Ruksana Osman

EQUITY, ACCESS AND SUCCESS: ADULT LEARNERS IN PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION

Unlike research into access and success for school-leavers entering higher education (HE) in South Africa, very little research has been conducted into adult learners in HE. Apart from generalized, albeit extensive, socio-economic studies on poverty and inequality, including changing patterns of participation in education more generally (for example, Gelb, 2003), there is little information, at the systems level, on ‘deeper’ questions, such as the push/pull factors for adult learners entering higher education, the barriers they face and experience once in higher education institutions, their success and completion rates, and their reasons for entering HE institutions. These issues have taken on a much greater significance than before in post-1994 higher education policy developments that call for the widening of the social base of higher education to include, inter alia, adult learners.

Power and participation in and through service learning

In recent times there has been a proliferation of community service learning projects within universities. The aim of this paper is not to refute community service learning initiatives within higher education, but rather to draw attention to the ways in which power relations might be concealed within them, ultimately subjecting them to the very same forces they claim to be resisting. We urge for the need to go beyond rhetoric and to examine the underlying assumptions that inform current practices -explicitly or implicitly. Foucaults work on power and empowerment has been found to be useful in understanding the relationships between service, power, participation and learning. We conclude by pointing out that all is not lost and propose reflexivity as a strategy that may assist to more critically interrogate the ways in which we recruit service learning and community participation into higher education in South Africa.

Education policy studies in South Africa, 1995–2006

This article reports on findings pertaining to scholarship in education policy drawn from a wider study on all education research in South Africa from 1995 to 2006. This study, which defined education research as broadly pertaining to teaching and/or learning, obtained extensive data from a wide range of sources, including universities, public institutions, NGOs, Education and Training Authorities, museums, publishers, donor agencies, trade unions, conferences, journals and electronic databases. The levels, scale, educational sectors and disciplinary areas of each entry in the resulting 10,315‐strong database were identified, and a random sample of 600 texts was analysed in order to distinguish primary research themes. This article summarises seven themes in education policy studies, including policy idealism, policy critiques, language in education policy, higher education policy, further education and training policy, the nature and effects of educational decentralisation and the relationship between education policy and the market.

Communities and scholarship in supporting early-career academics at the University of the Witwatersrand

The present paper reports on early-career academics’ (ECAs) experiences of support for teaching in a research-intensive university in Africa. Through conducting a questionnaire and follow up in-depth interviews greater insight into how ECAs perceive and experience support for developing their teaching practice, is gained. Our analysis suggests that most academics interviewed began their first teaching position with no preparation for all that teaching involves. Many struggled to balance the demands associated with teaching and research, in addition to familiarizing oneself with institutional teaching norms and cultures. Almost all found support from within their discipline, although such support was incidental and spontaneous rather than planned. We offer the idea of communities of practice as an approach to institutionalize support for ECAs and draw on the scholarship of teaching and learning as the theoretical framing for this study and experience from a South African institution.

ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL) STUDENTS AS NEW MEMBERS OF A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE: SOME THOUGHTS FOR LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT

This article reports on English second language (ESL) students’ experiences of academic writing in a university setting. It draws on the notion of community of practice to explain that it is not sufficient for academic literacy courses to concern themselves only with the questions relating to the development of student academic literacy. Rather they should also be concerned with how students learn in social contexts and what knowledge is included and what knowledge is excluded. Such an orientation is vital because academic writing in the context of the university is more than just the ability to read and write, it is often the basis for the evaluation of students and, as such, becomes a powerful gatekeeper.

What matters in Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)? Learning from experience in higher education

In this paper I have argued that if institutions undertake to recognise the prior learning of adult students, certain institutional variables play an important role and social justice on its own is an inadequate lever. National Policy has been rhetorical at best and the literature on institutional variables is diffuse and amorphous. I argue that lessons about implementation have to be learned from experience more so because Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is an emerging field of enquiry in South Africa. The lessons learned from five RPL projects in four higher education institutions suggest that if institutions wish to derive an understanding of themselves and their place within a transforming society they may need to heed that: policy framework and vision matter; clear aims matter; support from senior management matters; staff development matters; RPL advocacy matters; curriculum change matters

