In an elaboration on this learned exposition, Constitutional Court Justice Kate O'Regan sketched for delegates at the Saamtrek conference her own conception of the Constitution as "a bright and shining vision of a different society based on equity, justice and freedom for all". But, rather than being a "description of our society as it exists", it was a document "that compels transformation". "The Constitution," she said, "recognises that for its vision to be attained, the deep patterns of inequality which scar our society and which are the legacy of apartheid and colonialism need urgently to be addressed."

"Nowhere," she added, "are these scars more marked or more painful than in the educational sector."

It was clear, then, that the Constitution "is a call to action to all South Africans to seek to build a just and free democratic society in which the potential of each person is freed. The importance of meeting this call is therefore of particular importance to educators." 35

It is precisely the idea of the Constitution as a "call to action" that motivates this Manifesto.

What, then, are the values, entrenched in our Constitution, the values that "compel transformation"?

We have identified ten: Democracy, Social Justice and Equity, Equality, Non-racism and Non-sexism, Ubuntu (Human Dignity), An Open Society, Accountability, The Rule of Law, Respect, and Reconciliation.

THE TEN FUNDAMENTAL VALUES OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND THEIR RELEVANCE IN EDUCATION

Democracy
More than merely adult enfranchisement, or an expression of popular sentiment, democracy is at heart a society's means to engage critically with itself. But critical engagement is not an automatic consequence of democratic institutions.

The Constitution commits us to the establishment of a society based on "democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights", and defines South Africa as a "sovereign, democratic state" founded upon the value of "universal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of government." 36 In this, it means that government is based on "the will of the people"; that we are responsible for our own destinies since, through the electoral process, we run our country and our public institutions. This is an inalienable right, but a demanding one that carries immense responsibility. On their own, the Constitution and the country's democratic institutions offer no guarantee that we will match this responsibility. Education is the key because it empowers us to exercise our democratic rights, and shape our destiny, by giving us the tools to participate in public life, to think critically, and to act responsibly.

Social Justice and Equity
Emancipation of the mind and spirit is a noble achievement, but without freedom from the material straits of poverty, liberty is essentially unfulfilled. And without the implementation of social justice to correct the injustices of the past, reconciliation will be impossible to achieve.

So, while the Constitution grants inalienable rights to freedom of expression and choice, it also establishes as a right the access to adequate housing, health-care services, sufficient food and water, social security, and, of course, a basic education. Children, specifically, enjoy the inalienable right "to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health-care services and social services" and "to be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation". 37 These rights apply to everyone under the age of eighteen, and that means the majority of learners in our schools. The social justice clauses in the Constitution have profound implications for education because they commit the state to ensuring that all South Africans have equal access to schooling - and that they have access to such schooling in their mother tongue if they so desire.

Equality
One of the greatest challenges in making fair law is ensuring that it is fairly applied. The goal of providing all South Africans with access to schooling goes hand in hand with making sure such access is equal.

The Constitution is unequivocal on equality, stating that "everyone is equal before the law" and may not be unfairly discriminated against on the basis of "race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth." 38 The implications of what is known as the "Equality Clause" on schooling have been spelt out in the South African Schools Act of 1998: all children must obtain equal education, and the state must strive towards giving all students - whether they are in suburban schools, township schools or farm schools - the same access to resources and to personnel, and the same opportunities to realise their fullest potential. No child may be denied access to education because of an inability to pay.

But the "Equality Clause" does not govern only the state's relationship with its citizens; it governs our relationships with each other, too. Just as the state may not discriminate against any of us, so we may not discriminate against each other. Understanding the value of equality and the practice of non-discrimination means not only understanding that you have these rights, as an educator or as a learner, but that others have them as well. It is out of the Equality Clause in the Constitution that the values of tolerance and respect for others stem. It is also because of the Equality Clause that we value linguistic diversity, for we may not discriminate against each other on the basis of language. This means, ideally, that we need to be able not only to provide education to all South Africans in their mother tongue, but to learn one another's languages so that we can communicate as equals.

