ETD Collection

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2010 - 20122

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    Inequalities in public Further Education and Training colleges in South Africa.
    (2012-11-08) Pule, Makoko Charles
    This report investigates the implementation of the Further Education and Training (FET) College Act of 2006 whether it achieved the founding purpose of promoting quality education and expansion of equal opportunities for South Africa. The study followed a qualitative comparative case study in which two campuses of one college were examined. Data was collected through interviews, observation and documentary analysis. The study was based on the views expressed by the college management, lecturers, and students who are the role players in the Public Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges in South Africa. Interviews were conducted to college management, lecturers and students of Centurion and Odi Campuses of Tshwane South College with the intention of determining if the students at this college were exposed to equal and quality opportunities for teaching and learning. Data from documents such as students results, staff establishment, budget, were analysed with the purpose of profiling the students and staff at Tshwane South College. Participant observation of physical facilities and usage of these facilities was done with the aim to verify the developments aimed at improving both campuses. The fundamental principles shaping the FET College Act of 2006 are quality education and equalisation of teaching and learning opportunities. The study shows that the implementation of the FET College Act of 2006 has been to a lesser degree a success in so far as number of factors is concerned. A case in point is that there is increasing evidence that the gap that existed when it comes to job opportunities has diminished leaving more blacks, particularly women in senior positions when it comes to management and administration of the FET Colleges in South Africa. Notwithstanding the elementary changes brought by the FET College Act, the fundamental principle that is central to education and training being the quality education and equalisation of learning and teaching opportunities is still a challenge 15 years later into the democratic rule in South Africa. There is evidence of poor infrastructure, shortage of basic learning materials and poor results due to poor quality of education and training. The overall findings of this study suggest that the FET College Act of 2006 has significantly contributed to delivery of inferior quality education and it has further widened a gap between the ‘have and the have not’s’. The study therefore recommends the government to review the current policy and it calls for students of public policy to persuade a study on the impact that the FET College Act of 2006 had on the education of the ‘African child’.
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    The discourses on the right to housing in Gauteng Province, 1994-2008.
    (2010-05-25T09:15:57Z) Thomas, Christopher Gerald
    The post-apartheid government of 1994 is a product of the ‘Age of Rights’. Statemaking processes and the exercise of state powers is managed by the rule of law based on a constitution. Constitutionally recognised rights, and rights protection institutions, animate a transition from a legacy of Black political exclusion and underdevelopment. Intensifying class stratification and inequality constrain Black’s formal realisation of citizenship rights, placing great pressure on creative interpretation of constitutionally legitimated claims. My thesis examines the rights discourse informing the Constitution, particularly issues about the realisation of social and economic rights. I examine the unfolding of discourses on the right to housing between 1994 to 2008, to illustrate of the complexity of the discourse. Episodic housing protests suggest significant degrees of alienation, marginalisation, and disappointment with expectations of citizenship and the non-realisation of social and economic rights. Housing rights is an issue that will affect the democratic consolidation and political stability prospects of the new political order. I examine the interface between macro-economic policies, budgets, and the realisation of housing rights, and assess the impact of an identifiable configuration of forces expected to play important roles in realising a rights culture and broadening the discourse. My study draws on a spectrum of qualitative, interpretive, and analysis of discourse approaches, using data from: published articles, annual reports and archives, speeches, court proceedings and statements, interviews with persons whose scope of activities impact the unfolding of the concerned rights, namely, representatives of government departments, private sector developers, financing institutions, and civil society formations. My main findings are that few actors in the configuration support the view that the Constitution should be changed to make explicit the state’s obligations on the realisation of social and economic rights. Nevertheless, there are isolated cases of people expressing an absolute entitlement sense of rights --- the state should deliver when demands are made. My conclusions are that considerable political unrest about non-realisation of these rights will persist, but will not cause a collapse of the post-1994 political institutions and processes. More likely, political actors, legal scholars and jurists, will persistently engage the prevailing rights discourse and the variety of institutions acting towards their realisation, without effecting drastic changes to these, but always invoking positions about how they still are suited for a post-apartheid transformation project yet need critical interrogation and improvisation.