Focus Area 6: The need to develop a systemic, multi-disciplinary model: develop a model of whole-school and community development based on the experience gained in this initiative.
Individual consortium members expressed some concern with the ability of the consortium to ultimately develop a systemic, multi-disciplinary model of whole-school and community development – the goals of Focus Area 6.
There is some confusion amongst the partners as to whether this ‘model’ will take the form of modelling (i.e. developing and refining) an overarching ‘SEEDS approach’, or if the partners are still required to develop a collaborative project. In this, we are guided by the outcome of the initial discussion early in the project which resolved not to pursue or require a collaborative project as an outcome of Focus Area 5 (preceding chapter) but rather to work towards development of a set of systemically inclined, multidisciplinary informed guidelines or approaches which if followed would strengthen the movement for whole school and community based development in the province, and be applicable across the various areas of practice as the major programme outcome.
In part, the concern/frustration expressed by some consortium members as to whether a SEEDS model can be developed can be seen as anticipatory of the consortium as a collective being unable ultimately to surmount the various challenges to collaborative work, thus challenging a key value and motivation underpinning the SEEDS initiative.
Nonetheless there is little doubt that such fears can be overcome – and are already being overcome – and that with greater attention and focus on dialogue, sharing and engagement in and across areas of practice, the SEEDS partners– NPOs and higher education institutions– are fully capable developing a “multi-disciplinary partnership to achieve widespread change through emerging synergies in the knowledge economy and culture of learning.”
The consortium will need to pay some attention however to evolving some specific end-term goals which could:
embrace activities that will result in the production of a common SEEDS model, with defined outputs and time frames
enhance development of more pervasive and sustained relationships amongst the SEEDS members particularly in identified priority practice areas,
renew commitment to this common (as opposed to individual project or organisational) programme outcome and more collaborative and mutually supportive leadership in this respect,
pay greater attention to planning for specific opportunities and occasions to engage, direct and perhaps, moderate, discussions in areas of practice around systemic and multidisciplinary elements with other practitioners within the province, nationally and internationally,
develop and implement a more open, ongoing communication platform for data sharing, interactive engagement and networking at all levels.
In formal organisational terms these challenges involve the shift from a co-operative mode of operation – where relations are informal, goals are not defined jointly, there is no joint planning, and information is shared as needed (which we would argue where SEEDS’s operative logic is at present) - towards a collaborative mode with its utilitarian promise of jointly working together, sharing commitment and goals, shared leadership resources, risk, control and results, and undoubted higher intensity.
At the same moment, and without debasing the rhetoric of collaboration as a more organic form of cooperation, networking and clustering, it is worth reflecting that collaboration today in the knowledge economy is seen by some as far more than just ‘acting together’: with the rise of the new economy in the 1990’s and the challenges of digital technologies, global communications, and networking environments, as well as the ignorance of traditional systems towards these, collaboration as a new way of working together has become “one of the leading terms of an emergent contemporary political sensibility”, one that is “driven by complex realities rather than romantic notions of common grounds or commonality.”13
Collaboration in this critical perspective is a profoundly ambivalent process:
“[It is] constituted by a set of paradoxical relationships between co-producers who affect one another… Unlike cooperation, collaboration does not take place for sentimental reasons… it arises out of pure self interest… it is a performative and transformative process.”
In this view, the meaning and content of ‘collaboration’ has been profoundly destabilised as a synonym for group cooperation and the model and meaning of ‘working together’ has been inexorably changed into something far more unpredictable and unexpected but less dynamic and powerful – and destabilising – for that:
“Increasing evidence shows that ‘working together’ actually occurs in rather unpredictable and unexpected ways. Rather than through the exertion of the alleged generosity of a group made up of individuals in the pursuit of solidarity, it often works as a brusque and even ungenerous practice, where individuals rely on one another the more they chase their own interests, their mutual dependence arising through the pursuit of their own agendas.”
