Dear Colleagues,
RE: A vision for education at NWU: integrated, coherent and strong: a position paper
This document has been developed with a number of purposes in mind. The first is to share our thinking as regards the future of teacher education in South Africa. The second purpose is to describe the relationship between teacher education and education research. The third purpose is to articulate the relationship between programme quality development and enhancement and the structural arrangements suited to support these three purposes coherently. The paper presented below offers a position consulted with the Deans and education leaders for colleagues to consider.
1) The national context for change in teacher education in South Africa
It is clear, in terms of feedback received from the DHET, that the crisis as regards teacher supply and demand, is now becoming more manageable and within the next few years will become a thing of the past (at least in terms of gross quantities). Together with this signal two further signals as regards teacher education and provision are clear. These signals come to universities by way of feedback from the DHET itself, as also the CHE reports as regards curriculum reform. In addition to feedback received from state agencies, further feedback comes to the academy in the form of surveys of teacher education research (undertaken by universities, as well as non-governmental organisations such as CDE and JET). The first signal concerns the need for tailored planning as regards the provision of teachers in certain subject areas on the one hand, and certain phase specialisations, on the other hand. The second signal concerns the need for a deeper focus on quality (defined in terms of depth and rigour debates) in teacher education qualifications as a whole, and related to this, the need for a more nuanced policy as regards universities’ selection and admission of students into teacher education programmes.
2) The NWU context for change as regards teacher education
At present there are three entities (two faculties and one school) that contribute to teacher education at NWU. The relationship between these three entities is variable. At best it is responsive to needs for programme alignment as the need arises, at worst the semi autonomyof each campus makes those points of mutual contact, tenuous and inconsistent. Two points arise relation to this statement.
First, each dean in which education resides is tasked to promote research and qualifications development at the NWU. Nevertheless, qualifications development, though a mutual concern, is approached differently between the education entities, for the simple reason that academic capacity (the metric used at NWU concern numbers of staff, as well as the highest qualifications of staff) is not the same across the campuses. Second, operational requirements associated with each campus means that the resourcing for new programme development and indeed research development, or indeed the development of appropriate quality mechanisms, is determined in relation to the cost-effectiveness of the entity at each campus; rather than in relation to the overall academic endeavour (of education) at NWU. Thus the structural incoherence of the three-campus, three education entity model presupposes an inherent inter-campus competitiveness that, because it is resources as well as structure-based, works against the development of education programmes that are indeed driven by quality and coherence (aligned as well as financially supported to achieve an equity of support for better quality).
There are recent examples of the above everywhere in education. Three are listed here and have all to do with programmatic and research issues. We have avoided in these examples any reference to the obvious cumbersome nature of three campus senate meetings, three parallel line management systems, disjointed and tenuous intercampus programme committee structures in which ‘campusification’ is a threat. The first example is the latest EPE Report for Learner Support that pointed out the relationship between differential approaches to, and allocation of resources to support that Programme (noting that provision was very different at VC, MC and PC) and further that the nuances attached to each staffingin subject groups (on each of the three campuses) made for very different strengths and very obvious weaknesses. A second example concerns the relationship between resources equity provision and differential commitments to quality and research occurs in relation to WIL. WIL can be funded better at PC because the resources at PC (in terms of the capacity to leverage a fee increase for qualifications, or in relation to the provision of human resources to support a WIL office, or in relation to the capacity to generate research about WIL)are better. A third example, concerns the individualised nature of research-links which leads to idiosyncratic arrangements (for example, where almost all education research at VC is located in Optentia which as a research entity speaks to no education specialisation development). Or, where individuals at VC, MC or PC have to liaise with individuals across entity boundaries as well as faculty boundaries to collaborate, but find that such collaboration is not supported by the operational (HEMIS and finance accounting) systems of the NWU either equitably or rationally (recognition accrues not to the faculties in which academics are appointed to do research, but in relation to entities located in faculties beyond education as we have seen at VC and PC respectively). The above notwithstanding, there does seem to be a desire by colleagues at PC, MC and VC alike to collaborate across the boundaries of faculty or campus. Can this be interpreted as a desire for a more streamlined structure that allows for better integration towards the purpose of working more optimally with each other? The desire should be interrogated (see section 4).
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In view of the national requirements as regards better quality on the one hand, and more finely attuned, selection admission and research on the other hand, our commitment as education professionals should be threefold in relation to current discussions at NWU as regards models and related structures. Three reasons point to the need to work better together across the three campuses, within structures that make programme and research alignment work, by drawing upon operational provision towards equity of support.
The first reason, is to sustain equity of provision so that the quality of support for programme alignment becomes possible. The second is that we ought to commit to quality of specialisation with confidence in the support from operational structures geared to enhance programme alignment. Third, if we agree that that sustaining quality of teaching and learning can be enhanced by identifying the fit between our research resources (human resources across the campuses sitting in pockets) and teaching capacity, then we can bring into closer relationship across the campuses, the scholarship of teaching and learning (in terms of earlier comments regarding depth and rigour), open and distance learning, human rights and social justice issues. Thus the integration of foci (on programme design and quality enhancement, and on the relationship between research, and teaching and learning) is key to this proposal. The emphasis on research development, with a view to enhancing quality in education leads us to endorse a perspective on education development (scholarship and programme development) in which subject content specialisation is privileged over programmatic development. Four motivations are provided specific to this last point.
The first motivation is that academics do not train as programme specialists, but rather within disciplines. The commitment to disciplines supports also the variable routes from which professionals enter teacher education (from disciplines in faculties of natural sciences, or humanities, or from education faculties).
