Access to higher education in South Africa: expanding capabilities in and through an undergraduate photovoice project

ABSTRACT

There is a gap in research on access to universities in South Africa. The research that exists focuses on quantitative methodologies, although some qualitative studies are now emerging. These research methodologies, although necessary and substantial for the development of equity measures and policies, might be less successful in their impact on the local context, on research participants and in expanding what counts as knowledge in the university. In this paper, participatory research, which has not been used to research access, is explored. The paper seeks to go beyond the instrumentalization of research participants – especially those from low-income households – highlighting the potential of using multi-strategy research, in which participatory elements are included as a way to foster both participants’ human development and local impact. Drawing on a research project on access to higher education in South Africa, the paper demonstrates that by including participatory elements (in this case photovoice) has the potential to operationalize Appadurai’s notion of the ‘right to research’ among undergraduates. Using data, including processes, observations, workshops, interviews, and visual narratives from a participatory photovoice project, the findings highlight how methodological plurality creates space for locally and relevant knowledge production, challenging epistemic barriers and fostering human development among the research participants.     

Dimensions of higher education and the public good in South Africa

The focus is on the micro-possibilities of student capabilities formation as the end of public-good higher education, rather than on a systems or organizations approach more commonly found in discussions of the public good and higher education. This does not discount other valuable public-good ends. Using South Africa as a global South context, a capability-based approach to the public good of higher education is proposed for its humanizing ethic, attention to fair opportunities, and participation in terms of what students are able to do and to be in and through higher education. A capability frame is complemented by thinking about decoloniality and epistemic justice to help identify central higher education capabilities. The three proposed intersecting capability dimensions are as follows: personhood self-formation, epistemic contribution, and sufficiency of economic resources, intended to guide university practices and policy interventions in the direction of the public good. By populating the space of the public good with capabilities, a shift is made away from micro-economics which see the public good as a reductionist space of commodities and human capital development. Higher education is rather understood as having both instrumental and intrinsic value, generating an alternative logic to that of neo-liberalism, and an individualist ontology of competition and untrammeled markets. The pressures of the global context are acknowledged so that the public good is understood as both “ideal-aspirational” but also “practical-feasible” in the light of local South African conditions. An expanded capability-based framing would contribute to reducing higher education inequalities as a public-good and public-accountable contribution by universities.     

South African universities and human development: Towards a theorisation and operationalisation of professional capabilities for poverty reduction

This paper reports on a research project investigating the role of universities in South Africa in contributing to poverty reduction through the quality of their professional education programmes. The focus here is on theorising and the early operationalisation of multi-layered, multi-dimensional transformation based on ideas from Amartya Sen's capability approach. Key features of a professionalism oriented to public service, which in South Africa must mean the needs and lives of the poor, are outlined. These features include: the demand from justice; the expansion of the comprehensive capabilities both of the poor and professional capability formation to be able to act in ‘pro-poor’ ways; and, praxis pedagogies which shape this connected process. This theorisation is then tentatively operationalised in a process of selecting transformation dimensions.     

Universities and a Human Development Ethics: a capabilities approach to curriculum

This article takes up the challenge of curriculum change in relation to the contested purposes of universities. It argues for an expansive, public good understanding, rather than the thin market exchange norms which currently drive higher education policies. The paper suggests that a human capital approach to curriculum is then insufficient to capture the full range and potential of a university curriculum. Instead, an approach to curriculum based on human development and capabilities formation is advanced as offering a richer perspective on what it means to be human and hence on the kinds of graduates universities should educate. Some implications for teaching, learning and assessment are outlined and a framework to design and operationalise a human development approach to curriculum is proposed.     

Tackling social inequality and exclusion in education: from human capital to capabilities

Both in the international context and in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), research shows that many young people experience social exclusion in relation to education. However, research evidence concerning structural social inequality in education is predominantly underpinned by an outcome-based approach, since educational policies and practices are largely informed by a human capital model. Inspired by the theoretical insights of the Capability Approach, we aim to contribute to process-oriented knowledge about the ways in which educational and social welfare actors can support socially vulnerable young people in realising their capability for education rather than focusing on human capital. We draw upon a rich empirical basis of participatory biographical research with young people in the system of part-time vocational education and workplace learning, perceived as the residue of the educational cascade mechanism in Flanders and pertinently revealing problems of social exclusion and exit of young people.     

