Subarea Leader: Dr A Masunungure

Subarea Members: Prof P Engelbrecht, Prof J Hay, Dr C Joubert, Dr I Payne-van staden, Dr A Masunungure, Dr P Jama, Ms R Modiba

Focus:

• Teacher efficacy within inclusive education
• Perspectives of learners about inclusive education
• District- and School-based support teams
• Lay counselling for communities - via NWU BEd Hons and BEd alumni

Book on Education Support Services

• Currently in production at AOSIS: Reconceptualising Education Support Services in South Africa

Projects

• Perspectives on the psychosocial lay counselling and educational contribution and role of NWU BEd Hons Learner Support alumni in their school communities – and possible intervention strategies to extend this contribution.

What are the perspectives on the psychosocial lay counselling and educational contribution and role of NWU BEd Hons Learner Support alumni in their school communities – and possible intervention strategies to extend this contribution?

The North-West University has been training post-graduate teaching students at BEd Hons level in various programmes. One being Learner Support (currently called Special Needs Education) with modules being taught to equip students to provide psychosocial and educational wellness to diverse communities. The following modules are provided in the first year and second year of this programme: CEPS (Community Educational Psychology); FLCE (Facilitation and Lay Counselling in Education); IELS (Inclusive Education) and APLS (Applied Learner Support). In the second year of study a research project must also be sucessfully completed to ensure graduation. CEPS and FLCE are aimed at providing knowledge and skills to students to enable them to support diverse communities on a psychosocial level, while IELS and APLS are focused on supporting learners with special needs and barriers to learning – and thus  focusing on supporting learners within an Inclusive Education Context and in collaboration with School Based Support team members. According to the Education White paper 6 (DoE, 2001), inclusive education aims to provide equal access to all learners irrespective of differences in regard to abilities or disabilities, gender, race or culture.  For post-graduate students in the South African school context the skills taught in modules such as the ones referred to above mean that teachers might have some capacity to provide special needs learners with basic supportive psychosocial lay counselling and educational guidance that includes, for example, help with study methods, qualitative and informal career guidance, overcoming barriers to learning, inter- and intra-personal skills, conflict and stress management. However teachers are also expected to work collaboratively within an ecosystemic approach to provide the necessary psychosocial and educational support to learners or to facilitate learners’ access to the applicable support needed. As such, I conclude that teachers who fulfill a learner support role in their school community are tasked with developing learners’ full educational, personal and social potential (Davis, 2010; DoDEA, 2006). Referral represents a large component of such support. According to the Professional Board of Psychology (2007), registered counsellors need to refer their clients to psychologists, social workers or any other professional when a problem is beyond the scope of their practice. The same applies to teachers fulfilling a learner support function, perhaps even more so than for registered counsellors, who have formal counselling training: teachers fulfilling a learner support role are thus duty bound to refer to applicable professionals when they are unable to deal with a particular problem (Professional Board of Psychology, 2007; Van Niekerk & Hay, 2009) and are specifically trained to understand and respect this imperative (Kitching, 2012). However, referral might prove to be difficult because of a lack of professionals such as registered counsellors, psychologists or social workers (Hay, 2018). Other reasons might be because of limited finance, poverty, HIV/AIDS, political agendas or a non-functional SBST and DBST (Pillay, 2007). Researching the different perspectives on the psychosocial lay counselling and educational contributions Learner Support alumni are currently making to school communities (and finding possible intervention strategies) could be valuable resources if teachers are working in a context that offers no or a very limited referral network (Visser, 2007). In such instances it is Learner Support almuni’s ethical duty to provide the best possible care, but without going beyond the scope of their training, much like the ethical duty of trained counsellors to provide quality care without going beyond what they are trained to do (Prilleltensky, 2002; Visser, 2007). In summary, offering psychosocial lay counselling and providing educational guidance are core learner support tasks that could be challenging. The challenges are likely to increase if Learner Support alumni are under-trained or without professional referral networks.

• Improving psychosocial and educational support, rendered by designated education support structures, to learners and teachers in various schools of the nine provinces of South Africa

How do (and how can) District-based and School-based Support Teams, Full-service Schools and Special Schools Resource Centres of the nine provinces (be empowered to) render psychosocial and educational support to learners and teachers?

Secondly how can they be capacitated to align with the envisaged services as articulated by the Department of (Basic) Education’s policy documents on education support?

Building on an earlier NWU Faculty of Education project, the first phase of this project is specifically to support an approved NWU AOSIS Book Project called: Reconceptualising Education Support Services in South Africa – to be published early in 2021. This phase mainly deals with collecting survey-type data. The second phase focuses on action research interventions within a number of designated education support service structures, aiming at improving support to learners and teachers.

