Table of Contents

page iv. Editorial Team page vi. In Memoriam: Andre van der Bijl (Phd) page vii. Editorial - Joy Papier page 1. A ‘curriculum moment’ for Adult and Community Education and Training: Acknowledging the voices and experiential knowledge of lecturers and students at community learning sites. Natheem Hendricks and Kaylianne Aploon-Zokufa page 16. South Africa’s adult educators in the community college sector: Who they are and how they view their training, their work and their position. Sandra Jane Land page 41. Assessing work-based values: The missing link in improving youth employability. Andrew Paterson, Roelien Herholdt, James Keevy and Bina Akoobhai page 62. Knowledge, competencies and dispositions of lecturers in Technical Engineering in the context of advancing 4IR technologies. Nixon JP Teis and Christo J Els page 88. Why prisoners pursue adult education and training: Perceptions of prison instructors. Tabitha Grace Mukeredzi page 106. Enhancing technical and vocational knowledge and skills of adult learners in Ghanaian universities. Yaw Owusu-Agyeman and Magda Fourie-Malherbe page 130. TVET engineering students’ perceptions of the value of their qualification and the prospects of employment. Anthony Tolika Sibiya, Nceba Nyembezi and David Bogopa page 146. Promise and performance of gender mainstreaming at a Zimbabwean agricultural training college. Sebastian Mutambisi, Manasa Madondo, Miidzo Mavesera and Phamela Dube page 164. Contributor biographies page 168. Editorial policy page 170. Call for papers 2022: JOVACET, Volume 5, Issue 1 page 171. Call for papers for the special edition 2022: JOVACET, Volume 5, Issue 2

Assessing work-based values: The missing link in improving youth employability

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges are intended to equip youths with work-relevant skills, but the capacity of the labour market to absorb them is limited and South Africa has high levels of unemployment. Employers argue that young work-seekers from TVET colleges may well possess technical skills but lack employability skills, including appropriate work-based attitudes and values. In response to this scenario, a team of experts designed a short, interactive programme for TVET college students to acquire an improved understanding of and insight into their own values and how these inform their behaviour in the workplace. The values selected were respect, accountability, self-improvement and perseverance. The programme’s intended outcome was to increase the participants’ awareness of the link between values and their actions so that they could improve their own decision-making and their relationships with colleagues in the workplace. Following this programme, the students were afforded a period of workplace exposure during which they were required to reflect on their experience and how workplace behaviour revealed their own and work colleagues’ underlying values. A crucial challenge for the project team was to be able to measure any impact on the participants’ understanding of the values and how this understanding might guide their behaviour. The focus of this article is on how the assessment instrument was conceptualised, designed and piloted in South Africa and Kenya. The instrument was required to measure effectively any changes in the participants’ understanding of the meaning of each value and the adjustments in their ability to apply the values in real work-based scenarios.

Editorial policy

The Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training (JOVACET) recognises the need for critical engagement through studies in TVET and Adult and Continuing education and training, and for encouraging critical scrutiny of this expansive knowledge area on the African continent.

A ‘curriculum moment’ for Adult and Community Education and Training: Acknowledging the voices and experiential knowledge of lecturers and students at community learning sites

Curriculum reform and development is, first and foremost, a political project. It involves the selection, organisation and distribution of particular knowledge structures. But factors such as student and teacher demographics deeply influence the ways in which curricula can be implemented, enacted and used as a catalyst for change. In South Africa, a particular ‘curriculum moment’ has emerged in the field of Adult and Community Education and Training (ACET) through the establishment of community colleges, along with the introduction of new educator qualifications for ACET. In this article, we draw on the reflective diary entries of student lecturers on an Advanced Diploma for Educators of Adults (ADEA) course who are lecturers at community learning sites, to reflect on this moment of curriculum construction in the development of a new Diploma in Adult and Community Education and Training (DipACET). The analysis shows that while curriculum reform is crucial to professionalising the field, it will have a very limited impact if the voices of the lecturers and students at community learning sites are marginalised in the process. These lecturers have experiential knowledge which sets them apart as crucial drivers of the curriculum. Moreover, they select and organise the content to be taught, determine how it is to be taught, and decide on the kinds of knowledge that should be privileged at sites where the curriculum is implemented. We also delineate what counts as valuable knowledge and for whom it is valuable in the field of adult and community education.

