KovsieJournals - University of the Free State (UFS)
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Education placement of children with autism in Lesotho: Challenges and opportunities
Get PDFLesotho’s existing legislation and policy framework emphasises the commitment to providing access to inclusive education for all children, including children with disabilities. However, limited information exists regarding the education and placement of children with autism. This study explored the factors influencing parental decisions on educational placement for children with autism. A descriptive qualitative case study was employed, and eight parents of children with autism were interviewed face to face. The findings revealed significant variation in parental decisions and highlighted the complexity and frustrations inherent in decision-making. Key factors such as the child’s autistic traits, access to information, and school staff’s knowledge and experience with autism were identified as critical in shaping these decisions. The study highlights the need for collaborative support from all education stakeholders to ensure equal participation in the education system for children with autism. Such efforts are essential to reduce barriers, normalise challenges, and uphold the right to education for every child
Integrating National Benchmark Test (NBT) diagnostics into data analytics reports
Get PDFStudent retention and academic success remain significant challenges in South African higher education (Council on Higher Education (CHE), 2023: 12), and the articulation gap between school and university has been identified as a central concern. Addressing these challenges requires data-driven evaluation techniques. These data-driven techniques, such as diagnostic assessments, use empirical information to make important decisions affecting students’ educational progress, help teachers improve their educational curricula, and identify areas requiring improvement by monitoring and integrating information relating to a student’s educational progress (Aburizaizah, 2021). The Diagnostic Mathematics Information for Student Retention and Success (DMISRS) project was initially conceptualised to explore the articulation gap between students’ Grade 12 exit level skills in the areas of mathematics, academic literacy and quantitative literacy and the entry-level demands of higher education study, and to investigate ways of addressing this gap. A key subproject of the DMISRS project examined the influence of National Benchmark Test (NBT) subdomains on student success and how this diagnostic information could be shared and used by educators across the sector. The NBT consists of three domains: Academic Literacy (AL), Quantitative Literacy (QL), and Mathematics (MAT), each with specific subdomains. Subdomain analyses and relative importance analyses (RIA) provide granular insights into student performance, highlighting the relevance of subdomains for course success and the skills students need to succeed. By identifying areas needing attention, these analyses provide educators with information that they can use to tailor student support and effectively adapt their classroom practices. These analyses are situated within an Integrated Framework of Diagnosis, which integrates assessment inputs, analytical methods, interpretation and reporting mechanisms, and application in teaching and learning. The framework emphasises the feedback loop among four components: diagnostics, feedback, remediation / interventions, and validation. This paper presents the integration of diagnostic information using case studies, which include RIA and subdomain performance analyses of a South African university’s data analytics system referred to as the Data Analytics for Student Success (DASS). It highlights how, with the appropriate support to link this diagnostic information with curricula, access to it can help inform teaching and learning support initiatives. Drawing on the DASS example and the DMISRS/NBT diagnostic project, the paper further demonstrates how such diagnostic outcomes can be mobilised to provide more targeted, curriculum-integrated forms of student support
Agentic engagement in a South African academic literacies classroom: A case study of student and facilitator experiences
Get PDFAgency is central to the success of academic literacies classrooms. Agency manifests through agentic engagement where students take responsibility for their studies, and educators explicitly foster this quality. However, despite the importance of this construct, agentic engagement has not yet been investigated within a Southern African context. This study aimed to fill this gap by exploring agentic engagement in a South African academic literacies programme through the experiences of students and facilitators. A case study was conducted using document analysis, a facilitator focus group discussion, and semi-structured student interviews. Findings from the document analysis indicate that the academic literacies classroom within this programme is conducive to agentic engagement. However, student and facilitator responses indicate that agentic engagement is limited in the studied academic literacies classroom context, despite a favourable classroom environment. The results suggest that agentic engagement manifests in an alternative way in this context, where students prefer to demonstrate peer reciprocity with each other instead of with the facilitator in front of the whole class. Finally, based on the findings, the article offers implications for fostering agentic engagement within the literacies development classroom
Multiple transitions resulting from remediation and re-entry of first-year undergraduate medical students: expectations and experiences, emotions and recommendations
