Politics and guidance: An overview of the South African school guidance service

The South African guidance service is an example of the way in which the population can be manipulated when a guidance service is used to serve the political and economic ends of a ruling group. The South African government views the guidance service as an 'auxiliary education service', the function of which is to ensure conformity to the official Christian National Education policy for White schools. 'Pedagogy' provides a theoretical explanation for deviance from Christian National norms, and thus is emphasised in the training of guidance personnel. The focus of the guidance service is upon the identification and reorientation of children who are 'different'. The overview presented here provides an example of the consequences of unquestioning compliance of a guidance service with the values and norms of the dominant culture. It is argued that all guidance services constantly need to make explicit, and to question, the cultural assumptions upon which they operate.