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Education and the Challenges for Change
Educational reform is complex, non-linear, frequently arbitrary, and always highly political. It is rife with unpredictable shifts and fragmented initiatives… (Fullan, 1992 :2)
Rationale
In an era of enormous and apparent change that is most prominently driven by technology and globalisation, marketisation and massification we often forget that change is about people - their ideas, their fears, and the capacity to imagine and work together for a different future.
Since the elections of 1994, to redress the inequalities of our chequered past, the South African government has embarked on an urgent programme of restructuring its education system on principles of equity, human rights, democracy and sustainable development. Changes have included a unified, national education system, more democratic system of school governance, a new standards and qualifications authority, redistribution of financial and human resources, higher education reforms and the re-orientation to outcomes-based education And yet, against this backdrop of change, the South African education system still faces major challenges. This is especially true in terms of the tension between implementing changes that need both time and considerable resources to work their way through, and immediacy of issues that need to be addressed at the sites of implementation i.e. in the schools/universities/technikons and particularly, in the lives of human personnel, particularly in the training of knowledge-capacitated teachers for schools.
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Aims
To meet these challenges, this focus area aims to:
- Determine the critical factors of educational change and how they can serve as useful indicators for planning and decision making.
- Provide reliable databases and benchmarks on various issues for planning and decision making.
- Undertake case, systemic, uni-cultural vs cross-cultural, trend, longitudinal, cross sectional and comparative studies with respect to the diverse aspects of the teaching-learning process (including the classroom environment).
- Critically analyse the regulatory framework (past and present) that shapes the contemporary education system in order to generate corrective action.
- Investigate new directions in curriculum research and curriculum theory.
- Contribute to multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary knowledge production and human resource development in education.
- Critically explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on the structure and functioning of the education system.
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Research Themes
The following research themes have been identified to provide the framework for research support within this focus area.
Research Theme 1: Restructuring in Higher Education / Further Education and Training (FET)
Restructuring of higher education (including FET) is about a higher education system that will:
- promote equity of access and fair chances of success to all who are seeking to realise their potential through higher education, while eradicating all forms of unfair discrimination and advancing redress for past inequalities;
- meet, through well-planned and co-ordinated teaching, learning and research programmes, national development needs, including the high-skilled employment needs presented by a growing economy operating in a global environment;
- support a democratic ethos and a culture of human rights through educational programmes and a culture of human rights through educational programmes and practices conducive to critical discourse and creative thinking, cultural tolerance and a common commitment to a humane, non-racist and non-sexist social order;
- contribute to the advancement of all forms of knowledge and scholarship, and in particular address the diverse problems and demands of the local, national and southern African and African contexts, and uphold rigorous standards of academic quality" (White Paper:1.14).
Pertinent areas of research in higher education (mostly also applying to FET) could focus, amongst others on the following problems:
- The need to produce people with the knowledge and skills that will enable South Africa to engage proactively in a competitive global economy.
- The need to lay the foundations of a critical civil society with a culture of public debate and tolerance.
- The need to reform curriculum on the basis of a clear and detailed understanding of South Africa's diverse knowledge requirements .
- Assessment and Quality assurance.
- The need to build a critical mass of researchers and educators.
- The need to stimulate, expand and sustain institutional change.
- The need to change the demographic profile of the academic staff body, given its disalignment with student composition and profile.
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Research Theme 2: Policy Implementation Studies
Educational policy is constantly subjected to various influences, and it is usually in practical application that distortions and obstacles to successful implementation become apparent. The process of implementation must be examined in relation to the policies from which they are derived. Policy implementation is understood as a process and includes research into the educational policy process itself, as well as procedures around implementation and policy impact and evaluation.
In this research theme, a critical area of research centers on the need to systematically track and analyse the long-term effects of the particular education policies implemented since 1994. Existing databases are either poorly designed or managed (like EMIS) or linked to priorities determined by international agencies (like TIMMS-R). In this theme, researchers are encouraged to establish large, systematic and policy-relevant databases that can source regions, research institutes and foundations, and international researchers.
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Research Theme 3: Science, Technology and Mathematics Education (STME)
A review of recent trends in Mathematics and Science: Teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science within the context of Lifelong Learning, acknowledges that school science and mathematics education plays an important role in societal development. inter alia:
- Science and mathematics education is the base upon which expertise in technological development and deployment exists.
- School science and mathematics enhance the scientific literacy and technological fluency of citizens so that they can participate more fully in decisions that affect their lives.
- This need for a new emphasis on science education is recognised worldwide.
