Faculty of Humanities (Research Outputs)

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Start date: 2006End date: 2009

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    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.
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    Why the South African NQF failed: lessons for countries wanting to introduce national qualifications frameworks
    (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007) Allais, Stephanie Matseleng
    This article examines the South African National Qualifications Framework as a case study of a particular approach to the design of qualifications frameworks, which revolves around the specification of learning outcomes separate from educational institutions or programmes. It shows how an outcomes-led qualifications framework was seen as a desirable policy intervention by educationalists and reformers across the political spectrum, as outcomes were thought to be a mechanism for improving the quality and quantity of education as well as its relevance to the economy and society, for increasing access to education, and for democratising education. All these claims are based on the idea that outcomes statements are transparent. The article demonstrates that outcomes-based qualifications cannot provide the clear, unambiguous, and explicit statements of competence that would be required for everyone to know what it is that the bearer of a qualification can do. This lack of transparency leads to a further specification of outcomes. This in turn leads to a downward spiral of specification, which never reaches transparency, and an upward spiral of regulations, which is also caught in the logical problem of the downward spiral of specification. This model is not just unnecessary, but could in fact undermine the provision of education. The article suggests that while this type of model appears attractive particularly to poor countries, it is in these countries that it is likely to do the most damage.
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    Data to action: An overview of crime, violence and injury in South Africa
    (Medical Research Council, 2008) Suffla, Shahnaaz; Van Niekerk, Ashley; Bowman, Brett; Matzopoulos, Richard
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    The relationship between lecture attendance and academic performance in an undergraduate psychology class
    (South African Journal of Psychology, 2007) Thactcher, A; Fridjhon, P; Cockcroft, K
    This article reports on a preliminary investigation into the impact of non-attendance at lectures on the performance of students in a second-year psychology class. Results suggest that the frequency of lecture attendance is significantly, but moderately, related to better academic performance and that 'always' attending lectures is the best indicator of academic performance. These results are discussed in relation to understanding lecture non-attendance and improving academic performance
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    From "ghetto" to mainstream: Bollywood in South Africa
    (Scrutiny2, 2008) Ebrahim, Haseenah
    This essay explores two aspects of the Bollywood "phenomenon" as it has played out, in the past decade, in South Africa - a part of the Indian diaspora where the popularity of the Hindi-Indian cinema has an established history. Firstly, the article maps the expansion of Bollywood beyond the Indian diasporic audience to so-called "crossover" audiences, a phenomenon I have labelled the "mainstreaming" of Bollywood in South Africa. Secondly, it examines developments in relation to the expansion of Bollywood - South African film industry co-operation, including Bollywood's use of South Africa for location shooting.
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    Sarita and the Revolution: Race and Cuban Cinema
    (European Review of Latin American and Carribean Studies, 2007-04) Ebrahim, Haseenah
    This essay explores questions of race and ethnicity in relation to Cuban cinema during the height of the Revolution, focusing in particular on one filmmaker, the late Sara Gómez. This essay argues that while contemporary filmmakers in Cuba have benefited from a growing acceptance of African heritage as an integral component of Cuban culture, Sara Gómez’s interest in exploring matters of racial inequalities in the Revolutionary Cuba of the 1960s and ’70s forced her to negotiate a rather challenging political and social milieu in which official attitudes frowned upon the acknowledgement of racial discrimination as a contemporary phenomenon.
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    Unimagined community: sex, networks and AIDS in Uganda and South Africa
    (University of California Press, 2007-06-01) Thornton, Robert
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