Faculty of Education

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The vision of the Faculty of Education is to be "acknowledged and respected unequivocally as a leading and engaged research-driven education faculty". In line with this, we pride ourselves on playing a leading role in education, both locally and globally. Central to our vision is a commitment to engage with educational challenges, particularly in South Africa.

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The development of an education management information system from a sensemaking perspective and the application of quantitative methods to analyse education data sets
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2006-12) Van Wyk, Christoffel; Van der Berg, S.; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
Information is a necessary resource, produced by information systems and is a key building block to the management and decision-making in any organisation. The National Department of Education’s guidelines to establish Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) in provincial departments is a recognition that proper management, planning and evaluation are contingent on quality data, data that is complete, relevant, accurate, timely and accessible. The lack of quality data and the lack of integration with other information systems hamstring the effective use of EMIS. This study addresses these limitations in three basic objectives: a) developing an information systems development model, b) applying the model in a real-life context of the development of the Western Cape EMIS, and c) applying quantitative methods on integrated data sets derived from the EMIS in the Western Cape and other information systems. The study culminates in the development of a four-phase process model for developing and using EMIS in an integrative manner that would provide a more comprehensive picture for policy and decision-making. It outlines the establishment of an information systems development (ISD) model that integrates innovative emerging trends, such as improvisation, bricolage and sensemaking, in designing and implementing information systems. These approaches postulate that beyond the numbers and quantifiable world there is a complex reality that traditional approaches do not always capture. These include, amongst other things, the atmosphere, culture and structure of an organization, together with the behaviour, emotions, knowledge and experiences of all the people who in one way or another interact with the information system. The research presents an empirical application of this developed ISD model in education management information system (EMIS) and underscores the role of information systems in everyday practice. This work practice (Practice-in-Action) approach is used to describe how the day-to-day actions and practical experiences of role players contribute to the design, development, implementation, testing, maintenance and improvement of the EMIS and is used as a lens for understanding ISD. The study further uses quantitative methods, namely education production function and learner flow-through models, to illustrate how the process of knowledge discovery in large data sets in EMIS could be facilitated. The education production function aims to identify those variables that could have a significant influence on the achievement of students in the matriculation examination. The learner flow-through models attempt to measure the effect of learner dropout and repetition on internal efficiency of the education system. Data analysis was facilitated through integration of data sets from various sources, and in turn illustrates the important role of bricolage in ISD. Through this analysis, the role of information systems of this nature to make sense of reality was highlighted. Policy making then can build on the findings from such data analyses to investigate in greater depth any trends or emerging problems, going beyond only the quantitative and macro level analysis by studies at the qualitative and micro levels.
Die fasiliterende rol van die skoolbestuur in verband met die toetrede van immigrante kinders tot skole
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005-12) Hermanis, Piet J.; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
This investigation form part of an international about the facilitative role of school management regarding the emergence of immigrant children at schools The purpose of this study is to determine how selected school communities respond to their role with regards to the management and facilitation of immigrant learners in schools. In order to accomplish this, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used. Descriptive survey techniques were applied on the basis of their flexibility. Questionaires, informal discourse, formal interviews and the case study were utilised to establish the opinions, attitudes, preferences and perceptions of communities regarding the immigration of learners. This was done against the backdrop of an extensive and comprehensive literature review. Throughout the study an attempt was made to remain as faithful as possible to the facts through empirical research, and to minimise prejudice, stereotyping and preferences through using rational thinking. Internal testing was used to ensure validity and reliability. According to the current research, the responses regarding migration by learners are very diverse. The responses are realised within the following contexts: accessibility or inaccessibility of schools, culture, politics, ideology, ethnicity, religion, language and even racial classification. Although geographical location is not a significant factor, social stratification patterns as well as the status play a role in this regard. The researcher concludes that the targeted school communities still lack the expertise, experience and ability to handle, facilitate and settle issues relating to multi-cultural diversity. Research findings show that this state of affairs is largely due to a lack of undestanding of transformation in the school context as well as regarding the implementation and execution of this transformation.
