Category Archives: Q&A

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the twenty-fifth interview in the series. Maurita Glynn-Weissenberg is the founder and director of the Shine Centre.

1) How did you get into education, can you summarise your journey to get to where you are?

I started off teaching my toys as a little girl as I only ever wanted to teach. I taught in the UK and SA in both private and state schooling of which the latter were in pretty edgy neighbourhoods in both countries. Struggling to read seemed to be something that followed children irrespective of where they grew up which led me to study remedial education at UCT in 1995.

In 1998 I started volunteering two mornings a week at Observatory Junior School. A school where most of the children travel long distances at their families expense to learn in English. However, more than half the class were not nearly reading at Grade 1 (?) level by Grade 4. What struck me was the commitment from families to educate their children and how keen the children were to do well. After two years of tutoring Grade 5 and 6 children I started looking for an early intervention which took me to visit a project in Tower Hamlets, East of London, UK. Here I saw corporates giving up a lunch hour once a week to read with children and the idea of Shine was born.

2)   What does your average week look like.

In the last year I have finally moved into a position of moving out of the day-to-day operations of the Shine Programmes and concentrating on developing the right systems and policies to reach our long term vision.

Last week I spent two mornings reviewing policies and researching a few more.

I had a meeting with one of our funders to look at making some changes to our peer-learning project, met with the Chairman of another literacy organisation to discuss collaboration and spent a morning reviewing our Social Franchise.

I also attended the Year Beyond Dinner at Chrysalis Academy where we welcomed 33 amazing youth who will be Shine Learning Partners in 8 schools who benefit from the Western Cape’s MOD programme. I ended the week attending a committee meeting of RASA (Reading Association of South Africa) as we are hosting this year’s RASA Conference along with the Pan African Reading Association.

However, after having quite a serious accident in 2009 I strongly believe in balance and I do manage to pick up my children from school and walk the dog along the green belt most days.

 3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you which one or two would they be and why?

Systemic change begins with people changing the way they think and do things. So that is what I am most interested in. Especially as Shine’s workforce is currently 700 volunteers, 23 Centre Managers, 23 school heads, 33 youth and a head office team of 13. Our focus group is thousands of young children and their caregivers.

The book and teachings that made the greatest impact on our work and my thinking is Nancy Cline’s Time to Think. Nancy Kline has identified 10 behaviours that form a system called a Thinking Environment, a model of human interaction that dramatically improves the way people think, and thus the way they work and live. We work this model into our programme and all our meetings. Meetings are useless if people don’t listen to one another, interrupt one another, talk too much or say nothing at all.

The second book that I learnt so much from was Playful Approaches to Serious Problems by David Epston, Jennifer Freeman and Dean Lobovits.

Our volunteers are offered training by Linda van Duuren who’s incredible work is based on David Epston’s Narrative Therapy. Our children come with huge challenges in their lives and it is important that as adults we are able to listen to and respect their unique language, problem-solving and resources. David Epston’s work gives us a framework to work from.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

I have recently been lucky enough to be part of some incredible thinking.

In 2011 Shine was a finalist for the Wise Awards and ever since I have been sponsored to attend the Word Innovation Summit for Education. What I love about this Summit is that they want to hear from everybody in the field and actively sponsor thousands of people from all areas of education. There is as great a respect for the voice of a field worker in a refugee camp school as the chairman of Unesco for instance. There is so much to learn from the many people around me but I do have some favourites:

Firstly, Charles Leadbeater, who is a leading authority on innovation and creativity and co-wrote Learning from the Extremes. Published early in 2010 by Cisco, Learning from the Extremes examines how social entrepreneurs around the world are devising new approaches to learning in extreme social circumstances – favelas, slums, informal settlements – when there are few teachers, schools, text books. The radically innovative approaches they develop challenge conventional wisdom about schooling and provide new insights into how the developed world should reform its education systems.

My second favourite is Professor Anil Gupta who created the Honey Bee Network to ensure recognition, respect and reward for grassroots inventors and innovators at local, national and global levels. Searching the country with colleagues, he has found countless inventions developed out of necessity, which he has documented and often shared with the global community.

My wish for this year is for a larger group of South African educationalists and policy makers to attend the Wise Summit.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in education in South Africa?

 Can’t say for sure but possibly Early Childhood Development.

6)   What is the best advice you’ve been given?

I think I have learnt the most from Kathryn Torres, our current chairperson, who has partnered me on the Shine journey since 2006. I always tended to allow my visions to paralyse me whereas she is someone that thrives on getting the job done. How lucky is this relationship?

Whenever I have an idea she gets me to haul out my diary and put the next step into action. So usually by the end of that conversation I have identified who I need to speak to, have made contact and the appointment is in the diary. That is simply how new centres were established in 2009, how our Social Franchise model came about and hopefully how our new project involving peer learning will evolve .

Kathryn’s advice: ‘One step at a time.’ It’s as simple as that!

7) You founded the Shine Centre in 2000 – can you give us some information about what Shine is all about, its aims and approach and maybe some of your plans for the future?

The Shine Model

We currently have 8 Shine Centres supporting 10 primary schools and 13 Shine Chapters (our Social Franchise Model) which supports 13 primary schools in 3 provinces.

The Shine Programme runs from a centre in schools each morning. It is managed by a Shine Centre Manager and between 40 to 80 trained volunteers run the programme (depending on the need). Grade Two or Three children are partnered with a volunteer for a year and together they work through a one hour structured literacy programme, twice a week.

Children who attend the Shine Centre have been assessed by Shine to be ‘at risk’ in terms of their literacy scores. This is determined at the end of their Grade One year when Shine assesses all Grade One children. Their progress is monitored twice a year which is shared with the class teacher together with any anecdotal information that the volunteer picks up.

The Literacy Programme consists of: Paired Reading, Shared Reading, Have a Go Writing and Word Games, using 36 five-minute games specially designed by Shine. Our programme complements the school curriculum and provides individual support to children who are struggling. All volunteers receive initial training on the methodology surrounding each of these areas, as well as continuous in-depth training on key and additional skills and learning areas.

On top of that we offer eye testing and glasses to the schools, parent workshops and soon we hope to introduce a peer-learning programme to the teachers.

Importantly, everything is tied together using our Shine Ethos which is based on the principles by Nancy Cline’s Time to Think, and we believe that this is what makes our programme both unique and successful. Children are encouraged to work at their own pace in a fun, warm and nurturing environment, where appreciation and praise are used to positively reinforce progress and good behaviour.

8) I’m sure you are in a different space now than you were in 2000 when you founded Shine, what advice would you give to yourself 14 years ago?

There are things I wish I had done differently but I do believe that it’s part of what I needed to experience and learn. In 1999 I lacked confidence to even think of knocking on doors to get funding. Thus I ended up designing a project that used volunteers and the infrastructure of the school that hosted it. The first Shine Centre established in 2000 ran on the smell of an oil rag but it was quickly noted that the literacy at this school rose steadily from 50% in 2002 to 82.7%% in 2008 (Western Cape Grade 3 testing).

But if I had to choose anything it is to have the courage of my convictions. I used to second-guess myself too much. And I wish I had been a little wilder in my youth. By 21 I was already married, had built a house and had two dogs that were serious hand-breaks! (I may have made up for that in my forties.)

9) What is the most rewarding and most frustrating thing about your job?

Walking into a Shine Chapter that has had our basic support and training and seeing the powerful interaction between the Learning Partners taking place. We won the Truth and Reconciliation Prize in 2008 based on the relationships that develop during a Shine session. It is nation building – without a doubt.

The most frustrating is seeing the huge potential of the children in our schools and the seemingly insurmountable challenges that confront them in our schooling system.

10) If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Basic Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing the South African ECD sector, what would you say?

1. The difficulty of finding and tracking every informal and formal crèche and nursery school in the country let alone the cost and challenges of training, resourcing and monitoring each facility.
2. The challenge of training in a sector where caregivers have varying background in education.
3. The fact that parents can often only pay a minimal cost which results in children spending their day in impoverished and over-crowded facilities with little or no individual care.

 11)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

I’d be in HR or maybe a feng-shui consultant. My team tease me because I love nothing more than rearranging the furniture in our offices and centres. I love making a space conducive to allowing people to really feel good.

12)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

I love the idea of children being given the power to create their own learning using technology and Dr. Sugata Mitra who started the first Hole-in-the-Wall in a slum in New Delhi proposed the following hypothesis when he delivered an inspiring presentation at WISE in 2011: The acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of children can be achieved through incidental learning provided the learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with entertaining and motivating content and some minimal (human) guidance.

However, being the mother of two boys who attend Waldorf Schools, I still believe that the most cost–effective and meaningful medium of teaching can be and should be dynamic, warm, positive human beings who are passionate about their subject and have mastery of it.

12) If you were given a R10 million research grant what would you use it for?

As we know children across the board in South Africa have poor literacy skills, which impacts on their opportunity or ability to learn and has devastating consequences for their chance to succeed in life. I would like to research innovative ways to improve literacy in South African schools through a national peer reading programme in which children read together for set times during the day. Paired and shared peer reading programmes have been introduced in both the UK and Canada and there is sufficient positive research emerging from these countries to support introducing a Book Buddies programme in schools throughout South Africa. I would love to be able to visit and observe the most successful peer reading programmes in the world and then research ways in which these could be modified to fit into the South African context. I would like to implement a Book Buddy programme nationally and complete a longitudinal study on the effects of the programme on the children. It is my dream to see children pairing up with their Book Buddy spontaneously and reading for pleasure at any time of the school day. If children learn to read for pleasure at school this translates into a life-long love of reading, which, in turn, impacts positively on generations to come as the children become parents and read to their children.

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*Full disclosure: my mom (Sally Spaull) is a Shine volunteer in Durban and regularly tells me how wonderful the program is 🙂

Some of the others on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Thabo Mabogoane, Yael Shalem, Linda Richter and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

Previous participants (with links to their Q&A’s) include, Johan Muller, Ursula Hoadley, Stephen Taylor, Servaas van der Berg, Elizabeth Henning, Brahm Fleisch, Mary Metcalfe, Martin Gustafsson, Eric Atmore, Doron Isaacs, Joy Oliver, Hamsa Venkat, Linda Biersteker, Jonathan Clarke, Michael Myburgh, Percy Moleke , Wayne Hugo, Lilli Pretorius, Paula Ensor, Carol Macdonald, Jill Adler and Andrew Einhorn, Carole Bloch and Shelley O’Carroll.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the twenty-fourth interview in the series. Shelley O’Carroll is the Director of Wordworks.

1)   How did you get into education, can you summarise your journey to get to where you are?

I’ve always been a bit of an idealist and can remember having a very keen sense of injustice during my school years in the late 1980’s. I was a bit late to be an activist, but left school as Mandela was released and for me there was a strong sense that I had a responsibility to contribute to a process of redress and do what I could to improve the lives of people who had been deprived of opportunities. I chose to become a teacher and majored in psychology. While I was busy with my undergrad studies I was involved in an adult literacy project in Khayamandi, and looking back, I think that was probably when I realised what a gift you give when you help people to learn to read. When I finished my HDE, I applied for a Commonwealth Scholarship and went to the Institute of Education in London where I did my masters in Psychology of Education. I came back to South Africa after my masters, taught at a bridging school in Joburg and then went to WITS to do a BEd (Remedial) as I needed an honours in order to register for an educational psychology internship. This gave me great clinical experience working with children who struggled with reading. I was a part time research assistant while I did my BEd and really enjoyed writing and being part of a research team. After I completed my BEd, I came back to the Cape to do an internship and registered as an Educational Psychologist. I worked for a few years as a school counsellor and then in private practice doing psychoeducational assessments, and specialised in working with children with reading difficulties. I also did some community work with Grade One children at a very disadvantaged school. For a while, I felt like I was living in two different countries – doing assessments with children from ex-model C and private schools – and then spending the rest of my time working with children who had so few opportunities and were so far behind even in their first year of school. I applied for an NRF scholarship and went back to London to do a doctorate – I really wanted to better understand how to help children as they started learning to read in Grade One. After I completed my PhD, I stopped working as an Educational Psychologist and set up a non-profit organisation with two colleagues.

 2)   What does your average week look like?

I juggle quite a bit – and rush around a lot! I am a mother of two young children and so I tend to start work at 7am, do school lifts and spend time with my children in the afternoon and then get back into work again most evenings. I spend some of my working day running Wordworks, managing projects, funders and budgets – and increasingly working with partner organisations who use our resources in their work. I invest quite a bit of time working with our programme teams on materials development and guidelines for training. Whenever possible, I try to find time to read and share new things I learn. I’d like to be spending more time writing and documenting our work.

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you which one or two would they be and why?

An old favourite is ‘Literacy before schooling’ (Ferreiro and Teberosky, 1982) – this really helped shape my thinking about how, given opportunities, children try to make sense of printed words and written language long before teachers in formal school settings begin ‘teaching them to read’. ‘Apprenticeship in thinking’ (Rogoff, 1990) made me realise how children (mine included) were being apprenticed into literacy through daily experiences with print and oral language.  Other articles and books by Connie Juel, Morag Stuart, Brian Byrne, and Linnea Ehri helped me to understand what skills and knowledge children must have in order to learn to read – and how much children’s thinking has to shift in order to understand how written language works.

When I look at my bookshelf, I realise that the other books that have been influential have been a set of ‘Handbooks of Early Literacy and Language’ (Vol 1-3). These consist of articles written by a number of leading researchers and when I first read them I just remember being struck by how much research there was on how important young children’s language and emergent literacy was for later literacy development at school level. This was not part of mainstream thinking about literacy in South Africa at the time, and even now, evaluations of literacy performance and interventions to improve literacy tend to focus on teaching and learning in classroom contexts, largely ignoring what happens before children begin school in homes and preschool settings.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

I think this would be easier to answer if I a.) had more time to read and b.) had a clearly defined field of research. Although I position myself in the field of early language and literacy development, our work spans home, community and school contexts and children from birth to seven years. There are so many areas of work within this broad field, and I probably know a bit about some of the leading thinkers, but not enough to really comment with any authority. Having said that, I think Lynn Murray, Peter Cooper, Zahir Vally and Mark Tomlinson’s research on booksharing with toddlers in Khayelitsha is groundbreaking and really shows the potential impact and value of sharing books with young children.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in education in South Africa?

It will come as no surprise that I think the field of early language and literacy learning is significantly under-researched. We need more evidence about what children begin school knowing, not only what happens at school. We need more evidence about what kinds of interventions work to improve children’s early learning, and models of how to take good programmes to scale. We need to understand better how families can play a role in children’s education at school and at home.

7) You are currently the director of WordWorks – can you give us some information about what WordWorks is all about, its aims and approach and maybe some of your plans for the future?

Wordworks is a non-profit organisation that has been working in the field of early language and literacy development for the past ten years. We’ve developed programmes and resources for parents, volunteers, home-visitors and teachers of young children, with the aim of supporting them to build young children’s language and early literacy. Over the past few years we’ve also contributed to sharing knowledge about early language and literacy through policy briefs and reports.

Our team offers direct training and mentoring to schools in Cape Town, and we also work with partner organisations who we train and resource to deliver our programmes as part of their work in schools and communities.

We wish to remain a small organisation and our aim is to grow our reach through sharing knowledge, skills and resources, and building the capacity of schools, communities and organisations.

7b) As I understand it WordWorks has been asked to do the training of all registered Grade R practitioners in the Western Cape? Can you give us an overview of the training and what the desired outcomes of the training are?

Thanks to donor funding from USAID, ELMA and JP Morgan, we are going to be working in partnership with the WCED to provide training for all Grade R teachers across the province in a balanced language approach, and to provide teaching resources we have developed over the past three years. Together with partners SDU, PSP and ELRU, we will reach 3000 teachers through training and supporting ECD Curriculum Advisors and Lead Teachers in all 8 Districts in the Province. The teachers will attend a 5 day block training and then be supported through monthly collaborative enquiry workshops over a period of 8 months. The training will be grounded in a balanced language approach to literacy, and aligned with provincial training of Grade 1-6 teachers as part of the provincial LITNUM strategy.

Our aim is that teachers will have more knowledge about how children learn to read and write and the important role that Grade R teachers can play in building language and early literacy. We also want to share practical resources and ideas about how to support young children’s learning in an age appropriate way. Without making Grade R a watered down Grade 1 year, very important language and early literacy skills can be developed if teachers have the skills, knowledge and resources.

8) I’m sure you are in a different space now than you were in a decade ago. What advice would you give to yourself 10 years ago?

Be realistic about what can be achieved in a day.

9) What is the most rewarding and most frustrating thing about your job?

The most frustrating thing is that I never have enough time! I seldom end a day feeling like I finished what I wanted to do, and am constantly trying to fit in too much.

Apart from having too much work and too little time, there is very little I don’t like about my job. I work with a fabulous team of very dedicated people, and we have the privilege of contributing to change and making a difference to young children’s lives. It’s great to be reminded of how much good there is in the world, and most of our work is with volunteers and parents who inspire us with their commitment to children in their communities. We get to develop and share great resources and ideas – and are constantly humbled by what this means to people. We started off with the aim of supporting young children’s language and literacy development, but realise more and more how our work is impacting on women in communities.

10) If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Basic Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing the South African ECD sector, what would you say?

1. Improving the quality of teaching and learning through high quality, relevant and practical teacher training (both preservice training and ongoing professional development)

2. Improving the status and working conditions of ECD professionals so that teaching young children becomes a more attractive career path and teachers are recognised for the important role they are playing.

3. Increasing the provision of and access to non-centre based support for young children through supporting parents and caregivers (e.g. home-visiting programmes, workshops for parents).

 11)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

Research/advocacy.

 12)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

 I think it can be useful, but doesn’t take the place of good old fashioned conversation and dedicated time given to children by an interested caregiver.

13) If you were given a R10 million research grant what would you use it for?

1. To develop and/or validate tools that we could use to assess the impact of early intervention programmes for young children.
2. To set up a team to research two related questions: a.) whether low cost interventions can lead to changes in parents’ and teachers’ knowledge about young children’s learning, and b.) to what extent/under what conditions changes in knowledge lead to changes in everyday parenting and teaching practice.
3. Although I’d have run out of money by now…. a longitudinal study that followed a cohort of children and evaluated the impact of early interventions to improve language/literacy on children’s reading and writing development once they started school.

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Some of the others on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Thabo Mabogoane, Maurita-Glynn Weissenberg, Yael Shalem, Linda Richter and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

Previous participants (with links to their Q&A’s) include, Johan Muller, Ursula Hoadley, Stephen Taylor, Servaas van der Berg, Elizabeth Henning, Brahm Fleisch, Mary Metcalfe, Martin Gustafsson, Eric Atmore, Doron Isaacs, Joy Oliver, Hamsa Venkat, Linda Biersteker, Jonathan Clarke, Michael Myburgh, Percy Moleke , Wayne Hugo, Lilli Pretorius, Paula Ensor, Carol Macdonald, Jill Adler and Andrew Einhorn and Carole Bloch.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the twenty-second interview in the series. Andrew Einhorn is the founder of Numeric, a South African NGO using Khan Academy to teach mathematics. 

1) Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?

I’ve missed a few big opportunities in my life. I was at Harvard when Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook. I can remember one evening considering going round to his dorm to talk about getting involved. Facebook was tiny then; it only had a few thousand members. Still, I thought it was a nice idea and wondered if I could help out. But I was busy with classes and never got around to getting in touch with him. I guess that ship has sailed.

I came back to South Africa in 2007 and got a job with a financial firm. But I had seen the Netflix model in America and wondered if it could be established here. A friend and I looked into it – it just seemed like a no-brainer. But ultimately I was still a little risk averse and couldn’t summon the chutzpah to up and leave my investment analyst position. Another opportunity missed!

A few years later I received an email from a funder querying whether Khan Academy might be used in the South African context. I watched Sal’s TED Talk and saw in it another big opportunity. This time I wasn’t too keen to let it slide. So I started to look for ways to connect this powerful online learning tool with children in townships with a view to strengthening South African maths education. Four years later, my thinking around how to use Khan Academy has changed somewhat, but I’ve never looked back and feel as motivated today (if not more) as the day I started.

2) What does your average week look like?

The truth is my days are rather unglamorous. A lot of my time is spent attending to small details – logistics and people. I have less contact time with kids than I would like, but I am satisfied that my work allows a much larger number of pre-service teachers to get valuable class time with our students. They do a great job. Better than me. My job is to make sure that everything runs smoothly and that our team of programme managers and coaches are well supported. Numeric is fortunate to have a set of supportive and clued-up funders, which means I spend relatively less time canvassing funders and more time on operations, which is a big plus.

3) While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick two or three that have been especially influential for you which two or three would they be and why?

In terms of maintaining balance and a sense of perspective, Bertrand Russell’s “The Conquest of Happiness” is undoubtedly amongst the most influential books I have read. Sam Walton’s “Made in America” is an excellent read, especially if you have an entrepreneurial leaning and are considering doing something that involves scaling. 

4) Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

I’m not too well placed to answer this one, I’m afraid, I am woefully under-read!

5) What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

I’m also not an expert here, but it does surprise me that there isn’t a bigger lobby to up the ante in the teacher-training space.

6) What is the best advice you’ve been given?

One of the most valuable insights I have come across in recent years is a quote from Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

And in a recent tweet from Ricky Gervais: “It’s better to create something that others criticise than to create nothing and criticise others. Go create! Have fun :)”

7) If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing South African education today, what would you say?

Teacher training

Teacher training

Teacher training

8) If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

Setting up bubble tea stalls at farmers’ markets, or otherwise looking for ways to bring Italian cheese-making expertise to South Africa.

9) You founded the organization Numeric in 2011 – can you give us some background information on the organization and discuss its aims, plans and approach?

With the average score on the Grade 9 Annual National Assessment sitting at 10.8% (2014), it has become clear that South African maths education is broken well before children reach Grade 9. This has informed Numeric’s decision to focus on Grades 6 – 8. We currently run after-school maths programmes in 35 partner schools in the Western Cape and Gauteng. We recruit pre-service teachers (mostly bachelor of education students), train them intensively, and then pair them with groups of 22 learners at our partner schools. They then meet with their kids twice a week throughout the school year, and take the children through an intensive maths programme that starts with times tables and builds up through fractions, negative numbers and order of operations.

Numeric is highly quantitative in its approach. All Grade 7s and 8s at our partner schools write a baseline test in January and an endline test in November. We use these tests to measure the improvement in the scores of learners on the Numeric programme over the course of one year, net of the improvement of learners who are not on the programme. We call this measure the “delta”. The tests are created, administered and graded by an independent assessment committee, and to keep things honest, no Numeric staff member or coach has access to the tests before or after the testing. The two key metrics that drive Numeric are the delta and the cost per learner per month (CLM). Our goal is to maximize the delta and to minimse the CLM.

While the main focus of our programmes is to improve the learners’ maths, we are aware that, in the process. our coaches – future maths teachers – improve enormously both in terms of content and confidence. With the average public school teacher teaching over 5,000 kids during their career, any improvement we can bring about pre-service has positive and far-reaching consequences.

10) Three years after founding Numeric I imagine you are in a different space now than you were then, what are the lessons that you have learnt and what advice would you give to yourself 3 years ago?

When I started out, it was my naive hope that technology could be used to educate children in the absence of a (competent) teacher. I would set up computer labs, put in some bandwidth, show the kids Khan Academy, and voila, they would educate themselves!

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

While we continue to be big fans of technology (Khan Academy in particular), we are increasingly convinced that the key to generating results lies in the quality of our coaches/teachers. While at the tertiary level, platforms like Coursera, Udacity and edX have allowed people to learn things fairly independently, we believe that at the primary and secondary school level, particularly in the classroom environment, the human presence is indispensable. The role of our coaches is threefold: To motivate learners, to support them when they are struggling, and (perhaps most importantly) to praise them when they are doing well.

Due to infrastructure limitations in certain areas where we work, nearly half of our programmes run in the absence of Khan Academy. Our observation? The biggest delta is generated by the best coaches, technology or no technology.

11) What is the most frustrating and most rewarding thing about your job? 

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is working with the leadership and management of our partner schools. There is a lot of negative media around South Africa’s teachers and schools, but the picture I see is quite different. We work with some real superstars both in Johannesburg and Cape Town – principals, teachers, administrators etc. I’d like to take the media to meet them sometime!