Neoliberalism,the public sphere,and a public good

This essay considers the challenges that neoliberalism raises for conceptual models and practices of a multiple public sphere. Engaging difference and attending to inequality, a multiple public sphere facilitates the circulation of a dynamic public good that may articulate mutual standing and relationships among people to enable the construction of a collective “we” for coordinated action. Weakening relationships among people and devaluing coordinated action, neoliberalism envisions a public of atomistic individuals who compete with one another for comparative advantage. Flattening difference and obscuring inequality, a neoliberal public presumes a universal subject that obscures its own particularity and discounts the uneven burdens faced by those who cannot seamlessly identify with its mode of subjectivity. Further, for a neoliberal public, inequality serves as the condition and end of competition. Resistance to neoliberalism may arise in the networked locals of a multiple public sphere, as advocates reclaim connections that neoliberalism seeks to deny.     

非洲援外教师专业相关能力胜任度研究

以埃塞-中国职业技术学院这一职业教育援外项目为例,归纳总结了职业教育援外教师应具备的专业相关能力,分析并建立了专业相关能力模型,将埃塞俄比亚目前的职业教育师资认证体系的能力要求与我国现有的＂双师型一体化＂教师的专业能力进行了对比。在调研及评测的基础上,分析得出援外教师专业能力整体符合度结果、胜任程度较高和较低的项目及对应的问题,并对援外教师人才建设和能力建设的相关问题进行了探讨。     

Distribution of public education spending for the poor: The case of yemen

This paper explores the issue of how a country for which the prioritization of public spending towards poverty reduction is a key policy concern can monitor the distributional effects of public spending. Employing standard benefit-incidence analysis, this paper empirically examines how public education spending is currently distributed in Yemen. It also considers the extent to which the distributional benefit to the poor should and can be improved, focusing on possible changes in cost sharing for higher education and on associated changes in budget allocations. The findings support the government’s decision to increase cost sharing while maintaining a high overall level of public education spending and provide a benchmark from which to monitor the impact of this and other education spending decisions on the poor.     

Educators' perceptions of continuing professional development for teachers in South Africa: A qualitative study

Abstract

The effectiveness of educational reform initiatives depends on the quality of teachers. Professional development (PD) of teachers has therefore become a major focal point of school improvement initiatives. The National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and Development (2007) attempts to address the need for suitably qualified teachers in South Africa. The study discussed in this article was qualitative within purposefully selected schools. Its aim was to explain educators' perceptions of continuing professional development in the light of the national policy. The following major findings emerged from the data analysis: (1) overall view of PD in the education system, (2) experience of types of PD programmes, and (3) impact of PD programmes on schools.     

谈高等职业教育中创新能力的培养

文章全面论述了高等职业教育中 ,培养学生创新能力的重要性。     

探索高职院校公共英语教育与专业教育结合的可能性——苏农院公共英语教学改革的设想

针对目前高职院学生公共英语教育的现状,本文以苏农院为例,探讨公共英语教学模式的改变,教学方式的变革和期望达成的教学成果。     

Poverty PhDs: Funds of knowledge,poverty, and professional identity in academia

In contrast to the common deficit approach, this self-study explores the relationship between the funds of knowledge possessed by people of poverty and their development of professional identity in academia. All three authors have moved beyond conditions of financial poverty, but all find that the mental conditions of poverty persist. We conclude that select skills and dispositions developed in conditions of material poverty helped us to navigate graduate school and continue to productively inform, yet complicate, the development of our professional academic identities. We tease apart the myth of meritocracy and identify the value of transferable funds of knowledge developed in poverty. We document how our own practices have changed as a result of recognizing our funds of knowledge developed in poverty.     

