| with creative partnerships between resourced and under resourced schools had the possibility of sharing platforms and teachers been carried forward on free to access sites.
In this edition of SPII Talk, staff members were tasked with writing a piece that resonated with their understanding of the value and principles fo public participation. Common to each piece is the emergent take home that our Constitution was built on the premise of an actively engaged citizenship and that participation should be central to the formulation, the implementation and the evaluation of core state functions.
This has sometimes worked, but frequently not. The early architects of our democratic state perhaps overlooked the many ingredients demanded for effective and consistently executed participation.
Did we expect too much in the crafting of our participative democracy? Should we slip back into a more representative democracy and focus more on holding our elected representatives to account? What is the optimal mix for us in this moment and moving forward?
We trust that these freely conceptualised pieces deepen thinking in this regard, and lead to constructive social responses in turn.
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