A BATHO PELE BASED PROGRAMME FOR ADULT BASIC EDUCATION AND TRAINING MOHATELLE STEPHEN MODlSENYANE PTC (MPHOHADI COLLEGE), SEC (UNISA) SED (UNISA), HED (UNISA), BA (UNIVERSITY OF NORTH-WEST) SA HON (UNIVERSITY OF NORTH­ WEST) A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MAGISTER EDUCATIONIS In Educational Management NORTH-WEST UNIVERSITY (VAAL TRIANGLE FACULTY) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Nzuzo Joseph Lloyd Mazibuko Vanderbijlpark 2008 DECLARATION I declare that this research study: A BATHO PELE BASED PROGRAMME FOR ADULT BASIC EDUCATION AND TRAINING. Is my own independent work, and that all of the sources used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. M.S. MODISENYANE. DATE: MARCH 2008 jj DEDICATION This dissertation is a dedication to my father Matebele William and late mother Moitheki, Rebecca Modisenyane. My sisters Maserake, Noskansi and late Magopane. My brothers Mahlomola, Tsabane and the late Medi. My brother- in- law and wife Rapulane, Phillip and Winnie. My daughter Millicent, son Mpho and grand-children Neo, Paballo and Rorisang. My wife Motsepuoa Magdeline. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank the following people whose interest and supervision have made the presentation of this dissertation possible: • My Heavenly Father who gave me the strength, trust and love and sustenance to complete this study through His Grace. • My supervisor Dr N.J.L Mazibuko for his expert advice, patience and constant encouragement throughout the duration of this study. • The Vaal Triangle Campus (North West University) library staff for their friendly and excellent service. • Dr Siphokazi Kwatubana, for the support, guidance and encouragement and her family. • Dr J. Heubsch for patience and professional editing. • My dearest wife, Motsepuoa (Ntsoaki) for being with me at all times when things got tough. • My daughter Millicent, son Mpho and grand children (Neo and Paballo and Rorisang, for their encouragement and moral support. • Mr E.F Khambule and other colleagues at work for the support and encouragement. iv ABSTRACT The objectives of this research were to investigate the experiences of adult basic education and training educators and learners in their teaching and learning centres; and to develop a humanistic programme infused with Batho­ Pete principles for use in adult basic education and training in South Africa. Both the literature review and the qualitative empirical research methods were used to achieve these objectives. The literature review revealed that Batho-Pete is a South African public service initiative to get public servants to be service orientated, to strive for excellence in service delivery and to commit to continuous service delivery improvement. It allows South African citizens to hold public servants accountable for the level of services they deliver. These two statements make it clear that Batho Pete is not an "add-on" activity, but it is a way of delivering services by putting citizens at the centre of public service planning and operations, which also means that Batho-Pete seeks to include all citizens for the achievement of a better-I ife-for-aII through services and programmes of a democratic nature. The literature review also revealed that Batho-Pete encapsulates ubuntu/botho ideals. Interdependence, communalism, sensitivity towards others and caring for others are some of the aspects of ubuntu as a way of life. The community and belonging to a community is part of the essence of traditional African human life. Humanness is very important in Batho Pete and Ubuntu way of life in the sense of seeing human needs, interests and dignity as fundamental to human existence. It was evident from the literature review proceedings that traditional Africans believed that these ideals are communally accepted and desirable ethical standards that a person acquires throughout his/her life. From the foregoing paragraph it is clear that for Batho Pete service to succeed in communities, management culture in adult basic education and training centres in communities has to be changed to accommodate Batho Pete as a way of life. This means that adult basic education and training centres should take stock of their educational values, as well as behaviours v and attitudes of people they serve. In this way, adult basic education and training centres would then be able to take necessary steps to prepare their educators for the revitalized Batho Pete Culture of responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness in delivering services to the adult learners. This research was conducted from an andragogical (an approach to education and training) based on assumptions of learner-as-adult) and ubuntugogical (an approach that emphasizes African way of life that promotes the common good of society and includes humanness as an essential element of human growth. An essential element of human growth, according to this approach, is that the community always comes first. The individual is born out of and into the community, therefore will always be part of the community) paradigms. A humanistic programme infused with Batho-Pete principles for use in adult basic education and training in South Africa was developed. vi ABSTRAK Die doelstelling van hierdie navorsing was om die ondervindings van opvoeders en leerders in volwassene basiese opvoedkunde en opleiding in hul leersentrums te onersoek en om 'n humanisitiese program te ontwinkkel wat geskoei is op Batho Pete beginsels vir gebruik in volwassene basiese opvoedkunde en opleiding in Suid-Afrika. Seide 'n literatuuroorsig en die kwalitatiewe empiriese navorsingsmetode is aangewend om hierdie doelwjtte te verwesenlik. Die literatuuroorsig het aangedui dat Batho Pete 'n Suid-Afrikaanse staatsdiens-inisiatief is om staatdienswerknemers bewus te maak van dienslewering en om in hul strewe tot volmaaktheid, volgehoue verbeteringe aan te bring wat betref diensaflewering. En om in hul strewe tot volkmaaktheid, volgehoue verbeteringe aan te bring wat betref dienslewering. Hierdie beginsel veroorloof Suid-Afrikaanse burgers die reg om staatsdienswerknemers verantwoordelik te hou vir die kwalitei van dienste wat hull ewer. Hierdie twee beweringe maak dit duidelik dat Batho Pete nie 'n kwaliteit is wat 'aangelas' is nie, maar dat dit 'n wyse van dienslewering is wat landsburgers sentraal in diensleweringesbeplanning en aktiwiteite plaas, wat ook beteken dat Batho Pete poog om aile landsburgers in te sluit, ten eeinde 'n beter-Iewe-vir-almal deur dienste en programme van 'n demokratiese aard. Die leteratuuroorsig het ook aangedui dat Batho Pete aile ubuntu/botho ideaIe insluit, wat betref interafhanklikheid, kommunalisme, sensitiwiteit teenoor ander en 'behoort' tot 'n gemmenskap is onderliggend aan die tradisionele Afrika wyse van menslike bestaan. Menslikheid is baie belangrik in die Batho Pete en Ubuntu wyse van leef in die opsig van bewus word van meslike behoftes, belange en waardigheid as fundamenteel tot meslike bestaan. Dit was duidelik uit die Iiteratuuroorsig dat tradisionele Afrikane glo dat hierdie waardes meestal gemeenskaplik aanvaar word en dat verlaande etiese standaarde wat 'n person verwerf, deur sy heJe lewe lank aangeleer word. Vanuit die voorafgaande paragraaf is dit duidelik dat vir die Batho Pete dienslewering om suksesvol te wees in gemmenskappe, 'n bestuurskultuur in vii volwassene basiese opvoeding en opleidingssentrums in gemmenskappe moet aangepas word om Batho Pete as 'n leefwyse in te sluit. Olt beteken dat volwassene basiese opvoeding en opleidingssentrums 'n opname behoort te maak van die opvoedkundige waardes, sowel as gedrag en houdings van die mense wat hulle dien. Op hierdie manier behoort volwassene basiese opvoeding en opleidingssentrums dan die nodige stappe te kan nee om opvoeders voor te berei vir die verlewendiging van die Batho Pete kultuur van verantwoordenheid, doeltreffendheid en effektiwiteit wat betref dienslewering aan volwasse leerders. Hierdie navorsing is aangevoer vanaf 'n androgogiese Cn benadering tot opvoeding en opleiding) gebaseer op die veronderstelling van leerder-as­ volwassene) en ubuntugogiek Cn benadering wat die Afrika manier van leer wat die algehele goedheid van die samelewig beklemtoon en menslikheid as 'n essensiele element van menslike groei insluit). As noodsaaklike element van menslike groei, volgens hierdie seining, is dat die gemeenskap altyd eerste behoort geplaas word. Die person word gebore uit en binne-in die gemeenskap en sal derhalwe altyd deel van die gemeenskaps-opset wees. 'n Humanistiese program besiel met Batho Pete beginsels vir gebruik in volwassene opvoeding en opleiding en in Suid-Afrika, spruit voort uit hierdie studie. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ii DEDICATION iU ABSTRACT , 'v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv ABSTRAK vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ix LIST OF TABLES xvii CHAPTER ONE 1 ORIENTATION 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 1! 1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 8 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THIS RESEARCH 10 1.4 ANDRAGOGY AND UBUNTUGOGY AS THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THIS RESEARCH 10 1.5 RESEARCH METHODS USED IN THIS RESEARCH 14 1.5.1 Literature review 14 1.5.2 Qualitative empirical research method and design 15 1.5.3 Population sample of this research 16 1.5.4 Empirical research instrument 17 1.6 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 18 ix 1.7 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH CHAPTERS 18 1.8 CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDy 19 1.9 CONCLUSION 19 CHAPTER TWO 20 LITERATURE REVIEW ON CHALLENGES PRESENTED BY BA THO PELE FOR ABET 20 2.1 INTRODUCTION 20 2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW ON BATHO PELE 21 2.2.1 The Batho Pe/e Belief Set 22 2.2.1.1 The notion of belonging 23 2.2.1.2 The notion of caring 24 2.2.1.3 The notion of serving 24 2.2.2 Batho Pele principles 24 2.2.2.1 Consultation 25 2.2.2.2 Setting service standards 25 2.2.2.3 Increasing access 26 2.2.2.4 Ensuring courtesy 26 2.2.2.5 Providing information 26 2.2.2.6 Openness and transparacy 27 2.2.2.7 Redress 27 2.2.2.8 Value for money 27 x 2.2.3 Batho Pele and its roots 28 2.2.4 The citizen as customer 30 2.3 LITERATURE REVIEW ON ABET 32 2.3.1 The "adult educator" and adult basic education 33 2.3.2 Adult teacher training 35 2.3.3 The use of untrained educators 37 2.3.4 Conditions of service of adult educators 36 2.3.5 Roles and functions of adult educators 36 2.3.6 The history of ABET in South Africa 3~ 2.3.6.1 Before ABET - literacy struggles prior to the Nineties 4J 2.3.6.2 The policy generators - ABET policy development from 1990 to 1994 42 2.3.6.3 From policy to implementation - 1995 to 1997 52 2.3.6.4 The content of the policy documents from 1995 to date 56 2.3.7 ABET - a work in progress 6'.) 2.3.8 Approaches to ABET 62 2.3.8.1 Developmental approaches 62 2.3.8.2 Participatory approaches 72 2.3.9 Transformation examples to the education system which could facilitate change in ABET practice in South Africa ....... 72 2.4 DEVELOPMENT OF SYSTEMS FOR NON-FORMAL EDUCATION 74 xi 2.4.1 The training of educators: the need for "mass" training where quality is not compromised 75 2.4.2 Educator development as an imperative of Life Long Learning (LLL) 75 2.4.3 Professionalizing adult educators 76 2.4.4 Other partners and stakeholders can help 76 2.4.5 Distance education can be used for going to scale 77 2.4.6 Issues of quality assurance - balance between bureaucratic burden and accountability 78 2.4.7 Materials and other learner support for educators and learners - cross country sharing 79 2.4.8 The conditions of service for educators including "workplace" conditions 79 2.4.9 Policy and practice - developing a culture supportive of adult learning 80 2.5 DEFINITIONS OF THE ADULT EDUCATOR 81 2.6 CONCLUSION 82 CHAPTER THREE 83 RESEARCH DESiGN 83 3.1 INTRODUCTION 83 3.2 THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS EMPIRICAL RESEARCH 83 3.3 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACH 83 3.3.1 Research design 85 xii 3.4 POPULATION AND SAMPLING 86 3.5 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT 86 3.5.1 Group Interviews (GI) 86 3.5.1.1 Interview setting and transcription 87 3.5.2 Observation 88 3.6 DATA ANALySiS 88 3.7 DATA TRIANGULATION 89 3.8 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 90 3.9 CONCLUSION 91i CHAPTER FOUR 92 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS 92 4.1 INTRODUCTION 92 4.2 INTERVIEW PROCEEDINGS WITH ADULT EDUCATORS 92 4.2.1 Responses of ABET educator participants in centre A 92 4.2.2 Responses of ABET educator participants in centre B .......... 97 4.2.3 Responses of ABET educator participants in centre C ........ 102 4.2.4 Analysis of the research results of educator participants .... 108 4.2.4.1 Theme 1: ABET educators are not satisfied with their conditions of service 108 4.2.4.2 Theme 2: ABET educators are not supported by their managers and the district officials when they encounter xiii problems with the curriculum, venues for teaching and administration 110 4.2.4.3 Theme 3: The progress at ABET centres is crippled by the lack of resources 110 4.2.4.4 Theme 4: ABET programmes offered at ABET centres, are not relevant to the needs of the adult learners 111 4.2.4.5 Theme 5: ABET educators complain of not being adequately developed and enriched by their employers, a situation which according to them leads to their ineffectiveness 112 4.2.4.6 Theme 6: There is high crime rate in communities where AB ET centres are located 112 4.2.4.7 Theme 7: A lack of respect 113 4.2.4.8 Theme 8: A lack of sympathy and compassion 113 4.2.4.9 Themes 9: A lack of sharing of resources between schools and ABET centres 114 4.2.4.10 Theme 10: A high rate of teacher attrition 114 4.2.4.11 Theme 11: A high drop-out rate of adult learners in ABET centres 115 4.3 INTERVIEW PROCEEDINGS WITH ADULT LEARNERS 115 4.3.1 Responses of ABET learner participants (Group 1) 115 4.3.2 Responses of ABET learners (Group 2) 124 4.3.3 Analysis of the research results of learner participants ....... 134 4.3.3.1 Theme 1: The standard of teaching at ABET centres is low ...... 134 4.3.3.2 Theme 2: There is high teacher attrition in these centres 135 xiv 4.3.3.3 Theme 3: There is a high rate of absenteeism at these centres 135 4.3.3.4 Themes 4: Teachers at ABET are not committed in their work 136 4.3.3.5 Theme 5: Adult learners do not achieve their outcomes as expected 136 4.3.3.6 Theme 6: A lack of resources in these centres 137 4.3.3.7 Theme 7: Adult learners are not offered learning areas they think will help them in future 138 4.4 CONCLUSION 139 CHAPTER FiVE 140 SUMMARIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 140 5.1 INTRODUCTION 140 5.2 SUMMARIES OF THE FINDINGS FROM BOTH THE LITERATURE REVIEW AND EMPIRICAL RESEARCH PROCEEDINGS 140 5.2.1 A summary of the literature review proceeding 140 5.2.2 The Batho Pele belief set consists of: 143 5.2.3 A summary of the empirical research proceeding 144 5.3 RECOMMENDATION OF A HUMANISTIC PROGRAMME FOR USE IN ABET 146 5.4 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDy 151 5.5 CONCLUSiON 157 xv BIBLIOGRAPHY 158 ADDENDUM A 176 FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS 176 ADDENDUM B 177 FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS 177 xvi 2 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1.1: Adults aged fifteen-years and over in South Africa with less than Grade Seven in percentage form xvii CHAPTER ONE ORIENTATION 1.1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Adult basic education and training is a matter of great concern in South Africa. This is so because South Africa, like most developing countries in the African continent and the world over, is faced with the enormous challenge of alleviating the high rate of illiteracy and being formally uneducated amongst its citizens, especially among blacks who were historically deprived of compulsory education by the apartheid system of education before the 1994 democratic changes. Socio-economic conditions also prevented many Black South Africans from receiving formal schooling (Aitchison, 2003a:7). As a result of this apartheid social legacy, many Blacks, especially those in rural and farm areas, did not have the opportunity of receiving formal basic education and training (Mabasa & Rampedi, 2000:38). Variations in basic education levels, also, exist within the categories of "race", sex, and geographical location. "Race" is still the single most powerful variable determining educational levels in South Africa (Libert, 2004:96). This clearly reflects the dismal consequences of the apartheid system. The average levels of education and the lack of it in South Africa therefore, follow a very predictable pattern. When functional literacy (a Grade Seven level of education) is taken into consideration, some thirty-three per cent of Blacks. twenty-six per cent of Coloureds, twelve per cent of Indians and only one per cent of Whites are illiterate (Centre For Adult Education, 2005:8). The difference between men and women is however relatively small (though such differences do exist because man received priority as seen in table 1.1 on the next page: 1 TABLE 1.1: Adults aged fifteen-years and over in South Africa with less than Grade Seven in percentage form I Women % Men % Black women Black men 3234 Coloured women Coloured men 2527 - ..­ Indian men 16Indian women 18 1White women 1 White men Source: Centre For Adult Education (2005) Table 1.1 clearly implies that there have been a number of barriers during the apartheid era for people to participate in the formal education and training system, which resulted in the majority of black South Africans being excluded from the rest of the country, and the world at large. Depriving many people of the right to formal education and training, apartheid minimized their chances and opportunities to participate in the labour market and the society. The results of deprivation to formal education include the following (Hepp & Laval, 2004:333): • dependency that leads to financial deprivation; • unemployment; • unstable households due to poverty; and • damage of the health status through poor eating habits and poor living conditions. According to Van't Rood (1997:21), poor social conditions such as those indicated above, culminate in a vicious circle, for example, children grow up without examples of the normal status of work in the society, or any display of other functional skills that are needed in everyday life. 2 Using less than nine years of schooling and a cut-off age of fifteen years of age, various researchers (Rakoma, 1999:43; OEeD, 1999: 16; Haralabos, Ean-Raymond & Vaclav, 2004:16) estimate that, in South Africa, there are slightly over twelve million adults who have not received a full general education, that is forty-five per cent of adults. Of these, 2.9 million (eleven per cent of adults) are estimated to be totally illiterate. In terms of potential adult learners, therefore, there are at most 12.1 million who lack the equivalent of a full basic schooling (Aitchison, Houghton & Baatjies, 2000:36). Taking a Grade Seven level as a crude indicator of functional literacy, there are 7.4 million who fall into this category. However, it is well known that neither obtained formal education levels nor that self-reported literacy levels are particularly good predictors of actual functional literacy (Department of Education, 1997c:9). This estimate is likely to under-estimate the number of low literates and illiterates in South African society, particularly as the demands of a complex industrial economy mean that in any case the goal of necessary and sufficient literacy skills are constantly shifting. Such figures give South Africa one of the highest incidences of adult illiteracy in the world. In reaction to this difficult legacy, the Ministry of Education launched the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI) in 2000 to reduce adult illiteracy significantly by: • mobilising voluntary services in support of a nationwide literacy initiative; • developing training programmes for volunteer educators; • designing, developing and procuring reading and resource material; • setting up local literacy units; • establishing and maintaining a database of learners and providers; and • servicing the needs of learners and educators (Hamilton, 1997:48; Department of Education, 1998e:13; ERA Initiative, 1998:32; Lyster, 2006:56). 3 SANU can be regarded as a "pre-Adult Basic Education And Training" programme. Just as children have to attend pre-primary schools, SANU is a pre-ABET programme for illiterate adults to allow them entry into ABET classes offered at Public Adult Learning Centres. Learners have to achieve specific outcomes such as writing with meaning, reading notes from educators about their children and filling in forms, which also assist practitioners in accessing civic services such as obtaining social grants (Aitchson & Harley, 2004:23). Despite massive recruitment efforts, the programme is struggling to meet the target learner numbers. Socio-economic factors seem to be responsible for potential learners' unwillingness to enrol. Due to high levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa, literacy is seen as a luxury, not a necessity (French, 1997:11). Having realized that ABET is most of the times linked to development, with change of the lives and situation of a specific group of people and as part of the advocacy campaign to mobilise life-long learners, the South African Ministry of Education launched the National Adult Learners' Week as an annual event on 1 September 2000 (Centre for adult education, 2006: 19). Award ceremonies are held on International Literacy Day of 8 September each year to honour and applaud the courage and achievements of adult learners and their educators (Centre for adult education, 2006: 19). To improve literacy levels in the country, the South African Ministry of Education has also formed partnerships that include the Bridges to the Future Initiative (BFI), a public-private collaboration that includes the Department oJ Education, Multichoice Africa Foundation, SchoolNet South Africa, University of South Africa and the International Literacy Initiative (Richards, 1999:56). The BFI aims to provide skills for out-of-school youths and adults in Information Communication and Technology and adult education. Initiatives include the development of community learning and technology centres for lifelong learning and income-generation, the development of tools to improve basic education and literacy through educator training in selected nodal areas, and the use of Information Communication and Technology for human 4 development in areas such as health, agriculture, and HIV and AIDS prevention (Bhola, 1997:69). The Ministry of Education in South Africa has also launched the national literacy campaign, Readathon 2005, which aims to encourage South Africans to read. Masifunde Sonke is another project set up by the Ministry of Education to address the challenges of illiteracy and to promote a love of reading (Centre for adult education, 2006:19). The South African Department of Education has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States' Agency for International Development to implement a reading and writing project as part of the Unites States' African Education Initiative Textbooks for a Global Society Programme (Aitchison & Harley, 2006:90). The project is implemented in partnership with Hampton University and has produced educator guides and learner workbooks for teaching writing. The ultimate objective of the programme is the production of reading material, written by the learners themselves in the different eleven official languages of South Africa (Aitchison & Harley, 2006:90). In the light of the assertions made above, it is important that people in South Africa become literate because of the rapid technological changes that occur in the country due to globalization and other social and economic factors as well. Adults in South Africa find that they need specific skills or knowledge and understanding to enable them to fit more easily into the eXisting socio­ economic situation which is affected by both technological changes and globalization. For this reason South Africa needs to concentrate on provision of education and training services that will help in developing, improving and enhancing the literacy and other functional skills of its inhabitants (Department of Education, 1998c:16). The largest part of South Africa is constituted by rural and farm areas which are characterised by poverty, unemployment, lack of proper housing and infrastructure. As alluded to above, many adults, middle-aged and young adults are illiterate because some were excluded from formal education and training in their formative years, whereas others dropped out of school because of familial poverty, death of both parents, parental neglect and others 5 (Aitchison, 2003b:14). It is therefore important that given such situation in the country, ABET centres and relevant formal educational and training programmes should be established and provided for in order to eradicate the problems of illiteracy, poverty and social exclusion (Department of Education, 1997b:8). Since the beginning of the democratic order in the country in 1994, doors have been opened for the illiterate people to take part in ABET programmes. South Africa is undergoing a dramatic change as a society, including the transformation of its education and training for adults. The challenges are formidable (Department of Education, 1997d: 17). There are policies In adult education that are formulated at both National and Provincial Departments of Education. This is an indication that there is an increasing recognition of the problem of education and the potential role of adult education in combating social exclusion of formal uneducated and untrained South Africans in order to effect change (Mackie, 1995:28). However, this provision in adult education seems to be more formalised, moving in the direction of levels that come as packages. These packages contain programmes that are almost highly structured and prescriptive, and often run for a long duration that is pre­ specified. To some extent these packages restrict adult learners to follow certain paths, or even not acquire the necessary skills that will enable them to generate their own income through for instance entrepreneurship (Aitchison, 2003a:123). Learning for adults should be seen as an integral part of wider measures to help reduce social exclusion and to build pathways to inclusion. It may not provide all the solutions to the problems associated with exclusion but is a very important piece of a puzzle. The GECD (1999:20) stresses the fact that in today's knowledge economies and learning societies, it is important for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills in all aspects of modem life. This therefore would mean that learning should open access to economic activities and resources, and for promoting many aspects of social, cultural and personal life. Given the extent and speed of change today, learning is essential just to keep up with the ever changing economy. The renewal of 6 knowledge skills is also a prerequisite for meeting basic needs, for participation in economic activities and more broadly for full and active citizenship. In South Africa, there already exists a number of centres offering ABET programmes. There are Public Adult Learning Centres (PALCs) that provide programmes most of which are a shadow of the formal schooling system in the sense that the curriculum is the same. Besides these, are the Non­ Governmental Organizations and other institutions that offer community oriented adult education programmes (Aitchison, 1998a:46). The Ikhwelo (Zulu for whistle) Project was initiated as a response to providing support in the area of adult education in two elective sub-fields of Agriculture and Small, Medium and Micro-enterprise (SMME). The initial goal of the Ikhwelo Project was to enhance the social and economic capacity of adult learners in the Northern Province, which later became the integration of learning areas; a turning point in adult education. These provisions are some of the strategies that are being implemented in order to fight against illiteracy, which of course is a consequence for social exclusion: exclusion from societal economic gains, from the labour market and others (Lyster, 2006:27). However, it is imperative to note that in South Africa, adult education provision is formalized in such a way that it is contained in levels that form part of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) structure. For example, with the Ikhwelo projects, the end result is that participants should be able to obtain a General Education and Training Certificate (GETC) at the end of the training. In a developing social context, a formal adult education system will typically only be available to, or used by the minority of the adult population (Rakoma, 1999:23). Hence, a high rate of deviancy exists as well as minimal participation in such a system for adult education in South Africa. For adult learners, learning and education represent not only the means to enhance access to knowledge, skills or certification, important though this is, but it should be seen as a direct vehicle for social inclusion. People meet others through learning and develop confidence and new networks. Communities organize themselves through learning activities and therefore creating their 7 own viability. Above all, the adult population needs to break out of the isolated poverty shell and live meaningful lives (Department of Education, 1998e:12). 1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM In spite of all the above educational programmes that South Africa has developed to reduce illiteracy, lack of education and training, education and training problems still exist among the adult population (Aitchison & Harley, 2004:90). The reason could be that some of the programmes offered, do no1 adequately address the humanistic issues that the adult population experience in their world. This research sees ABET as an educational service for redressing the challenges of basic literacy both as a basic human right guaranteed to all persons by the Constitution and as a contributor to social cohesion because the South African national development requires an ever­ increasing level of education and skills throughout society (Lyster, 2006:27). As a human right and as a contributor to social cohesion, ABET can only succeed if Batho-Pele principles are infused in its service. Batho Pele is a South African public service initiative to get public servants to be service orientated, to strive for excellence in service delivery and to commit to continuous service delivery improvement. It allows South African citizens to hold public servants accountable for the level of services they deliver (Batho Pele Handbook - A Service Delivery Improvement Guide) (Department of Public Service, 1998:14). From these two statements it is clear that Batho Pele is not an "add-on" activity, but it is a way of delivering services by putting citizens at the centre of public service planning and operations. This means that Batho-Pele seeks to include all citizens for the achievement of a better­ life-for-all through services and programmes of a democratic nature. Subsequently, it is clear that for Batho Pele to succeed, organizational culture has to be changed to accommodate Batho Pele as a way of life. This means that departments should take stock of their values, as well as behaviours and attitudes of people they serve. Departments would then be able to take necessary steps to prepare public servants for the revitalized Batho Pele 8 Culture of responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness in delivering services to the public. Batho Pele is founded on the notion of ubuntu and communalism. Ubuntu is an African way of life that promotes the common good of society and includes humanness as an essential element of human growth. In African culture the community always comes first (Van Binsbergen, 2001 :60). The individual is born out of and into the community, therefore will always be part of the community. Interdependence, communalism, sensitivity towards others and caring for others are all aspects of ubuntu as a way of life (Louw, 2001 :43). The community and belonging to a community is part of the essence of traditional African human life. Humanness is very important in Batho Pele and Ubuntu way of life in the sense of seeing human needs, interests and dignity as fundamental to human existence. According to Teffo (1999:186), Africans believe that nobody is born with botho or ubuntu and believe that these are communally accepted and desirable ethical standards that a person acquires throughout his/her life. Batho-Pele principles are founded on ubuntu/botho social values such as communalism (collectivism), interdependence (a person is a person through other persons), humanness (warmth, tolerance, understanding, peace, humanity), caring (empathy, sympathy, helpfulness, charity, friendliness), sharing (unconditional giving, re-distribution, open-handedness), respect (commitment, dignity, obedience, order) and compassion (love, cohesion, informality, forgiveness, spontaneity) for community development (Teffo, 1999:186). These social values highlight Batho Pele's communitarian way of life, which places emphasis on the good of the community and respect and care for fellow human beings (Department of Public Service, 1997:13). As a way of life, Batho Pele finds meaning in the expression which recurs across the various abaNguni and baSotho languages in South Africa: umuntu ngumntu ngabanye abantu (lsiNgum)/motho ke motho ka batho ba babang (SeSotho) (a notion or expression of mutuality which means that a person is a person through other persons). This is one of the basic and central tenets of the ethic of ubuntu/botho (Koka, 1996:24). Ramose (1999:14) believes that 9 this notion or expression of mutuality is in the African psyche and helps to diffuse the individual ego and makes Africans less prone to acts which do not contribute to community bUilding. It is this feature or quality of ubuntu that, according to Africans, distinguishes a human person from other creatures. The concept of ubuntu/botho, which is abstract, is thus supported and concretized by some of the components that can be identified in the expression of components such as respect for human beings and the importance of community. The following section will state the objectives under-pinning this research. 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THIS RESEARCH The objectives of this research were to: • investigate the experiences of ABET educators in their teaching and learning centres; • investigate the experiences of ABET adult learners in their teaching and learning centres; and • propose a humanistic programme infused with Batho-Pele principles for use in ABET in South Africa. 