Conceptions of Social Inquiry

The practice of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in the education of adults seeks to affirm and accredit the knowledge and skills which they have already attained in the course of their working lives. This monograph explores the implementation of RPL in a programme designed to upgrade tens of thousands of under-qualified teachers and finds a baffling dilemma: how does one value prior learning which one believes to be misguided, outdated, or inappropriate?

This volume is intended to develop and share knowledge regarding the challenges faced by vocational education and training (VET) systems within the southern African region and the responses to these challenges. It examines the complexities through a unique comparative study of seven countries in southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.

Decolonisation as democratisation considers three factors that define the debate in South Africa on the decolonisation of the academy: educational aspiration, competing interests and political contestation. The book explores an academic system that attempts to serve two masters, the first being the historical beneficiaries of the academy (i.e. whiteness) and the second being those who pin their hopes on the system in order to escape abjection (i.e. blackness or indigeneity). The book highlights how the recent thrust of decoloniality protects the ideal of academic freedom and presents an argument that this ideal should not be used to protect the interests of the historical beneficiaries.

Sectors & Skills: The Need for Policy Alignment presents the results of a large-scale study of the skill demands of five economic clusters in South Africa: