ABET educator empowerment : a case study in the Limpopo Province

Abstract

This study is a systematic, objective investigation of educator empowerment, where the researcher explores the perspective of ABET educators. This study is presented against the backdrop of striking a balance between the conventional curriculum and Curriculum 2005 (OBE) because they exhibit a variety of challenges, anomalies and imbalances which led to the Revised National Curriculum Statements which will be implemented in 2006. It is informed by the fact that educators, if empowered, form an integral and central feature of changes in educational centres, especially in teaching adult learners to be able to assist their school-leaving children so as to improve provincial matric results, for example. The researcher focused on educators of ABET in Limpopo Province as the unit of analysis in this study. Interactive, cooperative, peer teaching, dialogic meditation, group and team teaching, constructivism and human resource development, reflective and multi-level approaches, are discussed with a particular focus on educator empowerment, including in-service training programmes. The researcher regards ”church settings” (her term) as inappropriate for effective teaching as they reduce educators to preachers and learners to congregants. This occurred as a result of the failure to recognise the importance of educator-learner, learner-learner and educator-educator interaction in the past curriculum. The study argues that the approaches mentioned are appropriate for this study.

Educator empowerment is a lived-in and continuous process, monitoring and evaluating of in-service training to ensure quality. It was therefore necessary to develop a research design that would make it possible to enable educators to implement the new curriculum. Qualitative research is based on an in-depth inquiry which captures an educator's personal perspectives and experiences. Focus groups and in-depth interviews, which exemplify qualitative methods, were seen to be the best research tools in gathering the data for this study.

The respondents, were UNISA ABET certificate students, and also professional educators at formal schools. They showed zeal in improving the educational situation. Their responses led to the model which has been developed in the thesis, culminating in uplifting the teaching profession and handling its multi-level led dynamic in an interactive and cooperative manner and reflecting in their experiences so that purposes of the National Qualifications Framework can be attained.