The preparation of Fijian school leaders: a framework for principal preparation in a South Pacific context

ABSTRACT

Increased school autonomy and a greater focus on achieving school effectiveness and improvement has made it essential to reconsider the role of school leaders (OECD 2009, Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS. Paris: OECD Publishing). This recommends that leadership development in this rapidly changing world deserves significant consideration compared to the past. With the increasing interest entrusted to school leadership, this article reports on how school leaders are currently prepared by the higher education programmes offered in two out of three universities in Fiji. Through an extensive literature review as well as through programme documents and policy reviews, this article focuses on current educational leadership post-graduate courses offered at these Fijian universities and highlight areas of strengths as well as suggests recommendations for improvement that are in line with identified needs for effective principal preparation in a Fijian context with key connections made to the larger South Pacific region.     

Cultivating the next generation of academics in South Africa

Abstract

The academic workplace is experiencing numerous changes in South Africa and around the world, including increasing managerialism, declining governmental funding and massification of university systems. Global trends have impacted South Africa, and additional local contextual factors combine to create a situation in which the pool of prospective academics is limited, particularly with regard to individuals from diverse backgrounds, at the same time as vacancies for academic staff are expected to increase. In order to address the question of who will become the next generation of academics in South Africa, the author investigates potential barriers to developing academics through qualitative research conducted with postgraduate students, academic staff and administrators at two higher education institutions. Two central thematic categories are explored—induction into postgraduate studies and induction into the academic profession. The author posits that systematic socialization, both into postgraduate studies and into the academic profession, is a vital link toward cultivating emerging academics to fill academic positions for an equitable workplace in South African higher education institutions.     

Building Communities of Peace: The South African Experience

While political conflicts in many countries have resulted in large-scale destruction and loss of life, South Africa has been successful in avoiding a violent conflict following the demise of apartheid. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been seen as an important mechanism contributing to South Africa's successful management of its political challenges. Yet, the legacy of apartheid continues beyond the work of the TRC, and several social problems such as poverty, unemployment, crime, and substance abuse continue to affect many South African communities. Psychology is uniquely poised to assist in addressing these social problems and in contributing to the development of a community of peace. Academic psychology departments have responded by implementing an undergraduate programme aimed at training professional counsellors to respond to community needs in post-apartheid South Africa. This paper surveys the present political landscape in South Africa, examines the work of the TRC as a psychological change catalyst and peace building mechanism, and calls attention to the role of psychology in contributing to national development.     

(De)coloniality and South African academe

ABSTRACT

The colonial nature of South African universities remains a source of debate among students and academics. Decolonization as rethinking academic institutional practices seems less controversial; the specificity of how to decolonize the academia is the core of divergent arguments and contesting ideologies. Consequently, many suggestions and methods for the decolonization of South African universities have been proffered. Although some of these suggestions are pertinent, a critical question about what should South African academe decolonize from needs to be engaged. This requires a critical, theoretical and intellectual discourse of coloniality in order to rethink the academia in South Africa. Drawing from Anibal Quijano’s critical discourse of coloniality of power, this paper (re)visits the nature of coloniality, explores approaches to decolonization and situates these understandings to the academia in postcolonial South Africa. A polycentric approach to decolonization is supported with a goal of decolonization as innovations.     

南非教育中的评价和资格认证体制

南非教育存在的突出问题是各种族群体间受教育机会的极大不平等，建立在种族隔离和歧视基础上的教育评价体系更是加强了各个种族间受教育机会和职业选择的不平等性。1994年，一个由民主选举产生的，象征民族抱负的新政府开始上台执政，并试图改变这种不平等的教育体制，作为改革的一部分，政府实行了与过去不同的评价政策和资格认证体制。     

医学院校本科生考研现状与对策研究

通过对医学硕士一年级研究生的考研问卷调查,回顾性地讲述了他们当年准备考研的经历,准备考研所花的时间及复习的过程,以及他们临床实习与考研复习上时间的处理。它山之石,可以攻玉。本文对打算考研的考生具有一定的帮助。     

The Digitally Disadvantaged: Access to Digital Communication Technologies among First Year Students at a Rural South African University

Considering the importance of digital skills in university education, this article reports on a study which examined access to technology among first year students at a rural South African university. The study focused on the digital readiness of students prior to their admission to the university, since many universities provide access to computers and the internet. The survey of 156 first year students revealed that 73 per cent of the students had no access to computers at their high schools and 82 per cent of students from rural high schools had no computer access and internet at their schools. Most students from rural areas used a computer for the first time when they were 19 years and older. Many students gained access to computers and the internet for the first time at the university. As a result, they enter the university digitally disadvantaged. Solutions that involve initiatives to provide access to technology are required in addition to digital literacy for educators at high schools.     