'n Gevallestudie van die effek van die herverdeling van mag op vroue wat op skoolbeheerliggame dien DIEN
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2007-03) Petersen, Melanie; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
Policy is generally established to provide for specific needs. In South Africa, for example, the South African Schools Act of 1996 was introduced, among other reasons, to promote democratic transformation in society, to protect the rights of all learners, parents and educators and to facilitate their acceptance of responsibility for the organisation, control and financing of schools in partnership with the state (RSA, 1996b). The SA Schools Act, in accordance with which school governing bodies are constituted, endeavours to effect greater devolution of power from the state to local communities to offer these communities greater participation in the control and management of their schools. Analysis of national and international literature, however, indicates that democratic government policy does not always deliver the desired results in practice (MacLean, 2003). Policy intention and implementation are frequently far removed from the practical reality within which they should be effecting change. Policy implementation is frequently aimed at promoting democracy and equality but, in reality, results in the maintenance and even the strengthening of existing inequalities between élite and marginalised groups. It is not always in touch with the cultural, political and economic obstacles that women in particular have to overcome to be allowed to participate at the same level as men in decision-making processes and in the exercise of power. This study endeavours to determine the real effect of such decentralisation on women as one of the most marginalised groups. During the study, personal interviews were conducted with two selected women and followed up with a questionnaire, which brought to light another dimension to the concept of empowerment: that of the women each attaching her own meaning to the concept of power, which emanates from their different backgrounds in respect of, for example, culture, education and language. Decentralisation can therefore result in different effects, depending on the meaning attached to the concept in a specific context. Women do not see power simply as the making of decisions on issues such as the formulation of policy; they see the right to power and the meaning that they themselves give to power as empowering. It can therefore be said that decentralisation as a policy involves certain textual intentions (which the policy stipulates as text) but that it also involves a contextual intention, which is influenced by different backgrounds. The very fact that women are accorded a voice in forums such as school governing bodies can in itself be experienced as empowering due to the women's own conceptualisation of it. The differences in the interpretation of and meaning attached to the concept indicate a need for research that delves deeper than simply a focus on the number of women participating in local politics. More research is necessary to investigate the circumstances and policy implications of the participation of women. Such research could investigate aspects such as different contexts and people's different interpretations and conceptualisations, which could ultimately be anticipated in policy frameworks. Due cognisance of women’s expectations in respect of the decentralisation or the redistribution of school governing powers and the position of women in such spheres could well result in a greater contribution to the empowerment of women.
Die impak van die uitkomsgebaseerde onderwys-assesseringsbeleid op die werkslading van onderwysers
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005-12) Arnold, Alvin Mark; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
The aim of this paper is to obtain an indication of the impact of an outcomes-based assessment policy on the workload of six teachers of a secondary school. Since the implementation of Outcomes Based Education (OBE) there are great expectations to implement new approaches in relation to planning, instruction and assessment guidelines that teachers should follow. Despite these guidelines assessment remains a problem area because teachers are still grappling with the assessment principles of OBE. The new outcomes-based approach to assessment encourages teachers to integrate their instruction with classroom-based assessment. Teachers however do not appear to be integrating their instruction with their assessment. Teachers are blaming the lack of integration to a lack of time. This research is an attempt to assess the time teachers spend on instruction, assessment and extra mural activities. Although this is a qualitative research, it offers a quantifiable reality that is relative to the context of six selected teachers and the context in which the teachers and school is situated. Policy is not static and thus it should be continuously tested to determine whether the aim of the particular policy is practicable. Thus I am of the opinion that research of this nature can be an important mechanism for policy enactment because indicators inform policy makers about the policy. The findings of this research proposes to "put in numbers" what teachers have to say, in other words, to reflect the quantified realities of the workload of teachers.
Implementing the new technology curriculum statement in the context of the knowledge economy
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010-12) Arendse, Franklin Eugene; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Education Policy Studies.; Berkhout, S. J.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The new Technology curriculum was included in the National Curriculum Statement (Department of Education, 2005) as part of the broader intention of serving as the vehicle for reconstructing our society and our orientation towards education for the 21st century. In this narrative I will start by exploring the congruence between the technology curriculum, globalisation and the knowledge economy, the related discourses and the expectations these create for technology education in the Further Education and Training and General Education and Training bands in secondary education in South African schools. I will continue by critically engaging with the discourses and school-based patterns of engagement that shape the technology curriculum as well as teaching and learning practices in a secondary school. By locating my arguments within Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus, field and strategies, as elaborated on by Lingard and Christie (2003), as well as Foucault’s theory of power, this narrative will engage with the perceived gap in the policy implementation process. This gap consists of a myriad of contextually interrelated factors that interact with the achievement of the prescribed outcomes and ultimately the intention of shaping learners for meaningful participation in the knowledge economy.
