Research Articles (School of Education Studies)

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Browsing Research Articles (School of Education Studies) by Subject "Community engagement"

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    Engaging the community in educational and social amelioration: lessons and prospects
    (CSSALL, 2015) Hlalele, Dipane; Tsotetsi, Cias
    A crucial element to ensure the success of a project is the community’s engagement in it: in other words, the participation of individuals, community-based organisations and institutions that would be affected by the endeavour is vital to its success. Studies suggest that strong community participation during a programme’s development and implementation is more likely to assure its long-term viability. There has been a proliferation of academic programmes that embrace community involvement, service-learning and volunteerism flowing from the understanding that community engagement constitutes one of the core functions in South African higher education. Universities attempt in their own ways to engage students in various projects and programmes to make them aware of the role that a university has to play in the social and economic development of the surrounding community. This paper reports on the lessons and prospects emanating from free attitude interviews (FAI) with five mathematics and science students, members of a non-governmental organisation (Pula) and a number of beneficiaries. Findings indicate that it is essential to craft a common purpose between the university, NGOs and beneficiaries. Youth educators also indicated that they derived a heightened sense of accomplishment when addressing challenges experienced by their peers.
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    Service learning as a response to community/school engagement: towards a pedagogy of engagement
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2013-06) Alexander, Gregg; Khabanyane, Mokhethi
    The promulgation of the White Paper on Higher Education (1997) necessitated Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa to avail their expertise in their human resources and physical infrastructure for service learning and community engagement initiatives, in the interest of demonstrating social responsibility, collaborative partnerships with, and a commitment to the development of South African communities. Service learning as a thoughtful organised, reflective and engaged service pedagogy is focused on the developmental priorities of communities through the application of knowledge, skills and interaction among communities, academics, students and service providers to the benefit of all participants (Council on Higher Education, 2006). In response to the latter mentioned, this interdisciplinary study, therefore, reports on the results of a service learning component to teach postgraduate students, attached to the Department of Comparative Education and Education Management, to perform specific skills (management tasks) via the implementation of structured interventions at their selective schools. Class presentations, reflective journals on students’ observations, experiences and actions revealed significant parallels between the implemented service learning curricular (management tasks) and the respective ‘engaged’ school communities.
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    Strategies and outcomes of involving university students in community engagement: an adaptive leadership perspective
    (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), 2015) Hlalele, Dipane; Manicom, Desiree; Preece, Julia; Tsotetsi, Cias T.
    English: The purpose of this article is to compare how students and community members learned and applied their knowledge in four small-scale university–community engagement projects during 2013. It draws on the concept of adaptive leadership as an approach and analytical tool in a recently completed community engagement and service learning action research partnership between the University of the Free State (UFS) Qwa Qwa campus and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) Pietermaritzburg campus. The project was funded by the National Research Foundation, with additional support from the UKZN Teaching and Learning Fund and UFS Faculty of Education research funds. A total of twelve case studies involved sixty-five students, nine NGOs and four schools. In each case, students worked in teams in response to community requests for assistance. Projects included Saturday curriculum activities for schools, workshops for parents, assisting with film making or archiving, assisting with monitoring and evaluation of rural reading clubs, producing small organic gardens and assisting with a childcare development project. Each case study involved end of project interviews with students and community contacts and some interim observations during the project implementation phase. This article compares four of the case study findings between the two institutions. It outlines how the concept of community engagement has evolved and briefly reviews the literature on community engagement, particularly in the South African context. It then introduces the theoretical framework and methodology. The findings suggested that the adaptive leadership approach contributed to stimulating shared ownership of learning.