Analyzing teaching quality in Botswana and South Africa

This study focuses on quantifying the quality of mathematics teaching in 183 randomly selected sixth grade classrooms: 100 from the North West province of South Africa and 83 from South East Botswana. The teaching quality is measured by coding videotaped lessons for three different components: mathematical proficiency, level of cognitive demand, and observed teacher knowledge. Results suggest that the overall teaching quality is about the same in both regions. Some variation was observed at the level of each component. For example, in the South Africa sample the students engage more in tasks that just involve “memorization” and less in tasks that involve “procedures without connections” in comparison with the Botswana students. Teachers in Botswana implement the official curriculum more faithfully than do those in North West. In both countries most of the learners engaged only in low-level tasks (very little activity involved “procedures with connections”) and teachers demonstrated a lack of knowledge about how to integrate mathematical content with effective pedagogical techniques.     

Explaining mathematics achievement gains in Botswana and South Africa

The purpose of this study is to test empirically whether and how classroom and school factors contribute to student mathematics learning gains in the border region of North West province, South Africa and Southeastern Botswana. Our results suggest that in both regions, improving teaching quality has an important impact on how much mathematics students learn during the year. The amount of effort put into covering the curriculum and teacher mathematics knowledge are also important factors in the learning gains students make in grade 6 classrooms in southern Africa.     

Religion in education policy in South Africa: a challenge of change

Since 1995, the National Department of Education has developed a number of policies to give effect to the proposed transformation outlined in White Paper 1 (Notice 196 of 1995) and in subsequent legislation. A range of Acts and policies were introduced, many of them dealing with how religion should be dealt with in schools and it culminated in the promulgation of the National Policy on Religion and Education (2003). In all these policies the role of the school and, in particular, of the school principal has been foregrounded as important for effective implementation of policies. This article is based on research conducted to determine how school principals dealt with religion and the implementation of the religion and education policy. This study found that school principals often ignore the policy and maintain the status quo. When faced with conflict of religious interests, they partially sub-contract into the policy. The study also found that past experiences with religion in education, either as students or educators, had a major impact on how principals perceive the role of religion in schools and how they dealt with it.     

From policy to practice: The challenges to educational access for non-nationals in South Africa

This paper argues that the problems of educational access for non-nationals in South Africa lie not simply in failures of the current policies, although there are certainly instances where policies need modification, but largely in the implementation of existing policies, and the ways in which they are developed and modified. The paper reviews evidence in the international literature and draws on empirical evidence from a small study of a group of Zimbabwean migrant children to illustrate more clearly the dynamics that serve to exclude them from access to schooling, despite official policy commitments. Key research questions that are addressed are what main barriers to educational access exist for non-national and are these a result of policy gaps; how does the implementation of existing educational policies affect the educational access of non-nationals; what approaches to policy and practice would be more effective in ensuring non-nationals participate fully in basic education? The paper ends with some observations on how to address the policy gaps and how to develop a more effective approach to policy formation and implementation in order to improve both policy and practice.     

Teacher labour markets in South Africa and Botswana: A comparative analysis

This article compares key features of the labour markets for teachers across Botswana and South Africa in order to seek possible explanations for the apparently larger teacher shortages in South Africa. It is argued that South African teachers earn relatively lower wages when compared to professionals with comparable qualifications; they have also been subject to a more haphazard series of reforms in teacher training, and are the product of a teaching culture shaped heavily by powerful trade unions. The impact of these factors on both the quantity and quality of teachers is considered.     

Changing forms of teacher education in South Africa: a case study of policy change

This paper examines some aspects of teacher education policy change in South Africa. It contextualises the changes by firstly examining the apartheid teacher education system and then mapping the changes that have occurred in teacher education in South Africa since 1994. Using a case study of the Further Diploma in Educational Management at the University of Pretoria, it provides a critical analysis of one particular current path to teacher education in South Africa, namely the ‘franchise’ public/private teacher education provision. The paper concludes by discussing the related policy possibilities and problems of teacher education policy since 1944. It highlights how institutions have stategically responded to change in a transitional context, and draws attention to the disjunction between policy intentions and outcomes.     

