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Item Open Access Deconstructing the discourse of community service and academic entrepreneurship: the ideological colonisation of the university(University of the Free State, 2005) Visagie, JohannAbstract not availableItem Open Access Global markets, employment restructuring and female labourers on Western Cape fruit farms(University of the Free State, 2005) Kritzinger, AndrienettaEnglish: The expansion of the South African deciduous fruit export sector in the context of globalisation in the early 1990s has led to changing patterns of employment on fruit farms. Producers have downsized their permanent on-farm labour forces and begun to employ various categories of flexible off-farm labour, particularly contract labour. This discussion examines the implications of this restructuring of employment for two groups of women working on Western Cape fruit farms — those still working and living on the farms and those who have recently been transformed into off-farm contract labourers. The research findings on which this discussion is based suggest that, while the consequences are contradictory for both groups of women, female contract workers are particularly vulnerable to risk and livelihood deprivation while having very limited access to institutional social protection.Item Open Access The cultural turn in South African translation: rehabilitation, subversion and resistance(University of the Free State, 2005) Naudé, JacobusEnglish: For many years translation was viewed as a faithful equivalent substitute for the source text. The cultural turn of the 1980s heralded a move on the part of contemporary translation studies away from the straightjacket of the earlier prescriptive and normative approaches. Two approaches to translation, the functionalist and the descriptive, developed independently but simultaneously and dethroned the primacy of the source text. Both proposed translation as a new communicative act that must fulfil a purpose for the target culture, so that target texts could potentially differ significantly from source texts. The establishment of postcolonial translation studies in the mid-1990s led to translations created to benefit the culture of the colonised at the expense of the culture of the coloniser/imperialist. The objective of this study is to indicate by means of critical analysis of several translations how a dominated target culture is rehabilitated, how a dominant source culture is subverted and how a dominant target culture is resisted by means of maintenance of the dominated source culture.Item Open Access Philosophy of education as action: transcending the division between theory and practice(University of the Free State, 2005) Waghid, YusefEnglish: Philosophers of education are often criticised for not being “practical” about educational issues. Their work is often seen as being too theoretical and failing to be responsive to practical situations in universities and schools. This article is a reflective autobiographical account of the role that theory has played in my own professional development as an education theorist/practitioner. I specifically highlight moments in my professional development which illustrate that the philosophy of education does not simply involve abstract theorising disconnected from the practical experiences of people. I go on to show that “doing” philosophy of education facilitates “practical” action such as compassionate imagination — an aspect of human action which can help us to counteract claims that the philosophy of education is simply academic jargon reflecting esoteric, incomprehensible theorising.Item Open Access Civil society and policy-making on education: the Gauteng Education and Training Council(University of the Free State, 2005) Heckroodt, Annetia; Van Wyk, Noleen; Lemmer, LeanorEnglish: The Gauteng Education and Training Council (GETC) is the first statutory council instituted in South Africa’s new democratic dispensation which allows civil society to participate in policy-making on education. This article looks at the policy process and the role played by civil society in the development of education policy and legislation. It discusses the institution of the GETC and the role accorded to it in policymaking, as well as the factors which could prevent it from playing a significant role. These include the representivity of stakeholders; the participation of representatives in policy debates; the lack of consensus on the role of the Council; the relationship of the Council with government structures, and the role and place of the Council in the policy route of the Gauteng Department of Education. The article also includes recommendations on improving the role played by civil society in policy-making at the provincial level.Item Open Access Crucial management skills for principals of township secondary schools(University of the Free State, 2005) Masitsa, GilbertEnglish:Principals of secondary schools in townships are experiencing increasing management problems. Research indicates that principals with insufficient or non-existant school management skills may encounter management problems which impede academic success. The effectiveness of a principal’s management is probably the most important factor contributing to improved academic performance. This article set out to identify the management skills required by principals of secondary schools in townships and to establish their impact on academic performance. It found that training principals in the management skills identified as crucial would not only solve their management problems, but also improve the academic performance of their schools. The article also makes recommendations for certain changes in educational practice.Item Open Access Strategies for preventing learner vandalism(University of the Free State, 2005) De Wet, CoreneEnglish:School vandalism is a serious problem as it places a heavy burden on education budgets and can cause teaching and learning to collapse. Learners have the right to be taught in neat, clean school buildings and grounds, to play and to develop their full potential. It is therefore important to find ways of preventing school vandalism. Against the background of a literature study, this article reports on the nature and extent of school vandalism, as well as on the strategies of a group of educators on preventing learner vandalism at schools. The literature study and the content analysis indicate that a combination of factors involving learners, educators, schools, parents, communities and the law cause learner vandalism. Prevention strategies should thus concentrate on all these aspects, otherwise they will be merely cosmetic and probably short-lived.Item Open Access Poetry and the emergence of the voice(University of the Free State, 2005) Peeters, LeopoldEnglish: Poetry seems to occupy an ever-diminishing place in contemporary culture and this situation has given rise to speculation about its coming to an end, as so many other realms of human spiritual creation have seemed to do. However, in its essence, poetry is the unending endeavour of poets all over the world to re-enact the origin of human speech. It continues to respond to humankind’s need to bridge the chasm which modern science has created between itself and the world. But man himself is torn between body and soul. The quest for unity, then, is a quest for the identity of human beings, which finds its expression and confirmation in a voice. In poetry, prosody offers the possibility of making that voice heard again in its mysterious power of making sense with articulated sound.