The Role of Flexible Delivery in Supporting Educational Transformation in South AfricaJane Perry and Veronica Volkoff, Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services Department of Industry, Professional and Adult Education, RMIT. AbstractSince the election of South Africa's multiracial parliament, the government has determined that a process of transformation will be required at every level of society in order to secure a worthwhile future for the nation and its people. Fundamentally important to this process is the development of learner centred and accessible vocational education and training. The AusAid funded Australia-South Africa Distance Education Project has been providing an accredited professional development program for staff at two national public providers of technical, vocational and professional distance education in South Africa in order to promote their development of innovative distance and open learning strategies. This paper will explore
IntroductionStephen Brookfield (1984,190) stated that 'adult education is integral to the democratic struggle'. Nowhere has a struggle to establish democracy been as publicised as that still occurring in South Africa. As yet, the population is not sufficiently well equipped for the widespread participation in decision making that democracy requires. Since the election of its first multiracial parliament, the South African government has determined that a process of transformation will be required at every level of society in order to secure a worthwhile future for the nation and its people. Fundamentally important to this process is the development of learner centred and accessible vocational education and training. The Report of an International Commission, which investigated open learning and distance education between January and April 1994 in conjunction with the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE) concluded
South Africa has had four main public distance education institutions, University of South Africa (UNISA), Vista University, Technikon South Africa and the Technical College of South Africa (Technisa), but they have carried 'the legacy of apartheid heavily on their backs' (SAIDE 1995). While it was acknowledged that they were, in some ways, seeking to redress that past, the International Commission found in 1994, that
The education system had taken very limited responsibility for adult basic education and very little use had been made of distance education approaches in industrial and vocational training.
To address these urgent needs, the International Commission recommended in 1994 that
New goals and priorities were identified including the targeting of new groups of learners, development of new education and training programmes and professional development programs for those engaged in open learning and distance education (SAIDE 1995). While the numbers and percentage of black students accessing distance education increased during the decade to 1994, their participation was often limited by low levels of previous education, poorly designed materials and lack of student support, resulting in extremely low completion rates (SAIDE 1995). Authoritarian approaches to education, unchallenged through years of separation from international influences developed teachers ill-equipped to deal with their new learners.
Distance education still suffers from lack of funds invested in materials development resulting in some institutions simply writing up lecture notes. John Gultig, SAIDE project leader suggests that while many of the new course guides look good, they still 'reflect the didactic and content-centred teaching styles which don't encourage debate or the development of problem solving skills (quoted by Garson, 1997, 11). However, Dr Trevor Coombe, Interim Deputy Director-General of Higher Education in South Africa recently confirmed that
But the transformation of systems, approaches and institutions relies heavily on the transformation of individuals. As Glennie (1995) concludes, 'Social reconstruction demands bold, innovative human resource development strategies' (v). Background to the project Towards the end of 1996, RMIT Department of Industry, Professional and Adult Education, in collaboration with Open Training Services, Victoria was successful in winning an AusAid funded tender to deliver the Australia-South Africa Distance Education Project - Post-Graduate Diploma Program. Our primary task was to deliver, primarily by distance education, a customised version of the RMIT Graduate Diploma in Industrial Education and Training to twelve South African distance educators, six from the Technical College of South Africa (Technisa) and six from Technikon South Africa (TSA), two of the four main public providers of distance education. Technisa provides vocational education and training (VET level) courses to approximately thirteen thousand learners in all parts of South Africa. TSA provides courses to approximately eighty-five thousand learners throughout South Africa, but at the polytechnic or CAE level. While one clear part of our brief was to provide an accredited post-graduate, professional development program, directly associated and no less important tasks were to model a learner centred distance learning approach in our delivery, to ensure contextual relevance of our program and to support our participants as they took on roles of agents of transformation within their institutions. There were some clear parameters for the program. Most of the subjects were to be delivered by distance mode. The twelve participants would spend one month in Australia at the beginning of the year and another at the end, offering opportunities for some intensive course work and engagement with Australian practice. There would also be an opportunity for two members of our teaching team to spend two weeks with the participants in South Africa, mid-year. The challenges The first and most fundamental challenge that was faced by the course team was planning. What sort of planning model allows one to balance the degree of curriculum planning required to deliver an accredited program with the open-endedness required to ensure that the program recognises and provides for the needs of the participants, their contexts and their roles as agents of transformation? King (1995) builds on Mezirow's theory of transformational learning and suggests that,
