Faculty of Humanities (Research Outputs)

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An assessment of skills supply and demand for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and regional energy integration
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Centre for Researching Education & Labour (REAL); University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
The SADC region relies heavily on energy produced from coal and water and has grappled with an energy crisis over the years, seen through insufficient and inefficient energy supply. This crisis is mostly a result of a changing climate, including droughts, outdated infrastructure, and the depletion of natural resources. These natural resources include coal and gas, and their use for power generation further contributes to climate change, who’s impacts are being faced globally. There has therefore been a desire and a call to shift towards renewable energy (RE) in the SADC region, which has the resources and conditions to make this shift. This is driven by the SADC Protocol on Energy and the various national policies. The SADC Protocol on Energy (SADC 20) identifies a number of strategic plans over the last 10 years which build on previous policies. These include “the Regional Energy Access Strategy and Action Plan 2020 to 2030 (SADC, 2020), the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Strategy and Action Plan 2016 to 2030 (SADC, 2016), the SADC Industrial Energy Efficiency Programme and the development of the Regional Gas Master Plan” (SADC, 1996). Implementation has occurred at different rates in the various member states, and the 2018 SADC Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Status Report states that “Since 2015, SADC Member States have greatly increased their commitment to renewable energy and energy efficiency, including important innovations to stimulate mini-grids and distributed renewable energy” (SADC, 2018). This is also the case in regional integration as per the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020–2030 (SADC 2020) and through the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and its regional electricity plans, trading platforms, and policy and regulatory alignment initiatives (SAPP, 2017) together with the SADC Regional Electricity Regulatory Association (RERA, 2022). This transition to RE, however, needs to be just, thereby ensuring that the current workforce is protected and that the skills ecosystem is prepared not only to respond to current demands but those required to transition to a more just and resilient energy system.
Beyond ‘supply and demand’: moving from skills ‘planning’ to seeing skills as endogenous to the economy
(2022-11) Allais, Stephanie Matseleng
This article questions the notion of supply and demand of skills, and, accordingly, the rules and tools that have been developed for skills anticipation in South Africa. I argue that there is nowhere ‘outside’ of the economy where skills are produced. Rather, a society and an economy need to be seen as an organism, where skill formation is a complex set of moving parts. The concept of supply and demand is unhelpful to think about skill formation because it directs our attention towards specific moving parts in isolation from the broader factors that shape them. This explains why, despite the existence of extensive tools and institutions for skills anticipation, and numerous institutions for social dialogue and stakeholder engagement, researchers and policy-makers argue that South Africa has an inadequate supply of the skills that are needed in the workplace and concomitant skills mismatches. The article also presents more specific problems with the rules and tools, particularly in the way the systems and institutions for understanding labour market demand interact with the systems and tools for the supply of skills – especially those tools that govern and shape skills provision. It argues further that, whereas there are real problems with these rules and tools, and while they can certainly be improved, the broad goals that they are intended to achieve will not be attained even with better tools, but that different conceptual lenses are required instead.
Building capacity for green, just and sustainable futures – a new knowledge field requiring transformative research methodology
(2020) Rosenberg, Eureta; Presha Ramsarup; Sibusisiwe Gumede; Heila Lotz-Sisitka
Education has contributed to a society-wide awareness of environmental issues, and we are increasingly confronted with the need for new ways to generate energy, save water and reduce pollution. Thus new forms of work are emerging and government, employers and educators need to know what ‘green’ skills South Africa needs and has. This creates a new demand for ‘green skills’ research. We propose that this new knowledge field – like some other educational fields – requires a transformative approach to research methodology. In conducting reviews of existing research, we found that a transformative approach requires a reframing of key concepts commonly used in researching work and learning; multi-layered, mixed method studies; researching within and across diverse knowledge fields including non-traditional fields; and both newly configured national platforms and new conceptual frameworks to help us integrate coherently across these. Critical realism is presented as a helpful underpinning for such conceptual frameworks, and implications for how universities prepare educational researchers are flagged.