1.4 ANDRAGOGY AND UBUNTUGOGY AS THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THIS RESEARCH Over the last four decades, adult education specialists have adopted the term andragogy for the philosophy, principles, and practices that they have found most useful in tackling the special teaming needs and characteristics of adult learning (Teffo, 1997: 361). These specialists have made a distinction between pedagogy, an approach to education allegedly based on assumptions of learner-as-child, and andragogy, an approach to education based on assumptions of learner-as-adult (Prinsloo, 1996a: 112). The andragogical approach, as presented by Van Binsbergen (1999:29). takes into consideration the autonomy of mature adults and their drive to 10 continue the learning process. The learning content of andragogy is determined by the learners in collaboration with their educator or facilitator because of the autonomy, desire to learn, and experience of the former (Broekman, 1999:75). This approach, according to Ntuli (1999:50), calls for solving problems or pursuing interests in the learner's immediate environment. Several implications can be delineated because of the fundamental difference between pedagogy and andragogy. The andragogy educator acts like a facilitator or resource for the learner and also acts as an active learner in the process and encourages integrative learning (Ndaba, 1994:32; Van Kessel, 2001 :54). The specialists' assertions in this paragraph of this research imply that, in andragogy, the learners themselves directly and significantly influence their curriculum based on their interests and needs and the role of the educator becomes that of a facilitator in order to help learners form interest groups and diagnose their learning needs. Andragogy allows learners to manage and direct this collaborative process (Prinsloo, 1995:17). Such assertions are in line with outcomes-based-education and training. According to Swartz and Davies (1997:263), andragogy calls for identifying and solving problems in the present. It looks at the present situation and attempts to define and pursue concrete goals. The nature and outcome of an educational process hinge upon the assumptions that educators hold about the abilities and needs of the learners. This means that andragogy can sensibly be used when educators believe that learners are basically autonomous, self-directed, and motivated to learn (Smit, 1999:44). Battle (1997:42), Landman (2000:32) and Bocken (2001 :28) state that the andragogical approach is useful in areas such as language teaching, professional performance improvement, art education, ideology, cultural studies, learning opportunities, updates on adult learning theory, international business enterprises, library use skills, theory building, academic reading, and social responsibility. However, Battle (1997:36) argues that one of the main problems facing andragogy is that its systematic nature is more of the result of other theoretical deliberations than those of its own. She noted that until the mid-19th century, andragogy founded its development mainly on prevailing 11 communal, social, economic, political and cultural conditions in various countries. Abdulai (2001 :56) added that in the 1950s, andragogy turned increasingly into a science whose goals were directed toward humans and their relationship to the world in which practice is only the result of human's 'spiritual praxis'. Thus, Abdulai, (2001 :56) called for andragogy to now deal with the theoretical organization of its theory, historically perceive its achievements thus far, and become connected with other sciences to accelerate its own development while at the same time striving to acquire its own identity and an internal coherence as a science. Swartz and Davies (1997:263) believe that different individuals still have very different understandings of andragogy, and opine that: • some consider andragogy a pedagogic discipline; • others consider andragogy a relatively autonomous science within the framework of the general sciences of teaching and learning; and • still others consider andragogy a method, skill, theory, or model of adult learning. Andragogy and ubuntugogy will inform the programme of adult based education and training founded on Batho-Pe/e principles which is advocated in this research. As the art and science of learning and teaching that is under­ girded by humanity towards others, ubuntugogy hinges upon the African philosophy and way of life called ubuntu - a word from the South African Nguni language family (Ndebele, Swati/Swazi, Xhosa and Zulu) meaning humanity or fellow feeling; kindness (Mbigi, 1997:63). Ubuntugogy highlights the concept of ubuntu as the spiritual orientation of African societies (Asante, 1990:53). Ubuntu is a unifying vision or world-view enshrined in the maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, that is a person IS a person through other persons. This traditional African aphorism articulates a basic respect and compassion for others. It can be interpreted as both a factual description and a rule of conduct or social ethic. It both describes the human being as 'being­ with-others' and prescribes what that should be (Magubane, 2000:27). This means that ubuntu hinges upon consensus building. Such consensus is 12 expressed by words like simunye ("we are one", "unity is strength") an slogans like "an injury to one is an injury to all" (Clemons, 2001 :48). The desire to agree within the context of ubuntu, safeguards the rights and opinions of individuals and minorities to enforce group solidarity. In essence, ubuntu requires an authentic respect for human/individual rights and related values, and an honest appreciation of differences (Kimmerle, 2001 :30). Ubuntu rests upon dialogue, with its particularity, individuality and historicality. Ubuntu inspires us to expose ourselves to others, to encounter the differences of their humanness in order to inform and enrich our own (Makgoba, 1999:46). Thus understood, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu translates as 'To be human is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing the humanity of others in its infinite variety of content and form' This translation of ubuntu highlights the respect for particularity, individuality and historicality, without which a true African educational paradigm cannot re-emerge (Praeg, 2000:45). In this way, ubuntu dictates that, if human beings are to be human, they need to recognize the genuine otherness of their fellow humans (Ramose, 1999:21). In other words, they need to acknowledge the diversity of languages, histories, values and customs, all of which make up a society. From the above assertions it is clear that ubuntu defines the individual in terms of his or her relationship with others. Accordingly, individuals exist only in their relationships with others; and as these relationships change, so do the characters of the individuals. In this context, the word "individual" signifies a plurality of personalities corresponding to the multiplicity of relationships in which the individual in question stands. Being an individual, by definition, means "being-with-others" (Mcetywa, 1998:28). Ubuntu philosophy is the African preference for co-operation or group work ('work as one', team work) (Swartz & Davies, 1997:265). Subsequently, ubuntugogy would mean creating holistically defined academic curricula for ABET centres that promote participatory research in which the masses of the African people must participate (Kimmerle, 2001 :46). Therefore, as Gue (cited by Lor, 2000:213) pointed out, this should be tackled through a fruitful dialectic between theory and practice, intellectual elaboration 13 and practical experience. It also highlights that the Department of Education can be effective in the implementation of ABET only if it works as a team with learners and educators, as Ubuntu implies being an effective person through others. The government's Batho Pele programme should aim at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of ABET service delivery to the illiterate and unskilled people. The successful implementation of ABET services also depends on the respect for traditional values of learners and educators in an education setting. An environment within which ABET is taking place should be one where education authorities, educators and learners treat one another with trust and integrity. The culture of ubuntu also implies a democratic system of change and implementation, and this means that leadership in the ABET setting should be democratic. Education authorities should also constantly motivate learners and educators in ABET through genuine empowerment and on-going feedback. This researcher believes that ABET will become a success when the concept of ubuntu which underpins batho-pele principles is enhanced and practised in the provision of education and training of illiterate and unskilled adults. 1.5 RESEARCH METHODS USED IN THIS RESEARCH This section presents the research methods used during the proceedings of this research. It includes both the explanations of the literature review and the qualitative empirical research methods which this researcher employed to answer the questions highlighted in section 1.1 of this research and thereby achieve the objectives mentioned in 1.3. 1.5.1 Literature review International and national educational journal articles, books, papers presented at professional conferences, government policy documents, dissertations and theses written by graduate scholars and reports compiled by school researchers, university researchers and government agencies providing information and policies on Batho Pele and ABET will serve as both primary and secondary sources. Journal articles, papers presented at 14 professional conferences, dissertations and theses will form primary sources while books will form secondary sources. 1.5.2 Qualitative empirical research method and design Qualitative empirical research methods focus on phenomena that occur in natural a setting, that is, in the 'real world' and involves studying those phenomena in all their complexity (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005: 133). According to White (2005:80), they deal with empirical research data that are principally verbal. White (2005:81) further posits that qualitative empirical research is more concerned with understanding social phenomena from the lived experiences of the participants. This happens through the researcher's participation in the daily life activities of those involved in the research. Cresswell (2003: 15) is of the opinion that qualitative empirical research is an inquiry process of understanding, based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem. In the process of his/her research, the researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words, reports, detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting. De Vos (2001 :240) sees qualitative empirical research as a multi-perspective approach to social interaction, aimed at describing, making sense of, interpreting or reconstructing this social interaction in terms of the meanings that the participants who form the population sample of the study attach to it. Denzin and Lincoln (2005:143) postulate that qualitative empirical research is multi-method in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. From the foregoing paragraphs in this section it is clear that qualitative empirical research involves the use and collection of a variety of empirical materials such as case studies, personal experiences, introspections, life­ stories, interviews, observations, historical, interaction, and visual texts that 15 describe routine and problematic moments and meaning in individuals' lived experiences. This researcher chose a qualitative empirical research method for this research because it uses an inductive form of reasoning develops concepts, insights and understanding from patterns in the data. It derives meaning from the subject perspective; it is ideographic: aims to understand the meaning that people attach to everyday life; it captures and discovers meaning once the researcher becomes immersed in data; observations are determined by information richness of settings, and types of observations used, are modified to enrich understanding; concepts are in the form of themes, motives and categories; and data are analysed by extracting themes. Such a method seems appropriate in exploring the lived experiences of ABET educators and learners who form the population sample of this research. In exploring the lived experiences of ABET educators and learners who formed the population sample of this research, this researcher conducted a phenomenological qualitative empirical research. The term phenomenology refers to a person's perception of the meaning of an event, as opposed to the event as it exists externally to a person (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005: 139). This study attempted to understand adult learners' and educator's perceptions, perspectives and understanding of ABET provisions in their social settings. 1.5.3 Population sample of this research The population sample of this research comprises all adult educators and learners in ABET centres in the Fezile Dabi education district in the Free State Province. Two types of sampling were used to achieve the objectives of this research, that is purposeful and convenience. Purposeful sampling is composed of elements that contain most characteristics representative or typical of attributes of the population under investigation (White, 2005:120). On the basis of this researcher's (employed as a Deputy Chief Education Specialist for ABET in the Fezile Dabi education district) knowledge of the population which formed the sample of this research, a judgement (this is his tenth year 16 working as Deputy Chief Education Specialist in the said education distriei executing the same job in ABET) was made about which participants should be selected in order to provide the best information to address the objectives of this research. Patton as quoted by McMillan and Schumacher (1997:397) and Leedy and Ormrod (2005:145) describes it as 'selecting-rich cases for study in-depth', or selection of those individuals or research participants that will yield the most information about the topic under investigation. Using his judgement, this researcher selected ten centres located in industrial areas. semi-rural, informal settlements and townships. Focus group interviews were conducted with three groups of adult educators (n=21) and two groups of learners (n=14) from these ABET centres. White (2005:120) indicates that in a convenience or availability sampling, respondents are usually those who are the nearest and most easily available to the researcher. In this study, the researcher happens to be the Deputy Chief Education Specialist, who works with all the centres in the Fezile Dabi education district in the Free State Province. 1.5.4 Empirical research instrument To elicit empirical research data from the participants who formed the sample of this research, an interview question schedule was used (see appendix A). This interview question schedule was used to conduct group interviews. Powell and Single (1996:499) describe a group as a group of individuals selected and assembled by researchers to be interviewed. They can comment on their personal experience regarding the topic that is the focus of the research which in this study, is the experiences of adult learners and educators in the provision of ABET in their centres. White (2005:146) states that focus group interviews involve organised discussions with a selected group of individuals so as to gain information about their views and lived experiences of the topic. This type of interviewing is particularly suitable for obtaining several perspectives about the same topic. Focus group interviews were considered to be an appropriate empirical research data collection method in this research because, time-wise, they are 17 more economical than conducting numerous individual interviews; the group dynamic of such a method is a synergistic factor in bringing out information; participants are able to express their honest feeling more confidently within a support group of peers. Each focus group interview lasted for about an hour and thirty minutes. All interviews were open-ended and semi-structured. In semi-structured interviews the content and procedure are organised in advance, but probing questions are posed (see Addendum B). Schulze (2005:60) indicates that pre­ formulated questions are carefully arranged and put to all interviewees in a fairly similar sequence. 1.6 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS In order to protect the participants' human rights, this researcher employed the following safeguards, as listed by Cresswell (2003: 123): • the research topic and objectives were expressed clearly in order to be well understood by the participants; • each participant's consent was requested to participate in the study; • transcriptions, interpretations and reports were made available to the participants if they wish to see them; • in any decision-making process in the study, the researcher considered the rights and protection of the participants; and • the researcher honoured confidentiality. The participants chose their pseudonym to be used in the texts in order to protect their anonymity (Patton, 2001 :67). 1.7 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH CHAPTERS Chapter one is primarily an orientation chapter preparing the reader for the subsequent chapters. Chapter two presents the literature review on Batho Pele and ABET. 18 Chapter three presents the empirical research design. Chapter four presents the analyses and interpretations of the empirica! research results. Chapter five presents the summary of research findings, conclusions and recommendations of the study. 1.8 CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY This research proposes a Batho Pete based programme infused with ubuntu ideals for ABET and has potential to humanize the provision of ABET. More specifically, a programme founded on Batho Pete encapsulates the following care values: • "the client comes first" - go the extra mile and solve the client's problems; • takes pride in delivering high quality service; • values of development where service providers are passionate about education and training; • integrity is central to all its dealings; • promotes and applies policies that demonstrate respect for its clients, learners, employees and the communities in which it does business; • it builds and affirms long-term social relationships with internal and external clients; and • team work is the norm where people learn with and from each other. 1.9 CONCLUSION This chapter presented an orientation chapter with the aim of preparing the reader for the subsequent chapters. The next chapter presents the literature review on Batho Pete and ABET. 19 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW ON CHALLENGES PRESENTED BY BATHO PELE FOR ABET 2.1 INTRODUCTION When the new South African Government was elected to power in 1994, the majority of people gave it a special mandate to improve the delivery of public services for all the people of the country. Improving the delivery of public services means redressing the imbalances of the past apartheid system of governance, while maintaining continuity of public service to all levels of society (Hamdok & Kifle, 2000:28). Improving service delivery also calls for a shift away from inward-looking, bureaucratic systems, processes and attitudes, and a search for new ways of working which put the needs of the people first. Putting the needs of the people first in this regard implies making their socio-economic life better, continuous of delivering public services faster and being more responsive to the people's needs. Improving public services also means a complete change in the way that services are delivered (Department of Public Service, 2005: 12). In an attempt to introduce a better, faster and responsive public service delivery improvement programme, the South African government prepared the Department of Public Service (1997). This paper involves creating a. framework for the delivery of public services which treats citizens more like customers and enables the citizens to hold public servants to account for the service they receive. The approach is encapsulated in the Batho Pele (a Sesotho name which has been adopted for the public service delivery system that takes the interests of people first in its approach). In the context of section 1.1 of this research, the challenge faced by the Sout African government concerning providing basic education to illiterate South Africans is to expand access to general ABET in order to enable Black adults who have had no formal schooling at all, or only the barest minimum, to acquire basic education and training skills (Aitchison, 2003b:74). To this end 20 the Constitution of South Africa (108/ 1996), Section 1, stipulates that every citizen has the right to basic education and adult education. As also highlighted in section 1.1 of this research, in South Africa, as in most developing countries, there are large numbers of people who have not had any formal basic education. Many people, particularly Blacks, have not had any schooling whatsoever. This has been the case historically and current statistics show it to be the same at present. According to the population census undertaken in October 2001 (Statistics South Africa, 2005:43), some eighteen per cent of the population aged twenty years and more have had no formal basic education at all. About sixteen per cent of the people have had some primary education (full or partial), about thirty-one per cent have had some secondary education, and twenty per cent completed grade twelve. Only eight per cent had some form of post­ matriculation (higher) education. According to these figures, thirty-four per cent of the country's estimated forty-four million people are functionally illiterate, that is, they have some basic reading and writing skills, but cannot function efficiently in a job which requires the ability to read and write. Even among those who are functionally literate, a high percentage have dropped out of school before receiving a basic educational grounding which would equip them to function effectively in the labour market (Aitchison, 2000:22). This next section presents the literature review on the eight Batho Pele principles and ABET. 2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW ON BATHO PELE As stated in section 1.1 of this research, Batho Pele, a Sotho translation for 'putting people first', is an initiative to get public servants to be service­ orientated, to strive for excellence in service delivery and to commit to continuous service delivery improvement. It is a simple and transparent mechanism which allows citizens to hold public servants accountable for the level of services they deliver (Hamdok & Kifle, 2000:12). According to Clapper (1999:379), Batho Pele is not an "add-on" activity. It is a way of delivering social services by putting citizens at the centre of public 21 service planning and operations. It is a major departure from a dispensation which excludes the majority of South Africans from government machinery, to the one that seeks to include all citizens for the achievement of a better-life­ for-all through social services, products, and programmes of a democratic dispensation (Cockcroft, Anderson, Omer, Ansari, Khan & Chaudhry, 2002:13). To promote this notion of putting people first and to provide a framework for the transformation of public service delivery, the South African government introduced the concept of Batho Pele 'people first' in 1997 (Presidential Review Commission, 1998:2). This notion was expanded in the White Paper on transforming the public service, also known as the Batho Pele White Paper, which provides a policy framework to ensure that Batho Pele is woven into the very fabric of government (Department of Public Service, 1998). Simply stated, Batho Pele is an initiative to get public servants to be service­ orientated, to strive for excellence in service delivery improvement. It is a simple, transparent mechanism, which allows customers to hold public servants accountable for the type of services they deliver (Andersson, Merhi, Ngxowa, Myburg & Salcedo, 2001 :5). The Batho Pele notion can best be discussed by sub-dividing it into the Batho Pele belief set, Batho Pele principles, Batho Pele's roots and its accentuation of the citizen as customer. 2.2.1 The Batho Pele Belief Set Lynch (1999:84) argues that in order for the revitalization of Batho Pele to succeed, organizational culture has to be changed in order to accommodate Batho Pele as a way of life. This means that departments should take stock of their values as well as behaviours and attitudes of employees. Departments would in this regard be able to take the necessary steps to prepare public servants for the revitalized Batho Pele Culture of responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness in delivering services to the public (Department of Public Service, 1998:3). 22 The New Belief Set namely "we belong, we care, we serve" clearly captures the revitalized Batho Pele culture. The Belief Set is intended to endorse the eight Batho Pele Principles (Hamdock & Kifle, 2000:14). Campbell (cited in Chapman, 2000: 185) maintains that a Belief Set is a value system which serves as a relatively permanent ideal that should influence and shape the general nature of public servants' behaviour. For it to have maximal impact, a Belief Set should be an integral part of any service delivery operations, strategic planning and implementation strategy of all programmes and not merely an "add-on". The notions of belonging, caring and as stated in the latter paragraph highlight the basis of ubuntu as stated in section 1.4 of this research as foundational to Batho-Pele concept. These notions are briefly discussed in the next section. 2.2.1.1 The notion of belonging According to Richards (1999:135), public servants are social beings whose needs should be recognised and fulfilled. This recognition of needs will instill a sense of belonging to the public service family. People belong, because they are recognized and rewarded for living. Citizens who feel satisfied, will certainly develop a spirit of patriotism towards the country and will also feel a sense of belonging. In practical terms, this part of the belief set underscores the importance of the human resources function (Mencius, cited in Singer, 1994:28). It is the public servants' responsibility to ensure that practices, processes, systems such as conditions of service, rewards and recognition, as well as training and development, among others, foster a sense of belonging among public servants (Shutte, 1998:2). Furthermore, this Belief Set according to Sadar cited, in Clapper (1999:149) is also about: • encouraging a spirit, culture and practice of collaboration, teamwork and collegiality among all public servants, thereby fostering effective intergovernmental relations; • building a learning Public Service; and 23 • fostering partnerships with the recipients and beneficiaries of public services, thus ensuring that the public service is responsive to people's needs in line with the notion of "Putting People First". 2.2.1.2 The notion of caring Public servants should be courteous when providing services to the public by listening to their problems, apologising when necessary, and serving people with a smile. Public servants care because they are devoted to doing a job to the end, ensuring that they deliver beyond customer expectations. They are expected to respect all citizens irrespective of background, gender, colour or creed (Schacter, 2002:8). 2.2.1.3 The notion of serving In order to have a sense of service, the public service is expected to develop service standards, provide information, seek service delivery solutions and go beyond the call of duty (Department of Public Service, 1997:6). Public Servants world-class integrated service delivery. According to Schacter (2002:11), this could be achieved by: • anticipating customer needs through the introduction of regular customer surveys on the type of services citizens would want to receive; • offering integrated service delivery through institutions like MPCCs and other innovative forms of service delivery in communities; and • going beyond the call of duty, even under difficult circumstances where there are limited resources. serve by delivering quality services and making citizens look forward to receiving 2.2.2 Batho Pele principles Eight Batho Pele principles were developed to serve as acceptable policy and legislative framework regarding service delivery in the public service. These principles aim to promote and maintain high standards of professional ethics in the public service; provision of public service by public servants in an 24 impartial, fair, equitable and without bias manner; encourage public servants' utilization of public resources in an efficient and effective manner; respond faster to people's needs; encourage citizens of South Africa to participate in policy-making; and render an accountable, transparent, and development­ oriented public administration to the South African citizens (Department of Public Service, 1998:5). The Batho Pele principles are subsequently discussed below. 2.2.2.1 Consultation This principle of Batho PeJe posits that citizens should be consulted about the level and quality of the public services they receive (Cockcroft et al., 2000: 13). There are many ways to consult users of services, including conducting customer surveys, interviews with individual users, consultation with groups, and holding meetings with consumer representative bodies, NGOs and CBOs. Often, more than one method of consultation will be necessary in order to ensure comprehensiveness and representativeness (Henriques, 2001 :24). 2.2.2.2 Setting service standards This principle of Batho Pele reinforces the need for benchmarks to constantly measure the extent to which citizens are satisfied with the service or products they receive from departments. It also plays a critical role in the development of service delivery improvement plans so as to ensure a better life for all South Africans. Citizens should be involved in the development of service standards (Van Hensbroek, 2001 :16). Hamdock and Kifle (2000:88) maintain that standards that are precise and measurable are required so that users can judge for themselves whether or not they are receiving what was promised and to achieve the goal of making South Africa globally competitive, standards should be benchmarked (where applicable) against those used internationally, taking into account South Africa's current level of development. 25 2.2.2.3 Increasing access This principle of Batho Pele posits that all citizens should have equal access to the service to which they are entitled (Schacter, 2002:19). One of the prime aims of Batho Pele, is to provide a framework for making decisions about delivering public services to the many South Africans who do not have access to them. Batho Pele also aims to rectify the inequalities in the distribution of eXisting services (Cockcroft et al., 2002:9). Access to information and services empowers citizens and creates value for money, and quality services and reduces unnecessary expenditure for the citizens (Hondeghem, 1998:28). 2.2.2.4 Ensuring courtesy This principle of Batho Pele posits that citizens should be treated with courtesy and consideration. This goes beyond a polite smile, 'please' and 'thank you'. It requires service providers to empathize with the citizens and treat them with as much consideration and respect, as they would like for themselves (Owen & Swift, 2001 :38). The public service is committed to continuous, honest and transparent communication with the citizens. This involves communication of services, products, information and problems, which may hamper or delay the efficient delivery of services to promised standards. If applied properly, the principle will help demystify the negative perceptions that the citizens in general have about the attitude of the public servants (Cockcroft et al., 2002:63). 2.2.2.5 Providing information This principle of Batho Pele posits that, as a requirement, available information about services should be at the point of delivery, but for users who are far from the point of delivery, other arrangements will be needed. In line with the definition of a customer in this document, managers and employees should regularly seek to make information about the organisation, and all 26 other service delivery- related matters, available to fellow staff members (Hamdok & Kifle, 2000:46). 2.2.2.6 Openness and transparacy This principle of Batho Pele posits that a key aspect of openness and transparency is that the public should know more about the way national, provincial and local government institutions operate, how well they utilize the resources they consume, and who is in charge. It is anticipated, that the public will take advantage of this principle and make suggestions for improvement of service delivery mechanisms, and to even make government employees accountable and responsible by raising queries with them (Charlton & Andras, 2002:33). 2.2.2.7 Redress This principle of Batho Pele posits that if the promised standard of service is not delivered by the public service, citizens should be offered an apology (Van Hansbroek, 1999:37). A full explanation and a speedy and effective remedy are thus necessary. This principle emphasises a need to identify quickly and accurately when services are falling below the promised standard and to have procedures in place to remedy the situation. This should be done at the individual transactional level with the public, as well as at the organisational level, in relation to the entire service delivery programme (Schacter, 2002:28). Public servants are encouraged to welcome complaints as an opportunity to improve service, and to deal with complaints so that weaknesses can be remedied quickly for the good of the citizen (Henriques, 2001 :63). 2.2.2.8 Value for money The Department of Public Service (1997) aims at treating citizens as customers, which implies listening to their views and taking them into consideration. Many improvements that the public would like to see, often require no additional resources and can sometimes even reduce costs. Failure to give a member of the public a simple, satisfactory explanation to an 27 enquiry, may for example, result in an incorrectly completed application form, which will cost time to rectify. 2.2.3 Batho Pele and its roots Batho Pe/e has its roots in a series of policies and legislative frameworks. These policies and legislative frameworks have been categorised into three themes which are those that are overarching or transversal, those that deal with access to information and those that deal with transformation of service delivery. Examples of the overarching/transversal legislative frameworks are the following: • The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996 (108/1996). Section 32 of the Constitution provides for the universal right of access to information held by the State to facilitate the exercise or protection of any right by citizens such as the right to access public services in an equitable, convenient and cost-effective manner. • The White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service of 1995 (WPTPS). • Public Service Regulations of 1999 and 2001. These three legislative frameworks seek to transform a culture of public service delivery from prescribing service packages to citizens, to putting citizens at the centre of service delivery. Accordingly, all government departments both national and provincial, are compelled to align their service delivery mandates and service delivery improvement plans with the overall service delivery priorities of the government, based on the needs of the citizens (Department of Education, 1998b:18). The legislative frameworks call for the setting up of service standards, defining outputs and targets, and benchmarking performance indicators against international standards. Similarly, they also call for the introduction of 28 monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and structures to measure progress on a continuous basis (Department of Education, 1998b:6). Other requirements include the following, which are (Department of Public Service, 1997:21): • the alignment of staffing plans, human resources development processes and organisational capacity building with the needs of citizens; • the development of financial plans that link budgets directly to service needs and personnel plans; • identifying and entering into partnership agreements with the private sector, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Community-Based Organisations (CBOs), which will provide more effective forms of service delivery; and • the development, particularly through training, of a culture of customer care and sensitivity towards the diversity of citizens in terms of race, gender and disability The legislative frameworks deal with access to information and are intended to give effect to the constitutional right of the citizen to have access to any information held by the State and binds government institutions to have information available and regularly updated in order to meet the changing needs of the citizens'. They include: • Open Democracy Act of 2000 • Promotion of Access to Information Act of 2000 • Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill of 2002 • e-Government Strategy of 2001 . These legislative prescripts promote the harnessing of innovative information technology-based solutions so as to make service, as well as information on services within and across government departments, more accessible in an 29 integrated manner, particularly to people in under-serviced areas (Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill, 2002). These include e-government services, electronic communications and transactions with public/private bodies, institutions and citizens and development of electronic transactions services, which are responsive to the needs of citizens and consumers. These legislative prescripts aim to transform public service delivery, provide for the progressive increase of access to public services and promote efficient administration and good governance in the public sector. They include the following pieces of legislation, which are: • White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery of 1997; • Promotion of Administration Justice Act (AJA) of 2000; and • Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) of 1999. These legislative prescripts also cover the creation of a culture of accountability, openness and transparency in public administration. The AJA prescribes, that in order to give effect to the right to procedurally fair administrative action, the public should be consulted. It also emphasizes the citizens' rights to redress (AJA, 2000:4). The PFMA emphasises accountability in public administration and advocates value for money in the procurement of goods and services within the public service. In this regard, the Act prohibits fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised use of public funds (PFMA, 1999). 2.2.4 The citizen as customer This concept is integral to the whole notion of Batho Pe/e and each of the eight principles reinforces and encourages the perception of the end-users of public services as customers, rather than simply as citizens. In the private sector one often hears the phrase, 'The customer is king" and although some might regard this as a bit of an outworn slogan, it nevertheless remains the watchword of most successful commercial organisations that operate in competitive environments (Andersson et a/., 2001: 11). Private companies, 30 even the most successful ones, cannot afford to ignore the needs and wishes of their customers if they want to stay in business, because dissatisfied customers can easily take their business elsewhere. Knowing what the customer wants and being able to provide it quicker, better and more cost effectively than the competition, is essential to business success. The fundamental principle of "putting the customer first" holds as true today as it ever did and this is precisely what Batho Pele advocates, namely, "put the people first" (Chapman, 2000:36). However some people might argue, that citizens are the reason why the public service exits, as "customers" cannot choose to take their business elsewhere. For example, a person who needs a passport, has no alternative but to apply to the Department of Home Affairs. Furthermore, it is claimed, many public services are not paid for directly by the "customer" and thus provincial and national departments that fail to satisfy their "customers", will not go out of business (Richards, 1999:29). Moreover, it is sometimes argued, certain public services, such as the Receiver of Revenue and the Police Service are regulatory functions rather than service providers. They are accepted by citizens as essential for the maintenance of a safe and civilised society in which all have equal opportunity for social and economic development. Thus the concept of the citizen as "customer" may seem somewhat inappropriate (Van Hensbroek, 1999:31). In every instance public services impact the lives of people and this being the case, these people, rather than the public service, are the custodians of service delivery (Schacter, 2002:47). Their circumstances and needs determine the nature and quality of all public services. Without them, there can be no public service. They are the raison d'etre of the public service and as such, they are "king" or "queen" as the case may be. People should never lose sight of the fact that these "customers" have the right and the might to vote government out of power, if they are not happy with the services they receive (Andersson et al., 2001 :18). To treat citizens as "customers" implies: 31 • listening to and taking account of their views and paying heed to their needs when deciding what services should be provided (consultation); • ensuring that they are able to access the services provided easily and comfortably (access); • treating them with consideration and respect (courtesy); • making sure that the promised level and quality of services are always of the highest possible standard (setting standards); • providing them with good information on the services available to them (information); • allowing them to ask questions and responding to their queries honestly and frankly (openness and transparency); • responding swiftly and sympathetically when standards of service fall below the promised level (redress); and • adding value to their lives (value for money) (Hondeghem, 1998:12; Department of Public Service, 1997:6). From the above exposition, it seems evident, that treating the citizen as a customer and treating the customer as 'king', is synonymous with "putting people first" or Batho Pele. This is also true with providing adult education for adult learners and their educators. 