Suriamurthee Moonsamy Maistry

Accountability and surveillance: new mechanisms of control in higher education

In the past decade, higher education institutions in South Africa have witnessed a firm and decisive move towards corporatisation. It may well be argued that this is an inevitable trend, driven largely by globalisation and the need to remain or become competitive in a highly market-oriented local and international higher education sector. This need to attain a competitive edge demands that the status quo cannot remain. Higher education institutions have to respond to indicators of quality contained in the international rankings machinery. In an era of fiscal austerity, this necessitates a greater extraction of output from existing higher education production factors. Labour in particular requires a more sophisticated disciplinary regime: one that defines the work of academics in explicit quantifiable terms, and sets and measures performance standards for the different facets of an academic’s work. In this commentary, I present a Foucauldian analysis of the effect of accountability and performance regimes on academics at a South African university. I argue that particular constructions of performance expectations produce particular effects. This paper draws attention to the subjugating effect of stringent control technologies on the lived experience of the higher education pedagogue with a view to exploring possibilities and spaces of resistance.

Teaching and Assessment in Accounting: An Exploration of Teachers' Experiences in a Rural KwaZulu-Natal School

Abstract Post-apartheid curriculum reform in South Africa brought many changes in teaching, learning and assessment in schools. Assessment in Accounting, as a school subject, emphasized recording and content recall. In the new curriculum, there is a discernible move away from the mastery of formulas and procedures to an understanding of principles and an analysis and interpretation of financial information. This conceptualisation of Accounting has necessitated changes in the way the subject is taught and assessed. This article sought to explore Accounting teachers’ current understandings of assessment. A qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews was followed to explore three seasoned Accounting teachers’ understandings of formative assessment. The findings indicate that the unique discipline of Accounting and the contextual constraints (especially those of large class sizes in a rural South African context) determine how teaching, learning and assessment happen in Accounting. These constraints place restrictions on the quality of interaction and feedback.

Betwixt and between: Liminality and dissonance in developing threshold competences for research supervision in South Africa

Neoliberal performativity imperatives that drive the strategic vision and mission of many higher education institutions in South Africa have begun to shape the higher education project in particular ways. While research and knowledge production will always remain the defining hallmark of a university, the fragility of the system to deliver on this objective in substantive ways remains a challenge. Graduate supervision capacity and competence continues to be a serious obstacle for many higher education institutions in South Africa. Of concern for this article, is that in the quest to rapidly develop supervision competence amongst faculty, to what extent will fast tracking be at the expense of learning as ‘process’ and deep conceptual development of the young academic. How do novice supervisors negotiate liminality as they learn to be researchers while simultaneously teaching the craft to their assigned research students? In this article, I reflect on my experiences of teaching a structured, accredited postgraduate supervision programme at seven merged higher education institutions in SA from 2014 to2016. I argue that high-level research supervision depends on having certain minimum threshold research supervision competences, the achievement of which necessitates a process approach. Young novice faculty however, have to negotiate a precarious liminal space in which they learn the research ‘trade/craft’ as apprentice whilst simultaneously teaching the research ‘trade/craft’ to research candidates they supervise. I engage the implications of this risky and contradictory agenda for novice faculty and a discussion of how this ‘parallel learning’, which entails learning the research craft and simultaneously learning how to teach the research craft is likely to play out in the South African higher education research context.

Exploring Teachers' Propensity for Technology Adoption in Business Education

Abstract In many developing nations of the world, competence in information and communication technology (ICT) is seen as a key enabling factor for both personal and national advancement and progress. A major challenge facing such countries is the need to overcome overt and hidden obstacles to technology adoption. School teachers are regarded as the essential drivers of ICT. This article reports on a quantitative study that investigated Business Education teachers’ propensities for technology adoption among a random sample of 204 Business Educa tion teachers in the Ethekwini region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Questionnaires were issued to these teachers to ascertain their responses to statements that linked closely to the constructs used in the study, which were extracted from technology adoption theories/models. The findings indicated that the teachers were quite positive towards the perceived usefulness and relative advantages of computers, were motivated and felt that they cou ld use computers with ease. However, they were not confident that the necessary conditions existed to facilitate their use of computers in teaching and learning. Unless the Department of Education takes cognizance of teachers’ propensity for technology adoption and the factors that seem to be hindering ICT integration, the vision and goals of the White Paper on E-Education may not become a reality in schools in KwaZulu-Natal.

