This paper applies ideas that emanate from the Global North, concerning neoliberalism and neoliberal governmentality, to the case of marketisation in South Africa. It also attends to the limits of Northern ideas that are both intellectual undertakings and policy manifestations. In the first part of the paper, we identify how rationales for school choice, many of which have been introduced in countries like England, the USA, and Australia, have also been introduced in post-apartheid South Africa. Despite the introduction of markets to address apartheid era racial segregation, we suggest that in South Africa marketisation operates as part of racial neoliberalism. In the second part of the paper we explore in more detail how neoliberal governmentality operates in relation to education policy more generally, and specifically in South Africa.