A needle in a haystack: a search for value for money in turn-around strategies for schools in difficult circumstances

Background While current investments in school improvement occur in the context of the worldwide economic downturn, in the South African context, there is in addition widespread disparity in education provision and attainment related to pre-democracy race-based patterns. Despite the education sector receiving the largest national annual budget allocation (at least 20%), and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the business sector and even international aid agencies spending millions on school improvement projects, efforts at school improvement have not translated into the desired learning outcomes for students (reflected, for instance, in international comparison tests like TIMSS). This situation calls for deliberation on what constitutes ‘value for money’ in school improvement. Purpose In this paper we present a review of school improvement interventions in South Africa, with a view to discussing their efficiency and effectiveness in the local context. Design and methods The review of school improvement interventions in South Africa involved a systematic search of published and unpublished reports of South African schooling interventions, by both national education agencies and NGOs, aimed at improving the quality of schooling. Desktop searches were conducted on Google Scholar, targeting journals published in the last 10 years (2002 to 2011). Information on unpublished interventions was derived from sources outside of academic documents (e.g. annual reports and personal communications). Snowball sampling was used to reach as many projects as possible, starting from interventions in Johannesburg, which is the most populous city and economic centre of South Africa. Fifty published reports and 75 unpublished reports were reviewed. The information from each report was entered on a spreadsheet according to the aspects of schooling the intervention addressed. The data were then summarised using descriptive statistics and graphs. Conclusions Evidence from the review suggests that in the South African context, where access and equity in education are yet to be achieved for the majority of the population, ‘value for money’ is achieved most effectively when there is ‘connectedness’ across sectors (especially education, health and social services), and when value is in terms of gains for the whole of society or the common good.

Learning through fieldwork: undergraduate research and teacher education in South Africa

In this paper we offer fieldwork as an opportunity to move away from the more procedural and routine tasks of the teaching practicum to the more desirable focus on teaching as research and an inquiry-oriented practice (Hussein, 2006; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Zeichner & Teitelbaum, 1982). Moore (200331) points out that fieldwork “holds great potential for ... reflective practice”, and we feel that it offers prospective teachers opportunities to think about learning, about how learners learn, and about what is most useful to them. Through empirical research practices of fieldwork, prospective teachers can construct their own understandings about teaclzing in complex contexts. They can also develop their competencies towards becoming scholars, researchers and lifelong learners. Fieldwork has a long history as a form of social science research. At a very basic level, it involves long-term observations of an area of study, interviews with people involved, and narrative data collection in the form of field...

Promoting access to higher education in an unequal society

This short paper serves as an introduction to the collection of papers in this special issue of The South African Journal of Higher Education. First, the editors set the scene by commenting on access and throughtput in South African higher education, showing how these continue to be racially skewed, and linked to an inequitable education system. It is then observed that some of the intervention programmes that are offered at tertiary level do not always achieve their intended goals, and that interventions are increasingly being sought at secondary school level. Second, the editors introduce and briefly comment on the seven papers selected for this special issue, noting the particular contribution each makes to an understanding of the theme of promoting access to higher education in an unequal society. Third and in conclusion, the editors point to three issues that they believe emerge from the papers, and which are argued to be important in mapping the way forward. These are: the need to acknowledge that injections of finance may secure access, but do not necessarily secure success; a concern about the proliferation and fragmentation of interventions which do not ultimately have systemic impact; and the need for multi-site, multi-method and longitudinal studies that track the experiences of students through university and beyond.

Transforming Higher Education: Towards a Socially Just Pedagogy

This chapter examines ideas pertaining to transforming learning in higher education. Starting with an introduction to a body of ideas as they have emerged and developed, we continue to a series of chapters which will take up a number of these ideas— conceptually and empirically—in a variety of contexts. In particular this chapter tackles some of the meanings and conceptions associated with transforming higher education in relation to national and global demands on the one hand, and touching on pedagogic possibilities on the other hand. The transformation-pedagogy nexus as taken up in this chapter aims at using pedagogy as a change process and transforming the pedagogical practices of higher education. The two key issues to be taken up here will relate to what constitutes transformative pedagogies or socially just pedagogies, and what is their transformative potential for institutions of higher learning.