Teaching about Economic and Social Inequality

Abstract South Africa is a country of stark contrasts, with opulence co-existing alongside poverty. Historically the issue of class has been narrowly linked to race, yet in present day South Africa, economic inequ ality and poverty know no racial boundary. Teachers often struggle to integrate these issues into the curriculum in a meaningful way. South African education has witnessed significant curriculum reform. While some teachers view this as a daunting endeavour, others disturb this assumption and embrace the opportunity and challenge of curriculum development especially as it relates to addressing the nation’s transformation agenda. This paper focuses on the experiences of a novice primary school economics teacher as she engaged with the challenge of curriculum development in economics. It examines how a teacher’s cultural capital influenced her abi lity to interpret and enact the economics curriculum in ways that offer meaningful opportunities to explore issues of economic and social inequality through innovative pedagogy.

Neoliberalism: Shaping Assessment and Accountability Regimes in South African Education

Abstract Debates as to the purpose of assessment have been raging since time immemorial. There is little consensus as to what the purposes of assessment should be. There is however, little contention that the ideological orientation of the ruling political elite very often shape the fundamental principles that eventually translate into assessment policy for the nation. This paper argues that the ideological position that a nation assumes with regard to what purpose assessment should serve, is strongly related to what the nation sees as the purpose of education. South African curriculum policy documents are unambiguous in declaring a familiar neoliberal orientation, namely, that education should be geared towards economic growth. In other words, purpose of education should be to serve the economy and that assessment regimes should support the achievement of this end. Neoliberal ideology has influenced our discourses on assessment in such powerfully insidious ways that even highly respected thought leaders in education have been seduced by its allure. The question is, how do can this neoliberal trap be sprung and the assessment discourses challenged. How can the ideology that drives recent trends in assessment internationally and locally be brought to the fore in ways that sharpen understanding and critiques thereof? This paper draws on a range of international research on the consequences of high stakes testing and accountability regimes to suggest a cautionary approach to policy borrowing. It argues for a research informed approach to assessment policy that is sensitive to the effects of high stakes and standardized testing on learners and on teachers pedagogic practices.

Standardising Assessment in an Era of Curriculum Reform: The Case of High School Exit-Level Economics Examinations in South Africa

Abstract Education policy has undergone radical change in post-apartheid South Africa (SA), and high school exit-level assessment policy has been subject to pressure for reformulation. This article examines recent trends in exit-level high school Economics examinations in SA and reflects on a curriculum reform context in which examining authorities struggle to benchmark standards of assessment. In SA the exercise of standardisation and benchmarking is highly politicised, especially at the crucial, high-stakes school exit level. An account is presented of the contested nature of high-stakes assessment amidst mounting public pressure to show improved pass rates and growing critique of the quality of high school graduates. Data are drawn from a rigorous comparative analysis of standardised high school exit examinations in Economics for a 3-year period (2008-2010). The assessment protocol of the state-controlled Department of Basic Education (DBE) is analysed. The DBE administer s the examination of 93% of schools in SA. The findings indicate that the standard of the exit-level Economics examination has varied considerably across the years under review, revealing the fragility and uncertainty that permeates Economics assessment as the examining authority searches for a suitable assessment standard. The article begins with an outline of the existing assessment context in SA, followed by a discussion of the contested nature of high-stakes assessment. An analysis of the selected Economics papers follows, and the article concludes with a discussion of the findings and an exploration of the constructs ‘inception-year dilemmas’, ‘veiled upward shifts in standards’ and ‘fragile academic vigilance’.