The KwaZulu-Natal school library policy and its feasibility for implementation in the Province.

Abstract

The research took into account accepted standards of good policy formulation to provide perspective and contextualise the study, and delineated educational challenges for the sector.

The following theoretical frameworks guided the study: a constructivist approach in interpreting and evaluating the role of school libraries within an education system based in constructivist principles, the traditional policy model to evaluate policy formulation and design, and a social constructionist view of policy in the interpreting of policy development and implementation. The epistemological basis for the main methodology, the Delphi technique, was social constructivism.

The research design comprised two phases. Qualitative data collected from the Delphi panel's expert opinion was interpreted to analyse the policy document critically and assess its implementation strategy. Quantitative data from an analysis of existing surveys and reports provided an overview of the current state of school library provisioning in KwaZulu-Natal. School library models already being implemented in the province were evaluated against this background.

The research results provide guidelines for reviewing and refining the provincial policy intervention and brought to the fore several issues that need to be resolved to facilitate school library development in South Africa.