Education and skills for development in South Africa: Reflections on the accelerated and shared growth initiative for South Africa

In July 2005, President Mbeki announced the launch of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), a new development strategy designed to help the South African state meet the ANC's 2004 election pledges, namely:

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halve unemployment;     

Intermediate-level ICT skills and development in South Africa: Private provision form suited to national purpose!

Abstract   ICT skills are critical to the success of enhancing national development in a globalised era (see World Bank 2006). Rudimentary intermediate-level ICT skills necessary to function optimally in basic computer-related environments are crucial to national competitiveness in a developing context. The supply of these skills provided predominantly by private, non-state institutions in most developing contexts is considerably under-researched (see Atchoarena and Esquieu 2002). This paper provides a rationale for the suitability of private sector intermediate-level ICT provisioning, exploring peculiarities of provisioning in the South African context. The features associated with the varied provider types and the response to the multiplicity of learner and client groups serve as crucial features of suitability. It posits the view that the capacity of the sector to respond effectively to skill needs provides the basis for national development in the South African context. The culpability of the sector in responding effectively to rapid technological developments provides the basis for its suitability to private provision forms. Lessons from this work and its impacts on national regulation of private ICT provision will provide important insights for other developing contexts.

Skills for work?: From skills development to decent livelihoods in Ghana's rural informal economy

In developing countries, skills development has been neglected. Skills development does not appear in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or in many poverty reduction strategies and has been side-lined in favour of investment in primary education. However, it is hoped that discussion of skills development in the 2005 Global Monitoring Report and the World Summit in September 2005, will refocus attention on skills. In Ghana, skills development has received too little actual emphasis, despite the rhetoric of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (2003–2005), the new Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (2006–2009), and more than 150 years of preoccupation with making education more relevant to the world of work.     

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.     

南非以结果为本位的教育改革

以结果为本位的教育是20世纪90年代在北美首先发展起来的。以结果为本位的教育有着深刻的理论和实践渊源,并建立在一定的前提假设之上,在具体的实践过程中,还得遵循相应的实施原则。在特定的背景下以结果为本位的教育传入南非后,经历了一系列的发展过程,在实施过程中也出现了一些问题。     

南非基础教育信息化最新进展

通过整理分析电子文献,研究南非2000年以来基础教育信息化最新进展情况,对其政策规划、信息技术基础设施、教师信息技术培训现状及信息技术课程改革情况进行分析研究,希望能为我国基础教育信息化建设提供有益的参考与借鉴。     

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。     

To vocationalise or not to vocationalise? Perspectives on current trends and issues in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Africa

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the dichotomy of vocational education versus general education. This is more so as political pronouncements in many countries across the globe have taken on knowledge and skills as the key aim of the desire to improve access to education at all levels. Nowhere is this debate more tested, fiercely debated and gained controversy as in Africa. However, given recent developments in which knowledge and skills have become more acceptable terms in economically more developed nations, in which both are seen to go hand in hand, what is happening in Africa where development is highly sought but has proven to be more elusive? This has brought back to the forefront one of the dilemmas which has pre-occupied many African countries for a long time: whether to concentrate investment in general education or in vocational education. In this paper, I reflect on current trends and issues in TVET in Africa.     

基督教与新南非的和平与稳定

新南非建立初期，国家面临种族、党派、政治、经济、社会治安等多种矛盾，南非本土基督教组织把非洲本土的政治、化与西方的基督教思想、民主精神相结合，强调民主、平等的同时，提倡爱与社会整体的和谐，在经济上帮助穷人，用宗教唤起人们的良知，让罪犯在上帝面前主动认罪，让黑人重新找田自信，为化解新南非的种种矛盾，为它在和平、稳定中逐步走向繁荣作出独特的贡献。     

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.     

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.     

Education and madrassahs in South Africa: on preventing the possibility of extremism

Nowadays education in the madrassahs (Muslim schools) is constantly being placed under the spotlight, such as being considered as seedbeds for terrorism. This article takes a critical look at some South African madrassahs with the aim to find out what these educational institutions do and whether or not the possibility for radicalisation and extremism exists. It concludes with an argument for democratic citizenship education to be taught in the madrassahs.     

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.     

Assessing Course Content Relevance for Employment of Adult Non-Formal Education and Training Graduates in South Africa

The purpose of this article is to assess the course content relevance in contributing to wage- or self-employment of adult non-formal education and training (NFET) in the context of South Africa. The concern that informed this article is that adults who face long-term unemployment due to a lack of marketable skills remain unemployed after completing NFET programmes. Findings reveal that in the private and few public centres, the course contents included vocational skills training, a component of practicum and entrepreneurial training in order to meet the needs and objectives of the formerly unemployed trainees. For graduates who participated in the private training centres and whose objective was to become self-employed, the training course contents contributed to starting of a micro-enterprise or co-operative. The author concludes that in most of the private centres and few public centres the course contents were relevant in contributing to self-employment of the graduates. The cause is that a number of centres provided vocational skills combined with business skills in order to enable graduates to be involved in income-generating activities.     

International staff contributions to their host institution: a case study in South Africa

The mobility of academic staff to South Africa is expected to benefit higher education institutions through teaching-research collaboration and capacity building. However, South African institutions do not always have the adequate organisational processes to facilitate host and international staff collaboration. Drawing on individual interviews with 16 lecturers from 12 different countries, all of them teaching in one South African university, this article analyses lecturers’ perceived contributions to their host university and the challenges they encountered. Recommendations revolve around the development of appropriate induction programmes and faculty forums to promote cross-cultural collaboration and the cross-fertilisation of ideas.     

White clinical psychology trainees' views on racial equity within programme selection in South Africa

The issue of diversity in both physical and epistemological access to programmes in higher education is an important concern worldwide. In South Africa, as elsewhere, access to professional clinical psychology training programmes is extremely competitive, and there is an important imperative to diversify the student profile. Perspectives of black students on access to clinical psychology training in South Africa have been extensively studied, but the views of white students are minimally documented. We interviewed four white professional clinical psychology trainees on their views about the role race plays in selection for professional training. Four major themes arose from the participants' responses: uncertainty versus transparency; internal shame versus external blame; race versus socio-economic status and language and relevance versus irrelevance. Participants expressed discomfort with selection procedures, and though there are several limitations to this study, such as the small sample size, the need to open the door to discussions on the frightening topic of race is essential for a socially responsible approach to future equity, diversity and representativeness in professional training in higher education in South Africa.     

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.     

Teachers' attitudes towards adolescent sexuality and life skills education in rural South Africa

This study investigated the attitudes of 43 teachers and school administrators towards sex education, young people's sexuality and their communities in 19 secondary schools in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and how these attitudes affect school-based HIV prevention and sex education. In interviews, teachers expressed judgemental attitudes towards young people's sexuality and pregnant students, and focused on girls' perceived irresponsible behaviour instead of strategies to minimise HIV risk. Despite general awareness of the HIV epidemic, few teachers perceived it as an immediate threat, and teachers' own HIV risk was infrequently acknowledged. Teachers perceived themselves to have higher personal standards and moral authority than members of the communities and schools they served. Male administrators' authority to determine school policies and teachers' attitudes towards sexuality fundamentally affect the content and delivery of school-based sexuality education and HIV prevention activities. Opportunities to create a supportive educational environment for students and for female teachers are frequently missed. Improving teachers' efficacy to deliver impartial, non-judgemental and accurate information about sex and HIV is essential, as are efforts to acknowledge and address their own HIV risks.     

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.