1,720,966 research outputs found
The Illusion of Education in South Africa
No full textAbstractSouth Africa's constitution is hailed as ‘liberal and egalitarian’ because ‘it values human dignity and frames human rights at its heart’ But the country's public education is ‘a national disaster’ that is ‘essentially dysfunctional’. In this paper I sketch this ‘essential dysfuctionality’. I appeal to the notions of ‘redesigning’ and ‘reengineering’. Employed sensibly ‘redesigning’ and ‘reengineering’ can generate dramatic improvements in critical performance measures such as cost, quality, service and speed. I argue that ‘redesigning’ and ‘reengineering’ can enable South Africa's public education to efficiently deliver ‘education for all’ to the majority blacks who were previously disadvantaged by apartheid policies
A Call for More Literature and Deeper Data. A Response to The Cultural Contours of Democracy: Indigenous Epistemologies Informing South African Citizenship
Full text linkThis review provides a critical appraisal of Kubow and Min\u27s paper. It teases out their conception of liberalism and argues that the classical notion of liberalism as a political theory that advocates individual liberty based on assumptions of the unencumbered autonomous individual has lost currency. This is because over the years liberalism has mutated into a multiplicity of new forms, and there is no single view that can be said to define what it means to be a liberal. The paper raises methodological questions with respect to the use of focus group interviews. It implores researchers to first ask themselves whether they can tell what a person really believes on the basis of a few questions put to him in an interview
Rethinking openness for learning in open distance learning institutions
Full text linkThe trends in open distance learning over the years and its evolution to higher education are interesting phenomena that continue to gain acceptance. While open distance learning serves as an intervening solution, initiated by most African higher institutions for students that missed out on the opportunity of studying in mainstream institutions, there is a need for her tertiary institutions to confront the challenge of making the Institutions open to meet the needs of upwardly enrolling higher education of adult students. However, this study argues that not only is this practice pedagogically unsound, but also clearly contradictory to the policy for open distance learning, for which the institutions were established in the specific context of the University of South Africa. It further highlights the rethink of the pedagogical approach by all stakeholders focusing more closely on the quality of openness in teaching and learning. It seeks guidelines for designing teaching and learning, particularly for Open Distance Learning (ODL) institutions, which only have a policy for distance and online learning and in contrast to the institutions’ agenda by creating opportunities through open distance e-learning nationally and on the African continent. The Transactional Distance Theory was adopted to underpin the study. Also, it highlights the openness in ODL and recommends different innovative ways to take the agenda of Open Distance Learning forward for optimal impact
Exploring Factors Influencing the Adoption of Massive Open Online Courses for Open Distance Learning
Full text linkOpen distance learning (ODL) is a holistic strategy to increase ubiquitous access to quality learning, empower students to become autonomous learners, improve student success and student engagement in an open and online collaborative effort. However, this effort requires an appropriate technology platform to promote effective ODL practices. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have attracted a great deal of interest in recent years as an appropriate model for novel technology enhanced learning. However, despite the numerous intrinsic benefits of MOOCs, its ubiquitous adoption for ODL is still lagging. In an attempt to fill this gap, the overarching purpose of this study is to use a method based on the decision theory approach to select the most influential adoption factors of MOOCs to support student learning in an ODL environment. Content analysis has been deployed to identify factors that have been generally attributed in literature to influence the adoption of MOOCs. Numerous research papers, 190 on MOOCs and 301 on ODL, published between 2012 and 2019 as indexed by web of science and google scholar were examined. This paper presents the research results with a discussion on factors that can help to develop student support for ODL. // Paper ID 17
The linguistic authoritativeness of Monyala ka pedi as a principle of negotiating marriage
No full textThe article seeks to correct the common perception that bohadi is paid as a bride price. It argues that the misuse of language, significantly distorts meaning, resulting in misunderstanding of its original true meaning. The purpose of this article is to argue that the Basotho principle monyala ka pedi effectively reflects that bohadi is not paid, but given, as an expression of gratitude and as a symbol of respect for culture. We argue that African ontology becomes more prominent in bohadi negotiations. Therefore, it is unthinkable that the ancestors would be excluded when the quantum of bohadi is considered.Keywords: Basotho, culture, negotiating marriage, mahadi, ilobolo
South African teachers caught between nation building and global demands: is there a way out/forward?
No full textIn this article, we explore the impact of the nation-building and global demands on teachers' work and how they survive the pressure of, and reconcile, these various demands that impact their work. We draw on two separate data sets that emerged from studies undertaken in the Eastern Cape Province (EC), South Africa. Findings reveal a rift between the nation-building and global mandates. Most intended changes assumed that teachers are ready and prepared for whatever changes that are introduced. Consequently, teachers are in a constant struggle to come to terms with them, thus resulting in slow implementation or the nonimplementation of reforms in classrooms. We argue that recognition and acknowledgment of existing realities, classroom cultures, and implementation requirements or support should be the first step in improving education. Also, a strong visionary leadership becomes pivotal to achieve the desired reform success. Additionally, policy development and programs need to recognize the country's history and the murky terrain that still has to be navigated to ensure successful curriculum reform implementation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Bloom’s taxonomy for the digital age student in a rural African context
Full text linkBloom’s Taxonomy serves as an important guide for teachers in building their student’s cognition from low to high order thinking. This taxonomy has been widely implemented in face-to-face settings worldwide. With the increased use of technology and blended and online learning on the rise, there is a need for teachers to warm up to digital learning. Teachers must be innovative in using technology to improve the quality of education and its delivery. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy serves as an updated original Bloom’s Taxonomy for designing technology-rich instruction for quality outcomes. This qualitative study explores the use of technology and digital tools to facilitate student learning experiences and outcomes in the modern era. The secondary data collected and analyzed was gathered from existing sources of information. The study recommends that for teachers to be proficient and achieve the best outcomes and add incentives for the students, there is a need to follow the utilization of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and consolidate innovation, following the application will get students closer to accomplishing their learning objectives. Teachers need support to prevent forestall disdain and advancement weariness. To conclude the Bloom Digital Taxonomy is well practised in classrooms, and teachers can rest assured that the students they produce will make a difference in this world through the skills they have accumulated during their schooling years
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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