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Introduction: the multilingual context of education in Africa

- Kaschula, Russell H, Wolff, H Ekkehard

Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Wolff, H Ekkehard
Date: 2016
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174849 , vital:42515 , ISBN 978-0415315760 , https://www.amazon.com/Multilingual-Education-Africa-Practices-Routledge/dp/041531576X
Description: The common thread in this book is the exploration of innovative pedagogies in language teaching and language use in education. The greatest danger facing educators is one of complacency. Whether set in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, South Africa or elsewhere in Africa, all the chapters in this book emphasise the imperative for educators to constantly revise curricula and teaching methods in order to find the most appropriate ways of teaching and using language in multilingual settings.
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Date Issued: 2016

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Invasive alien aquatic plants in South African freshwater ecosystems:

- Hill, Martin P, Coetzee, Julie A, Martin, Grant D, Smith, Rosali, Strange, Emily F

Authors: Hill, Martin P , Coetzee, Julie A , Martin, Grant D , Smith, Rosali , Strange, Emily F
Date: 2020
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/176271 , vital:42680 , ISBN 978-3-030-32394-3 , 10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3
Description: South Africa has a long history of managing the establishment and spread of invasive fioating macrophytes. The past thirty years of research and the implementation of nation-wide biological and integrated control programmes has led to widespread control of these species in many degraded freshwater ecosystems. Such initiatives are aimed at restoring access to potable freshwater and maintaining native biodiversity.
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Date Issued: 2020

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Know your rights! A basic guide for domestic workers in South Africa

- Labour Research Service (LRS)

Authors: Labour Research Service (LRS)
Date: 2010-06
Subjects: Household employees -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa , Household employees -- Employment -- South Africa , Labour contract -- South Africa
Language: English
Type: book , text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60041 , vital:27725
Description: The demand for domestic services has increased globally during the last two decades and today domestic workers constitute a large portion of the workforce, especially in developing countries. Yet domestic work is undervalued and poorly regulated, and many domestic workers are underpaid and unprotected. This has been recognised by international organisations, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The struggle of domestic workers has lead to improvements to their rights and conditions in many countries. Yet working conditions and wages remain poor in many countries, including South Africa. This booklet sheds light on this problem. There are 888 000 domestic workers in South Africa, which accounts for 7% of total formal employment (Labour Force Survey, May 2010). The vast majority of these workers do not belong to a trade union and do not partake in collective bargaining or are unaware of their rights to bargain and to join trade unions. The South African Domestic Services and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) is a trade union for domestic workers in South Africa and campaigns for the improvement of rights and conditions of domestic workers. It recognises that it is not as powerful as it could be and it would have a bigger influence on the legislating authorities if there were more members which were strongly organised. There are numerous difficulties to organise domestic workers, some are related to the education level of the workers and some lies within the nature of the work (many are live-in workers and therefore have no contact with other domestic workers as a natural part of their work). However, SADSAWU has over many years built up a lot of experience and developed a solid vision to build a strong domestic workers movement, and is therefore well placed to fight these difficulties. This booklet also serves as an organising tool for domestic workers. The aim is to raise awareness of the rights of domestic workers and to encourage workers to organise.
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Date Issued: 2010-06

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LCT and systemic functional linguistics: Enacting complimentary theories for explanatory power

- Maton, Karl, Martin, James R, Matruglio, Erika S

Authors: Maton, Karl , Martin, James R , Matruglio, Erika S
Date: 2016
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66491 , vital:28955
Description: publisher version , Interdisciplinarity is the future. Such is the thrust of pronouncements repeatedly heard across the social sciences and humanities. Interdisciplinarity is often equated with intellectually and socially progressive stances and greater responsiveness to business and workplace needs. Yet such axiological and economic benefits are more often assumed or proclaimed than evidenced or demonstrated (Moore 2011). Moreover，what is declared to be 'interdisciplinary' often comprises the appropriation by literary or philosophical discourses of ideas from other fields rather than genuinely interdisciplinary dialogue. Nonetheless，to highlight the vacuity of much written in its name is not to dismiss the potential of interdisciplinarity itself. There are serious ontological and epistemological arguments for bringing disciplines together in substantive research (Bhaskar and Danermark 2006). Simply put，the social world comprises more than the phenomena addressed by any one discipline. Education，for example，involves at least knowledges， knowers， knowing， and the known, implicating insights from, among others，sociology，linguistics，psychology，and philosophy (Maton 2014b: 212-13). This is not to suggest a single study must encompass the disciplinary map in order to recreate reality in its entirety, Rather，it highlights that drawing on more than one disciplinary approach may offer greater explanatory power when exploring a specific problem-situation.
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Date Issued: 2016

