Faculty of Humanities (Research Outputs)

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    The shift to outcomes based frameworks: key problems from a critical perspective
    (The Federal Institute for Adult Education (bifeb), 2011) Michael, Young; Allais, Stephanie Matseleng
    This paper takes a step back from the discussions and debates about qualifications frameworks per se, to think more broadly about the role of „qualifications“ in educational reform. The aims of the paper are to locate the reform of qualifications in its broader social and institutional context, to propose a way of conceptualizing the change from qualification systems as they have emerged historically to qualifications frameworks andoutcomes-based qualifications and to explore the tensions involved in the different goals that the introduction of a (National) Qualifications Framework – (N)QF will achieve. We argue that what is at stake in current reforms is the role of educational institutions in the education and training of the next generation, the balance between institution-based education and informal (in some cases work-based) learning, and the ways in which trust in qualifications is established and maintained. Our two-model analysis explores the balance between an emphasis on institutions and outcomes. This paper was written to provoke debate, and help all involved in researching qualifications frameworks to think more clearly about the issues.
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    Effective practices of international volunteering for health: perspectives from partner organizations
    (BMC, 2018) Lough, Benjamin J.; Tiessen, Rebecca; Lasker, Judith N.
    Background: The demand for international volunteer experiences to promote global health and nutrition is increasing and numerous studies have documented the experiences of the international volunteers who travel abroad; however, little is known about effective practices from the perspective of partner organizations. This study aims to understand how variables such as the skill-level of volunteers, the duration of service, cultural and language training, and other key variables affect partner organizations’ perceptions of volunteer effectiveness at promoting healthcare and nutrition. Method: This study used a cross-sectional design to survey a convenience sample of 288 volunteer partner organizations located in 68 countries. Principle components analyses and manual coding of cases resulted in a categorization of five generalized types of international volunteering. Differences among these types were compared by the duration of service, kill-level of volunteers, and the volunteers’ perceived fit with organizational needs. In addition, a multivariate ordinary least square regression tested associations between nine different characteristics/activities and the volunteers’ perceived effectiveness at promoting healthcare and nutrition. Results: Partner organizations viewed highly-skilled volunteers serving for a short-term abroad as the most effective at promoting healthcare and nutrition in their organizations, followed by slightly less-skilled long-term volunteers. The greatest amount of variance in perceived effectiveness was volunteers’ ability to speak the local language, followed by their skill level and the duration of service abroad. In addition, volunteer training in community development principles and practices was significantly related to perceived effectiveness. Conclusion: The perceptions of effective healthcare promotion identified by partner organizations suggest that program and volunteer characteristics need to be carefully considered when deciding on methods of volunteer preparation and engagement. By better integrating evidence-based practices into their program models, international volunteer cooperation organizations can greatly strengthen their efforts to promote more effective and valuable healthcare and nutrition interventions in partner communities.
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    Practicalities of the National Development Plan: prospects and challenges, using the rural economy as a case study
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017) Chilenga, Thokozani J
    The National Development Plan 2030 (NDP) is arguably South Africa’s widest and most inclusive plan for economic and social development since 1994. It is evidence of the urgent need for development in South Africa, although its political will is yet to be determined. A test of the NDP’s strength is whether it can implement development beyond the document using existing state institutions and structures. This article argues that the NDP may be a prudent plan for South Africa to become a democratic developmental state. However, the plan fails to mention critical factors in its chapters that will affect the strength and achievability of the plan. The chapter on the rural economy is evidence of this major flaw of the plan as it fails to mention the role of women in the rural economy and the critical factor of traditional leadership and governance (TLG) in a meaningful way that will establish the connection between the two. Ultimately, the NDP does not recognise the interface between women, rural development and TLG, and this flaw will lead to complications in the implementation of the NDP unless it is clarified, refined and asserted.
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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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    Will skills save us? Rethinking the relationships between vocational education, skills development policies, and social policy in South Africa
    (Elsevier, 2012-09) Allais, Stephanie
    This paper examines experiences with ‘skills development’ in South Africa to contribute to broader debates about ‘skills’ and the relationships between vocational education and development. Numerous policy interventions and the creation of new institutions and systems for skills development in South Africa are widely seen as having failed to lead to an increase in numbers of skilled workers. I analyze some of the underlying reasons for this by considering South African policies and systems in the light of research in developed countries. The dominant view in South African media and policy circles is that a skills shortage, coupled with an inflexible labour market, are the leading causes of unemployment. This has led to a policy preoccupation with skills as part of a ‘self-help’ agenda, alongside policies such as wage subsidies and a reduction of protective legislation for young workers, instead of collective responsibility for social welfare. Skills policies have also been part of a policy paradigm which emphasized state regulation through qualification and quality assurance reform, with very little emphasis on building provision systems and on curriculum development. The South African experience exemplifies how difficult it is to develop robust and coherent skills development in the context of inadequate social security, high levels of job insecurity, and high levels of inequalities. It also demonstrates some of the weaknesses of so-called ‘market-led’ vocational education.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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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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    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