I am occasionally frustrated by poor policy decisions, but tend not to lose too much sleep over them as they are outside of my control. And there are good people (like you guys) lobbying to get these issues rectified.

12) What would you say are the three major difficulties faced by civil-society organizations in South Africa?

It concerns me how much time and effort the founders and leaders of many civil-society organisations have to put into funding. Most organisations have fragmented funding bases with tens or even hundreds of contributors. This goes together with a donor mentality that wants to have fingers in as many pies as possible (I will give R10 000 to 10 organisations rather than R100 000 to one). The result is a large amount of administrative and communication work which usually falls to the organisation leadership. This comes at the expense of them innovating, improving and driving change. I understand that organisations mitigate risk by having a diversified funding base, but a lot of time and energy is spent dressing up social initiatives so that they can be sold to funders, rather than focusing on the problems themselves.

13) What would you most like to see change in the South African education system?

I’d like to see sensible legislation passed that makes space for charter schools. These are schools which receive public funding but operate independently of the established public school system. There are many people chomping at the bit to open and run good public schools with the government’s assistance. I think providing space for them to do so would bring a lot of talent into South African education and I suspect the government would ultimately get kudos for the improved educational outcomes.

I would also like to see sensible legislation passed that allows for independent teacher-training institutions to be opened. At present, the universities carry the entire burden of teacher training. I think there are lots of talented people outside of universities who would relish the opportunity to open and run small, high-impact teacher training institutes. The effect of such institutes, in my view, would be substantial.

Finally, I’d like to see a PR campaign that brings more talented matriculants into bachelor of education (or teacher training) programmes. As the famous American engineer Lee Iacocca once said: “In any rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest would make do with something else.” I have sat in too many interviews with prospective pre-service teachers where they explain to me that the bachelor of education was their second choice or their fall-back option. This mentality needs to change. There are few professions that compare in importance with that of teaching and it’s time we communicate this to young South Africans and bring our best into the teaching profession.

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Some of the others on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Thabo Mabogoane, Maurita-Glynn Weissenberg, Shelley O’Carroll, Carole Bloch, Yael Shalem, Linda Richter and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

Previous participants (with links to their Q&A’s) include, Johan Muller, Ursula Hoadley, Stephen Taylor, Servaas van der Berg, Elizabeth Henning, Brahm Fleisch, Mary Metcalfe, Martin Gustafsson, Eric Atmore, Doron Isaacs, Joy Oliver, Hamsa Venkat, Linda Biersteker, Jonathan Clarke, Michael Myburgh, Percy Moleke , Wayne Hugo, Lilli Pretorius, Paula Ensor, Carol Macdonald and Jill Adler.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the twentieth interview in the series. Carol Macdonald is a research fellow associated with the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages at UNISA and also undertakes consulting work in the field of education and linguistics.

1)   Why did you decide to go into education?

I lived in the UK for five years doing a Masters and PhD. I would have loved to live over there, but it seemed best to come home. I decided that if I were to work in South Africa then I would necessarily have to work in black education. There wasn’t a choice. Otherwise I might just as well have stayed in Scotland.

2)   What does your average week look like?

 It depends if I am fatigued or not: I generally work about 40 hours, spread over seven days, I find the late morning and early evening are my most productive times. I do contract work and also academic work, and try not to go out in the week. It’s astonishing to me that people think I can take bites out of my working day simply because I work from home. Nobody would make that assumption if I worked in an office.

 3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you which one or two would they be and why?

I read Curriculum and Reality by Hugh Hawes in the mid-eighties, and it seemed to capture the contradictions of African education. The work of Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist taught me a great deal about ethnography. The work of Piaget (numberless articles and books) helped me to understand meta-theory, and then the Collected Works of Vygotsky have been seminal in my life, partly also about meta-theory. I have gone on to read extensively in Cultural Historical Activity Theory, including Mike Cole and Andy Blunden, and am on the XMCA list serv where we discuss issues on a daily basis. You can see then that theoretical psychology (and not linguistics) is my preferred mode. However, I do keep abreast of developments in second language learning in primary school: I have an enduring interest in the relationship between language and cognition.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

Clifford Geertz, Piaget (and Neo-Piagetians), Vygotsky, Cole, Blunden, Whitehead, Polanyi. This covers the broad interests I described under 3) above.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

 The effects of rapid curriculum change on the confidence and practice of teachers. They are not treated with the respect they deserve. Educational change is stressful, and so too much change is even more stressful. I do understand that this kind of rapid change is a world-wide phenomenon, but we haven’t looked at the effects in our context.

I think we need to make a detailed study of the use of LTSM. In developed educational systems teachers only give a cursory look at textbooks, and tend to develop their own materials or use several sources. We need to know what happens when the challenges are much greater in context like our own.

We also need to have a long hard look at lack of prestige when young people go into education. Education is the easiest faculty to get into – the lowest number of matric points. There are so few really bright undergraduates in education, yet we entrust the future of the country to these young people. We need to look at countries like Finland where teaching is a highly respected profession.

6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

 Margaret Donaldson, my PhD supervisor (and a doyen of child development), told me that one doesn’t have to read everything, one can think for oneself. That has built my confidence about moving out of my academic comfort zone. Then Len Lanham wrote a reference for me which said that I would rise to a prominent position in research and teaching in South Africa. I was about 22 at the time, and overwhelmed by this prospect, but I learned to grow into it. When I gave Lanham the six reports of the Threshold Project – he said “This is just the beginning”. I had to grow into that view too. If people trust you, you learn to fulfil what they hope for you. I have tried to pass this type of confidence on to my students.

7) In the late 1980s you lead a team of researchers in the Threshold Project. This has been an especially influential study looking at the transition from an African language into English. Can you give us a brief overview of the study, its findings and why you think it has been so influential?

From pilot studies I worked out that African children were having difficulties in making the transition from the first language to English as the medium of instruction in Std 3 (grade 5). We looked at a number of aspects. We looked at language teaching and testing, cognitive development, materials development, and school-based learning experiences. We also had a detailed study of textbooks – and the gap between English as a subject and English as the medium of education. We tried to break new ground in understanding the nature of educational development in the local context. Much of the information we derived should up the difficulties the teachers and learners were having in general in their schools and school practices. We came up with a range of policy options which could be used, based on choice at the school level. We stressed the need for deep literacy practice in the home language. (This remains a key issue right here and now.)

8) Knowing what you know now, if you were to do an update study of the Threshold Project, can you give us a brief sketch of the kind of research that you would do and what you would look into and how?

I might ask some of the same questions, but with an updated spin on the research. Although there are more children in the schools and they are generally better resourced, I think there are still critical gaps. One example would be the rapid turnout of textbooks with not much informed thought going into them. I would go into a deeper analysis of pedagogy. I would look at what constitutes a robust school. I would look at the sustainability of change, and what deep change looks like. Having said that, there would never be such an opportunity to do basic and applied research on the same scale now. There is now a great deal of emphasis on implementation.

9) If you had to go back 20 years and give yourself advice, what would you say?

I would still have pursued the same course (as I really try to live mindfully), but I might have looked more at educational policy, change and systemic change. I would have tried to keep out of tertiary teaching of undergraduates. I would have tried to move into being a Reader rather than a Lecturer right at the beginning.

10) If you had to pick 2 or 3 ‘reasons’ why most African language learners battle to transition to English in grade 4 which ones would you pick and why?

The absence of deep literacy at home. The poor management of resources like libraries, and classroom libraries. The failure of the teachers to realise what it takes to inculcate the practices of literacy, particularly in the Foundation Phases. This is because they never experienced this for themselves as learners and students.

11)   If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing South African education today, what would you say?

 I would first commiserate with her for having such a daunting job. Then I would share with her about what I said in 10) above. Finally I would talk to her above the professional burden on teachers in the context of excessive and continuous curriculum revisions. Finally I would talk to her about the range of learners we have locally, and why their needs would not be met by all having the same textbook – that is really a very silly suggestion.

12)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

I would be doing theoretical psychology. (Actually you can do that in education too, of course!)

13)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic and why?

I am a great fan of technology. We have access to so much information on the web; we can search so easily for articles online. But it should remain a tool rather than something which controls us. It’s not a panacea.  Social media sometimes supplants real contact, so a balance should be struck.

14) If you were given a R15million research grant what would you use it for? 

I would first ask if it was for basic or applied research (although it is very likely to be the latter). That would determine the range of questions I would address. I would like to have a project to run for five years. The most interesting questions tend to pop up in the third year.

Probably the most important aspect would be to pull in promising young research and mentor them. At the ripe age of 61, that is the key contribution I can make.

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A list of Carol’s publications can be found here, and I would strongly recommend her short book Eager to talk and learn and think – Threshold Project (1991) which she co-wrote with Burroughs. 

Some of the others on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Thabo Mabogoane, Andrew Einhorn, Maurita-Glynn Weissenberg, Shelley O’Carroll, Carole Bloch, Yael Shalem, Jill Adler, Linda Richter and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

Previous participants (with links to their Q&A’s) include, Johan Muller, Ursula Hoadley, Stephen Taylor, Servaas van der Berg, Elizabeth Henning, Brahm Fleisch, Mary Metcalfe, Martin Gustafsson, Eric Atmore, Doron Isaacs, Joy Oliver, Hamsa Venkat, Linda Biersteker, Jonathan Clarke, Michael Myburgh, Percy Moleke , Wayne Hugo, Lilli Pretorius, and Paula Ensor.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the nineteenth interview in the series. Paula Ensor is Professor of Education at the UCT School of Education.

1)   Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?

I left school with the intention of becoming an economist. My involvement in political activity, initially as a student and later as an activist in the liberation movement, cut across that. After some years of more or less full-time political engagement I realised I needed to qualify myself for a job, and so going into teaching was initially a fairly pragmatic decision. I trained in London to teach in further education, and taught mathematics for eight years at Botswana Polytechnic (it is now part of the University of Botswana), after that for 18 months in an inner London secondary school, and since my return to South Africa in 1991, I have been involved in higher education, first at UWC then UCT.

2)   What does your average week look like? 

 I have been on sabbatical leave for the past 12 months, as my term of office as Dean of Humanities [UCT] ended in 2013. So my average week this year has been quite unlike any weeks of the previous 10 years! I have spent most of my time reading and writing.

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick two or three that have been especially influential for you which two or three would they be and why?

Karl Marx’s four volumes of Capital probably shaped my thinking more than anything else I have read. It is an extraordinary intellectual accomplishment, in that from the notion of commodities and commodity exchange he builds an analytical framework to account for the workings of the capitalist system and the production and reproduction of inequality. One can be fully mindful of the critiques of this work but still appreciate the brilliance of his argument and of his literary style. It is very difficult to identify other texts which have had the same impact on my outlook. But in terms of thinking specifically about education, I would add Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, Althusser’s Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses and Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

This is a difficult question to answer. For me the most influential thinkers in education are deceased – Piaget, Vygotsy, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Bourdieu, Foucault and Bernstein, for example. This year I have spent a great deal of time revisiting these foundational theorists, as well as engaging with more contemporary thinkers such as Amartya Sen (he reminds us so well how crucially important education is for development and for human flourishing), Randall Collins (I am interested particularly in his work on ritual), Henri Lefebvre (through her work on pedagogy Heather Jacklin introduced me to him and his work on rhythmanalysis) and Judith Butler (whose work on performativity in relation to gender has helped me to think about pedagogy as performance).

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

This is a tricky question as one could answer this question in so many ways, depending on the subfield of education one works in – ECD, primary and secondary schooling, further and higher education. I want to get a better grip on how education as a system articulates. Is there any research out there that provides guidance on this? I have been involved (either through research, or teaching) in different levels of the formal education system, from Foundation Phase through to higher education, but it is not clear to me how, and to what extent (if at all), government policy grasps education as a system rather than as a number of quite distinct silos. OBE had a disastrous impact on schooling; the NQF arguably has had a similarly disastrous effect on post-school (vocational and adult) education and Stephanie Allais’s recent book on the NQF and its effects is a must-read in this context. The parlous state of post-school education impacts negatively on schooling, and on higher education. So an interesting question for me (I wouldn’t claim it as the “most” under-researched area) is how (if at all) government policy understands and promotes the interconnection of the system as a whole. At the level of more personal interest, I want to understand better the regularity of pedagogic practice over time and place, and the difficulties of changing this, a question which for the moment I am placing under the working title of “ritual in pedagogy”.