2.3 LITERATURE REVIEW ON ABET Section 2.2 above conceptualized on Batho Pele. This section presents literature review on ABET, which in this research is defined as education and training provision for people aged fifteen years and over who are not engaged in formal schooling or higher education and who have an education level of less than grade nine. 32 2.3.1 The "adult educator" and adult basic education In South Africa the trend has been to offer ABET programmes across various ministries and sectors. To this extent the Department of Education (DoE) is not seen as the sole domain of ABET. Educators are trained to focus on development needs making them suitable for work in literacy/basic education across various sectors such as agriculture water food sustainability Health and HIV nutrition - a trend that is common in the other countries discussed in this report (Aitchison, 1996b:85). Since the introduction of the Unit Standards for adult education, adult basic educators are employed across a variety fields and sectors such as literacy, agriculture extension workers, trainers for water and sanitation, trainers in health, nutrition, HIV/ AIDS, and family planning, environmental educators, job skills trainers, trade unionists, worker educators, adult educators who teach in state programs, agricultural extension workers, youth workers, community organizers and material developers (Bhola, 1997:74). In addition, adult educators have found career advancement into policy positions in government. The introduction of unit standards and the fact that learners may accumulate unit standards has contributed to improvements in the field of adult education by ensuring that sufficient numbers of grassroots teachers are adequately trained - it is now up to the field to ensure that only trained teachers are used (Rakoma, 1999:37; French, 1997:16). The South African literature on ABET is largely a product of the late eighties and nineties and came into being within the literacy eddy that was part of the surge towards democratisation during this period. It was a time characterized by action and organisation building rather than reflection. The quantity of publications is accordingly limited. This literature can, for convenience, be divided into three major categories, namely policy, practice and research: • The literature on policy is largely the actual policy documents themselves. Few of the actual policy documents (except for those from the National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) of 1992/93) have been formally 33 published. There is also some grey literature, usually photocopied working papers written by policy task team members (as in the cases of the NEPI and Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD) ABET groups). There is even less published about the policy documents. Exceptions are Harley et aI's substantial A survey of adult basic education in South Africa in the 90s (1996) and some journal articles and papers in conference proceedings (Aitchison, 1996a, 1996b; Bhola, 1997). • If anything, the literature on educational practice is even more limited, some teachers' guides to courses, a book developed by a consortium of university adult education departments, Adult basic education in South Africa: literacy, English as a second language, and numeracy (Hutton, 1992), and some conference papers. The start of a new ABET Journal in mid-1997 may lead to greater visibility for reports on practice (Centre for Adult Education, 2005:24). • Research literature is also very limited, though there are three notable publications, namely: o Edward French's The promotion of literacy in South Africa: a multifaceted survey at the start of the eighties, published by the Human Sciences Research Council in 1982; o two products of research grants from the Joint Education Trust, the aforementioned Harley et al A survey of adult basic education in South Africa in the 90s, an empirical study; and o Prinsloo and Breier's The social uses of literacy: theory and practice in contemporary South Africa, a set of ethnographic studies (ERA Initiative, 1998:13). Much ABET research has either been policy or curriculum policy related or taken the form of evaluation reports (which are usually private documents for donor agencies). There has, also, been considerable output of research documents from the Education, Training and Development Practices project of 34 the Nationall: Training Board, though of course only a portion of this has been directly related to ABET (Malale, 1996:35). Genuine intellectual debates are extremely rare, partly because of the strong consensus that developed post 1990 about what an ABET system should be like and the uncritical acceptance of outcomes based education as a panacea. Such research debates as these have tended to be about policy and policy implementation strategies rather than ideological or educational issues, though there is the rare exception (Bhola, 1997:78). 2.3.2 Adult teacher training Adult educators in South Africa are required to be trained for a minimum of one year (or 120 notional hours) to gain an entry qualification into the field or to add to/supplement their existing qualification in order that they might become educators of adults. While the task of training these educators has seemed to fall on the tertiary institutions, the ABET Institute of the University of South Africa (UNISA) has taken on most of this responsibility (Aitchison & Houghton, 1999:46). The adult educator is required to assume a variety of complex roles and functions pertaining to education, training and development. The following tasks and responsibilities give some indication of the skills educators needed and the outcomes of the various practitioner courses: • plan a learning event; • facilitate an adult learning event; • assess learners within a learning situation; • fulfill administrative requirements of a learning group; • evaluate own facilitation performance; • help learners with language and literacy across the curriculum; • identify and respond to learners who have special needs; 35 • facilitate mother tongue literacy; • facilitate an additional language; • facilitate numeracy; • design, organize and facilitate a program of learning; • evaluate, select and adapt published learning materials; • develop, use and evaluate own supplementary learning aids; • design, implement and follow-up on internal assessment; • conduct research relevant to the learning situation; • mediate language, literacy and math across the curriculum; • identify and respond to learners with special needs and barriers to learning; • promote lifelong learning; • facilitate communication and mathematics; • undertake a leadership role in an ABET division of an organization; • supervise the work of other ABET practitioners; • apply extended skills around research, evaluation, quality assurance, and community development; • facilitate the content of a specific subject; and • offer specialist input on particular aspects of ABET provision (Bhola, 1997:73; Rakoma, 1999:56; Aitchison, 2003c:50; Libert, 2004:96) . In addition to these tasks, practitioners may specialize in a range of electives (depending on their teaching contexts) ranging from facilitating craftwork to workplace and occupational programs and small- and micro-enterprises. For a 36 practitioner to assume the above functions, training has to be well conceptualized so as to enable educators to operate across different social contexts (such as health, environment, the workplace, and water management) and in different types of settlements (urban, rural, formal, and informal) (Centre for Adult Education, 2006:24). This approach promotes key socioeconomic benefits, especially for the most marginalized and disadvantaged communities, which are the primary target group of all ABET programs. Training ABET practitioners in basic and generic skills allows them to work in a variety of specialized areas, including literacy, numeracy, primary health care and HIV/AIDS, English as a second language, small business development, and environmental education (Hepp & Laval, 2004:336). 2.3.3 The use of untrained educators South Africa has, since 1995, provided a one-year entry level training program for grassroots facilitators who work "on the ground". The training of more than 50 000 of these ETD practitioners has made it possible to ensure capacity where it is needed. In Namibia, it is the exception that untrained promoters are used (even on the National Literacy Programme). However, this training is normally a three-week course, followed by in-service training (via District Learning Officer support) (Aitchison, 2001 :17). Although in South Africa the use of "untrained" educators still exists, especially in remote sites, many adult learning centers are still using "unqualified" educators in the sense that they employ "school educators" who have not obtained the basic certificate required to enable them to teach in an adult centre. This notion is dubbed as "double parking" since they draw a "day" and a "night" salary from government. The problem, however, lies more in the ability and commitment of educators and not in the fact that they draw a double salary. While many of these educators are inherently good and have the necessary subject knowledge, many do not have the rudiments of working with adults as opposed to children, and treat them as if they were children (ERA Initiative, 1998:26). 37 2.3.4 Conditions of service of adult educators Unlike school educators, the managers/principals of Adult Education centers in South Africa are at a disadvantage because they do not have the benefits of compulsory education. As indicated by Lyster (2006:30) - they have to go out to try and find learners for their centers (to keep them running). This is unlike managers from other education institutions. Also, educators at the centers according to Aitchison (2001 :18) often have to do a lot of extra work over and above the six hours to which they are paid. They work full-time, but because of budgetary problems they do not get paid for this. According to him, they are thus "doing a lot of extra work in the center for nothing". Hepp and Laval (2004:337) point out that adult educators do not have proper conditions of service and nor are they given (sufficient) support materials (for their teaching). So they are under a lot of strain. The extent to which adult educators are organized has had a negative impact on the profession. In South Africa, adult educators may belong to any union such as SADTU or NAPTOSA, but they are not organized as a specific group; hence their "sectoral substantive needs" are not catered for in South Africa. Various attempts by small organizations have been made to provide some sectoral support for adult educators, but in the absence of legislative recognition, these do not constitute more than small noises in the corridors of power. In order for adult educators to attain some voice, they would need to be more visible and vocal in the statutory trade unions (OEeD, 1999:20). 2.3.5 Roles and functions of adult educators In line with the unit standards, educators in South Africa should (after successfully completing an ABET practitioner course) demonstrate for instance that they can undertake policy analysis, engage in policy debates, utilize a range of teaching/facilitation methods, utilize a range of assessment methods, identify and remediate learning difficulties, develop teaching material, evaluate teaching material; profile learners, profile communities, identify target groupings, adapt teaching and learning situations to target group's needs, improve knowledge in selected area of learning, demonstrate 38 communicative skills, demonstrate assessment skills, relate teaching to social context; identify area of research, design research approach, compile research reports, utilize a variety of qualitative, quantitative, and participatory research methods, contribute to the development of a common, shared vision for ABET across sectors, understand the situation within each district and its importance in terms of ABET, understand the usefulness of community profiles, know how to assess and prioritize needs and do a community profile, know how to collect information on relevant structures, organizations, institutions and other possible partners in an area and identify key roles that managerial staff may need to play, such as collaborative management, teamwork facilitation, counseling, monitoring and strategizing (Tight, 1996:44; French, 1997:15; Aitchison, 1998b:30; Aitchison & Harley, 2004:43). Given the interdisciplinary and inter-Ministerial nature of their work, educators need to be well equipped to deal with issues such as how to network and build partnerships with other stakeholders and institutions, how to form linkages between ABET and other developmental objectives and needs and how to ensure stakeholder participation and people-centered development (Mabasa & Rampedi, 2000:23). 2.3.6 The history of ABET in South Africa It is important to highlight some lessons learned and some never learned during the processes of developing an efficient and effective system of ABET in South Africa. The sub-sections below, evaluate the past decades of literacy and ABET work in South Africa. In reading these sub-sections, it is clear that significant lessons have been learned by the protagonists and advocates of the ABET field. There has been enormous intellectual and other effort devoted to getting policy and, to some extent, methodology and materials right. In this, South Africa has developed substantial expertise. Advocates for literacy have learned a keen appreciation of the need to gain the support of the real powers in society if their often ambitious plans are to come to fruition. The lessons that have not been learned are that knowledge and commitment are not enough. The literacy educators have been curiously 39 inept and naive in their attempts to gain footholds in the corridors of power. They seem always to have underestimated the fragility of their organizations and support bases and financial support. These lessons will have to be learned very soon for a viable ABET enterprise to continue with any strength in a rapidly changing society (Vella, 1994:24; Aitchson, 1998a:38; Preece & Ntseane, 2004:20). The literacy and then the ABET fields have been very closely associated with the social and political transformation of South Africa. It is likely, dependent as any enhancement of ABET provision is on social and political Will, that its successes and sometimes immense defeats will continue to reflect the South African struggle to be a more democratic and enlightened society in its encapsulation of Ubuntu/botho way of life and Batho-Pele principles in ABET programme (Department of Education, 1998b:11). The sub-sections that follow present the history of ABET in South Africa. 2.3.6.1 Before ABET - literacy struggles prior to the Nineties The lack of a substantial literature on literacy or ABET is one of the side effects of the fact that adult literacy work, like many other things, went through a dark age during the apartheid era. For much of this period, teaching literacy to black people (who made up the bulk of the illiterate population) was illegal in terms of the Bantu Education Act of 1954 (unless it was in an officially approved registered night school) (Aitchison, 2001 :18). However, in the late sixties and early seventies, the conservative Bureau for Literacy and Literature was allowed to do some work in the gold mines and produced good, jf somewhat unexciting materials. The more religiously orientated Operation Upgrade worked within community groups such as churches and made concordats with the government department that dealt with education for blacks, used a debatable methodology and portrayed itself as a weapon against communism and poverty (Bhola, 1997:78). In the early seventies, small university groups inspired by their illegal copies of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed tried out radical literacy work on a very small group or one to one basis without any major impact on South 40 Africa's literacy statistics (it is doubtful that more than a couple of thousand people were reached). However, the Freirjan process of conscientisation they advocated began to inform the practice of the internal anti-apartheid movement with enormous consequences, first in the radical University Christian Movement and the Black Consciousness Movement in the Seventies and, in the Eighties, in the independent black trade union movement and the United Democratic Front (ERA Initiative, 1998:47). It was precisely within the political ferment after Soweto 1976 and the revival of strong anti-apartheid resistance in the Eighties that a literacy movement revived and the small politically committed non-governmental educational organisation came into its own. Learn and Teach, USWE and others combined a modified Freirian method with service to trade unions and United Democratic Front groups (Lyster, 2006:27). Their methods and materials were often of extremely high quality, though their organisational structures ofte limited their size and their offers of direct literacy service to the Democratic Movement and were only infrequently taken up. The late Eighties also showed some ventures in literacy and ABET work by the few universities with adult education and training departments (Aitchison & Harley, 2006:99). The interaction between the more radical of these departments and the Non­ Governmental Organization literacy sector was important and often intense. The university connection played a particularly important role in the reconceptualisation of literacy as ABET, particularly as the possibility of a post-apartheid society became realisable. Meanwhile larger literacy and adult basic education providers such as the Pretoria based ProUt arose and by the end of the Eighties there were uneasy moves towards co-operation between the politically correct Non-Governmental Organizations (networked in the National Literacy Co-operation (NLC) formed in 1986) and the others such as Operation Upgrade and ProUt (Aitchson et aI., 2000:34) 41 2.3.6.2 The policy generators - ABET policy development from 1990 to 1994 The year 1990 was, apart from momentous political developments and hideous political violence created by the apartheid state's on-going destabilisation strategies, International Literacy Year (Mabasa & Rampedi, 2000:36). Much to everybody's surprise it took off and suddenly the trades unionists, politicians and librarians had literacy on their agenda. The drawback was that the newly aroused expectations were not matched by any great capacity to deliver (Hamilton, 1997:49). In the first four years of the nineties there was considerable expansion of co­ operation among Non-Governmental Organizations - the National Literacy Co­ operation broadened to include virtually any non-governmental organizatio that wished to join (including a new look Operation Upgrade and a ProLit which had turned into a delivery agent of some size), though there was a political split with the formation of the South African Association for Literacy and Adult Education (SAALAE) in April 1992 which espoused a more Black Consciousness and Africanist line (Aitchison, 1996a:35). There was also considerable activity among commercial providers serving industry who had seen the need for a better-educated workforce and were also under pressure from the unions to provide ABET. However much of this period was, as in the political sphere, of a transitional nature, with many people and organisations waiting for "something" or "the real thing" to happen (which was usuaUy identified as being related to a new government putting literacy and ABET high up on the agenda) (Aitchison, 2003b:38). The four years also saw talk about literacy overwhelmed by the new discourse about ABET. Both literacy and ABET are difficult to define, particularly with the former - given new academic interest in the ideological ramifications of literacy. However, if one takes a common-sense view that literacy is about being able to read, write and count, then ABET is also about what one reads, writes and makes sums of, and this enables one to be classified as having had a basic education and training (more of less equivalent to primary or the compulsory period of education in schools) and in principle certificatable even 42 if gained non-formally. Clearly ABET is much more formal than "literacy" and more amenable to being curriculated and presented in classroom courses through some kind of system (Foley, 1999:28) The National Education Policy Investigation, set up by the anti-apartheid National Education Co-ordinating Committee in 1992, produced two reports that deal directly with literacy and ABET issues, and another which touched on it (Human Resources Development) (Bhola, 1997:80). The massive Congress of South African Trade Unions was an influential presence within the National Education Policy Investigation and was wedded to the idea of some kind of general education ABET being provided to workers parallel to a more rational and generic form of skills training. Both these issues were strongly present in reports from a National Training Board investigation into a new system of industrial training for South Africa (ERA Initiative, 1998:52). The Congress of South African Trade Unions then set up its own policy research process, the Participatory Research Project that argued for a close integration of ABET in a modularised system backed by new certification authorities and mechanisms for articulation in every conceivable direction (Hamilton, 1997:53). Also in 1992, the Joint Education Trust (a large new South African Trust with representatives from the business sector, political movements and unions) commissioned a report on ABET which recommended that in the interim the Trust should continue to support Non­ Governmental Organization initiatives (some of which were experiencing funding difficulties as donors prematurely pulled back from the anti-apartheid education enterprise) and encourage research into ABET and promote the development of regional support agencies for ABET (Mabasa & Rampedi, 2000:36). Arising out of the report's recommendations, two major JET funded research projects were set in motion in 1994. Researchers led the one, into the social uses of literacy from the Universities of Cape Town and the Western Cape. The other, into ABET capacity building in the country as a whole, was conducted by researchers at the University of Natal's Centres for Adult Education and Training (Richards, 1999:65). The results of both studies were 43 published in 1996. At the same time the Independent Development Trust which had been set up by government, apparently had budgeted about R90 million for literacy and ABET but reneged on this commitment (after they had commissioned the University of Cape Town to prepare a study on ABET). The Independent Development Trust continued to support tertiary education academic development schemes rather distant from its original rhetoric of supporting the "poorest of the poor" (Department of Education, 1997a:36). The National Education Policy Investigation reports were deliberately general in nature, providing only the broadest "policy options" and definitely no recommendations or implementation plans. In 1993 the Centre for Education Policy Development was set up to serve the democratic movement. It had a number of working groups including one on ABET. In 1994 the Centre for Education Policy Development was commissioned by the African National Congress to prepare an Implementation Plan for Education and Training (Aitchison, 1996b:87). Another body that had some influence on ABET policy was the South African Committee on ABET which represented a wide field of political, trade union, academic and community based organisation interests. Its founding (and only) conference was held in November 1993. Whilst potentially a powerful forum backing the interests of illiterates and adult learners, it remained under resourced. Halting attempts were made in 1994 to organize provincial sections of South African Committee on ABET after which time the body was to all intents and purposes defunct (Bhola, 1997:81). In retrospect this period was enormously productive given relatively limited resources and a total lack of previous experience in policy making. The sudden energy around formulating ABET policy, which started in the early 1990s, was clearly a response to the political changes that lead to the first democratic elections in April 1994 (ERA Initiative, 1998:63). The prospect of a new democratic government created a climate in which the development of policy by its supporters was a burning issue. The main assumption underlying much of ABET policy work at this stage was that the government-to-be would take ABET far more seriously and would be far more involved in ABET 44 provision. Part of this policy process therefore was that those previously marginalized from policy decision-making processes moved to centre-stage and their policy proposals now carried considerable weight (Aitchison, 1998b:37). There are seven key documents produced during this period to consider. These are discussed in the sections that follow: (a) The National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) report of 1992 on Adult Basic Education (and also the reports on Adult Education (1993) and Human Resource Development (1992) The National Education Policy Investigation reports were deliberately general in nature, providing only the broadest "policy options" and definitely no implementation plans. However, the reports do indicate what the authors considered to be the key resources needed for the development of ABET, namely: • a strong (indeed possibly separate and independent) adult education department; • a national qualifications framework; • a national certification system; • a national curriculum; • state training of ABET teachers; • structures and courses for teacher training; • a compulsory ABET component in school teacher training; • a national stakeholders forum; • an interim (non-governmental organization) funding body; • mechanism to get money from several government ministries; 45 • a larger proportion of the national education budget for the ABET report suggested five per cent of the national education budget plus corporate sector funding should make up the sum of one billion rands); • research capacity for system design; • research capacity for curriculum development; • regional research capacity; and • an enhanced state night school system (Baaijies, 2003:179) (b) The Joint Education Trust's 1992 commissioned report Adult Basic Education: focus on a priority field for funding The Joint Education Trust's 1992 commissioned report Adult Basic Education focus on a priority field for funding saw the need for: • interim funding before new state funding kicks in; • regional support agencies; • human resource development; and • materials development (Joint Education Trust, 1998:12). (c) The Independent Development Trust's 1992 commissioned report, Developmental strategy in adult basic education The Independent Development Trust's 1992 commissioned report Developmental strategy in ABET is notable for its dismissive attitude towards the non-governmental organization sector which the authors considered justified by the incoherence and factionalism in that sector (Department of Education, 1997c: 8). 46 (d) The Congress of South African Trade Unions's Participatory Research Projects's 1993 report, Participatory Research Project. Consolidated recommendations ABET The Congress of South African Trade Unions's Participatory Research Projects's 1993 report consolidated recommendations on ABET had a number of proposals with respect to ABET which were simply part of their more general proposals about a thorough reconstruction of the training system in South Africa (Department of Education, 1997a:15). They argued for: • a national integrated framework for education and training; • creation of statutory bodies to develop overall policy frameworks, standards setting, accreditation and certification; • restructuring of training and grading systems and their integration with labour market planning; • create career path opportunities based on skills/training; • ensuring that fair competency based assessments methods based on skills are used for promoting people and providing access to training national competency standards to be developed in each industry or sector and generic core standards across sectors; • all curricula to be rewritten in terms of competency outcomes; • training course curricula at all levels need to include core educational skills such as literacy, numeracy, communication, problem solving, planning and the ability to undertake further learning; • accreditation of providers to ensure consistency in the quality and content of ed ucation/tra ini ng co urses; • national certificates of competence at all levels of learning; • credit transfers and recognition of prior learning; 47 • the right to paid education and training leave and other changes to facilitate access to provision; and • upgrading and expansion of trainer/educator workforce (Tight, 1996:57). During this period the Congress of South African Trade Unions had profoundly influenced two of the major policy initiatives of the early 1990s - the NEPI report, and the National Training Board's National Training Strategy Initiative ­ as well as policy developed by its alliance partner, the African National Congress, as in the African National Congress's The Reconstruction and development programme (1994) and a policy framework for education and training (1995) (Verbitskala, 2004:78). (e) The National Training Board's National Training Strategy Initiative (NTSI) draft document of 1991 and the preliminary report of February 1994 The National Training Board's National Training Strategy Initiative draft document of 1991 explored the idea of linking education and training, but in the limited context of vocational training. Thus it did not propose the general articulation of 'formal' education, and 'non-formal' education. The Congress of South African Trade Unions was highly critical of the report, because it had no input from labour, and because it continued what the Congress of South African Trade Unions saw as an apartheid tendency to train and educate workers for lower level skills (Rakoma, 1999:56). The Congress of South African Trade Unions was arguing for a far greater integration of education and training. The position can be seen in the preliminary report of 1994 which was in this respect a very different document, since the Congress of South African Trade Unions had been involved in the task team which drew it up. Clearly, the Congress of South African Trade Unions had a profound impact through its participation, and its key arguments and ideas are obvious in the 1994 preliminary report (Richards, 1999:26). The Congress of South African Trade Unions was able to influence the process to this degree because of the common agreement between labour and business by this stage on the importance of skills upgrading for economic growth. The 48 1994 report thus contained most of the ideas integral to the Congress of South African Trade Unions's proposals that: • adult basic education should be more than just reading and writing and should equip people to participate more fully in society; • the approach used should be competence based; • there should be national standards and a national qualifications framework; and • there should be a national core curriculum, with core subjects (Preece & Ntseane, 2004:97) . The National Training Board said that overall responsibility for the development of a national framework for ABET should lie with the ABET sub­ system of a proposed integrated Department of Education and Training and the National Education and Training Council. These bodies would be responsible for developing a national curriculum framework, national qualification, accreditation and certification structures for learners and education, training and development (ETD) practitioners; a financial framework, and a delivery system (OECD, 1999:17). (f) The South African Committee on Adult Basic Education (SACABET) report on its November 1993 Conference The South African Committee on Adult Basic Education suggested a number of policies at its Conference in November 1993, namely: • a national system of ABET; • regional governance structures; • strong linkage to the Reconstruction and Development Programme; • an ABET councilor stakeholder body; • a national qualifications framework; 49 • a national core curriculum; • national certification; • a skills and infrastructural audit; and • an advocacy programme (Malale, 1996:44). The conference report says nothing about money but clearly assumed that state money would be available. (g) The African National Congress's Implementation Plan for Education and Training of April 1994 produced by the Centre for Education Policy Development The Centre for Education Policy Development Implementation Plan for Education and Training had an important section on ABET. Prepared by a the Centre for Education Policy Development task group and handed to the new Minister of Education and Training in May 1994, the ABET implementatio plan reflected both the reduced expectations common to many of the African National Congress's implementation plans as well as the dominance of formal ABET (Mackie, 1995:35). The outlines of the plan were as follows: • the major task during the first year (1994/95) was to be systematic planning, including the setting up of a comprehensive information base for the identification of intervention areas and for detailed planning. This needed to happen at both national and provincial levels and planning and provision needed to be closely integrated with that of the Reconstruction and Development Programme. Though it was foreseen that there would be considerable constraints on any immediate mass delivery (the plan envisaged reaching three million learners in the first five years), priority groupings for provision should be identified and all available resources mobilized (Mabasa & Rampedi, 2000:17); 50 • a number of well-planned and strategic pilot programmes should be undertaken (including in the South African National Defence Force and the South African Correctional Service). Guidelines for ABET teacher training should be drawn up and the provision of such training at a variety of levels enhanced and galvanized. These would undoubtedly have a major backwash effect on future ABET curriculum development. Partnerships should be entered into between the State and non-governmenta organizations and the private sector to increase the quality of services (Libert, 2004:91); • a campaign should be mounted to popularise ABET and mobilise resources for ABET at national and provincial levels. As far as a system or bureaucracy is concerned, the plan argued that a national Department of Adult Basic and Continuing Education should be constructed out of the existing Department of Education and Training. This should be done speedily, though with modesty (Harabos et aI., 2004: 10); • it is important that existing provision through the Department of Education and Training and the ex-"homeland" education departments should not be allowed to collapse but should be improved. A national ABET Council would be set up representing a wide variety of stakeholders and there would be provincial and local analogues (Foley, 1999:28); • there would be a national curriculum, which would stress generic competencies/outcomes, and funds would be provided for materials development; • resource centres/libraries would be established in under resourced areas. An integrated qualifications framework would help ensure quality assurance, as would considerable human resources development; • some legislation to implement aspects of the plan would be necessary; and • the financing of all this is expected to come partly from the education budget and partly from the Reconstruction and Development budget. The 51 draft budget for the first year (94/95) was R132 million (Centre for Adult Education, 2006:33). 