Adult learning within lifelong learning: a different lens a different light

Adult learning is located within a lifelong learning framework both as a lens for looking back and for projecting forward. The competing views of adult and lifelong learning are discussed and a preliminary overview of what has been achieved within adult learning in the last 10 years in South Africa is given. Lifelong learning and the learning region are suggested as frameworks for providing a ‘connected up’ approach to human development, and a possibility for finding ‘troubled spaces of possibilities’ (Edwards and Usher, 2005) to create new solutions to old problems.Web of Scienc

New challenges and opportunities for lifelong learning in South Africa

The imperatives for lifelong learning in South Africa are driven by its reinsertion into the global economy and by the social and political necessities of equity and redress after the years of colonialism, segregation and apartheid. It is therefore not surprising to find the discourse of lifelong learning infused into new policy documents. Utilizing Belanger's framework, which argues that lifelong learning is not a norm to prescribe but an empirical reality to analyze and reconstruct, the contexts for lifelong learning in South Africa are surveyed by focusing in on the state of initial education, adult education, and the learning environments. The framework, which acknowledges the daily lived realities of women and men, is a helpful way of retaining an holistic and integrated vision of lifelong learning and its humanistic, democratic goals. For lifelong learning in South Africa to deepen for more than a small group of well-educated, mainly urban, formally employed people, the author concludes that initial education, adult education and the learning environments of all the people will have to be improved. If this does not happen, then at least two polarized 'lifelong educations' will result.Web of Scienc

The Cape Town statement on characteristic elements of a lifelong learning higher education institution

This statement grew out of a need recognised by adult and higher educators, scholars and specialists in the area of adult and lifelong learning to build on previous work focusing on transforming institutions of higher education into institutions of lifelong learning. It continues the work begun at the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education in Hamburg, Germany, 1997, continued at the University of Mumbai, India in 1998, and the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education in Paris in 1998. It was developed at the conference on Lifelong Learning, Higher Education and Active Citizenship from the 10 - 12 October 2000 in Cape Town which was co-hosted by University of Western Cape, UNESCO Institute for Education and the Adult Education Research Group of the Danish National University of Education. The Cape Town Statement served as a key guiding document in the Division for Lifelong Learning at UWC. The list of ‘Characteristic Elements of a Lifelong Learning Higher Education Institution’ was annually reproduced as ‘framework part-time provision’ in a handbook called “Juggling to Learn Planning for Success in Your Studies – A handbook for Students, Educators and Administrators” It was used as an organisational tool to improve the part-time provision and to promote lifelong learning at institutional level and beyond. The Editions 2005-2012 of this handbook are available in the Special Collections in the UWC Main Library on level 12. The Cape Town Statement has been translated into French, Spanish and Chinese.University of Western Cape, UNESCO Institute for Education and the Adult Education Research Group of the Danish National University of Educatio

Flexible learning and teaching: Looking beyond the binary of full-time/part-time provision in South African higher education

This paper engages with literature on flexible learning and teaching in order to explore whether it may be possible, within the South African context, to have flexible learning and teaching provide a third way which goes beyond the current practice of full-time/part-time provision. This binary classification of students is a proxy for day-time/after-hours delivery. The argument is made that effective, flexible learning and teaching requires a fundamental shift in thinking about learning and teaching in higher education that moves us beyond such binaries. The paper proposes that in order to ensure access and success for students, ‘common knowledge’ (Edwards, 2010) will need to be co-constructed which understands flexible learning and teaching in ways which will meet needs of a diversity of students, including working students. It will require ‘resourceful leadership’ (Edwards, 2014) within the university that recognises, enhances and gives purpose to the capability of colleagues at every level of the systems they lead. Also, it will require the building of ‘common knowledge’ between certain sectors of universities and particular workplaces

Taking risks. Exploring ecofeminist, climate-just popular education

The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popular educators respond to this call? We ‘join the dots’ using climate justice, ecofeminism and our own insights from our engaged activist scholarship as theoretical positions to explore this question.  Dominant Western worldviews which separate humans from other life forms contribute to ecological degradation.  For climate justice, this hard-wired worldview needs to be disrupted. Drawing on multiple examples from Africa, we conclude that ways to do this require the foregrounding of cognitive justice which includes recognising the validity of multiple knowledges, learning from others and supporting communities’ in their struggles for reparation, reclamation and conservation of their land. These actions can be amplified in engagements which disrupt the unsustainable behaviour and policies of the wealthy. We argue that radical popular education in these times is climate just and ecofeminist. (DIPF/Orig.