Institutionalising racial segregation in the South African school: the School Board Act, 1905

ABSTRACT

This essay attempts to show how the Social Darwinist thinking of white racial superiority, and so, ultimately, white supremacy, came to be institutionalised in law in South Africa. It looks specifically at the making and institutionalisation of the School Board Act (SBA) of 1905 of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. It argues that the SBA contains one of the first constitutive moves that are made in the South Africa that is to emerge with the Act of Union in 1910 with respect to classification, ranking, and ordering in the country’s long history of race-making. It precedes better-known pieces of legislation such as the Population Registration Act of 1950 which the apartheid government institutes almost 50 years later. Through the SBA, “race” as a social fact is entrenched in legal and juridical terms. The essay examines how this process is institutionalised through legal judgements provided by the courts of the Cape Colony.     

Respect and responsibility: Teaching citizenship in South African high schools

Respect is a core concept in citizenship debates. South African high school educators often draw upon respect as a key value within citizenship education. Their teaching of this value is often conflated with promotion of the practice of responsible citizenship. The constructions of respect and responsibility in these situations are imbued with assumptions around authority and power relations, such that learners’ are expected to take responsibility for demonstrating respect for in an unequal rather than reciprocal understanding of respect. Thus, negotiations of different kinds of respect are highlighted. The need for schools to embody a culture or ethos of respect is noted if learners are to be expected to recognise and adopt respect as a key element to citizenship in theory and in practice.     

近二十年来中国的南非教师教育研究热点述评

目前,教师教育已是国际教育领域的一个热点话题。自从1998年我国与非洲建交以来,南非教师教育引起了国内学者的广泛关注,主要表现在南非教师教育历史发展、制度建设、政策变革、课程改革、培养路径、信息化发展以及质量保障等方面,并取得了一定的成果。文章对20世纪90年代以来国内南非教师教育研究加以梳理和分析,以期揭示国内南非教师教育研究的核心内容及基本现状。     

地方综合性高校硕士研究生学制改革初探

硕士研究生学制改革问题是近几年教育界讨论的热点问题之一,针对国内与国外部分国家硕士研究生现行学制情况、我国地方综合性高校的特征及现行硕士研究生学制中存在的主要问题,笔者认为应将现阶段硕士研究生分为研究型硕士研究生与应用型硕士研究生两类,并在学制上加以区别:研究型硕士研究生学习年限为3～4年,应用型硕士研究生学习年限为2～3年.     

我国研究生教育评估的主要特征分析

经过二十多年的发展,我国研究生教育评估已经取得了一系列的进展,但也面临不少的难题.现阶段我国研究生教育评估,具有评估理念现代化、评估主体多元化、评估类型多样化、评估程序规范化和指标体系科学化等主要特征.     

南非国家资格框架的发展与改革

1995年南非颁布了《南非资格署法》,目的是成立南非资格署和实施国家资格框架。南非国家资格框架的突出特点是建立了完善的标准制定体系、质量保障体系和资格管理信息系统。2009年南非颁布《国家资格框架法》,调整框架等级水平和部际分工,建立质量委员会。南非建立了一个比较完善的国家资格框架,其经验引起了国际社会的关注。     

南非学校环境教育政策与策略评析

南非是一个环境问题较严重的国家。结束了种族隔离制度后，南非开始关注环境教育，以此作为解决环境问题的关键策略，并取得了较好的成绩。本文就南非环境教育政策的发展、学校环境教育课程目标、基本策略和途径等方面对南非环境教育的政策与策略作一全面的分析与评价。     

