南非教师教育政策的变革及其启示

20世纪90年代以来,在南非社会民主化进程中,南非教师教育发生了急剧而复杂的变革,教师教育政策相继出台,但由于政府政策与现实相脱离,很多政策实施效果不佳,给教师造成负担.为协调现有各项政策措施,解决南非教师短缺和教师培训落后等问题,南非政府制定了<南非教师教育和教师发展国家政策框架>.本文分析了南非教师教育政策的变革,其中有很多值得我们借鉴和思考的经验.     

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。     

南非教师教育的质量保障制度

为了保障教师教育的质量,南非构建了从教师教育机构审查、教学项目认证、教师资格认证到教师专业发展的一体化质量保障体系,并为此成立了高等教育质量委员会、教育从业者委员会和行业教育培训局等质量保障机构。无论在机构审查标准、教学项目认证标准、教师资格认证标准、教师专业发展系统,还是教师专业能力描述、教师职业规范要求,教师专业发展内涵上都颇具特色,为教师教育质量保障制度体系的构建提供了有益的国际经验。     

南非教师教育的历史演进与改革发展

南非教师教育制度根植于南非的种族隔离制度。南非教师教育从萌芽发端、逐渐发展乃至日益完善走过了漫长的历程，尤其是南非恢复民主制度以来，南非政府就把教师教育工作的重点放在教育政策体制的改进与完善上，其间的变化与革新无不推动着南非教师教育的发展。新政府不仅采取了多种有力的措施为南非教师教育的改革和实践保驾护航，而且陆续颁布了各种政策法令，这对现代南非教师教育体系的发展具有深远而重要的影响。     

Sexuality education in South Africa: Three essential questions

Sex education is the cornerstone on which most HIV/AIDS prevention programmes rest and since the adoption of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), has become a compulsory part of the South African school curriculum through the Life Orientation learning area. However, while much focus has been on providing young people with accurate and frank information about safe sex, this paper questions whether school-based programmes sufficiently support the needs of young people. This paper is based on a desk-review of the literature on sex and sexuality education and examines it in relation to the South African educational context and policies. It poses three questions: (a) what do youth need from sexuality education? (b) Is school an appropriate environment for sex education? (c) If so, what can be said about the content of sex education as well as pedagogy surrounding it? Through reviewing the literature this paper critically engages with education on sex and sexuality in South Africa and will argue that in order to effectively meet the needs of youth, the content of sexual health programmes needs to span the whole spectrum of discourses, from disease to desire. Within this spectrum, youth should be constructed as “knowers” as opposed to innocent in relation to sex. How youth are taught as well as how their own knowledge and experience is positioned in the classroom is as important as content in ensuring that youth avoid negative sexual health outcomes.     

南非教师教育制度的重建:进展与成效

民主新南非的教育体系是在种族隔离教育遗产的基础上通过全方位的变革建立起来的。南非教师教育制度的重建是一个漫长、复杂的过程。通过调整管理体制、颁布教师教育标准、优化院校结构、出台国家政策框架等举措,南非已建构起一个以成果和能力为本位的、具有民主治理特质的、一体化、开放式的教师教育与发展体系。国家教师教育与发展政策框架的实施虽然取得了一些成效,但也面临多方面的不确定性和挑战。     

Chronicling educator practices and experiences in the context of democratic schooling and quality education in South Africa

An interview-based qualitative study was undertaken to explore the experiences and practices of educators in providing democratic schooling as a way of delivering quality education for learners in schools. The exploration looked at educators’ understandings of the concept of democracy in schools, their understanding of the concept quality education and whether there is any link between democratic schooling and quality education. The findings suggest that there is a perceived link between democracy in schools and the delivery of quality education for learners, even though there are tensions and contradictions in democratising schools.     

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.     

南非高校合并:成效与经验

自20世纪90年代中期以来的南非高校合并,是摆脱了种族隔离制度的新南非改造其整个高等教育体系最重要的手段,在很大程度上改变了南非高等教育的面貌。南非的高校合并是在政府的主导下进行的,具有很强的计划性。充分调研,反复论证;政府推动,因势利导;就近归并,稳定重点;形式明确,深度融合,是南非高校合并获得成功的基本经验。     

Democracy, citizenship education and inclusion: a multi-dimensional approach

Both democratic citizenship education and inclusion share a common ethos and language based on concerns for human rights, social justice, and a sense of community. Both aim at the building of democratic relationships. But it is fair to say that for a long time citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion have either spoken past each other, or have not communicated or articulated their arguments. This essay offers a multi-dimensional framework under which citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion can share a common agenda, seeking socially just and democratic schools.

Educational paradigms and engineering educators in South Africa

In this response to Waghid (2000) the authorsquestion the validity of conclusions reachedfrom an examination of the proceedings of anengineering education conference in SouthAfrica. The authors argue that these papersdo not represent the views of engineeringeducators in general. Furthermore they querythe way in which Waghid uses reference toteaching methods in these papers to deduce thetheoretical perspective of the presenters. Itis suggested that the views of the educatorsinvolved in this conference and others like itin South Africa, can be characterised asfalling within a broad interpretivist(constructivist) perspective. Finally, theauthors agree that an engagement with acritical perspective would contributesignificantly to the transformation of theculture of engineering education in SouthAfrica.     

