Journal of African Education (JAE) Volume 2, Number 3, December 2021
About This Edition
ISSN : 2633-2922 E-ISSN: 2633-2930
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I would like to present this editorial note that reflects on my personal account of the academic writing journey in higher education. In this reflection, I look back at my journey in entering a new academic writing terrain. I reflect on difficulties of venturing into academic writing, and re-assessing my lived experiences after I found my foot in the academic writing terrain. This editorial also presents the articles presented in the Journal of African Education (JAE), Volume 2, Issue 3.
Part 1: My personal account of my academic writing journey in higher education
As a black South African female academic and researcher, I found it relevant to tell my story, a story to which many black South Africans can relate. In this editorial, I want to reflect on the academic writing deficiencies assailing the black postgraduate South African in higher education. I also propose some viable options that could alleviate their plight. This article is not a replica of the “black academic voices’’ by Khunou, Phaswana, Khoza-Shangase and Canham (2019). However, it stems from the same initiative of advancing academic writing based on my personal account of academic writing competencies and those of some of black South African students and researchers in higher education. The problem of academic writing is real as reflected in literature. Schulze & Lemmer, (2017) study confirms that academic writing is a cause for delay in completing research-based studies and that cluttered writing lacking in suasion and competent argumentation stalls the purposeful engagement between postgraduate students with their supervisors in producing quality research reports.
The question is what is academic language? What is the language of learning and teaching (LoLT); the language that carries the research questions and the methods we use to respond to these lived problems? From a South African school context, language can be defined as “the means by which a person learns to organise experiences and thoughts” (Department of Basic Education, 2010: 5). In the same document by the DBE, LoLT is defined as “language or medium of instruction via which learning and teaching (including assessment) for all subjects is facilitated.” Myburgh, Poggenpoel and Van Rensburg (2004: 2) study identified a dilemma in South Africa wherein learners who do not “speak the language of instruction” stand the risk of not receiving authentic teaching and learning.” Despite this signal and positive strides made in the foundation phase of using indigenous languages [home language] as language of learning and teaching (LoLT), South Africa has not succeeded in delivering all subject content in other phases and higher education in the home language.
The black South Africans have to pay a price, and a huge price for their blackness. The price paid by South African children is the costly premium of not being served, like other children, who speak English and Afrikaans from home. This costs the black South African student their futures in school and university, and ultimately their futures on the job market. The basic education’s intention, on producing students who would participate in the global economy has become an elusive goal or a mere myth. Although the Department of Basic Education is in the know, it is sadly doing little to change the circumstances of the black children in South Africa. There is evidence to this matter. In 2020, DBE released a document on “the status of the language of learning and teaching (LOLT) in schools: a quantitative review.” For the past ten years, DBE sat to produce this document, yet nothing of substance has changed, even with all the qualitative review characterising this document.
The sole mandate of DBE is to bring social transformation in schools, by crafting policies and plans and educational provisions designed to effect changes required of the language and curriculum. Nevertheless, the DBE has maintained the status quo where schools are run in the same structuration as during Bantu Education. The is virtually no difference if language policy cannot benefit the masses of the South African schooling public. In a speech by the honourable Dr Aaron Motswoaledi when he was still the Minister of Education in Limpopo Province, he indicated “le loilwe ke mang ge le gana bana ba lena ba ithuta ka leleme la letswele,” loosely translated to mean who bewitched you to refuse your children to learn in their mother tongue (Motswoaledi, 2007). He was responding to parents' marches and demonstrations against home language in public schools in Polokwane.
It bothers me as a researcher and activist to learn that the use of English as LoLT in black public schools, “accounts for the school ineffectiveness and low academic achievement experienced by students” in South Africa (DBE, 2010). The DBE (2010: 5) reiterates the World Bank in recognising the benefits of using home language as LoLT as “increased access; improved learning outcomes; reduced chances of repetition and drop-out rates; and socio-cultural benefits.” This is the range of benefits that the country forfeits for not implementing the home language policy across schools and universities. The same children are expected to develop writing skills for their progress in school; and later, the superior academic writing skills required for progress in higher education.
The sticky question is “what is academic writing”? And what is its place in higher education, and postgraduate studies, specifically the skills required for writing an article or a book chapter for publication?
Perpignan, Rubin, B and Katznelson (2007) define academic writing as “a critical and essential and helpful contributor to the academic success of non-native speakers undertaking their studies in
English.” Irvin, (2010: 3) offers another perspective of academic writing, insisting that “the success in academic writing depends on how well the students understand the writing task” by building mental images of what is expected of the writer; that subsequently lead to the adoption of an approach that helps them complete the writing task.