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LCT in mixed-methods research: evolving an instrument for quantitative data

- Maton, Karl, Howard, Sarah Katherine

Authors: Maton, Karl , Howard, Sarah Katherine
Date: 2016
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66479 , vital:28954
Description: publisher version , A mantra of social science declares a fundamental divide between the quantitative and the qualitative that involves more than methods. According to this depiction, the two methodologies are intrinsically associated with a range of ontological, epistemological, political and moral stances. Each of these constellations of stances is strongly integrated, such that choice of method is held to involve a series of associated choices. Each constellation is also strongly opposed to the other, along axes labelled positivism/constructivism, scientism/humanism, conservative/critical, old/new, among others. These ‘binary constellations’ (Maton 2014b: 148-70) offer a forced choice between two tightly-knit sets of practices that are portrayed as jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive. So widespread is this methodological binarism that many scholars ‘are left with the impression that they have to pledge allegiance to one research school of thought or the other’ (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 14). A competing mantra disclaims this divide. Distinctions underpinning the picture of binary constellations have been regularly dissolved. Arguments that one deals with numbers, the other with words, one studies behaviour, the other reveals meanings, one is hypothetico-deductive, the other inductive, one enables generalization, the other explores singular depth, among others, have been repeatedly undermined (e.g. Hammersley 1992). Indeed, the death of the divide is frequently declared. Calls for ‘transcending’ (Salomon 1991) or ‘getting over’ (Howe 1992) the quantitative-qualitative debate and arguments for mixed-methods research (Brannen 2005; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004) are recurrent. These calls highlight how the methodologies offer complementary insights for research and demonstrate that eschewing either methodology on principle is unnecessarily renouncing potential explanatory power. However, the call to mixed-methods research remains more breached than honoured. Methodological monotheism remains dominant – studies of education and society typically adopt either quantitative or qualitative methods. As we shall discuss, the former is typically associated with the influence of psychology and the latter is often claimed as emblematic of sociology. Studies utilizing the sociological frameworks on which Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) builds have echoed this pattern by overwhelmingly adopting qualitative methods. Accordingly, Part I of this volume begins by exploring how LCT concepts can be enacted in qualitative research (Chapter 2). However, LCT is not limited to one methodology and a growing body of mixed-methods research is engaging with both qualitative and quantitative data. In this chapter we illustrate how this research works and the gains it offers. For resolutely qualitative researchers, the prospect of reading anything quantitative, even in mixed-methods research, may be unenticing. However, it would be a mistake to pass over this chapter, for several reasons. First, we offer insights into research practice that might surprise such scholars. As Bourdieu argued, ‘methodological indictments are too often no more than a disguised way of making a virtue out of necessity, of feigning to dismiss, to ignore in an active way, what one is ignorant of in fact’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 226). Our aim is to contribute towards removing this reason for one-sidedness. We show, for example, how quantitative methods confound their common portrayal as neat, straightforward and procedural; they are complex and involved and require craft work and judgement. Our focus is, therefore, more practical than metaphysical. We shall not enter seemingly endless debates over whether the ‘quantitative-qualitative divide’ refers to paradigms, epistemologies or methods and whether these are complementary or incommensurable. Rather, we discuss the development of an instrument for enacting LCT concepts in quantitative methods and ground this account in real examples of mixed-methods research. Specifically, we trace the evolution of an instrument for embedding specialization codes within questionnaires through its creation for research into school music and then its development within studies of educational technology. Given that mathematics can be off-putting to the noviciate, we minimize discussion of statistics and explain measures in lay terms. Second, this is much more than a story of quantitative methods. The evolution of the instrument both shaped qualitative methods and was shaped by the data they generated, offering insights into how qualitative research can more fully engage with LCT. Its development also involved intimate dialogue with theory that shed fresh light on LCT itself, making explicit the ‘gaze’ embodied by the framework (Chapter 1, this volume). We shall highlight wider lessons learned about the craft of enacting LCT in research, lessons of direct relevance for studies using any methods. Third, we shall illustrate the explanatory power offered by using quantitative and qualitative methods together, such as providing a robust basis for detailed findings, identifying wider-scale trends typically inaccessible to qualitative methods that provide a context for their data, and facilitating knowledge-building through greater replicability across contexts and over time. For example, the technology studies built directly on the music studies to cumulatively develop the instrument and generated probably the largest data set in code sociology: 97,386 responses (83,937 student and 13,449 staff surveys) on the organizing principles of academic subjects, alongside 20 in-depth qualitative case studies of secondary schools. This offers a foundation of substantial breadth and depth for making claims about knowledge practices across the disciplinary map and a firm basis on which future research into disciplinary differences can build. Moreover, the quantitative instrument itself can be adopted or adapted in new studies, further enabling cumulative knowledge-building. Given these substantive, methodological and theoretical gains, it is perhaps surprising there exists any temptation to skip past discussion of mixed-methods research. This reflects the methodological character of the fields in which LCT emerged. We thus begin by briefly illustrating how the sociological frameworks on which the theory builds have become distanced from quantitative methods.
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Date Issued: 2016