The local educational change process and policy implementation

That change is a process, not an event, is being accepted gradually by educators, policy makers, and researchers. Just as development of an innovation takes time, specialized personnel, and resources, so does implementation. A number of issues and implications related to viewing innovation development and implementation as a process need to be addressed. Planning for, facilitating implementation, and evaluating the change process varies depending on whether there is a single innovation, innovation bundle, hyperinnovation or large—scale innovation. Instead of top down, or bottom up, in all cases, the various participants must strive to level the playing field. Change processes are most successful when policy makers, practitioners, and researchers understand that all are part of the same effort and each has an essential role in achieving implementation success.     

An educational way ahead for South Africa?

The vast (and increasing) majority of the South African population are non-white, and suffer many disadvantages. Solutions for these must be sought by political, economic, and social transformations which the present regime will not allow. However, internal economic pressures (especially the shortage of skilled and intermediate personnel necessary for the modernisation and enlargement of present enterprises) show the need for a much larger and better educated non-white work-force. In certain sectors of industry in some parts of the country, non-white South Africans are extending their education and moving into apprenticeship or other training opportunities, especially where white intermediate specialists are moving out.Less opposition is sometimes shown to the advancement of non-white personnel than previously, partly because industries and commerce welcome them, and partly because whites who in earlier times would have resented non-white competition are aspiring to other educational and social futures. However, the possibilities of acquiring intermediate education and training remain very difficult for non-whites (especially the black population) because of discrimination, very unequal provision and erratic distribution, and the poor supply of black teachers.Much provision for the South African non-white population will probably have to be of a supplementary character. To that extent, the South African need for hasty reorientation both in technological and in general education becomeseducationally comparable to the need felt in well-schooled industrial countries for post-compulsory readjustments between schooling and industry, and for second-chance opportunities. Prospects for implementation in South Africa are considered against the long tradition of segregation and the division of administrative responsibilities in the educational system. South African problems are also considered for their wider relevance for the use of post-compulsory education in circumstances of rapid change, especially where educational provision has to be re-engaged for different social and economic needs.

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Zusammenfassung Die überwältigende (und noch ständig wachsende) Mehrheit der südafrikanischen Bevölkerung ist farbig und leidet unter vielen Nachteilen. Für diese müssen Lösungen gesucht werden durch politische, wirtschaftliche und soziale Umwandlungen, die das gegenwärtige Regime nicht zulässt. Interne wirtschaftliche Erfordernisse (insbesondere der Bedarf an Facharbeitern und mittlerem Personal für die Modernisierung und Ausdehnung bestehender Unternehmen) zeigen die Notwendigkeit einer viel umfangreicheren und besser ausgebildeten farbigen Arbeiterschaft auf. In gewissen Industriesektoren in einigen Teilen des Landes verlängern Farbige ihre Ausbildung, indem sie Lehrlings- oder andere Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten wahrnehmen, vor allem auf den Gebieten, von denen weisse mittlere Fachleute abwandern.Dem Fortschritt farbigen Personals wird vielfach weniger Widerstand entgegengesetzt, als bisher der Fall war, teils weil Industrie und Handel mittlere Arbeitskräfte brauchen, teils weil die Weissen, die sich früher gegen eine farbige Konkurrenz gewandt hätten, jetzt einen anderen Bildungs- und Sozialstandard anstreben. Immerhin bleiben die Möglichkeiten für Farbige (besonders die Schwarzen) infolge von Diskriminierung, sehr ungleichem Ausbildungsangebot und ungleichmässiger Verteilung sowie dem Mangel an schwarzen Lehrern stark beschränkt.Ein grosser Teil des Ausbildungsangebots für die farbige Bevölkerung Süd-Afrikas wird wahrscheinlich ergänzender Natur sein müssen. Insofern ist die Notwendigkeit für schnelle Umorientierung sowohl der technischen als auch der allgemeinen Bildung in Süd-Afrika vergleichbar mit der Bildungssituation in Industrieländern, die gut mit Schulen ausgestattet sind, in denen sich aber für die Zeit nach dem Schulpflichtalter ein Bedarf nach Neuausrichtung des Verhältnisses zwischen Schule und Industrie sowie nach zweiten Chancen spürbar bemerkbar macht. Die Aussichten für die Durchführung entsprechender Änderungen in Süd-Afrika werden gegen die lange Tradition von Segregation und administrativer Verantwortungsteilung im Bildungswesen abgewogen. Ferner werden die Probleme Süd-Afrikas auf ihre weitgehendere Relevanz für Nach-Schul-Ausbildung unter Verhältnissen schnellen Wandels hin untersucht, vor allem dort, wo das Bildungsangebot für verschiedene soziale und wirtschaftliche Notwendigkeiten in Anspruch genommen werden muss.

