Prof. Shirley Walters

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10566/1684

Position:	Emerita Professor
Department:	Division For Lifelong Learning (DLL)
Qualifications:
	My publications in this repository
More about me:	here, and here
Tel:	+27 (0)21 959 3339/3625
Fax:	+27 (0)21 959 1289
Email:	swalters@uwc.ac.za

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Now showing 1 - 17 of 17

Ecofeminisms and education: repositioning gender and environment in education
(Routledge, 2024) Walters, Shirley; Gough, Annette; Ho, Yi Chien Jade
Bcakground: This issue of Gender and Education explores aspects of the relationship of ecofeminisms and the environment to gender and education in the broadest sense. It provides an opportunity to re-think how ecofeminisms have, or could, inform educational theory and practice. In our call for papers, we suggested the following questions as one way of sparking ideas for contributors: How is ecofeminist thought currently being taken up in practice in diverse educational sites (e.g. early childhood, elementary, secondary and higher education, informal, community and adult education, activist learning, social learning, public pedagogies)? How does ecofeminist-inspired education, training, or activist pedagogies perpetuate and/or disrupt dominant ideologies about gender and the marginalization of diverse voices? What affinities and tensions are at play between ecofeminisms and feminist new materialisms, intersectionality, and/or posthumanism, and what might these imply for gender and education? How could critical environmentally-oriented education movements and subfields (e.g. climate justice education, common worlds pedagogies, critical animal-focused education, critical food education, environmental justice education, Land education, queer ecopedagogies, etc.) be more informed by ecofeminism, and what directions could that take those fields? What could ecofeminisms contribute to queer feminisms and what could queer feminisms contribute to ecofeminisms in the context of educational practice and theory?
Equity, access and success: adult learners in public higher education
(Council on Higher Education, 2007) Buchler, Michelle; Castle, Jane; Osman, Ruksana; Walters, Shirley
Unlike research into access and success for school-leavers entering higher education (HE) in South Africa, very little research has been conducted into adult learners in HE. Apart from generalized, albeit extensive, socio-economic studies on poverty and inequality, including changing patterns of participation in education more generally (for example, Gelb, 2003), there is little information, at the systems level, on ‘deeper’ questions, such as the push/pull factors for adult learners entering higher education, the barriers they face and experience once in higher education institutions, their success and completion rates, and their reasons for entering HE institutions. These issues have taken on a much greater significance than before in post-1994 higher education policy developments that call for the widening of the social base of higher education to include, inter alia, adult learners. In this context, the broad purpose of the research was to find out whether a higher education system that facilitates access, equity and success for adult learners exists or is being formulated in South Africa. One aspect of the research was to investigate the participation rates of adult learners in the higher education system, in general, and to attempt to identify variables (apart from age), such as gender, class, race, marital status and family obligations, employment status and sectors, and funding sources, which may characterize adult learners as a distinct group. The second aspect of the research was to study the ways in which three public institutions – the Vaal University of Technology (VUT), the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) – engage with adult learners as a ‘special’ category of student. This aspect of the study was designed to identify systemic and contextual factors that facilitate or hinder the participation of adult learners, and to provide insights into the nature and quality of adult learners’ experiences of particular institutions and programmes. The questions that framed the research were: • Who are the adult learners in public higher education? How are they defined and characterized? How are these understandings of adult learners reflected in programme design? • Which programmes do adult learners access? What is the nature and quality of these programmes? • Are institutions responsive to adult learners, and to policies advocating an increase in their participation? Why, or why not?
Lifelong, life-wide and life-deep learning: utilizing the lens of HIV/AIDS
Walters, Shirley
In this presentation, I use a discussion on pedagogies of HIV/AIDS as a lens to sharpen and clarify ways of thinking about adult and lifelong learning, particularly in and for the majority world. HIV/AIDS highlight some of the most difficult social, economic, cultural and personal issues that any adult educators have to confront. I adopt a critical participatory action research methodology to reflect back on the approaches we have developed over several years. From these experiences, our observations are that working with people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS bring into sharp focus the need for pedagogical approaches (i) to include male and female, children and adults across generations, for all ages (i.e. lifelong learning); (ii) to recognize the importance of sustainable livelihoods and systemic issues in a life-wide approach (i.e. life wide learning); and (iii) to work with deeply personal issues relating to death and sexual relations which tap into the cultural, spiritual, and intimate aspects of people’s lives (i.e. life deep learning). I use theoretical frameworks from feminist popular education, post-colonial theory and adult and lifelong learning. The paper is a ‘work in progress’.
Building a learning region: Whose framework of lifelong learning matters?
(Springer, 1992) Walters, Shirley