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LCT in qualitative research: creating a translation device for studying constructivist pedagogy

- Maton, Karl, Chen, Rainbow Tsai-Hung

Authors: Maton, Karl , Chen, Rainbow Tsai-Hung
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66465 , vital:28952
Description: publisher version , This chapter addresses how Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) can be used to overcome this divide in qualitative research. Specifically, we discuss how to develop an ‘external language of description’ or translation device between theory and data. We ground our discussion in the example of a major study that enacted the LCT concepts of specialization codes (Chapter 1, this volume) to explore how constructivist pedagogy shapes the educational experiences of students (Chen 2010). First, we elaborate on Bernstein’s notion of an ‘external language’ – its rationale, its role in research, and ways it has been interpreted – to clarify the nature of a ‘translation device’. Second, we introduce the study we use to exemplify how such a device can be evolved. Third, we analyse the evolving process of that study. There are few published examples of ‘external languages’; there is even less public discussion of how they can be developed. Publications typically reveal the products of research; here we reveal the process as well as the product, to make explicit part of the craft of LCT (Chapter 1, this volume). We analyse the study as an unfolding narrative, focusing on how relations between theory and data were negotiated in the development of an external language of description. Last, we introduce the resulting translation device, discuss how it enables dialogue between theory and data, and consider the nature of the process more generally. We should emphasize that this chapter is intended to be neither a definitive guide nor a template for enacting LCT. More widely, it aims neither to normatively define how theory and data should be related nor to restrict diversity in how this can be achieved. As we discuss, there are several interpretations of ‘external languages’, and, as other chapters in this volume illustrate, there are many ways of using LCT and developing translation devices. Rather, by focusing in detail on one study we hope to shed some illustrative light on how the framework can be used in qualitative research to generate explanatory power through fostering dialogue between theory and data.
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Date Issued: 2015

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Learning and teaching

Date: 2020
Subjects: Nelson Mandela University , Education, Higher -- Curricula , Education, Higher -- Study and teaching
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44433 , vital:37379
Description: Nelson Mandela University is recognised as a leader in embracing a humanising pedagogical philosophy or the ‘humanisation of education’. This is the touchstone of learning and teaching at our University for a number of reasons, of which I will name a few. It is about creating an environment that is conducive to bold thinking and questioning; dislodging outdated theories and narrow-minded preconceptions of teaching, learning and engagement in order to stimulate an alternative, emancipatory approach to higher education; and pioneering new programmatic interventions and recognitions of what teaching and learning in South Africa is about.
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Date Issued: 2020

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Learning style of Chinese event management students