Collaborations in the networked, highly competitive, multi-centred 21st century, in this view are “pure possibility” but this comes with an element of risk and danger: collaborations are what one critical theorist calls “the black holes of knowledge regimes”:
“They produce nothingness, opulence and ill-behaviour… The nets of voluntariness, enthusiasm, creativity, immense pressure, ever-increasing self-doubt and desperation are temporary and fluid; they take on multiple forms but always refer to a permanent state of insecurity and precariousness, the blue print for widespread forms of occupation and employment within society. They reveal the other side of immaterial labour, hidden in the rhetoric of ‘working together’.”
The key insight of this alternative reading of the contemporary concept of ‘collaboration’ lies in its very questioning of the concept’s component elements and the sentiments which sustain collaborative effort. If indeed “collaboration does not take place for sentimental reasons… it arises out of pure self interest… [as] a performative and transformative process”, thenindividuals “will rely on one another the more they chase their own interests [with] mutual dependence arising through the pursuit of their own agenda’s. Exchange between them then becomes an effect of necessity rather than one of mutuality, identification or desire.”
These insights are introduced here to provide some initial critical grist to the task that awaits the consortium in its own critical reflection on its collaborative effort in education which will inform its own ‘model making’, particularly in its relation to what critical theorists call “the absolutistic power of organisation”, that is, to the institutional stakeholders in education whose ‘interests’ the consortium is committed to work jointly towards even as it addresses the emancipatory and democratising dimensions of education.
This is also a self-reflective process in which organisations and institutions turn the critical gaze on their own practices and ask what light their answers throw on the current debates in education in the province, the country or elsewhere, where all is fluidity and change at this juncture.
This brings this review to the nub of the matter: whether and how and if the consortium, in the time remaining, can still successfully bring together the elements of both an evolving, transformative and developmentally effective and sustainable pedagogy, curriculum and practice for schools, education institutions and communities, with the set of (emerging) organisational practices and policies embedded in the educational system, bringing with it (or illuminating possibilities for) the achievement of sustainable and widespread systemic change?
These are open ended questions at this point, and challenging ones indeed, which the consortium can begin to address in good time by initiating discussion and input from a range of experts and practitioners locally and abroad.
This transformative multi-disciplinary ‘model’ would appear at this stage to consist not in seeking to implement the SEEDS interventions, singly in or combination (though this should not be ruled out) but rather in delineating best practice principles in and across the areas of focus that support and promote innovative, dynamic and transformational collaborative practices – and finding the most effective platform for leveraging and sharing such principles and practices across a growing community of practice – the project’s injunction is to be systemically focussed and impact driven.
How it can do this, the tools and techniques that are available, including the opportunities provided through ICT, social media and other online innovations, and the most appropriate methodologies will all need to be a part of this discussion.
The need is too great to be overcome with fear as a factor limiting collaboration and undermining expansive thinking, broad-minded mission and interconnectedness: fears of offending the powers that be, fears of loss of control over ‘my’ materials if they are sold or made available to others, fear of loss of power over ‘my’ tool/plan if others have access to it, fear of loss of prestige if as an organisation others have my plan, fear that ‘my’ materials/skills are not good enough to withstand scrutiny, and fears that if we help others my board will accuse me of ignoring "our clients."
It seems useful at this point where partners are beginning to experience and raise some of these emerging issues and challenges in their own professional practice and projects, to reflect once again on the dimensions and urgency of the educational challenges that the consortium saw as critical in December 2008 in developing such a best practice model when SEEDS was launched. The original proposal document listed amongst these elements the following:
“This programme links education, career opportunities and employability. It intends to increase the likelihood of improved retention, pass rates and of appropriate further and higher education choices as a pathway out of poverty and into employability, which should stimulate economic growth and improve the quality of life of all citizens.”
“The programme will target previously disadvantaged people (Black/African, Coloured and Asian) from both rural and urban areas, and women in particular, since these groupings experience the worst socio-economic conditions, are plagued by the effects of HIV/AIDS and do not enjoy the fruits of our fledgling democracy. The subject areas and theme foci will link global and regional issues to everyday local realities.”
