Green skills research in South Africa
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta , Ramsarup, Preesha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436040 , vital:73222 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429279362-13/synthesis-elaboration-critical-realist-methodology-green-skills-research-eureta-rosenberg
- Description: This book brings the diverse contributions offered in the different sections of this book together into a pathway for new policy development research, new forms of critical skills research and ongoing engagement with education and training system development. The chapter first provides a meta-reflection on the different types of green skills research that are needed to, in combination, make a stronger impact on the national system of skills research and planning. Secondly, the chapter makes a strong argument for aligning green skills research to the Sustainable Development Goals, and their critical and contextual articulation at national level, with emphasis on working with the cross-cutting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, Target 4.7 that motivates for governments to include a focus on education and sustainable development across the lifelong learning system in order to enable and support learning and skills for enabling the other SDGs to be realised in practice. Lastly, the chapter considers the shift in the way that work is considered when political economy meets political ecology, and we argue that work transforms towards not only a productive focus, or a social focus, but also an ontologically grounded regenerative focus, much needed at the start of the twenty-first century.
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Green skills Transformative niches for greening work
- Authors: Ramsarup, Preesha , Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Jenkin, Nicola P
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436882 , vital:73313 , ISBN 978-981-15-6370-6 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6370-6_8
- Description: Supporting green skills development is integral in the transition to a green economy. Green skills can be difficult to define and measure at an aggregate level because they are a socially constructed concept, intangible and are often unobservable. Further, a demand-led approach to green skills has not worked because employers are unable to effectively articulate their needs to skills delivery bodies. This advances the need for a transformative methodology that is able to provide a more nu-anced view of skills planning to support green work. Drawing on transition theorists, this chapter demonstrates that greening work transitions occur in “niches” at local levels, where nexus concerns arise around the impetus to green work. Furthermore, it is from these transformative niches that wider social changes and regime shifts are driven or emerge. Using experiences from the chemicals sector in South Africa, the chapter illus-trates the need to develop non-reductionist conceptualisations that illustrate the “regime lock-ins” as well as green skills oppor-tunities at multiple levels.
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An Expanded Methodological View on Learning Pathways as Educational and Occupational Progression: A ‘Laminated Systems’ Perspective
- Authors: Ramsarup, Preesha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436344 , vital:73262 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: As shown across the collection of papers in this Bulletin, the central ques-tion that the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)-Rhodes Uni-versity research programme tried to explore was to understand the na-ture of environmental learning pathways and the systemic and agentive factors that shape their emergence. This was based on an emerging un-derstanding of the demand for environment and sustainable development occupations and greening of existing occupations (see Introduction, and Papers 1 and 7 in this Bulletin; Department of Environmental Affairs [DEA], 2010; International Labour Organisation [ILO], 2010; Rosenberg et al 2016).
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An In-depth Case Study of Environmental Engineering Learning and Work Transitioning in Boundary-less Work
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436361 , vital:73264 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: Environmental issues are increasingly seen as complex, multi-faceted and integral to social and economic development. As societies grapple with the rapid and catastrophic effects of environmental degradation, occupa-tional and educational systems have to comprehend meaningfully, the implications. In a study on the ‘Green Skills’59 in South Africa’s economy, the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2010:19) noted that “new skills and retraining needs for the greening sector should filter successfully through the ‘demand and supply’ process”. However, despite the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) commitment to responsive skills devel-opment and lifelong learning, several recent studies (including Depart-ment of Environmental Affairs [DEA], 2010; Human Sciences Research Council [HSRC], 2009) have highlighted many skills and competence-related issues within environmental provisioning. While there is a skills development focus and a greening focus, there is little articulated align-ment between the two (ILO, 2010), which highlights that the whole sys-tem of training provisioning for workplace learning and sustainability practices is poorly constituted and unresponsive to the rapidly changing nature of the sector.
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Boundary making and boundary crossing in learning pathways access and progression: Voices from the workplace
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Mohanoe, M Nthabiseng , Ramsarup, Preesha , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436374 , vital:73265 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: In the South African Qualifications Authority and Rhodes University (SAQA-Rhodes) partnership research it was found that ‘researching the boundary’is an important unit of analysis in learning pathways research (see Papers 1 and 2 in this Bulle-tin). The researchers have argued that this focus has rele-vance for discussions on articulation, as articulation is a boundary crossing practice39. However, to understand boundary crossing processes, it is important to understand what the boundaries are in learning pathways research and to understand how these boundaries were developed. Bounda-ries in learning pathways are both social and material and are constructed by people’s actions and practices, and can only be resolved through people’s actions and practices. This pa-per–Paper 5–considers the manner in which social-material factors are ‘boundary makers’ in learning pathways, affecting access, mobility, progression and articulation possibilities, with specific reference to articulation between workplace experi-ences and contexts on one hand, and education and training systems on the other. The paper argues for a perspective on the social-material that includes the Critical Realist concept of ‘absence’(Bhaskar, 1993) as an important shaping force in learning pathways research (see Paper 4, in this Bulletin). By identifying ‘boundary making’processes and factors, as articu-lated through ‘voices in the workplace’[one perspective on this issue], the paper identifies key areas for ‘boundary cross-ing’practices in the South African National Qualifications Framework (NQF) system and its associated sub-systems.
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Introduction: Researching sustainable development learning pathways towards progression in learning and work
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha , Bolton, Heidi
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436401 , vital:73269 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: Environment and sustainable development issues are increasingly seen as complex, multi-faceted and integral to social and economic development, as can be seen from the recently proclaimed sustainable development goals (www.globalgoals.org1 ). As societies grapple with the rapid and catastrophic effects of environmental degradation, anthropogenic earth system change and a long history of unsustainable development, educa-tional systems have had to attempt to comprehend meaningfully, the im-plications. Within post-apartheid South Africa, these challenges are mark-edly more complex. In a country facing fundamental national transfor-mation on every front, the environment and sustainable development discourses are raising significant new challenges for work and learning systems.
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Learning pathways and articulation: Early conceptual explorations and implications for research design (s)
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436388 , vital:73268 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: This paper is an introductory, exploratory paper which opened up the ter-rain for a second phase of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)-Rhodes University research partnership focusing on change-oriented workplace learning and sustainability practices, with an emphasis on learning pathways (the main period being 2011-2013, ongoing until 2016). The paper reviews early conceptual explorations of learning path-ways and articulation questions, as these relate to a transversal issue8 in the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), namely environment and sustainable development.
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Using Dialectical Critical Realism in the Analysis of Career Stories in Learning Pathways Research
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Preesha
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436416 , vital:73270 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: In this paper we expand on our earlier methodological deliberations asso-ciated with differentiation within systems, boundaries and transition mechanisms (see Paper 2 in this Bulletin). We explore the potential for using a combination of two methodological tools for our learning path-ways research, in order to address the central methodological question raised through the literature review of learning pathways research, which highlighted a macro-micro dualism this area of study (see Paper 3 in this Bulletin). In Paper 4, we seek to explore whether Bhaskar’s (1993) dialec-tical approach may help with addressing this methodological dualism. We do this through applying the dialectical method, to career stories research approaches, which are one of the foundational approaches used in learn-ing pathways research (see Paper 3 in this Bulletin). Our analysis in this paper therefore uses (a) the development of ‘career stories’ and (b) Criti-cal Realist analysis of these career stories, using Bhaskar’s (1993) dialecti-cal method which foregrounds both absence and emergence.
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