6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

 To respect the importance of empirical data in educational research, to respect the discipline it imposes, and to understand that working rigorously with data is both demanding and richly enabling.

 7) You have been involved in teacher education at UCT for a long time – in your experience what are the two or three areas that students struggle with most when they become teachers and start teaching in schools?

My PhD focused on a PGCE mathematics method course, the experiences of a group of students on this course and their encounters as they entered schools as beginning teachers. I found that the experiences of beginning teachers, and the challenges they faced, were shaped by three factors – access to the principles which framed the teacher education programme they completed at university; educational biography (that is, their own experiences of schools as learners); and the organisation of the school setting they entered as beginning teachers and the level of support they received there. Effective school governance and ongoing collaboration and support amongst teachers was the most crucial factor in assisting beginning teachers plan curriculum coverage, gain access to materials and other resources, organise assessment and feel confident about issues of control. I have read other work since then, especially in the context of mathematics education, and I think these findings have been broadly confirmed.

8)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

Well, I think I might have enjoyed being an economist. But I would have been very happy as an historian as well.

9)  You have recently returned to the UCT School of Education after being in management at UCT for some years. Have you noticed any changes in the field of education in SA compared to five or ten years ago?

 It is difficult for me to make claims about changes in the field as a whole. With regard specifically to schooling, well, we said goodbye to OBE, which inflicted severe damage on our system, and I think some headway has been made in schools with the development of CAPS and the recognition of the need for high quality textual resources (such as text books and work books) in classrooms. There is now regular, wide-scale assessment (such as ANAs) but is not clear to me what the pedagogic effects of these assessment practices are. In many respects the issues are the same as a decade ago – improving initial and inservice teacher education, strengthening school leadership, changing pedagogic practices in classrooms, understanding better the relationship between home and school, the complexity of linguistic practices in classrooms and so on. So the issues appear to be broadly the same over time, but the precision with which they are articulated seems to be much sharper, and there is a wider array of theoretical resources that researchers are working with.

10)   You have been involved with activist organizations like Equal Education and were yourself part of the anti-apartheid struggle. What do you think is the role of these activist organizations in South Africa and what advice would you give to other similar organizations?

Civic organisations like Equal Education are crucial for mobilising citizens to act in their own interests, and to hold government to account for service delivery across a broad front of issues. An active citizenry is the ultimate defence we have against corruption, cronyism, authoritarianism and the wasteful inefficiency we see so much of at the present time. Civic organisations like Equal Education not only put pressure on government and other agencies to improve the quality of education, but they also build and strengthen civil society in defence of democracy.

11) Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

I am not sure what you mean by technology in education – pens and pencils are already aspects of pedagogic technology! I assume you mean forms of technology which involve the use of computers and other electronic devices and make use inter alia of the internet and specialised educational packages. These offer new ways of accessing knowledge and new modes of communication which are now deeply embedded in contemporary (globalised) culture. As educators it seems to me that in the end we have no option but to give young people access to the opportunities this technology offers. I am sceptical about claims that use of such technology will miraculously transform teaching and learning – I have seen far too many education technology fads consigned to store rooms and cupboards. But it is an unavoidable part of life in a globalised world and potentially very empowering.

12) If you were given a R20million research grant what would you use it for?

R20 million is a great deal of money and we would want to make sure that such a funded research project would have maximum impact on policy and practice. Having read through some of your earlier interviews I am struck by how much more precise we have become in our diagnosis of educational problems and in identifying areas that require further research, and at the same time how broadly these questions cut across the whole system. So the first thing I would do is bring together a group of the most productive and interesting thinkers and researchers in education in South Africa and map out a project which we collectively believed would make the most impact.

//

Some of Paula’s research can be found here and an extended bio here. Some of the others on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Thabo Mabogoane, Andrew Einhorn, Maurita-Glynn Weissenberg, Shelley O’Carroll, Carole Bloch, Yael Shalem, Jill Adler, Linda Richter and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the eighteenth interview in the series. Elizabeth (Lilli) Pretorius is a Professor of Linguistics at UNISA.

(1) Why did you decide to go into education? 

Well, I originally come from Linguistics, not Education, I stumbled sideways into education. I majored in English and Italian at university and although in my early twenties I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do with English and Italian besides waft around in Literature, I emphatically didn’t want to go into education! It was while I was doing honours in Italian that I encountered linguistics and fell in love with it. From my early encounter with Chomskian phase structure rules in Italian I moved into phonology and psycholinguistics – specifically first language acquisition and studies on language and the mind. I was hooked. In the meantime, I needed a job, and a post in teaching English to Grade 11 and 12 students in a township school came up. I did that for 4 years – and loved it, so I got hooked a second time. I was then offered a junior position in the Linguistics Department at Unisa so I left classroom teaching for academia. My four years of teaching English as a second language in a township high school stood me in good stead in my university teaching as it gave me insight into the daily struggles of students who do their schooling in a language that is not their home language and who come from high poverty homes with very little exposure to print-based literacy practices. Through Linguistics I became interested in how we construct meaning via language – I first studied constructions and perceptions of causality in discourse at Grade 5 level for my Masters, and then looked in the role of inferencing in the reading of expository texts by university students. After my doctoral research I worked with a colleague from Information Science, Myrna Machet, on a project that over a 3-year period took me into deep rural areas, where we piggy-backed on adult literacy NGOs, looking at the effects of storybook reading by neoliterate adults on children at preschool level. I then spent the following decade looking at various aspects of reading development in high poverty contexts, from preschool to university level. It was never a conscious decision to ‘go into’ education – my research lead me into education.

  (2)   What does your average week look like?

Rather messy – a combination of teaching, admin work, meetings, academic stuff – and trying to do research in between. I teach honours modules in Applied Linguistics (second language teaching and learning) and I have quite a few Masters and doctoral students who take up a lot of time. I am also the departmental co-ordinator for about 70 Masters and doctoral students and that takes up a lot of admin. I do article reviews, examine M and D theses, review ethics applications in our college, occasionally play an advisory role in literacy programs. I have collected a lot of reading data over the years but increasing administrative demands in the work place make it challenging to find time for research. I have come to the realisation that it is difficult to manage one’s time effectively in an environment where waves of work continuously crash over you. I’m trying to develop ‘work wave’ stamina and resilience…

(3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you which one or two would they be and why?

It’s interesting how some articles stand out among the many thousands one reads in the course of one’s academic career. I remember two articles in particular that affected me quite profoundly in my early research career – Keith Stanovich’s article on early reading development (Stanovich, KE. 1986. Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly 21, 360–406) and Meridith Daneman’s article on individual reading differences (Daneman, M. 1991. Individual differences in reading skills. In: Barr, R. et al. (eds) Handbook of Reading Research Volume II. London: Longman). I was impressed by two things: firstly, they asked different questions about reading. Changing the questions changes the way one looks at a phenomenon. Secondly, I was struck by the coherence of their articles – the clarity of their thoughts, the systematic nature of their arguments, and the rigour and compelling force of research evidence. We tend to associate aesthetic responses to texts with literary texts, but well argued and empirically well supported scientific texts have a beauty of their own too.

(4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

Reading is a complex phenomenon, the domain of reading research is very wide and is informed by a range of disciplines – linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, social anthropology, semiotics, education and special needs education. Each of these disciplines brings to reading research their own particular interests and agenda, their own research approaches, and their own gurus. Who one considers important depends on which aspects of reading ‘float one’s boat’, so to speak.

There are so many people who’ve done – and continue doing – amazing work in the field of reading research, at both the micro and the macro levels of processing and in terms of teaching reading. Scholars such as Marilyn Adams, Michael Pressley, Catherine Snow immediately come to mind. Keiko Koda and reading researchers in Canada have done important comparative studies on bilingual decoding skills, Paul van den Broek and Charles Perfetti in the USA and Jane Oakhill and Nicola Yuill in the UK have done interesting work over the years on reading comprehension, Stanovich and Cunningham have done fascinating work on the effects of print exposure on reading, vocabulary and knowledge development in general. The affective dimension of reading (e.g. Rosenblatt) and the broader social context in which literacy is used and enacted are also important areas with their own influential thinkers such as Brian Street, Dave Barton and Paul Gee.

Because of my own interest in language and the mind, a lot of the research that I read about comes from the cognitive and neuroscience disciplines. There has been a lot of really interesting reading research coming from neurolinguistics and the brain sciences in the past 20 years. Stanislas Dehaene’s book Reading in the brain and Marianne Wolf’s Proust and the squid convey this complex research domain in an accessible style to the ordinary reading public.

Because so much of what we know about reading in the past 70 odd years comes mainly from North America and Europe, we need to continuously ask ourselves Ok, so how does this relate to reading and education in developing, middle income countries. There’s a lot we still don’t know.

(5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

Approaches to early reading instruction are based mainly on reading in analytic languages. African languages are agglutinating languages with rich and complex morphosyntactic structures. The Nguni languages in particular have very long word units. At the micro level we actually know very little about what really works when learning to read in the African languages, from a decoding point of view, so that is an area that calls for further research.

Another area that merits closer scrutiny is the development of academic language proficiency in bilingual education systems. There are quantitative and qualitative differences in the ways in which we communicate orally in everyday situations and the way we use language in more formal educational contexts. In written language – whether in paper or electronic form, whether in the home language or a first additional language – the locus of meaning shifts to the text itself, and the ability to construct meaning relies largely on the linguistic and textual cues in the written text and in the conventions associated with its use. In effect, since the advent of modern education, when we acquire our home language or learn another language, we learn oral and written ‘dialects’ or registers, and we switch between them, depending on the context in which we use language. Although oral proficiency is what we rely on most throughout our lives on an everyday basis, it is proficiency in using literate or academic forms of language that determine success in the educational context. Many of our children who pass through the education system acquire only rudimentary reading abilities and are exposed to teaching practices where information is parroted in a superficial manner, so they are thus denied opportunities to develop new ways of using and understanding language. Although they are orally very proficient and may even be marvellously multilingual, if they don’t acquire academic registers they will continue to struggle academically. Finding ways to develop and support academic language proficiency is important in our context.

(6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

Comments from past professors such as “Mmm, interesting ideas, but where’s your evidence?” or “Re-write this, it reads like a first draft” or “Let’s talk about this once you’ve done more reading”, though mortifying to a tender graduate student or junior lecturer at the time, were valuable academic lessons that helped shape the person I am today. I also had an interest in humour and at an early stage of my academic career I considered doing research on the use of language in humour. My husband said I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I analysed Monty Python scripts and suggested I do something more practical – so I continued with my research on causality in texts instead, and that drew me into reading research.

(7) You have been involved in language education and linguistics for a long time – in your experience what are the two or three areas that students struggle with most when they become teachers and start teaching in schools?

Being in Linguistics, I have not been as directly involved with teacher training as my colleagues in education faculties are. However, having worked in high poverty schools over many years, I’ve come to see how demotivating a dysfunctional school environment can be on teachers. Strong leadership and good governance at a school provide an enabling and supportive environment for novice teachers. It’s also important for new teachers to have as a mentor a teacher in whose classroom learning actually happens, not just someone who’s ‘experienced’ and has been teaching for many years. There are many teachers who have been teaching for years but whose kids are not performing. Who novice teachers have as role models is important.

(8) I recently read your excellent 2014 article titled ‘Supporting transitions or playing catch-up in Grade 4? Implications for standards in education and training.’ It was easily the most informative academic article I’ve read this year. If you were put in charge of a national reading campaign with a large annual budget (R200m) and total discretion on how to spend it, what would you spend it on and why?

The bottom line in reading development is fairly simple – reading only develops through reading. Throughout Africa, children are expected to become readers without having proper access to books and they attend schools where books are rare, and rarely used. This is akin to expecting kids to play football without a ball. This would be unthinkable in the football world. Using the same football analogy, it would be unthinkable in football circles to appoint coaches who knew nothing about football, yet we have teachers whose task it is to develop readers but who themselves do very little reading and who know very little about reading. From questionnaires I’ve administered to teachers in township schools over a 10-year period, I’ve found that around 70% of teachers reported that they have 10 or fewer books in their homes, and although they all have positive attitudes to reading, when asked to name a book they’ve recently read, most teachers give the name of a book prescribed in high school. This suggests that they don’t read voluntarily. This is a sensitive area and not much hard core empirical research has been done on this topic. Although many more teachers these days have better formal teaching qualifications than was the case two to three decades ago, there is quite a lot of indirect or anecdotal evidence of teachers’ poor reading abilities. The NEEDU report of 2012 identified poor content knowledge as one the areas in which teachers struggled. If teachers know very little about their content subject, this means they probably do very little reading in their content subject. So, finding ways to raise teachers’ literacy levels is paramount at this point in our education history.

