School of Education - Centre for Researching Education and Labour (Journal articles)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/38228
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Item 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, IrineThis 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.Item Dynamic capabilities: axiomatic formation of firms’ competitive competencies(Elsevier, 2023) Mushangai, DandiraThe 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.Item Beyond ‘supply and demand’: moving from skills ‘planning’ to seeing skills as endogenous to the economy(2022-11) Allais, Stephanie MatselengThis 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.Item Why there is no technological revolution, let alone a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2023-03) Moll, IanWe are told by the powerful that we live in, or are about to live in, a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Seemingly, this revolution is about deep-seated, rapid, digitally powered techno-scientific change. It is the age of smart machines; it is a new information technology (IT) revolution. However, in this article I suggest that examination of the history of technologies that are often held up to be proof of the 4IR, in fact shows that there is no contemporary technological revolution. The research methodology that I employ here is conceptual analysis and a focused review of literature on the history of particular technologies. An industrial revolution, as its three historical instances have demonstrated, is the fundamental transformation of every aspect of industrial society, including its geopolitical, cultural, macro-social, micro-social, economic and technological strata. It certainly entails a technological revolution, but it is more than just that. In this article, I am not concerned with the broader ensemble of socio-economic changes – it seems increasingly clear that the ‘brave new world’ of the 4IR is not really happening – but simply ask the question: is there currently a technological revolution? The answer seems to be that there is not.Item Scientific revolution, industrial revolution, technological revolution or revolutionary technology? a rejoinder to Marwala and Ntlatlapa(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2023-03) Moll, IanNo abstract available.Item Why skills anticipation in African VET systems needs to be decolonized: the wide-spread use and limited value of occupational standards and competency-based qualifications(Elsevier, 2023-08) Allais, StephanieThe shift from manpower-planning to labour market analysis and skills anticipation has been analyzed since the 80 s in this journal and elsewhere, with the aim of improving. Insights into how education can contribute to economic growth and development. This paper considers recent trends in policies for skills anticipation and curriculum reform in Africa, with a focus on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems. The data consists of 2 continent-wide surveys of a range of TVET stakeholders, document analysis of skills and TVET policy as well as industrial policy where available online, and 21 in-depth interviews with key role players and experts in 13 countries. Our research found considerable activity developing pre-determined rules and tools that don’t work in their own right, and are inappropriate for African labour markets because they are not used in formal work, and have little engagement with informal work. A set of ‘rules and tools’, such as occupational standards, qualifications frameworks, and part qualifications/ modularization, is promoted by international organizations. These pre-developed and uniform solutions continues to dominate policy agendas. We found considerable focus on developing and (to some extent) using these rules and tools for forward planning, system improvement, and curriculum design. Most noticeable was a strong emphasis on competency-based qualifications, which are described as a tool for skills anticipation as well as curriculum reform, drawing on employer input into skills requirements. There is considerable focus on employer-identified skills needs as the tool for both understanding current and emerging economic demand for skills as well as medium to longer term skills needs. The dependence on employer-specified competencies means there is little engagement with the reality of informal work in the African context—other than strong rhetorical emphasis on entrepreneurship as an add on in curriculum design. Amongst other problems, the ‘rules and tools’ which are being implemented in many countries start from an idealized vision, and are more preoccupied with their own internal logic than the systems with which they are dealing. The rules and tools present a level playing field for individuals and for countries, constrained only by a lack of skills, and a world view in which everyone could come out on top.Item 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-SisitkaEducation 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.Item Crediting worker education? insights from South African experiences(2021) Allais, StephanieThis 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.Item Competency frameworks in the South African public service: the wrong magic bullets?(South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM), 2023) De Clercq, FrancineDebates 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 purposeItem 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, IanThis 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.