2.3.6.3 From policy to implementation - 1995 to 1997 Subsequent to the April 1994 election and the appointment of cabinet ministers and Directors-General of ministries, literacy and ABET activists were soon disappointed by the seemingly slow pace of development in the ABET sector. ABET did not seem to be a major concern of the new Government of National Unity nor of the national Ministry of Education. New appointments to the Department of Education did not clearly insert any experienced activists for literacy and ABET into positions of power (Ayo, 2004:195). As seen in the Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD's) ABET implementation plan described above, considerable, though modest, activity was to have taken place even in 1994 (Aitchison, 1996a, 1996b). Elements of this period of fiasco included the proposals for a strong adult basic education section within the national department of education was never implemented. Indeed the Department went without a Chief Director with responsibility for ABET for nearly a year due to blocking by the Public Service Commission of the appointment It took until early in 1996 for a Director of ABET to be appointed (Lyster, 2006:20). Although the Centre for Education Policy Development ABET team had produced a motivation in September 1994 that persuaded the Minister of Education to appoint a national ABET Task Team, what was virtually a coup d'etat at a consultation it called in January 1995, saw its experienced policy makers and planners expelled and replaced by provincial education department representatives (Richards, 1999: 12). The latter, unfortunately, knew very little about ABET policy and the new Task Team floundered. It was replaced in May 1995 by a National Stakeholders' Forum which continued to be dominated by formal education system representatives. In 1996 it increased in size with representatives from the South African National Defence Force, Department of Correctional Services, Business South Africa 52 and such like and has grown to unmanageable size. No legislation relating to ABET was tabled (Aitchison & Harley, 2004:28). Attempts at initiating nationally co-ordinated programmes or campaigns were not very successful. The national Department of Education (sometimes speaking through the National Stakeholders' Forum) has tended to repeatedly engage in last minute attempts to start great leaps forward, the dates for which had been decided months before but about which almost nothing had been planned or even budgeted for. Thus the fiasco of the April 1995 "strategic thrusts" (nothing happened), repeated a year later with the Ten Thousand Learner Units (nothing happened, although this non-event was obscured by the Department piggy-backing on the National Literacy Co­ operation's One Thousand Learner Units campaign (which had actually been planned and which did (sort of) start). In 1997 this Ithuteng campaign did achieve some modest successes in some provinces (such as KwaZulu-Natal) (ERA Initiative, 1998:32). Only a few provinces set up workable provincial ABET councils or stakeholder forums. Apart from the donor funded Natal ABET Support Agency, no regional support agencies were set up. National capacity to plan remained weak. This was partly a result of the national Department of Education's ABET directorate being so under-staffed (three professionals) and partly because there was very little money devoted to ABET. Planning support from ABET came from the National Literacy Cooperation and academics and was paid for (sometimes) by USAID grants. Because of the short-term nature of this support it was difficult for any long term planning to be achieved (Hepp & Laval, 2004:336). The National Education budget for ABET was derisory and though literacy was proclaimed a Reconstruction and Development Programme Presidential lead project it was the only one that had no money allocated to it at all. It would be totally dependent on foreign donors. The inefficiency of the Reconstruction and Development Programme and its eventually closure exacerbated the situation. In September 1995 the Minister of Education announced that the State had made fifty- million rand available for ABET. In 53 reality, this money came from foreign donors. It was apparently, at the behest of the National Stakeholders' Forum, divided up equally between the nine provinces and the national Department of Education. However due to bureaucratic bottlenecks by mid-May 1996 (nine months later) only two provinces had managed to access their five-point-four million rand grants (Libert, 2004:96). The National Department of Education's ignoring of an offer by UNESCO to put substantial funding towards developing a national ABET information system that had been initiated by the University of Natal. This offer expired and the information collected is now a wasting asset. At the provincial level progress was erratic and generally slow. In many provinces the non­ governmental organizations who had led the struggle for literacy in the previous decade were sidelined (Mackie, 1995: 11). Career education bureaucrats made decisions about ABET (or more accurately, did not make decisions because heads of ABET were often not appointed. In KwaZulu-Natal, this situation was to continue until mid-1997. Budgets are also erratic. In KwaZulu-Natal, the budget for ABET has steadily dropped to below that of the apartheid era and the budget for 1997 has been cut even further to two thirds of the 1996 budget of fifteen million rand. By contrast Gauteng and the Eastern Cape have budgeted considerably more (OECD, 1999:38). [t was soon realised that the development of ABET would be a much slower process than expected and that the money to pay for it somewhat reduced (at least from the Education budget). Meanwhile, there was a growing sense of crisis in the non-governmental organization field which saw much reduced funding as foreign donors now preferred to work directly through bilateral agreements with government and these agreements were slow to be agreed upon and effected. Non-governmental organizations began to close and retrench staff, although, ironically, through the National Literacy Co-operation, the field was now better represented nationally than ever before (Department of Education, 1997d:16). 54 The National Literacy Co-operation, which had tended in the past to represent politically committed non-governmental organizations, had decided opinions about the responsibility of the state to deliver literacy and ABET to the masses. Although the National Literacy Co-operation was not itself immune to the loss of staff to election candidates lists or commercial consultancy, it generally managed to maintain its sense of political correctness. Because of the slowness of Government delivery of ABET this was now balanced by a new appreciation of the continuing value of a non-state adult education sector (Tight, 1996:49). Though the failure of the state to rapidly re-allocate resources to ABET acted to re-activate some non-governmental organizations, the real beneficiaries tended to be commercial providers contracted by larger industrial and commercial enterprises. In 1994, certain non-governmental organizations had shown signs of reaching a certain critical mass (notably USWE in Cape Town) and had deliberately expanded in anticipation of new largesse from a new government committed to eradicating literacy. This never arrived and organisations such as USWE were forced into traumatic retrenchments of staff and teachers (Van't Roodt, 1997:18). In spite of the negative side of the immediate post April 1994 period, there was on-going non-governmental organization policy work. This has increasingly been concerned with implementation plans, assessment issues and the construction of a system of outcomes based education and training for the ABET field. The context within which this work was done was very much that of the on-going non-governmental organization formalisation of ABET with a heavy stress on assessment issues that, in the field of practice was increasingly dominated by the Independent Examinations Board (French, 1997:11). Grasping the '1' alphABET of 'training' in ABET proved more difficult, though moves towards special curriculums and examinations in industry sectors indicated one way in which this issue might be eventually resolved. The National Literacy Co-operation continued its complicated non­ governmental organization in the dark with the national Department of 55 Education with perplexing results, at the same time as the international donors tried to develop mechanisms for dispensing their money via a department that did not appear to have the capacity or at times the will to do so. All this was within the broader complexities of a lackluster national Department of Education that appeared incapable of tackling the admittedly awesome task of rationalising education provision, resources and teacher deployment. When it came to resources, the voice of ABET learners was drowned out by higher education and school teachers demanding the continuation of the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed (Aitchison, 2005:17). The key documents produced from 1995 to date include the following: • The Education White Paper of March (Department of Education, 1995) • The National Department of Education's A national ABET framework: Interim guidelines of September 1995 • The research project report of 1996 on Adult Basic Education and Development compiled by a group comprising the Department of Education, Congress of South African Trade Unions, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Centre for Education Policy Development, and National Literacy Co-operation • The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology's Language Plan Task Group's final report of 1996, Towards a national language plan for South Africa • The Department of Education draft policy document of April 1997, Adult education and training in South Africa as well as its draft A four year implementation plan for adult education and training: provision and accreditation (Department of Education, 19980: 18). 2.3.6.4 The content of the policy documents from 1995 to date The Education White Paper (1995) repeats what the earlier documents suggest, namely: 56 • a national ABET programme; • a national qualifications framework; • an appropriate common core curriculum; • partnerships between government and organised labour and business, women's and youth organisations, civics, churches, specialist non­ governmental organizations, learner associations; • all levels of government, media and other stakeholders; • an ABET council as the authoritative voice of the field; • a professional directorate for ABET in the Department of Education to undertake or sponsor research on structure and methods, develop norms and standards, and to liaise with the Reconstruction and Development Programme office, the Department of Labour, and provincial departments of education; • a national ABET Task Team, including provincial representatives, to plan the Reconstruction and Development Programme Presidential Lead Programme in this field and to help translate proposals into implementable policy; • existing education facilities; • opportunities for distance education; and • the idea of community learning centres (Bhola, 1997:70). What is more significant is what it is silent about, such as finance and the actual scale of the professional directorate for ABET in the Department of Education. The National Department of Education's A national ABET framework: Interim guidelines of September 1995 is largely about a formal system of ABET linked to the National Qualifications Framework and an outcomes based approach (Centre for Adult Education, 2005:27). It stresses formal certification. The key elements in the framework it propounds are: 57 • a National Qualifications Framework; • a national system of certification; • a South African Qualifications Authority; and • a National Curriculum. The Interim Guidelines were drawn up by a working group of the National Stakeholders Forum financed by United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Much of the substantive work was done or copied from that done by the Independent Examinations Board and earlier by the Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD). The working group accepted the proposed National Qualifications Framework as a development basis for the guidelines. This meant an acceptance of the concepts of national standards, national certificates, articulation and integration (SAQA, 1997:13). Thus the Interim guidelines merely reaffirm what had by now become accepted policy ­ broadly speaking, the National Training Board proposals for ABET. The Interim guidelines confirm the view of ABET as a means of national reconstruction and development and also as the basic foundation for lifelong learning. Much of the document is concerned with the practical issues necessary for the model to succeed. Thus issues of standard setting, certification and assessment are dealt with at length, with the Interim guidelines detailing definitions, principles and the responsible authorities in each of these areas (Preece & Ntseane, 2004:21). Whilst the Interim guidelines themselves are clear that they are not prescriptive to either providers or learners, it is obviously envisaged that proViders at least will adhere to them. They lay down that the primary responsibility for ensuring provision of ABET lies with the State. However, employers, trade unions, providers, non-governmental organizations, learners and community structures also have a responsibility in the planning, monitoring and implementing of ABET programmes (Baatjies, 2003:179). The Interim guidelines state that these sectors, together with government departments, will be represented on a National Stakeholder Forum or Council, 58 which will undertake much of the work of setting levels, certificates and qualifications. This structure will be replicated at provincial, district and even local level, where appropriate. However, until these structures are set up, the existing National Stakeholders Forum will act as the interim national standards body for ABET (Aitchison et al., 2000:17). As with the White Paper perhaps the most important point about the guidelines is not what they say but what they do not say. They are silent about community empowerment and silent about culture. They say nothing about literacy and basic education being desirable ends in themselves. Basic education is seen largely in instrumental terms. The report of 1996 on Adult Basic Education and Development compiled by the Department of Education, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Centre for Education Policy Development, and National Literacy Co-operation tried to explore ways of integrating ABET into developmental programmes and to some extent resists the clear trend evident in the Interim Guidelines of formalising ABET (sending Adults back to primary school as some have dismissively spoken of it) (Department of Education, 1998d:27). This re-Iooking at the social impact of ABET might have been influential if the Reconstruction and Development Programme had had life in it, but this important document has not had the attention it deserves (in the post Reconstruction and Development Programme environment), though it had some influence on National Literacy Co-operation policy activities (Hamilton, 1997; Bhola, 1997). Harley's (2001 :25) final report of, Towards a national language plan for South Africa also breathes a somewhat different atmosphere to the discourse of the Interim GUidelines. The document had a section on literacy (which contained a number of detailed recommendations and the report's general recommendations stated that maximum support should be given for well­ planned literacy campaigns and on-going non-governmental organization ABET projects, particularly in the African languages and South African Second Languages, which have as their focus the improvement of literacy acquisition methods. 59 The Department of Education draft policy document of April 1997, Adult education and training in South Africa was a thorough reworking of the original draft (Department of Education, 1998b:34) which had been prepared by the National Literacy Co-operation for the national Department. The National Literacy Co-operation draft was heavily influenced by an international consultant, Professor H.S. Bhola, and it stresses the political and social importance of literacy and ABET (Kell, 1997:37). The National Literacy Co­ operation draft ran aground for political reasons and two editors then reworked a second draft in time for its presentation to a national conference i April 1997. This document does not have anything spectacularly new to say, but it condenses and clarifies much of the earlier policy work and presents its in a crisp and understandable way_ It is particularly useful in its clear outline of the new curriculum framework and the terminology and processes of the new system (Bhola, 1997:69). At the above-mentioned National ABET conference hosted by the national Department of Education in April 1997, a four-year implementation plan for adult education and training, provision and accreditation was presented, considered and criticised. The document to some extent was a response to the criticism that the department had not engaged in systematic planning in the past though to some extent it too suffered from a tendency to propose unrealistic programmes and campaign for which planning, resources and time were inadequate. As a result a technical task team was appointed to re-draft the document into a multi-year implementation plan. The re-worked document, which was only to be finalised later in 1997, paid particular attention to a systematic description of implementation steps (Centre for Adult Education, 2005: 16). 2.3.7 ABET - a work in progress By mid 1997 there was a feeling that the national Department of Education was now working more effectively and realistically and that, though not without continuing difficulties, partnerships between state and non-governmental organizations and even university academics had had some modest successes. Meanwhile non-governmental organizations and university adult 60 education departments continued to work on, precariously surviving on donor funding which was now hedged around with conditions that demanded that non-governmental organizations submit learners to examinations run by the Independent Examinations Board (SAQA, 1997:17). The future of the non­ governmental organization literacy and ABET providers remains uncertain, largely because of funding uncertainties that exacerbates that fact that they now rely on paid (and often well paid) career professionals and not volunteers. They continue to provide some of the most creative materials, well thought out methods, and a radical ethos concerned with the right to education for all. But they still remain unimpressive at the level of large-scale delivery and costs per learner. In spite of better national and provincial co-ordination of late, the non­ governmental organization literacy field is in some disarray (Aitchison, 1998b:39). The hopes of a rapid change in provision of literacy and ABET have been severely disappointed. The credibility of government's commitment to eradicating illiteracy and providing ABET has been compromised and the capacity of its national Department of Education to change this situation doubted. Literacy non-governmental organizations all face funding and staffing crises. That the discourse of literacy is now dominated by business interests who are committed to a competency based approach that can be quite narrow sits uneasily with often radical non-governmental organization activists and to what extent they can creatively challenge the move to present ABET increasingly in formal terms has yet to be seen (French, 1996:17). There are some other players who continue to exhibit some enthusiasm about ABET: • firstly, the South African Broadcasting Company, manifested a commitment to publicising and working in the field of ABET that was commendable. This may be a reflection of the extent to which the South African Broadcasting Company is still an adherent of edifying public broadcasting (however narrow and perverted this adherence was during the apartheid era). It proved to be a force for the good in respect of literacy. A number of advocacy programmes were shown on television 61 from 1994 to date such as Literacy Alive, The struggle for literacy, and Adult Basic Education in the workplace, as well as Basic skills in English programmes and also duplicated in the various languages on radio (Hamilton, 1997:47); • secondly, libraries and particularly the provincial library services were generally supportive of literacy and the provision of easy reading material; and • thirdly, the community college sector, is still trying hard to reach take off point (Lyster, 2006:19). The success or failure of this attempt will undoubtedly have significant consequences for the development of ABET in South Africa. 2.3.8 Approaches to ABET Both the developmental and participatory approaches will be discussed in this section. 2.3.8.1 Developmental approaches According to Malale (1996:14), the concept of developmental approach requires more actors, that is to say development is not an act committed by one person on another. With this point, Preece and Ntseane (2004: 14) try to highlight that development should not always be seen as an activity of interference with other people's lives. As mentioned in chapter one of this research, there are a number of teaching and learning centres offering ABET programmes in South Africa. Most of these are supposed to be transformative and developmental in the lives of the adult learners. In essence, such education and training should provide adults with a tool-box; a box which is full of tools necessary for developing existing skills and acquiring new skills. Adult learners and those who are still out of the system, as well as young adults, need to acquire social skills which will help them to develop strategies and power in order for them to escape from the social periphery, left powerless. Hence ABET should be seen 62 as an equipping weapon to fight against social exclusion. People should be empowered through education and training. Therefore, adult learning centres should not just be seen as buildings, an education for adults should not just be regarded as working on literacy. It should be a process of empowerment. Literacy should not be seen as a goal in itself. It should be an essential component of the tool-box that offers adult learners the opportunity to liberate themselves from their often increasingly deteriorating living conditions. Richards (1999:13) puts it clearly that education should be a cultural action for freedom and therefore an act of knowing. Accordingly Rakoma (1999:13) implies that every person should learn in order to transform his or her environment. When participating in basic educational and training programmes, adults should acquire the role of active participants, instead of spectators; and functional participants in their own social, economic, cultural and political environment. The following points are some of the conclusions that constitute the reasons why adult learners participate in learning programmes: • to be able to read and write and count (numeracy); • to develop full capacities; • to live and work with dignity; • to participate fully in development in their communities and the world around; • to improve the quality of life; • to be able to make informed decisions about their lives; and • to continue learning (Life-long learning) (Rakoma, 1999:34). Rakoma (1999) advises that it is very important that adults do not always participate in adult education programmes for reading and writing purposes 63 only. There should be other benefits to the whole endeavor. Adult learners should be equipped with necessary skills that will help them to fight against the culture of entitlement, dependency and financial deprivation. Adult education programmes should develop programmes that are job-oriented, that will also help to cultivate traditional activities; and restore the local pride. Adult Education should be seen as an instrument for socio-cultural advancement. The conclusions as provided by Rakoma (1999) above do not differ much with those described by the GECD (1999) that there should be links between learning and exclusion, namely: • Learning to meet basic needs. Most adult learners participate in learning programmes in order to improve literacy and basic skills that are very vital for their existence. Many communities in South Africa are impoverished and people may be struggling at a subsistence level and desperate for even rudimentary information and support to improve their poverty status, health, welfare and other basic needs. In this case the learning needs of an individual may be just as important as those of the community. Therefore learning may help to explore and encourage a variety of activities, through self-employment and co-operative endeavour (what is normally referred to as 'group schemes') such as: o Learning for labour participation. Many people believe that education, training and learning enhance employment chances. This is the ideal, but how far realistic it can be is another question for the people in South Africa. But it is also the case that low levels of attainment can bar access to the labour market. It is therefore, important to stress that ABET programmes should have an effect of employability. This is the reason why most adults do participate in such programmes because they hope to acquire skills that will enable them to find a job elsewhere or initiate small-scale businesses (GECD, 1999:35). o Learning to foster social action and participation. Most basic adult education and training programmes should be broadened and move 64 beyond economic activities. They should include social activities related to citizenship and culture. Successful participation in different social, community and cultural activities can also contribute towards building skills, confidence and social capital that lead to labour market participation. In its strategies to fight against illiteracy Russia, for example, provided skills that will enable adults to participate actively and with confidence in their local communities (Verbitskala, 2004:74). All these elements as mentioned in literature may be seen as some important factors in adult learners' participation in educational and training programmes. This suggests, therefore that the type of educational and training programmes should be geared towards equipping adults with skills that will enable them to be: • able to read and write; • responsible citizens; and • able to generate their own income, and others (Mackie, 1995:27). Provision of relevant and responsive basic education and training programmes for adults, therefore, locates itself among a number of considerations and aspects, which are discussed below, that is the type of education, type of skills imparted and the type of learning that occurs. (a) Non-formal and Community Oriented Adult Education Rakoma (1999:34) emphasizes the importance for non-formal adult education in rural areas. Non-formal adult education, while not constituting a parallel system, covers any organized, systematic, educational activity, carried on outside the framework of formal system, to provide selected types of learning to particular sub-groups. It includes, for example, agricultural extension and farmer training programmes, adult literacy programmes, occupational skill training given outside the formal system, however including training in the formal system, youth clubs with educational purposes, and various community 65 programmes of instruction in health, nutrition, cooperatives, and others. Tight (1996:69) regards non-formal adult education as education for which none of the learners is enrolled or registered. This perception locates non-formal adult education even outside of educational institutions. This means that it does not need to be more restrictive frameworks and accreditation systems of the formal sector, as the adult basic education is now. Non-formal Adult Education and also Community Oriented Adult Education should be viewed as relevant in addressing the needs of the adults, especially for those in the rural areas, who are illiterate, poor, or are working in the traditional sector. The focus should then be to improve their basic level of subsistence and their standards of living. Seen in these terms, non-formal adult education has clear linkages not only with ideas of community education, but more particularly with people such as Lyster (2006:101) who extend the literacy of adults beyond basic skills, to broader themes of individual emancipation. Curriculum in this type of a system may ensure that the adult learners' skills are developed for income-generation at home or co-operatives. Little attention should be given to theory and more emphasis be put more on practical skills. Such a curriculum should be flexible with individualized learning. (b) Adult Education for empowerment Education for adults should be seen as a tool for empowerment. Van't Rood (1997:40) says that empowerment should actually be seen as the aim of all education programmes in general and especially basic education and training. The reason for this is that, in changing communities people should learn how to anticipate that change in order to prevent being marginalized. Adult learners require tools that will help them develop skills needed to empower themselves and so that they may also contribute to the development of their communities. Adult education programmes should have this element of empowering people. Empowerment relates to acquiring the skills whereby people get the chance to play an active role and participatory role in their own environment. It also 66 means that people take control of their lives (Hepp & Laval, 2004:335). Adult education in all its forms should therefore playa role in helping people to acquire empowerment. It is the type of programmes developed and offered which will ensure that adult learners are indeed empowered. Achieving empowerment should be one of the final objectives in adult education. This means that adult learners should acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and insight necessary to transform their lives and the environment within which they find themselves, and to actively participate in a changing world. It should be noted, though, that empowerment in this case should not only focus on the individual learner. There should be a connection between the individual and the community that is a collective element (Haralabos et a/., 2004:9). (c) Adult Education and the cultural context Many a time, reasons given for promoting adult education are only given in economic terms, and nothing or little is said regarding issues of social or cultural aspects. This could be as a result of globalization. Rakoma (1999) argues that globalisation cannot function in a vacuum, not taking into consideration the socio-cultural background and practices of adult learners. Adult Basic Education and Education should be placed in the context of the communities. The question 'what is the environment of the adult learner?' should be at the back of the minds of those who plan education and training programmes of adults. The inner circle of someone's social and cultural environment is the family, a larger unit may be the village or ward that a person lives in, still further a city, then a province. Within this are other spheres that are part and parcel of a person's environment such as: • the workplace; • women' social club; • political party; and • other similar social groupings. 67 According to Dubbeldam (in Verhoeven, 1994:411) Adult Education will be functional if it is integrated into at least part of the culture of the people involved, adopt an approach that takes the current living conditions/environment of the adult learners as a starting point and be working towards achieving empowerment. From the context of their own living environment adult learners may become aware of their positions and will therefore, learn to develop skills to sustainably improve those positions. FOIr the educational programmes, this may mean that development of such should not always maintain a top-down approach, but vice versa. This means that adult educators should stimulate adults to formulate their own positions, needs and opportunities through engaging in a dialogue. In his presentation, on 'Education in the 21 st Century', Aitchison and Harley (2006:93) alluded to the fact that the curriculum for adult learners should be negotiated between the learners and the educators. It should not be pre-planned. Baatjies (2003:179) carries a torch for a flexible educational system, which is directly related to local practices, needs and opportunities. In this context, Baatjies (2003:179) considers ABET programmes with different methods tha address specific needs and opportunities as vital. On the same note Dubbeldam (in Verhoeven, 1994) implicitly shows that irrelevant programmes for adult learners, which are not related to the cultural setting of the participants may bear less fruit than anticipated. Therefore, the cultural environment of the adult learners should serve as a point of departure for every intervention in the field of education, and possibly in other fields as well. (d) Needs of adult learners The cultural environment should be taken into consideration also in relation to the needs. In fact all activities related to adult teaching and learning should be based on the needs of those involved. Adult learners have a differen orientation to education and learning than children. These differences make them approach learning differently. Besides, they have an accumulation of experiences, and are also characterized by special development trends. It is therefore, very important that whatever provisions are made for adult learners, in terms of learning, there should be a clear understanding of their 68 characteristics and therefore their needs. Malale (1996:114) and Rakoma (1999: 85-90) present a list of needs for illiterate adults in Mpumalanga and the Northern Province, respectively. These needs are job-related, health­ related and education-related. Some are for: • personal enhancement; • communication with husbands; and • relatives living far, etc. Now, adult learners come to adult education as a way of satisfying some, if not all, of these deeply felt needs (Richards, 1999:102). It is on the basis of this background that (potential) adult learners should be allowed to formulate their own needs so that relevant provisions can be made. Vella (1994:12) makes a similar point by saying that adults desire to be participants and decision makers. The needs of adult learners appear to be a very important step to consider before planning for their educational and programmes. It is therefore, imperative that adult education providers should determine the needs of adult learners within the context they exist. According to GEeD (1999:10), ABET programmes should be relevant and demand-driven, and not supply-driven. They should be available in forms, times and locations that are genuinely accessible for all who want to participate. For example, specified short courses on plumbing, interpreneurship, and others. Non-formality of learning should not mean tolerating 'second-best' programmes that are less than fully serious. The preceding background is just but a structure that may help in developing and offering relevant adult basic and training education programmes that will address and satisfy specific needs of adult learners. However, alongside the number of issues raised earlier are some other important aspects that need attention, such as the training of educators and the images and perceptions about Adult Education in rural areas (Verhoeven, 1994:66). 69 (e) Resources The issue of human and financial resources is very vital. Financial support, on the one hand, should be at the centre of all educational activities. ABET programmes are to rest on the shoulder of a financially viable system, that is a system that will ensure that all the much-needed and relevant facilities for effective teaching and learning are provided (Bhola, 1997:76). According to Centre for Education (2005:36), there needs to be a stable human resource to utilise the facilities effectively and efficiently. ABET should be regarded as a highly specialized area. This therefore, calls for a formal and rigorous training of educators. Most adult educators in South Africa received little or no training in this field. Those who have any qualification to teach are qualified to teach in either Primary or Secondary schools. Besides, most of those who are trained are not trained to deal with the non-formal provision of ABET and the connection between adult education and community development aspects (French, 1997:76). This lack of relevant and proper training may have a lot of negative consequences in programme development for adult learners. It has been said earlier that the curriculum of adult learners should be negotiated with the learners themselves. This may be carried out by a well-trained educator. A lot of investment should be made to train educators in dealing with Non-formal and Community Oriented Adult Education. In their move to combat social exclusion and also empower communities through adult education, the Portugese made sure that adult educators are offered rigorous training (DECO, 1999). Adult educators were sent for training and their training was paid for. All this was done in order to have a qualified adult educator corps that can run adult education programmes effectively and efficiently. (f) Images and perceptions about adult education In their preliminary research findings on implementation problems in ABET, Mabasa and Rampedi (2000) came across different puzzling metaphors with regard to the ABET field in general and mainly the formal provision in ABET in the Northern Province. The following are some of the metaphors: 70 • adult educators are regarded as the principals of 'bakgekolo' (old grand­ mothers); • adult education coordinators regard themselves as 'hose pipes'; • adult education is regarded as a legitimate cousin (whose cousin?); and • when the budget is over, all ABET activities come to a halt. These are just but a few of what may be called 'beliefs' of different people about what adult education is all about. These negative images and perceptions are enough to indicate to us where other people (adult learners, communities and adult education practitioners) place adult education. The metaphors mentioned above do not come as a total surprise. During the needs analysis in Region 5 of the Northern Province (Rakoma, 1999) some of the adult learners mentioned that other members of the community ridicule them. They see them as failures, foolish, etc. Could it be because of the structure of ABET and the levels; that people are seen to be in their first years of schooling, sitting in small chairs and tables? On the other hand educators also see adult education as a 'stepping ladder'. They see it as something which connects them to better jobs or promotions. For the unemployed, it is a way of creating job opportunities. The vignette about Adult education, which has been alluded to in the foregoing discussion, directs our attention to the need to break out of the straight-jacket which identifies ABET with institutionalised provision and course-taking. Although Foley (1999) focuses on Informal Adult Education and Learning, he argues that many misconceptions about Adult Education equate it with organised provision by professionals only. However true this may be, similarly, adult education research has focused largely on learning in institutionalised settings. There should be more to Adult Education, especially in rural, poverty-stricken areas, than what happens in formalised programmes or Adult Education system. The latter is also needed for those adult learners who aspires climbing up the NQF ladder and making it to other levels of learning. 71 2.3.8.2 Participatory approaches Teacher education within the ABET sector has always been characterized by its use of participatory and learner-centred approaches. These approaches underlie the practice of outcomes-based education and training and by implication it should be easier for adult educators who have been specifically trained to teach in a learner-centred way to use more outcomes-based education and training type methods. The problem cited by many educators is that the unit standards themselves are written in a language that is incomprehensible to most "English-as-another-Ianguage" readers. As one ABET practitioner put it, 'If we do not understand what they mean we don't know what to do' (Hamdok & Kifle, 2000:76). So, while teachers are trained in the methodologies most aspired to across all education and training sectors, they are hampered by not being able to put their skills into practice as they are unable to demystify the unit standards. In this regard, Mabasa and Rampedi (2000:28) commented that provincial departments of education do hold workshops from time to time - but more guidance is needed for educators (and more possibility of sharing experiences). In Botswana, too, research shows that educators thus far are not sufficiently exposed to alternative teaching methods and strategies. And in Namibia, personnel from ABET pointed out that the tendency for adult educators is to "revert" to traditional modes of teaching - and therefore more support for teachers in developing alternative methodologies is needed. 