This chapter is an analysis of the postapartheid government’s policy vision that was meant to guide the reconstruction of South Africa’s inequitable education system. By assessing the period from 1994 until about mid-2000, this paper argues that education policy is characterized by a restricted vision of reconstruction, which failed to provide the necessary basis for developing an equitable and united education system. The dramatic narrowing materialized in a complex and circumscribed political context. The focus of this analysis is on the interaction between the structural dynamics that delimited the policy terrain and the political dynamics that shaped education policy. Specific developments in the sphere of education, given its relative autonomy, shaped the eventual policy outcomes. Given the interaction between the structural and political dimensions, the government made very definite choices in giving effect to its favored vision of educational change. In this light I raise some thoughts towards an alternative conceptual approach to education policy reform in South Africa. This interpretative analysis is based on integrating work written over the last few years (Badat, 1997; Christie, 1996; Jansen, 1998; Kallaway, 1997) and my own work on schooling policy (Fataar, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2006).