Call for papers for the Special Edition, JOVACET 5(2), 2022

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), referred to, inter alia, as APL in other contexts, has been recognised by South African and international policies as a critical means of access to, and certification of further and higher learning, especially for mature learners. While there is general acknowledgement of the importance of RPL for lifelong learning and social inclusion, learning institutions have not embraced RPL equally across the board, and implementation practices vary greatly, often leading to learner frustration. While there have been some local studies and a growing international literature, RPL is by and large under-researched in South Africa. In light of the above and its long tradition of RPL provision, the University of the Western Cape’s Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) unit will be hosting a conference on 30 and 31 March 2022, with the theme ‘Implementation, Assessment and Articulation of Recognition of Prior Learning’. As one of the intentions of the conference is to ‘build the scholarship of RPL’ (also known as APL in other contexts), JOVACET will be partnering with the UWC RPL Unit to produce a Special Issue of the journal in 2022 for publication of relevant papers that fall within the scope of our journal. Topics broadly covered by the conference include (but are not limited to) the following:• RPL policy research• Sharing RPL practices• Capacity building for RPL• Innovative RPL models• RPL assessment for undergraduate and postgraduate access in higher education• Articulation models for RPL in post-schooling Submissions for paper presentations at the conference should be made directly to the conference organiser, Dr Rekha Rambharose, email [email protected], but additional, relevant topical papers seeking publication in this JOVACET Special Issue may be directed to Dr Catherine Robertson, email [email protected]. Please note that all submissions considered for publication, whether presented at the conference or not, will undergo the JOVACET double blind review process towards publication in November 2022 or earlier if possible. Due date for full paper submissions (Special Issue): 30 April 2022

South Africa’s adult educators in the community college sector: Who they are and how they view their training, their work and their position

This article examines the work context of South Africa’s state-employed adult educators. It is based largely on a recent cross-sectional study of adult educators commissioned by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), which draws on the DHET’s database of adult educators and qualitative information gained from visits to adult education and training centres in all nine provinces. The study enquired into adult educators’ working lives, their qualifications, their sense of whether their training was adequate, the issue of further training, their understanding of their work, their conditions of service and the support they believe they need. The study showed that the number of adult educators employed by the DHET is declining steadily and that the working conditions of adult educators are uneven: a few work in fairly well-resourced urban centres, but many work in poor conditions, with little support. Nevertheless, the study indicated that almost all the adult educators view their role in a positive light. Confident of support from one another, they have a definite shared identity as a social group and express a strong commitment to their learners and the communities in which they work. Overall, they constitute a group with strong, yet poorly tapped, potential to contribute to positive community development.

Call for papers, JOVACET 5(1), 2022

You are invited to submit an article for the fifth volume of JOVACET to be published in October/November 2022. JOVACET is an accredited publication with the Department of Higher Education and Training. Articles should be topical with regard to current debates/discourses and recent research in the TVET, adult, and continuing education and training domains. Submissions should be of high quality and follow academic research/writing conventions of journal articles in the social sciences. Specifications can be found on the JOVACET website (www.jovacet.ac.za) or obtained from Dr Catherine Robertson at [email protected]. Articles should comprise a maximum of 8000 words, which include the abstract of approximately 200 words and a list of references, and be submitted in MS Word format via the journal website at www.jovacet.ac.za or emailed to Dr Catherine Robertson at [email protected]. Kindly follow the style guide which is provided on the website. We look forward to receiving your submissions! Due date for full paper submissions: 15 April 2022