ABET COLLOQUIUM BEYOND ABET University of KwazuluNatal

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ABET COLLOQUIUMBEYOND ABET!University of
Kwazulu-Natal

• 1st 2nd September 2005

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CONTENTS (1)

• Introduction
• Key aspects of the regulatory role
• Measuring success?
• Progress
• Broad intervention strategy
• Beyond ABET?
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• DIRECTORATE MANDATE
• To manage the development, evaluation and
  maintenance of policy, programmes and systems for
  adult education and training and monitor
  implementation of policies.
• Develop and maintain policy concerning
  programmes, qualifications and assessment for
  adult education and training.
• Develop, evaluate and maintain programmes and
  systems for adult education and training.
• Render support to qualification and quality
  assurance authorities for adult and community
  education and training.
• Monitor implementation of policies.

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GOALS

• A new ABET qualification and national standards
  linked to the different ABET levels, aligned with
  the National Qualifications Framework.
• A new curriculum framework for ABET, that
  supports innovation and variety in the
  development of curriculum towards learner
  achievement of outcomes specified in the national
  standards.
• A quality assurance framework aimed at improving
  quality across the ABET sector.
• Comprehensive institutional development
  initiatives aimed at institutional redress and
  increasing quality through improving learning and
  teaching quality and the management of ABET
  provisioning, across the sector.
• New funding policies aimed at effectively
  mobilising funds for ABET and improving the
  quality and efficiency of provision.
• New governance proposals to effectively manage
  the new system and to improve the coordination of
  ABET initiatives across the sector.

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Key aspects of the regulatory role key
legislation

• ABET Policy document
• Multi-Year Implementation Plan
• ABET Act, 2000 (Act 52 of 2000)
• Regulations for establishing the NABABET
• Assessment Policy
• Regulations for accessing school facilities
• Regulations for the conduct of exams
• Draft Norms and Standards for Funding Centres
• Draft conditions of service

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Key aspects of regulatory role

• Policy and legislative development
• Curriculum development
• Assessment systems and exams
• Registration of private centres
• Accountability and reporting and
• Monitoring and evaluation.

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Measuring success with what?
As a profession, we have proven ourselves strong
in ideology, eloquent in rhetoric and
declarations and weak on facts and analysis -and
therefore deficient in credibility. We continue
to complain that we are under-funded and
neglected, but we also continue not to provide an
incontestable basis on which decisions can be
roundly justified to allocate us more and better
resources.

• Education 10 year review
• Review of the MYIP
• State of the Nation Address
• Some research
• Contested information EMIS stats
• ABET level 4 exam results
• Some anecdotes
• A lot of perceptions

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Progress

• A system in place which is functioning
• Access for adult learners
• Necessary policy and legislation in place
• Recognised ABET qualifications for salary
  purposes
• Curriculum and assessment system
• Governance structures
• Regulatory role being partially fullfilled
• Resource allocation
• BUT

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BUT

• More work needs to be done on curriculum
  relevance and responsiveness
• More work needs to be done on implementation of
  the policies and legislation
• A new strategy for the ABET sector is required
• A re-look at the nature and quality of
  partnerships
• Research, evaluation and monitoring systems
  getting an accurate picture of the sector
• An approach to the mobilisation of more adult
  learners
• An approach to resource mobilisation that takes
  into account lessons learned for the past 10 yrs
  and
• Leadership and co-ordination of the sector.

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Broad intervention strategy

• Strengthen integration of adult basic education
  into other government programmes, including those
  based in multi-purpose community centres.
• Turn adult education centres into centres of
  information.
• Explore the link of adult education programmes to
  markets in the First Economy, thereby, reducing
  reliance on social grants.
• Integrate adult basic education into community
  life, and build it as a vehicle for co-operatives.

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Broad intervention strategy

• Increase the cadre of adult education
  practitioners, in line with the labour-intensive
  approach.
• Improve the status of adult education
  practitioners through incentives and appropriate
  compensation.
• Bring finality and stability around the funding
  of adult basic education.
• Ensure that literacy programmes are based on the
  conception of literacy as a multi-dimensional
  phenomenon and meet the basic learning needs of
  adults.

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Beyond ABET?

• ABLE (Adult Basic Learning and Education) in the
  South continues to be trapped between overly
  ambitious expectations and meagre attention and
  resources. Adult Literacy is expected to produce
  miracles among the poor self esteem,empowerment,
  citizenship building, community organisation,
  labour skills, income generation, and even
  poverty alleviation While pedagogical and
  specifically methodological issues are important,
  one must not forget that poverty is not the
  result of illiteracy but very much the contrary.
  The most effective way to deal with poverty is
  dealing with the structural economic and
  political factors that generate it and reproduce
  it at national and global scale. Torres, 2003.
  141

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Conclusion

• We need a strategy
• Engage each other robustly, but develop concrete
  steps that takes us forward and
• Accept that we have different roles and
  responsibilities.