Browsing by Author "Mnisi, Nomsa"

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Citizenship education and learners with mild-intellectual disabilities in South Africa: A critique of post-apartheid citizenship education policy
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-12) Mnisi, Nomsa; Mathebula, Thokozani
Citizenship education, as a knowledge branch of the philosophy of education, affirms and educates learners in schools about citizenship as a legal status, feeling of belonging and the practice of activism in preparing them for citizenship participation. Globally, citizenship education policy is segmented between liberal, communitarian and civic republican strands. Arguably, contemporary communitarianism and civic republicanism are apt to accrue educational benefits that foster the development of learners with mild-intellectual disabilities’ intellectual and adaptive functions, yielding effective citizenship. The study’s research problem is citizenship education policy embraced upon classical liberalism, which individualises learners with mild-intellectual disabilities in post-apartheid schools. As an unintended consequence of policy, the social problem becomes the exclusion of learners with mild-intellectual disabilities, who are left in the doldrums and characterised as passive citizens. The conceptual and philosophical study uses philosophical research in education as a methodology, with Frankena’s three methods of enquiry serving as a methodological approach. In addressing the problem, Critical Disability Theory and Tomaševski’s 4-A scheme framework are adopted as theoretical lenses which form part of the transformative paradigm to critique policy under the prime objectives of attaining social justice and human rights. The central argument of the study asserts that the implementation of post-apartheid citizenship education policy reflects a tendency to adopt and overemphasise classical liberal strands of citizenship. In the critical analysis of citizenship education policy, the liberalism explicated undermines and underemphasises the educational benefits of contemporary communitarianism and civic republicanism. Invariably, the theoretical contributions of social justice and human rights when educating learners with mild-intellectual disabilities in post-apartheid South African schools are not supported. By shifting the pendulum between the ideals of citizenship education policy and its implementation, strategies are presented to help learners find their identity as a means of fostering agency, community involvement and responsiveness, while also balancing formal knowledge and experiential learning. In looking to the future, citizenship education in schools under communitarianism in a civic-orientated Republic of South Africa is proposed in which learners with mild-intellectual disabilities’ intellectual and adaptive functions can be developed for effective citizenship.
Neoliberalism and inclusive education in post-apartheid South African schools: a critical review of the World Bank’s neoliberal education agenda
(2022) Mnisi, Nomsa
Countries globally have adopted the inclusive education agenda to redress the exclusion of learners in schools. The features of inclusive education, namely, equal access, participation and opportunities for all, ought to remain at the centre in building successful education systems under this agenda. Nevertheless, in asserting its own agenda for education, the World Bank has recast the realisation of inclusive education in schools through its neoliberal stance and public policies. Looking at the countries of the Global East, the revelation is that the World Bank’s neoliberal education agenda presents vast unevenness to the global village, inequalities in society and little hope for learners to receive an inclusive education in schools. In post-apartheid South Africa, the World Bank’s neoliberal education agenda that characterises its educational projects and inclusive policy reveals a disengagement between inclusive education tenets and neoliberal practices. Therefore, as it stands, the social problems that emanate are unevenness in the global village and societal structural inequalities that leave many people lacking the skills to secure employment or to be globally competitive. The research problem in this study is the exclusion of learners in schools. Learners are not affirmed their right to education as a social good that redresses the inequities of the past by increasing their access to and participation and opportunities in schools. In addressing this ongoing struggle occasioned by the World Bank’s neoliberal education agenda, this research report critiques the status quo, highlighting the exclusionary conditions and the need for transformation that would ignite a social change in the distribution of education to be provisioned in post-apartheid South African schools. The contributing argument I make maintains that the World Bank’s neoliberal education agenda exacerbates these problems of unevenness, inequalities and exclusion. Therefore, as the World Bank’s education agenda is not compatible to the values of inclusive education that rely on fulfilling educational and socio-economic rights, its agenda should be re evaluated. As an extreme alternative, in ensuring the future carries values that represent equality, their presence ought to be diminished in the context of South Africa.