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Résumé La grande majorité (croissante) de la population sud-africaine est constituée de non-blancs et souffre de nombreux désavantages. Les solutions doivent être recherchées par des transformations sociales, économiques et politiques que le régime actuel ne permet pas. Toutefois, les pressions économiques intérieures (plus particulièrement la pénurie de personnel qualifié et intermédiaire pour la modernisation et l'agrandissement des entreprises actuelles) montre la nécessité d'une force de travail non-blanche plus importante et mieux éduquée. Dans certains secteurs de l'industrie, et dans certaines parties du pays, les sud-africains non-blancs sont en train de développer leur éducation et entrent en apprentissage, ou profitent d'autres opportunités de formation, là surtout où les spécialistes intermédiaires blancs s'en vont.La promotion du personnel non-blanc suscite parfois une opposition moindre que par le passé, en partie du fait que les industries et le commerce leur font bon accueil, mais aussi parce que les blancs qui, auparavant, auraient pris ombrage de la compétition des non-blancs, aspirent maintenant à un avenir social et éducatif différent. Toutefois les possibilités d'acquérir une éducation et une formation intermédiaires pour restent minimes les non-blancs (surtout pour la population noire) à cause de la discrimination, des prestations éducationnelles très inégales, de la distribution irrégulière, et du nombre restreint d'enseignants noirs.La plus grande partie des prestations éducationnelles concernant la population sud-africaine non-blanche devra probablement revêtir un caractère complémentaire. A ce point, le besoin ressenti par l'Afrique du Sud d'une réorientation urgente, tant dans le domaine technologique que dans celui de l'éducation générale, est comparable, sur le plan de l'éducation, au besoin que les pays industriels bien scolarisés, ressentent d'une adaptation post-obligatoire entre l'établissement scolaire et l'industrie, et d'opportunités d'une seconde chance. Les perspectives d'une mise en oeuvre de ces réformes en Afrique du Sud sont traitées, en tenant compte de la longue tradition de ségrégation, et de la division des responsabilités administratives dans le système de l'éducation. Les problèmes sud-africains méritent aussi d'être examinés parce que bien appropriés à d'autre situations où des changements rapides font sentir la nécessité de recourir à l'enseignement post-obligatoire, spécialement là où les prestations éducationnelles doivent être ré-engagées pour répondre à des besoins sociaux et économiques différents.

     

The impact of educational policy reforms on the distribution of educational outcomes in developing countries: The case of Botswana

After half a decade of concerted government efforts to provide equal educational opportunity through comparable educational provisions, Botswana's basic education system is atypical of those studied in such developing countries as India, Swaziland, Nigeria, Egypt, Chile, Brazil and Thailand. The system defies conclusions of studies previously conducted in developing countries that, compared to student characteristics, school characteristics account for a relatively higher proportion of the variance in student achievement. Using the organizational approach, and the variance components analytical approach (Hierarchial Linear Models) to the study of school effects, the partitioning of the variance between the school and student characteristics resembles that reported in the United States and Britain. Up to 88% of the variance in achievement lies within schools, while only 12% lies between schools.     

Schooling citizens: policy in practice in South Africa

The notion of ‘student citizen’ is implicit in a range of national and provincial policy documents in South Africa, with citizenship promoted as both an expected outcome of schooling and an encouraged practice within schools. This paper provides an account of how policy on student citizenship was translated differently into practice in four secondary schools in Cape Town, each with a different former racial categorisation under apartheid. It argues that student engagement with citizenship varied considerably between the schools and in many cases was significantly different from the policy framework. Influencing factors included staff–student relations, socio‐historical contexts and how diversity was played out in the schools.     

