Journal of Education最新文献

{"title":"Contribution of School Feeding Program on Learners’ Academic Performance in Public Primary Schools in Rwanda","authors":"","doi":"10.53819/81018102t5278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53819/81018102t5278","url":null,"abstract":"School feeding program plays a significant role in the promotion of students, teachers and school performance. The purpose of this study therefore was to ascertain the contribution of school feeding program on students’ academic performance in primary schools of Rwamagana District in Rwanda. The target population was 3302 respondents that provided the sample size of 357 respondents got using Yamane formula. Interview guide, questionnaire and document analysis review were used as data collection instruments. Descriptive survey design was employed. The findings revealed that in primary schools of Rwamagana, there is a program of school feeding although food served to the learners is not enough. In the primary schools of Rwamagana District, there is the program of school feeding. In these schools there are the variations of food served to the learners and the quantity of food served to each learner depends on their level. The learners are given balanced diet which is delicious. The food is not enough and there is not safe drinking water for learners. Despite all measures taken by the government of Rwanda toward education, in primary schools of Rwamagana District, there is poor academic performance. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation between school feeding program and attendance of the learners as it was agreed by 243(68.1%). School feeding also is a catalyst to academic performance. The learners who take food at school perform better than the learner who does not take food at school. School feeding program is a powerful and integrated way to encourage children to attend school, to support their learning and to prepare them for success. So, school feeding play a tangible role to academic performance. The study recommended that the government with all education stakeholders should build dining room for students so that they have to take food without any challenge. Policy makers and planners should also spread safe water to the schools which haven’t water and to the other schools which have insufficient water in order to help learner to have safe water for drinking and to have water needed in cleaning and cooking. Keywords: Academic performance, School feeding and public primary school","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135475144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chasing shadows: The tacit requirements of visual culture studies in the school curriculum","authors":"Lauren Palte","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a09","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the negative impact of a generic skills discourse on a curriculum that is drawn from disciplinary expertise. The findings are directed towards the Department of Basic Education's curriculum strengthening process that is underway for 2025 and, in particular, their expressed intention to infuse 21st-century or generic skills and emotional competencies into the curriculum. The visual art curriculum and assessment policy statement for Grades 10-12 is used as a case study, with a focus on the generic skills of visual literacy and critical thinking. I argue that although generic skills statements point to noble objectives, they obscure requirements for learners, teachers, and examination setters. The paper makes an argument for explicit specification drawn from a disciplinary base in visual art, and highlights particular areas of concern regarding specification and specialisation that can be taken up by subject specialists in other subject areas.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transitions in education: Educators, digitalisation, and datafication","authors":"Jennifer Feldman, Laura Czerniewicz","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a03","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores educators' experiences of the digitalisation and datafication of teaching and learning that intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic. It focuses on the transitions, responses, and agency of educators as the rules of their professional world changed. The paper uses data from four focus group discussions with 19 educators from diverse South African contexts including urban and rural, affluent and poor environments, schools, colleges, and universities. Framed by Archer's (2007, 2012) nuanced concepts of agency, the paper shows how educators working within the structures of very stratified education contexts negotiated their educational projects while the rules were being rewritten as the socio-technical systems in which they taught were-and are-being transformed in ways that are not yet fully understood. Control of the teaching and learning environment has been a key issue as it has become clear how much is outside the jurisdiction of individual educators: the entrenching of big tech in education, stakeholder arrangements including private-state partnerships, and the selection of digital tools and systems. Despite not being explicitly aware of the business models that shape the datafication of their teaching systems, educators discussed their discomfort and unease- while remaining reflexive and active agents showing the ability to reorientate a course of action even within narrow and covert parameters.