She proposes a 'planning schema that is nonlinear, integrated, cyclical, formatively evaluative and cognizant of social, political and organizational exchange' (1995, 1). Cyclical and integrated processes demand that staff adopt multidimensional roles as researchers, course designers, learning facilitators and program evaluators. An ongoing and non-linear planning process, such as the one implemented in this project also requires that staff act in combinations of these roles simultaneously, evaluating and re-designing, facilitating and documenting. With learning situated in the workplace midst organisational change, staff are also required to support the learners while they deal with changing agendas and roles, re-negotiate projects and address tensions. Boud (1997:1) points out that while flexible delivery holds out great promise, many of the current approaches and 'products' are
Flexible learning is not about the applications of new technology. It is essentially about how educational institutions can meet an increasingly diverse range of needs of learners in ways which respond to the diverse conditions in which they are and will be operating. It is not about the delivery of knowledge, but about how learning can be negotiated for different purposes. It is about how learners can learn with others in productive ways which respect their differences and are not oppressive. (Boud, 1997,2) Reflective journals are used to aid the participants in understanding and articulating their changing approaches to their work. Learners are engaged in critical reflection on their work and staff gain further insight into their needs and the challenges facing them in the workplace. One learner demonstrates an increasing critical capacity to judge her practice and make informed decisions about it.
The research method used in this project has involved structured interviews with participants, observation and analysis of journals and on-line communication. To date, data has been drawn primarily from the interviews which were conducted individually in the participants' workplaces. One participant describes how she perceives the impact of this program.
The urgent need for transformation makes many demands on organisations. Some have responded by making this a highly visible priority. Technikon SA, for example, has created an advisory body, the Broad Transformation Forum and appointed a Transformation Officer to spearhead the change agenda. However, change in organisations does not occur uniformly and support for transformation needs to be embedded at all levels. Participants in this project report experiencing various forms of resistance from non participants. Yet resistance to change is also evident within the learner group. While one participant responds to the challenge of working within a new context by saying
another feels threatened by the experience of working closely with such a group and speaks of
Some interviews with learners demonstrate that the role of change agent can be a lonely one and one participant recommended that in future at least two participants should come from the same work area. For, although the increased networking between participants is valued,
This supports Heaney's view that adult education has over emphasized the individual without sufficient regard to
The social and political context in which the learning occurs must be seen as a critical factor in any lasting transformation. One participant spoke of a gradual lessening of resistance within her organisation.
A key issue for staff has been the need for congruence in both content and method. This has meant the use of participative processes in all aspects of the course including planning, learning and evaluation. It has not been sufficient to model inclusive practices, we have also had to support the learners who are struggling to change. There is considerable diversity within the learner group and learning together has raised issues for many. Inevitably, changes are occurring within the groups. Nine of the twelve participants have experienced significant shifts in their jobs and two have changed jobs completely within the nine months since the program began. While these goals reflect to some extent realisation of the program's goals, they pose many difficulties for course designers. When the study program is linked to workplace projects and deeply contextualised, a significant shift in work role may require re-negotiation of the project based learning and assessment tasks and possibly the timelines. The diversity within the learner group stems from their membership of many diverse 'communities of practice' (Heaney, 1995,1). Heaney sees learning as
While the most obvious lines can be drawn between the participating institutions, equally valid distinctions can be made between differing job functions, levels of responsibility, genders, language and cultural backgrounds. Clearly, individuals may be part of a complex web of overlapping communities of practice. Heaney sees learning as something that only happens
The extent of relevance perceived by the participants for the program is clearly a variable affecting learning outcomes. One participant who elsewhere commented on the noticeable shifts that she felt had occurred in her perspective said,
However, the complexities of their overlapping communities of practice can provide some clues about why change is more apparent in some learners than others. These areas of overlap pose problems where the communities of practice pull in opposing directions and demand conflicting allegiances. Heaney (1995,4) suggests that
His words reflect the reality of some participants and some areas of their organisations where commitment to the overt goal of transformation is less than consistent. It would be mistaken to assume that transformation will be smooth. There are both covert and overt agendas influencing behaviour at many levels. Transformation, whether at an individual, organisational or national level can only come about through struggle. It is less problematic for those learners who see perceive congruence between the program goals and their own, that is, where they feel they have most to gain. Clearly, in the highly politicised atmosphere of South Africa, there are those who feel they have much to gain by change and those who feel they have much to lose. The shifting power base within work groups and institutions in the new South Africa has the potential to make the once privileged feel dispossessed and the once constrained feel free to reach their full potential. However, transformation also entails seeing oneself in a different light and being able to envisage how one might relate differently to others. For some participants, the experience of stepping outside the known context and spending time together on neutral territory, provided a powerful experience of how social relations in South Africa could function. In some regards, however, Australia and the program that RMIT/OTS had put together was anything but neutral because it set out to model inclusive practice and to demonstrate that for us, diversity is the norm. One participant reflected on his experience of both coming to Australia and then returning home a month later.
Another participant reflected from a his white perspective,
Some participants appear to be consciously attempting to transform both themselves and their practice while others are not yet ready to engage in new kinds of dialogue that must occur between peers if organisations are truly to be transformed. In some cases, this inability or unwillingness to engage has resulted in a shift from the centre of a key community of practice to the periphery. Not only some of the friendships formed but also some of the practice which was embraced in Australia was too fragile to survive in the institutional setting.
Some of this competitive feeling could have been influenced by uneven distribution of study time allowance, and varying access to email facilities at work and computers and resources at home. This program aims to marry an accredited program with learning in the workplace. The latter is notoriously difficult to predict and control because, to a large extent, the work is the curriculum. In devising this program, the workplace has provided the vehicle for much of the learning while the project team have had to devise new ways of structuring that learning in line with accreditation guidelines. Supporting the learners at a distance poses challenges because many of the participants had very limited computer familiarity and most had not used email before. However, the records of on-line interactions between learners and project staff provide revealing information about the changing needs of the learners. Providing on-line support offers the opportunity for individually tailored teaching interventions. What are the participants learning? Strands of learning are often difficult to disentangle because of the integrated planning model. This has implications for evaluation because what was anticipated is not necessarily what emerges. It is somewhat like post positivism in that multiple realities emerge and there is an acknowledgment that this will happen. To some extent, a planned curriculum is a fiction, an empty promise without the flesh of substance. Only the enacted curriculum, based on knowledge of the participants and a growing understanding of the contexts in which they work, has the full substance of reality. It is this which must be captured in order to do justice to the more demanding style of ongoing planning, reflection and action where formative evaluation is integral to the course. In this case it also forms part of the students' learning about how adult learners can shape their own learning experience. There are some parallels which can be drawn aligning this project with the Rainbow Nation. However, while we can identify these parallels, with some we are consciously mirroring the nation because of the need for congruence, for example, to fulfill our brief and the funding agency's agenda arrived at in consultation with the Government of South Africa. In others this is merely the reality we must deal with. We are attempting to acknowledge and value multiple perspectives and multiple experiences yet some of these are disturbing to us and ones we may consider undesirable. Both nation and project need active participation to work effectively. Both aim to engage the participants in addressing real world problems. Both shape and are shaped by the people within them. Both are made up of multilingual, multicultural participants but one style of discourse/language is valued over others. English is a first language for only two of our participants. For six participants, Afrikaans is their first language. For others it is Portuguese, Venda, Zulu and Sotho. For one participant, English was just one of eleven languages spoken. Others switched, mid-sentence, with ease from English to Afrikaans. It is important to note that most of the data referred to in this paper was collected in the first six months of an eleven month program. A return visit to Australia by the participants will take place during November. Most participants have expressed that they have gained increased confidence, improved facilitation skills, enhanced sensitivity to the needs of a diverse groups of learners, broader understanding of distance education issues and greater awareness of strategies for support of adult learning. Some have persevered despite considerable setbacks and barriers placed in their way. One participant stated
The experience of the program has clearly affected the course team as well. The learning has been shared and students and staff have 'shaped' each other. We too, in our multiple roles of course designers, facilitators, evaluators and researchers have crossed the borders and engaged in the South African communities of practice of our participants. We too have learnt not only through engagement in formal settings but through our social interactions and cultural experiences. References
|
|
|