Faculty of Humanities (Research Outputs)
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Item Distrust, accountability and capacity in South Africa's fragmented eduction system(Taylor & Francis Group, 2020) Chilenga-Butao, Thokozani; Pakade, Nomancotsho; Ehren, Melanie; Baxter, JacquelineSouth Africa's current basic education system is a product of the apartheid education bureaucracy that was fractured along racial lines, and later significant efforts to amalgamate this fragmented system into a single, inclusive and equal system. This chapter demonstrates how negative apartheid legacies of distrust and a lack of both accountability and capacity took root in apartheid's oppressive and unequal system, as well as efforts by the Department of Basic Education to overturn these legacies in the democratic era. The central argument of this chapter is that, despite formal bureaucratic procedures, expressed through regulations, which should produce more capacity and accountability in the education system, there are also codified practices of governance at the provincial and district levels that produce different outcomes from the intended goal of improved education. This argument is illustrated through a case study of the Schools Rationalisation Project in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa.Item Decentralisation and recentralisation in South Africa's local government: case studies of two municipalities in Limpopo(Published by Transformation, 2020) Chilenga-Butao, ThokozaniDemocratic decentralisation was introduced in South Africa during the transition to democracy (1990-1994). It followed a long trajectory of centralisation and decentralisation processes that took place during apartheid. This paper argues that in order to more adequately understand the prospects for decentralisation to achieve its intended outcomes in South African local government, one has to understand some of the complexities and political dynamics present in this sphere of government. In so doing, it shows that the intended outcomes of decentralisation are far from the realities of local government on the ground, specifically municipalities. Case studies of two Limpopo mining town municipalities, Lephalale and Mogalakwena, are used to demonstrate some of these complexities and political dynamics. The Mogalakwena case study will show that, despite the codification of recentralisation in the South African constitution, regional and political party elites misuse the policy to politically interfere in municipalities. The effects of this are that service delivery slows down and local government is subjected to localised national and provincial political battles. The Lephalale case study shows how the layers of decentralisation between apartheid and democracy have led to this municipality being dependent on private and parastatal mining companies for the provision of and access to public goods and services.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 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,PreshaThe 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.Item The futures of work: what education can and can’t do(2020) Buchanan, John; Allais, Stephanie; Anderson, Michael; Calvo,Rafael A.; Peter, Sandra; Pietsch, TamsonIt 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.Item Science-women: Arcane knowledge and African spirituality in independent African-American cinema of the 1990s(African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 2020) Ebrahim, HaseenahThis article explores the significant role played by arcane knowledge and expressions of African spirituality in the iconography of powerful black women in three films directed by independent African-American filmmakers in the 1990s: Sankofa (Haile Gerima, 1993, USA), Mother of the River (Zeinabu irene Davis, 1995, USA), and Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997, USA). My discussion draws on the orature and legendary tales of West African-based cosmologies in the African diasporas of the Americas and the concept (and practice) of ‘conjure’ in African–American cultures. It argues that heroic black women characters possessing extraordinary or supernatural powers not only predate the current vogue of cinematic superheroism, but that the iconography of such ‘science-women’ is embedded in culturally specific, Africanrooted cosmological, epistemological and spiritual contexts. I argue that the feminine power celebrated in the films by the independent African-American filmmakers discussed here draw on legendary and historical accounts of women in African diasporic oral, literary and spiritual traditions for their cinematic storytelling to construct an affirmative and paradigmatic model of black female heroism based on empowering African spiritual beliefs and arcane knowledge.Item Full Proceedings - Arts Research Africa Conference 2020(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Doherty, ChristoThe full proceedings of the Arts Research Africa Conference 2020, held at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 22 - 24 January 2020. Description: An international conference organised by the Arts Research Africa project in the Wits School of Arts. The conference featured a wide variety of inputs, from traditional conference paper presentations and panels, to performances, interactive engagements and workshops. The conference brought together artists, scholars, and artistic researchers to collectively address the question of artistic research in Africa in the 21st century.Item Opening address: dynamics(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Schwab, MichaelEmphasises the changing fabric of knowledge and that artistic research has already had an effect on this fabric. Argues for a historical epistemology, and for unsecured forms of knowledge. Uses the experience of editing the Journal of Artistic Research to explain the challenges in operationalizing this concept of knowledge.Item Artistic research in Africa with specific reference to South Africa and Zimbabwe: formulating the theory of Afroscenology(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Ravengai, SamuelHow can artistic research offer the opportunity to create knowledge based on African practice and produced from the African context? This presentation will delineate seven approaches to artistic research and argue for decolonial imperatives.Item Creative practice and research: an artist-scholar perspective(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Stewart, MichelleHow do measurable methods of research move between theoretical critique, technical reporting and creative practice? This question is explored with reference to her own practice-based PhD, the experimental animation, Big Man.