Education in Southern Africa is a comprehensive critical reference guide to education in Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. With chapters written by leading regional education experts, the book explores the education systems of each country and critically examines the development of education provision as well as local and global contexts. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole and guides to available online datasets, this it is an essential reference for students, researchers, international agencies and policy-makers at all levels.

Given that too high a percentage of scholarly work on sub-Saharan Africa is produced by non-Africans, the editors of [this book] should be lauded because nearly all the authors are African ... [The book] provide[s] a useful raid on what was largely unarticulated and so help[s] to fill a gap in the scholarly literature. * Zambia Social Science Journal *
Clive Harber has done his readers a real service in bringing together an array of established and new Southern African authors to provide us with new insights into both familiar and less well-documented national cases. The book is an invaluable addition to the comparative education literature. * Simon McGrath, Director of Research, School of Education, University of Nottingham, UK *
Much has been achieved by education throughout Southern Africa in recent decades, while much also remains to be done in this diverse and rapidly changing region. This collection of well-informed and insightful analyses provides readers with valuable, carefully contextualised and locally grounded assessments of key educational achievements and challenges across the nine countries that are examined. * Michael Crossley, Professor of Comparative and International Education, University of Bristol, UK *
This book covers a wide spectrum of issues on formal primary and secondary education in nine southern African countries, including the contexts, access and nature of provision, curriculum, teaching methods, quality of education, teacher education, school organisation, teacher professionalism, HIV/AIDS and gender. The peoples, economies, politics, cultures and education systems of these countries are interrelated. The region currently experiences increased university student mobility, particularly into South Africa as the biggest and most developed economy therein. This book will provide students and academics a rich one-stop source for comparative education purposes. The book provides a good balance of analysis between achievements that deserve to be celebrated, such as increased access and gender equalisation, and issues that still need a lot more attention, such as poor organisation, teacher unprofessionalism and uneven quality of education. * Vitallis Chikoko, Professor of Educational Leadership, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa *

Clive Harber is Emeritus Professor of International Education at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Honorary Professor of Education at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.