2.3.9 Transformation examples to the education system which could facilitate change in ABET practice in South Africa While all ABET legislation since 1994 was intended to improve practice and delivery, the change has been slow. However, it is clear from recent developments in the field that the Department of Education in South Africa recognizes the importance of not only funding ABET centres but also ensuring better conditions of service for adult educators. It appears that none of the recognized unions have made any impact on improving the conditions of adult educators (Malale, 1996:18). It is important to also ensure the commitment of 72 the Ministry and that policies are accompanied by funding commitments at national level. Meanwhile, it is at the level of provinces that priorities for funding take place. Although the Department of Education in South Africa has national leadership authority, it is the Provincial Education Departments that are the primary fund-holders of the minimal ABET funding allocations, that is provincial priorities determine the sectoral distribution of funds. Efforts are being made via the draft policy to set targets for certification and funding of adult learning centres. At the moment, Provincial Education Departments resourcing of Adult Learning Centres is unpredictable and budget allocations made to Adult Learning Centres can fluctuate from one year to the next, making planning difficult (Preece & Ntseane, 2004:17). The ABET Act (2000) obliges the provincial Member of the Executive Counci'll of Education to provide sufficient information to Adult Learning Centres regarding funding. The implementation of the section within the framework of the norms and standards for funding Adult Learning Centres should enable predictability and stability in the funding of centres. This would ensure tha Adult Learning Centres are able to plan properly within the funding framework. The document includes a commitment to funding programme-based ABET ­ including personnel and non-personnel costs. This is specified as follows: • Personnel: Public adult learning centres will be allocated posts according to a post distribution model. The model will take into account various factors such as number of learners, programmes offered at the centre, time-frames for the duration of programmes and skills programmes to be offered. Personnel costs will be reflected in the budget allocation of public adult learning centres, but the centres will not receive the funds (Richards, 1999:63). • Non-Personnel: Funding of programme-based ABET involves the actual transfer of funds or spending rights to public centers on a predictable, uniform, enrolment-driven formula basis, In exchange for the accomplishment of certain curriculum programmes for educating adults. The funding is to consist of non-personnel costs such as: 73 o curriculum offerings in line with credits; o costs for accessing physical facilities; o learning support materials; and o learning and teaching aids including equipment for skills programmes (Department of Education, 1995:27). Priority programs to be funded are proposed to be the following by Aitchison and Harley (2006:97). • basic literacy programmes; • skills programmes; • fundamentals (communication and numeracy); and • other priority programmes as determined by the Department of Education. Provincial Education Departments are also required to provide an account of the costing and human resource implications of ensuring that: • the provision of ABET services to all adults who wish to enroll in ABET centres to pursue studies up to ABET level 4; • all Provincial Adult Learning Centres are certified through the provision of capacity-building; • all Provincial Adult Learning Centres are funded as per norms and conditions for ABET; and • ABET staff at provincial education department level and district level have sufficient capacity and have been trained to implement the norms and conditions for ABET (Aitchison & Harley, 2006:97). 2.4 DEVELOPMENT OF SYSTEMS FOR NON-FORMAL EDUCAliON The following "lessons learned" emanate from the three country case studies on the development of systems for non-formal education and the urgent need 74 for capacity development. The research explores a wide range of issues relevant to the thematic areas identified by Bhola (1997:80), and draws attention to the areas of difficulties encountered with regard to educator development in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. 2.4.1 The training of educators: the need for "mass" training where quality is not compromised The paper elucidates the complexity of roles that training of educators need to address - from facilitating a learner-centered training event to taking on a development function for facilitating social development. It is essential that educator development programs enable educators to acquire these varying sets of competences. Literacy is not the acquisition of a set of decontextualised skills - it aims rather to educate individuals to exercise citizenship. It is the development of a critical and contextual understanding of reality necessary to enable people to participate fully (Centre for Adult Education, 2006:46). 2.4.2 Educator development as an imperative of Life Long Learning (LLL) Moreover, the perspective of LLL offers a theoretical and epistemological framework for addressing the challenges posed by the low levels of basic education and for ensuring the validation, accreditation and certification of non-formal learning. The challenges of LLL and of the National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) (existing South Africa and Namibia, and emerging in Botswana) reside in how, in implementing non-formal education, the educators themselves will be able to engage in the assessment of learners. In this paper, it is argued that this has been found to be a serious obstacle in the South African system, where teachers were neither able to interpret and apply nor indeed devise mechanisms for assessing learners. The point at which capacity is critical to the implementation, is the point at which systems tend to fall apart (SAQA, 1997:33). The imperatives of LL'l and the NQF are rendered more complex by the developmental roles that adult educators need to perform. It is this complexity 75 which makes the role of the adult educator so critically important and makes the training of adult and non-formal educators imperative. In order to make an impact, educator training must be delivered on a large scale to enable learners to access learning and other opportunities. However, from a lifelong learning perspective this requires a long-term commitment (Aitchison, 2004:523). 2.4.3 Professionalizing adult educators The development of competent educators is contingent upon adequate teacher training, the recognition of qualifications and their being located within the NQF. Professionalization means "conditions of service" and a shift from expecting adult educators to continuously volunteer their services. Salaries commensurate with qualifications were raised in the three country case studies as being of prime importance, as was the creation of career paths for adult educators (Bailey, 2004:4). 2.4.4 Other partners and stakeholders can help In South Africa, UNISA has performed the task (si nce 1994) of train ing more than 50 000 adult educators, making it possible for them, in turn, to be deployed in "mass" literacy and other campaigns (such as voter education). University of South Africa (UNISA) operates by ensuring that its cadre of personnel is rooted in the communities in which they teach and develop nurturing relationships with their learners. Meanwhile, systems have been put in place for supporting while at the same time monitoring the educators (Centre for Education, 2005:36). In Namibia, it can be argued that while the quality of training of educators within the Ministry still needs to be reviewed one of the strengths of the national literacy program is its rootedness in communities through the committee structures that have been set up (ERA Initiative, 1998:34). From various "fact-finding" missions that have been undertaken it was seen that learners in the main experienced their teachers (the promoters) as having been supportive. The Namibian concept of "promoters" emphasizes that the individual is not expected to function like a "traditional teacher', but that 76 his/her role should rather be that of a leader in the community - an adviser, confidant, supporter, learning organizer, literacy teacher, etc. The regular INSET training (when the District Literacy Organizer visits the class - at least once a month) also helps develop this role. Further education opportunities are provided for the promoters and the DLOs via the UNISA-NAMCOL partnership, which is discussed in the main body of the paper (Haralabos et aI., 2004:17). Apart from the issue of how the training of educators is addressed, it is clear that community involvement is part of the package for successful mass education campaigns. 2.4.5 Distance education can be used for going to scale Distance education can assist in developing capacity cheaply (in South Africa, mass-based grassroots educator training was done at US$100 per educator for a year-long course) and provides an effective option for going to scale. This mode of training can assist in ensuring that rural areas are served, as trainees can remain in the areas in which they live and work. There is a need for educator support during both pre- and in-service training and it is suggested that trainee teachers be allocated to tutors/supervisors for non­ governmental organizationing monitoring, motivation and support (Hepp & Laval, 2004:337). In short, it is suggest that it is possible to develop the required cadre of personnel for undertaking mass literacy programs - but this requires making use of "distance education" options (such as the one provided by UNISA) combined with grassroots involvement in the community - such as is evidenced in the South African cadre of UNISA-trained educators (including their roles in communities) and in the Committee-based structures supporting the National Literacy Programme in Namibia (NLPN) (Lyster, 2006:37). Distance education is becoming a major component of the educational system. The increasing demand for education and training coupled with dwindling resources has made it imperative to adopt distance education as a 77 central facet of going to scale in adult education and a central component of the lifelong learning equation (Richards, 1999:7). 2.4.6 Issues of quality assurance - balance between bureaucratic burden and accountability The research has shown that "quality assurance" can all too easily slip into a bureaucratic process of simply filling in checklists. With reference to a detailed examination of quality assurance issues in South Africa it is suggested that the Education and Training Quality Assurance (ETQA) system in South Africa is not the panacea for problems in the sector. It has been found that if it depends on the assessors own knowledge, such QA runs the risk of becoming a bureaucratic, quantitative, checklist-driven activity without any deep understanding of the issues of quality (SAQA, 1997:35). While systems do need to be in place for checking the quality of the learning experience (to generate/facilitate the accountability of providers), care must be taken to ensure that quality assurance does not become a quantitative exercise. To appreciate end-users' perceptions, as well as to monitor whether the outcomes-based philosophy is being operationalised in practice, mechanisms for assessing these issues qualitatively (while also taking into account results that can be quantitatively measured) need to be put in place. And the issue of which bodies are to be involved in quality assurance needs to be considered, recognizing that tensions over turf (as experienced in the South African situation) should be circumvented as far as possible (Van't Rood, 1997:44). Indeed, the Botswana blueprint for non-formal education identifies the various stakeholders to be engaged in assessing educators' performance. While it is laudable that the blueprint makes provision for a multifaceted evaluation of educators, it is stressed that the process of educator development needs to be set in process urgently so that there are, indeed, educators to support the program at the start of delivery. In addition, specific criteria and strategies need to be devised for assessing educators' performance in a multifaceted and non-threatening manner (Centre for Adult Education, 2005:56). 78 2.4.7 Materials and other learner support for educators and learners ­ cross country sharing Supporting educators by developing materials that fit in with the outcomes­ based and learner-centered approach was an issue in all the countries under consideration. Materials development requires high level skills, educators 0 the whole can't/won't and should not need to undertake such tasks (ERA Initiative, 1998:36). Aside from support needed for educators in their attempts to create a learner­ centered experience for adults, the research has shown that the provision of materials for learners is an issue that cannot be neglected. In Namibia, there is a dedicated materials development section as part of ABET - tasked with developing materials for the learners (Hamilton, 1997:47). Materials are not always available in all the indigenous languages, and the suitability of some of the materials has been questioned. For example, especially in Stage 4 (equivalent to Grade 7 of the formal schooling system) it has been shown that the materials are often experienced as very difficult (sometimes the material is not experienced as relevant because the authors merely tried to adapt corresponding school-based materials). Nevertheless, at least the Ministry does have a section on materials development, tasked with the responsibility of creating suitable materials (Hepp & Laval, 2004:41). One way of addressing the issue of not having material ready for immediate use is to organize mechanisms for cross-country sharing - with provision made for customizing the material to suit local contexts. Even customized materials are better than no materials when educators do not have the capacity or means to develop their own. 2.4.8 The conditions of service for educators including "workplace" conditions Conditions of service of educators cannot be neglected. This report elaborates on the need for a professional and recognized cadre. Adult educators need to have legislative recognition which is evidenced by their conditions of service. 79 This will require a shift in the way the delivery of (adult) basic education IS undertaken, from voluntary to formal. The new global order makes it imperative that adult educators are trained, remunerated and enjoy the same conditions of employment as their peers in the formal system. Within the framework of the NOF and the philosophy of LLL, the adult educator has a critical role to play. This underscores the case for professional support to adult educators (Aitchison & Houghton, 1999:27). In the South African context, efforts to address this problem are being made via the recently formulated norms and standards for funding adult education centers. A culture of supporting adult education (with attendant financial commitments) needs to be generated so that adult education is not seen as an "add on" to other national commitments (Aitchison & Houghton, 1999:27). Interestingly, such a culture seems to have been generated in Namibia via the committee structures that have been set up, as well as the attendant processes and the commitment of those involved in the program. National commitment has been expressed in the number of promoters who are functioning to support the NLPN. This gives a ratio of 1:13 - an optimal ratio for any education program - and the fact that the ABET has permitted classes to continue with such low teacher-learner ratios can be seen as a measure of the commitment of government. It is also one of the reasons why these programs have succeeded (Bhola, 1997:81). 2.4.9 Policy and practice • developing a culture supportive of adult learning When policies are in place to cater for the provision of adult education as a national commitment, gaps can be located between the policies and practices on the ground. This is often linked to financing issues and is expressed as problematic in all countries. Resources are cited in all countries as being problematic. In South Africa, less than 1% of the education budget is allocated to adult education. The gap between policy and practice is clearly an issue requiring attention. 80 Partnerships involving a range of concerned parties may help to address the operationalisation of policy (Centre for Adult Education, 2006:64). Clearly, however, no policies are workable without the commitment of those activating the attendant projects. The Namibian experience shows that the development of active committees is an important vehicle in understanding the culture of delivery in ABET. The National Literacy Programme in Namibia (NLPN) was based on developing commitment by creating a decentralized committee structure, with involvement down to the village committee (Tight, 1996:67). The program works with a rural development focus, involving people in seeing adult education as part of community development. Meanwhile, the definition of "promoter" that has been institutionalized in Namibia helps both the promoters and others (including the learners) to recognize their (broad range of) roles in the community. All these features of the Namibian situation can indeed be argued to go beyond what has been accounted for in policy documents. The Namibian experience is in some ways ahead of policy. What this points to, in any case, is the importance of not relying on "polley" alone to create the culture and commitment required for the success of adult education programmes (Department of Education, 1998e:43). Adult educators are crucial to the success and quality of literacy and non­ formal education for adults as they can provide both the intellectual and operational capacity needed for implementing its vision. For this reason, the development of the capacity of adult educators needs to be high on South Africa's education and social development agendas (Aitchison & Harley, 2004:45). 2.5 DEFINITIONS OF THE ADULT EDUCATOR The provision of competent educators to teach, motivate, support and assess adult learning is an indispensable condition for the successful implementation of adult education programs (Foley, 1999:11). However, it is stated that this theme fails to receive adequate recognition in deliberations on the potential role of adult education in addressing major problems such as poverty, 81 unemployment, HIV/AIDS, social conflict and environmental degradation, and ensuring human rights, civic awareness, democracy, participation, social inclusion, human rights and peace. Moreover, Haralabos et al. (2004:27) argues that it is important to: (1) (re)conceptualize adult education so as to focus on (2) adult learning as a lifelong process (3) across different contexts (4) pred icated on supportive national policies and (5) with partnerships across a range of sectors and ministries. As well, he emphasizes the importance of (6) improved mechanisms for financing adult education. 2.6 CONCLUSION This chapter presented literature review on Batho Pele and ABET. The next chapter presents the empirical research design which forms the basis for primary data collection strategy from the adult educators and learners who form the population sample of this research. 82 CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH DESIGN 3.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the research method used in this study. It includes an overview of the qualitative research approach employed in this study, research design and sampling. 3.2 THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS EMPIRICAL RESEARCH The objectives of this empirical research (see 1.2) were to: • investigate the experiences of ABET educators in their teaching and learning centres; • investigate the experiences of ABET adult learners in their teaching and learning centres; and • propose a humanistic programme infused with Batho-Pele principles for use in ABET in South Africa. The above objectives which were formulated through the questions which developed from the problem statement of this research (see 1.1) were achieved through a qualitative research design. The lived experiences of both the adult learners and their educators at ABET centres in the Fezlle Dabi district in the Free State Province were explored. 3.3 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACH Different scholars have provided various definitions and meanings of qualitative research. The term 'qualitative research' encompasses several approaches to research design that have two things in common. First, they focus on phenomena that occur in natural settings - that is in the 'real world'. Second, they involve studying those phenomena in all their complexity (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005:133). Qualitative research methodologies with data that are principally verbal (White, 2005:80). According to White (2005:81), qualitative 83 research is more concerned with understanding social phenomena from the perspectives of the participants. This happens through the researcher's participation in the daily life activities of those involved in the research. Cresswell (2003:15) states that qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding, based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry tha explore a social or human problem. In the process of a study, the researcher builds a complex and holistic picture, analyzes words, reports, detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting. De Vos (2001 :240) states that qualitative research is defined as a multi­ perspective approach to social interaction, aimed at describing, making sense of, interpreting or reconstructing this interaction in terms of the meanings that the subjects attach to it. Denzin and Lincoln (2005:143) formulated comprehensive definition of qualitative research which is, that qualitative research is multi-method in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means, that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings. attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people express. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials ­ case study, personal experience, introspection, life-stories, interviews, observations, historical, interaction, and visual texts - that describe routine and problematic moments and meaning in individuals' lives. The justification for the use of qualitative research approach is that: • it uses an inductive form of reasoning: develops concepts, insights and understanding from patterns in the data; • it derives meaning from the subject perspective; • it is ideographic: aims to understand the meaning that people attach to everyday life; • it captures and discovers meaning once the researcher becomes immersed in data; 84 • observations are determined by information richness of settings, and types of observations used, are modified to enrich understanding; • concepts are in the form of themes, motives and categories; and • data are analysed by extracting themes. The aim of qualitative research is, therefore, to understand experience as being unified. The above characteristics of qualitative research are consistent with the values of qualitative research described by Patton (2001 :56). Patton (2001 :56) listed the following values, which are: • phenomenology where the researcher develops an mUltiple perspectives; • holism, where the researcher perceives the big picture or the total situation rather than a few elements in a complex situation, as in quantitative research; • non-judgmental orientation where the researcher records a situation j qualitative terms without superimposing his or her value system. judgements, hypotheses, or preconceptions may distort what the researcher sees; and • contextualisation, where all information is considered only in the context of the environment in which it was gathered. These characteristics of qualitative research, thus are appropriate for studying the Batho Pete principles in Adult Basic Education. 3.3.1 Research design Phenomenological research study was conducted. The term phenomenology refers to a person's perception of the meaning of an event, as opposed to the event as it exists external to a person (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005:139). This study attempted to understand adult learners' and educator's perceptions, perspectives and understanding of ABET provision. 85 3.4 POPULATION AND SAMPLING The population of this research is composed of all adult educators and adult: learners in ABET centres in South Africa. The sample was limited to adult educators and learners in ABET centres, at Fezile Dabi district, in the Free State Province. The researcher has been working in this district for ten years. Two types of sampling were used in this study, namely purposeful and convenience sampling. Purposeful sampling is composed of elements that contain most characteristics, representative or typical of attributes of the population (White, 2005:120). On the basis of the researcher's knowledge of the population, a judgement was made about which subjects should be selected in order to provide the best information to address the purpose of this research. Patton as quoted by McMillan and Schumacher (1997:397) and Leedy and Ormrod (2005:145) describes it as 'selecting-rich cases for study in-depth', or selection of those individuals or objects that will yield the most information about the topic under investigation. The centres (n=10) ar, located in industrial areas (n=1), semi-rural (n=2). informal settlements (n=2) and in locations (n=5). Focus group interviews were conducted with three groups of adult educators (n=21) and two groups of learners (n=14). White (2005:120) indicates, that in a convenience, respondents are usually those who are the nearest and most easily available to the researcher. In this study, the researcher happened to be the Deputy Chief Education Specialist who works with all the centres in the Fezile Dabi district in the Free State Province. 3.5 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT This section discusses the instruments used to elicit data from the participants who formed the sample of this research. 3.5.1 Group Interviews (GI) Powell and Single (1996:499) describe a group as a group of individuals selected and assembled by researchers to comment on, from personal 86 experience, the topic that is the subject of the research which, in this study is the provision of Adult Basic Education. White (2005:146) states that GI involve interviewing a selected group of individuals so as to gain information about their views and experiences of the topic. This type of interviewing is particularly suitable for obtaining several perspectives about the same topic. GI interviews were considered to be an appropriate data collection method in this research, for the following reasons, which are: • time-wise, it was more economical than conducting numerous individual interviews; • the group dynamic is a synergistic factor in bringing out information; and • participants expressed their honest feeling more confidently within a support group of peers. Each Gl lasted for about an hour and thirty minutes. All interviews were open-ended and semi-structured. In semi-structured interviews the content and procedure are organised in advance, but probing questions are posed (see Addendum B). Schulze (2005:60) indicates that pre­ formulated questions are carefully arranged and put to all interviewees in a fairly similar sequence. 3.5.1.1 Interview setting and transcription Participants were encouraged to select an interview setting that would be private, convenient and comfortable. Educator respondents agreed to be interviewed at their centres during holidays when they would not have disturbances from learners. The choice of centres as a setting, was convenient for all FGls as it provided them with privacy and comfort. Learners were also interviewed at these centres after the interviews with the educators were completed. Participants were asked to allow two hours for the complete interview. Participants were told that the interview would be transcribed and audio-taped and were asked whether they had any objections to this process. All respondents agreed to be audio-taped. 87 Transcriptions of all the audio-taped interviews were made. The researcher compared audiotapes to transcripts and reviewed each transcript in order to ensure that it contained the verbatim recorded interview. These steps were important for the accuracy of the design and for the identification of emergent issues, which were to form themes. 3.5.2 Observation Although participant observation is generally regarded as the principal data gathering strategy of qualitative research, as stated by De Vos (2001 :279), in this research it is used as a secondary data strategy. The purpose of observational data, according to White (2005:158), is to describe: • the setting observed, which in this research, represents the ABET centres, • the activities that took place in that setting, which include the arrival of learners and educators and classroom teaching and interaction with adult learners; and • the people who participated in those activities and their participation. This includes the adult learners, adult educators and centre managers. In qualitative studies, observations are usually recorded in great detail, perhaps with field notes or video tapes that capture the wide variety of ways in which people act and interact. In this research observations and field notes were used. From the data, the researcher constructed a complex, yet integrated picture of the participants' experiences of ABET. 3.6 DATA ANALYSIS Data collection and analysis are not independent processes in a qualitative research design. While data collection actually entailed the process of interviewing, informal analysis of the respondents was also conducted during the interview. Steps that are used in the analysis of data, were suggested by 88 Creswell as quoted by Leedy and Ormrod (2005:136) and De Vos (2001 :342), are as follows: • organisation of details about the study. The specific facts about the stud~' are arranged in a logical order; • categorisation of data. Categories are identified that can help cluster the data into meaningful groups; • interpretation of single instances. Specific occurrences and other bits of data are examined for specific meanings they might have in relation to the study; • identification of patterns. The data and their interpretations are scrutinised for underlying themes and other patterns that characterise the study more broadly than a single piece of information can reveal; and • synthesis and generalisation. An overall portrait of the study is constructed. Conclusions are drawn, that may have implications beyond the specific study researched. 3.7 DATA TRIANGULATION The term "triangulation", according to White (2005:89) can refer to the use of: • more than one source of data to support a researcher's conclusion; • more than one theory to support the researcher's arguments; and or • more than one investigator to collect the data to make findings more reliable. In this research, triangulation was done by means of a type called "investigator triangulation". Interviews were conducted with the participants, observations were made by the researcher and the data were analysed. The Investigator triangulation can be represented as follows. 89 Interviews Observation Researcher 3.8 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS In order to protect the participants' rights, the following safeguards, as listed by Cresswell (2003:123), are employed, which are that: • the research topic and objectives will be expressed clearly in order to be well understood by the participants; • each participant's consent will be requested to participate in the study; • transcriptions, interpretations and reports will be made available to the participants if they wish to see them; • in any decision-making process in the study, the researcher will consider the rights and protection of the participants; and • the researcher will honour confidentiality. The participants will choose their pseudonym to be used in the texts in order to protect their anonymity_ It is anticipated, that the discussion of the experience of meaning in individuals with HIV may prove to be emotionally distressing for some participants. Participants, therefore, will be monitored and debriefed. If necessary, the researcher will make recommendations for therapeutic interventions (Merriam, 1998:67). 90 3.9 CONCLUSION This chapter presented the research design employed in this study. The nex chapter deals with the analysis and interpretation of data collected by means of interviews and observation. 91 CHAPTER FOUR ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS 4.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the results of the responses that participants gave to the questions the interviewer posed. There were two focus group interviews, one for the educators and another for adult learners. All responses are reported verbatim and the names used are not real. 4.2 INTERVIEW PROCEEDINGS WITH ADULT EDUCATORS Focus group Interviews were conducted with ABET educators of Sasolburg (centre A), Parys (centre B) and Koppies (centre C). Adult learners were also interviewed. The responses of all participants are presented below. 4.2.1 Responses of ABET educator participants in centre A Question: What problems or challenges do you encounter when executing your duties as an educator? Grace: 'The problem is, that of salaries that are not paid on time. Sometimes we are paid long after month-end and at other times you could wait up to two months for your salary. This makes it difficult for me to budget or to open accounts, for that matter. It is as if one is not working'. Kenneth: 'There is a problem of a shortage of Learner-Teacher Support Material (LTSM). The Department of Education and Training supplies the centres, but sometimes the books are irrelevant to the needs of the centre. Sometimes we get them very late in the year. In this situation we as educators have to improvise. This is where the problem lies, as we are not paid enough to buy textbooks to use'. Kamohelo: 'The school that hosts our centre, does not have lights. It seems as if learners during the day fiddle with lights and when the centre starts, the 92 lights are not functional. We have to knock off earlier, especially in winter. A situation which makes us not to be able to catch up with the curriculum'. Priscilla: 'We as educators are sometimes demotivated due to the way the department is handling the issue of the conditions of service for ABET educators. There are no benefits such as leave days, medical aid, housing' subsidies and others. I do not understand why we are not treated as are other educators at other schools'. Brenda: 'Programmes that are offered to adult learners, are not relevant to their situations. They do not address their needs, such as poverty and unemployment. I am talking about programmes such as Human and Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and others. These learners need to be equipped with skills that will enable them to fight poverty in their communities'. Simon: 'There is little support that the district office is providing. There are no motivational sessions. Structures like Centre Governing Bodies (CGBs) are not functional, and there is absolutely nothing that is done by the district for support'. Charles: 'The crime rate is high in the area where our centre is. Female adult learners, who are working and starting their classes at 18h30, do not attend regularly because of this; some of them decided not to attend classes any more'. Question: Is the support you get from your centre manager, enough to assist you in effectively executing your duties? Grace: 'Although centre managers assist us in drawing up of time-tables and in the allocation of subjects, they do not support us when we have to teach more subjects than budgeted for. We feel compelled to teach these subjects, because we want more money and sometimes the learners beg us to do so'. Kenneth: 'The centre manager allocates resources available, such as LTSM and make sure that the learning programme is followed. When there is a shortage it is the teacher, not the centre manager, who must see it out'. 93 Kamohelo: 'The support is so limited. The centre managers do not conduct mini- workshops to assist us with teaching methodology and moral support'. Priscilla: 'We encounter problems with following pace setters, centrE managers do assist us by holding workshops, but when we fall behind because of time, two hours per week is not enough to cover the work, we are on our own'. Brenda: 'The centre manager does little class visit. So it is difficult to teach learners who are not motivated. The managers do not have time for listening to learner problems; therefore, how can these problems be solved'. Simon: 'It IS on rare occasions where the centre managers inform us of the latest developments that affect our teaching and learning such as the assessment policy. They are not available when we are stuck in class. They tell us that they have too much work'. Charles: 'The centre managers suppose to act as a mouth pieces between the district officials and the centre (educators and learners); they are aware of our problems. The district officials also do not give us a positive response, as when there is a teacher who does not attend regularly, they do not come and solve the problem for us', Question: Can you say the values of Ubuntu as related to Batho Pete are fostered at ABET centres? Grace: 'I do not think the value of caring is fostered, the Department of Education does not seem to care for ABET educators. Since the inception of ABET programmes, the conditions of service were supposed to have been addressed, but nothing has happened up to now'. Kenneth: 'There is no understanding; when the educator is absent from work for instance, his/her child is sick there is no pay. With ABET one is not supposed to be sick or have problems. There is no understanding, no care and no compassion. With ABET no one cares about your problems; you are like a slave'_ 94 Kamohelo: 'No, the department does not respect us; we still have the same conditions of service that were before 1996. I feel that we are not treated with dignity'. Priscilla: 'There is no compassion at all, with public schools educators are given time off for funeral arrangements for their loved ones, we do not have that. If I stay for a week to arrange the funeral of a family member, even if it were my child, all those hours are deducted from my salary'. Brenda: 'No caring and sympathy is shown by the department because the conditions of service are still the same. I do not have a medical aid; the department does not subsidise it. I am supposed to pay for medical expenses from the R1 500.00 I get per month'. Simon: 'No, Ubuntu values are fostered, I am saying this, because ABET has been a presidential project for too long; there was a time when the National Minister of Education indicated, that they were going to focus more on ABET, but up to now nothing has been done concerning the conditions of service'. 