Browsing by Author "Gamble, Jeanne"
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- ItemOpen AccessDifferentiation in higher education : a case study of Lesotho(2016) Penduka, Mamthembu Mamachele; Gamble, JeanneDifferentiation has become a crucial policy driver in higher education systems that attempts to respond to global pressures for a highly skilled labour force, employ new technologies and adapt to unpredictable or volatile global product markets and rapid technological change. In order to be globally competitive, nations have to place knowledge production, accumulation, transfer and application at the centre of their national development strategies. This study investigates the case of Lesotho, a relatively small African country with a colonial past that has left a lasting imprint, both enabling and constraining, on many aspects of its education system. The aim of this explanatory case study was to identify differentiating trends within Lesotho's higher education system, focusing on two institutional types: the polytechnic and the university. These institutions were investigated at both institutional and programme level. The research question was "How differentiated is the polytechnic-university binary division in the public sector higher education system in Lesotho?" The sample for the study comprised two schools and two faculties at the polytechnic and the university respectively. One programme under each school or faculty was investigated.
- ItemOpen AccessThe erosion of apprenticeship training in South Africa's metal and engineering industry(1997) Lundall, Paul; Graaff, Johann; Gamble, JeanneThis thesis explores the decline and transmutation of the apprenticeship system in South Africa, specifically as it occurred in the metal and engineering industry. It proceeds to analyse the most basic and influential imperatives which have driven this process. On the side of capital, these imperatives were the inexorable motive for a profit driven industrial organisation and on the side of organised labour, the imperatives to protect skills, jobs and wages. The existence of the one set of imperatives presupposed the need to redefine the existence of the other set. These contradictory imperatives have shaped the trajectory of the apprenticeship system in South Africa. They were contradictory because the one was an impediment on the untrammelled extension of the other. However, as the imperative of profit maximisation gradually became the predominant consideration in the relationship, it began to exert greater pressure on the character of the apprenticeship system. Within the apprenticeship training system, the imperative of profit maximization prioritised price calculation as the dominant consideration by which decisions and trajectories were chartered. Since the state mediated the relationship between the various economic interests in society, its interventions merely curtailed a more rapid consolidation of the effects of a profit driven industrial organisational imperative, within the apprenticeship training system. The triumph of the profit maximization imperative, systematically eroded the system of apprenticeship training in the metal and engineering industry of South Africa. An institutional inertia within the South African state resulted in the manifestation of erosive effects within institutions of the state empowered with governing and managing human resources development. This institutional inertia within the state was an accompaniment to the broader erosion of the apprenticeship training system at the workplace.
- ItemOpen AccessFrom 'campus to context' : a post-course investigation into the implementation of work-based projects in a university-based professional development qualification(2016) Wylie, Janis; Gamble, JeanneThe Advanced Certificate in Education-School Leadership qualification (ACE-SL) is a post-graduate qualification which focuses on the professional development of the school leader as change agent. This study attempts to broaden the understanding of school improvement inherent in this assumption. It does so through an investigation of influences exerted by external and internal school contexts to constrain or facilitate a school's ability to effect change. The study employs a realist methodology (which views the social world as comprising both subjective and objective features) and specifically employs on realist evaluative theory to investigate 'mechanisms of change' that were introduced into five primary schools when principals implemented their ACE-SL work-based projects on school discipline in 2009. The study, which was undertaken in 2012, offers an explanation as to how and why interventions were sustained and enhanced in the three-year interim period, or why not. The findings and a pattern analysis show how important it is to take contextual factors into consideration when trying to understand what triggers change. Successful achievement of an intervention's outcomes cannot be ascribed only to individual leadership competency. Causality needs to be understood in terms of a relation between the contexts of implementation and the generative mechanisms employed. It is this combination that triggers action that leads to change. Conclusions drawn provide a basis for returning to the ACE-SL as an educational progamme to offer some suggestions as to how a school leadership and management progamme can take better account of the need for forms of reflective practice that understand that transformational leadership is not about an individual but about dealing with the constraints of context.