Non-Racism and Non-Sexism
The history of humanity's march to liberty shows there is a significant difference between treating everyone as equals, and their being equal. This is the essence of the Constitution's emphasis on the value of "non-racialism and non-sexism". 39 It outlines the challenge as being to strive towards practices that treat everybody as equal - and that work, specifically, towards redressing the imbalances of the past where people were oppressed or devalued because of their race or their gender. It is out of this value that the policies of affirmative action flow.

Practising the values of non-racialism and non-sexism in education means not only making sure that previously disadvantaged students get equal access to education, but also that black students and teachers attain equality with their white peers, and that girls at school attain equality with boys. Non-sexism also means, specifically, that female teachers and students are not victims of sexual abuse or harassment in schools, and that as female students they are not discouraged from completing their schooling because of abuse, harassment or pregnancy.

For the values of non-racialism and non-sexism to be applied effectively, all places of learning have to be safe for students and teachers, and all places of learning have to be safe for female students and teachers. And for these values to have any meaning, black students and female students have to be afforded the same opportunities to free their potential as white students and male students.

Ubuntu (Human Dignity)
Out of the political tumult of the early 1990s, the peacemakers and negotiators creating the framework of the free state to be extracted a vital sentiment that would become part of the defining vision of the democracy that would emerge at the conclusion of their work. That sentiment - contained in the postscript of the Interim Constitution of 1993, which framed the values to which the final Constitution had to adhere - was this: there was a need in South Africa "for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation". 40

In the final Constitution, the drafters applied the notion of ubuntu by asserting that the South African state was founded, before anything else, upon the value of "Human Dignity". Ubuntu has a particularly important place in our value system for it derives specifically from African mores:

"I am human because you are human."

Out of the values of ubuntu and human dignity flow the practices of compassion, kindness, altruism and respect which are at the very core of making schools places where the culture of teaching and the culture of learning thrive; of making them dynamic hubs of industry and achievement rather than places of conflict and pain.

Equality might require us to put up with people who are different; non-sexism and non-racism might require us to rectify the inequities of the past, but ubuntu goes much further: it embodies the concept of mutual understanding and the active appreciation of the value of human difference.

It requires you to know others if you are to know yourself, and to understand your place - and others' - within a multicultural environment. Ultimately, ubuntu requires you to respect others if you are to respect yourself.

An Open Society
In the dark, unlit spaces of history are to be found the horrors of abuse, by governments, by tyrants, perpetrated under the conditions of secrecy and fear which have rendered societies powerless. Such abuse is inimical to an open society, where power is vested in the will of all the people, and fear has no place.

The South African Constitution, as the supreme law, lays the "foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people". 41 In this sense, democracy and openness are interchangeable and interdependent values, and the Constitution itself is the route to an open society: we have the right to "freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion"; we have the right to "freedom of expression", to "freedom of the press", to "freedom of artistic creativity", to "academic freedom and freedom of scientific research", to "freedom of assembly", and to "freedom of association". 42

But as with all the values contained in the Constitution, our rights come with certain responsibilities: we may not exercise our rights to openness if they have the intention of inciting violence, propagandising war, or advocating hatred based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion. The value of openness is at the core of the South African educational curriculum, which cherishes debate, discussion and critical thought, for it is understood that a society that knows how to talk and how to listen does not need to resort to violence.

Being a democrat in an open society means being a participant rather than an observer; it means talking and listening and assessing all the time. It means being empowered to read and to think, it means being given the opportunity to create artistically. It means being given access to as wide a range of information as possible through as wide a range of media as possible - and also being given the tools to process this information critically and intelligently.

It means, most of all, encouraging a culture of dialogue and debate that is often absent or discouraged in our schools; a culture of discussion out of which values and priorities are perpetually being evaluated and reassessed.

Accountability (Responsibility)
If voting is the right of citizens to grant power, the need to hold the powerful to account is the responsibility that gives that right meaning.

The provision of democratic tools in the Constitution, such as the vote, is to confirm and reinforce the values of "accountability, responsiveness and openness". More specifically, the Constitution says that public administration - which includes the public school system - must be governed by the values and principles of professionalism, efficiency, equity, transparency, representivity and accountability. 43

One of the reasons why education is such a hotly debated feature of social policy is that everyone in society holds a stake in it, in one way or another: places of learning will only survive - let alone prosper - if communities take responsibility for them. "Accountability" in the education system means institutionalising this responsibility according to codes of conduct and the meeting of formal expectations: children and young adults are the responsibility, within school hours, of teachers, who are in turn accountable to school governing bodies and the educational authorities, which are accountable to the broader community and to the citizens of the democratic society.