'When learners are absent from school because they take care of their sick relatives, educators do not take their problems into consideration, especially during assessment'. Charles: 'There is no respect, ABET learners do not respect their educators as they are older than they are. On the other hand, educators also do not respect learners; they tell them that they wasted their time by not attending school; they are still wasting it now'. Question: Which areas do you think could be improved by ABET for an effective service provision? Grace: 'LTSM is provided at the centres but, 60% is not suitable to the needs of the adult learners. These books are ordered at school level, we only receive whatever they send us. I wish the curriculum could be changed to suit the needs of these learners. Our learners have started a food garden at the centre; they also have home gardens. Enough Agricultural LTSM, Small,­ 95 Macro, and Medium Enterprises (SMME) would be supplied in order to assist adult learners to be self-reliant'. Kenneth: 'Enough time should be given to ABET tuition. The subjects that are allocated are five hours in ordinary schools, but at ABET they have two hours. We are unable to cover the amount of work we are expected to and when learners are assessed for competency, they need to be confident. The question of time allocated for subjects lead to learner drop-out. This is because when, they are assessed; they are not ready they then decide to drop out'. Kamohelo: 'Adult centres should have their stand-alone buildings which will cater for the whole community, where (a) literacy classes are provided (b) community projects are directed (c) skills programmes can be managed effectively, and (d) learnerships can be done and effectively managed'. Priscilla: 'Conditions of ABET educators should be addressed and they should be permanently employed. ABET educators should enjoy the same benefits that are enjoyed by educators in public schools e.g. medical aid scheme, leave benefits, housing subsidies, and others. The situation now is, that we are not paid for recruitment of learners; we have to recruit learners we are not paid for the hours we spend recruiting. I also wish that our job description could be spelt out clearly'. Brenda: 'I wish ABET can be given the attention it deserves, including being marketed well. Everybody should be involved, from politicians to the man in the street. Enough money should be allocated for ABET, so that the beneficiaries can take part in improving the economy of the country'. Simon: 'I think other sectors within communities should assist ABET centres, these include local government. ABET centres need to be assisted by community to work'. Charles: 'ABET programmes should be project-oriented. Educators should be trained in project management; this will help us managing ABET programmes' . 96 4.2.2 Responses of ABET educator participants in centre B The following are the responses of educator participants from centre B at Zamdela, Sasolburg. Question: What problems or challenges do you encounter when executing your duties as an educator? Phindile: 'The centre does not have any resources like photocopy machines. In terms of the new curriculum, the Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) and the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) photocopy machine is needed in order to give learners handouts for portfolios (show-casing). During assessment, it becomes difficult to produce enough copies. Writing questions on the board is time-consuming. We are left with no option but to use our monies, yet our salaries are not guaranteed, we are paid either too little or no paid on time'. Pitso: 'The centre does not have bookshelves where our important documents can be kept. Sometimes centre managers become mobile offices. Every afternoon or evening when the manager comes to the centre she/he should bring along all documents that are used at the centre. The hosting schools usually do not have vacant classrooms or offices to be used by ABET managers'. Zanele: 'Some programmes offered at ABET are not addressing the needs of its learners. Some learners come to centres to learn only reading the Bible, own letters and documents and writing letters or filling in forms; but now, instead of giving the learner what she/he wants she or he is offered other subjects of no interest. This leads to drop-out of these learners. Others come as experienced plumbers or builders; they just want to acquire skills on measuring accurately or being able to estimate building material to be used for a site. These learners come to the centre, expecting to be served but to their surprise, they do not get what they want'. Andile: 'There is no intensive mobilisation and advocacy. The Department of Education at national, provincial and local levels do not playa major role in 97 advertising in media. Politicians, during Imbizo's do not even mention rendering of educational programmes, especially for ABET'. Sibusiso: 'Many ABET educators have been trained to teach learners (pedagogy), but very few are trained in teaching adults (andragogy). Little is done to assist ABET educators to be properly qualified. Only ± 3% of adult educators receive bursaries to study further. About 98% of ABET educators are not qualified to teach adults. Training provided is not enough'. Thandiwe: 'Some centres are not accessible to learners. Currently, most of the ABET learners travel distances to attend classes. Potential learners are mostly in informal settlements where there are no structures. At night, adult learners become victims of crime because of the distance they have to travel to access ABET programmes'. Emily: 'The ratio 1:20 stipulated by the department, seems not to be working. One finds that there are only ten learners in a class; these learners could not be assisted because the required ratio is not met'. Question: Is the support you get from your centre manager, enough to assist you in effectively executing your duties? Phindile: 'It is not enough, because they are not adequately trained as managers. Again the ABET environment does not allow some managers to become innovative. The support the centre manager is able to give is to control registers that accompany claims for payment and other documents that show cases payments. They also support us with the coordination of activities within the centre'. Pitso: 'There is little support, because centre managers are working like principals of schools but only appointed part-time. They are not sure when to apply a policy as managers. Take for instance the maintenance of discipline, the managers instead of enforcing the policy, they cover for the educators who are frequently absent at the expense of those that attend regularly. They usually cover for these educators as they are unable to bear the responsibility of expelling them'. 98 Zanele: 'The support given by our centre manager, is amazing. When one of the learners in my class discloses his or her positive HIV status and that of her baby, the centre manager was so touched that she decided to start a support group in the centre'. Andile: 'I get a lot of support from my centre manager, especially during class visits. The positive response and the advice are amazing. He advises me on how to deal with classroom management, activities that involve learners, assessment criteria and community-related issues'. Sibusiso: 'The centre manager is supportive, she organises developmenta~ training sessions, and motivational sessions for both educators and learners. She once invited local politicians to address learners on how projects can assist them in being job creators and not job seekers'. Thandiwe: 'The centre manager helps us with planning activities in advance. We always have the itinerary for the year before that year starts. He monitors the activities in the itinerary and makes sure that the relevant educator who deserves to be rewarded, participates in the National Teacher Awards. The chosen educator/s represents the centre at district level'. Emily: 'The centre manager supported us by negotiating with the hosting school to start a resource centre. The resource centre was to be used by learners of the hosting school and those of ABET. The excess LTSM in both schools is used in the centre. This initiative has attracted more learners to our centre. We are using the hosting school's computer centre with the permission of the principal. Young adult learners come to our centre because of these facilities and they have even enrolled for advanced computer courses'. Question: Can you say the values of Ubuntu as related to Batho Pele are fostered at ABET centres? Phindile: 'In my opinion, the values of Ubuntu are not practised the way they should be. The Department of Education is right by providing educators with work just to cater for their basic needs; on the other hand, this same department does not sympathise with its educators by improving the 99 conditions of service. ABET educators are employed part-time for years; they are never permanent. I once applied for an RDP house. When they checked my salary, they said I do not qualify for low costing houses yet I do not qualify for houses that cost more. This is ridiculous; it means I do not qualify to have a house; where should I live. In a shack? When I go to financial institutions for assistance, they tell me that I am not permanently employed'. Pitso: 'The department is practising the Ubuntu value of sharing, it shares its resources for example, the money that is allocated to provide ABET programmes to people who are disadvantaged. They are assisted to improve their reading, writing and interpersonal skills, it provides these services free'. Zanele: 'Learners in our centre respect educators and vice versa. Educators do not say that learners are ignorant or illiterate. Educators believe that these learners have prior knowledge and experience'. Andile: 'Learners do not respect each other and us as teachers this is because most learners are older than we are. There was a case where one of the learners misbehaved; when the disciplinary committee had to take action, all the other students sided with him; they staged a protest. We belong to the same political organisations with some of the learners at school. They still want to address us as comrades and not as teachers'. Sibusiso: 'Sometimes the values are practised. One learner in our centre passed away and all educators got together for funeral arrangements. As the learner had no relatives who were working we raised funds with the ward counsellor to pay for the funeral'. Thandiwe: 'Peace and humanity is being practiced. This I observed when two of our colleagues clashed and this led to being physical. The manager called all the educators and elderly learners to his office. The manager involved us to be part of the conflict resolution between the two educators. One of the educators was very difficult but we had to make her understand that the conflict can only be resolved if both of them are willing to make peace with each other'. 100 Emily: 'I am able to share my problems with adult learners in my class. Some of them are far older than me, I rely sometimes on their advice concerning my personal problems. I have realised that by approaching them when I have problems I have made it possible for them to come to me for assistance'. Question: Which areas do you think, could be improved by ABET for an effective service provision? Phindile: 'In my view, enough bursaries could be made available in order to equip current educators with relevant training they need, which is skills­ oriented. Currently only about 5% of ABET educators are assisted by the department' . Pitso: 'In ABET the focus currently is on the Adult Basic Education and not 0 training. Learners are in need of skills. There are learners in ABET who are brick layers, but who do not have qualifications. ABET centres could provide these adult learners with a bricklaying programme, teach them communication, counting, measuring and business plan skills and in the end reward them with certificates that will enable them to be employable'. Zanele: 'Conditions of service for ABET educators are unacceptable. The Department of Education should take serious steps to address the conditions of service, because they are the major cause of learner attrition. Dissatisfie people will never perform up to an acceptable standard. Educators have been appointed on a part-time using claiming system, where salaries sometimes are not paid regularly and in time. Education is an essential service and educators should be treated with respect'. Andile: 'It would be better if ABET could have stand-alone buildings where projects can be channelled. Departments like the Public Service which can provide learnerships for road construction and transport, tourism where ABET centres can become tourism agencies/directories, Water Affairs and Home Affairs, which could provide service points to learners and immediate communities and local government which could enable learners to tender while doing courses at ABET'. 101 Sibusiso: 'Office Bearers could take ABET as a social platform. A person who cannot read and write, will always be a burden to the government, and help could be given through unemployment grants, poverty grants and sick grants. The economy of the country will grow if government could focus 0 improving living conditions of impoverished persons by engaging them in educational programmes', Thandiwe: 'The Bill of Rights enshrines the right to all citizens to a 'basic education', including ABET. Yet, a very small proportion of the total education budget is spent on ABET. Literacy programmes reach scarcely very small portions of those who require it. If more than 40% are still unemployed, the economy of the country will remain as it is without change'. Emily: 'ABET activists had hoped that the Act of 2000 would commit the government to a large vision, Instead, it contains potentially important, but very limited requirements for the future management of the generally dysfunctional system. If Ubuntu value of commitment can be instilled to the policy-makers and funders, things would be better'. 4.2.3 Responses of ABET educator participants in centre C Question: What problems or challenges do you encounter when executing your duties as an educator? Patrick: 'One big problem that hampers production is the system the department is using to pay salaries. We are paid for the number of hours we have worked and at the end of the month, hours worked are submitted to the district office for payment. Now of late, the system that is used where around the 15th of every month estimation of hours an educator has worked for that month, is submitted with the register as evidence. The system is open to fraud. This could be because one educator worked at the centre from the 1st to the 19th; by then the estimated hours had already been submitted at the district. He got a permanent job at the local municipalities and the money could not be recovered. Educators are always looking out for permanent posts elsewhere', 102 Zamani: 'The problem that I have is, that some educators in our centre are not familiar with OBE. The district office takes time to train them. There is also a very high rate of teacher attrition; last year we lost about four educators who got permanent posts at schools. The four new educators, who replaced them, have not received any training. It then becomes very difficult to get the output expected, because of a lack of human resource development'. Khohliwe: 'I was employed at a rural centre last year. One big challenge was that most of the learning areas were not relevant to the needs of the learners in rural areas. Most of the learners were employed on farms and working mostly as cattle farm assistants. Rural areas do not get the service they deserve'. Patricia: 'I feel that the centre should address the needs of its community. Our centre is in an informal settlement of poverty, under-development and unemployment. I think the centre should provide learners with the learning areas that will make them employable. The high rate of poverty drives learners away from the centre'. Samuel: 'Lack of resources is one problem that I encounter that makes it difficult for me to be effective. I am teaching Ancillary Health Care and to date only ten books for the learning area have been received, although I have 40 learners in class. It then becomes difficult to teach these learners or give them homework, as they do not have books'. Pulane: 'The problem I have noted, is that of high drop-out rate among learners. Learners register in great numbers at the beginning of the year, but drop out gradually up until we are left with only about 20% at the end of the year. Some learners I have asked for their reasons of dropping out, said that they received what they wanted: that is being able to read and write; these are the learners between 40-60 years of age. The younger generation says, that they had thought that they would be trained at computer skills'. Vicky: 'What I observed as a big challenge, is that ABET becomes a problem of the educators and learners in the district. There is no involvement of local 103 structures to assist it. The councillor in our ward, does not know what is happening at the centre'. Thabang: 'One factor that bothers me, is that of respect from all participants at the centre. Learners once protested against the centre manager who genuinely wanted to discipline a learner who came to the centre drunk. Learners support bad practices, misbehaviour and bunking classes. Now educators have developed the same kind of attitude towards the centre manager; they do not respect him'. Question: Is the support you get from your centre manager, enough to assist you in effectively executing your duties? Patrick: 'Yes I get a lot of support from the centre manager. When I started at the centre he organised an orientation session where I was exposed to a number of things I was not aware of. I was trained long before aBE was introduced; the concepts in aBE and RNCS are totally new to me. The centre manager also provides me with the LTSM I need'. Zamani: 'Yes, although there are problems in other areas. The centre manager makes sure, that all educators, before they go to their classes, have the necessary resources they need. I once told the centre manager that I need a television set for my next lesson. I did not expect him to organise one for me; we were just chatting. The following day he called me to the office and gave me the TV I needed for my lesson. We quickly organised a video and I had the cassette I was to use for the lesson, while everything went well'. Khohliwe: 'Yes, the centre manager is very supportive. Even jf he does not have everything we need, he improvises. In one of my lessons I was to teach learners about the local government hearings/sessions. The centre manager organised a speaker from the local municipality to come and tell the learners how it is done. The learners were even allowed to go and observe the debate. The learners were conversant with the procedures to follow before a by-law is passed'. 104 Patricia: 'Yes, when I was planning a trip with my learners to the auditorium, the manager played a crucial role. She arranged transport and consulted with the district for the learners' transport to be subsidised', Samuel: 'I do not get any support from the district concerning the learning area I teach. There is no learning area facilitator for the subject I teach. I rely on the information I get from the internet and I pay from my own pocket for this information'. Pulane: 'Yes, she supports us; she organised a savings club for educator~ and learners who wanted to join, This she did to build a spirit of togetherness. Every year we have a closing function and we visit places as a staff with those learners who are willing to join us', Vicky: 'Once every week, at our centre, we have a session where we discuss the progress of the week and talk about new developments and objectives for the coming week. Educators who experience problems in their classes, have a chance to talk about their problems and to be assisted'. Thabang: 'Yes, the centre manager provides support during class-visits conducted. The advice I receive after the visits, helps me to improve. She holds motivation sessions for educators and learners'. Question: Can you say the values of Ubuntu as related to Batho Pete are fostered at ABET centres Patrick: 'A person is fulfilled only through other people. Effective communication plays an important role between educator and centre managers concerning matters around the management of the centre. The centre manager communicates well with educators and learners and the sense of respect prevails among all stakeholders at the centre. The centre manager respects everybody, even when I come with personal issues, she will always treat me with respect'. 105 Zamani: 'Our centre manager sympathises with educators, or matters such as not receiving salaries in time. She will always enquire from the district on how she can assist us'. Khohliwe: 'Our centre manager respects educators' views and ideas during staff meetings. She allows educators to express their grievances, but when she cannot solve the problem, she refers us to the district'. Patricia: 'The value of sharing seems to be practised at our centre. The centre manager, during one activity at the centre, when the municipality at the eleventh hour refused to offer the hall, paid from her own pocket for the activity to proceed'. Samuel: 'Peace and humanity are being practised and shown. This observed when two of our colleagues clashed and this led to it being physical. The manager called all the educators and elderly learners to his office. The manager involved us to be part of the conflict resolution between the two educators. One of the educators was very difficult but we had to make her understand that the conflict can be resolved only if both of them are willing to make peace with each other. Eventually the two educators came to an agreement and they respect us for having the courage to have helped them'. Pulane: 'The love that prevails at the centre, is incredible. We are like a family. When one of the educators lost a mother in the Eastern Cape (Umtata), the staff, learners, and the members of the governing body at the centre all attended the funeral. This to me showed the love, respect, sympathy, caring and humanness the members at the centre have. This still happens whenever one of the colleagues' relatives dies and we all attend the funeral'. Vicky: 'The values of Ubuntu are practised at the centre. One of the adult learner's shacks was burnt down while she was attending classes at the centre. Her neighbour came to the centre to report the incident. Unfortunately when learners from the centre arrived at her place, the shack was burnt down. Learners donated sheets of zinc, clothes, bedding, kitchen utensils and 106 I others. The learners at the centre involved the community in helping this learner'. Thabang: 'I am able to share my problems with adult learners in my class. Some of them are far older than I am. I rely sometimes on their advice concerning my personal problems. I realised that, by approaching them when I have problems, I have made it possible for them to come to for assistance. This has led into a very healthy relationship: one that is based on trust'. Question: Which areas do you think, could be improved by ABET for effective service provision? Patrick: 'If ABET can be supported by the department just the way it supports public and private schools things, would be better. ABET is not funded properly; adult learners are marginalised: they are not treated as people who can also make a contribution to the economy of the country. ABET to them is just the continuation of the normal school; nothing prepares them to become employable' . Zamani: 'I wish ABET educators can be appointed permanently and enjoy the same benefits as educators at schools. We have the same qualifications and same requirements as in schools. I think it is the salary that I am paid that makes me not to be committed in my work. The current conditions are the ones that lead to high learner-drop out, high staff turnover and instability at the centres in terms of teaching and learning'. Khohliwe: 'Programmes at ABET should be project-oriented; they should be run like projects. If they are taught tourism at the end of the term, a project should be funded where they will be able to display the skills they have learnt. They will be learning and at the same time they will be able to put food on the table', Patricia: 'Adult learners cannot get any form of a stipend as with learnerships, because they learn school subjects. Funding should be made available to centres where companies are providing learnerships. The centres should be innovative by starting projects where their learners will benefit. This would not 107 only attract learners to the centres but also provide vegetables to the community' . Samuel: 'Funding constitutes the major barriers to centres not starting projects such as sewing, vegetable gardens, poultry farming and others. that will develop as many people in the community as possible'. Pulane: 'The hosting schools should abide by the contents of the contract signed between the school and the centre. In these contracts, hosting schools are to pay for all services. But you will find, that it becomes difficult for ABET to be run smoothly at some schools as there are no lights, globes have fused and are not replaced'. Vicky: 'There should be media coverage initiatives from the National Department of Education around ABET programmes. ABET needs political office bearers in order to take a lead to mobilise and advocate for programmes. There should be TV coverage, posters and billboards and messages that encourage people to take part in ABET programmes'. Thabang: 'There is shortage of human resources for effective and efficier.t service delivery in ABET. In our district there are three officials for curriculum and currently, 14 learning areas are offered in ABET. It is impossible for these officials to have specialised in 14 learning areas. The reality is, that they might have specialised in one or two learning areas each; this means, that the educators of all the other learning areas have not specialised or do not get the necessary support they expect from these officials. They try to assist, but if it is not their field, there is nothing much they can do'. 4.2.4 Analysis of the research results of educator participants 4.2.4.1 Theme 1: ABET educators are not satisfied with their conditions of service Educators complain that they do not receive salaries on time. They have to claim for the hours they have worked for and these claims take a long time to be processed. They stated the following. 108 'Salaries that are not paid on time', 'we are paid for the number of hours we have worked for', 'the system is open to fraud', ' there was a time when the educators refused to teach because their salaries were delayed, ' These educators are complaining about being temporarily employed for years. This to them is a disadvantage as they are not able to have any benefits such as housing subsidies, leave days and medical aid schemes. The following were discovered, which was that: 'There are no benefits such as leave days, housing subsidy and medical aid', educators should also enjoy benefits that are enjoyed by the educators in public schools e.g. medical aids scheme, leave benefits, housing subsidies, etc.', 'I do not qualify for low cost houses, yet I do not also qualify for the houses that cost more', ' I wish ABET educators can be appointed permanently and enjoy benefits as educators at schools', ' we still have the same conditions of service that were there before 1996', ' I am not able to have a medical aid because the department does not subsidise it for ABET educators', 'no understanding when an educators is absent from work, due to illness'. Recruitment of learners by educators is not paid as part of the duties ABET educators are doing, but they need to recruit for learners at the centres. The following were experienced, which was: 'We have to recruit learners and we are not paid for the hours we spent for recruitment', ' I wish that job-description could be spelt out clearly', 'conditions of service of ABET educators are unacceptable', 'ABET educators are employed part-time for years, and they are not permanently appointed'. It seems, that the conditions of teaching for adult educators are not conducive for teaching and learning. They complain that they do not receive their salaries on time. There had been discussions about the conditions of service of adult educators, aiming to address main issues such as permanent appointment, pension, medical and housing subsidies (see 2.3.3). It seems that these discussions did not bear much fruit, as these participants still complain about them. 109 4.2.4.2 Theme 2: ABET educators are not supported by their managers and the district officials when they encounter problems with the curriculum, venues for teaching and administration Adult educator participants indicated, that they are not supported by their managers, and indicated that , ....centre managers are not adequately trained as managers', 'centre managers are working like principals of schools but appointed part- time', 'I do not get support from the district concerning the learning areas I teach', 'there is little support that the district is providing', 'do not support us when we have to teach more subjects', 'structures like Centre Governing Bodies are not functional', 'ABET environment does not allow managers to become innovative'. It seems that the support adult educators need from their managers, is lacking. These educators need to be supported as most of them are not familiar with teaching at ABET centres. It is support that will enable them to be effective in executing their roles. This response is not in line with the literature review, because it is indicated that that National, Provincial and Local Governments must be encouraged to run or support ABET programmes for their employees (see 2.3.2.1). 4.2.4.3 Theme 3: The progress at ABET centres is crippled by the lack of resources All adult educators indicated, that there is a severe shortage of resources at ABET centres, a situation which makes it difficult for them to be effective in their teaching. They said that: , there is a problem with a shortage of learning, teaching and support material', ' the centre dose not have lights', 'the centre does not have resources like a photocopy machine', 'centre does not have book shelves where important documents can be kept', 'lack of resources is one problem that I encounter', ' funding is a major barrier to centres', 'there is shortage of human resources for effective and efficient seNice delivery in ABET'. 110 Literature indicates, that from a history perspective the ABET sector has been neglected in favour of normal schooling. As a result, the alleviation of illiteracy will be extremely difficult, unless political will and support are translated into commitment and resource allocation (see 2.3.2.1). It seems that the Department of Education caters more for schools than ABET centres. This situation would lead to disaster, as is the situation with ABET centres at present. 4.2.4.4 Theme 4: ABET programmes offered at ABET centres, are not relevant to the needs of the adult learners All educator participants indicated that programmes offered at ABET centres do not necessarily cater for the needs of the adult learners. They are complaining that in ABET there is no training of learners, they said: ' .....ABET programmes should be project oriented, ' some programmes that are offered at ABET centres are not addressing the needs of its learners, 'no focus on the "T" for training skills, 'rural areas do not get the service they deserve,' the younger generation says that they thought that they would be trained on computer skills,' programmes that are offered to adult learners are not relevant to their situation, 'rural areas do not get the service they deserve,' 'I think the centre should provide learners with the learning area that will make them employable.' This response is not in line with literature where it says that there is a grown trend which requires that ABET should be skills based and practical so as to ensure that the courses are career oriented and increase the learners' chance to gain employment (see 2.3.3). At the moment most programmes that are offered at these centres are a shadow of a formal schooling system (see 2.3.2.1 ). 111 4.2.4.5 Theme 5: ABET educators complain of not being adequately developed and enriched by their employers, a situation which according to them leads to their ineffectiveness Most educator participants indicated that they are not adequately developed and enriched by their employers, these educators said: 'little is done to assist ABET educators to be properly qualified', 'ABET educators should receive bursaries to study further', 'no developmental sessions for both educators and learners are organised', 'little is done to allow ABET educators to participate in World Teachers Awards', 'if enough bursaries could be made available in order to equip educators with relevant training', 'when there is shortage of LTSM the teacher is the one who should see to finish', 'centre managers do little class visit due insecurity of their posts', 'some educators are not familiar with Outcomes Based Education approach', 'the district takes time to train them'. The adult educators are not trained to teach in ABET, their training is based on teaching in schools. They are not trained to deal with non-formal provision of ABET and the connection between adult education and community development aspects. This lack of relevant and proper training may lead to a lot of negative consequences in programme development for adult learners. H seems that they need to be continuously developed and trained more than educators at schools. Literature (see 2.3.2.1) indicates that there should be a stable human resource to utilise the facilities of ABET effectively and efficiently_ ABET should be regarded as a highly specialised area, a situation which therefore, calls for the formal and rigorous training of adult educators. 4.2.4.6 Theme 6: There is high crime rate in communities where ABE centres are located Although few participants indicated that they have a problem with the high crime rate, it leads to adult learner drop-out. The participants said that. '. _. female learners ... are working and starting classes late', ' at night adult learners become victims of crime because of the distance they travel'. 112 Most provinces are characterised by the high crime rate; this then creates a barrier to the smooth delivery of ABET programmes. It is important, that people in South Africa become literate, because of the rapid technologicall changes that occur in the country, due to globalisation and other factors as well (see 2.3.2.1). 4.2.4.7 Theme 7: A lack of respect Participants indicated a lack of respect between educators and learners and between educators and the Department of Education. They mentioned as follows. f ••••department does not respect us', 'there is no respect, adult learners do not respect their educators as they are older than them', ' learners do not respect one another', 'lack of respect from all participants at the centre'. This response is not in line with Batho Pete principles where it is indicated, that public servants should be cautious when providing services to the public by listening to their problems, apologising when necessary and serving with a smile. People care only when they are devoted to doing the job to the end and by ensuring that they deliver beyond customer expectations. Public servants are mandated to respect all citizens, irrespective of background, gender, colour or creed (see 2.2.4). 4.2.4.8 Theme 8: A lack of sympathy and compassion Participants indicated that their managers lack sympathy and compassion. They expressed themselves as follows. ·... there is no compassion at all, at schools educators are given time off for funeral arrangements for their loved ones', 'no sympathy is shown by the department, because the conditions of service are still not favourable', 'no compassion is shown because no one seems to care about ABET problems', 'the department does not sympathise with educators by improving their conditions of service.' 113 Learners should be treated with respect and educators should practise principles of Batho Pele, where sympathy and compassion should be reflected at all times. Ubuntu deals with many feelings of compassion, related to making life more humane for others, especially to care for the disadvantaged (see 2.2.1.2). 4.2.4.9 Themes 9: A lack of sharing of resources between schools and ABET centres There is a lack of sharing of resources between schools even between the ABET centre and the hosting school. Participants made the following utterances, which are: ... hosting schools should abide by the contents of the contracts signed between the school and the centre', 'our centre managers sympathise with the educators on matters such as not receiving salaries in time.' Night schools were gradually established in existing schools in all parts of the country. Though located in school buildings, the centres are run autonomously with centre principals of their own, a situation which leads to occasional conflict between the two institutions (see 2.3.2.1). In terms of Regulation No, 25905 of January 2004, there should be a memorandum of agreement between two institutions that promote cooperative governance concerning how resources can be utilised and shared by the two institutions. 4.2.4.10 Theme 10: A high rate of teacher attrition Participants indicated a high rate of teacher attrition, which they attribute to a number of factors, including their conditions of service as follows. "...educators are always looking out for permanent posts elsewhere', 'there is a very high rate of teacher attrition who got permanent posts at schools', 'the current condition are the ones that lead to high staff turnover and instability at centres.' 114 There is a national outcry about ABET educators who are dissatisfied with their working conditions. Because of this outcry, ABET educators are looking for better jobs with better working conditions (see 2.2.3). 4.2.4.11 Theme 11: A high drop-out rate of adult learners in ABET centres Participants indicated a high drop-out rate among adult learners. The following statements were uttered. 'the high rate of poverty drive learners away from the centres', 'learners register in great numbers at the beginning of the year, but dropout gradually', 'no involvement of local structures to assist', 'the current conditions are the ones that lead to high learner drop-out.' It seems that adult learners do not stay at school for long: they usually drop out because of several reasons. The high drop-out rate is attributed to a lack of funding (see 2.2.3.1) and ineffective management (see 2.3.3). Funds would enable centres to provide programmes that would attract adult learners. This situation could lead to the reduction or a temporary closure of ABET centres. 