Safety,celebration, and risk: educator responses to LGBTQ professional development

Research has explored multicultural teacher education from multiple, sometimes divergent perspectives; yet, these studies agree that what passes for multicultural education fails to address issues of educational inequity. This paper is part of a larger evaluation study of Reduction of Stigma in Schools (RSIS) – a professional development program aiming to empower educators to create affirming environments for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Interview data indicate that though workshops utilized a critical approach, what teachers embraced was a call to understand and “protect” LGBTQ students through the “safety” discourse – a form of understanding and valuing the “cultural other” – and investment in one time “visibility” or “celebration” events as symbols of improved school climate. Further, educators framed LGBTQ issues as “risk” issues rather than as equity issues, which continue to mark LGBTQ students as “victims” or “problems” in need of saving or solving. We posit that responses to RSIS content reflect educators’ understanding of their obligation to “diversity” as presented during their teacher preparation programs and that workshop content which resonated with them was that which they could easily fit into these familiar frameworks.     

利用专业导论课引导学生认知专业和自主学习

随着我国经济社会的迅速发展,高等教育已经从精英教育转变为大众教育。高等学校如何面对有思想、有主见、凭兴趣做事的新一代大学生,调动其学习积极性,引导其热爱所学专业、安心学习,是值得思考的一个课题。专业导论课是引导学生走入专业知识殿堂的向导,在大学生学习过程中,具有不可替代的作用。     

强化职业教育解决农民问题

解决农村孩子读书难问题，让他们花最少的钱，学到一技或多技之长。因地制宜，举办各种农技培训班，解决农产品高产、储藏、加工与优质、优价问题，做到最大限度地增产增收，并应培训打工队伍，提高农民工素质。     

提升高校资助育人工作实效性初探

现阶段,我国高校资助育人工作从保障型资助体系转变为内涵式资助体系。因而如何更好地践行资助育人工作、帮助贫困大学生健康成长,是高校资助育人工作的重要课题。在高校资助育人工作中,物质资助是前提,精神资助则是关键,从此角度出发,通过对高校资助育人工作现状、工作目标的分析,探索提升高校资助育人工作实效性的路径,旨在帮助贫困大学生摆脱物质与精神的双贫困,促其健康成长。     

Being poor at school: exploring conditions of educability in the favela

This article explores how different ways of experiencing poverty affect the possibilities of poor children to make the most of their education. The study uses the concept of conditions of educability to reflect how the different dimensions of the experience of poverty facilitate or hinder the success of educational practices and the learning of poor students. In the first part of the article, the concept of conditions of educability is discussed in relation to the notions of capabilities and functionings, and a framework to investigate conditions of educability is presented. The second part of the article is based on the results of a study conducted in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Through an analysis of interviews conducted with students, families and teachers, the different dimensions of the social experience of the children who inhabit the favelas are described. Two cases are presented and discussed as analytical examples of the conditions of educability of poor children. The last section of the article assesses some of the consequences of conditions of educability for the policy debate.     

对高校教学督导队伍专业化建设的探讨

教学督导是保障教学质量、提高教学水平的有效手段。教学督导队伍的素质以及专业化程度是保障教学督导工作成效的关键,因此,必须打造专业化教学督导队伍,明确专业化的素质内涵,根据内涵来确定构建教学督导队伍建设的策略。     

世界职业教育制度改革和发展的新趋势

在新的挑战面前，世界职业教育正进行着各个方面的改革，其中职业教育制度是职业教育改革的重点。其改革和发展有四大趋势：职业教育终身化；职业教育上移化；职业教育与企业培训合作化；普通教育职业化和职业教育普通化。     

Overlooked aspects in the education of science professionals: Mentoring,ethics, and professional responsibility

Science as profession is generally defined narrowly as research. Science education as preparation for a profession in research is usually perceived as course work and laboratory training, even though the necessary knowledge and skills to pursue a research career are more extensive and diverse and are learned in one-on-one interaction with mentors. A complete education of science professionals includes the values, ethical standards and conventions of the discipline since they are fundamental to the profession. Mentoring and education in the responsible conduct and reporting of research and in the ethical dimensions of science are among the professional responsibilities of scientists and need to be discussed as part of science education. Moreover, science as an enterprise is much more than research and includes a number of other components, including science teaching, science journalism, and science policy. Each of these contributes to the nature of science and its role in society.