- Louw, Mattheus J, Louw, Lynette, Li, Yanxia

Authors: Louw, Mattheus J , Louw, Lynette , Li, Yanxia
Date: 2016
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69167 , vital:29438 , https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110366778-028
Description: There is a demand for social development in China by establishing, inter alia, a framework focusing on the employability of university graduates and developing self-directed learners. The key to achieving this would be to gain a better understanding of how learning styles, as one of the cognitive factors, contribute towards academic performance in order to provide meaningful learning experiences.
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Date Issued: 2016

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Learning to teach in higher education in South Africa

- Council on Higher Education (South Africa), Leibowitz, Brenda, Bozalek, Vivienne, Garraway, James, Herman, Nicoline, Jawitz, Jeff, Muhuro, Patricia, Ndebele, Clever, Quinn, Lynn, Van Schalkwyk, Susan, Vorster, Jo-Anne, Winberg, Chris

Authors: Council on Higher Education (South Africa) , Leibowitz, Brenda , Bozalek, Vivienne , Garraway, James , Herman, Nicoline , Jawitz, Jeff , Muhuro, Patricia , Ndebele, Clever , Quinn, Lynn , Van Schalkwyk, Susan , Vorster, Jo-Anne , Winberg, Chris
Date: 2017
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66524 , vital:28958
Description: publisher version , Preface by Prof Narend Baijnath: “Teaching and learning are never neutral. Every aspect is ideological in nature: from the admission of students, to the selection of curriculum content, to the adoption of learning materials, to the pedagogical approach, to the mode of assessment and the quality of the feedback. The form of disciplinary knowledge may vary from the more subjective and contentious to the more objective and broadly accepted, but teaching and learning remain highly political acts across all institutions, faculties and disciplines. So it is unsurprising that when a country undergoes major social change, ideological demands are placed on teaching and learning.” (HE Reviewed, CHE 2016 p.143). There are many and diverse influences on teaching and learning as a political act, from broad social movements that challenge what is taught, to the ways in which resources have historically been allocated, to the values and goals of different disciplines, and the more immediate institutional and faculty contexts in which they take place. Learning to teach in higher education in South Africa is a timely and well-researched contribution to understanding the influences of that more immediate layer, that is, of institutional contexts, on the professional learning of academics in their roles as teachers. It explores questions of whether it matters to the professional learning process whether one is teaching in a context in which resources are scarce, or whether the departmental leadership style is authoritarian, or whether an institution has a strong drive to increase research output. And if it matters, what are the implications for facilitating opportunities for academics to ‘learn to teach’ in higher education? Undertaken by a team of academic staff developers across eight institutional contexts, this research report offers a comprehensive, nuanced and theorised set of insights into the role that context plays in the ways in which academics learn to teach. Such insights can inform the development of professional learning initiatives at both the institutional and national policy levels. The report is one of the outcomes of a large-scale study carried out between 2011 and 2016, made possible by funding from the National Research Foundation. It has spawned many research articles, books and PhD studies (see Appendix One) and has thus in itself provided a vehicle for the development of further research and researchers on the subject. The team chose to work collaboratively, with all the possibilities and difficulties that that entails, as reflected on in Chapter 7. Thereby, it also offers an illuminating reflection and insights into such research methodology. While the report does not specifically set out to offer anything new or surprising about the cultural and contextual differences between institutions, it does offer a coherent interpretation of such complex and intersecting conditions examined through a single theoretical lens. Indeed, the concepts of ‘structure, culture and agency’ as developed in the work of the social realist, Margaret Archer, formed the theoretical canvas for the study. The theory allows for the analytical separation of different domains for the purposes of understanding the interplay of relations, but it also offers a hope of bringing about social transformation through exercising particular modes of reflexivity. As the report argues, quoting Archer, transforming our positions in society is possible, but “their transformation depends partly on the subjective reflexivity of primary agents in seeking to play an active part in reshaping society’s resource distribution”. The researchers may not always have found it easy to apply a single theoretical lens, but the theory based study provides a coherent representation of the differences and similarities between the institutional contexts of the eight universities, throwing into relief their different influences on professional learning, and points to pathways towards the improvement of teaching and learning in South African higher education. A major contribution of this report that is likely to influence the discourse on teaching and learning significantly, is the conceptual shift from ‘professional development’ to ‘professional learning’. As an external reviewer noted, “in the context of the decolonization debate, [this shift] has the potential to offer a more flexible continuum in which to position different learning opportunities”. It also recognises the importance of group and individual agency and the importance of informal contexts in learning to teach. 12 | Monitor 14 | Learning to Teach in Higher Education in South Africa The publication of this research report takes forward the CHE’s ongoing endeavours to improve and enhance the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. It serves to complement the more practical implementation of quality assurance in higher education, which for the CHE has largely entailed a focus on teaching and learning, whether in accreditation, audits or the Quality Enhancement Project (QEP) that began in 2014 in which one of the four focus areas that universities were asked to engage with was “enhancing academics as teachers”. Participation in the QEP over the past three years has contributed to a heightened awareness across the sector of the importance of academics developing competence in university teaching, particularly given the increased emphasis being placed on student success by both the government and higher education institutions themselves. As a result, universities are becoming more intentional in their efforts to help academics develop this competence. The release of the study is therefore timely, as not only will it add to our collective understanding of the complexities and nuances in the interrelationships between structure, culture and agency that inform and influence academics in their roles as teachers, but it will serve as a useful resource for institutions in their efforts to enhance university teachers and teaching. The Higher Education Monitor series, as was elaborated in the first issue in 2003, “aims to stimulate research and the production of knowledge and interpretive frameworks that could contribute to better theorisation of higher education, more rigorous analysis of higher education complexities and more effective strategies for change and progress”. It is our hope that this report will do exactly that. , We thank the National Research Foundation for funding the project that made the study and the ensuing report possible, Professor Brenda Leibowitz for leading the team of researchers, our external reviewers, and the individual authors who took the time to present drafts of their chapters to Dr Webbstock of the CHE at a workshop in May 2016.
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Date Issued: 2017