Children’s use of iPads to document their own visible learning L’uso dell’iPad da parte dei bambini per documentare il proprio apprendimento visibile
(2023) Phakathi, Nelisiwe; Moll, Ian
This ethnographic study explores the use of iPads in the documentation of visible learning by children in a Reggio Emilia-inspired classroom. We report and draw on research conducted with nine- to ten-year olds in a Grade 3 class in the school, situated in Johannesburg, South Africa. “Visible learning” is a key theoretical concept in the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. It envisages a collaborative pedagogy in which children, along with their teachers and parents, document and reflect on their own learning as it happens, thus maximizing its internalization by the children. The study investigates the affordances of iPads in actualizing the documentation of visible learning. The results show that iPads afford young learners with complex ways in which they can document their learning, also ensuring that the technology does not impose itself on them in an artificial manner. The article identifies an emerging language of description of the pedagogical affordances of iPads.
Claims vs. practicalities: lessons about using learning outcomes
(2012) Allais, Stephanie
The idea of learning outcomes seems to increasingly dominate education policy internationally. Many claims are made about what they can achieve, for example, in enabling comparison of qualifications across countries, improving the recognition of prior learning and improving educational quality. The claims made for the role of learning outcomes rest on the assumption that outcomes can be transparent, or that they can capture or represent the essence of what a learning programme or qualification represents. But in practice, either learning outcomes are open to dramatically different interpretations, or they derive their meaning from being embedded in a curriculum. In both instances, learning outcomes cannot play the roles that are claimed for them. I draw on insights from South Africa, where learning outcomes were a major part of curriculum and education policy reform. I suggest that outcomes cannot disclose meaning within or across disciplinary or practice boundaries. They did not enable the essence of a programme to be understood similarly enough by different stakeholders and they did not facilitate judgements about the nature and quality of education and training programmes. Learning outcomes do not carry sufficient meaning, if they are not embedded in knowledge within a curriculum or learning programme. But if they are thus embedded, they cannot play the roles claimed for them in assisting judgements to be made across curricula and learning programmes. The notion of transparency (or even, a more moderate notion of sufficient transparency) which proved unrealisable in practice is the basis of nearly all the claims made about what learning outcomes can achieve. In addition, the South African experiences demonstrated how outcomes-based approaches can distort education and training programmes, and lead to practical complexities, which are a direct consequence of the need for transparency, and its impossibility, and not (although this was probably also the case) the product of ‘poor implementation’ in South Africa.
Competency frameworks in the South African public service: the wrong magic bullets?
(South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM), 2023) De Clercq, Francine
Debates around how to transform the public service to contribute to a professional, ethical, and capable developmental state have intensified around the world. There are a range of interventions that seek to manage and improve the public service employees' performance and ensure that they have the competencies required. A key mechanism to assess competency is through Competency Frameworks (CFs), which were introduced in many public services in the 1990s.This article argues that the ways CFs are defined and implemented in the South African public service have severe limitations in dealing with the relatively poor performance of the public service. It shows how and why CFs are not being implemented as intended. After a desktop review of how and why CFs developed and are used by various public services, interviews were con-ducted on the basis of a purposive sampling with twelve key public service stakeholders to investigate the nature and use of competencies and CFs in the South African public service (Senior Management Services (SMS), Middle Management Services (MMS), Financial Management (FM)). A two hour-long seminar discussion was also conducted with about 150 national and provincial department officials on the nature, purpose and conditions under which CFs could work and add value. Finally, more supporting documents were consulted as they were recommended by the participants. The research findings point to the fact that, while CFs are supposed to help develop the human resource value chain, what is happening in reality is something different. The reason for this lies partly in the frameworks themselves but also more importantly in the context and environment in which they are supposed to be implemented. Ultimately, the CFs will not achieve their intended purpose if there is a lack of departmental ownership of them and if they are not located in an enabling and conducive environment. This article notes that the existing institutional arrangements and context of the state administration restrict the use and potential of CFs. It concludes with the argument that, with specific enabling and conducive arrangements and environment, slightly differently formulated, CFs could contribute to their intended purpose
Connecting skills planning to provision
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Centre for Researching Education & Labour (REAL); University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Skills planning and development for the public sector are intrinsically linked to the state’s capacity to deliver on its social service and development mandates.
