UWCScholar

This repository serves as a digital archive for the preservation of research outputs from the University of the Western Cape

Communities in UWCScholar

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 5 of 11

Recent Submissions

Towards facilitating decent work for all in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: an exploration of transitionary schemes for workers in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2025) Mohamed, Firoza
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is transforming workplace dynamics and reshaping the employer and employee relationship. Organisations must harness advanced technologies while addressing risks, which calls for amendments to labour legislation to safeguard workers’ rights, preserve industrial relations, and stimulate innovation. In South Africa, these challenges are heightened by unemployment, inequality, and skills deficits among youth and marginalised groups. Furthermore, the transformation of advanced technology such as automation, digitalisation, and artificial intelligence (AI) displacestraditional jobs while creating new opportunities, underscoring the urgency of reskilling. However, vulnerable sectors such as mining, manufacturing, and agriculture are most affected, while platform-based work exposes gaps in workforce regulation. Despite existing labour laws - including the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, and Skills Development Act 97 of 1998, remain rooted in a pre-digital era and inadequately address non-traditional work. This study argues for reform by redefining ‘employee,’ modernising skills development, and extending protections to gig workers through bodies such as the CCMA. However, a human-centred, rights-based approach is essential to uphold dignity, equality, and social justice in the evolving world of work under the 4IR.
Perspectives on bi/multilingual pedagogies: insights from a third-year linguistics module at a South African university
(University of the Western Cape, 2025) De Villiers, Firdous
There is a growing body of work which illustrates the need for and advantages of bi/multilingual education in South Africa. In recent years, academics have noted that bi/multilingual learning materials and assessments can be used to provide students, in both schools and higher education institutions, with a more nuanced understanding of academic content. The present study therefore seeks to contribute to the current literature surrounding bi/multilingual education in higher education institutions in South Africa. Drawing on the notions of language ideologies, translanguaging and critical language awareness, the study explores the use of bi/multilingual pedagogies by third year linguistics lecturers and their students at a selected university in the Western Cape in South Africa. A qualitative case study was conducted at a selected South African university. The study employed ethnographic tools such as observation and semi-structured interviews to gain an understanding of the lecturers’ and students’ perceptions surrounding bi/multilingual pedagogies. Furthermore, the study explores both oral and written instances of bi/multilingualism within the module. The study identified four main goals associated with bi/multilingual pedagogies in the module under study, namely, for identity investment and positionality, to promote cross linguistic transfer and metalinguistic awareness, to deepen understanding and develop new knowledge, and finally to encourage critical language awareness. Additionally, findings suggest that there are discrepancies between the lecture and tutorial spaces.
Exploring the effectiveness of digital transformation to improve performance at the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2025) Sylvester, Nico
Digital transformation pertains the use of digital technology is to innovate and improve existing processes, operations, or services within organisations or industries. The primary goal of digital transformation is to ensure effective service delivery. Digital transformation holds the promise of changing the modus operandi of various ministries, improving their performance and the quality of service provision to the citizens, thus where the public sector is concerned. However, there remain doubts about the efficacy of service delivery through the use of digital transformation. For example, delays in application processing for identity documents, passports, and Visa applications, extremely long queues in Home Affairs offices, and the use of technology in combating corruption are issues that put the effectiveness of digital transformation into question. In this regard, this study explores the effectiveness of digital transformation in the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa. The study also critically examines the efficacy of service delivery driven through digital transformation. The study used a qualitative research approach for this research. The study used secondary data collection to gather information. Accredited journal articles, departmental reports, and books were consulted and analysed in collecting data. Research findings will be organised through the use of thematic analysis to explore the effectiveness of digital transformation in the Department of Home Affairs, South Africa.
The path to free education: exploration of student revolts in South African Universities from an archival perspective
(University of the Western Cape, 2025) Morris, Keanu Caden
Forms of student resistance for social change have challenged and shaped the political customs of South Africa for decades. This was shown in the recent 2015/16 student uprisings in tertiary institutions that brought the public to a standstill and provided immediate debate on the future of education in an unequal society left by the Apartheid regime. As such, the protests challenged the social inequalities that poor students encounter consistently, referencing previous encounters with colonial propaganda like the BCM agenda in the 1970s, which became an analytical discourse between activists, management and the state respectively, with mainstream media a source that generates public debate. As a result, it often ignores archival sources that provide an opportunity to proclaim a different lens to student protestation in context, and its value to student resistance in its entirety. The mini dissertation seeks to understand and outline the importance of archival sources as sites of exploring student resistance history in South Africa. Furthermore, it serves to suggest and highlight the importance of historical sources underutilized by the wider public discourse and mainstream media. It also provides clarification on the discourse using popular archival sources in South Africa today such as the South African History Online (a widely recommended archive) and the Publica[c]tion archive (2017) respectively to cover and unpack the activist nature of students against the state in different eras. This includes contextual situations, similarities and differences of different student movements within the broader scope of challenging colonial propaganda. Nonetheless, the investigation, through its exploration on two different eras of student mobilization, takes on the approach of exploring underutilized or silent historical accounts rarely spoken by academics, and thus, shedding light on its history to illustrate the involvement, nature and impact of student resistance in the social and political landscape of South Africa.
Debt crisis in the local governments of South Africa: a policy and legal analysis.
(University of the Western Cape, 2025) Prins, Whitney
This thesis critically examines the policy and legal framework governing the escalating debt crisis in South Africa’s local governments, with a particular focus on identifying legally sustainable and institutionally effective mechanisms to address municipal indebtedness and restore sound financial governance. Although South Africa possesses a robust legislative framework—anchored in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act, 2003 (Act No. 56 of 2003) (MFMA), and the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, 2000 (Act No. 32 of 2000) (MSA)—many municipalities remain in severe financial distress. This has resulted in an inability to honour debts owed to critical entities such as Eskom and the water boards, thereby threatening the constitutional mandate of local government to ensure sustainable service delivery and to promote socio-economic development. Adopting a qualitative, desktop-based research methodology, the study analyses both primary and secondary legal sources, including legislation, government policy documents, judicial decisions, academic commentary, and official reports. The analysis reveals that while the existing legal and policy frameworks are comprehensive in design, their practical implementation is undermined by systemic governance failures. Key issues identified include poor revenue management, misappropriation of funds, corruption, inadequate fiscal oversight, political interference, and a general lack of financial management capacity within municipalities. These weaknesses have led to widespread non-compliance with statutory obligations under the MFMA and related legislation, thereby exacerbating financial instability and diminishing public trust in local governance.