South African Action Session: Actions
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Group 1
Group 1 chose to elaborate an action plan for the following vision statement:
- A real and genuine collaboration between government, industry and educators that aligns education and career pathways, and develops an education policy that works with economic policy.
Summary of idea
A flexible, reactive further education system linked to industry demands, built on significant industry input.
Outcomes
- This system would create a more flexible, reactive and open relationship between industry and the South African Ministry of Education.
- It would also establish closer links between academia and industry leading to more industry relevant skills training and curriculum development.
- An important result of these changes would be improved standards in further education colleges.
- An improved educational infrastructure would provide more opportunities for scaling up examples of good practice.
Action plan
The participants proposed a government driven collaboration around curriculum design/appropriateness, such as a 'curriculum regulator', encompassing collaboration with relevant industry bodies around the workplace relevance of education. Part of this approach would be to link academic boards with industry. The group also suggested that a council of representatives from industry bodies should be set up to provide input into macro-education policy.
A need was highlighted for the creation of new fast response mechanisms to maintain the overall relevance of educational content based on this collaboration, as well as improving the efficiency of current mechanisms.
It was also felt that students require more co-ordinated guidance around educational and career pathways, with greater emphasis on giving students more choice.
A clear outcome must be the encouragement of entrepreneurship development and business building as a function of collaboration with an emphasis on the greater use of business simulation to facilitate the development of management and business skills.
Additional efforts must be made to scale up good examples of collaboration within sectors like oil, gas and wine, built on the
development of sustainable funding models.
Finally it was felt that maintaining educational standards necessitate making the entry level requirements for further education colleges much higher.
Group 2
Group 2 chose to elaborate an action plan for the following vision statement:
- Well managed educational institutions with optimum use of resources
Summary of idea
A shared vision and consensus on a more professional approach to the management of educational institution resources, with increased accountability.
Outcomes
- This vision would develop education professionals trained for optimal management of their responsibilities.
- A vision built on feedback, checks and balances from all stakeholders in ensuring proper management of learning; a shared vision developed in partnership with parents and other stakeholders.
Action plan
The group would ensure that principals and managers have accredited management training which enables them to properly and efficiently allocate resources.
Management approach is also key with the management of educational institutions becoming more 'hands on' so that principals and managers better understand issues at ground level.
To build on these measures, the group highlighted the need for systematic incorporation of reflective practice and critical thinking theory into the management techniques of educational institutions. This practice would also extend to teachers, enabling them to be more self-critical and adjust their educational delivery accordingly.
Increased accountability would come through establishing better links between home and school. The development of shared decision making partnerships with parental committees and other stakeholders would provide further checks and balances. For this to work, however, parental committees should be trained in key issues of competence. Measures for ensuring accountability in the distribution of funds in educational institutions should be developed, through an external committee auditing the distribution of funds.
A further efficiency measure suggested was encouraging colleges to specialise in a reduced number of courses thus improving the quality of delivery and design.
These measures must be combined with the appointment of more members of industry at skill council level while making industry more aware of the need for their role in this process. As part of this approach, the South African Skills Education Training Authorities (SETAS) would establish criteria for access to funding around clear demonstration of engagement with industry or clear demonstration of the relevance of course content to the needs of industry (this would be dependent on
more industry representation on SETA skills councils).
