Reconceptualising engineering education: Creating spaces for outcomes and dialogical agape

Most of the current theoretical perspectives espousedby many South African engineering educators arecommensurate with some radical internationaldevelopments in the engineering realm. Thesedevelopments are aimed at getting students to think,or go beyond the information given with theintegrative skill of bringing knowledge, skills,understanding and experience together in problemsolving activities and environment, which providesstudents with the best kind of preparation forlifelong independent learning. The rationale of thispaper is determined by an understanding thatengineering education at most higher educationinstitutions in South Africa is dominated by theacquisition of content, that is, ``knowing-that'.Limited epistemological and pragmatic space are beingallowed for students to engage critically withengineering knowledge, as well as to apply suchknowledge skillfully. This idea of engineering education isincommensurate with a general principle that ought toshape any form of education whereby students ought toengage not to do ``this or that', but to learn how tothink, understand and imagine themselves.In the first part of the paper a critical reflectionon the literature aims to establish connectionsbetween an understanding of engineering education andpatterns of meaning which make the concept what it is.Secondly, it is argued that an eclectic approach toengineering education is necessary in order that bothfacts (``knowing-that') and skills (``knowing-how')acquisition and application become the rationale whichwould enhance and expand engineering teaching andlearning beyond its present reduction to factual,technical content. Finally, it is shown that an eclecticapproach to engineering education has its limitationsand needs to be supplemented by the notion ofdialogical agape (love) which allows space fortransformatory learning, respect for persons and``imaginative reconstructions' of learning that canmove beyond the boundaries of socially negotiatedoutcomes.     

Educational Leadership Reconsidered: Re-Invoking Authority in Schools

By far the most challenging task faced by schools in post-apartheid South Africa, has been the distance educational leaders were mandated to put between the educational institutions and the apartheid legacy of racial discrimination and exclusion. It is therefore not surprising that there are two dominant approaches to educational leadership, namely the transactional and transformational leadership paradigms that were considered as apposite to ensure the implementation of new educational policy and curriculum developments. Indeed, the theoretical debates about educational leadership have extended expositions of the concepts of transactional and transformative leadership that are often perceived as forms of educational leadership that can enhance the democratisation of educational institutions, such as schools. However, after the demise of apartheid all attempts to move beyond authoritative practices have been shown to be undesirable; and the transactional and transformative forms of educational leadership might have too hastily and prematurely abandoned authoritative forms of leadership. Therefore, in this article the authors argue in defence of authority as constitutive of transformative leadership in schools by reflecting on current leadership practices in schools.     

Compassion, Citizenship and Education in South Africa: An Opportunity for Transformation?

This study explores how citizenship education in South Africa is guided by liberal and communitarian concepts of citizenship. Its contention is that citizenship education, as it has evolved through policy discourses on Values, Education and Democracy, is heavily influenced by liberal and communitarian concepts of citizenship. Nonetheless, the liberal-communitarian concept of citizenship education is not sufficient on its own to bring about educational transformation in institutions. Instead, citizenship education initiatives in South Africa need to promote a sense of compassion, motivating learners to take seriously the suffering of others. It is argued that such compassion represents a precondition of genuine educational transformation.     

Globalization and higher education restructuring in South Africa: is democracy under threat?

My intention is to explore the link between globalization and higher education restructuring in South Africa and whether it looms as a threat to democracy. I contend that an argument can be made that the ascendancy of market-driven concerns in defining the restructuring of higher education in South Africa may have the effect whereby higher education institutions (universities and technikons) become subordinated to the demands of the market place, which situation in turn, can be detrimental to the consolidation of South Africa's newly found democracy. First, I argue that the restructuring of higher education according to the ‘logic of globalization’ would not necessarily minimize socio-economic inequality, thus providing a major barrier to the move towards deepening democracy. However, the economic, political and cultural effects of globalization as determinants of higher education restructuring in South Africa are not going to disappear, at least not for the immediate future. Already the South African government considers as a central feature of its economic policy the meeting of the ‘challenge of international competitiveness … (and) an inability to compete will increasingly marginalise the South African economy (and), have profound effects on its rate of growth and consequences for the social well-being and stability of South African society’ (CHE 2000a: 20)

Second therefore, in order to safeguard and promote democracy, in spite of the market-bound trend, I assess some democratic prospects of a globalizing world in the restructuring of higher education. Like Jones (1998: 153), I contend that an argument can be made for achieving democracy in a sphere of corporate dominance if higher education is considered as a public good that allows space for the development of relations of trust, individual autonomy and democratic dialogue.