South Africa’s adult educators in the community college sector: Who they are and how they view their training, their work and their position (original) (raw)
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2021
In 2013, the Department of Higher Education established a new institutional form for the provision of adult education, the Community Education and Training Colleges (CETCs). The growing number of unemployed youths that are not in learning institutions as well as the limited opportunities provided by the pre-existing Public Adult Learning Centres (PALCs), set the context for the transitioning of PALCs into CETCs. This transition marks one of the biggest changes to the adult education landscape historically in South Africa but has thus far been the subject of limited research. This study focuses on the experiences and perspectives of a selection of role players of this transition, in particular, those of managers and lecturers within the greater Cape Town area. The study was situated within an interpretive research paradigm with its emphasis on experience and interpretation and adopted a case study approach. A range of documents provided background data, while the main body of data wa...
Creative Education, 2015
A study was carried out with former graduates of the University of Botswana, Department of Adult Education to explore the issues related to professionalisation of adult education careers in Botswana. An underlying goal was to explore the unique characteristics of the Department of Adult Education (DAE) at the University of Botswana. This study took a case study approach by focusing only on the Department of Adult Education graduates. Participants' involvement was solicited using purposive sampling. However, snowballing also was applied to help the researcher locate more former students. The methodology used was basically qualitative relying on the phenomenological paradigm. As the researcher was interested in perceptions, opinions and experience of participants as they were related to what constitutes professionalisation in the field of adult education as practised by the Department of Adult Education (DAE) at the University of Botswana. The findings indicate that adult educators acquire a set of "flexible" skills that would allow them to adapt to a changing employment situation and to develop new avenues for adult education in varied institutional settings. Stakeholders concurred that professional associations are presently weak in Botswana and made suggestions for more vigorous activity for adult education on their part. With regard to institutional support, there was broad consensus that Botswana possesses already an admirable structure for training and institutional assistance in the Department of Adult Education.
Secured, not connected: South Africa's Adult Education system
Journal of Education
In this paper we address an area that has been largely neglected by researchers-state provision of adult education in South Africa. We argue that there have been decades of neglect, or, at best, token support for our country's adult education system, and we look at how the system could be revitalised, both in terms of minimal requirements for immediate basic improvement as well as for a more radical and forward looking transformation of the system. South Africa has a history of attempts to provide school equivalent education to black adults through night schools. Suppressed in the 1950s and 1960s, they resurfaced after the 1976 Soweto revolt, and in 1996 the Constitution secured adult basic education as a right. State night schools were renamed Public Adult Learning Centres (PALCs), and seemed poised to become a powerful delivery mechanism, but continued as inadequate night schools. In 2015 the PALC system was ostensibly transformed into a community college one, but this transformation was based on the weak foundation of inadequate PALCs. A new 2019 plan for the Community Education and Training College System includes long needed major overhauls that must be made if adults' right to effective and relevant education is to be finally realised.
Adult Education & Training in South Africa. A Selected Chronology from 1910 to 1995
1995
The history of adult education and training in South Africa is a story of the simultaneous and sometimes conflicting activities of three major actors: organizations of civil society, the state, and capital. Organizations of civil society have led many activities in response to social class, race, and gender inequalities. Strongly motivated within particular ideological frameworks, these activities have been mainly of an informal or nonformal kind within different social movements. Since 1910, the various governments have invested minimally in adult education. Few sustained investments have followed the recognition adult education gained after World War II; in early 1980, in the aftermath of the school students' revolt which started in Soweto in 1976, and the transition to a democratic government in 1994. Within the economy, adult education and training have never been supported strongly; incentives to encourage spending on training the workforce have been few. A major stralid of adult education throughout its history in South Africa relates to adult literacy and school equivalency for adults. Progression of this strand of activity is intertwined with economic, political, and social developments. A vibrant nongovernmental organizational literacy movement has struggled against enormous odds and has developed creative methodological and curricula innovations. A number of commercial literacy organizations have developed in the last two decades and are active in some major corporations. (Activities are listed by year. Contains 12 references.