Get PDFTransitioning from school to tertiary education can be daunting and overwhelming, and neither students nor institutions are necessarily prepared for these transitions. Some students may even experience multiple transitions in their academic programmes. This paper focuses on the multiple transition stages during the first year of the medical programme at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa. The study aimed to determine first year undergraduate medical students’ perceptions of the multiple transitions involved in the medical programme. The research was designed as an exploratory qualitative study that used focus group discussions to obtain data. Two focus group discussions were held with 17 first-year undergraduates who had undergone multiple transitions in the first year of the medical programme. Multiple transitional stages were investigated: The first was at the start of the first year (January–-June), then six months later (July–December), and then back to the start of the first year for the second time (January–June of the following year). The analysis exposed three main themes, namely (1) expectations and experiences, (2) emotions, and (3) recommendations. These themes are explained by focusing on the participants’ perceptions and following a linear process for the multiple transition stages. Medical students who went through remediation and re-entered the first-year undergraduate programme reported that, during the initial transition, lecturers and senior students did not provide the ‘big picture’ regarding expectations in the medical programme. Instead, the shared expectations did not match their ‘real’ experiences in the programme. Furthermore, students experienced a range of emotions during the multiple transitions. In conclusion, students are accepted into medical schools such as the UFS but are underprepared for the rigours of the programme and are then exposed to multiple transitions. To ease the students’ transition, medical schools must consider designing support strategies that will enable these students to manage these transitions by attending to ‘soft determinants’, such as expectations and experiences, emotions, and contextually applying the students’ recommendations in setting up such strategies
Investigating crisis resilience pedagogy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Grade 10 business studies classrooms
Get PDFThis study investigated the conceptual learning of the Business Studies Curriculum Recovery Plan (BSCRP) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Crisis resilience pedagogy requires teachers to incorporate resilience and flexible strategies to enable learners to cope with unexpected events (Chow, et al., 2020). Informed by qualitative research methodology, data were collected from document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. Thirteen participants, including teachers, departmental heads, principals, subject advisors, and curriculum designers, were purposively chosen for the study. Crisis resiliencepedagogy attributes adaptability, creativity, connectivity, diversity, and endurance were evident to different degrees. Redesigning the DBE website, trimming the curriculum, and amending instructional materials showed adaptability. Video, podcasts, interactive quizzes, and monitoring Google Forms demonstrated creativity. Connectivity between learners, parents, teachers, principals, and subject advisors was enabled through WhatsApp groups. Microsoft Teams and Zoom were used for meetings. Text, voice, and videobased instruction were employed to meet the diverse needs of the learners. Participants indicated hardships in continuing work duties amidst trauma and bemoaned insufficient and inadequate psychological support during the pandemic. This study extends the crisis resilience pedagogy model by including what learners did and should be doing
Capturing degrees of centring of refugees in an academic literacy course in post-Apartheid South Africa: A retrospective look at course design through the lens of Actor-network Theory
Get PDFIn 2018, we received state funding for ‘curriculum reform’ to design an academic literacy course that would orient students to legitimate ways of reading and writing in the academy while fostering critical citizenship. Thus, drawing on the view of literacy as a social practice, the course design was shaped around relatable content, in this case, the issue of border-crossing. At that time, some media coverage and popular opinion perpetuated an essentialist view of refugees as a socio-economic and health threat in South Africa and other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, this is still prevalent locally and elsewhere. We understand border-crossing as both physical and conceptual while also acknowledging the internal displacement as well, dating back to the apartheid regime when borders were created within South Africa along ‘ethnic’ and ‘racial lines’. We also acknowledge how the social death (Patterson, 1982) experienced by some previously marginalised South Africans has had repercussions on how they view refugees. In this social context, we sought to design and implement an academic literacy course that was socially responsive in post-apartheid South Africa, marked by rapid social changes, and coupled with cases of xenophobia targeting refugees from other parts of Africa. To analyse how the course responded to these broader issues, we employed an actor-network theory lens, drawing specifically on Callon’s (1984) description of translation, the process through which a stable actornetwork is created. We took a retrospective look at the course over five years, focusing on the changes from the first to subsequent iterations. In our reflections, we superimposed Callon’s (1984) four moments of translation, namely problematisation, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation, on the design process. In doing so, we surfaced the design and strategies to create a stable actornetwork of associations between human and non-human actors. Through our retrospective look, we argue that for the design of a stable network, in other words, a practical academic literacy course that responds critically to cross-border migration through reading and writing, “the refugee” must be implicated in these four moments. Furthermore, we highlight how “the refugee” oscillated between various “degrees of centring” during these moments as part of the strategies employed by translators (course designers) to stabilise the network
Student-lecturer interactions: Do traditional methods appeal to Generation Z students?