4.3 INTERVIEW PROCEEDINGS WITH ADULT LEARNERS 4.3.1 Responses of ABET learner participants (Group 1) Question: How is the standard of teaching at your centre? Thapelo: 'In our class educators that offer learning areas were at first not sure of what they were doing. After they had attended a workshop organised by the district, we started seeing a change. Educators are now teaching so well; we do assignments, homework and projects. Our portfolios are full of evidence of the work we do'. Modiehi: 'Our educators could not cope with the work that they are doing. They always complain about having too much work to do. The problem is, that they have to teach, mark our books, recruit students and motivate us not to drop out. 115 Some educators come to school without having prepared their lessons thoroughly; they take advantage of the fact that we are adults: we can study on our own. This negative perception is not good for our learning. They do not teach us the way they should and not explain concepts, telling us that we are not children; we cannot expect to be 'spoon-fed'. Selloane: 'The standard of teaching is low, especially at the beginning of the year this is when new educators are still oriented to their work. They are still not conversant with the work they have to do and the learning areas they have to offer. As learners, we always think that educators are experts: we become disappointed when they are fumbling. It is when we raised concerns about the fact that they do not teach us, that we were told that they are not yet familiar with the OBE curriculum'. Thoko: 'In our centre the standard of teaching and learning is not satisfactory. We have done three chapters only in AnciJlery Health Care and Tourism and lit is August already. I do not think we will cover all the work we have to do for the year. Our teacher has been very slow; she told us that she has to do an activity two or three times, as some of us are always absent; she also said, that she does not want to leave anyone behind'. Mpho: 'The standard of teaching is improving, but at the beginning of the year we waist a lot of time. Our educators seem not to be sure of what they are doing. By the time they get into teaching, it is already May when we are preparing for assessment'. Neo: 'As an ABET 4 learner, who has been with the centre for four years, I can say that the standard is good. It is the learners sometimes who are not committed to their work. Other learners come once a week for lessons andi they expect to progress well like those learners who attend regularly'. Paballo: 'It is true that the standard of teaching in ABET is not good, but there are educators at the centre who try their utmost. Other educators are frequently absent or arrive late. This means that they have to their work in less time. They seem to enjoy this, as they say they have nothing to lose; they did their matric when it was time for them to do so. The governing body tries to 116 reprimand these educators, but they seem not to care, as they say they can get teaching posts at schools at any time'. Question: Does your centre have enough resources? Thapelo: 'No, there are no resources. Classrooms we are using, do not have electrical plugs. This makes it difficult for us to attend classes late in the evening, especially in winter'. Modiehi: 'I was surprised when I first attended at the centre where the hosting school lock toilets for adult learners and educators. We therefore did not have access to toilet facilities at the centre. It was after intervention from the district, that two toilets were opened for teachers and adult learners'. Selloane: 'The classes that we use for ABET are classes that are used by the junior phase during the day. The tables and chairs are for children in that phase. We feel so uncomfortable, especially in chairs: sometimes we break them; they are too small for us. We wanted to relocate to another school, I but this is the only school that is near to where we stay. The district office helped us with furniture from schools that closed down on farms, but it is not enough" most of us still use the small chairs'. Thoko: 'We struggle to have textbooks. We have received only four copies of Applied Agricultural Science and Tourism textbooks and we are twenty four in class. This makes it difficult for us to do homework and classwork. In fact, we have to do group activities always, as six learners have to share one textbook'. Mpho: 'Educators sometimes struggle to have chalk and dusters. We have to start late with the lessons, as the educator is still moving, in an attempt to find a small piece of chalk she can use. This causes delays'. Neo: 'Sometimes the centre manager struggles to get a replacement for an educator who had left for another post. We have to be without a teacher for a month sometimes. We have heard that, sometimes there is a shortage of educators. Educators leave the centres immediately when they get better 117 offers. The posts have to be advertised first before a replacement can be found. We are always behind with the syllabus'. Paballo: 'We do not have enough stationery. The majority of us as learners are unemployed; we do not afford to buy textbooks or even writing resources that are needed for portfolios. We try to improvise, but our portfolios are not as impressive as they should be when they are evaluated by Umalusi'. Question: Do educators attend classes as expected? Thapelo: 'Yes, educators attend classes as expected. They teach in class and give us work'. Modiehi: 'No only three educators are regularly in class; the other two are not attending well. Their poor attendance has affected us; some learners have decided not to attend anymore, as the learning areas that are taught by the two educators, are the ones these learners are attending for'. Selloane: 'No, the attendance of educators in classes is irregular, especially month-end you will find only one educator at the school. We also do not bother to attend for that week, as we know that we will find other educators absent. Sometimes we think that our educators do not care for us; they are there just to get a salary at the end of the month'. Thoko: 'In our centre we have committed educators who attend regularly. They give us support with the learning areas we do. They also make sure that everything we learn about we, do practically'. Mpho: 'Yes, educators in our centre attend regularly. It has become a norm at our centre, that when an educator has attended a class he or she must sign a register. In the register they have to indicate what they have been doing and whether they have given learners assignments or homework. The register is controlled by the centre manager'. Neo: 'No, our educators do not attend regularly; it is if as they are taking turns. Everyday when we attend, we know that there is a learning area we are 118 not going to be taught; we are now used to it. They always have valid reasons for their poor attendance and we are expected to understand'. Paballo: 'No, some educators are not committed to their work. One educator usually comes to class, just to discuss general issues which have nothing to do with our work. When we ask him about the work he tells us that he is motivating us, we cannot learn until we have been motivated. After we reported him to the centre manager, he was given other learning areas. He still does the same thing, but at least now we turn to a part we are supposed to do: read a paragraph and he starts talking about other things. we have to study what we were supposed to have done in class at home'. Question: Do you think you achieve the outcomes in assessments as expected? ThapeJo: 'No, I do not; this is because sometimes I do not understand the work I have to study. Sometimes the teacher tries to explain some of the work, but still when I am assessed, I fail dismally. In the Small, Micro- and Medium enterprises I am progressing well; I think it is because I have a spaza shop; the terms that are used in this learning area, I am familiar with'. Modiehi: 'Yes, I am doing well. I have decided to do only three learning area, because of the time we attend at the centre. We attend only two hours per day. In four days last year I also did three; if I perform well by the end of the year, I will have obtained 124 credits that qualify me to get the NQF level 1 certificate' . SelJoane: 'All the learning areas I am doing this year (HSS, EMS and NS) are all giving me a tough time. I never did these subjects at the lower levels; this is the first time. Sometimes I do not attend classes; as I am working, I am far behind with my work and am struggling to catch up with work, and attending to children and a family', Thoko: 'I am not doing well at all. I want to develop myself but what I am doing now, is not working. In all five of the learning areas I have registered for, I am struggling, I do not get more than 30% in my assessments. I think, it is 119 because [ have been out of school for more than five years. My mind is n:::> longer as sharp as it used to be. I am thinking of dropping other learning areas and to be left with only three maybe things will become better. Educators seem to be losing interest, due to issues affecting them'. Mpho: '[ do not perform well, because I use a wheelchair. I always arrive late especially when I do not have anyone to assist me'. Neo: 'I am not performing well. I think it is because of the educators that arc not attending well. How are you expected to perform well if the person who is supposed to be assisting you, is playing hide-and-seek. The fact that educators are attending irregular, causes problems for us. I understand it when they say they finished their matric a long time ago; maybe that is why they do not help us to complete ours'. Paballo: 'I am doing well. I am happy with my performance; this is because I give myself time to do my work. I also get assistance from learners who ar3 attending at schools; this helps me a lot. The information I gain from them; I tell to others in our study group'. Question: What makes you not to periorm well? Thapelo: 'There are a number of reasons that make me not to achieve outcomes as expected. Some of the educators are not committed in their work. If there are delays in their payments, it is when they have not yet received their salaries; they do not attend. We are not taught during these days'. Modiehi: 'I do not achieve because of the methods some educators USE'. When I was still attending school thirty years ago, they just read from the text book. There are educators at ABET who still just read from the textbooks. We do not understand what they read, but when we ask for an explanation, they do not know what to say'. Selloane: 'The textbooks in some learning areas are not enough. When an assignment or homework is given, it is very difficult to do the work. Local 120 libraries do not have the text books we are using. We perform very badly in continuous assessments, because of a lack of preparation'. Thoko: 'It is very rare to have an educator from the beginning to the end, until the end of the year. Educators come and go and when we are used to this educator, he or she goes and we have to work for another educator whom we do not understand. We had three different educators last year for MLMMS'. Mpho: " think one reason is, that we are not used to the new approaches of assessment. In the past we used to write tests only, but now we do assignments and research for assessments. Educators do not inform us aboL:t these forms of assessment. Sometimes it becomes worse. When an educator informed us about a test to be written, the next we hear is that the educator found a permanent post somewhere'. Neo: 'I have epilepsy. My attendance is not regular because of this. I have realised that ABET educators do not care for us. I reported this to the educators, but when I am sick and not attending, I do not receive work that was done during my absence'. Paballo: 'One problem that makes us not to achieve outcomes as expected, is the time allocated to ABET programmes. We spend only two hours per day for four days. Sometimes we are taught a learning area once per week. When we meet the following week for this learning area, we have forgotten what we did the previous week'. Question: What learning areas are you doing and what learning areas do you think will help you in future? Thapelo: 'I am an ABET NOF level 2 learner. I do Mathematical Literacy, Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, Language Literacy Communication - Sesotho and English, Applied Agriculture and Agricultural Sciences and Economic Management Sciences'. 'The learning areas I wanted to do as an ABET learner 2 at the age of 52, are: • a course in building; 121 • communication; • numeracy; and • how to start a business'. 'I have been working as a builder for years and now I am retrenched; these learning areas would help me to work on my own'. Modiehi: 'I am an ABET NQF level 4 learner and I am doing Mathematical Literacy, Language Literacy Communication - Sesotho and English, Human and Social Sciences and small, micro- and medium enterprises'. 'I am 40 years old and have an interest in a number of projects. I am hoping to become a successful businesswoman'. 'The subjects I think would have helped me, are: • basic project management; • catering; • flower arrangement; and • cooking'. 'These subjects are offered at FET centres but you have to pay a lot of money. I am not working and those centres do not consider this'. Selloane: 'I am an ABET NQF level 3 learner and I am doing Mathematical Literacy, Language Literacy Communication - Sesotho and English, Natural Science, and Ancillary Health Care. These learning areas mentioned above does not assist me in my work as a woman involved in a project for RDP houses'. 'I think the subjects that would really help are: • basic project management; • road construction; 122 • entrepreneurship; • business management; and • bookkeeping'_ Thoko: 'I am an ABET NOF level 1 learner who started this year at the centre. I do Language Literacy Communication, Sesotho, English and Numeracy'. 'I am 62 years old and a member of a sewing project in our township_ I am able to design, cut and sew properly_ I did this for thirty years at a factory. The learning areas that I am currently doing, will not assist me in future at my work'. 'I think the learning areas that would help me to start a business, are: • basic project management; • sewing techniques; • numeracy; and • business management'. Mpho: 'I am a learner with disabilities in ABET NOF level 2. I do Language Literacy Communication, Sesotho, English, Mathematical Literacy, Economics and Management Sciences and Tourism'. 'I am 46 years old, disabled and using a wheelchair. I am involved in a disability project. We repair shoes, do steel ornaments and pottery. The learning areas I do currently, I don't think will assist me to prosper in future'. 'I would love to be an independent disabled business person and the following subjects would help: • basic project management; • business management; and • client service'. 123 Neo: 'I am a seventeen year-old and doing ABET 4. I left school because I have no parents to pay for my tuition. I lived off the streets for some tim9 before I was taken in by one of my relatives. I would like to complete Grad9 12. I am doing Language Literacy Communication, Sesotho, English, Mathematics, Mathematical Sciences, Natural Science, Economics and Management Sciences and small micro-and medium enterprises', 'I think the subjects I am doing now, will help me to achieve my dream of being a lawyer one day'. Paballo: 'I am an ABET 3 learner who does Language Literacy Communication, Sesotho, English, Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, Natural Science and small micro-and medium enterprises', 'I am 56 years of age working as a cleaner at a hospital. Fortunately, at work there is recognition for anything one does. I hope to start my own cleaning service one day', 'I think the following learning areas would help: • business management; • basic project management; • health care; and • client service'. 4.3.2 Responses of ABET learners (Group 2) Question: How is the standard of teaching at your centre? Lehlohonolo: 'To me the standard is not good, because in our class we had four educators who came to teach one learning area (Mathematics). We performed really badly at the end of the year, as each educator had a differer.t approach. When we started getting used to this educator's approach he or she would leave and another educator would come as a replacement, we did not want to listen to the last educator, as we knew that she was also going to leave us. Good educators get work easily; they do not stay with us for long; 124 this negatively affects the standard of teaching and those that are not committed, are with us for a year or two'. Tshepo: 'Educators are not committed to their work. They teach only because they are unemployed and want money. There was a time when the educators refused to teach, because their salaries were delayed. We approached them as learner representatives and told them that they should have our interests at heart, because some of us did not have an opportunity to be educated. The standard of education is very low. I wish there could be changes like permanent educators for ABET centres; because of their appointment, they leave us any time. ABET should have its own educators who are permanently employed and accountable to all stakeholders'. Tholoana: 'The standard of teaching is not good. The conditions, under which we learn, are not conducive. At our centre the hosting school does not availl classrooms that have bigger furniture. We use small chairs and tables that are meant for 7 year-olds. This affects teaching, as it is difficult to sit on these chairs for two hours and be expected to concentrate'. Sebina: 'The standard of teaching is very low. It is affected by number factors, including educators who no know anything about the learning areas they teach and eventually decide not to attend classes; while there are educators who misbehave by coming to centres under the influence of alcohol. It is also good for educators to look for greener pastures; however, this has a negative impact on us learners. In two months four good educators left our centre for permanent jobs'. Pakiso: 'The standard of teaching is low and is affected by a lack of books. In other areas we do not have any textbooks to refer to. Some educators make this as an excuse, saying that they were supposed to teach us this, but because we do not have books, they can't'. Tim: 'In our centre the standard of teaching is low. This is caused by a division among staff members. There are those educators who would not be part of an activity because it initiated by another group. In this situation, educators do not support each other and we suffer because of that'. 125 Tlagu: 'Learner commitment is a factor of the standard of teaching. Other learners stay away from school when it is a test week and attend regularly when there are activities like soccer matches and educational tours. This has an impact on the standard of teaching, as the teacher becomes discouraged to teach many learners and test just a few'_ Question: Does your centre have enough resources? Lehlohonolo: 'No, there are no proper classrooms to use. The hosting school gave us classrooms that are not used during the day. We tried to clean them; when they saw that these classrooms are clean, the hosting school took them back to use for extra classes. Learners leave them dirty every day; we have to clean for them'. Tshepo: 'There is a shortage of books, stationery like chalk, dusters, etc. We have to come with cloths to clean the board. The shortage of books is a disadvantage as we are not able to complete assignments in time'. Tholoana: 'No, the hosting school locks toilets and claim that we leave them dirty. We spoke to the principal of the hosting school about this, he was very adamant that he would not unlock toilets for us; he could not help us with classrooms and toilets. The matter has been reported to the district officials', Sebina: 'No, very little resources are provided for the centre. In many instances we bring our own equipment like brooms for sweeping the classrooms, cleaning material, and others'. Pakiso: 'No, there are resources. When we write tests and exams, educators have to write all questions on the board. They do not have computers to type our questions; it becomes difficult for those who have eyesight problems; they find it difficult to see what is written and take longer to complete the work. There are no photocopy machines to use'. Tim: 'No, we were surprised one day when one educator went away. The manager said that they are struggling to find an educator who can teach Mathematics. This indicates that there is a shortage of human resources'. 126 Tlagu: 'No, our centre is not accessible to learners with disabilities. Learners who use wheelchairs, are not able to be accommodated because of the stairs. There are no ramps for wheelchairs'. Question: Do educators attend classes as expected? Lehlohonolo: 'In our class we have very committed educators who attend regularly. They teach and give us a lot of exercises. Assignments are given on a regular basis and are always marked. We were 36 at the beginning of the year; not even one student has dropped out'. Tshepo: 'Educators do not attend regularly, especially on Mondays. The manager has tried to warn them, but nothing has improved. These educators are good in class; the only problem is their irregular attendance. We had a meeting with the principals; we wanted clarity on the course of action that can be taken against these educators. We could not reach a decision, as we did not want to lose these educators'. Tholoana: 'Educators do not attend regularly; some of them are always absent or come very late for classes. Our educators do not attend classes at the month end for two to three days. It is even worse when their salaries are delayed; they tell us that they cannot come, because they do not have money for transport'. Sebina: 'Yes, educators attend regularly and teach. We have an attendance register where all educators sign after they have taught us. They sign for the section they teach and exercises are given. At the end of the month, we give the register to the class representative, who in turn hands it over to the centre manager'. Pakiso: 'Educators do not attend regularly, but they make up for the time lost. They make arrangements with us for other days. Although this is good it breaks the routine. You know, that according to your time-table, you attend three times a week; you end up attending for four days'. 127 Tim: 'Yes, educators attend regularly, except in extreme cases where a educator will be attending a workshop or has some pressing, genuine commitments. In those cases an arrangement will be made for us to catch up'. Tlagu: 'The educators attend regularly, because the rule of "no work, no pay" applies. There are those who attend regularly, but do not do any work in class. They just sit and chat. Disciplinary measures are taken against these educators and this discredits educators from getting better employment at schools', Question: Do you think you achieve the outcomes in assessments as expected? Lehlohonolo: 'I am not achieving in all learning areas as expected. J have two reasons for the failure one is; that the duration of the learning areas per week (2 hours) is not enough for us to do the work thoroughly and the other is, that some outcomes reqUire practical examples. We do not do practical work, because of the time we have for the learning area'. Tshepo: 'I achieve my outcomes I do only three subjects instead of six; this gives me enough time to study. I get assistance from educators and the study group we have formed'. Tholoana: 'I do not achieve because of the shortage of books. I cannot study at home and I do not do my schoolwork as expected, because I do not have textbooks. Moreover, the terminologies used in the learning areas are too difficult for me and the technology educator does not seem to be having a clue of what she is talking about'. Sebina: 'I cope well and perform well as expected. I have committed myse,lf and aim to acquire what I want, which is a qualification, so that I can be promoted at work. We get incentives at work whenever we achieve something that keeps me motivated'. Pakiso: 'I do not perform well; sometimes it becomes so difficult, that I think of quitting school. I stay with two grandchildren who are HIV-positive; they 128 have children of their own. My wife is taking care of these grandchildren and their kids. I work and have to support them. What worries me, is what wiU happen when one of them dies. I know that I will have to raise their children with my pension; it is a difficult situation; it worries me a lot and I lose concentration in class'. Tim: 'I am not coping and my performance is not up to standard. I am doing five learning areas. I perform poorly in all of them. I do not understand when the educators are teaching in class; there is no time to ask questions. Educators are always in a hurry to complete the planned activity'. Tlagu: 'I perform weI!. I have two children who have passed their tertiary education. They are my inspiration; they help me with my studies. We always talk about education. I am a member of the women's league. I take part in educational matters. I learn a lot from these discussions'. Question: What makes you not to pertorm well? Lehlohonolo: 'We have too many outcomes to cover in a very short space of time. We do not have resources to do practical work; we can't do experiments in Natural Science; we just have to know that a beaker and other utensils are used for that specific experiment. Sometimes educators give us assignments on equipments that are not accessible. Educators do not have an interest in their work'. Tholoana: 'The reason I cannot achieve, is the terminology, as I have mentioned earlier. I am not sure what to do to be able to get used to the terminology. We do not have access to internet where we can get information and clarity on some issues we are struggling with. We had a good teacher who left us because he got a better post in the school. My educator seems nct to be liking the learning area he is teaching'. Pakiso: 'I have personal problems, which makes me lack concentration in class. This affects my performance so bad by in that I do think I will not pass at the end of the year. Not even a single educator came to ask the problems 1 have'. 129 Tim: 'I indicated earlier that I do not understand when educators teach. There is no time to do activities over and over until all of us understand. I wish we could have more time, not the two hours we have every week for a learning area'. Question: What learning areas are you doing and what learning areas do you think will help you in future? Lehlohonolo: 'I am an ABET NQF level 4 learner. The learning areas that do, are: • Mathematical Literacy; • Mathematics, and Mathematical Literacy; • Language Literacy Communication 1; • Language Literacy Communication 2; • Human and Social Sciences; and • Natural Science' 'I am 46 years of age, I am a retrenched chemical industry worker who is currently unemployed. I am intending to start a cleaning company that will also supply cleaning materials'. 'The learning areas that I think will assist me, are: • Business studies that include marketing; • Basic Project Management; and • Basic Procurement Procedures'. Tshepo: 'I am an ABET NQF level 3 learner and the learning areas I do, are: • Mathematical Literacy; • Language Literacy Communication 1; • Language Literacy Communication 2; and 130 • Human and Social Sciences'. 'I am 26 years old, I intend to complete a GETC qualification and thereafter, pursue an FETC qualification'. 'I want to be an electrical engineer one day. Learning areas that would help me, are: • Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy; • Natural Science; • Language Literacy Communication 2; • Technology; and • small micro- and medium enterprises'. Tholoana: 'I am an elderly ABET NQF level 1 learner; this is my first year. I have a little bit of a background in numeracy, which I acquire in the spaza shop I have'. 'I do the compulsory learning areas for ABET 1, which are: • Language Literacy Communication 1; • Language Literacy Communication 2; and • Numeracy'. 'I am 62 years old and am running a spaza shop. I would like to contribute to the community by creating employment for other people. The learning areas I think would help me, are: • Business Studies; and • Basic Entrepreneurship'. Sebina: 'I am 52 year old-woman who is doing NQF level 2. I do the following learning areas at the centre: • Mathematical Literacy; • Language Literacy Communication 1; 131 • Language Literacy Communication 2; • Technology; and • Human and Social Science'. 'I am working as an operator in a small vegetable store. My dream is to own a vegetable store one day. I will be supplying fruit and vegetables to other shops'. 'It would help me to do the following learning areas: • Business Studies; • Basic Marketing; • Basic Entrepreneurship; and • Communication Skills'. Pakiso: 'I am an ABET NQF level 4 learner who is working as a carpenter. I intend to acquire skills to become a successful businessman. I do the following learning areas: • Mathematical Literacy; • Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy; • Language Literacy Communication 2; • Human and Social Science; and • Natural Science'. 'I am a 46 year old-man who gained a lot of experience in carpentry. The owner of the contract comes only to collect money. I would like to be a qualified carpenter'. 'The following learning areas would assist me: • Advanced Carpentry (Theory); • Business studies; 132 • Basic Project Management; and • Basic Entrepreneurship', Tim: 'I am an ABET NQF level 2 learner who is doing the following learning areas: • Mathematical Literacy; • Language Literacy Communication 2; • Human and Social Sciences; and • Natural Science', 'I am 36 years old. I have worked as a carpenter for more than 15 years', 'The subjects that can assist me, are: • Catering Course; • Basic Project Management; • Basic Entrepreneurship; and • Basic Business Studies', Tlagu: 'I am an ABET NQF level 4 learner who is active in politics and projects. My objective is to get a GETC qualification, so that I could enter FET to pursue my dream'. 'The learning areas I am doing, are: • Mathematical Literacy; • Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy; • Language Literacy Communication 2; • Technology; • small micro-and medium enterprises; and 133 • Economics and Management Sciences'. '[ am 48 years old am unemployed and participate in politics in the community. I would like to do the following learning areas: • Communication Skills; • Negotiating Skills; and • Political Education'. 4.3.3 Analysis of the research results of learner participants 4.3.3.1 Theme 1: The standard of teaching at ABET centres is low Adult learners raise concerns around a number of factors which hamper service delivery of ABET provision. They said that ­ '...educators that offer learning areas were at first not sure of what they were doing', 'educators could not cope with the work they are doing', 'some educators come to centres without having prepared their lessons thoroughly', 'they are still not conversant with the work they have to do', 'one educator usually comes to class to discuss general issues which have nothing to do with our work', 'educators who know nothing about the learning areas they teach', 'this is caused by division among staff members', 'learner commitment is a factor that affects the standard of teaching and learning', 'educators do not attend regularly, especially on Mondays'; 'educators do not attend regularly, some of them are always absent or come very late for classes', 'educators are always in a hurry to complete the planned activity'. The standard of teaching in ABET centres is not up to standard and it is affected by a number of factors. such as irregular attendance, teachin without preparation and lack of knowledge about the content. This can be attributed to the fact that the majority of educators teaching in ABET are not adequately qualified to teach adults. They have been trained to teach learners at normal schools, therefore training provided by the department for ABET educators in order to teach adult learners, is too short, limited and to a greater 134 extent ineffective (see 2.2.3.1) and also there is little monitoring or evaluation of progress at the centres. 4.3.3.2 Theme 2: There is high teacher attrition in these centres Participants indicated that the high teacher attrition rate is attributed by a number of factors, including educator's conditions of service; they said th2t educators: ' ...come and go', 'Good educators get work easily and they do not stay with us for long', 'We had a good teacher who left us because he got a better post in the school', 'The standard of education is very low I wish there could be changes like permanent educators for ABET centres because of their appointment they leave us any time', 'It is also good for educators to look for greener pastures', 'In two months four good educators left our centre for permanent jobs', 'an educator informed us about a test to be written, the next we hear, is that the educator found a permanent post somewhere', 'It is verj rare to have an educator from the beginning to the end, until the end of the year'. All participants indicated that they are not satisfied with the conditions of service. A situation which leads to the high rate of teacher attrition. This notion is supported in the literature which says that there is a national outcry about ABET educators who are dissatisfied with their working conditions; as a result, these educators are looking for better jobs with better working conditions (see 2.3.3). The high teacher attrition can lead to instability in the ABET centres. 4.3.3.3 Theme 3: There is a high rate of absenteeism at these centres Participants indicate that there is high rate of absenteeism, especially among educators and this hampers service delivery. This is what the participants said: ' ...other learners come once a week for lessons', 'other educators are frequently absent or arrive late', 'the other two educators are not attending regularly', 'the attendance of educators in classes is irregular especially at the 135 month' end', 'everyday when we attend, we know that there is a learning area we are not going to be taught', 'the fact that educators are attending irregular, this causes problems for us', 'educators do not attend regularly, especially on Mondays', 'educators do not attend regularly', 'some of them are always absent or come very late for classes'. The participants indicated a high rate of absenteeism which affect teaching adversely; also learners in ABET centres; it seems that there is a lack of commitment on the side of educators (see 2.3.3). 4.3.3.4 Themes 4: Teachers at ABET are not committed in their work Educator participants indicated that teachers at ABET are not committed towards teaching and learning, and this are statements, they said: 'Some of the educators are not committed in their work', 'educators are not committed in their work', 'they teach only because they are unemployed and want money', 'those that are not committed are with us for a year or two'. 'Educators do not have an interest of their work at heart', 'My educator seems not to be having an interest in the learning area he is teaching', 'Not even a single educator came to ask about the problems I have', 'Educators seem to be losing interest, due to issues affecting them'. It is worrisome, that all educator participants indicated being not committed to their work: this can lead to a low standard of teaching. The surveys conducted and commissioned by the Department of Education in 1999, presented a picture of many demoralised centres, in that some provincial Members of the Executive Council (MEC's) are looking at closing or privatising the PALCs (see 2.3.2.1 ). 4.3.3.5 Theme 5: Adult learners do not achieve their outcomes as expected Learner achievement in programmes presented at centres, is hampered by a number of factors raised by respondents. This is what they said: 136 'Sometimes I do not understand the work I have to study', 'when I am assessed, I fail dismally', 'I think it is because I have a spazashop', 'I never did these subjects at the lower levels', 'sometimes I do not attend classes', 'I do not get more than 30% in assessments', 'my mind is not as sharp as it used to be', 'I always arrive late for classes', 'I am not performing well because of educators that are not attending regularly', 'I do not have anything to assist me', 'I do not achieve because of the methods some educators use', 'the textbooks in some areas are not enough', 'we peJiorm badly in continuous assessment because of a lack of preparation', 'not used to new approaches of assessment, 'my attendance is irregular and because of this I have realised I do not care about my condition (ill)', 'sometimes we are taught a learning area once per week', 'Sometimes educators give us assignments on equipments that are not accessible', 'We have too many outcomes to cover in a very short space of time', ' We do not have resources to do practical work we can't do experiments in Natural Science we just have to know that there is a beaker and other utensils used for that specific experiments', 'I have personal problems which makes me lack concentration in class. This affects my performance so badly that I do think I will not pass at the end of the year', 'There is no time to do activities over and over until all of us understand'. Literature review reveals, that adult learners have a different orientation to education and learning than do children. These differences make them approach learning differently. Besides, they have an accumulation of experiences and are characterised by special development trends. It is, therefore, very important that whatever provisions are made for adult learners in terms of learning, there should be a clear understanding of their characteristics and therefore, their needs (see 2.2.3). 