This chapter is part of a book that aims to provide an accessible, practical and scholarly source of information about the international concern for the philosophy, theory, categories, and concepts of lifelong learning. In this chapter, the author examines the development of ‘learning regions’ in various parts of the world as a means for understanding how lifelong learning is enmeshed in the socio-economic and political approaches of a region. The development of indicators in one learning region in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, is used to demonstrate how complex and contested lifelong learning is. It is also used to identify a range of paradoxes, which are at the heart of lifelong learning.
Reflecting on the global report on adult learning and education in the “post-truth society”
(Sage, 2017) Walters, Shirley; Watters, Kathy
This article contextualizes and reviews the third global report on adult learning and education (ALE) released by UNESCO in 2016. The authors suggest that it is a visionary document, which is articulated through the bringing together of data from a range of areas that are usually kept apart. They recognize the report as a bold attempt to project what role ALE plays, or could play, within a holistic philosophy and approach to lifelong learning. They argue that given the ambitious nature of the task, and the inevitable tensions and contradictions that exist within a report of this nature, the report both fails to present a robust picture of ALE and succeeds as an advocacy document toward achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. They recognize that the political and pedagogical work undertaken by the third Global Report on Adult Learning and Education is at an early stage. Alongside this work, they argue for the importance of the broader nonformal and informal ALE, including popular education, as a means of challenging the “post-truth society.”
Non-governmental organisations and the South African state: present and future relations.
(Community Development Journal, 1993) Walters, Shirley
The article explores the relationship between the state and NGOs in order to address the question: Is there a place for non-governmental, community based organisations in a democratic South African state? Section One elaborates the relationship between oppositional NGOs and the apartheid state. Section Two discusses trends in relations between NGOs and various states, particularly in Africa and Latin America. In Section Three there is a preliminary discussion of issues for South African NGOs in the light of trends elsewhere.
Social movements, class, and adult education
(Wiley, 2005) Walters, Shirley
Social movements are movements of people in civil society who cohere around issues and identities that they themselves define as significant (Martin, 1999). The following quotation describes a group of poor women in South Africa, a group calling itself People’s Dialogue, who are mobilizing around their need for houses. They are part of a social movement of women and men internationally who are collectively struggling for access to land and houses.
Adult learning within lifelong learning: a different lens a different light
(Wayne Hugo, 2006) Walters, Shirley
Adult learning is located within a lifelong learning framework both as a lens for looking back and for projecting forward. The competing views of adult and lifelong learning are discussed and a preliminary overview of what has been achieved within adult learning in the last 10 years in South Africa is given. Lifelong learning and the learning region are suggested as frameworks for providing a ‘connected up’ approach to human development, and a possibility for finding ‘troubled spaces of possibilities’ (Edwards and Usher, 2005) to create new solutions to old problems.
Realising a lifelong learning higher education institution
(Routledge, 2005) Walters, Shirley
Activists and scholars committed to lifelong learning for social justice and democratic citizenship have devised a framework for transforming higher education in the new South Africa. The author draws on this work, developed at the University of the Western Cape, to examine the extent to which her own institution is addressing the challenges it presents. The former context of apartheid has left a legacy where few black and poor people – particularly women – have had experience of higher education. To realize the potential of lifelong learning in an emancipatory narrative requires an awareness of issues for change for individuals and organizations. Ultimately, it involves challenging ideas and assumptions about identity, pedagogy, epistemology and power relations.
Learning/work: Turning work and lifelong learning inside out
(Springer, 2011) Walters, Shirley
CONFINTEA VI took place against the background of an uneven and contradictory social and economic impact of globalisation. This impact registered globally and locally, in both the political North and South, drawing new lines of inequality between “core” and “periphery”, between insiders and outsiders of contemporary society. Financial turmoil in the world has exacerbated levels of poverty and insecurity. The question is how work related education and conceptions of learning might promote greater inclusion and security for those whose livelihoods are most severely affected by globalisation. The Belem Framework for Action implicitly recognises that lifelong learning and work cannot be discussed outside broader socio-economic and political contexts. The authors of this article draw substantially on research from around the world and argue for the re-insertion of “politics and power” into both the theory and practice of “lifelong Learning” and “work”.
Navigating the National Qualifications Framework: the role of career guidance
(UNISA, 2009) Walters, Shirley; Watts, A. G.; Fledeman, P.
