Model C, noun phrase
- Origin:
- Used first by the Minister of National Education in a letter explaining the new system to education departments and parents.
Used attributively, especially of a formerly ‘White’ state school which has chosen an administrative structure allowing discretion concerning the admission of pupils (including the option to accept pupils from all ethnic groups), and giving more freedom (under a Board of Governors), but less financial support from the provincial education department; loosely, a non-racial state school.
- Note:
- In the early 1990s various options were offered to (exclusively ‘White’) state schools in an attempt to resolve the issues of dwindling state resources and pressure for non-racial schooling: Model A (private and self-funding), Model B (provincially-funded but exercising its own admission criteria), Model C, and Model Q (retaining the status quo). ‘Model D’ was the name given to DET schools which operated as Model B schools. ‘Model C’ is the only designation which has assumed some importance in South African English.
1991 M. Metcalfe Desegregating Education in South Africa (Education Policy Unit, Wits University) 17On 10th September 1990, Minister Piet Case announced the new government admission policy options for white State schooling...For each of the three models (designated A, B and C) it was stipulated that the total number of white children had to be at least 51% of the whole...Model C offers the possibility of semi-privatisation.
1995 K. Strachan in E. Prov. Herald 11 Jan. 3The ANC was opposed to Model C schools insofar as they were used to maintain white privilege.
Used attributively, especially of a formerly ‘White’ state school which has chosen an administrative structure allowing discretion concerning the admission of pupils (including the option to accept pupils from all ethnic groups), and giving more freedom (under a Board of Governors), but less financial support from the provincial education department; loosely, a non-racial state school.