Crediting worker education? insights from South African experiences
(2021) Allais, Stephanie
This paper explores South African experiences in using formal credentials in worker education. In specific, it analyses the value and use of the outcomes-based, unit standards-based qualifications registered on the South African national qualifications framework for “trade union practice.” Creating formal qualifications for worker education programmes was hotly debated for many years in the labour movement. The paper finds little evidence of positive achievement of the creation of a formal qualification route for trade unionists. The main stated reason for the introduction of the formal qualification route was to support the educational and labour market mobility of union activists. There is no evidence of this to date, and the paper argues that the design of the qualification makes it unlikely to become a possibility. The existence of the qualification has facilitated funding for worker education, but a greater success would have been to convince public bodies to fund worker education according to its intrinsic logic. The paper also finds that to date the negative consequences that many unionists predicted in these debates have not arisen. However, this seems to be in spite of and not because of the qualification model and may be attributable to the strength of the single provider of the qualification.
Debunking the myth of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Moll, Ian
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is all the rage these days.1 In ideological terms, it appears to be hegemonic in its construal of our contemporary socioeconomic context, from our day-to-day interpersonal exchanges to the machinations of the global economic order. We often hear appeals to the supposed “magic”2 of the technology that goes with it, to resolve the economic, political and educational crises and problems of the world (and latterly, its health crises – WEF, 2020). Appeals to a 4IR usually go with a listing of a whole lot of ‘new’, ‘unprecedented’ technologies that sound smart, make us feel outdated, and leave us in awe of the future. Technologies like cyber systems, artificial intelligence, delivery drones, the internet of things, and fully autonomous killer robots.3 But it is around this misleading sense of awe – which I shall later refer to as an ideology – that my argument turns in this paper. None of these technologies necessarily warrants the claim that we are in a technological revolution, let alone a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. I shall examine these and similar technologies, to establish my claim. The argument also runs deeper than that. An industrial revolution, properly conceived, encompasses a complex range of economic, social and cultural transformations, and there is very little evidence to suggest that we are living through a fourth one of these. A careful, deep analysis of the First, Second and Third Industrial Revolutions will make this quite clear. What we discover in these three revolutions, by way of fundamental social transformation, is not taking place in the current context of the digital, networked, information society.
Designing research in environmental education curriculum policy construction, conceptualisation and implementation as exemplified by Southern African examples
(Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA), 2005) Dillon, Justin; Ketlhoilwe, Mphemelang; Ramsarup, Presha; Reddy, Chris
There is increasing dissatisfaction at many levels with existing environmental education curricula in southern Africa. The resulting change and innovation is opening up possibilities for innovative research into the construction, conceptualisation and implementation of the curriculum. However, researching the curriculum offers a range of challenges to those engaged in critically examining processes and practices quite different from those faced in the past. This paper examines a series of key issues and dilemmas in the field of curriculum research in environmental education using cases contributed by active researchers in the area. In the light of the researchers’ experiences we posit a series of propositions that might reduce barriers and constraining forces faced by academics working in the area.
Designing the future: youth innovation, informality and transformed VET
(Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA), 2023-10) Monk, David; Adrupio, Scovia; Muhangi, Sidney; Akite, Irine
This article argues that Vocational Education and Training (VET) can be a valuable space to develop the innovation required to deal with the wicked problems of the world; however, radical and rapid transformation in approaches to VET is needed. While we use a case study from Gulu, Uganda, the findings can be applied more broadly. A new approach cannot be taken in isolation from other social circumstances, and desperately needs to include epistemic contributions both in relation to content and approach so that it bolsters and supports the initiatives, designs and dreams of the intended participants, especially women. We argue that epistemic injustice is a major limiting factor for environmental learning and innovation. We share potential opportunities from our research to shift towards a climate and socially conscious social skills ecosystem capable of designing a positive future.
