Training teachers as key players in poverty alleviation

This article presents several questions, reflections and suggestions on pre-service and in-service teacher training that arose during the project “Curricular innovation and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa”. While recognizing that the situation in the nine countries taking part in the project, and in many other countries in the southern hemisphere, is marked by a huge lack of teachers, with the attendant urgency and pressure, it must also be stated that the economic and social status of teachers is not always equal to the needs of the schools and societies. In this project on the place of the school in poverty alleviation and the promotion of peace, the role of the teachers was soon seen to be crucial. The analysis of the common areas of the demands made on teachers from the northern hemisphere and of the specific needs and realities of the countries from the south enabled us to start building possible responses in the short and medium term in the countries where Education for All (EFA) is not yet a fully fledged reality.     

To be or not to be an academic: South African graduate students’ vocational choices

In the post-apartheid era, South African universities are striving to attract and retain diverse faculty, as mandated by the 1998 Employment Equity Act (EEA). While the focus on faculty is critical to the transformation agenda, it is informative to step back and consider the factors that influence graduate students’ decisions regarding joining the academy. This qualitative study explores the educational experiences and vocational decisions of 50 masters and doctoral students from the EEA's “designated groups,” who are poised to become academics. Factors influencing graduate students’ vocational choices should be taken into consideration as universities strive to attract more diverse faculty.     

Secret languages of sex: disabled youth’s experiences of sexual and HIV communication with their parents/caregivers in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Various health promotion strategies have been implemented in South Africa aiming to encourage young people to talk about issues of sexuality and HIV with their parents/caregivers. Although parent/caregiver sexual communication may be an effective method of influencing sexual behaviour and curbing the incidence of HIV, very little is known about how young people with disabilities in South Africa communicate about these traditionally difficult subjects with their parents/caregivers. Based on findings from a participatory study conducted amongst 15–20-year-old Zulu-speaking youth with physical and visual disabilities, this paper explores how they perceive youth–parent/caregiver communication about sexuality and HIV. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, the paper outlines how disabled youth–parent/caregiver sexual communication is governed by cultural customs, sexual secrecy and constructs of innocence. It also argues that the experiences and perceptions of young people with disabilities are critical to the development of future interventions to assist parents/caregivers develop communication strategies that help disabled young people make sense of sexual behaviour.     

Who is out of school? Evidence from the Statistics South Africa Community Survey

The South Africa Schools Act requires every child to “attend school from the first school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of seven years until the last day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of 15 years or the ninth grade, whichever comes first” (Republic of South Africa, 1996). This paper addresses three questions in relation to this. First, to what extent has this legal requirement been met? Second, what are the trends in relation to achieving universal access to compulsory education? And third, what are the factors related to and characteristics of those learners of compulsory school age who are not attending? To address these questions, we have made use of the Statistics South Africa dataset, Community Survey 2007. Our analysis suggests that the size of the compulsory age population who are not attending school may be slightly higher than some government sources have suggested. The trend associated with access remains consistent, with the only major change over the past 10 years being the improved levels of enrolment of six and seven year old children. With regard to the factors related to and the characteristics of children who are not attending school, our analysis reveals that certain sub-populations have higher non-attendance ratios: coloured boys; children whose parents, particularly mothers, have died; children born outside South Africa; children who have moved in the past five years; children with disabilities; and children living in some specific rural communities. A number of broad but interrelated factors may account for children not being in school: disability; family structure; children living in households that are eligible for social grants but are not receiving them; and geographic and racial characteristics. To be poor in South Africa may mean exclusion from the mainstream of the economy, but it does not necessarily mean exclusion from access to basic state services like enrolment in schooling or social grants. Children not attending are not only likely to be living in households that are excluded from participation in the mainstream economy, but are also on the fringes of state services; they may also be on the fringes of households. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research to identify reasons why children in these vulnerable sub-populations are less likely to be enrolled.     

What does the teaching and learning of sexuality education in South African schools reveal about counter-normative sexualities?

ABSTRACT

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclusion of counter-normative sexualities, in their teaching and responses they privileged heterosexuality as legitimate and natural and same-sex sexualities as deviant and Other. Second, teachers’ discourses construct queer youth not only as innocent and childlike but also as hypersexual and rebellious – requiring discipline and intervention. These constructions link closely to discourses of pity and tolerance, or blame when counter-normative sexualities were expressed. Finally, despite heterosexuality being privileged in the classroom, teachers’ and pupils’ questions about gender and sexuality diversity suggest the need for a more defined and inclusive curriculum sexuality education curriculum. Findings justify concern about how counter-normative sexualities are addressed in the sexuality education classroom and advocate for improvement in teaching and learning about counter-normative sexualities in South African secondary education.     

教育产业化及其制约因素的对策分析

我国目前教育产业化的制约因素在于教育排斥市场机制,教育市场的发育滞后和劳动力市场不成熟,要顺利地实施教育产业化,就要切实创造条件把市场机制引入教育领域,并通过各种措施建立教育市场和完善劳动力市场,以此推进教育产业化。     

论教育作为一种工程性实践

现代教育需要一种自觉的理性,这种理性是技术理性、科学理性和价值理性的统一。人们运用价值理性看顾教育目标,运用技术理性和科学理性设计教育手段和理解教育结果。很明显,技术理性的运用占用了绝大部分教育实践成本（含时间成本）。因此教育理性突出表现在课程开发和教学设计以及教育系统分析的工作当中,而非课堂教学这类感性活动之中。即是说,只有课程开发、教学设计、教育系统分析实现了技术化,教育才能成为现代教育。而这种教育本身就是一种工程性实践,不但需要课程开发技术、教学设计技术等专业技术,还需要教育工程学。教育工程学视野中的教育工程,不是指教育领域中的工程项目,而是指教育系统的设计、开发、实施与维护升级的组织性实践活动。这里教育系统是指教育组织所采纳的课程体系及其经过逐层转化而演变而成的教学实施活动。教育建模是教育工程学研究首要的工作。教育建模包括教育系统的概念建模和教育工程的过程建模。我们可以用“课程体系—门类课程—知识组件—学习活动—活动任务—教学环节—知识对象”来表征教育系统概念模型,可以将课程开发过程模式、教学设计过程模式、过程机制图组合起来表征教育工程的过程模型。     

非洲青年就业及职业技能积累问题研究

非洲青年人口中有60%处于失业状态,导致青年人口贫困的同时,也使其成为社会稳定的扰动因素。非洲青年人口就业的结构性矛盾突出,该群体的低技能特征使之无法满足岗位需求,大部分人处于失业状态或徘徊在非正规就业领域,就业质量差且就业稳定性低。建议通过加强正规教育和在职培训提升该群体的就业能力：一方面,从长期看,基础教育应努力实现适龄人口全覆盖,中高等教育要不断提升教育层次和受教育年限,为接受职业教育奠定基础;另一方面,从中短期看,不断增加对职业技术教育的投入,提升职业技术教育和培训的质量与针对性。