Faculty of Humanities (Research Outputs)

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Does education offset the effect of maternal disadvantage on childhood anaemia in Tanzania? Evidence from a nationally representative cross-sectional study
(BioMed Central, 2019-04) Ojoniyi, Olaide O.; Odimegwu, Clifford O.; Olamijuwon, Emmanuel O.; Akinyemi, Joshua O.
Background: Despite being preventable, anaemia is a major public health problem that affects a sizable number of children under-five years globally and in Tanzania. This study examined the maternal factors associated with the risk of anaemia among under-five children in Tanzania. We also assessed whether higher maternal education could reduce the risks of anaemia among children of women with poor socio-economic status. Methods: Data was drawn from the 2015–16 Tanzania demographic and health survey and malaria indicator survey for 7916 children under five years. Adjusted odds ratios were estimated by fitting a proportional odds model to examine the maternal risk factors of anaemia. Stratified analysis was done to examine how the relationship differed across maternal educational levels. Results: The findings revealed that maternal disadvantage evident in young motherhood [AOR:1.43, 95%CI:1.16–1.75], no formal education [AOR:1.53, 95%CI:1.25–1.89], unemployment [AOR:1.31, 95%CI:1.15–1.49], poorest household wealth [AOR:1.50, 95%CI:1.17–1.91], and non-access to health insurance [AOR:1.26, 95%CI: 1.03–1.53] were risk factors of anaemia among children in the sample. Sub-group analysis by maternal education showed that the risks were not evident when the mother has secondary or higher education. However, having an unmarried mother was associated with about four-times higher risk of anaemia if the mother is uneducated [AOR:4.04, 95%CI:1.98–8.24] compared with if the mother is currently in union.
E-learning assessment framework for the public service sector
(Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority (PSETA), 2021) Centre for Researching Education & Labour (REAL); University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
The purpose of this research project was to develop an understanding of the change drivers and difficulties linked to implementing e-learning in the South African Public Service Sector in line with policy imperatives and global trends. The project aimed to investigate specific challenges and contextual variables that need to be addressed to strengthen skills development within the public sector. It also aimed to explore how to enhance ways in which the public sector utilises e-learning to upskill and re-skill its workforce. The research was undertaken over a 12-month period, from September 2020 to September 2021, and involved five main phases. Phase One comprised the inception and orientation of the project. The second phase involved a literature review on e-learning including an analysis of relevant public sector documents, reports, and policies on e-learning practices within the public and private sector. This contextual profile describes e-learning practices in the sector and enabled us to structure the public e-learning system as an activity system. The third phase consisted of the development of mediating tools including a comprehensive evaluation tool to offer a potential way forward to enhance strategic planning implementation for e-learning. This will assist with addressing the challenges faced by the public sector in terms of training and the processes of change involved in transitioning the conceptualisation of e-learning to contextualised capacity building. The e-learning criteria framework provides basic guidelines for designing an optimum e-learning experience in the public sector. The elearning review tool (Appendix A) supports and complements the criteria as a tool for analysis of the e-learning programme. The e-learning criteria and tool were sent to ten e-learning experts in the same field of research for comments on further development and improvement. Phase Four consisted of data analysis. Insights from stakeholder engagement and framework development processes were assessed and key emergent themes to inform the e-learning needs of the public sector were identified. In the final phase the findings were reviewed and recommendations proposed and the final report presented here is based on reviewer feedback.
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.
Distrust, accountability and capacity in South Africa's fragmented eduction system
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2020) Chilenga-Butao, Thokozani; Pakade, Nomancotsho; Ehren, Melanie; Baxter, Jacqueline
South 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.
Beyond ‘supply and demand’: moving from skills ‘planning’ to seeing skills as endogenous to the economy
(2022-11) Allais, Stephanie Matseleng
This 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.
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.
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.
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.
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-Sisitka
Education 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.
Crediting worker education? insights from South African experiences
(2021) Allais, Stephanie
This 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.

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