"Accountability" means ensuring that all school governing bodies - at suburban schools, township schools and farm schools - become legitimate and working institutions of civil society, irrespective of their individual capacities and resources. But "accountability" means, more than anything else, that we are all responsible for the advancement of our nation through education and through our schools and that we are all responsible, too, to others in our society, for our individual behaviour. There can be no rights without responsibilities - whether as parents, administrators, educators or learners.

The Rule of Law
Without commonly accepted codes, the notion of accountability would lose meaning, and the light of the open society would begin to dim: the rule of law is as fundamental to the constitutional state as adherence to the Constitution itself.

As a state, South Africa is founded on the value of "the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law". 44 This means, literally, that the law is supreme; that there is a consensus of rules and regulations we must obey - and that we understand that if we do not, we are breaking the law of the land, and that the State is thus entitled to punish us.

Within schools, the rule of law is the guarantor of accountability, for it holds us all to a common code of appropriate behaviour - not just because we know we should, but because we understand that if we don't, we will be disciplined by those to whom we are accountable.

All participants within the education system are subject to the law of the land. Administrators may not defraud school budgets for personal gain, teachers may not physically or sexually abuse their students, learners may not carry illegal weapons, possess illegal narcotics, trash school property and intimidate teachers. Non-violence might be a value that flows out of the constitutional principles of ubuntu, equality and openness, but it is also one that is upheld by the rule of law.

Places of learning also have their own internal rules of law - the codes of conduct for educators and learners that must be adhered to. The custodians of the rule of law at a place of learning are the authorities, and they are required to apply it even-handedly, fairly and proportionately - for if they do not, then they, too, are in contravention of the rule of law.

Respect
In the great contest of ideas that best symbolises enlightened humanity, respect in addition to intelligence or wit is probably the essential quality. As a value, "respect" is not explicitly defined in the Constitution, but it is implicit in the way the Bill of Rights governs not just the State's relationship with citizens, but citizens' relationships with each other: how can I respect you if you do not respect me?

School-based research on values and education conducted for the Department of Education shows that the two values people feel are most lacking in schools are respect and dialogue. Respect is an essential precondition for communication, for teamwork, for productivity. Schools cannot function if there is not mutual respect between educators and parents; learning cannot happen if there is not mutual respect between educators and learners. In some of the most important international declarations that South Africa has ratified - they are therefore legally binding on our country - we have committed ourselves to the values of respect and responsibility.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms". 45

The Convention of the Rights of the Child goes further: it calls for education to be directed to strengthening "the development of respect for the child's parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilisations different from his or her own". Education must also direct itself to "the preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sex, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin". 46

Reconciliation
Healing, and reconciling past differences, remains a difficult challenge in South Africa. More than merely being a question of saying sorry, it requires redress in other, even material, ways, too. These include social justice. But few doubt that a stable, dignified, esteemed future depends on it. This is just as the drafters of the Interim Constitution saw it when they prescribed that "the pursuit of national unity, the well-being of all South African citizens, and peace" be based on "reconciliation between the people of South Africa and the reconstruction of society". 47

The Constitution itself calls upon us to "heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights". 48 It is a conception that is bound up in South Africa's official motto, "!ke e: /xarra //ke" - which means "Unity in Diversity". It means accepting each other through learning about interacting with each other - and through the study of how we have interacted with each other in the past. Reconciliation values difference and diversity as the basis for unity; it means accepting that South Africa is made up of people and communities with very different cultures and traditions, and with very different experiences of what it means to be South African, experiences which have often been violent and conflictual.

Reconciliation is impossible without the acknowledgement and understanding of this complex, difficult but rich history. The conditions of peace, of well-being and of unity - adhering to a common identity, a common notion of South-Africanness - flow naturally from the value of reconciliation. But, as the postscript of the Interim Constitution makes clear, they also stem from active engagement in the "reconstruction of society", for, as President Mbeki has often said, there can be no reconciliation without transformation.

In this way, the value of reconciliation is inextricably woven into the value of equality.

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