Dynamic capabilities: axiomatic formation of firms’ competitive competencies
(Elsevier, 2023) Mushangai, Dandira
The capabilities concept is critical in understanding the competitive competencies of firms. Capabilities allow firms to sense, seize and reconfigure their resources in response to opportunities and threats within their environments. This systematic review reviewed a total of 37 Scopus database-selected peer-reviewed articles on capabilities, technology, innovation, and capability frameworks. The purpose was to identify and discuss firms’ capabilities and formation processes and effects on competitive advantages to generate an encompassing framework that overcomes the limited and fragmented nature of current capability frameworks. The study employed thematic content analysis and author-anchored keywords analysis which enabled the identification of several themes regarding capabilities and formation processes. The findings of the study were discussed under the following themes: technological capabilities; supply chain capabilities; networking, collaboration, interactive, coordinating, and alignment capabilities; organisational capabilities; and lastly systems capabilities. The study contributes to enlightening a body of firms’ capabilities theories and generated an encompassing interactive capabilities framework to guide researchers in understanding firms’ capabilities formation processes. The value of the study to the research community lies in emphasising the multi-level approach (macro; mezzo; firm level) and the virtues of combining tenets from different frameworks for a nuanced understanding of firms’ capabilities development. The study will be critical in guiding firms in building their capabilities, particularly the importance of open innovation networks and collaboration in reducing innovation risks and costs. The paper is important to policy makers regarding the institutions facilitating the interaction of international, national and firms level dynamics in propping and propelling firms’ capabilities development.
Educating for work in the time of Covid-19: moving beyond simplistic ideas of supply and demand
(South African Comparative and History of Education Society (SACHES), 2016) Allais, Stephanie; Marock, Carmel
This article describes how the Covid-19 pandemic has been particularly negative for skill formation in South Africa but, at same time, there are high expectations for the technical and vocational education and training system to support economic recovery and individual livelihoods. We argue that many policy recommendations for how education can meet these expectations are trapped in a narrow and mechanistic notion of supply and demand. The knowledge and skills required to do work are not developed somewhere outside of the economy, and then ‘supplied’ to meet labour market ‘demand.’ Skill formation is embedded in a range of different economic, social, and political arrangements and systems. Policy notions of ‘supply and demand’ of skills also underestimate how the ability of education to prepare for work is shaped by the ways in which work is organised. We argue that both researchers and policymakers need to think about vocational skills development programmes within industry sector master plans that drive economic recovery. We provide ideas of how policymakers can think about education and work more holistically, and argue that the key move is away from market-based regulatory models and towards models focused on building institutional capacity.
Education and work - what can and what can’t be learnt from and at work, and why?
(Centre for Researching and Education labour (REAL), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020) Shalem, Yael; Ramsarup,Presha
The EWSETA is being a provider or accreditor of short courses as part of the broader effort in South Africa to improve the provision of professional education in preparation for work as well for development during employment. Whilst there is a consensus that education in necessary for preparation and for development of occupational workers (henceforth ‘workers’) there is debate on what form of training is more meaningful, educationally, and more productive in terms of improvement of work.
Education service delivery: the disastrous case of outcomes-based qualifications frameworks
(SAGE Publications, 2007) Allais, Stephanie Matseleng
International trends towards outcomes-based qualifications frameworks as the drivers of educational reform fi t in well with trends in service delivery and public sector reform. Education reform in South Africa provides a particularly interesting case study of this phenomenon, because of the very comprehensive outcomes-based national qualifications framework that was implemented shortly after the transition to democracy. Problems with the framework as a basis for education reform became rapidly apparent, and the system is now deadlocked in a series of unresolved policy reviews. A key to understanding this collapse is the role of knowledge in relation to education. The outcomes based qualification framework approach turns out to have very little to do with education, and in fact to have the potential to increase educational inequalities, particularly in poor countries.