One of my favourite posters about reading is this one. Reading awakens possibilities, it gives one independent access to knowledge. So, if I were put in charge of a national reading campaign, I would adopt a two pronged approach to the reading campaign, with one strand focussing on making books accessible to school children and the second strand focussing on building teacher capacity with regard to reading.

Less than 10% of our schools have functional libraries, and this in our 21^st century world with its knowledge economy, where most of our knowledge is stored, transmitted and updated via written language. Learners who come from poor homes and communities have little access to books and hence to knowledge beyond their immediate world, so schools in these communities should become rich and stimulating sites of literacy. But simply putting books in schools does not necessarily make reading happen. The affective, social aspects of reading should be promoted, learners should be constantly motivated to read, reading should become a high status activity and reading be made a cool thing to do. Learners should also have strong reading role models and reading and books should be visibly valued – which is where the teacher capacity building strand comes in. The DBE has actually done quite a lot about putting books in schools in the past few years, but the next step, that of maintenance and use, is neglected. I’ve been to many schools that have been given lots of books – and they are often stored away and gathering dust in a room somewhere, unopened and inaccessible. This suggests that schools do not know how to manage resources and how to use books effectively in their teaching. So this strand of the campaign would build up individual teachers’ reading levels, and also teach teachers how to explicitly teach reading strategies (and I’m referring to much more than skimming and scanning here), and how to manage, maintain and use book resources in their schools and classrooms.

(9)   If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing South African education today, what would you say?

First of all, I’d thank her for arranging this sudden upgrade from economy to first class for me, for how else would I sit next to her? I’d also thank her for candidly acknowledging the reading crisis in our schools. I think she has quite a strong finger on the education pulse in that regard. Then, depending on how long the plane trip was, I’d highlight three challenges facing SA today, all of which revolve around literacy:

1. Attention to changes in classroom literacy practices. After 70 years of reading research we have a pretty good idea of what works in early reading development and why a balanced approach to reading instruction is important. However, telling teachers what to do about reading and giving them resources with which to do it do not necessarily bring about educational reforms. Teachers’ perceptions, normative beliefs and knowledge influence their classroom practice. In order to get teachers to change ineffective classroom practices we need more research into theories of pedagogic change in schools and classrooms and how this can be done via in-service teacher training. We rely a lot on workshops to do this, but teachers often call these ‘hit and run’ affairs (facilitators come in, tell teachers what to do, then leave). How else can we support teachers in becoming more effective? All interventions should thus be informed by theories of change and be carefully monitored and evaluated so that factors that facilitate or hinder changes in teacher practice can be indentified and better understood.
2. Attention to literacy in maths and science. In the past 20 twenty years millions of rands have been spent in this country on improving maths and science education, with very few dividends so far. The relationship between reading ability and maths and science learning needs to be given explicit attention. As long as we have low literacy levels in general, we will continue to have low maths and science performance. Students need to be explicitly taught how to read maths and science texts so that they can ‘read to learn’ more effectively from their textbooks.
3. Attention to school libraries and post structures for school librarians. As mentioned above, very few schools in SA have functional school libraries, especially schools that serve poor communities, which is precisely where ready access to information and knowledge is most needed. Furthermore, school libraries need librarians, people who are specially trained to manage libraries and to help build a culture of reading and finding information. Teachers do not have the time or the expertise to run school libraries. This means that post structures for school librarians should also be created. Low quintile schools cannot afford to appoint school librarians because they would have to sacrifice a teaching post to do so. Although the DBE encourages schools to build up school libraries, in effect it does not provide the infrastructures to enable schools to do so. According to Equal Education’s statistics, by 2010 the state had spent a total of R13.6 billion on building ten new sport stadiums in SA. Surely providing easy access to knowledge via school libraries is a worthwhile investment too? It also helps to professionalise schools.

Just before we landed, I’d ask for more funding for raising teachers’ literacy levels in my national reading campaign. In light of the cost of sport stadiums, R200 million for a reading campaign that has the potential to improve teacher literacy seems rather stingy.

(10)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

 Linguistics? Researching language and humour?

(11)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

Well, there are lots of new and wondrous things happening on the technology front every week – but my default position is that of scepticism. I first want to see evidence of their benefits. The assumption that technology automatically confers advantages is rather naive. Young children in particular need social interaction and mediation in language and literacy development – and also for socio-affective development; technology cannot replace that.

(12) If you were given a R15million research grant what would you use it for?

 I’d really like to explore ways of boosting the development of academic language proficiency during the Intermediate Phase. If children don’t learn to engage with texts and read at a deeper level, then they battle to ‘read to learn’ through the rest of their schooling and it’s really difficult for them to become independent learners. So I would use the funding to explore ways to develop such proficiency, using randomised-control studies with different interventions that are carefully monitored and evaluated. For example, something along the lines of a genre approach to expository/information texts similar to what Dave Rose has been doing in Australia and an intervention that focuses on explicit instruction in reading strategies. Pauline Gibbons has also done interesting work in this area. However, interventions are also only as good as the people who implement them, so the first year would be spent training teachers (language and content subject teachers) in these different approaches, building up their own literacy skills, developing their academic vocabulary and content-specific terminology, as well as their content knowledge and pedagogic knowledge and their understanding of the logic behind the specific interventions. Many teachers attend workshops where they are shown specific methods to use in the classroom, but they have very little understanding of why, what the bigger picture is, and their own pedagogic or literacy skills are not necessarily enhanced by implementing the method.

A list of some of Lilli’s articles can be found below:

• Pretorius, E. 2014. Supporting transition or playing catch-up in Grade 4? Implications for standards in education and training. Perspectives in Education. 32 (1), pp 51-76.
• Van Rooy, B & Pretorius, EJ. 2013. Is reading in an agglutinating language different from an analytic language? An analysis of Zulu and English reading based on eye movements. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 31(3): 281-387.
• Pretorius, EJ & Knoetze, JJ. 2012. The teachers’ book club: Broadening teachers’ knowledge and building self confidence. Musaion 31(1): 27- 46.
• Pretorius, EJ. 2012. Butterfly effects in reading? The relationship between decoding and comprehension in Grade 6 high poverty schools. Journal for Language Teaching 46(2): 74-95
• Pretorius, EJ &  Lephalala, MMK. 2012. Reading comprehension in high poverty schools: How should it be taught and how well does it work?  Per Linguam 27(2):1-24.
• Pretorius, EJ. 2010. Complexity in reading: Leaving aside Occam’s razor for now. Southern African Linguistics and Language Studies 28(4): 339-356.
• Pretorius, EJ & Currin, SV.  2010. Do the rich get richer and the poor poorer? The effects of a reading intervention programme on the home and the school language. International Journal of Educational Development 30: 67-76.

Some of the others on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Thabo Mabogoane, Andrew Einhorn, Maurita-Glynn Weissenberg, Shelley O’Carroll, Carole Bloch, Yael Shalem, Jill Adler, Paula Ensor, Linda Richter and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the seventeenth interview in the series. Wayne Hugo is an Associate Professor at the UKZN School of Education (CV here, personal website here). 

1) Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?

Four motivations that started the ball rolling – Firstly I was a working class boy with no means to fund higher education and the teaching bursary was very attractive. It actually gave me enough money to help my folks out a little, go out every night for a beer and some pool at the Dev, pay for a small flat in Braamfontein, and buy whatever books I wanted. Secondly, my favorite subjects at school were English and History, so it was easy to make these my majors. Thirdly, I had always loved explaining stuff to my school friends and found I had a knack for it. They are all now making a lot more money than me. Fourth, I have always had a strong desire to write and liked the idea of a half day job that would give me time. Those were the motivations pushing and pulling me into teaching. But then I stumbled into Education Studies at Wits with characters like Joe Muller, Mary Crewe, David Bensusan, Penny Enslin, Ian Moll, Pam Christie, Mike Kissack, Shirley Pendelbury, and Jill Adler. I was pursuing my own curriculum at Wits, spending time in the William Cullen library reading collected works of various luminaries. Joe and Mary Crewe, in particular, actively guided this process, pointing me towards Gramsci, Althusser, Saussure and others, whilst critically taking me on. Education Studies became a place of exploration that allowed me massive freedom along with critical comment. It helped that Lynne Slomimsky was with me for part of this process, as it gave me an intellectual partner who was happy to talk about Laclau and Mouffe, Post Modernism, Freud, dreams and whatever else was brewing. I then left the country to avoid army service and landed up in Wigan as a bouncer, but the massive bursary came back to haunt me as my parents could not afford to pay it back – so back I came into the army and into teaching. I loved teaching, especially as a young teacher, and am writing a book on it to try and capture all the energies and tensions a young male teacher experiences in high school. Anyway, whist teaching I carried on doing my honours and masters part time. A choice quickly arose between shifting into school management or taking a senior lecturing position at the Johannesburg College of Education, and I chose the latter. I will never forget getting my lecturing load and being astonished that I only had to lecture around twice a day. I loved JCE, became the coach of the rugby side, and pretty much carried on as I had at varsity. I did not have a PhD and when friends of mine in Grahamstown needed me to go down there for personal reasons, I decided to do my PhD there. So began a five year journey into the depths of educational thought. I went back to Plato and started to systematically read through all the classical educational texts, making it to Descartes and Hegel. Looking back now there has been an astonishingly consistent daily pattern that has consisted of morning and afternoon reading and writing, late afternoon intense exercise, and evening socialising. After getting my PhD the first post that became available was in Pietermaritzburg. It had academics I deeply respected – Ken Harley, Ben Parker (RIP), Volker Wedekind – so I was pleased to get a post there, and that is where I have settled until now, very happy with a sweet daughter and good friends.

2) What does your average week look like?

Days where I am free – Wake up at 5. Quick check of email, news, facebook. Start writing or reading or both until around 11. Go out for coffee and brunch. Carry on reading, writing and dealing with daily work requirements. Around 4 take the body out to play – go swim, touch rugby, cycle. Around 6 see friends, have a beer, supper, maybe yoga, go to sleep.

My daughter plays havoc with this routine, but then she is worth all of this and more.

3) While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick two or three that have been especially influential for you which two or three would they be and why?

Plato’s Republic, Dante’s Divine Comedy

Plato exists for me as an unexplainable divine force at the fount of education. His work is beyond profound, continuously astonishes me, humbles me, enriches me.

Dante exists as a luminosity in my imagination – he is my muse and represents a teacher who was able to swallow his whole age and transmutate it into a pedagogic journey from the depths to the heights in a poem.

Below these two are Kant critiques, Hegel Phenomenology and Logic, Marx’s Kapital (vol1) and Piaget’s corpus.

The educational text that blew my mind open was Bourdieu and Passeron’s Reproduction in education, society and culture. I loved its axiomatic style that went back to Spinoza. Bernstein has been a growing love affair that has formatted my thinking.

4) Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

Joe Muller – Lucid thinker where others are struggling to find a path, nevermind understand it. My experience of him is that he is always on the boundary, pushing towards the unspoken, but able to articulate what the new is and why it is relevent. He is very generous with his insights and recommendations. Almost always I come away from a meeting with him with new thoughts and breakthroughs.

Karl Maton – Brave man with enormous energies and ambitions, complimented by one of the sharpest intellects I have come across. He is quickly developing a comprehensive analytical framework that is process oriented, research driven, and gets to the dynamics of education in ways that help students get to grips with curriculum and pedagogy. Legitimation Code Theory combines field insights of power with an internal analysis of educational events. It pushes Bernsteinian binary into process and flow.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

 We are way behind in Mind, Brain and Education research, and I feel this will give us strong insights into improving how learning works. We are clueless about Instructional Design, especially how it is currently playing out with new developments in technology and engineering. We are struggling with Big Data analysis. My basic take is that the social sciences have shifted sharply closer to the STEM subjects (Science, Tech, Engineering, Maths), and that education is not following suit. We need to strengthen our research by using insights and methods taken from Engineering, Economics, Computer programming, Biology, Geography and other ‘complexity’ sciences.