The South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) recently commissioned a review of the career development field in South Africa. The review was designed to clarify what SAQA’s role might be in assisting learners throughout life to navigate their ways through the complex array of education, training and work opportunities (including, but not confined to, those within higher education). This article situates the initiative historically and, in particular, in relation to the experiences in the late 1970s and 1980s of the first community-based non-governmental career development organisation, the Careers Research and Information Centre (CRIC). It also locates it in relation to policy developments internationally. It argues that the time is ripe for a high-level national career development initiative in South Africa that could act as a catalyst for career development services across all education, training and work sectors, both public and private, within a lifelong learning philosophy and approach.
Re-imagining a picture: Higher education in lifelong learning
(IIZ/DVV, Hamburg, Germany, 2000) Walters, Shirley; Volbrecht, Terry
In using “lifelong learning” as the frame to observe higher education institutions, our gaze focuses both internally and externally. Internally we see a concern to ensure high quality, and flexible teaching and learning which highlights the needs of diverse individual learners and the multifaceted professional development of staff. Externally we notice an emphasis on helping to ensure access by a range of constituencies to socially and economically relevant education, training and research opportunities. This framework highlights, in new ways, what separate bodies of literature have called “university teaching”, “academic development”, “higher education studies”, “adult education”, “continuing education”, “human resource development”, and “organizational development”.
Lifelong learning and connected-up development: insights from South Africa
(UNESCO, 2011) Walters, Shirley
Lifelong learning through the four major stages of people’s development (Schuller and Watson 2009) embodies the need for integrated, connected-up approaches to development. I will reference briefly three examples in action of connected-up approaches to development from South Africa which are examples of national, regional and institutional approaches to lifelong learning. They are: the National Qualifications Framework, the Learning Cape, and the University of Western Cape. I will start with highlighting the social purposes of lifelong learning and the socio-economic and political context, both of which frame the discussion.
Discussion document: understanding the dynamics of part-time studies at UWC
(University of the Western Cape, 2003) Watters, Kathy; Koetsier, Jos; Walters, Shirley
This study into understanding the dynamics of part-time studies at UWC is part of on-going institutional research that is required to improve the conditions of and services to part-time students at UWC. Approximately 23% of UWC’s students are part-time in any one year. One of DLL’s mandates is to grow and develop the part-time programme. Through the DLL Board there has been an enquiry into financing part-time students through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). This has lead the Board to pose questions about the dynamics of the part-time programme and what it means to be part-time at UWC2. This paper is a preliminary report in progress and covers three of the following research aims. A subsequent paper will cover recommendations for improving the quality of part-time programme. The research aims of this documents are: (1) To help the institution think about the future of the part-time programme amidst the many shifts in national policy that affect the part-time programme, (2) to create clarity about the part-time terminology, (3) to get a better understanding of the actual dynamics of the part-time programme at UWC and the student profiles in terms of study patterns, class attendance (during the day or during after hours), payments records and need for financial aid, (4) To generate practical recommendations for quality enhancement of the part-time programme in terms of protocols for quality improvement and contractual obligations, staff development processes and student support.
University of the Western Cape Lifelong Learning by 2001 'Giving content to commitment'
(University of the Western Cape, 1997) Walters, Shirley
The report draws on findings from an investigation into the feasibility of a university-wide Programme of Lifelong Learning at UWC. The survey was completed by three Task Groups of the Rector to investigate Distance Education, Resource-based Learning and Continuing Professional Education. The investigation consisted of surveys and interview of RBL and DE practices on the one hand and of CPE on the other. There was a 38% return rate of questionnaires of RBL and DE and 42 submissions received on CPE.
Continuing professional education at the University of the Western Cape - survey results
(University of the Western Cape, 1997) Koetsier, Jos; Walters, Shirley
UWC has since 1998 a new Mission Statement which commits the university to Lifelong Learning. Since 1996 there has been a process to give content to this commitment. The process included surveys of distance education and resource-based learning at UWC, continuing professional education and an overall report with recommendations on Lifelong Learning by 2001. This report is a further component of the investigation into lifelong learning which highlights specifically the situation of Continuing Professional Education in all faculties, School and Centres and how to quality assure the programmes. The report formulates recommendations to increase enrolments and how to acquire full accreditation through the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA). It recommends the development of an institutional CPE policy and course database in line with this goal.
ABET and development in the Northern Cape province: Assessing impacts of CACE courses, 1996-1999
(Centre for Continuing and Adult Education (CACE), University of the Western Cape, 2001) Kerfoot, Caroline; Geidt, Jonathan; Alexander, Lucy; Dayile, Nomvuyo; Groener, Zelda; Hendricks, Natheem; Walters, Shirley
This study presents the results of an investigation into the impact of CACE courses for adult educators, trainers and development practitioners. The report describes how the courses affected the training practices and lives of past students. Case studies document and analyse the problems and successes of implementing capacity-building ABET training in the Northern Cape.

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