Racializing educational change: Melting pot and mosaic influences on educational policy and practice

This article racializes educational change by examining literature on the history of educational approaches to diversity in the United States and Ontario, Canada to demonstrate how their respective national myths for engaging with diversity—the melting pot and mosaic—have impacted their educational policies and practices over three definable eras of educational change. The educational policies and practices of the two countries are evaluated in relation to four significant and—within the existing literature—widely used political and educational strategies for responding to racial and ethnocultural diversity in schools. The paper cautions that the current era of curriculum standardization and high stakes assessments that reflects a melting pot approach to education reinstitutes and reinforces an inequitable vertical mosaic structure of schooling experiences and outcomes for diverse student populations. It urges policy makers to consider how the current movement toward post-standardization, which reflects a mosaic approach, is presently influencing educational policy and practice in international contexts and achieving more just and effective learning outcomes for diverse student groups.

Changing regimes: Governmentality and education policy in post-apartheid South Africa

This article applies Foucault's notion of governmentality to educational restructuring in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that the nature of government in a modern state entails engaging with particular practices and domains of knowledge, which themselves constrain the changes that are conceivable and credible. Using Foucault's concepts of ‘conduct of conduct’, regimes of practices and ‘saviors’, the article outlines the approach adopted by the new government in relation to establishing constitutional ground rules and managing the economy. It argues that in its approach to restructuring education, the new government prioritised issues relating to the ‘conduct of conduct’. The article suggests that Foucault's approach of questioning normalisations might yield alternative accounts of the exercise of governmental power in changing education. It ends by proposing that a range of theoretical framings be used in engaging critically with educational change.     

Multilingualism in democratic South Africa: the over-estimation of language policy

The article focuses on the increasing mismatch between South Africa's stated official policy on language and its gradually evolving linguistic realities. Whereas the country's institutional documents (the Constitution and the national policies being developed) proclaim linguistic pluralism to be the national objective the country seems to be regressing to its pre-apartheid situation of monolingual practice—a situation of “English only”. This phenomenon is illustrated with reference to language-in-education, particularly the issues of language of learning and teaching (“medium of instruction”), language study and language and certification. The article then debates three possible reasons for the inability of the Government of the country to take positive steps towards policy implementation, concluding with the view that language planning is not enough, and that the lack of a meaningful political will in the political (and educational) leadership of the country is the chief obstacle to giving substance to multilingualism in South Africa.     

Language-in-education policy in South Africa: The challenge of sign language

Abstract

Although there is an extensive and growing literature that addresses issues related to most aspects of language-in-education policy in South Africa, one area in which the literature remains fairly sparse has been that of the implications of current government policy for South African Sign Language (SASL). This article presents an overview of the complex issues presented by the case of SASL for language-in-education policy, and offers a series of recommendations for how these issues might best be addressed. Given the relatively small research base that currently exists dealing explicitly with SASL, the article makes use of both the South African research literature and the far more substantial international research that addresses issues of sign language, education, and language policy.     

Language proficiency and language policy in South Africa: Findings from new data

This study explores new data from 2008 on language proficiency and labour market outcomes in the context of South Africa's language-in-education policy. We show that the economic returns to English language proficiency are large and higher than those to home language proficiency for the majority of employed South Africans. This helps explain why there is little incentive to switch to an African language as the language of instruction in schools. However, we show also that African adults are significantly more likely to be proficient in English if they are proficient in their home language. This finding supports the arguments of additive bilingualism, which identify the benefits of extended mother-tongue education for the acquisition of second-language skills.     

Using evaluation research for policy and practice in Botswana

Former National Research Co-ordinator for the IEA Reading Literacy Study; is currently working on the Criterion Referenced Testing programme in Botswana.     

Reconceptualising educational assessment in South Africa — testing times for teachers

This paper explores some of the problems arising when Continuous Assessment (CA) is grafted onto established pedagogic practices. It focuses on three issues: teachers' restricted understandings of assessment, teachers' emphasis on criteria that demonstrate concern with social control, and some of the problems connected with peer assessment. Two vignettes derived from fieldwork associated with a project to improve the quality of primary education are used to raise the issues. We argue that the development of desired practices is hampered above all by tacit values in tension with those underpinning the new curriculum. These values, together with the complexity of curriculum design, create serious problems of manageability and interpretation, which can only be addressed through detailed interactive in-service training, aimed at reconceptualising teachers' notions of assessment.