6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

From my dad – always act from a position of strength inside yourself. I have taken this to mean that you have to work at knowing so much more than what is expected. It is astonishing how an expanding and deep network consolidates and clarifies whatever it is you are working with. Everything lights up and is of interest because it places itself inside a glowing network.

 7) You are actively involved in teacher education at UKZN – in your experience what are the two or three areas that students struggle with most when they become teachers and start teaching in schools?

The transference relation between young teacher and learner. There are massive energies and emotions that cook under the surface when you start as a young teacher with learners who are only a couple of years younger than you. It’s a very difficult dynamic to talk about with students, because the unconscious works in such powerful and strange ways. Often naming and studying the process only makes it harder to control when encountered.

Over work. Young teachers are exploited and find themselves quickly stretched and exhausted, resulting in burn-out, drop out, and compromised standards

Too much coffee, too much alcohol

8)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

Education allows me the space to do all the things I want to do, so it’s hard to answer. I suppose a full time novelist. I enjoy trickery, so a magician would have been nice. At one stage I liked the idea of being a Psychoanalyst. A secular Monk of the Franciscan type would be my ideal.

9)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

Big fan. I get the over hype and the over expectations and the dangers, but it is taking us into new spaces. It’s the connectivity and creativity it enables that astonishes me. Often we use technology just to replicate existing practices, but it is breaking these practices, changing them, moving us into a new terrain. Technology innovates faster than culture can keep up with, it is our job as the current generation of education academics to stay on the wave, learn to surf it, and articulate what its great strengths and dangers are. I love the post human stuff of Harraway and Crew, feel it speaks to a new mode of existence arising in and through us.

10) If you were given a R20million research grant what would you use it for?

Certainly not whole school improvement. I would like to set up an education website similar to Khan Academy but in education and then track and trace student responses in a way that improves the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment of the website material. The website would give the basic building blocks that specialise a student into education and provide a dialogic space for interaction and engagement that can be used across South Africa, outwards and onwards.

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A full list of Wayne’s publications can be found here. He has also done a video lecture series on “Cracking the code“

Some of the other academics on my “to-interview” list include Veronica McKay, Elizabeth Pretorius, Jill Adler, Paula Ensor and Volker Wedekind. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the sixteenth interview in the series. Percy Moleke is Programme Manager and Coordinator of the Human Capabilities and Social Protection Working Group of the National Planning Commission. 

1)   In your career, why did you choose to focus on education and social policy and how did you get where you are now?

While studying economics, which has been my favourite subject since Matric many moons ago, the social part made much more sense to me. When I proceeded to university, the social electives were much more attractive, i.e. public sector economics, public finance, labour economics, economics of education were my favourite electives. It is their closeness to reality, and to my personal background that made sense; even econometric analysis related to these subjects made sense. I related to them in many ways and they gave a sense that what I was learning could make a difference. I am mostly attracted by the role of social policy in addressing inequality and particularly looking at the linkages between education and the labour market and understanding their role in addressing inequality. I believe they (education and labour market) are the root cause of inequality (engineered by apartheid) and should thus be key instruments in addressing inequality.

Education and hard work got me where I am. A bit of luck and a higher power helped definitely, but only if you work hard. Patience and being realistic are also part of the ingredients/characters.

 2)   What does your average week look like?

My weeks vary. Some are packed with meetings, which are a must when you are a public servant, and they demand a lot. Most of these require preparation, reading, preparing presentations, etc. Some weeks are a few meetings and one gets time to read a bit and reflect on issues, i.e. brainstorm with colleagues. This does not happen as often as I would like though. Some weeks are a mixture of all sorts of things, meetings, a bit of reading, a bit of trying to sort out some problem(s), a lot of time on the phone and email, and/or face to face with colleagues talking through some issue(s), writing some note/speech, a bit of whining, etc. these are long and happens more often that I would like. But all these are necessary and part of the job. I think this is why my job is interesting, sounds contradictory. I bemoan the lack of time to read and attend engagements such as seminars/workshops, etc., which makes weeks and days even longer. It means compromising evenings/nights and weekends as these are used for reading to catch up. Reading is a necessary part of the job, but time for it is not adequately factored in.

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you, which one or two would they be and why?

Hard to say as I read a variety of books and articles. My reading currently is influenced by the area of work I am busy with. So I am reading in education (ECD, schooling, vocational education, higher education), labour markets, social protection, as these are the areas I am working on. I was an influenced reader when I was younger. I would recall that some of the work that influenced my interests and a broader key message of interest in each are Becker’s work on Human Capital and equally Blaug’s work on education as a ‘screening device’, and Thurow’s work on labour market as a training market rather than an auction market. Then there is Hanushek’s work, I think it brings together a group of good analysts in the area of economics of education. It is like a ‘reference’ source. For a young student (then), with interest in education and labour markets, it was fascinating to read their work and the different views. But it also highlighted the important yet complex relationship between education and the labour market. My reading processes have changed since then. I distil critical messages from my readings; I don’t have any particular favourite. I would however prescribe Outliers to all students in particular. Hard work pays but it does not come easy and is not immediate, practice, practice and practice.

 4)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

I think, most areas have been researched, but under-researched. Meaning it is the same narrative, almost similar analysis, hence same outcomes/messages from the research.

But I will go with the following:

First; is accountability in education. We all know that teachers are a critical component for improvement in education, we all point fingers at teachers (and Sadtu) for poor performance, we point to teachers’ poor content knowledge, etc.  I have not seen an analysis that looks at why teachers (a large proportion of them) in our system are doing so badly. What is the impact of poor education administration on school performance? Econometric analysis that I have seen says, not much, but I argue that if one was to use a different methodology to assess this, you may find that it has a huge impact. Hence we cannot only point fingers at teachers when there is poor performance, if they do not get support from the districts, provinces, national, they can’t be blamed. Teachers in performing schools have mostly gone through the same training as those in under-performing schools, why does the issue of teachers’ mastery of content an issue in under-performing schools and not in other schools?

Similarly, why is Sadtu so powerful? I think it point to failure of management/administration. Lines are blurred. It is almost as if we have not defined the line between a teacher and an administrator/management in the system. In my view, once a person becomes a principal/district /provincial/national official they take on a different role in the system, their labour relations interests cannot be represented by Sadtu. And I think that happens because of the way our ‘education system’ has evolved. There is no accountability built in the system.

The second; is centralisation versus decentralisation of education. It is related to the first, but takes a slightly different angle. Here as well I think the lines are blurred. Hence accountability is an issue. Who do we hold accountable for what in education, and who is responsible for what part of the system. Given the vast geographical differences in our country, should we decentralise more (and to what level, i.e. Province or District or School) or is centralisation the best model, what part of the system should be centralised/decentralised. What are the lessons from the past 20 years or so?

The third is related to foundation learning. Starting from ECD (not Grade R, but prior to that). Here one of the areas that I think need thorough research relates to the language of instruction and the impact of learning or not learning in mother tongue at foundation phase for future performance. I don’t think this issue is well understood and properly contextualised. It seems many people are saying teach in mother tongue at foundation phase? I wonder if, despite what international evidence say, we understand what this means in the South African context and how correct and feasible this is.

 5)   What is the best advice you’ve been given?

To apply in my life – love what you are doing and give it your best shot, it makes doing it enjoyable and easy. And don’t be afraid to try new things, it is okay to fail as long as you learn lessons from failure and do better next time.

To apply at work- inconsistency in application/implementation can turn an excellent public policy into a bad policy.

6)   As Programme Manager and Coordinator of the Human Capabilities and Social Protection Working Group of the NPC,  I’m sure you have considerable first-hand experience of the real-world challenges that those in government face on a daily basis. Can you explain some of the under-appreciated challenges faced by the NPC?

I think people forget that it is only now that as a country we are appreciating the importance of having a long-term plan for the country, that this is a ‘new function’ in government. The NPC does not have answers and shares everyone’s concerns with respect to how the NDP will be implemented. We are all learning.

It is also under-appreciated that the NPC as a structure is not properly institutionalised. Sometimes there are huge expectations and while the NPC tries its best, it has not been worked out how it operates and relate to other functions of government. Every department has its ‘planning’ unit, but we know the challenges with how these are conceptualised and function. We need to work out how these interface with the NPC, National Treasury, StatsSA, etc. as all these form part of the planning function. It is exciting that the ANC, in its manifesto, put this issue of institutionalising planning on the agenda. It must happen. We need to improve our planning in government, and move from high level plans to planning implementation to the ‘t’. Planning is not an event with a defined single output –A plan, it is a continuous, iterative process.

There are also expectations that because there is now an NPC and NDP implementation will improve. NDP is still very high level, and most of the proposals need to be unpacked. I am not sure if the NPC is given enough space and time to unpack these proposals and engage with those who should implement. The advantage of the NPC is that you have people who are not drowned in the day to day running of line-function departments, hence should have space to read, think differently about the challenges of implementation and support line-function departments in every step of the implementation process. Department officials should be relying on the NPC to assist and support. It can be a neutral player as it has no interest except to support, improve coordination and bring in fresh thinking. Currently most of the challenges get picked up during monitoring of progress by the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation, and even then, it is still high level monitoring, the fault- lines are missed. Most of these fault-lines are in implementation plans and strategies, which, most of the time do not exist. This however, cannot happen with a structure that is under-capacitated. Commissioners are not full-time, it is difficult to get all Commissioners to a meeting for example, and there is a small secretariat.

7)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

 An environmentalist of sorts. I think I will be spending time doing something related to studying and protecting animals, I have a special liking of the big cats. National Geographic is my favourite TV channel.

8)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

A bit of both. I like face to face interaction. Maybe it’s because of my age! But I also think given our socio-economic challenges, it may perpetuate inequality (some would say it may be the game changer). We should not underestimate the poor access to basics of technology for most poor people in this country!

I recently read a book by Salman Khan –The One World School House. It made me think about the possibilities of technology in education, especially in instances where teachers’ content knowledge is lacking. It also scared me a bit, because I think it is not about ‘if’ but ‘when’ technology will be a key component in education. It makes me scared because I am not sure if we are ready for that.

I am also influenced by the increasing number of young people who are doing wonders with technology.

9) If you were given a R10 million research grant what would you use it for?

I interpret research broadly. I would use it to pilot different ways of improving quality teaching and learning in different contexts in SA. We all complain about poor quality of education, but I am not sure we know what we are complaining about and what to do about it. What works in what context and how to effect change. One of the fascinating areas to investigate is what is happening in the Quintile 2 schools that seem to be performing relatively well, what makes them work and why not in other schools. We need to move away from high level talk and analysis and understand what is happening at the school level, at the individual learner level. Our policies and intervention programmes must be informed by that.

Part of the problem I think is that we ‘overuse’ senior certificate results as a measure of how our system is doing. By the time learners are in Grade 12, it is a bit too late, because they are exiting the system. Meanwhile, every semester at least and yearly learners write exams in each Grade, we do not know how they are performing at the lower Grades, their progression, etc., and there is no mechanisms to use these results to understand performance at lower Grades and find ways to improve. We only wake up to the fact that about 40-50 per cent of a cohort that started Grade 1 is not writing senior secondary certificate, but are not sure at what point in the system do things begin to go bad and why, thus how can we intervene. We speculate that it at the end of the compulsory phase – Grade 9 or age 15, but the question is why a rational learner would drop out of the system when there are no positive prospects for them beyond that point.

R10 million is not a lot of money, but I would also invest a bit on education planning. I am referring to broad planning, understanding the implications of demographics, migration, social dynamics, town planning and developments, etc. on education provision and funding of education.

10) Having considerable experience in higher education in South Africa, you are well positioned to answer the following question: what do you think are the major challenges facing the higher education sector in South Africa in the next 10 years?

Inability to reproduce itself. I would spend all my money on ensuring that output in higher education increase both quantitatively and qualitatively, from undergraduate to post graduate. It is scary, and I am not sure if we are paying enough attention to this. I don’t use the term crisis often and loosely, but I think we are facing a crisis there. This is also because higher education has to produce skilled people for the economy as well. The pool is very small. Progress in development of this country is dependent on what we do in this area today I would argue. If we do not turn the wheel now, we should forget about taking this country to a higher and positive trajectory.