Academic writing competence is crucial for the high levels of throughput in postgraduate studies (Schulze & Lemmer, 2017, Wilmot, 2018); and improved rates in research output by individual academics (Sonn, 2016). It has become a current practice by all public universities in South Africa “to increase the subsidy received from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the research output of students and staff” (Sonn, 2016: 226). Therefore, the scarcity of research in academic writing skills points to a marginalisation of the challenges of writing for publication. This turning of a blind eye to the behemoth in our midst has far reaching effects in the urgent need to address this practice. On the other hand, the effects of Bantu Education and its curricular backlogs did not matter much to higher education as long as the so intended few accessed and disseminated selective knowledge. High levels of school and university dropout in South Africa can be blamed on government reneging on its responsibility to address understaffing and under-resourcing. However, teacher factors such as lack of content and pedagogical knowledge (Spaull, 2013) and difficulties experienced by students in using the language of teaching and learning continue to assail individual researchers.
In my teaching experience of 18 years in the Limpopo Department of Education, I had the experience of teaching learners without basic content knowledge required for them to understand Grade 12 Biology. In 2003, I was troubled the most when I had to pass the Grade 12 Biology group that I was allocated in my new promotional post as a deputy principal. I initiated classroom discussion with the students that yielded better results. I displayed similar levels of inadequacies as my students; and declared their class as “an intensive care unit” that required astute intervention.
I want to recognise the people who changed my thinking and allowed me spaces to interact with the realities facing my lack of competency in academic writing. I have grown to become a spokesperson for black South Africans [in my small corner] on matters of education and the future of their children in the public schooling system. My humble beginnings are a specimen match for all blacks who went to school in nearly the same situation. This background granted me opportunity to have the lived experiences that I reflect upon in my writings, and this editorial in particular. I want to use the story of my mentors and reflecting upon myself in my academic writing journey. I have many of the mentors, but for the sake of this editorial, I will acknowledge only three of them.
Professor Matshidiso Maria Kanjere has seen a diamond, not discovered by the owner. Together with her husband, Reverend George Kanjere, she started with plans for extracting and unravelling the diamond in the field. Yes, I was not like the Grade 12 Biology class who realised in the first meeting that, there are things that needed to be put right. I was dragged into the future of academia and academic writing in particular. I was privileged to engage with people like Professor Kanjere. Her willingness to mentor and support makes her a great woman in academia. I look forward to seeing her become A-rated researcher and Professor Emeritus. Yes, I know all these are possible with her, in our life time.
My mentor and the former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Dr Makgwana Rampedi from the University of Limpopo took it upon himself on different occasions to remind the higher education students, academics and researchers that “Africa, you are on your own”. In many of his speeches that were delivered as welcoming and closing speeches during the Spring Lectures, he ensured his audience appreciated their Africa and Africaness. He pointed out the spaces around us, with us, and for us, as he promoted collective participation in generating new and relevant knowledges, re-inscribing the essence of togetherness among the Black South Africans (Rampedi, 2013). My conceptions of “who I am” started to take shape during his speeches. He is one of the scholars that I would like to appreciate for inculcating and instilling the black consciousness zeal for success despite deprived circumstances. These speeches played a significant role in realizing my inadequacies in academic writing and the value of such competence for one’s success in higher education. I want to believe that this state of affairs should trouble those with similar development experiences.
My gratitude goes to my academic writing mentor, Professor Muchativugwa Liberty Hove. When I was still on the other side of the river, he offered me a boat that I could not oar. He offered himself for both, the boat and the oars to spur it along. He served as my barometer when my English was just not readable to say the points I sorely wanted to make. Marred with language errors, my sentences and paragraphs were without coherence and cohesion. My arguments floundered because the words were just not in the right sequence. He assisted in scaffolding my academic writing skills and today I can rate myself as average. And he still continues building on my academic writing, every time I send my articles or students‟ dissertations and theses for editing.
I want to recommend the establishment of academic writing groups and academic writing programmes. The aim must be set to create postgraduate student learning platforms and communities of practice among participants that must translate into timely completion of research proposals and postgraduate studies. In this editorial I would like to stress some of the points raised in Wilmot (2018) and Sengane and Havenga (2018), whose recommendations on improving academic writing of students and academic staff comprise the following:
1.Create writing groups that are disciplinary focused
2.Promote co-teaching and support among group members
3.Cultivate learning opportunities by actively engaging students in writing related to their projects
4.Offer a well-planned postgraduate writing programme coupled with good coordination;
5.Writing group and writing programme need to create space for students to learn from one another
6.The timing of the writing group programme should promote student success
7.Plan the writing programme to impact on student presentation of research to school and faculty research committees.