Get PDFHigher education institutions have various and mostly well-established methods for students to consult with their lecturers. Lecturers have traditionally expected students to make use of face-to-face interaction through after-class consultations and asking questions in class. It is, however, imperative that higher education reflects on whether these traditional consultation methods appeal to today’s students where there is a generational differential between the lecturer and the student who is part of Generation Z. Generational differences include the integration of technology, such as access to the Internet and various other technological platforms for communication on a variety of social media applications. As such, it is important for lecturers to understand why a student might not be comfortable with traditional interaction methods and must take into consideration student feedback in creating opportunities for interaction that considers the needs of all stakeholders. This study, following a qualitative deductive approach, used online questionnaires to obtain students’ perceptions of both the potential shortcomings and advantages of a variety of consultation methods available to them at a residential university in South Africa. This variety included the incorporation of technology into consultation methods in contrast to a traditional consultation. The questionnaire was formulated using Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper’s (2001) reflection model and grounded in attribution theory, whereby student-lecturer interaction methods were analysed. The findings of the study show that students will engage with a lecturer if they feel the lecturer is approachable and helpful, regardless of the nature of the consultation method. Lecturers can invest in improving their soft skills to enhance being perceived as approachable by students. The findings also highlight that the method of interaction may cause anxiety and that students sometimes feel too overwhelmed to ask the lecturer for help. The students suggested consultation methods that provide a quick turnaround time and are easy to use (for example, being in a WhatsApp group with their lecturer). The findings of this study provide insight that higher education institutions and lecturers can use to improve students’ usage of student-lecturer interaction methods
No gold, no gain: Women and Value Negotiation on the margins of Artisanal Gold Mining, in Mazowe, Zimbabwe, c. 1990-2019
Get PDFBased on ethnographic vignettes, oral interviews, mining reports, newspaper archives, and secondary literature, this paper explores the complex relationship between women, money, and survival in Artisanal Gold Mining in Zimbabwe’s Mazowe district between 1990 and 2019. By doing so, the paper pays particular attention to the varying ways in which women in Mazowe negotiated the value of their commodities (gold, sex, labour). In addition, it traces how diverse groups of women understood daily monetary exchanges, negotiated value, and accumulated capital in mining frontiers, given the volatile currency shifts and speculation at different intervals in postcolonial Zimbabwe. In highlighting this plurality, the paper shows the social and gendered value of gold in the Mazowe district and the everyday sense of value of gold across multiple forms of value exchanges. Departing from scholarship that emphasises the role of politics, patronage and the formalisation of artisanal gold mining, this paper makes a historiographical turn by focusing on the everyday lives of women and value exchanges in artisanal gold mining spaces. The study explores the materiality of gold and its affordances to women in mining, and the new meaning gold assumed in the post-colonial milieu; at the same time, it alsohighlights the shifting roles of women within the sector as well as within its margins
The Issue of "tax bracket creep" in South Africa: Potential solutions
Get PDFThe majority of South Africans felt relieved when Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, did not announce any noticeable tax hikes during his annual National Budget Speech on 21 February 2024. Nevertheless, the same South Africans were probably in a worse financial situation after the fact, due to a lesser-known tax principle called “tax bracket creep”. This hidden tax increase in the 2024 Budget Speech was the absence of any changes to the progressive tax rate table for individuals to account for inflation. Furthermore, the Minister did not increase the tax rebates for individual taxpayers from the rates set in the previous year – South African taxpayers were thus doubly pressed. If a person received a salary increase tied to inflation, they may have ended up worse off, because their higher taxable income may have pushed them into a higher tax bracket and resulted in them being taxed at a higher rate due to tax bracket creep. Simultaneously, the taxpayer’s tax rebate was also not adjusted upward to account for inflation. The phenomenon of tax bracket creep is recognised globally but remains unregulated in numerous countries. I believe it presents a simple way for governments to collect more taxes subtly. It is solely the government’s decision whether or not to adjust the South African progressive tax rate table for inflation, as there is no automatic link between the tax rate table and inflation. In my paper, I analyse the principle of tax bracket creep, and also consider the global situation regarding the regulations required to address such a tax bracket creep (such as automatic tax indexation of the personal income tax table). I further consider if regulations or relief can be put into place in South Africa to address the detriment of the tax bracket creep to the South African individual taxpayer
The Ordination of women: Part of the Dutch Reformed Church\u27s Mariological gift
No full textOn 20 March 1994, Gretha Heymans became the first female minister ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) in Bloemfontein, following the 1990 Synod decision to allow women as elders and ministers. This article explores whether the DRC’s experience of ordaining women can help the ecumenical church in South Africa encounter Mary, the mother of God, and through her, God in Christ. It invites critical reflection on the DRC’s doctrine (or lack thereof) regarding Mary and questions the appropriateness of linking women’s ordination with her. The article examines the nature of ordination, suggesting that embracing Mary and ordained women could renew the DRC’s encounter with God, while offering a gift to South Africa’s broader church community