Vocational Education and the relentless struggles of TVET graduates in the Eastern Cape, South Africa: A Freirean approach
- Authors: Majola, Ezekiel
- Date: 2024-12
- Subjects: Vocational education -- Eastern Cape -- South Africa , Technical education -- Eastern Cape -- South Africa , School-to-work transition -- Eastern Cape -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:76985
- Description: This study employs Paulo Freire’s framework to contribute to debates surrounding social justice and transformation in vocational education and training (TVET). By offering a critical perspective on dominant discourse and practices, it challenges prevailing trajectories of powerful knowledge and inherent assumptions and biases in TVET. Drawing on a Freirean framework, the research provides insights to develop more equitable and transformative practices by addressing power, privilege, and social inequality in TVET. Through dialogue and collaboration with students, it promotes critical consciousness and relevant skills and knowledge. Highlighting the significance of context, it underscores the need to understand the social and cultural context of learning. Demonstrating the potential of a Freirean framework to challenge the status quo, it promotes more equitable and empowering practices in TVET. The chosen methodology for this study is Participatory Action Research (PAR), integrating theory, action, and participation to address social issues. Recruiting 15 NC(V) graduates from Algoa TVET College, forming a Learning Cycle Group (LCG), the study aimed to comprehend graduates’ experiences, challenges, and opportunities. Life narrative interviews and LCG meetings generated data, ensuring every participant had a voice and strengthening group cohesion. Data were grounded in ethical values such as respect, equality, inclusion, democratic participation, active learning, making a difference, collective action, and personal integrity. Employing Paulo Freire’s theoretical framework, this study offers a novel perspective on TVET in South Africa, fostering dialogue with TVET students to challenge conventional discourses. It aimed to develop an alternative conceptualisation of TVET by incorporating student experiences and perspectives, promoting positive change through dialogue and addressing power dynamics and social justice issues. The study explores Powell’s (2014) question regarding TVET colleges’ role in expanding opportunities for students and asks: “How do TVET graduates experience life after graduation? Are they empowered and satisfied with their social status?” Sub-questions inquire about students’ expectations upon enrolling, opportunities after completing NC(V) programs, and the extent to which TVET colleges address unemployment and socio-economic injustices, aiming to inspire the development of praxis and frameworks that better serve the needs of TVET graduates and address social concerns.The study’s findings, analysed through Freire’s ideology in “We Make the Road by Walking” (1990) and “Pedagogy of Hope” (1994), reveal that the NC(V) program predominantly attracts underprivileged students and is rarely their first choice. This research highlights that the NC(V) program does not fully empower or transform students’ circumstances, instead perpetuating cycles of poverty, unemployment, and social inequality—contrary to Freire’s vision of education as a tool for liberation and societal change. The program fails to provide meaningful employment opportunities, leaving graduates often unemployed or in low-paying jobs, unable to escape poverty. This underscores the program’s inadequacies. Furthermore, insufficient support structures and practical application opportunities further diminish graduates’ employability. The study’s findings emphasise the need for systemic reforms in the NC(V) program. Embracing Freire’s principles and moving beyond traditional banking education models to more inclusive, participatory approaches is essential. This transformation is crucial for the TVET system to genuinely empower students and foster significant personal and societal change. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, School of Secondary School Education, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2024-12
Attitudes and perceptions of retail workers towards trade unions: the case of SACCAWU members in KwaZakhele Shoprite-Checkers
- Authors: Majola, Ezekiel
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Retail trade -- Labor unions -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth , Labor unions -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth Retail trade -- Employees -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/31499 , vital:31496
- Description: The South African trade union movement faces challenges, that are negatively affecting their role and relevance to their members. It is argued that the use of contract workers in the labour market has significantly reduced the bargaining power of the unions, mainly because the unions are finding it difficult to mobilize contract workers and the workers themselves are believed to be reluctant to join trade unions (Mathekga, 2009). This research project investigated and sought to provide an account of the attitudes and perceptions of the retail workers towards their retail trade union in South Africa. South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) is one of the trade unions that is representing these workers in the retail sector and thus also affected by the use of flexible employment arrangements, global work insecurity, and poorly organized labour worldwide. Globally, trade unions are not exempted from the impact of the use flexible labour. Lynch, Pyman, Bailey & Price (2009) pointed out that workers in the European retail sector are employed mainly as contract workers and these workers are rarely involved in trade union activities, consequently the number of unionized workers in the workplace is declining. This context speaks to the changing of attitudes of workers towards their unions. This research study explores the attitudes and perceptions of SACCAWU members towards their union in the retail sector, South Africa. The study was conducted in Port Elizabeth, using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations to ascertain the worker participation and perceptions about their union, SACCAWU. The study seems to confirm most of the labour studies scholars work on disconnection between labour unions and their members, while increasing ‘precarity’ forces workers to stay on unionized despite the negative attitude prevailing.
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- Date Issued: 2018