- South Africa now has a comprehensive science and technology policy, although there is concern that it lacks specific consideration concerning science and mathematics education (Dept. of Education, 2000: 2).
This re-emphasis is welcomed, because the distressing reality is that South African students perform poorly in terms of international comparisons of achievements in mathematics and science, matric pass rates in science and mathematics are generally poor and student enrolment at tertiary educational institutions are decreasing in science-and-engineering related fields. Research has shown that schools lack adequately qualified STME educators, and that there is some indication of poor preparation during undergraduate and postgraduate training. (Ogunniyi, 1999:5)
Pertinent areas of research include:
- Curriculum reform in STM and systemic research
- Assessment in STME
- Exemplary practice in STME
- The nature of scientific knowledge
- The role of language in learning school STM and STME literacy
- Learner's thinking and learning and the class room climate.
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Research Theme 4: Human Resource Development -Teacher Education and Development
The teacher as an agent of change plays a pivotal role in the teaching-learning process. It has been said that 'no education system can rise too far beyond the level of the teachers in it" (Gregorio 1998:26). While teacher salaries and working conditions have occupied much attention, it is necessary to emphasise the role of teachers as pedagogical agents who want to undertake quality teaching. Professor Avalos argues that we need 'to strengthen the subject knowledge dimension of teachers education programmes, draw on what student teachers bring to the training situation, broaden the vision of teachers and teaching beyond competence models and behavioural modifications, and strengthen good institutions as centers of excellence for teacher education. (Jansen and Lewin, 1999 p2) A clear programmatic strategy of INSET which shows both coherence and flexibility, and takes account of the diversity of the South African experience, needs to be put into place. Research in this area should contribute towards a framework for educator development that develops the broader landscape of teacher understanding, empowerment and affirmation as key ingredients for achieving genuine transformation of teachers and teaching.
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Research Theme 5: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
The findings and recommendations of the President's Education Initiative Research Project (PEI), although not generalisable across the schooling system warrant consideration, particular with respect to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The challenges for research in the sub-theme are clearly spelt out below:
- It would appear that the poor pedagogical and assessment practices adopted by teachers arise in large measure as a consequence of their poor conceptual foundations. Inadequate pedagogy and assessment, in turn, give rise to poor student learning.
- Because of their shaky conceptual bases, teachers are not in a position to implement the sophisticated approach to real world knowledge advocated in the new curriculum reform.
- It is recommended that initial assistance be provided through the production of sets of assessment items, graded by topic and task, which can then serve as exemplars to teachers and establish the standards required at the respective grade levels.
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Research Theme 6: Language issues and Literacy
Language is a cultural artefact. The successful acquisition of language and literacy in a multilingual, multicultural and increasingly globalised, technologically driven environment is becoming more critical to educational and workplace success in South Africa. Two closely related phenomena that profoundly influence the communication landscape are a) the growing significance of cultural and linguistic diversity worldwide and b) the nature of new communication technologies themselves.
Recent comparative studies have indicated that the level of scientific and mathematical literacy amongst South African students is the lowest internationally. Learning in a second language is known to impair the assimilation of knowledge. Illiteracy amongst adults and youth alike is alarmingly high. Despite the commitment of a national language-in-education policy to the principle of additive bilingualism, the reality is affected by: parental choice in the straight-for English approach, the heterogeneous nature of urban schools and institutions of learning and the mismatch in language competencies of pupils and teachers. In this sub-theme a priority research question centers on understanding factors that optimise teaching and learning under these conditions and reduce illiteracy amongst our adult population.
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Research Theme 7: HIV/AIDS in Education
Despite a growing South African literature on the biomedical aspects of HIV/AIDS, understanding of the educational meaning, impact and consequences of the pandemic is still limited. Yet the fact that about 20% of teachers, close to 100 000 children and about 15% of lecturers are shown to be HIV positive, demonstrates the urgent need for educational research that establishes both a specialist education knowledge base on the pandemic, as well as a research-informed action plan to address the crises facing the education and educational needs of teachers and children living with HIV-AIDS. Research results should aim to inform plans and strategies that can respond to the impact of HIV-AIDS on the sustainability and the human resource needs of the education and training system.
PLEASE NOTE
This description provides the broad landscape for the focus area. All researchers who wish to submit applications for consideration of programme support within this focus area must please refer to the Guidelines for programme support within the focus area for specific guidelines for support.
Contact
Lebusa Monyooe
Manager: Focus Areas
email: lebusa@nrf.ac.za
Tel:+27 12 4814230
Fax:+27 12 4814005
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