted with the view that it would interfere with social dominance and the justice of transforming institutional practices. It is perceived to change and transform institutional practices together with community engagement.

The U.S. Oregon education differs from South Africa's by taking into account that the school management and curriculum of the schools in the U.S.A are determined by the independent states. Each school within a given state has different management. The schools have a local board dedicated to managing the schools. The board is granted all the mandates by the individual states to run administrative responsibilities of the school.

Dealing with the diversity of cultures in U.S. schools has been a challenge; however, there has been an introduction of multicultural education systems in the schools. The introduction of multicultural education in schools is done to address the considerable levels of diversity among the students. The students can learn and are taught to respect each other. Multicultural education opens the chances for cultural pluralism among students (Vandeyar, 2018). They learn to appreciate positive racial attributes as they share a single classroom while studying.

Before implementing multicultural programs, teachers are introduced to how to best cope with it. They are taught various cultural diversities among the students they teach. The U.S. has ensured that the language diversity problem experienced in South African schools has been solved. It has been accomplished by emphasizing that a common official language is used for formal communication. The students are allowed to nurture their language and be able to accommodate other students' cultural attributes.

Conclusion

Currently, South Africa has the best understanding of cultural diversity as it has eleven formal languages. Cultural diversity has been embedded in their society for ages, and it led them to embrace it. To effectively embrace this diversity in their education system, they should make a responsible plan for the systems. Therefore, Stakeholders, together with school management boards, should recognize the validity of learners' cultural differences to handle diversity in their education systems.

References

Castagno, A. E. (2019). Making sense of multicultural education: A synthesis of the various typologies found in the literature. Multicultural perspectives, 11(1), 43-48. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15210960902717502?casa_token=cWjrj5IRUFsAAAAA:tktNUlZEnbMIiwDcPYM5Ju9st1G-8tb1uasAFBeUM9zxoifSeu4yL05U6YJKyPknh-LJdAswfeBMLzdHVA

Lemmer, E. M., & Meier, C. (2017). Initial teacher education for managing diversity in South African schools: A case study. Journal of Educational Studies, 10(1), 101-119. https://journals.co.za/content/jeds/10/1/EJC160127

Vandeyar, S. (2018). Shifting selves: The emergence of new identities in South African schools. International Journal of Educational Development, 28(3), 286-299. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059307000296