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Enhancing TVET through digital transformation in developing countries

Digital transformation is a complex process that with varying impacts across economic sectors. In the education and training sector, digital transformation in TVET can involve TVET operational systems (administration, finance, human resources, building infrastructure and maintenance, student registration, etc.); classroom delivery (learning management, instructional delivery methods, etc.); and the actual knowledge and skill component of the curriculum, for example by integrating productivity software such as word processors or spreadsheets into students’ learning outcomes. The integration of digital skills in the TVET curriculum allows learners to acquire the changing skills and knowledge (tacit and explicit) required to function in a digitalizing society, economy and labour market. Digital transformation in TVET is also transforming the dominant modalities of traditional face-to-face learning and teaching to involve multiple configurations of actors (learners, teachers and technologies/apps) in space and time (when, where, who, how). This means that digital transformation in TVET offers opportunities for teachers to reconsider their pedagogical assumptions, behaviours and relationships with students.

Keynote address delivered at Rhodes University PhD Symposium, July 2015 by Yvonne Reed, School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand. Presents an overview of findings from several research studies, including the Initial Teacher Education Research Project (ITERP).

Taylor N. (2007). Also published as Chapter 29 IN: International Handbook of School Effectiveness and Improvement . Springer International Handbooks of Education , Vol. 17. Townsend, Tony (Ed.). Dordrecht: Springer.

Examining Successful Numeracy Programs: Evaluating learner mathematics outcomes in an RCT in South Africa

Presented at the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Washington on February 21, 2023. The Marko-D test is based on an empirically validated model of children’s progressive understanding of numerical concepts. The model was developed in Germany, based on theoretical suppositions and empirical data (Fritz, Ehlert & Leutner, 2018).In the model, the number concept is viewed as a requirement for the construction of arithmetical skills. These concepts gradually build upon each other, creating a continuum (or a pathway of learning progression) of increasing complexity (Henning, Ehlert, Balzer, Ragpot, Herholdt, & Fritz, 2019). This is in line with the South African school curriculum for the foundation phase (elementary school) which requires the development of basic number concepts. The Marko-D is a story-based, individually administered oral test, which provides diagnostic information regarding the child's number concept development (Herholdt, 2017), which in turn can be used to inform re-teaching, interventions and remediation. In 2022 JET, in collaboration with Bala Wande set out to expand the existing South African version of the Marko-D from the four language versions (English, Afrikaans, isiZulu and Sesotho) validated by the University of Johannesburg and published in 2019 (Henning, Ehlert, Balzer, Ragpot, Herholdt, & Fritz, 2019) include a Sepedi version. A second round of piloting was completed in the third term of 2022 in a sample of in excess of 1800 grade 1 learners. A Rasch analysis was carried out and the results were reported at the CIES conference in Washington DC on 21 February 2023 by Dr Ingrid Sapire who is the Head of Maths at Funda Wande, based at WITS University. A final pilot of the Sepedi version is planned for 2023 as well as expanding the validation process to include concurrent validation with the Hybrid EGMA used in the Bala Wande initiative.