- ItemOpen AccessHistorical shifts in knowledge, skill and identity in the South African plant baking industry : implications for curriculum(2014) Tennison, Colette; Cooper, Linda; Gamble, JeanneThe South African economy, as with the rest of the world economy, has been influenced by the trends of globalisation and the knowledge economy (Castells, 2001). The South African plant (large scale) baking industry is an industry undergoing significant change with the introduction of cutting edge technology and automation. The aim of this study is to examine the shifts in organisation of work in the South African plant baking industry and, in doing so, identify the corresponding shifts in knowledge, skill and identity of production supervisors. By examining how the work organisation of the bakeries has changed, as well as the adaptations of knowledge, skill and identity, the aim is to draw implications for the development of production supervisors in the future. This, combined with an analysis of the current curricula, is then drawn on to consider the possible implications for a curriculum that addresses the needs of production supervisors in the changing plant baking industry. This qualitative research made use of a case study approach. The first phase of the study examined views on shifts in the organisation of work, and the relative importance of knowledge, skill and identity, via interviews with employees of a national plant baking company that has multiple bakeries at varying stages of automation. Changes in the organisation of work and knowledge, skill and identity were then analysed through the lens of Marx’ Labour Process Theory and Barnett and Coate (2005)’s model for professional curriculum, respectively. The second phase of this study made use of documentary evidence of two different curricula currently available for the development of production supervisors; one developed by the South African Qualifications Authority and the other by the South African Chamber of Baking. This phase sought to examine their ability to address the new organisation of work identified in the first phase of the study, drawing again on the Barnett and Coate (2005) model for professional curriculum. Findings from the first phase of the study point to changes to the organisation of work as seen in the decrease in the amount of labour required to operate an increasingly automated plant and a shift in the role of the production supervisor. These changes have resulted in shifts in the relative importance of knowledge, skill and identity, according to those interviewed. The most significant of these shifts was the perceived increase in the relative importance of identity as interviewees identified the need for a strengthened occupational identity for production supervisors, and a relative devaluing of skill within the bakeries as the role of operators has shifted more towards monitoring instead of operating the machines. These findings might be explained by the increase in automation that has led both to a weakening of occupational identity and a change in the knowledge base required by production supervisors. The need for multi-skilling has increased the need for context independent knowledge. At the same time the need for the situated, tactile, knowledge of the bread making process remains. It is argued that it is this situated knowledge held by the older, more experienced production supervisors that enables the ability to solve problems on the line and potentially strengthens their occupational identity. It was found that neither of the two curricula examined addressed the current and future needs of production supervisors. The findings of both the first and second phases of the study point to the need for a new form of curriculum that addresses the needs of production supervisors who are required to function within the new organisation of work. Conclusions are that it is not possible to confer an identity through formal curriculum alone and work experience remains central to the identity of a production supervisor. Yet there remains a need to provide production supervisors with the context independent knowledge base of, and skill in, the bread making process; elements that can be addressed within a formal curriculum framework. The development of a mixed disciplinary knowledge base that consists of both situated knowledge and context independent knowledge may provide a way for the changes in knowledge, skill and identity to be accommodated in a curriculum that caters more effectively for both workers and an industry whose drive towards automation continues.
- ItemOpen AccessKnowledge-based expertise as the hallmark of work of risk : an analysis of the curriculum and pedagogy of a National Diploma in Train-Driving(2011) Coetzee, Gonda; Cooper, Linda; Gamble, JeanneThis study examines the suitability of competency-based modular education and training as preparation for skilled vocational work. In particular, it explores the nature of the curriculum and pedagogy that leads to the transmission and acquisition of risk work; defined as work that involves inherent unpredictability which depends on the skilled performance of the worker-practitioner. A single qualitative case study of a national train driving diploma is examined.
- ItemOpen AccessPublish or Perish? An investigation into research publication milieus in a differentiated higher education sector: two case studies(2021) Sonday, Roshan; Gamble, Jeanne; Breier, Mignonne'Institutional differentiation' is a prominent feature of the South African higher education system. It is used as a lever to ensure diversity within higher education and to ensure that the system caters for the needs of a diverse student body. However, increasing requirements for all universities to do research and to be rated in similar terms according to a single set of research-related criteria is slowly eroding the basis of differentiation. This research study attempts to understand research and publication milieus and cultures in a differentiated university system that is currently categorised as traditional university, comprehensive university and university of technology. In the study I excluded the comprehensive university. I particularly wanted to explore a university and a university of technology as research and publication milieus, because of the strong distinction between universities and technikons that existed before the advent of democracy in 1994. I used a multiple case study design and I present two case studies to show the relation between an institution's research policy trajectory and the types of researchers who contribute to the research publication count of that university. The research study shows that the traditional university has a well-established research culture moving from research-led to research intensive while the university of technology has an emerging research culture. The study found a different range of academics contributing to the publication count at each type of university. Even though those who publish at both universities are motivated differently they had all been enculturated into a strong research culture, which they acquired at a traditional university. A second finding is that those academics who publish have learnt the 'rules of the academic game', either by informal role modelling or by formal mentoring where senior research active academics make the implicit codes explicit. The third finding is that not having a PhD is a major barrier to career advancement even though publication is not determined by having a PhD. The last finding is that the establishment of a research culture takes place over a long period of time and is not grown overnight. The findings raise questions about the extent to which it can be pre-supposed that all three university types can be measured using the same research performance criteria.