Second: education as a disciplinary field requires that specialisation be deepened even within the education core fields (for example, curriculum, philosophy) and that that deepening occurs not independently of subject content areas in which teacher education is provided (for example, English in education, Mathematics education);this is the reason why we do not believe that initial teacher education, and the research related to it, ought to be portioned out to other faculties in which there is no guarantee that education’s needs (as field, as profession) will be catered for, let alone promoted.
Third: meeting the professional requirements associated with teacher education qualifications assumes a degree of coherence needed between academic planning on the one hand, and support (resources allocation), on the other hand. Equity of support provision relates to the acknowledgement that the three entities offering education do have niche markets, and the intention must always be to support and nurture these, but recognise that equity of support provision makes collaboration concerning WIL, programme development and alignment, and research, a critical in their success.
Fourth: as regards to research development: teacher education needs research that critiques existing models of teacher education, whilst simultaneously critiquing the very foundations of education as a discipline, with the purpose of contributing to scholarly discussions about the role of education as panacea for social problems, and the potential of education to contribute to the development of what has been described either as critical citizens, or the neo-liberal economic agenda. Research on social justice issues cannot thus be divorced from research on teaching and learning approaches (SDL or PBL being obvious examples of this, or research on English as medium of instruction being another example), or from research on modes of delivery (OER development and research ODL).
These four motivations suggest to us that we should aim towards a unitary integrated single faculty of education at NWU.
4) Questions for now, answers for tomorrow
A number of obvious considerations come to mind in relation to the above. Primary among these is that any new model for working together, should achieve better efficiencies in terms of the aims described above. In terms a unitary Faculty with one Dean’s Office and several Schools, with cross campus Research Entities would achieve positive outcomes (but with some downsides to consider also):
4.1) be able to steer the integration of curriculum design together with new strategic opportunities to develop programmes. This would require centralised teaching and learning, research and community engagement committees with dedicated representation from across the Faculty. The downside of this would be time taken to travel or meet up to make those structures work;
4.2) the Dean and Directors might be located on different campuses so that there would be leadership where it mattered. The downside would be a ‘travelling management team’, probably more reliant on technology for meeting than is currently the case;
4.3) research and teaching and learning would be focused upon in a more coherent manner in relation to one cost- centre point for all education programmes’ (rather than three) resourcing. A disadvantage might be the loss of relative autonomy insofar as colleagues would, within a new model like C-Revised, have to work more closely together;
4.4) current staffing deployment (academic and support) would be synchronised better so that resources to be devoted to growth points identified by the Faculty (rather than only on a campus). The downside is that this would have to be managed in relation to the different student-markets attracted to particular campuses;
4.5) academic and support staff development could be approached as an integrated Faculty in which the focus would be on deepening subject discipline expertise in relation to a few similarly identified research focuses. The downside is that some disciplines (subject groups) might become very large (thus making working together across campuses unwieldy, whilst other subject groupings might be tiny and thus not offer possibilities for staff development or leadership growth);
4.6) research development could approached from the perspective of one Faculty in which responsibility for enhancing expertise of academic staff could be planned for from the same resource base. The downside is that the management of such research support and growth would require cross campus commitment of staff (and leadership) to creating many opportunities not only for people to work together, but also the support (resources, time) to enable that to be useful and effective.
4.7) commitment to multimodal teaching could be enhanced through an integrated unitary Faculty. At present ODL operates differently across the campuses. Within a unitary Faculty, a normative approach to the support and development of ODL for education programmes could be properly conceptualised and resourced in collaboration with the UODL to support such development, and provision on each of the three campuses. The downside is that this might involve much more of a commitment of staff to ODL across the three campuses.
4.8) an integrated unitary Faculty would, we suggest, be able to plan for transformation in more meaningful ways than current campus-based entities in which the challenges of location are related to how specialisations are supported on the one hand, and how markets are constructed, on the other hand. In an integrated Faculty, academic staffing can be considered in relation to transformation goals around curriculum development and design, and in relation to the profiles of subject groups/ clusters/ schools.
5) Way forward
An integrated and unified Faculty would enable a range of possibilities for academics specialising in education research or offering programmes. What might be gained from such an arrangement also needs to be considered in relation to the associated: opportunities vs. opportunity costs. Any structure in which the management of people and resources are divorced (as they are at present) from the issues concerning quality of programmes, let alone enhancing the possibilities for inter-campus research collaboration, is likely to be beset with difficulties associated with the frictions between the increasing demands of education as a profession, and the evident need to manage resources towards quality of research as well as teaching and learning. We have not selected one model to promote arising from the documentation, but from the models it does seem that Model C-revised (as it is described in the documentation distributed to Faculty from Senate) approximates our position best.
The models as described in the documentation we think need to be tested in relation to the key question to which academics need to attend, irrespective of the site on which education programmes are offered, or the histories from which we have come: to what extent can the current opportunity that restructuring represents, be used for to achieve, a radical leap forward for our collective scholarly and educational advantage?
We trust that the description provided above will serve as a starting point for discussions that we believe to be ongoing across the three campuses and within faculties in which education programmes are offered. In conjunction with the documentation provided by Senate we thought it would be helpful also for colleagues, if we shared our understanding of the advantages we believe become possible arising from the above. We welcome further discussion in this respect, mindful of the timeframes that the NWU has to observe collectively in terms of accessing feedback from the faculties as well as the Senate itself.
Yours sincerely,
Robert J Balfour, Tinie Theron, Dawid Gericke and Elsa Fourie
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