Training Grassroots Educators: Some Provision of Nonformal Adult Education in the Durban Region
1991
The Community Adult Education Training Program (CAETP) in the Durban region in South Africa is a nonformal adult education program that was initiated by the Centre for Adult Education at Natal University in recognition of the need to train grassroots educators for the region. Ten women and 10 men are receiving training through the CAETP. Most CAETP participants are in the program.to learn to plan, design, and facilitate education. The CAETP project is intended to lay the foundations for a specialized training program to develop community education in areas such as literacy, health, labor, culture, gender politics, and environmental issues. Initially, the learning process and methods of facilitating learning are emphasized. The initial training is then reinforced by ensuing programs that apply the methodological principles to specific subjects (such as health education). CAETP courses are based on participants' identified needs and generally cover the following: the specific dynamics of adult learners in South Africa, basic research methodology and survey procedures, procedures of critical analysis, participatory education methods, planning and organization of educational events, basic communication skills and facilitation of group dynamics, preparation and use of low-cost teaching aids, and evaluation processes and tools. (MN)
Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 2020
Workplace learning is a critical aspect of both continuing professional education and human resource development. However, often providers, scholars and even the learners themselves pay little attention to the learning that actually happens in the workplace. The study sought to obtain insights into workplace learning of Adult Education and Training, centre managers and educators. Qualitative data generated through interviews and focus group discussions with 62 conveniently selected educators and centre managers in 18 Adult Education and Training centres were thematically analysed through a seven-step process. Educator workplace learning emerged around judgement, decision-making and problem solving, awareness and understanding, role and task performance and team work and passion. Data also indicated that the learning was tacit, surface, context-rooted and consequential to managing crises in the Adult Education and Training centres. The study recommends adequate resource provisioning ...
Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 2005
This qualitative interpretivist study analyses the perceptions of a stratified and purposive sample of university-based adult educators with a view to understanding how they perceive the effectiveness of adult education as a contributor to national development in southern Africa at the beginning of the 21st century. These perceptions of university-based adult educators are investigated against the background of the current global trend to project adult education as a component of the configuration of lifelong learning. Among the findings are that university-based adult educators in southern Africa differ to some extent as to whether or not the discipline has contributed significantly to southern African national development, and that the need for an enabling environment for the utilisation of adult education is as yet unappreciated.
The development of national standards for adult educators in Namibia
International Review of Education, 2012
Since gaining independence from South Africa in 1990, Namibia has placed considerable emphasis on education, including adult learning. As a means of improving the quality of adult learning, the Namibian Ministry of Education commissioned the development of national standards in 2010 to express competency requirements for adult educators. Particular attention was paid to the views of adult learners who participated through thirty focus groups. The participatory process revealed that the work of an adult educator is more complex and demanding than had previously been appreciated. The required competencies were categorised under four headings: (1) Knowledge as an adult educator, (2) Practice as an adult educator, (3) Relationships as an adult educator and (4) Ethics and professionalism as an adult educator. The Namibia Qualifications Authority, acting under its legislative mandate of setting occupational standards for occupations, jobs, posts and positions, approved the national standards in 2011.
Struggle and compromise: a history of South African adult education from 1960 to 2001
2003
This article provides an overview of the history of adult education in South Africa from 1960 (when the apartheid regime crushed the main black political movements) to the end of 2001 when, after a period of painful struggle (which reached its climax in the late eighties and early nineties), South Africa was well into the second term of a democratic government. It is a history of an amazingly complex relationship between adult education and political trends (many of them foreign influenced) and with the changes in the associated social, economic, religious and cultural features of South African society. The article describes the sixties when what remained of a night school movement was closed down and rendered illegal and an "alternative" education NGO movement began (originally in support of black student activists expelled from universities); the seventies when, in spite of severe repression, there was a revival of radical literacy work and innovations in alternative edu...