Intercultural understanding in global education communities : tracing intercultural education in a pre-service teacher training program at the University of Stellenbosch
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005-12) Noble, Nicole C.; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The world is at a rapid pace being confronted with the need to shift national education policies that reflect basic human rights, with equity and fairness to the forefront. Along side of this herald are demonstrations of active mobilizations on the part of institutions of higher learning to "internationalize" their policies and programs to help to produce global citizens that effectively interact in international settings. As South Africa experiences changing scenes in educational reform government officials, practitioners, and educators face a number of challenges. Particularly, those related to cultural interactions when engaging in activities across the diaspora of school environments. Often these challenges serve as impediments to open communication, understanding and sensitivity amongst diverse cultural groups. As these impediments are faced in classrooms teachers increasingly find themselves at a deficit to adequately host learning environments conducive to its participants. Institutions of higher learning have a responsibility to provide the kind of intercultural dialog that entrenches policies and program curricula that speak to the needs of diverse communities, in particular those preparing future teachers. The research introduces the concept of global education communities to contribute towards shaping the kind of institutions that provide opportunities for students to practice, and become skilled in intercultural understanding. The research also raises serious discussion through the proposal of the elements of intercultural education towards contributive measures to address intercultural education, communication, and training. A case study of a four year pre-service general education training program (BEd GET) at the University Stellenbosch was conducted to trace and examine the presence of intercultural education. Data was collected by means of triangulated document analysis, interviews, and questionnaires. The research looked to a metaphoric analogy using Appreciative Inquiry, power with, and elements of intercultural education. The data was analyzed using qualitative strategies including classification and category construction, with imaginative variation and heuristic inquiry. The findings revealed that themes from intercultural education found expression or appearance in some aspects of the program outcomes, various module offerings, and teacher practice and approaches of the BEd GET curriculum. While the research also revealed that intercultural education does not appear to be a wholly attended pedagogy and practice in the GET program, the findings and interpretations revealed that intercultural education has numerous opportunities for expression and appearance to lay foundations for intercultural practice in theory. Another dimension of the research also revealed that students and lecturers collectively were not familiar with the concept of intercultural education, nor could a distinction between multicultural, and intercultural education be made. Furthermore, students' understandings and feelings reveal some resistance to themes in cultural diversity. The findings seem to reveal a need to incorporate strategies that raise intercultural consciousness. In view of the University of Stellenbosch's plan to internationalize, the findings present critical implications and recommendations toward incorporating intercultural pedagogy and practice into the methodological framework of the BEd General Education program. It finally poses future program and module development with respects to intercultural education and practice through the suggested use of the Hammer and Bennett's (1998, 2002) Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
A leadership and management perspective to merging of South African technical colleges
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2004-03) Papier, Graham Richard; Berkhout, S. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research profiles some of the South African Technical College Chief Executive Officer's job responsibilities to be effective and efficient in the merging of state and state-aided technical colleges. The principal's experience gained during the apartheid era and its applicable legislation is characterised by the sector development, which was influenced by the economic, political, and higher education roles respectively. The question of whether the principal's past experience is adequate or inadequate for merging is of crucial importance. The research therefore explores policy renewal challenges in conjunction with firstly leadership and change management trends and secondly, with international merging experiences as a basis for the South African merger of past separate technical colleges.
School principals' experiences of the decentralisation policy in Zimbabwe
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010-03) Masuku, Elisa; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The decentralisation of power in education is part of a global process that has become part of the education reform policies of most countries. Decentralisation, which is typified by the redistribution of power to local levels, is claimed to serve a variety of ends from democratization to efficiency, empowerment of stakeholders to improved quality of education. It is, however, a complex process that is difficult to capture as power is seen to manifest in multiple ways. During the nineties Zimbabwe, against the background of a massive increase in enrolments, for a variety of reasons including the improvement of the quality of education, embarked on the re-distribution of administrative and financial power in the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture. The implementation of this policy revealed major discrepancies between the intentions of government and the way it translated in educational sites. The aim of this study is to explore how the intentions of decentralisation in education as a policy aimed that the improvement of the quality of education is experienced by school principals. An interpretative methodology with in depth interviews, focus groups, some observations and document analysis were employed to engage in the debates about decentralisation. Although this was a small study the findings concurred with studies of decentralisation in other countries where it was found that the re-distribution of power in education manifests differently in different contexts in the same country. In countries such as Zimbabwe where resource limitations and restructuring concomitantly took place the experience of principals revealed that conditions arose that could not be seen to be conducive to the improvement of the quality of education such as the ambiguity of the meaning of who is responsible for what, the power struggles as government was seen to recentralise crucial roles, increased workloads of principals due to the devolving of administrative and supervisory functions to school level, loss of teachers and other specialist functionaries conducive to a drop in standards and the challenge to parents who had to contribute increasingly to enable schooling of their children. These findings are indicative of the claims from studies in other countries that decentralisation as a policy for whatever reason is seldom more than political rhetoric to decentralise conflict. Exploring the intersection between the literature on decentralisation and parental involvement of education, however, revealed the opening up of other spaces that enabled local power relations to develop in creative ways as parents got increasingly involved in schools. Apart from the challenges related to the redistribution of power as authority delegated, devolved or deconcentrated from government, this study revealed that power manifests in relations and interactions not necessarily ascribed to the intentions of policy, neither as a substance or function only.