“The consortium will complement provincial and national strategies to increase the numbers of educators that enrol for an Advanced Certificate in Education and it will improve the capability of multi-grade teaching in rural areas. Provincial Early Childhood Development strategies will supplement the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy where schools with poor performing foundation phase classes receive extra support, such as teacher assistants and resources for family learning, and the guidance of parents by Adult Learning Centres for basic and further education opportunities. Since these provincial strategies do not cater for home-based centres or all the Grade Rs, where the fundamentals of learning are embedded, the programme will target these learning centres.”
“To address the critical shortage of particular technical, maths and science skills, teacher development programmes (in-service and pre-service) and learner support programmes, will prepare learners for career pathways in these fields”.
“The schools targeted in this programme focus on schools in disadvantaged and poorer areas and the programme aims to build competency, capacity, passion and motivation, as well as effective use of existing resources that will contribute significantly to provincial and national targets”
“While the programme does not directly impact on the poverty alleviation within the province, it will open opportunities for employment due to the need for consultants, volunteers and service providers at various levels of implementation. On another level, the improvement of the quality of education, as a social service, will contribute significantly to the improvement of the pool of human capital, which is imperative for building the development state of the province. The programme will also be removing barriers (such as illiteracy, access to resources and thin social connections) that imprison people in the poverty syndrome.”
“… this programme’s holistic and multi-disciplinary approach should improve the quality of education within the Dinaledi schools, rural and marginalised schools. It will also enhance the capacity of parents to participate more fully in lifelong learning, and lay a firm foundation for thinking and language proficiency.”
“The consortium organisations all have relationships with government departments from district level to provincial and national levels. Ongoing consultative and courtesy meetings will be held with various government departments to ensure ongoing communication and reporting about progress, and insights and challenges will be entrenched so that this partnership is extended and enhanced [in support of the provincial government’s Human Capital Development Strategy (2006) aim for an integrated approach by demolishing silos amongst government departments and forming private/public partnerships].
“…the consortium will offer various points of practical synergies across the partners, which will yield possible models that the department can roll out.”
“The programme also aligns itself to the national education priorities…. They are:
The reduction of backlogs in school equipment (National Quality Development and Upliftment Programme for Public Schools)
The expansion of early childhood development (Grade R), human resource systems and teacher development
The implementation of the Revised National Curriculum Statement for Grades 7-9 and Grades 10-12 [now CAPS]
The implementation of Revised Norms and Standards for School Funding (No-fee schools); Special schools; Education Management Information System (EMIS); Recapitalisation of the Further Education and Training (FET) sector; National and provincial health and HIV/AIDS prevention objectives
“Finally, the programme also aligns itself to Macro Development Imperatives:
Millennium goal 2: Achieve universal primary education to ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary education.
Millennium goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women – eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education at all levels by 2015
National South African imperatives as translated into Provincial objectives of higher economic growth, higher levels of employment, lower levels of inequality and a sustainable social safety net.
Provincial Human Capital Development Strategy (HCDS).”
Clearly no single SEEDS project, or combination of projects, can and will address or respond to any one or all of these challenges in such a way as to make a measurable mark on any one of these provincial, indeed national challenges. However, in developing an effective dynamic model of whole school and community development which self-consciously promotes a culture of open and full communication, dedication to service and mobilisation of volunteerism and other forms of resource mobilisation, more open sharing of innovative applications and programmes for wider distribution and duplication, development of common data resources accessible to all, promotion of ‘cooperative competition’ in drawing in potential service providers to address pervasive service gaps and other shocking anomalies which existing projects cannot themselves address, together with widespread attribution for good ideas and other best practices which support sharing of ideas, some substantive progress can be achieved.
To do achieve this, the consortium will have to apply its mind as to the most appropriate model to leveraging the SEEDS programme to a position where the partners, with assistance and guidance from the SEEDS management are able to collectively play this dynamic role, deploy resources that will be required to take the programme to the next level and, most critically, assist in finding the expertise and experience that will required for this final phase of the programme.