The advent of inclusive education in South Africa brought with it substantial changes to the thinking about and structuring of Education Support Services (ESS)(Donald, Lazarus & Moolla, 2014). Some of the far-reaching changes were that ESS staff should work towards retaining learners within inclusive classes (as opposed to referring them to specialised settings), also support the school system and adults in the learner’s life (as opposed to only focus on an individual learner’s problems) and bring educational and psychosocial support in better balance (as opposed to the domination of psychology in the special education system)(Hay, 2003).

Some of the fundamental pillars/structures upon which ESS (and psycho-socio-educational support) are built, are School-based Support Teams (SBST), District-based Support Teams (DBST), Full-service Schools (FSS) and Special Schools Resources Centres (SSRC)(SIAS, 2014). Each school is supposed to have an SBST to support teachers and learners where in-class strategies have failed. Each district also should have at least one DBST consisting of a multi-disciplinary team that can intervene where SBSTs are not successful. FSS and SSRCs are furthermore the natural spaces where learners experiencing moderate to severe barriers should be supported. The challenge 19 years after the publication of White Paper 6 on Special Needs Education: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System (DoE, 2001), is that it appears as if schools and provinces have implemented the ESS component of inclusive education in an inconsistent and erratic manner. This research primarily aims at determining how provinces and schools have established SBSTs, DBSTs, FSS and SSRCs – and how these are contributing to psycho-social and educational support of learners and teachers, the findings of which will be published in an AOSIS Book: Reconceptualising Education Support Services in South Africa. Following on the book publication, the second phase will be about empowering SBSTs, DBSTs, FSS and SSRCs in the different provinces through an action research design to improve their psycho-social and educational service rendering.

The first aim of this 3½ year-long research project is to obtain detailed information in order to analyse how District-based and School-based Support Teams, and Full-service Schools and Special Schools Resource Centres are rendering psychosocial and educational support to learners and teachers in the nine provinces of South Africa. The research objectives linked to this primary aim are to determine:

1) the current status, composition and distribution of the multi-disciplinary teams of the SBSTs and DBSTs in the nine provinces; 2) the staff member: learner ratios under which the SBST/DBST members are rendering services; 3) the type of psychosocial services to learners and teachers that SBSTs and DBSTs are rendering at the moment; 4) the type of educational services to learners and teachers that SBSTs and DBSTs are delivering currently; 5) the successes and challenges that SBSTs and DBSTs are experiencing in terms of psychosocial and educational support; 6) the preparedness of FSS and SSRCs to support learners experiencing moderate to severe barriers to learning, and 7) successes and challenges of FSS and SSRCs in delivering appropriate psychosocial and educational support.

A second aim is to capacitate selected SBSTs, DBSTs, FSS and SSRCs via an action research approach to improve their service rendering. This second phase will roll out subsequent to the publication of the book. Here it is envisaged that some researchers will approach willing institutions that are open to reconsider their processes/procedures of service rendering, join with the institution and start to engage in an action research process to improve operations.

• Adding perspectives of learners about inclusive education to improve practice 

Inclusion of learner voice in the creation of an enabling environment for teaching and learning is encouraged by policy. However, in South African schools, learners' voices are mostly unrecognised, specifically regarding the implementation of inclusive education. The main research question for this project is therefore:

How can perspectives of learners contribute to make schools more inclusive spaces?

The following secondary research questions will be explored:

• How is inclusive education understood by learners?
• How do teachers interpret the learners’ understanding of inclusion?
• How can all role-players  use this knowledge to enhance inclusive practices in schools?

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, South Africa has been developing legislation and policies on inclusive education that place a strong emphasis on equality and human rights, as defined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Engelbrecht & Savolainen, 2018). As a result, the White Paper 6, Special Needs Education, Building an Inclusive Education and Training System was ratified in 2001. This policy promotes education for all and fosters the development of inclusive and supportive centres of learning that enable all learners to participate actively in the education process (DoE, 2001). The policy document states that inclusive education is about recognising and respecting learner and learning diversity within mainstream schools (Engelbrecht & Muthukrishna, 2019:115) and further maximising the participation of all learners in the culture and the curriculum of educational institutions (DoE, 2011). This could be achieved through strategies and interventions to assist teachers to cope with a diversity of learning and teaching needs to ensure that transitory learning difficulties are ameliorated (DoE, 2001). The strategies require all the role players involved, including learners, to take up the responsibility to implement the values associated with inclusion to ensure that all learners pursue their learning potential to the fullest.

