All over the world, economic inclusion has risen to the top of the development discourse. A Oxford Scholarship Online well-performing education system is central to achieving inclusive development -- but the challenge of improving educational outcomes has proven to be unexpectedly difficult. Access to education has increased, but quality remains low, with weaknesses in governance comprising an important part of the explanation. "The Politics and Governance of Basic Education" explores the balance between hierarchical and horizontal institutional arrangements for the public provision of basic education. Using the vivid example of South Africa, a country that had ambitious goals at the outset of its transition from apartheid to democracy, it explores how the interaction of politics and institutions affects educational outcomes. By examining lessons learned from how South Africa failed to achieve many of its goals, it constructs an innovative alternative strategy for making process, combining practical steps to achieve incremental gains to re-orient the system towards learning. This book contains the following chapters: (1) Improving basic education - the governance challenge (Brian Levy); (2) The transformation of South Africa's system of basic education (Luis Crouch and Ursula Hoadley); (3) Education policymaking at national level - the politics of multiple principals (Robert Cameron and Vinothan Naidoo); (4) Provincial governance of education - the Western Cape experience (Robert Cameron and Brian Levy); (5) Provincial governance of education - the Eastern Cape experience (Zukiswa Kota, Monica Hendricks, Eric Matambo, and Vinothan Naidoo); (6) Explaining the Western Cape performance paradox: an econometric analysis (Gabrielle Wills, Debra Shepherd, and Janeli Kotze); (7) Context and capability: A tale of two bureaucracies (Brian Levy, Robert Cameron, and Vinothan Naidoo); (8) Case studies of school-level governance dynamics in the Western Cape (Ursula Hoadley, Brian Levy, Lawule Shumane, and Shelly Wilburn); (9) Case studies of school-level governance dynamics in the Eastern Cape (Brian Levy and Lawule Shumane); and (10) "All for education" - Meeting the governance challenge (Brian Levy).