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.

Educational renovation in a South African ‘township on the move’: A social–spatial analysis

This article presents an account of the ways education reform has been mediated in one South African township. It suggests that the normative policy intentions of the reforming post-apartheid state have been reworked in light of the specific social configuration of the township and its schools. It employs social–spatial lenses to understand the formative interaction between the township's social configuration processes and the institutional identities of its schools and teachers. The article shows how educational reform has been renovated in light of the spatially networked processes that played out in and around the schools. It suggests that the effects of educational policy reform can best be understood by the uses to which it has been put in this localised terrain.     

Those Pesky Online Statistics

No abstract available for this article.     

The African American Male Librarian: Motivational Factors in Choosing a Career in Library and Information Science

A recent American Library Association (ALA) report has shown that less than 1% of credentialed librarians are African American males. This article discusses possible reasons for this dearth; and, in an effort to inform future LIS recruiting and marketing campaigns, the included study attempted to discover which factors lead African American males to choose to pursue a graduate degree in library and information science (LIS) and practice LIS as a career. The study also canvassed African American male librarians’ views on gender advantage in LIS, their career goals, perceived triumphs and challenges in LIS, and level of job satisfaction.     

Revisiting lifelong learning for quality improvement in ODL institutions in Africa

Abstract

Among the challenges in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) generally and specifically within the African sub-region, is the difficulty to harness resources to regularly mobilize senior and mature academics as complacent learners to embrace continuous professional development, as a way of improving the quality of their academic performance. In order to change their conservative academic practises in many of the transformed African Tertiary Institutions (ATIs), this paper argues, that irrespective of the status and the long years of service of such academic staff members, it becomes pertinent for them to consciously engage in lifelong learning process. This is important because majority of such lecturers of ODL Institutions came from the contact (F2F) institutions with little or no experience of ODL best practices.     

The Illusion of Inclusion

Abstract

CSWE standards pertaining to diversity have been criticized for being vague and impotent (Hooyman,1995). A pattern in social work education of “diversity by numbers” has emerged in which the emphasis is placed on the representation of certain groups on the faculty, the staff, the student body, and the curriculum. There exists an illusion of inclusion, in which the curriculum, personnel and students are desegregated. However, the school's culture has yet to be transformed to the stage of institutional development in which equitable treatment for all members is a primary goal and diversity is a driving force which permeates organizational life. This analysis explores the challenges associated with conceptualizing and infusing diversity, specifically as it relates to race and ethnicity, throughout social work programs. The symbolic interactionism theoretical perspective is used to interpret the experiences of African American faculty in predominately white schools of social work. An African-centered perspective of organizational functioning is suggested as a strategy to transform the illusion of diversity into a reality in social work education.