An Intersectionality Perspective on Rural Adolescent Access to Digital Technology in South Africa

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore compounding disparities in the South African education system. The world at large has suddenly been faced with the challenge of blended learning given that COVID-19 has reconstituted the traditional form of education delivery. Much emphasis has been placed on global education, yet due to compounding inequalities stemming from the effects of apartheid, the South African education system has been left further entrenched in the digital divide. It is for this reason that the authors of this chapter illuminate the lack of digital technology, its subsequent effect on adolescents in rural areas, and how it impacts on their ability to learn and compete in the global education sphere. The perspective of Intersectionality theory highlighted in this chapter is used to address the inequalities perpetuated by digital technology on adolescents in rural areas.

Towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy in a post-COVID world

In this article, part of the special COVID-19 issue of the Journal of Education, we concentrate on digital technology as one of the core dimensions of education's pandemic-related response. As the default teaching mode during the pandemic, Online Emergency Remote Teaching evoked contentious responses about future education directions in a post-COVID world. We shed light on the role of digital technology in South African education, specifically in relation to current debates on higher education. We present an argument that supports an approach based on e-learning ecologies to pedagogy to inform teaching and learning in institutional contexts. We argue that a reflexive pedagogy-led response to digital technology holds promise for creating a systemic educational approach to promoting students' critical epistemic engagement to enable them to secure viable futures.

Decolonization of Higher Education in South Africa

Western education still dominates the education terrain across Africa. For some people, the dominance is nothing but ‘academic imperialism,’ which is believed to have relegated African scholars to mere conduits of knowledge through which European and American scholarship and interests are protected and promoted. Consequently, a dissident voice is resonating in the African educational system, particularly South African education system, demanding the recognition of ‘home-grown’ knowledge to solve home-grown problems. This article engages the debate about decolonization of higher education in South Africa and asks the fundamental question of whether or not it is possible to achieve a fully decolonized curriculum in a society that is already cloaked and engulfed by capitalism and Western ideologies.

The influence of parental demographics on school choice decision-making in Western Gauteng, South Africa

Major political changes since 1994 have initiated the pace of change in the South African education system. Parents’ values, traditions and practices that served in the past were no longer relevant in the new dynamic educational environment. Parental school choice and “the right to choose” movement has subsequently come to the fore. The purpose of this article elucidates findings regarding the demographics of active school choice engagement among middle class parents in Western Gauteng, South Africa. The study, situated in the Gauteng province, South Africa, followed a conclusive research design with a post positivist paradigm. Parent questionnaires were distributed to different types of urban schools to establish the perceptions of parents regarding the factors, anxieties, aspirations and strategies influencing school choice decision-making. Findings reveal that language, income and education not only have a definitive influence on active school choice engagement but also affect the level of importance attached to specific school choice factors. Education in South Africa can thus be viewed as a unique complex system embedded in a political, cultural and economic context.

Is Decentralisation a Suitable Response to Improve South African Rural Education?

South Africa (SA) has a decentralised education system. It is generally assumed that decentralisation improves the effectiveness and efficiency of education by responding to the needs, values, and expectations of both local and rural communities. A large part of SA could be described as rural and a large number of learners attend rural schools. This makes rural education a significant part of the South African education context. With education being decentralised, and with decentralisation being heralded as the panacea to the problems faced by rural communities as well as rural education, the assumption is that rural education should be of a high quality. This desk-top paper assesses the potential of decentralisation to improve the quality and effectiveness of South African rural education. This it does by locating decentralisation within neoliberalism which this paper argues is the impetus behind the decentralisation of South African education, and the reason for the decline in the quality and effectiveness of rural education. The paper also highlights certain tensions between the various decentralised spheres of governance, namely the central and provincial Departments of Education and school-level governance structures. The paper further indicates how these tensions potentially hamper the effectiveness and efficiency of rural education. The paper concludes with some recommendations aimed at improving rural education.

A REFLECTION ON GENDER ACHIEVEMENT IN SCIENCES’ RURAL SCHOOL SETTINGS OF MULTICULTURAL SOUTH AFRICA

The participation of learners in science is important to a country’s socio-economic development impediments, therefore, the argument is that the girl learner should be increasingly encouraged to perform well in STEM related subjects (STATS SA). UNESCO indicates 35% women representative in STEM as students in higher education globally, whilst less than 40% of South Africa’s scientists, engineers and technologists are women. This situation also relates to the South African education system, particularly in rural schools where girl learners are outperformed by boy learners in STEM, especially, in subjects such as Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. The purpose of this reflective paper is to ascertain the factors prohibiting excellent achievement of females in sciences in rural high schools of South Africa. The data has been gathered from numerous documents such as national and provincial analysis of result, examination and assessment directorate analysis and the district statistics in solidifying our investigation as couched by document analysis. Based on our observations and experiences of the conditions prevailing in rural high schools and less participation of female learner access in STEM, suggestions are put forth as to how their performance can be improved. The investment thereof in the body of knowledge will be to fulfil the concern not only of the country but the world at large when the number of female participants increase in STEM.

Teaching Mathematics during the COVID-19 Lockdown in a Context of Historical Disadvantage

The COVID-19 global pandemic widely affected education across the world and engendered unprecedented scenarios that required expeditious responses. In South Africa, the pandemic came on top of pre-existing inequalities in the education system. Using a qualitative research method of exploratory and descriptive nature, this study engaged a social justice framework to explore the teaching and learning of mathematics during the COVID-19 lockdown in a context of historical disadvantage. A sample of twenty-three Grade 12 mathematics teachers at various public secondary schools in Gauteng, South Africa was used in the study. The teachers were selected through purposive sampling. A Google-generated open-ended questionnaire and follow-up telephonic interviews were used to collect data. Data were analysed thematically in five steps. The findings revealed that the WhatsApp platform is a valuable tool that can support the teaching and learning of mathematics beyond the classroom in the contexts of historical disadvantage. The findings also provided insights into how mathematics teachers became learners themselves during emergency remote teaching (ERT) as they had to adapt to digital teaching, find solutions to unfamiliar problems and acquire knowledge from a larger mathematics education community around the globe. The article discusses these findings and teachers’ challenges of transitioning from traditional face-to-face classrooms to ERT and how they were addressed. At the time of publishing the article, most learners in South Africa had started going to school on a rotational basis. Nonetheless, the study reported in this article is of importance as ERT in the context of historical disadvantage has foregrounded issues of inequality in the South African education system that must be dealt with urgently.