Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis has situated the Government’s new integration of education and training \npolicy within post-apartheid South Africa’s wider socio-economic and political \ncontext. It has shown, how in its relation to education, post-Fordism required a highly \nskilled labour force that was able to employ the new technologies and add value to \ngoods and services. This, it was argued, would enable South African goods to \ncompete more effectively in the global market. There is a strong stress related to the \nnotion of ‘continuous innovation’ with it’s implication of skilled workers constantly \nadapting existing technology through incremental innovative steps. The study has \namong others, drawn on South African academic Kraak’s (1994) segmented labour \nmarket thesis (which has decisively influenced both ANC and Cosatu’s educational \npolicy process) to argue that this notion of ‘continuous innovation’ was highly \ndependent on the presence of two knowledge forms in society and work – an \nabundance of formal (scientific and technological) knowledge and skilled worker \n‘know-how’ or tacit knowledge. The implication was that, in sharp contrast to jobspecific \nor a narrow Taylorist oriented enskilling process reminiscent of South \nAfrica’s past industrial training system, the new skill needs in late industrial societies \nnow required the worker to understand the deeper conceptual underpinnings of his \nproduct/process nexus of work. This was to be instituted through South Africa’s new \nlearnership programme. \nThese developments came under strong attack from a left critical discourse that had \ntaken issue with the policies neo-liberal underpinnings of subjugating education to \nthe dictates of capital. However, such an integrated system had a particular \nsignificance for South African trade unionists. It offered an alternative to the divisions \nthat were such a dominant feature of racial capitalism by providing for the possibility \nof occupational mobility through training that had been systematically denied to black \nworkers under apartheid education. The new possibilities of linking tacit, or working \nknowledge to scientific knowledge, or theory to practice, through the integration of \neducation and training would thus provide the capacity to bridge the social \nstratification divide related to race, class and gender which was historically \nPDF Creator - PDF4Free v3.0 http://www.pdf4free.com \nSCHOOL OF EDUCATION : UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND iv \nentrenched and prevalent in the racial economy, and maintained and mediated \nthrough high and low status knowledge forms. \nThe process of policy implementation, however, is proving to be exceedingly difficult \nin South Africa. The problem reportedly lies in the epistemological difficulty of \nintegrating working knowledge with the more formal disciplinary knowledge domains. \nThis affects both its redressive aims of achieving quality education and training, \noccupational mobility for workers, and enskilling for the new technological needs of \nlate industrial society. This argument was derived from the Bernsteinian theoretical \ndistinction between two discursive knowledge forms, characterised as horizontal and \nvertical discourse. It is stressed that formal and informal, working and scientific forms \nof knowledge are structured differently, and therefore are associated with different \nlearning processes or modes of learning. Describing the two knowledge domains as \n‘epistemologically’ and ‘sociologically’ distinct however, tended to present them as \nmutually exclusive, which further polarised the mental/manual divide. At issue, was \nits implication for the division between high and low-status knowledge forms. This \nthesis through its argument effects a synthesis between working and scientific \nknowledge by positioning the technologies that form an integral part of the workers \ntacit working knowledge as a modality of vertical discourse characterised by a \nhorizontal knowledge structure and tacitly transmitted. Repositioned in this manner, \nthe different modes of learning are brought into collaboration with each other. This \nalso bridges the stark polarisation between contextualised and de-contextualised \nknowledge forms. \nA second problem that needed serious consideration was the difficulty that \ncandidates encountered in terms of understanding formal scientific syntax. These \nresembled wider general trends, where, in relation to these formal discourses, \nhistorically disadvantaged students struggle to master the ‘curricular version of its \nrigorous language’. As previously mentioned, verbal proficiency is an entrance \nrequirement for occupational mobility. In this way it constitutes symbolic capital, and \nconfers symbolic power. Thus, the problem in understanding the difficult syntax of \nthese formal scientific discourses has been identified by concerned educationalists \nas an exclusionary mechanism needing radical reform. \nPDF Creator - PDF4Free v3.0 http://www.pdf4free.com \nSCHOOL OF EDUCATION : UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND v \nThe thesis drew on participatory action research as its methodological approach to \naddress this challenge. This was strongly informed by neo-Vygotskian insights, that \nstressed that language acquisition – and especially formal conceptually underpinned \nlanguage acquisition – was extremely context bound, and could consciously be \npushed to more complex levels through the aid of a tutor. This takes place within the \n‘zone of proximal development’ – the necessary interplay between inductive, \nexperiential learning of the subject which gives rise to word sense, and the deductive \ngeneralising instruction of the teacher and the curriculum which helps expand \nunderstanding of generalised and abstract word meaning. The methodological slant \nof the thesis draws on ‘action research’ because of its abiding concern with social \nissues of justice, and in this way resonates well with the concerns raised in the \npolitical economy of knowledge debate within which the aims and objectives of this \nthesis are also grounded. The stress on the dialectical relationship between theory \nand practice, as advocated in participatory action research compliments further the \nstudy’s theoretical underpinnings which supports the generalisation of theory from \nthe particularities of practice. Through a dialectical process from practice to theory \nand back to practice again, we believe we were able to make incremental shifts in \nterms of the zone of proximal development of our students. This led me to re-assert \nthe role of the educator as a crucial participant in the process of transformative \nlearning. It was especially important within the context of the new outcomes-based \neducation with its stress on a learner-centred approach. \nThis thesis draws on its empirical findings to raise some important problems related \nto the conceptual coherence of South Africa’s new integration of education and \ntraining policy. It shows through argument that the integration of education and \ntraining stressed through this policy was not rooted in socio-cognitive theory, and \nargues that a more conceptually coherent alternative should root itself in new \nemerging socio-cognitive theories on learning. This stresses the importance of reconceptualising \nthe learning process within a socio-cognitive approach, as opposed \nto a fundamentally ‘mentalist, or ‘biological’, view of the learning process. I believe \nthat the nature and findings of this research could contribute both theoretically and \nconceptually towards a wider evolving social theory of learning.
Author: Faizul Bhyat
Language: English
Topic: Education Systems and Policy
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Spencer Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W120673527