Related to the first challenge is the small size of the sector. We must look beyond the enrolment numbers in higher education and focus on participation rate, the distribution of these numbers by area of study and the throughput (graduates). While it is understandable that to grow the size, schooling has to improve and grow even faster, there is more that can be done to make the system more efficient. The failure and drop-out rates at these institutions are unacceptable.

The third challenge relates to clarity of identity and mission of our institutions, FET Colleges, and the newly proposed Community Colleges, Adult Education Centres and Comprehensive Universities and Universities of Technology. I am not sure if it is clear for young people in secondary school today what options they have when they leave school, which option is better suited for their career choices, pros-and cons of each, etc. For example, do they have to study up to matric to gain entry into an FET College, and is this applicable to all areas of study?

Universities are expected to be everything to everyone, because they have a relatively good reputation compared to Colleges. If we do not ensure that we clean up the image of colleges, ensure that they produce quality graduates who are employable, then we will continue to put pressure on universities, hence they have so many students doing Diplomas, which should be done in Colleges. It is pointless to have high numbers of young people in Colleges when the outcome of that is not of value for the individual, the economy and society.

 The fourth I think is the link between higher education and the world of work. The two seem to be operating in isolation. There are pockets of cooperation and linkages, but for the most part there is a serious disconnect. You see this in teaching, research, innovation and employability issues.

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Some of the other academics/policy-makers/activists on my “to-interview” list include Thabo Mabogoane, Veronica McKay, Volker Wedekind, John Kruger, Jonathan Jansen, and Khulekani Mathe. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the fifteenth interview in the series. Joy Olivier is co-founder and Director of Ikamva Youth.

1)   Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?

In 2003 I was working at the HSRC, looking at how research and development and science, technology and innovation (STI) drive the economy. We were also looking at the transformation of the scientific community for NACI, and this brought me to the (then) Higher Grade maths and science results of black matriculants. My colleague Makhosi Gogwana and I shared an office, and talked about this a lot. Initially, I thought there must be something wrong with the data as the numbers of learners who were matriculating with results that made them eligible to study anything requiring Maths and Science in an entire province were more like what should be coming out of a handful of schools. Makhosi had gone to junior school in the Eastern Cape, and then moved to a high school in Khayelitsha for secondary for a better education. In comparing our educational backgrounds, we realised that what’s missing for learners in disadvantaged areas are information and support. Naive, optimistic and driven to do something about the problem we were learning about, we called up Makhosi’s old school and sent emails to our friends asking who wants to tutor. Everyone said yes and Ikamva Youth (IY) was born. I had no idea that what was essentially a hobby would become my full time job – never mind other peoples’!

2)   What does your average week look like?

I don’t really have an average week. In the past two weeks I’ve had to go to Joza township near Grahamstown to deal with an organisational crisis, and am currently at an airport on my way back from a workshop with one of our donors in San Francisco.

My work pings me between the extremities of poverty and wealth; between townships and palaces. It can be quite discombobulating, but I also feel really lucky to have these super diverse experiences. I’m always learning a LOT.

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick two or three that have been especially influential for you which two or three would they be and why?

• Paul Tough: How Children Succeed

He summarises the work that’s been done with disadvantaged, poor-performing high school students very well, and makes a convincing argument that change can happen at this level.

• Malcolm Gladwell – Outliers

Reminding us that believing that you can do it, and having access to middle-class resources like networks, advice, community norms of tertiary education and access to employment, are some of the things that explain the disparities in academic achievement between under- and well-resourced kids.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

Nic Spaull 😛 He’s super smart and has a wonderful mix of passion to do something balanced with an analytical and critical view on things.

It’s pretty depressing that I can’t think of anyone else right now, but it could also be the jetlag

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

It’s crazy to me that we don’t know the percentage of black kids going into university that come from disadvantaged areas. Without knowing this and then seeking to improve on it, we’re essentially ensuring the perpetuation of inequality and the widening gap between rich and poor.

6)   What is the best advice you’ve been given?

Leigh Meinert told me that people take you seriously when you start to take yourself seriously. She was right.

7)   If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing South African education today, what would you say?

1. Someone has to take on the unions. Teachers are not “workers”; it’s a profession, and not showing up to work and striking when you’re supposed to be teaching is not only unprofessional, it’s diabolical.
2. Rather than have curriculum delivered to them, learners need to learn how to learn. The focus should be on pedagogy and peer learning; there is WAY too much focus on curriculum and content.
3. Literacy and Numeracy.

8)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

Hmm good question. Community psychology, maybe. Or perhaps an entrepreneurial venture that has a smart way to reduce inequality. Oh actually what I’m doing falls into both of these things. I think I’d like to find a model that’s self-sustaining and not donor reliant. When things are heavy and the stress of responsibility and challenges get to me I think I might like to be a lady of leisure, although I know that wouldn’t last too long.

9)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

So this was my field, when I worked at bridges.org and then did my masters in Ed and Tech. And it made me a sceptic. However, I do feel that mobile tech and some of the apps are starting to look really promising. I’m excited about what Siyavula and Fundza are doing, and with most kids having feature phones and Internet access gradually becoming more of a reality, I’m shifting back towards potential fanhood.

10) If you were given a R10million research grant what would you use it for?

I’d like find answers to these questions:

• See answer to q5 above.

Then IY-specific qs:

• How many learners in township and rural schools would opt into being a part of IY if they had the opportunity?
• How much of our learners’ results are due to their being a part of IY and how much is due to what they would have achieved anyway without us?
• Which aspects of what we do feed into the results, and which bits are just nice to have or could be tweaked to be more efficient (eg. learner:tutor ratio, winter school etc.)
• Piloting different models of online tutoring and seeing what works.

11) Ikamva Youth  is a highly successful NGO providing meaningful opportunities to many South African youth. What would you say are the three or four major “ingredients” in its success?

•  A culture of learning and collaboration, where learning is cool and learners are motivated to attend
• Low cost, high impact (with clear metrics for measuring impact)
• Learners becoming tutors; they’re amazing role models who are changing their communities
• Focus is on learning and not content

12) Ikamva Youth is a grass-roots organization with considerable links to the community and to students. In many countries around the world there is often a disconnect between what is happening at a national-policy level and what the reality is on the ground – do you believe this is also the case in South Africa? And if so, in which areas is this disconnect most apparent? 

Yebo. There is some awareness of the usefulness of extending school hours, which is great, with SSIP and other after-school programmes being implemented. However, what’s being implemented in most places is just more of what’s already not working for more money. Its really frustrating when initiatives get scaled up and funds spent without any tracking or monitoring of results and impact.

13) What would you say are the three major difficulties faced by civil-society organizations in South Africa, and what advice would you give to people who are in the start-up phase of an NGO? 

• Hiring experienced, good people who can exceed expectations is a major challenge and a key to getting things right
• Decide what you want to achieve and how you’re going to measure whether or not you’re achieving it from the beginning
• Think about self-sustainability models from the beginning
• Always stretch to implement learnings and grow, but don’t stretch too much too quickly

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Some of the other academics/policy-makers/activists on my “to-interview” list include Thabo Mabogoane, Veronica McKay, Volker Wedekind, John Kruger, Jonathan Jansen, Khulekani Mathe, and Percy Moleke. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the thirteenth interview in the series. Dr Jonathan Clark is the director of both the Schools Development Unit and the Schools Improvement Initiative at UCT.

1)   Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?

After I finished my science degree I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was offered a job at Rossing (a mine in Namibia) and took it. It was a great experience but I knew from the outset that I wasn’t cut out for a life in steel-capped boots. So I spent two years saving money and then took off for the Middle East and Europe. A year into my travels, no closer to having a clue about what I should do next, a friend took me for a walk in a park in London and convinced me to become a teacher. I returned to South Africa and after completing my teaching qualification started working at a rural school called Nchaupe High in the village of Makapanstad, north of Pretoria. Three years later I moved down to Cape Town and Luhlaza High in Khayelitsha. I taught science, worked as a departmental subject advisor and ran a school (COSAT) in the township over the next 16 years. I moved to UCT to head up the Schools Development Unit (SDU) in the School of Education towards the end of 2007.

2)   What does your average week look like?

It’s quite long! I’m trying to juggle two jobs in one at the moment – my substantive post is as Director of the SDU and I’m also heading up one of the Vice Chancellor’s strategic initiatives – the Schools Improvement Initiative (SII). So it’s a bit of a challenge to fit everything in. I’m essentially in an administrative post, so I spend a lot of time in meetings and struggle to find time to do any research. There’s a lot of people management involved and the SDU is soft-funded so finding money and managing budgets keeps me busy too. Rather late in life I’ve found that I quite enjoy the financial side of things, so it’s not a strain but certainly a pre-occupation.  The multi-tasking keeps me on my toes and stops me getting bored!

I don’t get out into the field very often, but when I do it’s invariably back to Khayelitsha where the SII is working.  I feel quite an affinity with the township having spent (as mentioned early) so much time there.

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick two or three that have been especially influential for you which two or three would they be and why?

That’s a tough question. I’ve wide interests in education and I’m a bit of a magpie in my reading. More recently, I was most taken by Diane Ravitch’s ‘The Life and Death of the Great American Schooling System’. The writings of Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves, individually and together have always made a deep impression on me; Fullan’s ‘The new meaning of educational change’ remains a favourite. When I was doing my doctorate, a book by Harber & Davies called: ‘School management and effectiveness in developing countries: The post-bureaucratic school’, had a huge impact on my thinking, particularly their notion of school ineffectiveness.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

Richard Elmore’s work on school reform and the long shadows of Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves continued collaboration – they might be getting on in years but still write passionately about the need to transform education.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

For all what we think we know about teachers’ actual classroom practices, I think we actually have very little understanding of what really goes on at the chalk/whiteboard face. Particularly when it comes to working class urban and rural schooling, I think we tend to under-estimate the degree to which the pedagogic practices of teachers are forged in context and strongly influenced by their own lived experiences of schooling.  I’m of the opinion that many teachers operate in what are essentially ‘closed-loop’ systems which are very, very resistant to change.

How to support and enable teachers’ to bring about meaningful improvements in teaching and (critically) student learning in such contexts is, ‘the rub’ (so to speak)…

6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

 Evidence, evidence, evidence – particularly when engaging in qualitative research, the challenge lies in backing up your knowledge claims.

7)   If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing South African education today, what would you say?

Firstly, we have to build the content, pedagogic and classroom organisational skills of teachers and capacitate school managers – we have no choice but to invest heavily in teacher professional and school organisational development.

Over a second drink, I might loosen up a bit and share with her my thoughts about the tensions between accountability and support which I believe permeate through all levels of the education system; and muse on the dilemmas we face in this regard. For how (I would ask her rhetorically) can we hold teachers and school managers to account unless we have in place functional support systems at levels from circuit through district to provincial and national levels?

I’d share some of my own experiences in the field, but seek to be humble – I’ve never under-estimated the immense complexity of (say) trying to run a large, under-resourced working class school in a community mired in poverty. It’s almost ironic isn’t it? The settings which require the most skilful practice, are inevitably the ones with the least ‘curriculum and organisational capital’ (as I like to think of it).

Then there’s the need to build the expertise of the technical core of the State so that it can play a more decisive supportive role.

By the third drink I would probably be saying something totally inappropriate about the power of the majority union…

8)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

I’d be an archaeologist; I’m fascinated by our past; or a meteorologist – but not one of those working on complex mathematical modelling, one who spends his time staring at clouds…

 9)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

A fan, I think technology has immense potential to positively impact on teaching and learning. For a start, just think of the amount of paper we would save if we didn’t have to print millions of textbooks each year! But I definitely don’t see technology as some kind of panacea which will automatically improve things. I’m too much of a traditionalist I’m afraid, I think the teacher as mediator of learning still has an absolutely central role to play in the educational process.

And that’s what perturbs me, I don’t know how we are going to transform our ‘low skills’ base teaching corps into more effective users of educational technology – do you know how many un-used electronic whiteboards there are littered around the country? From the view of a typical working class school, the ‘flip classroom’ seems a paradigm away…

10) If you were given a R5 million research grant what would you use it for?

 A ten-year longitudinal study focusing on the unfolding narratives of practice of young teachers entering the profession and finding their ways in township schools.

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Some of the other academics/policy-makers/activists on my “to-interview” list include Thabo Mabogoane, Veronica McKay, Volker Wedekind, John Kruger, Jonathan Jansen, Khulekani Mathe, Percy Moleke, and Joy Oliver. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the eleventh interview in the series.  Linda Biersteker is the head of research at the Early Learning Resource Unit (ELRU) in Cape Town. 