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Legitimation code: building knowledge about knowledge-building

- Maton, Karl

Authors: Maton, Karl
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66444 , vital:28950
Description: publisher version , Education and knowledge have never been more important to society, yet research is segmented by approach, methodology or topic. Legitimation Code Theory or 'LCT' extends and integrates insights from Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein to offer a framework for research and practice that overcomes segmentalism. This book shows how LCT can be used to build knowledge about education and society. Comprising original papers by an international and multidisciplinary group of scholars, Knowledge-building offers the first primer in this fast-growing approach. Through case studies of major research projects, Part I provides practical insights into how LCT can be used to build knowledge by:-enabling dialogue between theory and data in qualitative research-bringing together quantitative and qualitative methodologies in mixed-methods research-relating theory and practice in praxis-conducting interdisciplinary studies with systemic functional linguistics Part II offers a series of studies of pressing issues facing knowledge-building in education and beyond, encompassing:-diverse subject areas, including physics, English, cultural studies, music, and design-educational sites: schooling, vocational education, and higher education-practices of research, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment-both education and informal learning contexts, such as museums and masonic lodges Carefully sequenced and interrelated, these chapters form a coherent collection that gives a unique insight into one of the most thought-provoking and innovative ways of building knowledge about knowledge-building in education and society to have emerged this century. This book is essential reading for all serious students and scholars of education, sociology and linguistics.
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Date Issued: 2015

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Let us speak of freedom

- University of the Western Cape, Department of History

Authors: University of the Western Cape, Department of History
Date: [1990?]
Subjects: Black people -- South Africa -- Politics and government , Black nationalism -- South Africa , Apartheid -- South Africa , Labour Unions -- South Africa , Capitalism -- South Africa , Socialism -- South Africa
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/74620 , vital:30321
Description: The struggle reaches back to the days of the first white settlement in our country. In this chapter we will look at some of these traditions of our struggle. We will learn more about the people who were in South Africa when the settlers came, and how they fought bravely to live in peace on their land. We will also read about the many changes that happened, particularly after diamonds and gold were discovered and how people continued to struggle against the new conditions that made their lives even harder. , “We call the farmers of the reserves and trust lands. Let us speak of the wide land, and the narrow strips on which we toil. Let us speak of brothers without land, and of children without schooling. Let us speak of taxes and of cattle, and of famine. LET US SPEAK OF FREEDOM.”
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Date Issued: [1990?]