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mapping the form of continuing professional development in public-private partnership schools in the Western Cape","authors":"Lynne Johns, Yusuf Sayed","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a05","url":null,"abstract":"Public-private partnership (PPP) schools in the Western Cape, South Africa, are known as collaboration schools. The management of these schools is outsourced to private entities known as school operating partners and these are, inter alia, also contracted to provide support to teachers through continuing professional development (CPD). The CPD activities are meant to up-skill teachers to improve teaching and learning and ultimately, advance learner performance. Although this is a valid principle, there is a need to evaluate the CPD received by collaboration schools. This paper profiles CPD provided in PPP schools to add to the understanding of this new form of schooling that which has taken hold in the Western Cape. Data were collected in the form of questionnaires and in-depth individual interviews with school operating partners, Western Cape Education Department officials, school leadership, teachers, and school governing body members. An analysis of the gathered information reveals that CPD received by teachers tends to focus narrowly on teaching and learning, and lacks the provision of a broad, expansive, and holistic notion of education. It also indicates the need for a better understanding of how such schools provide professional development support for teachers, and the effects on the provision of equitable and quality education for all.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"21st-century South African teachers in turbulent educational waters","authors":"Marga Botha, Sarina de Jager, Rinelle Evans","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a01","url":null,"abstract":"Teachers in the South African education system face numerous challenges that negatively affect their well-being and contribute to the high attrition rate in the teaching profession. Given that few studies in the South African context focus on teacher well-being, this article fills that gap by exploring how teachers experience profession-related challenges and how these affect their well-being. By merging the force field model (Samuel & van Wyk, 2008) and the PERMA model (Seligman, 2011) as theoretical frameworks, four forces, namely contextual, institutional, programmatic, and biographical, were used as a lens to explore the push and pull factors that impact the well-being of teachers. Data were collected using eight electronic open-ended questions and eight semi-structured individual interviews (case studies). The findings revealed that factors teachers identified as pushing them away from the profession were unsatisfactory remuneration, lack of resources, uninvolved parents, learner diversity, and an overwhelming workload. Pull factors that attracted them to the profession were the stability and convenience of following a teaching career, feeling valued, and being passionate about facilitating learning.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rethinking support for university teachers in the context of decolonising higher education: The role of academic developers","authors":"Emmanuel Mfanafuthi Mgqwashu","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a02","url":null,"abstract":"The diverse histories of each of the three formerly different higher education institutions that became NorthWest University (NWU) continue to encourage academic developers to think strategically on effective ways to offer responsive academic development support to the students and academic staff. Tasked with a mandate to render academic development support to academic staff, postgraduate, and undergraduate students to achieve equity (not equality) of outcomes, NWU's Faculty Teaching and Learning Support (FTLS) directorate continues to rethink its strategy and approach in fulfilling its mandate long after the merging of the three historically different institutions on 1 January 2004. The directorate understands that there are common, fundamental, and core student academic development and support, and academic professional development needs across the three campuses that should be aligned, yet our engagement has shown repeatedly that such support is always situational and, inadvertently, contextual. Drawing on New Literacy Studies as theoretical lens to advance its argument, this paper used the literature review method to present the rationale for a restructured FTLS work strategy at NWU to respond better to demands for supporting the academic project in the context of decolonising higher education.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adult learning theory tenets: A panacea to ICT skills gaps among educators in South Africa","authors":"Oluwasola Babatunde SasereI, Sekitla Daniel Makhasane","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a04","url":null,"abstract":"The integration of information communication technology (ICT) in education is vital for achieving educational objectives, and South Africa has undertaken diverse efforts and initiatives to promote this integration in schools. Despite policy support and financial backing, there persists a gap in educators' ICT skills uptake. This paper adopted conceptual analysis to make sense of the principles of adult learning theory (ALT) as a veritable tool for improving ICT skills uptake among educators. The paper outlines the Department of Basic Education's efforts in promoting ICT integration in schools and discusses the associated challenges. Overall, the article advances ALT tenets in planning and implementing ICT-focused, school-based teacher professional development (SBTPD) in schools. These tenets include the need-to-know principle, self-concept or self-directedness principle, learners' experiences principle, readiness-to-learn principle, orientation-to-learning principles, and intrinsic-motivation principle as effective correlates of ICT-oriented SBTPD training. Based on the explication, the paper recommends reforming existing teacher professional development policies, promoting a decentralised approach to ICT training, and conducting comprehensive ICT needs assessments to design effective ICT-oriented needs-based SBTPD training.