Specific interventions or strategies are essential to overcome barriers to learning that exclude learners from the curriculum and education system (Nel, Nel & Lebeloane, 2017). Engelbrecht and Savolainen (2018) pointed out that teachers themselves are also expected to continuously develop strategies to provide quality educational opportunities for each learner in their classrooms. However, this has become a challenge for both the Department of Basic Education and teachers (DBE, 2015; Gina, 2017) since teachers struggle to integrate policy guidelines into their daily teaching. The practice of inclusive education has been widely embraced as an ideal model for education (Donohue & Bornman, 2014) and the Department of Education made available training to support teachers to implement inclusive education. Unfortunately, the reality is that new policies tend to evoke mixed feelings: excitement amongst advocates for change and uncertainty and even stress among those who are expected to implement (Ntombela, 2011). Mahlo (2017) found that changes in education policies have added an unreasonable amount of stress to teachers, resulting in the needs of learners being ignored. (Fransson & Frelin, 2016). Teachers are struggling to adequately respond socially and emotionally to the call for inclusive teaching (Harmsen, Helms-Lorenz, Maulana, & van Veen, 2018).

There are many publications which support this assertion (Thwala, 2015; Zwane & Malale, 2018; Ramaahlo, Tönsing & Bornman, 2018; Moberg, Muta, Korenaga, Kuorelahti & Savolainen, 2019 and Makoelle, 2020). Thus it is not surprising that most of the research to date has focussed on improving teacher competence to create inclusive classrooms by teaching them pedagogical skills and/or informing them of policy guidelines. In fact, the opinions, needs and ideas of learners, the group most affected by the various barriers to learning, have largely been ignored, in spite of the fact that the Education White Paper 6 recommends promoting the rights and responsibilities of learners (DoE, 2001).

The policy emphasises the inclusion of the learners’ voice in curriculum design. Learners are entitled to participate in decision-making in their education based on the idea that learners are citizens in their own right (Bron & Veuglers, 2014). Groundwater-Smith and Mockler (2016) argued that it was the democratic right of learners that educators involve them in decisions that affect their learning. Toshalis and Nakkula (2013) maintain that through consultation with learners and the inclusion of learner input, teachers can determine the connections needed to make their teaching and classroom experience more inclusive.

Listening to the voice of learners can help address dropout rates, increase engagement and achievement, and provide equitable learning opportunities (Bron & Veuglers, 2014; Lind 2007). Some of the benefits in this regard are that the learners’ voice creates an enabling space for conversations among stakeholders to take place, which may help to leverage change on a wider scale. Collaboration between different stakeholders such as teachers, school leadership, parents and government officials can influence policy changes, strengthen classroom and home relationships, and develop socio-emotional competency to prepare learners to participate in a democratic society (Voight, 2015).

The inclusion of learners’ voice in educational decisions aligns with collective leadership theory (Goldsmith, 2014; Wassenaar & Pearce, 2016), where the organization gives opportunities to lead to individuals that have expertise in a particular issue. We argue that, in terms of barriers to learning, the learners themselves have first-hand knowledge that they can use to raise awareness of the situation, as a basis for changes towards creating a more inclusive environment. Inclusion of learner voice may lead to a common vision shared between principals, teachers and learners to negate the current barriers to inclusion.

The aim is thus to create a space for all learners to influence the practice of inclusion in schools.

The objectives to reach this aim are:

• to understand the inclusion experience as understood by learners;
• to determine how teachers interpret the learners’ understanding of inclusion;
• to determine how all role-players can use this knowledge to enhance inclusive practices in schools.

This research is guided by a transformative paradigm (Creswell, 2009; Mertens, 2010) placing it in an emancipatory framework of inclusion, voice and empowerment. The ontology associated with this paradigm emphasises that the agency for change rests with the research participants pursuing ‘the goal of social transformation’ with the researcher (Mertens, 2010:8). Furthermore, the central principle of this paradigm is that the concern of power differentials must be addressed at each stage of the research process (Mertens, 2007) to work towards attaining more socially just outcomes. Therefore, this paradigm framework is relevant since the research objectives deliberately sought to serve as a promoter for change; most particularly, a change in attitudes and practice with respect to including the voices of learners.  Learners are among the most silenced and disregarded groups in most schools. Marginalisation takes away their power, thus creating social inequalities or power differentials (Mertens, 2010). Mahlo (2017) warns us that the practice of inclusion tends to depend on the practitioner’s assumptions about how children feel or what they need. This is so because learners are a muted group who typically exist on the borders of society, thus they are disempowered to make themselves heard or pursue human rights.

According to Makoelle (2012) learners are often seen from a deficit-oriented paradigm that disregards their inherent strengths. Since a transformative paradigm focuses on social justice, human rights and cultural diversity, we regard learners as agents, active participants and equal individuals who are resourceful and can be active participants in the practice of inclusion. The transformative paradigm adopted in this study influenced our research ethics, our view of multiple realities, the nature of interactions between the participants and ourselves as researchers.