Die spanning tussen performatiwiteit en meelewing binne die onderwys : 'n outo-etnografiese reis
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-12) Van der Merwe, Marietjie; Berkhout, S. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research is about my story as a learning-support teacher and includes the identity growth that I experienced between the period from January 2001 until December 2012. My approach of acceptance and compassion, within the atmosphere of performativity, leads to my writing process and becomes my auto-ethnographic journey. The writing process brings about change, to experience the performative as an action of ‘doing’ (in Giroux 2000:135) and a way of being within day-to-day situations (in Denzin 2004:273). By recording my experiences within changing spaces, I hope to make a contribution to academic literature, by drawing the reader into my experiences of the forming of my identity and the explication of the writing process as a journey. Writing my introduction to this research at the end of this process, I realise that this research has not only changed my story, but also myself as a person. I struggled to bring the story to a close. This is because I have realised that my story is still changing every day. I am becoming a performative ethonographer (Denzin 2004:262) and I see concrete situations and engage in a conversation with them. And through this writing experience I have registered an enrichment in my experience. My research does not make use of questionnaires or interviews. It is action-research, experienced in everyday things. My story with remembrances was already there before the research, though never told. Ball (1996) refers to this process as identification. This is the process through which I have gone to be seen, as well as the process through which one goes to see oneself, to a specific identity (quoted by Thompson 2004:45). My story begins with questions and reflections about my being different as a white woman, within my context of the two so-called ‘Coloured Schools’. Am I carrying a white scar? (Cixous 1998). I have experienced the writing process as a way of coming into knowledge. My research leads to questions, though not necessarily to answers. The writing process leads to my looking through a different lens of gaining a better understanding. Peace. And hope. I am learning – have learnt – that hope is an ontological necessity. There is a necessity to dream, to change, and to better the lives of others (Freire 1998:8 in Denzin 2003:263). My research develops rhizomatically (Honan: 2006; Richardson & Pierre 2005, quoted in Richards 2012:3). It is written in fragments of daily action. It is written in the knowledge of the impossibility of relaying experience as it is or was. As a teller of a story, I emphasise that I do not posit my characters as objects. Rather, they are presented in this research in a relationship of trust, existing between myself and them for a period stretching beyond twelve years. Meaning cannot always be relayed in words. Suggestions of meaning can lie in the relationship between texts (Parsons 2002:32 in Le Roux 2012:xi4).
Teachers, assessment and outcomes-based education: a philosophical enquiry
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009-12) Slamat, Jerome Albert; Waghid, Yusef; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The core question that is addressed in this dissertation is: “How can we think differently about education in order to transcend the predicament that outcomes-based assessment poses for teachers and the practice of teaching?” This question is addressed against the background of my own narrative and experience in education in South Africa and in dialogue with the ideas of a number of contemporary philosophers. I assume an internal link between the outcomes-based discourse and its attendant assessment system. I argue that although outcomes-based education is proclaimed to be a progressive pedagogy, an alternative argument can be made that characterises it as an old behaviourist, management theory, overlain by a new policy technology called performativity. Thereafter, I engage critically with outcomes-based assessment as a prime example of performativity. In the next step I explore the ways in which outcomes-based assessment poses a predicament to teachers and to the practice of teaching. I then construct an alternative view of education that, in my opinion, provides a way to transcend the predicament that outcomes-based assessment poses for teachers and the practice of teaching. I also compare my alternative view of education with a new notion of education as therapy and standing in need of therapy, which is also presented as an alternative to instrumental approaches to education. Thereafter I consider the implications of my alternative view of education for teachers and assessment. I consider potential critiques against my argument at various stages in this dissertation. In the final chapter, I anticipate five more potential critiques against the argument developed in this dissertation and give initial responses to these. At the end of this dissertation I extend an invitation to deliberation in the spirit of my alternative view of education.

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