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mathematics and science teacher educators experiences of using the WhatsApp platform as a tool for supporting teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic","authors":"Eunice Nyamupangedengu, Monde Kazeni, Caleb Mandikonza, Magdeline Stephen, Portia Mabenge (Kavai), Herman Tshesane, Eyitayo Ajayi, Lawan Abdulhamid, Judah Makonye, Mabel Moloi","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a07","url":null,"abstract":"This article problematises the media used for delivery of curriculum at the onset of lockdowns due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in a sudden cessation of all face-to-face teaching and learning at a South African university. The article reports on how the otherwise neutral WhatsApp social media platform was appropriated to become a serious teaching tool for mathematics and science pre-service teacher educators. The study draws predominantly on connectivism learning theory to understand how WhatsApp was used to continue the teaching of mathematics and science during the Covid-19 lockdowns. The sample consisted of 10 mathematics and science teacher educators from whom data were collected through authentic conversations and questionnaires. The article reports on the affordances and constraints the WhatsApp platform presented, as well as how it reshaped the teaching of mathematics and science. Findings indicate that teacher educators transformed the use of WhatsApp from a social media tool to a tool for supporting teaching. However, being a social tool, WhatsApp does have affordances and constraints when used for teaching. The affordances include ease of access and ease of use, while constraints include the risk of students not possessing smartphones and intrusion into the personal lives of teacher educators.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhancing inclusive education through active student teacher participation: A case study of a university in Cape Town","authors":"Cina P. Mosito","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a11","url":null,"abstract":"Addressing the needs of a diverse learner population remains one of the most pressing education concerns of the 21st century. One of the issues debated is whether a responsive teacher education curriculum caters for the needs of student teachers, and how effective it is in preparing student teachers for teaching in diverse situations. It is essential to locate this issue within teacher education given the expectations on graduate teachers to deliver socially just pedagogies in school terrains that are often marked by deep inequalities. The Covid-19 pandemic has illuminated these inequalities, which have become the subject of all educational discourses. This study foregrounds student teacher voices regarding how they experienced curriculum reforms towards inclusive education in the Bachelor of Education (BEd) programme at a university in Cape Town, South Africa. Specifically, the study engages with how different modes of curriculum delivery position student teachers as both recipients and co-creators of the intended knowledge and skills-and who can engage in critical interaction with the learning material, and provoke self-scrutiny among student teachers and lecturers. This qualitative interpretivist study was framed around constructs of cognitive apprenticeship, guided participation, participatory appropriation, and border crossing. Data were collected through focus group interviews. It was found that an approach to learning in which student teachers are positioned as knowledge collaborators leads to the meaningful appropriation of some aspects of a curriculum on inclusive education.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are we there yet? An intersectional take on Black women academics' experiences in a South African university","authors":"Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo, Bongiwe Mayibongwe Ngcobo","doi":"10.17159/2520-9868/i92a10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i92a10","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we adopt an intersectional lens to explore and theorise the complex experiences of Black women academics in a research-intensive university in South Africa. We purposively recruited 10 Black women academics, ranging from early career academics, lecturers, to senior professors in the field. We relied on intersectionality to theorise Black women academics' challenges in navigating and negotiating their being and belonging in the university. We used semi-structured interviews as a data generation method to elicit the narratives/ stories/experiences of the Black women academics. The findings revealed two things. Firstly, they revealed that a large number of the research participants were \"accidental academics\" in higher education due to the nature of their entry and access to the university. Secondly, the findings also showed the important role that formal and informal mentoring plays in higher education as a catalyst for helping Black women academics access, negotiate, and succeed at university. We conclude this paper with some thoughts on the need for formalised and well-structured mentoring systems in higher education to support Black women academics' access, being, and belonging in the university.","PeriodicalId":15568,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135545814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}