1)   Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?
I have always been interested in development and education and was involved with youth at SHAWCO when I studied at UCT in my psychology major year I opted for a child development research project which took me to the Athlone Early Learning Centre, a Head Start type intervention the first of its kind in South Africa.  It was my first exposure to preschool education (I was a nursery school run-away in my own childhood) and I was hooked. When I joined the research department there and later the Early Learning Resource Unit, early learning was very undeveloped in South Africa, and we did everything, designed new programmes, wrote materials, developed training for the large numbers of untrained women working with poor children across the country and were key in the policy development process for ECD in a democratic South Africa.    In addition to directing research at the Early Learning Resource Unit, I have also worked on numerous research, programme development and training assignments for international agencies  as well as academic institutions and with NGOs.   This year I am freelancing though I still have research links to the Early Learning Resource Unit.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the tenth interview in the series.  Hamsa Venkatakrishnan is an Associate Professor at Wits and holds the position of SA Numeracy Chair . 

1)   Why did you decide to go into education?

Had decided by the time I was 10 or 11 that I wanted to be a teacher, and probably, a maths teacher. I had no thoughts, at the point at which I started teaching, that I would become an academic working in a university – that came quite a lot later. I’m not sure what prompted wanting to teach – but my mum had been a teacher and her father had been a lecturer – so they were probably both influences.

2)   What does your average week look like?

I don’t really have an ‘average’ week – which is part of what I like about the job I currently do. Some days (and some weeks), I am in schools for most of the time, I teach undergraduate seminars and postgraduate courses, and do a lot of postgraduate supervision.  I also go to conferences, nationally and internationally, and sit in meetings – at my university, with teachers and with policy makers. I love the fact that my current role as SA Numeracy Chair, leading a 5 year research and development project aimed at improving primary maths teaching and learning, allows me to teach everything from Grade 1 classes to PhD students. That range is unusual – and great fun!

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you which one or two would they be and why?

I love reading, and all kinds of reading – from mathematics education, to classic literature, to Cosmopolitan! In education, I read a range of work, both theoretical and empirical, but really admire the people who write in thoughtful and accessible ways about how we might re-think teaching and learning. In mathematics education, I think Professor Anne Watson at Oxford University does this really well, as does Professor Mike Askew at Monash University.

More broadly, I like classic literature – the girly stuff like Jane Austen and George Eliot, and lots of modern world literature. I also loved reading Sunday papers all day when I lived in London. And yes, Cosmopolitan is good fun too!

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

It’s quite hard to narrow down two or three ‘most influential’ thinkers in mathematics education, or in education more broadly, because the church is a broad one with diverse interests and multiple sub-fields. While there are ‘eminent’ thinkers in maths education, what counts as ‘influential’ is eclectic and subjective and shifts over time. So, influential for me at the moment, George Lakoff’s work on human understanding of concepts through embodied cognition. And lots of people working in the field of mathematics teacher knowledge and maths teaching development – Deborah Ball, Brent Davis and Jill Adler amongst these.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

I am increasingly interested in understanding what people think children should be able to do mathematically at various stages of schooling, and then thinking about what teachers need to do to develop these competences. I don’t think we have sufficiently shared understandings – even within mathematics education – about what children should be able to do, and we seem reluctant to build the platforms and networks and engage in the hard conversations that might allow us to develop more shared perspectives across a terrain that is as riven with an inequitable history of access to education as South Africa is. Differences of opinion relate to both the type of mathematics children should be able to do, and the extent of the mathematics that schools should offer. For example, look at these two questions:

• 4/5  +  1/3  equals  ____
• How many fractions lie between 1/4 and 1/2?

Learner performance is usually higher on the first question than the second. I get mixed responses when I ask teachers and teacher educators whether they think that children should be able to answer both of these questions. Some say ‘Yes, children should be able to answer both’. Most say they have taught children how to work out the answer to the first question, but have not dealt with the idea underlying the second question. Underlying these differences in what gets taught are different views about what school mathematics is actually about.

I think it is critically important that children are able to answer both of the questions above, but I would go further. I think being able to do the first question without having any idea about how to answer the second is pretty useless. But we need to be able to understand what underlies these different positions, and then start building agreement over what we want children to be able to do and what we put in the school curriculum. If we don’t, I can’t see how we will move towards closing the gaps in performance that are so widespread on the ground. So that is my under-researched priority (for now!).

6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

‘Do it for as long as you enjoy it – and resign if it gets to the point that you don’t enjoy it any more’.

I’m still enjoying it enough to stay in!

7)   If you ended up sitting next to the Minister of Education on a plane and she asked you what you think are the three biggest challenges facing South African education today, what would you say?

1. Teacher content knowledge – and openings for developing this in ways that are useful for teaching. This might mean more conversations around the kinds of understandings underlying the second question above, rather than more practice of the first question – which is what many of us did more of in school
2. Lack of shared understandings of what mathematics we teach in school and why.
3. Access to good quality primary level education

8)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

I think I would have liked to be a scriptwriter – for film or television. Or a travel writer like Bill Bryson. But I think I am quite a vocational teacher – so would not want to lose being able to do that!

9)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

            A fan, although a bit of a Luddite one in some ways!

10) If you were given a R5million research grant what would you use it for?

            Longitudinal studies that tracked through from developing teacher content knowledge from a teaching perspective, into supporting teachers to make mathematics more coherently and interestingly and purposively accessible to learn in classrooms. Research would aim to understand the conditions, constraints and development trajectories within these processes.

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A list of Hamsa’s publications can be found here. We are currently working on a joint paper (or two) analysing the SACMEQ III (2007) Grade 6 Mathematics teacher test data, and *hopefully* they’ll be finished in the next few months.

Some of the other academics/policy-makers on my “to-interview” list include Servaas van der Berg, Thabo Mabogoane, Veronica McKay, Jon Clark, Volker Wedekind, John Kruger, Linda Biersteker, Jonathan Jansen, Khulekani Mathe, Percy Moleke, and Joy Oliver. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.

The aim of the Q&A series is to get an inside look into some of South Africa’s leading education academics, policy-makers and activists. This is the ninth interview in the series.  Martin Gustafsson is  an advisor to the Director General in the South African Department of Basic Education and also a researcher in the RESEP Group at Stellenbosch University. 

1)   Why did you decide to go into education and how did you get where you are?

I suppose it all started with my own compulsory schooling, and then I found myself unable to leave. It’s an interesting world, education. One feels very much part of a grand reproductive cycle. I also see education as a powerful vehicle for changing society, bringing about a more just world. So it’s also about not reproducing more of the same.

2)   What does your average week look like?

Interesting. I basically have two fairly regular part-time jobs, one as a researcher, one as a government planner. It works for me.

3)   While I’m sure you’ve read many books and articles in your career, if you had to pick one or two that have been especially influential for you which one or two would they be and why?

I won’t talk about the fiction because you probably want to know about non-fiction. But fiction can also shape what one becomes as a person and a professional. I’d recommend Amartya Sen and Deirdre McCloskey, because of the way they combine passion, scepticism and science. And for helping me to understand South Africa, I have to thank, amongst others, Tom Lodge, Steve Biko and Hermann Giliomee, whose works have all helped me piece together a picture, in their different ways.

4)   Who do you think are the current two or three most influential/eminent thinkers in your field and why?

If I think of my field as the economics of education, which I often do, then clearly Hanushek and Psacharopoulos stand out, the latter more as a veteran who has seen a couple of very exciting decades and still reflects on them. Unfortunately, education planning, which I also see as a field, is still rather scattered and I’m not sure there is anyone who has really succeeded in bringing together the various strands and packaging a body of knowledge which might provide needed guidance to thousands of education administrators. Dan Inbar’s book on education planning is still a little gem that cuts through much of the nonsense and fads that education planners have to deal with.

5)   What do you think is the most under-researched area in South African education?

Difficult one, because virtually everything about education in South Africa is under-researched, by which I mean there’s not enough good research. Probably the things that make South Africa special are worth emphasising strongly: the language mix, exactly how education currently contributes towards breaking apartheid patterns in employment and entrepreneurship, and what can be done to improve that contribution.

6)   What is the best academic advice you’ve been given?

The T principle. Make sure you know enough big picture stuff (the horizontal bar), whilst making sure you also get good at a few technical things (the vertical). Without a bit of both, you’re stuck. I’m not sure where I got that T principle, it could have been from Luis Crouch, an amazing and sensible education economist who played an important role in the design of pro-poor funding policies in post-1994 South Africa.

7)   Being involved in the Department of Basic Education in South Africa I’m sure you have considerable first-hand experience of the real-world challenges that those in the civil service and in the Ministry face on a daily basis. Can you explain some of the under-appreciated challenges faced by the Director General and the Department?

There are lots of challenges, but let’s remember they’re not uniquely South African. Stifling bureaucracy, wrong people in the wrong jobs, corruption, and above all a cynical abandonment of any dream of a better future, these are features of governments around the world. I think some media and NGO pressure on government is good, some of it is not good at all. Amongst the latter I include poorly informed and populist pressure to create a first world country overnight. One gets better in stages, and understanding the complexities of this is something researchers, activists, journalists, but also government officials, need to do better. Otherwise we get stuck in a logjam of impossible expectations and despair.

8)   If you weren’t in education what do you think you would be doing?

Maybe acting. Or a politician. They’re of course related professions.

9)   Technology in education going forward – are you a fan or a sceptic?

I’m a fan. But I hate poorly informed hype, people who think it’s only a matter of faith, almost magic.

10) If you were given a R5-million research grant what would you use it for?

I’d use it for bursaries for young South Africans with potential to study economics of education, or something related, in good overseas institutions that are sensitive to developing country contexts. Okay, that’s not research, but it could lead to better and more research in future years.

11) Having a foot in both the academic and civil-service worlds, you are probably best positioned to answer the following question: what do you think could be done to bridge the gap between research and policy in education in South Africa?

Researchers and policy people need to meet face-to-face more often. Researchers need to read policy. What passes as ‘policy recommendations’ at the end of a lot of research documents is often horribly superficial and impractical. You can’t really make policy recommendations if you never read policy and don’t understand policymaking. We need to get over touchiness and power struggles, concerns over who is the master of the truth. We all understand bits of the puzzle, which is why we have to work collaboratively.

12) Given that you’ve done quite a lot of work on Latin American countries, what are the overarching lessons that you think we can learn from the education systems in places like Brazil and Chile?

My current favourites are, in the case of Chile, a government website that tells you, for each higher education institution and field, what graduates earn, and how soon they got jobs. Institutions are obliged, by law, to track ex-students for a few years and to report this information. In the case of Brazil, a standardised test applied at the first degree level in higher education institutions, where students do simple things like demonstrate their ability to reason logically. I should add the tests are field-specific. The resultant data, combined with data on the socio-economic status of students, is used to assess whether certain universities need management overhauls, or whether they should receive public funding for more student enrolments. I look at initiatives like this with envy, because our capacity and context in South Africa are not that different. We need to use data more creatively here.

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Martin is a prolific researcher and (unfortunately) only a fraction of his work is available in the public domain. His research is unashamedly policy-oriented and pragmatic yet it is still highly rigorous and far-reaching in scope. Largely as a result of this I would easily consider him one of the most influential researchers in South Africa as far as education policy is concerned. See his personal website (here) for a list of publications and related documents and see below for some of the articles I have found to be particularly interesting/useful:

• 2010. “South Africa’s economics of education: A stocktaking and an agenda for the way forward“. Paper co-written with Thabo Mabogoane.
• 2010. “Policy note on pre-primary schooling: An empirical contribution to the 2009 Medium Term Strategic Framework“
• 2011. “The when and how of leaving school: The policy implications of new evidence on secondary schooling in South Africa“
• His PhD dissertation is also quite fascinating and highly accessible – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Some of the other academics/policy-makers on my “to-interview” list include Servaas van der Berg, Thabo Mabogoane, Veronica McKay, Hamsa Venkatakrishnan, Volker Wedekind, John Kruger, Linda Biersteker, Jonathan Jansen, Jon Clark, Khulekani Mathe, Percy Moleke, and Joy Oliver. If you have any other suggestions drop me a mail and I’ll see what I can do.