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Local responses to political policies and socio-economic change in the Keiskammahoek district, Ciskei: anthropological perspectives

- De Wet, Christopher J, Manona, Cecil W, Palmer, Robin C G

Authors: De Wet, Christopher J , Manona, Cecil W , Palmer, Robin C G
Date: 1992
Subjects: Burnshill -- Economic conditions Burnshill -- Social conditions Gymnothorax -- Economic conditions Gymnothorax -- Social conditions Land tenure -- South Africa -- Ciskei Keiskammahoek (South Africa) -- Economic conditions Keiskammahoek (South Africa) -- Social conditions
Language: English
Type: book , text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1810 , vital:20229 , ISBN 086810230x
Description: This report relates to research done in the Keiskammahoek district of the Ciskei (see Map No. l) during 1989 and early 1990, with the financial support of the Programme for Development Research (PRODDER) of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. The project was designed and conducted against the background of previous research, and has served as a pilot project for a larger project, entitled "Socio- Economic Change and Development Planning in the Keiskammahoek District of the Ciskei". This larger project which is currently in progress, (and which has been funded by the Institute for Research Development of the HSRC, by the Chairman's Fund of Anglo-American and De Beers, and by Johannesburg Consolidated Investments Co Ltd), is intended to give rise to a process of consultation and planning, leading to various local-level development initiatives in the District. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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Date Issued: 1992

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Louder than the frame:

- Podesva, K L, Beasley, M, Kataoka, M, Ntombela, N

Authors: Podesva, K L , Beasley, M , Kataoka, M , Ntombela, N
Date: 2016
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146211 , vital:38505 , ISBN 9783863359140
Description: Book abstract. Almost 30 years after the founding of the first curatorial studies program (at the École du Magasin, Grenoble), with the curator remaining a figure of curiosity and fascination in the contemporary art world, a new question has emerged: how do we educate curators? Great Expectations: Prospects for the Future of Curatorial Education explores this question, focusing in particular on the challenges, opportunities and subjects that motivate educators and students. How has curatorial education changed in the past 25 years, and what will the next 25 years bring?.
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Date Issued: 2016

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Making room for the unexpected: the university and the ethical imperative of unconditional hospitality

- Dass, Minesh

Authors: Dass, Minesh
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142108 , vital:38050 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
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Date Issued: 2015

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Making the means justify the ends?: the theory and practice of the RDP

- Rapoo, Thabo

Authors: Rapoo, Thabo
Date: [1996]
Subjects: South Africa -- Economic policy , Reconstruction and Development Programme (South Africa)
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/74783 , vital:30338 , 0958407983
Description: So much has been said and written about the Reconstruction and Development Programme by a bewildering array of development specialists, politicians, bureaucrats and commentators that it seems inconceivable that anyone familiar with policy debates would still lack an understanding of it. But amid the speeches, publications, policy documents and newspaper articles, the RDP has lost its meaning and coherence. It has come to mean anything anyone wants it to mean; with a little ingenuity, anything can be made to fit in with the goals of the RDP. It has thus become too broad and imprecise to refer only to what was originally intended. This paper offers an analysis of the RDP’s approach at national and provincial levels, and provides a conceptual framework within which the RDP’s Basic Needs approach to development is assessed. It forms part of a continuing project which seeks to examine the RDP and its implementation by the provinces, and was based on interviews with provincial and national RDP officials, development planners in the provinces, and a thorough content analysis of official policy documents, memoranda and minutes. The institutionalisation of the RDP will be examined by analysing problems faced in the course of implementing it in the provinces. Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West were chosen as case studies; w'hile they were selected randomly, the goal was to examine three provinces with different socio-economic profiles, allowing significant lessons to be extrapolated from their short experience of implementing the RDP. Their priorities and strategic approaches will be assessed, and problems examined, to suggest lessons for policy and planning that might throw light on similar issues in other provinces. Finally, the paper will analyse indications that the government is making subtle strategic changes towards rearticulating the RDP within a new time frame, and moving towards a tightly co-ordinated set of institutional structures and intergovernmental planning systems. , Social policy series
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Date Issued: [1996]

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