South African contributions to LGBTI education issues

ABSTRACT

South Africa stands out in the African region for its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights. This article examines South Africa’s contributions to local policy for LGBTIs and to work on LGBTI issues in education policy and education rights progress internationally. It also considers broader South African contributions to the theorisation of gender and sexuality. Data derive from an analysis of 102 interviews with key informants participating in high-level global networking for LGBTI students’ rights, and documentary analysis showing how stakeholders characterise South African contributions to transnational LGBTI education work. Informants identified how such contributions have a strong human rights emphasis, furthering post-colonial resistance to simplistic gender and sexuality classification schema imposed via imperial colonising dynamics. While South African work in this area has also promoted and facilitated research, it has at times been limited by ambivalence from its leadership. The nation’s early adoption of constitutional rights, relationship rights and educational equity provisions as acts of decolonisation contribute valuable African LGBTI work examples to the region. Their success encourages further funding for South-South transnational LGBTI education work.     

韩国大学的社会评价探析

随着高等教育的发展,韩国的大学评价也逐渐多样化,其中社会评价受到人们越来越多的关注。韩国中央日报社的大学评价与企业视角中的大学评价在评价目标、评价内容、实施方法等方面各具特点,一方面为学生、家长及企业界等教育消费者提供了大学的相关信息,努力促进大学的发展;另一方面也受到大学的批评与质疑,其发展状况值得人们关注。     

Evaluating standards-based assessment rubrics in a postgraduate public health subject

Standards-based assessment rubrics are recognised as an important tool for ensuring clear criteria in higher education. Most of the available evidence on rubrics comes from studies with face-to-face undergraduate students. Our study evaluated the introduction of rubrics into a postgraduate subject that included both online and face-to-face students. We conducted formative evaluation with former students to develop the rubrics, as well as surveying current students for process and impact evaluation, supplemented with a focus group. Process results showed that the rubrics were used widely and were generally considered to be of at least some use. Clarity of the rubrics was the main issue affecting perceived usefulness, particularly for the assessment tasks that had undergone comparatively less formative evaluation. Impact evaluation showed mixed results, with students that reported always using rubrics having higher marks on average compared to students who did not always use the rubrics. However, an expected improvement in marks across the whole student cohort compared to previous years did not eventuate, although this could be explained by a number of factors independent of the rubrics. Our results provide some evidence for the use of rubrics in postgraduate and online settings but highlight the need for rigorous formative evaluation.     

Relative efficiency among South African universities: A data envelopment analysis

Based on a sample of ten of the country's 21public universities, this article examines therelative efficiency of South Africanuniversities between 1994 and 1997 using DataEnvelopment Analysis. After outlining thenature and limitations of the technique, aseries of seven models were tested. Each used aconsolidation of the annual output of graduatesand research as the output variable and testedthis against various input variables. A highdegree of consistency and stability was found.Differences in efficiency during the four yearperiod were studied and the article concludeswith a discussion of four factors which appearcentral in explaining differences in efficiencybetween universities.     

南非农村基础教育变革新动向探析

近年,南非政府开始关注并重视农村基础教育,成立了若干促进农村基础教育变革的专门机构。这些机构陆续出台的文本,显示出南非农村基础教育变革的新动向。本文在梳理这些文本的基础上,从学校布局调整、课程内容改革和师资力量加强三个侧面来探析南非政府在推进城乡基础教育均衡发展方面所作出的努力。     

Education,citizenship and difference in the South African transition: policy,politics and practice

The article looks at three approaches to analysing the relationship between education, citizenship and difference that have been evident in the transition to democracy in South Africa. First, it examines the position that education moulds good citizens and overcomes discriminatory differences, which is evident in the South African Education Policy Act. (This position is similar to that expounded in the Crick Report.) Second, it looks at the view that education is an enactment of citizenship and a celebration of difference. This is articulated in the new South African Curriculum 2005, which celebrates the school as just one of a number of learning spaces, but which is only slowly being implemented with considerable difficulty in overcoming deeply entrenched and multifaceted discriminatory views. Third, it looks at the view, articulated in the South African Constitution of 1996, that education is a relatively autonomous space and that in this particular institutional space education, difference and citizenship are in tension. While there is potential for a creative dialogue to emerge in this historically formed space, preliminary research findings indicate how difficult and diffuse the process of transformation is likely to be.