4.3.3.6 Theme 6: A lack of resources in these centres Adult learners raised concerns around the huge shortage of resources that have a negative impact on attaining outcomes as expected during assessments. This is what they said: 'Classes we are using, do not have electrical plugs', 'we therefore do not have access to toilet facilities at the centre', ' the tables and chairs are for children', 'we struggle to have 137 textbooks', ' educators sometimes struggles to have chalk and dusters', 'sometimes the centre manager struggles to get a replacement for an educator who left for another post, ' we do not have enough stationery', ' the standard of teaching is low and is affected by a lack of books', 'at our centr' the hosting school does not avail classrooms that have bigger furniture', 'there are no proper classrooms to use', 'there is a shortage of books, stationery like chalk, dusters', 'the hosting school locks toilets and claims that we leave them dirty', 'in many instances we bring our own equipments like brooms for sweeping the classrooms, cleaning material', ' the manager said that they struggle to find an educator who can teach mathematics', 'there are no ramps for wheel-chairs', 'I do not achieve because of the shortage of books'_ Educator participants indicated a lack of resources: a situation which can hamper effective, efficient and economic service delivery. From time to time it is stated that because of budgetary constraints, ABET had to sacrifice its quality provision. The Ithuteng Campaign which was initiated by the department and NLC to expand the reach of ABET, learning material were never delivered to ABET centres and educators and managers were unpaid for months (see 2.3.2.1). 4.3.3.7 Theme 7: Adult learners are not offered learning areas they think will help them in future ABET learners indicated that they would like to do learning areas that would enable them to be employable and self-reliant. They indicated the following learning areas as more relevant to their future plans, which are: • for a learner who is a builder - a course in building, communication, numeracy and how to start a business; • for a learner who wants to become a successful businesswoman· basic project management, catering, flower arrangement and cooking; • for a learner involved in projects for RDP houses - basic project management, road construction, entrepreneurship, business management and bookkeeping; 138 • for a learner who is an independent disabled business person ­ business management, basic project management, health care and client service; • for a learner who wants to start his own cleaning service one day ­ basic project management, business management and client service; • for a learner who wants to complete GET and study further in FET ­ Mathematics, and Mathematical Literacy, Natural Science, Language Literacy Communication 2, Technology and small, micro-, and medium enterprises; • for a learner who is unemployed and participates in politics in the community ~ Communication Skills, Negotiating Skills and Political Education; • for a learner who wants to be a qualified carpenter - Advanced Carpentry (Theory), Business Studies, Basic Project Management, and Basic Entrepreneurship; and • for a learner who wants to own a vegetable store one day - Business Studies, Basic Marketing, Basic Entrepreneurship and Communication skills. ABET centres are currently providing programmes, most of which are a shadow of the formal schooling system, in the sense that the curriculum is the same (see 2.3.3). Learner participants indicate, that these learning areas are of no help to them that much for their future plans. The provision of the mechanical skills of reading and writing that will extend to include their potential areas for the purposes of progress in careers, work and employment opportunities (see 2.3.3). 4.4 CONCLUSION In this chapter the analysis and interpretation of the responses were presented, the next chapter will provide the summary and recommendations. 139 CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 INTRODUCTION This research used both the literature review and qualitative empirical research proceedings with a view to achieving its objectives which were to: • investigate the experiences of ABET educators in their teaching and learning centres; • investigate the experiences of ABET adult learners in their teaching and learning centres; and • develop a humanistic programme infused with Batho-Pele principles for use in ABET in South Africa. The findings from both the literature review and empirical research proceedings were used to develop a humanistic programme infused with Batho-Pele principles for use in ABET in South Africa (see section 5.4 below). In the next section, the researcher presents summaries of both the literature review and empirical research proceedings. 5.2 SUMMARIES OF THE FINDINGS FROM BOTH THE LITERATURE REVIEW AND EMPIRICAL RESEARCH PROCEEDINGS As a way of concluding this research, it is necessary to make summaries of the findings from both the literature review and empirical research proceedings. 5.2.1 A summary of the literature review proceeding The literature review revealed that learning for adults should be seen as an integral part of wider measures to help to reduce social exclusion and to build pathways to inclusion (see section 1.1). It is for this reason that the South 140 African Department of Education has, according to the literature, produced the following seven key documents from 1990 to 1994: • the National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) report of 1992 on Adu:t Basic Education (and also the reports on Adult Education (1993) and Human Resource Development (1992); • the Joint Education Trust's 1992 commissioned report Adult Basic Education: focus on a priority field for funding; • the Independent Development Trust's 1992 commissioned report, Developmental strategy in adult basic education; • the Congress of South African Trade Unions's Participatory Research Projects's 1993 report, Participatory Research Project. Consolidated recommendations ABET; • the National Training Board's National Training Strategy Initiative (NTSI) draft document of 1991 and the preliminary report of February 1994; • the South African Committee on Adult Basic Education (SACABET) report on its November 1993 Conference; and • the African National Congress's Implementation Plan for Education and Training of April 1994 produced by the Centre for Education Policy Development (see sub-section 2.3.1.3). The key documents produced from 1995 to date include the following (see sub-section 2.3.1.4): • the Education White Paper of March (Department of Education, 1995); • the National Department of Education's A national ABET framework: Interim guidelines of September 1995; • the research project report of 1996 on Adult Basic Education and Development compiled by a group comprising the Department of Education, Congress of South African Trade Unions, Development Bank of 141 Southern Africa, Centre for Education Policy Development, and National Literacy Co-operation; • the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology's Language Plan Task Group's final report of 1996, Towards a national language plan for South Africa; and • he Department of Education draft policy document of April 1997, Adult education and training in South Africa as well as its draft A four year implementation plan for adult education and training: provision and accreditation. The content of the policy documents from 1995 to date repeat what the earlier documents suggest, namely a national ABET programme; a national qualifications framework; an appropriate common core curriculum; partnerships between government and organised labour and business, women's and youth organisations, civics, churches, specialist non­ governmental organizations, learner associations, all levels of government, media and other stakeholders; an ABET council as the authoritative voice of the field; a professional directorate for ABET in the Department of Education to undertake or sponsor research on structure and methods, develop norms and standards, and to liaise with the Reconstruction and Development Programme office, the Department of Labour, and provincial departments of education; and a national ABET Task Team, including provincial representatives, to plan the Reconstruction and Development Programme Presidential Lead Programme in this field and to help translate proposals into implementable policy, existing education facilities, opportunities for distance education; and the idea of community learning centres (see sub-section 2.3.1.5). The literature also revealed that ABET is a human right and a contributor to social cohesion (see section 1.1). As a human right and as a contributor to social cohesion, ABET therefore can only succeed if Batho-Pele principles are infused in its service. Batho Pele is a South African public service initiative to get public servants to be service orientated, to strive for excellence in service 142 delivery and to commit to continuous service delivery improvement, and is founded on ubuntu/botho social values such as communalism (collectivism), interdependence (a person is a person through other persons), humanness (warmth, tolerance, understanding, peace, humanity), caring (empathy, sympathy, helpfulness, charity, friendliness), sharing (unconditional giving, re­ distribution, open-handedness), respect (commitment, dignity, obedience, order) and compassion (love, cohesion, informality, forgiveness, spontaneity) for community development (see section 1.1). 5.2.2 The Batho Pele belief set consists of: • the notion of belonging which obliges civil servants to ensure that practices, processes, systems such as conditions of service, rewards and recognition, as well as training and development, among others, foster a sense of belonging among public servants; encourages a spirit, culture and practice of collaboration, teamwork and collegiality among all public servants, thereby fostering effective intergovernmental relations; builds a learning Public Service; and fosters partnerships with the recipients and beneficiaries of public services, thus ensuring that the public service is responsive to people's needs in line with the notion of "Putting People First" (see section 2.2.1; and sub-section 2.2.1.1); • The notion of caring which encourages public servants to be courteous when providing services to the public by listening to their problems, apologising when necessary, and serving people with a smile. Public servants care because they are devoted to doing a job to the end, ensuring that they deliver beyond customer expectations. They are expected to respect all citizens irrespective of background, gender, colour or creed (see sub-section 2.2.1.2); • The notion of serving which highlights that in order for public servants to have a sense of service, the public service is expected to develop service standards, provide information, seek service delivery solutions and go beyond the call of duty (White Paper on Transformation of Public Service, 1997:6). Public Servants serve by delivering quality services and making 143 citizens look forward to receiving world-class integrated service delivery. This could be achieved by anticipating customer needs through the introduction of regular customer surveys on the type of services citizens would want to receive, offering integrated service delivery through institutions like MPCCs and other innovative forms of service delivery in communities, and going beyond the call of duty, even under difficult circumstances where there are limited resources (see sub-section 2.2.1.3). Eight Batho Pele principles of consultation, setting service standards, increasing access, ensuring courtesy, providing information, openness and transparency, redress, and value for money were also identified by the literature (see section 2.2.2). 5.2.3 A summary of the empirical research proceeding This section presents the themes which emerged from the interview responses of the participants during the qualitative empirical research proceedings (see chapter four). These themes were developed by this researcher to answer the research questions (see section 1.1) and realize the objectives (see section 1.2) as posed and set for this research in chapters one and three respectively. To realize the first objective (see section 1.2) of this research, the interview processes of the empirical research proceeding highlighted the following themes on the experiences of ABET educators in their teaching and learning centres (see sub-section 2.4.3.4): • ABET educators are not satisfied with their conditions of service; • ABET educators are not supported by their managers and the district officials; • the progress at ABET centres is crippled by the lack of resources; • ABET programmes offered at ABET centres are not relevant to the needs of the adult learners; 144 • ABET educators complain of not being adequately developed and enriched by their employers, a situation which according to them lead to their ineffectiveness; • there is high crime rate in communities where ABET centres are located; • a lack of respect between educators and learners and between educators and the Department of Education; • a lack of sympathy and compassion; • a lack of sharing of resources between schools and ABET centres; • a high rate of teacher attrition; and • a high drop-out rate of adult learners in ABET centres. To realize the second objective (see section 1.2) of this research, the interview processes of the empirical research proceeding highlighted the following themes on the experiences of ABET learners in their teaching and learning centres: • the standard of teaching at ABET centres is low; • there is high teacher attrition in these centres; • there is a high rate of absenteeism at these centres; • teachers at ABET are not committed in their work; • adult learners do not achieve their outcomes as expected; • huge shortage of resources in ABET centres, which impacts negatively on attaining outcomes as expected during assessments; and • adult learners are not offered learning areas they think will help them in future (2.4.3.5). 145 5.3 RECOMMENDATION OF A HUMANISTIC PROGRAMME FOR USE IN ABET In order to develop a humanistic programme infused with Batho-Pele principles for use in ABET in South Africa, the findings from both the literature review and empirical research proceedings were taken into consideration. The findings in chapter four depict adult basic education training centres devoid of Batho Pele and Ubuntu/botho philosophy and, also, illustrates what can generally happen in adult basic education training centres characterised by a dearth of highly communitarian, communicative and interpersonal influences of the Department of Education. There is therefore a need for bot the national and provincial Departments of Education, as the custodians of education in South Africa, and adult basic education training centres, as service providers in various communities in South Africa, to display commitment and willingness to invest in the education, training and development of adult learners for an educated nation. This, also, means that managers of adult basic education training centres should be empowered on communitarianism and interpersonal relations which are core in ubuntu/botho way of-life and Batho Pele principles. Managers of adult basic education training centres should also be educated and trained on transformational leadership in order to inculcate people leadership skills in them. The items of the programme which this researcher makes below have implications for ABET centres in general. All the recommendations portray an effective ABET centre manager as a strong communitarian and communicator, exhibiting strong interpersonal and interdependent communicative abilities, with a focus on strong team-building and group leadership at operational level of the Department of Education's organizational leadership. The items of the programme which this researcher recommends are as follows: • Infuse the African social virtue of ubuntu/botho communitarianism in the andragogy (see section 1.3) training of managers of ABET centre managers, as a way of developing their self-efficacy through the capability 146 to build personal credibility through a willingness to provide a positive role model to ABET centre's learners and colleagues on professional or personal attitudes, particularly through consistency with espoused national and provincial Departments of Education's organizational communal values or positions where there are expectations on self or others, which includes high levels of self-awareness; commitment to self-development; striving toward outcomes-based education with strong personal energy and purpose; role modelling; 'walking-the-talk', i.e. behaviour which is consistent with words; and inspiring others to follow suit and be the best they can be in team leadership. The learning of these social virtues has a potential to develop a leader who realizes that effective working with people is equal to effective person-to-person relationships which uniquely develop as a result of humanity and humaneness; interdependence among their learners and leadership influences of their Departments of Education; approachable leadership traits with the ability to understand human dynamics; respect of human rights of learners and educators of learners at the ABET centres contained in the letter and spirit of the following ABET services' key documents: the National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) report of 1992 on Adult Basic Education (and also the reports on Adult Education (1993) and Human Resource Development (1992); the Joint Education Trust's 1992 commissioned report Adult Basic Education: focus on a priority field for funding; the Independent Development Trust's 1992 commissioned report, Developmental strategy in adult basic education; the Congress of South African Trade Unions's Participatory Research Projects's 1993 report, Participatory Research Project. Consolidated recommendations ABET; the National Training Board's National Training Strategy Initiative (NTSI) draft document of 1991 and the preliminary report of February 1994; the South African Committee on Adult Basic Education (SACABET) report on its November 1993 Conference; and the African National Congress's Implementation Plan for Education and Training of April 1994 produced by the Centre for Education Policy Development (see sub-section 2.3.1.3); the Education White Paper of March (Department of Education, 1995); the National Department of Education's A national ABET framework: Interim guidelines of September 147 1995; the research project report of 1996 on Adult Basic Education and Development compiled by a group comprising the Department of Education, Congress of South African Trade Unions, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Centre for Education Policy Development, and National Literacy Co-operation; the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology's Language Plan Task Group's final report of 1996, Towards a national language plan for South Africa; and he Department of Education draft policy document of April 1997, Adult education and training in South Africa as well as its draft A four year implementation plan for adul education and training: provision and accreditation (see sub-section 2.3.1.4). In the way mentioned in the latter paragraph the adult educators become humanistic leaders of both their centres and their learners which make them leaders with attributes of compassion for motivational, behavioural and metacognitive development of human beings. Such training has the efficacy of developing effective communication management skills in ABET managers and the ability to work within a collective of people. The effective infusion of the African social virtue of ubuntu/botho communitarianism in the training of ABET managers can develop their capability to enhance the performance of their learners and educators when using their latent learning and teaching capabilities to best effect, which includes establishing common goals and working together to achieve them; building effective co-operative work teams and project teams around people; providing feedback and mentoring to team members, including confronting inappropriate behaviour and performance; working collaboratively together to get the best results for the team, rather than an individual; and supporting the application of collective team learning and leadership. • The African social virtue of ubuntu/botho communitarianism mentioned in the above paragraph should be fundamental to Communications Management Theory and Intercultural Communication Immersion which should form the core of the ABET management programmes. 148 Communications management theory should include the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization, and between organizations; and it should include the organization and dissemination of new communication directives connected with an organization, network, or communications technology. Aspects of Communications Management Theory should include developing corporative communication strategies, designing internal and external communications directives, and controlling the flow of information, including online communication in organizations. Communication Management Theory's aim should be to develop ABET managers' skills to design organizational communications structures; define communication principles and standards; formulate the communications goals of the ABET centres; manage and monitor information flows; organize crisis communications; implement communications strategies; research the communications context; resonance analysis of team networks; organize communications training for staff; and provide ABET centre presentations to the public, media and cybernetic space. The Intercultural Communication Immersion should form the training programme of middle managers because of its efficacy to develop awareness of the ways that cultural differences show up when people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds interact, e.g. in verbal and non-verbal communication styles, attitudes towards conflict, approaches to completing tasks, decision-making styles and approaches to 'knowing'. This should be a practical training programme where the middle manager is immersed in a situation where he/she has to implement the skills gained in Communications Management Theory. Both Communications Management Theory and Intercultural Communication Immersion should develop the ABET managers' abilities to establish and maintain healthy and effective working relationships with all staff and stakeholders in the community through empathy, good listening, passing on of information and positively influencing thinking, which includes: maintaining the 149 transparency of information and processes; open and honest two-way communication between people; developing confidence and security in relationships and the communication process: and establishing trust and mutual respect In this way, the middle manager becomes a trust and confidence builder. Sweeney (1994: 18) is of the opinion that trust and confidence are built through a reciprocating cycle that usually is initiated by the leader. According to Sweeney (1994:18), in the cycle the leader establishes a reputation for dependability and demonstrates his willingness to trust others, causing the operational managers to reciprocate with trust. The foregoing paragraph implies that middle managers should be capacitated in bUilding an environment of trust They should know what trust is; be able to distinguish between being trustworthy and trusting others; discover how trust contributes to achieving their organization's results, goals, and priorities; be able to examine their roles and responsibilities in building trust between many parties; be able to develop an action plan for establishing, enhancing, or repairing trust in their organizations' situation; be able to identify people with whom they need to build trust and which Trust Breakers they need to "tum off; know the importance of "sharing" in the organization so that people don't make assumptions, thus avoiding low-trust situations; know the importance of open communication as the foundation for trust, which can be established most effectively with the share and empathy as key human virtues; know how to analyze challenging and low-trust situations, what they might say in such a situation, who they could approach to repair trust, and how they would enhance the organizational trust environment going forward. The recommendations suggested in the above paragraphs call for the development of transformational leadership behaviour in middle managers. Transformational leaders have an idealised influence (the communication and building of an emotional commitment to the vision) which enables them to be role models and behave in ways that generate enthusiasm and challenge people (motivate others). They can clearly communicate expectations and demonstrate a commitment to goals and a shared vision, they actively solicit new ideas and new ways of doing things and stimulate others to be creative 150 and they never publicly correct or criticise others. They pay attention to the needs and the potential for developing others and establish a supportive climate where individual differences are respected (interactions with followers are encouraged and the leaders are aware of individual concerns) (Bass, 1998; Gronn, 1996). Gronn (1996) asserts that transformational leadership puts emphasis on leader agency, such as inspiration (motivating followers through charisma), individualism (focusing on the individual needs of followers) and intellectual stimulation (influencing thinking and the imagination of followers). Leithwood, Jantzi and Steinbach (1999) posit that a central feature of transformational leadership is direction setting through the building and communicating of a commitment to a shared vision, and a positive response to high performance expectations. This is to be achieved not just through structures and systems, but by enabling the follower to 'feel' the leadership. Charismatic leaders are perceived to exercise power in socially positive ways. They create trust among colleagues in their ability to overcome any obstacle and are a source of pride for colleagues to have as associates. Colleagues consider these leaders to be symbols of success and accomplishment, and to have unusual insights about what is really important to attend to; they are highly respected by colleagues (Leithwood et aI, 1999). To develop ABET manager's influential leadership, their in-service course should introduce them to the concept of influence and how to identify an influence opportunity they have with a person or group at work; introduce them to the topic of influence and work in teams; and be able to understand the importance of a leader as a catalyst and to assess their own leadership strategies. ABET managers who have been immersed in an andragogical training programme such as the one forming the item of the programme recommended in this research can develop self-efficacious capabilities to deal with the following lived experiences of ABET's educators and learners which transpired during the empirical research proceeding: 151 • 'Salaries that are not paid on time', 'we are paid for the number of hours we have worked for', 'the system is open to fraud', ' there was a time when the educators refused to teach because their salaries were delayed, ' Educators complaining of being temporarily employed for years. This to them is a disadvantage as they are not able to have any working person's human-oriented benefits such as housing subsidies, leave days and medical aid schemes. The empirical research proceedings also revealed that: 'There are no benefits such as leave days, housing subsidy and medical aid', 'I do not qualify for low cost houses, yet I do not also qualify for the houses that cost more', ' I wish ABET educators can be appointed permanently and enjoy benefits as educators at schools', ' we still have the same conditions of service that were there before 1996', ' I am not able to have a medical aid because the department does not subsidise it for ABET educators', 'no understanding when an educators is absent from work, due to illness'; • 'We have to recruit learners and we are not paid for the hours we spent for recruitment', ' I wish that job-description could be spelt out clearly', 'conditions of service of ABET educators are unacceptable', 'ABET educators are employed part-time for years, and they are not permanently appointed'; • 'centre managers are not adequately trained as managers', 'centre managers are working like principals of schools but appointed part-time', 'I do not get support from the district concerning the learning areas 1 teach', 'there is little support that the district is providing', 'do not support us when we have to teach more subjects', 'structures like Centre Governing Bodies are not functional', 'ABET environment does not allow managers to become innovative'; • 'there is a problem with a shortage of learning, teaching and support material', ' the centre dose not have lights', 'the centre does not have resources like a photocopy machine', 'centre does not have book shelves where important documents can be kept', 'lack of resources is one problem that J encounter', ' funding is a major barrier to centres', 'there is 152 shortage of human resources for effective and efficient service delivery in ABET'; • 'ABET programmes should be project oriented, ' some programmes that are offered at ABET centres are not addressing the needs of its learners, 'no focus on the "T" for training skills, 'rural areas do not get the service they deserve,' the younger generation says that they thought that they would be trained on computer skills, 'programmes that are offered to adult learners are not relevant to their situation, ' rural areas do not get the service they deserve,' I think the centre should provide learners with the learning area that will make them employable'; • 'little is done to assist ABET educators to be properly qualified', 'ABET educators should receive bursaries to study further', 'no developmental sessions for both educators and learners are organised', 'little is done to allow ABET educators to participate in World Teachers Awards', 'if enough bursaries could be made available in order to equip educators with relevant training', 'when there is shortage of LT8M the teacher is the one who should see to finish', 'centre managers do little class visit due insecurity of their posts', 'some educators are not familiar with Outcomes Based Education approach', 'the district takes time to train them'; • ' ... female learners ... are working and starting classes late', ' at night adult learners become victims of crime because of the distance they travel'; • " ...department does not respect us', 'there is no respect, adult learners do not respect their educators as they are older than them', ' learners do not respect one another', 'lack of respect from all participants at the centre'; • '... there is no compassion at all, at schools educators are given time off for funeral arrangements for their loved ones', 'no sympathy is shown by the department, because the conditions of service are still not favourable', 'no compassion is shown because no one seems to care about ABET problems', 'the department does not sympathise with educators by improving their conditions of service.' 153 • hosting schools should abide by the contents of the contracts signed between the school and the centre', 'our centre managers sympathise with the educators on matters such as not receiving salaries in time'; • "...educators are always looking out for permanent posts elsewhere', 'there is a very high rate of teacher attrition who got permanent posts at schools', 'the current condition are the ones that lead to high staff turnover and instability at centres'; • 'the high rate of poverty drive learners away from the centres', 'learners register in great numbers at the beginning of the year, but drop-out grad ually', 'no involvement of local structures to assist', 'the current conditions are the ones that lead to high learner drop-out'; • '...educators that offer learning areas were at first not sure of what they were doing', 'educators could not cope with the work they are doing', 'some educators come to centres without having prepared their lessons thoroughly', 'they are still not conversant with the work they have to do', 'one educator usually comes to class to discuss general issues which have nothing to do with our work', 'educators who know nothing about the learning areas they teach', 'this is caused by division among staff members', 'learner commitment is a factor that affects the standard of teaching and learning', 'educators do not attend regularly, especially on Mondays'; 'educators do not attend regularly, some of them are always absent or come very late for classes', 'educators are always in a hurry to complete the planned activity'; • ' ...come and go', 'Good educators get work easily and they do not stay with us for long', 'We had a good teacher who left us because he got a better post in the school', 'The standard of ed ucation is very low I wish there could be changes like permanent educators for ABET centres because of their appointment they leave us any time', 'It is also good for educators to look for greener pastures', 'In two months four good educators left our centre for permanent jobs', 'an educator informed us about a test to be written, the next we hear, is that the educator found a 154 permanent post somewhere', 'It is very rare to have an educator from the beginning to the end, until the end of the year'; • ' ...other learners come once a week for lessons', 'other educators are frequently absent or arrive late', 'the other two educators are not attending regularly', 'the attendance of educators in classes is irregular especially at the month' end', 'everyday when we attend, we know that there is a learning area we are not going to be taught', 'the fact that educators are attending irregular, this causes problems for us', 'educators do not attend regularly, especially on Mondays', 'educators do not attend regularly', 'some of them are always absent or come very late for classes'; • 'Some of the educators are not committed in their work', 'educators are not committed in their work', 'they teach only because they are unemployed and want money', 'those that are not committed are with us for a year or two', 'Educators do not have an interest of their work at heart', 'My educator seems not to be having an interest in the learning area he iis teaching', 'Not even a single educator came to ask about the problems I have'. 'Educators seem to be losing interest, due to issues affecting them'; and • 'Sometimes I! do not understand the work I have to study', 'when I am assessed, I fail dismally', 'I think it is because I have a spazashop', 'I never did these subjects at the lower levels', 'sometimes I do not attend classes', 'I do not get more than thirty per cent in assessments', 'my mind is not as sharp as it used to be', 'I always arrive late for classes', 'I am not performing well because of educators that are not attending regularly', 'I do not have anything to assist me', 'I do not achieve because of the methods some educators use', 'the textbooks in some areas are not enough', 'we perform badly in continuous assessment because of a lack of preparation', 'not used to new approaches of assessment, 'my attendance is irregular and because of this I have realised I do not care about my condition( ill)', 'sometimes we are taught a learning area once per week', 'Sometimes educators give us assignments on equipments that are not accessible', 'We have too many outcomes to cover in a very short space of time', ' We 155 do not have resources to do practical work we can't do experiments in Natural Science we just have to know that there is a beaker and other utensils used for that specific experiments', 'I have personal problems which makes me lack concentration in class. This affects my performance so badly that I do think I will not pass at the end of the year', 'There is no time to do activities over and over until all of us understand'; Adult learner participants also indicated the following learning areas as more relevant to their future human developmental plans: • for a learner who is a builder - a course in building, communication, numeracy and how to start a business; • for a learner who wants to become a successful businesswoman ­ basic project management, catering, flower arrangement and cooking; • for a learner involved in building projects for Reconstruction and Development Programme houses - basic project management, road construction, entrepreneurship, business management and bookkeeping; • for a learner who is an independent disabled business person ­ business management, basic project management, health care and client service; • for a learner who wants to start his own cleaning service one day ­ basic project management, business management and client service; • for a learner who wants to complete GET and study further in FET ­ Mathematics, and Mathematical Literacy, Natural Science, Language Literacy Communication 2, Technology and small, micro-, and medium enterprises; • for a learner who is unemployed and participates in politics in the community - Communication Skills, Negotiating Skills and Political Education; 156 • for a learner who wants to be a qualified carpenter - Advanced Carpentry (Theory), Business Studies, Basic Project Management, and Basic Entrepreneurship; and • for a learner who wants to own a vegetable store one day - Business Studies, Basic Marketing, Basic Entrepreneurship and Communication skills (see sections 4.2.4 and 4.2.5). 5.4 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY The main limitation of this research is that its population sample is small and, consequently cannot generalize for all ABET centres in South Africa. Its literature review findings were weakened by the fact that researchers have not yet linked ABET services to ubuntu/botho way of life and Batho Pete principles. As a result of this gap, this researcher could not get sufficienHy relevant literature data for this study. Policies of the South African government's Department of Education were the main sources for his literature review. 5.5 CONCLUSION This research investigated the experiences of ABET educators in their teaching and learning centres; investigated the experiences of ABET adult learners in their teaching and learning centres; and developed a humanist,jc management programme infused with Batho-Pete principles for use in ABET in South Africa. 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Pretoria: lthuthuko Investments 175 ADDENDUM A FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS ~---------_....----------------Question 1: What problems or challenges do you encounter when executing your duties as an educator? Question 2: Is the support you get from your centre manager, enough to assist you in effectively executing your duties? Question 3: Can you say the values of Ubuntu are fostered at ABET centres? Question 4: Which areas do you think could be improved by ABET for an effective service provision? Question 5: Which areas do you think, could be improved by ABET for Leffective service provision? J 176 ----------------------------- ADDENDUM B FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS Question 1: How is the standard of teaching at your centre? Question 2: Does your centre have enough resources? Question 3: Do educators attend classes as expected? Question 4: Do you think you achieve the outcomes in assessments as expected? Question 5: What makes you not to perform well? Question 6: What learning areas are you doing and what learning areas do you think will help you in future? 177