The development and application of progressive education in the Netherlands and some implications for South Africa

Abstract

The charge that schooling is poorly adapted to modern conditions in South Africa and abroad has been debated since the beginning of the twentieth century, with the result that two strands of competing paradigms - traditional and progressive - crystallised from the discussion. This article delineates the salient features of progressive education to prepare the ground for a comparison of outcomes-based education (OBE) in South Africa with education in the Netherlands and thereby determine the influence, if any, of progressive education on OBE and Dutch education respectively. The data gathered to determine the progressive influence on Dutch education showed that some elements of progressive education had been combined with traditional (tried-and-tested) practices to create an effective primary educational system. The implication for South Africa is that teachers should be allowed to adapt their teaching styles and curriculum development to accommodate learners who cannot benefit optimally from progressive teaching, and that progressive principles can be implemented in South Africa, provided it is done as in the Netherlands without trying to force everybody into the same mould (i.e., on the crude principle that ‘one size fits all’),     

南非教师教育新政策述评——构建平等与多元的师资培训体系

1994年以来,为应对教师数量的急剧增多,提升师资培训的质量与效益,南非政府颁布了多项教师教育新政策。这些新政策的颁布不仅解决了南非教师教育的多样化需求,同时建立了一个严格的管理和规范教师教育的体系。这是南非教育史上首次形成平等、多元、反种族隔离的师资培训新政策。     

Assessment policy in post-apartheid South Africa: challenges for improving education quality and learning

The South African education system has witnessed significant changes since 1994 when the democratically elected government began the process of dismantling the inherited apartheid order. The primary focus of the transformation process was to address the twin imperative of equity and quality in education, particularly for the historically marginalised black population. A key aspect of this transformation process remains the development of alternative assessment policies. This paper reviews the changes focusing on the stated rationale as well as their underlying assumptions and implications for practice. It argues that the changes have in many respects addressed the most obvious effects of the previous apartheid systems. However, it notes that, notwithstanding the policy intentions, assessment policy since 1994 has favoured a measurement focused-approach in the classroom, which has hindered a shift towards an assessment for learning approach. This, it argues, is partly fuelled by the abiding belief in and commitment to classroom testing and examinations as well as external national assessments as the key criterion for reforming learning and teaching practices in the classroom.     

Learners’ perspectives on Life Orientation sexuality education in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article examines the views of male and female learners regarding how Life Orientation (LO) sexuality education is taught at their schools. Learners in the study were selected from five former ‘Black’ schools in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa. Focus groups were used to identify what learners could recall about their LO sexuality education classes. The strong trend in the data speaks to how LO sexuality education implies a gendered, heteronormative and moralistic approach to youth sexuality which silences and negates same sex relationships and girls’ accounts of sexuality. Although LO sexuality curricula are, as crafted on paper, often sophisticated learning programmes, participants point to a disjuncture between the official LO sexuality education curriculum and how LO sexuality education is taught in the studied schools. The paper concludes with some specific recommendations for teachers to promote a non-judgemental approach to sexuality education that challenges heteronormativity and other gendered injustices as part of the teaching of LO sexuality education.     

Enabling labour market entry for adults through non-formal education and training for employment in South Africa

Adult non-formal education and training (NFET) in South Africa was adopted in 1990 to address the problem of unemployment of non-educated and unskilled adults. Public and private NFET centres aim to meet the training needs of adults who were deprived of formal education that would foster access to opportunities for employment. The paper reports on a study conducted to investigate what constitutes NFET enabling environments for employment. The paper focuses on the approach of training delivery fostering labour market entry of graduates. The findings show that individual trainees who participated in private centres had a higher probability of being employed because of the creation of internal enabling environments for skills acquisition and focus on income-generating activities. The authors conclude that an integration of technical skills with business skills and ‘learning by earning’ is a potential training delivery approach enabling graduates to participate in economic activities.     

Vocational education and training for sustainability in South Africa: The role of public and private provision

Written in the twilight of the Mbeki Presidency, this paper considers the role that skills development has in the sustainability of the South African political–economic project. It explores some of the disarticulations of public policy and argues that these both undermine public sector delivery and open up opportunities for private provision to be, under certain circumstances, more responsive to the challenges of national development. We argue that there is a possibility that the state could work more smartly with both sets of providers. Crucially, however, this would necessitate working more smartly within itself. This was a major plank of the Mbeki strategy but it has failed conspicuously with regard to the Education–Labour relationship. Whether a new President can achieve a radical reworking of this relationship may be an important indicator of the viability of any new development project.     

Principal leadership changes and their consequences for school performance in South Africa

School leadership changes are gaining momentum in South Africa as larger proportions of incumbent principals near retirement age. While this presents opportunities to replace weaker school leaders with better ones, these changes may also destabilize school environments and impede on learning. This study explores this issue using payroll data on public school principals in South Africa linked to national data on schools and matriculation examination outcomes. School fixed effects and propensity score matching with difference-in-difference estimations confirm that principal changes are indeed detrimental to school performance with larger disruptive effects observed in poorer schools.     

Creating critical‐democratic citizenship education: empowering humanity and democracy in Dutch education

Dutch society and educational policy see citizenship education as being an important task of education. The first section of this paper discusses the concept of citizenship and citizenship education, and analyses educational developments in the Netherlands. Following on from this introduction the second part of the paper puts forward a critical democratic pedagogy of citizenship education. With this proposed democratic pedagogy in mind, the third and final part of the paper goes on to analyse the discourses and developing practices of citizenship education in the Netherlands, and proposes a number of new possibilities.