Razlogi za ekofeministično ljudsko izobraževanje v času COVID-19

Ecofeminism offers a framework that brings together patriarchy, capitalism, and the degradation of the environment, and helps to make sense of and address a world in desperate need of radical transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified existing fault lines of inequality, poverty, gender-based violence, and turbulence in the biosphere. This paper uses an ecofeminist lens to critically investigate the case of a woman’s health course that employs a popular education approach. As imbedded activist researchers, we question how the curriculum should change so that the knowledge generated really becomes useful for transformative action. Thus, the paper brings together popular education theory and ecofeminism. After an overview of ecofeminist principles, we introduce a case study to apply these principles. We conclude that elements which relate to the participants’ lives in immediate ways, like food security and water, are entry points for challenging the perception of Nature as a “thing” rather than as a complex interrelated ecosystem. We argue that ecofeminist principles have widespread relevance for popular education and its transformative impulses beyond Covid-19.Ekofeminizem ponuja ogrodje, ki naslavlja problematiko patriarhata, kapitalizma in degradacije okolja ter pomaga osmisliti svet, ki nujno potrebuje radikalne spremembe. Epidemija COVID-19 je še bolj očitno zarisala prepade neenakosti in revščine, spolnega nasilja ter turbulenc v biosferi. Članek v luči ekofeminizma kritično analizira primer zdravstvenega tečaja za ženske, zasnovanega na podlagi ljudskega izobraževanja (popular education). Avtorici se kot aktivistki in raziskovalki sprašujeta, kako bi bilo treba spremeniti učni načrt, da bi pridobljeno znanje postalo resnično uporabno in transformativno. Članek tako združuje teorijo ljudskega izobraževanja in ekofeminizma. Po pregledu načel ekofeminizma je predstavljena študija primera v praksi, zaključek pa prikaže, da so elementi, ki se neposredno nanašajo na življenja sodelujočih, na primer zagotavljanje hrane in vode, vstopne točke, prek katerih je možno izpodbijati idejo narave kot »stvari« in vzpostaviti dojemanje narave kot kompleksnega in medsebojno povezanega ekosistema. Tudi zunaj konteksta COVID-19 so ekofeministična načela širšega pomena za ljudsko izobraževanje in njegove transformativne pobude

Keeping the doors of learning open for adult student-workers within higher education

The Freedom Charter of the African National Congress (ANC), the triumphant South African liberation movement, proclaims that ‘the doors of learning shall be open’ for all. Twenty years since coming to power, the doors of the universities are struggling to stay open for adult student-workers. An action research project into implementation of ‘flexible provision’ at one historically black university is described in response to these realities. Rich experiences from lives of working librarian student-workers illustrate the complex issues that confront individuals, workplaces and institutions in implementing innovative pedagogies within a university

Discussion document: understanding the dynamics of part-time studies at UWC

This study into understanding the dynamics of part-time studies at UWC is part of on-going institutional research that is required to improve the conditions of and services to part-time students at UWC. Approximately 23% of UWC’s students are part-time in any one year. One of DLL’s mandates is to grow and develop the part-time programme. Through the DLL Board there has been an enquiry into financing part-time students through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). This has lead the Board to pose questions about the dynamics of the part-time programme and what it means to be part-time at UWC2. This paper is a preliminary report in progress and covers three of the following research aims. A subsequent paper will cover recommendations for improving the quality of part-time programme. The research aims of this documents are: (1) To help the institution think about the future of the part-time programme amidst the many shifts in national policy that affect the part-time programme, (2) to create clarity about the part-time terminology, (3) to get a better understanding of the actual dynamics of the part-time programme at UWC and the student profiles in terms of study patterns, class attendance (during the day or during after hours), payments records and need for financial aid, (4) To generate practical recommendations for quality enhancement of the part-time programme in terms of protocols for quality improvement and contractual obligations, staff development processes and student support.University of the Western Cape, funds Division for Lifelong Learnin

Building common knowledge: negotiating new pedagogies in Higher Education in South Africa

Discussions in this chapter are located within an action research-based study which aims at supporting the integration of enhanced pedagogies in one university in South Africa. The study recognises that even full-time funded students in Higher Education face economic pressures which mean that student employment alongside full-time study is approaching the norm. It also recognises that this situation has implications for the pedagogies that are used by university departments, whether students are preparing directly for the professions or undertaking more open-ended courses. In this chapter we focus on how one university initiative to create more responsive pedagogies has been negotiated into the practices of three departments in one university with a strong history of engaging first generation university students who are poor. In particular, we draw on the idea of common knowledge to explain how new understandings of pedagogy are negotiated into the practices by the core team and are then deployed institutionally. We identify and discuss the political nature of organisational innovation and the building of common knowledge, through discussing an illustrative ‘moment’ from the research project and the participatory research approach that we adopt. The chapter brings together analytic resources of cultural-historical theory, a participatory research approach and, in particular, ideas of relational expertise, common knowledge and relational agency

Working the ‘in-between-spaces’ for transformation within the academy

This paper considers the importance of ‘in-between spaces’ within the academy for challenging dominant institutional culture and hegemonic power relations towards a ‘de-colonised’ university. It questions ‘mainstreaming’ of transformational initiatives, as this can bring about regulation, rather than the turbulence that is often what is needed for substantive change to occur. I draw on a case study of the work of the Division for Lifelong Learning (DLL) at University of the Western Cape and in particular two examples of its marginal activities which were hosted regularly over a 10 year period. These are: the Vice-Chancellor’s Annual Julius Nyerere Lecture on Lifelong Learning and the cross-campus Annual Women’s Breakfast. I use documentary evidence and insider knowledge to reflect critically on the relevance of the spaces that were created for enacting such alternative institutional practices. I employ ‘knowledge democracy’ as a lens to bring the margins to the centre of the analysis. The argument is made that the work in the ‘in-between-spaces’ is a critical part of ‘decolonising education’ through disruptive, political, pedagogical, and organisational transformation