8.Institutional support addressing personal, academic and research related challenges should be provided to enhance student experiences and completion.
Part 2: Contents of the issue
Journal of African Education presents December Issue composed of Volume 2 Issue 3. The Issue has nine papers ranging from primary education to higher education. The editorial section was authored by Kgomotlokoa Linda Thaba-Nkadimene, and reports on “my personal account of the academic writing journey in higher education”.
The first paper is titled “the integrity of names and name changing (renaming) in post-apartheid South Africa: a case of South African universities” authored by Mphela, KL, Ramusi, JM and LE Mphasha, LE.
Paper 2 is titled “Leadership Development Programs for Students in the Higher Education setting: A REAIM Systematic Review” authored by Frantz, JA, Yassin, ZB, Abrahams, CA; George, AA; Sokupa, TA; Songo, SA; Jansen van Vuuren, CC and Du Plessis, MC.
Paper 3 is titled, “Massification Implications on Andragogical Approaches to Quantitative Modules in Zimbabwe‟s Higher Education”. This paper is authored by Shepard Makurumidze, Jacob Mapara and Miriam Jengeta.
Paper 4 titled, Exploring the prospects of big data analytics in colleges of education in Ghana. This paper is authored by Alu Augustine A.
Paper 5 titled, “The Impact of Covid-19 In Higher Learning Institutions In South Africa: Teaching And Learning Under Lockdown Restrictions”authored by Sifiso Alfred Khoza.
Paper 6 titled, “Resilience Processes Employed in Child-Headed Households in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe: Silent Cries of Adolescent Secondary School Learners, authored by Pedzisai Goronga and Motlalepule Ruth Mampane.
Paper 7 titled: Ethnic minorities in the Ghanaian primary school history syllabus: A call for a systematic representation, authored by Charles Adabo Oppong, Godwin Gymah and Isaac Yeboah.
Paper 8 titled, “Causes and consequences of school dropout in Kinshasa: students perspectives before and after dropping out”, authored by Kayonda Hubert Ngamaba, Laddy Sedzo Lombo, Congo and Gloria Lombo.
Paper 9 titled, “Technologies, technological skills and curriculum needs for South African public TVET college students for relevance in the 4IR era”, authored by Varaidzo Denhere.
References
Department of Basic Education (2010). The status of the language of learning and teaching (LOLT) in schools: A quantitative review. Pretoria: Government Publishers.
Khunou, G., Phaswana, E. D., Khoza-Shangase, K., & Canham, H. (Eds.). (2019). Black academic voices: The South African experience. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Irvin, L. L. (2010). What is “Academic” Writing? Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, 1, 3-17.
Motswoaledi, A. (2007). Addressing School Principals and Parents on the Implementation of Language Policy in the Foundation Phase. Unpublished Speech.
Myburgh, O., Poggenpoel, M. and Van Rensburg, W. 2004. Learners‟ experience of teaching and learning in a second or third language. Education, 124(3):573.
Nel, N., & Muller, H. (2010). The impact of teachers' limited English proficiency on English second language learners in South African schools. South African Journal of Education, 30(4), 635-650.
Perpignan, H., Rubin, B., & Katznelson, H. (2007). „By-products‟: The added value of academic writing instruction for higher education. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(2), 163-181.
Rampedi, M.A. (2013). Africa you are on your own. Speaking on behalf of the Vice Chancellor, University of Limpopo. Spring Lecture, Closing Ceremony. Unpublished Speech. Not published.
Schulze, S., & Lemmer, E. (2017). Supporting the development of postgraduate academic writing skills in South African universities. Per Linguam: A Journal of Language Learning= Per Linguam: Tydskrif vir Taalaanleer, 33(1), 54-66.
Sengane, M. L., & Havenga, Y. (2018). Challenges experienced by postgraduate nursing students at a South African university. Health SA Gesondheid, 23(1), 1-9.
Sonn, R. (2016). The challenge for a historically disadvantaged South African university to produce more postgraduate students. South African Journal of Higher Education, 30(2), 226-241.
Wilmot, K. (2018). Designing writing groups to support postgraduate students‟ academic writing: A case study from a South African university. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 55(3), 257-