Labour market outcomes of national qualifications frameworks in six countries
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2017) Allais, Stephanie
This article presents the major findings of an international study that attempted to investigate the labour market outcomes of qualifications frameworks in six countries – Belize, France, Ireland, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia, as well as the regional framework in the Caribbean. It finds limited evidence of success, but fairly strong support for the frameworks. The continued popularity of qualifications frameworks as a reform mechanism seems to be symptomatic of the ways in which transitions from education to work are in flux in many countries, coupled with the fragmented and complex systems of vocational provision in some of the countries. Even where such systems are not overly complex they have weak and possibly weakening relationships with work. Insufficient differentiation of different types of frameworks by policy makers obscures these factors, leading to misleading ideas about what frameworks can do in general. Extending existing typologies for the analysis of qualifications frameworks the paper argues that the French framework, where labour markets were the most regulated and collective bargaining had the widest reach, had the clearest relationships between qualifications and work. However, the qualifications framework did not seem to be the cause, but rather the effect of such relationships
Linking knowledge, education and work: exploring occupations
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Centre for Researching Education & Labour (REAL); University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
To have an occupational identity is to occupy a social and moral as well as economic position, to have mastered bodies of knowledge (both theoretical and practical), and earned a jurisdiction over practice.
Review of professional competency frameworks in the Public Service sector
(2022) Centre for Researching Education & Labour (REAL); University of the Witwatersrand
This report reviews four competency frameworks (CFs) that are in operation in the Public Service Sector (PSS) - Senior Management Services (SMS), Middle Management Services (MMS) CF, Financial Management (FM), and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) –to understand how these are conceptualised, used, and applied to improve the sector’s performance. In reviewing the CFs, this report investigates the major challenges and issues that explain what in CFs works and what does not. It also identifies the key issues that need attention with suggestions and recommendations on how to deal with them. It does this by examining three issues related to the use of CFs and public service performance.
Scientific revolution, industrial revolution, technological revolution or revolutionary technology? a rejoinder to Marwala and Ntlatlapa
(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2023-03) Moll, Ian
No abstract available.
The futures of work: what education can and can’t do
(2020) Buchanan, John; Allais, Stephanie; Anderson, Michael; Calvo,Rafael A.; Peter, Sandra; Pietsch, Tamson
It is commonly assumed today that education is crucial for meeting the challenges concerning the futures of work. But education cannot make up for inadequacies in other policy domains that have caused and continue to cause declining job quality as well as mass unemployment and under-employment. We suggest that preoccupation with aspirational curriculum reforms like ‘21st century skills’ and ‘micro-credentials’ promoted to achieve employment growth can be a distraction from what successful education systems can achieve. At their worst, they compromise the capacity for education to play what constructive role it can play in meeting the challenges surrounding the futures of work. We present the argument in four parts: • Section One considers the context in which education will be operating for the foreseeable future. Climate change will be fundamental. The other key issues will be changing life courses (especially changing gender relations); technological change (especially automation and data-ification) and inequality. • Section Two highlights the significance of two currently neglected but crucial guiding concepts: labour demand and education as a distinctive domain. These concepts enable us to understand what education can and cannot do concerning the futures of work. • Section Three argues that at its best, education helps people master bodies of conceptual knowledge as well as relationships between bodies of knowledge, nurtures learning dispositions, and equips people with skills and capacities that support the common good. These qualities enable people to handle changing life courses and challenges arising from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a world drowning in information. Education can also support new configurations of expertise made possible by new technologies and new configurations of power. Section Four considers policy implications. It highlights the importance of building effective institutions: agile stability in education systems and new organisational forms for occupational citizenship in labour markets. Finally, in the conclusion we argue that while education cannot solve most problems concerning the futures of work, there can be no solution to these problems without quality, enduring institutions supporting education and occupational coherence in the labour market.

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