Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II: Theory and Practice in Higher Education [1st ed.] 9783030572143, 9783030572150

Citation preview

Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II Theory and Practice in Higher Education Edited by Amasa P. Ndofirepi · Alfred Masinire

Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-­Saharan Africa Volume II

Amasa P. Ndofirepi  •  Alfred Masinire Editors

Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II Theory and Practice in Higher Education

Editors Amasa P. Ndofirepi School of Education Sol Plaatje University Kimberley, South Africa

Alfred Masinire Wits School of Education University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-57214-3    ISBN 978-3-030-57215-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Originating in deep rural settings in a developing world economy and educated in rural Christian missionary schools, the coeditors, from an early age, underwent varied educational and work experiences that culminated in venturing into the under-researched niche of the relationship between rurality and educational access and achievement. Later both of us traversed the globe to study, work and live in the metropole and this accorded us the opportunity to interface with the challenges of the disparities between rurality, schooling and higher education in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. With Alfred having hands-on experience of researching the impact of rurality on teacher education and Amasa’s grounded theory on social justice in education, we decided to brainstorm the intersection of our experiences and imagined bringing our ideas into a two-volume book focusing on African existential circumstances on rurality and social justice education. Through our interaction with the injustices that pervaded our experiences as teachers in schools and lecturers and researchers in higher education, we seek to share these encounters with educational practitioners in schools and higher education institutions. Overwhelmed and intrigued by issues of rural disadvantage, not as a permanent condition but a challenge that could be redressed through education, we solicited insights from a diverse range of scholars and practitioners in education to contribute to the compilation of the two-volume v

vi Preface

book to address and explore the knowledge gap that exists in an understanding of theoretical and practical exigencies that surround African educational settings. The two-volume book provides the bedrock in the form of theory and practices that pervade education in both basic and higher education on which researchers and stakeholders can circumnavigate and spring new insights to further contribute to the knowledge resources for educating rural and disadvantaged groups in Africa and the world at large for social justice values of egalitarian and democratic citizenship. Kimberley, South Africa Johannesburg, South Africa 

Amasa P. Ndofirepi Alfred Masinire

Acknowledgements

Writing a co-edited book is more demanding than we ever anticipated; nevertheless more fulfilling than we could have ever envisaged. None of this would have been conceivable without the collaboration of the chapter contributors. We are eternally grateful to the individual chapter contributors for their commitment to submit their ideas for scrutiny and their preparedness to peer-review each other’s work and their readiness to implement suggestions from review comments. We give special honour to the Palgrave Macmillan team of reviewers from the proposal to the final book production. This has ensured the compilation of a unique two-volume book. Our appreciation would be incomplete without crediting our families for sacrificing the priceless family time lost as we went through the rigours of book publication. They deserve a round of applause.

vii

Contents

Part I Access, Participation and Achievement   1 1 Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation and, Achievement  3 Simon Nenji and Amasa P. Ndofirepi 2 Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year Undergraduate Rural Student Experiences on Campus 23 Elizabeth S. Ndofirepi and Felix Maringe 3 The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access to Higher Education in Zimbabwean Universities 55 Joseph Pardon Hungwe 4 The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher Education 77 Hellen Agumba

ix

x Contents

Part II Integrating Rurality in Teacher Preparation  99 5 Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue of Social Justice in a Post-Apartheid South Africa101 Thabisile Nkambule 6 Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training Approaches: Reflecting on the Net Value of Implementing a Collaborative Model in a South African University127 Nontsikelelo Mapukata, Alfred Masinire, and Thabisile Nkambule 7 The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses by African Universities147 Bheki R. Mngomezulu Part III Research and Lecturer Attributes 171 8 University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice Within a Rural South African Context173 Phefumula Nyoni 9 African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons for Universities in Africa191 Ephraim Taurai Gwaravanda 10 Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising Collaborative Research and Partnership Practices in the African University215 Amasa P. Ndofirepi and Felix Maringe

 Contents 

xi

11 Rurality and Social Justice in Multiple Contexts: Deliberations Revisited239 Amasa P. Ndofirepi and Alfred Masinire Index 249

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Decentralisation typologies Table 6.2 Parallels in decentralised training approaches Table 6.3 Divergences in decentralised training approaches

131 134 135

xiii

Part I Access, Participation and Achievement

1 Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation and, Achievement Simon Nenji and Amasa P. Ndofirepi

Introduction The quest for a parity of access, participation and success by all in higher education is threatened by the uneven distribution of resources. The Zimbabwean society is largely binarised and fragmented into categories of the privileged and the marginalised and/or underprivileged. Among the marginalised are those socially and structurally situated in rural areas: with rurality in underdeveloped Africa associated with impoverishment, reification and essentialisation. Rural schools in Zimbabwe are under-­ resourced in terms of critically skilled personnel, infrastructure and technology. In this chapter, we theorise and problematise rurality as an

S. Nenji (*) University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa A. P. Ndofirepi School of Education, Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_1

3

4 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

obstacle to many an entrant’s parity of participation in Zimbabwe’s higher education. The major thrust of this chapter is to explore the plight of students who hail from rural areas considering their disadvantaged position in terms of their predisposed social location and situatedness. We interrogate the impact of different institutions of learning as determined by, and predicated on, their geographical location. We thus consider the challenges encountered by individuals from a disadvantaged rural background when they enter university education where a lot of assumptions are made regarding their state of preparedness and readiness for the challenges associated, for example with a technology-driven education system. We, however, attempt to proffer an explanation of rurality that is distinctive and different from that which would be used in other contexts and countries (Soudien et al. 2019). While the notion of justice has always been a contested area and thus regarded as illusive and inconclusive, we anchor our discussion on Rawls’ theory where justice is referred to as fairness (Rawls 1971). It is, as he argues, based on a hypothetical situation where the parties concerned, in their settling for principles of justice to govern their community, are largely disinterested and thus more likely to settle for a fair position as this is done under a veil of ignorance: this ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or contingency of social circumstances (Rawls 1971). Justice would thus imply that individuals in a society enjoy equal access to resources such as wealth and opportunities and thus enjoy a parity of participation (Keddie 2012) in the sphere of education. We argue, therefore, that efforts be made to reduce cultural (recognitive), political (representative), and socioeconomic (redistributive) injustices. Cultural injustices occur when hierarchical patterns of cultural values generate misrecognition for particular social groups; political injustices arise when some groups are not accorded equal voice in decision-making; while socioeconomic injustices result when the structures of society generate maldistribution or class inequality for particular social groups (Fraser 2007, 2009). We present social justice as the interrogation of the manifestations of power and the dynamics of oppression such as the distribution of resources that individuals have access to on the basis of their

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

5

privileged or non-privileged status (Writer 2008), given the plight of rural students as predicated on their geographical situatedness. In a bid to disrupt social injustices and unconscionable segregatory and discriminatory tendencies and practices which could be structurally sanctioned, we also reflect on possible ameliorative measures to ensure safe landing into higher education by students from culturally, materially and technologically disadvantaged settings. We also cautiously explore the matter mindful of the temptation to overglorify disadvantage and thus play into the deficit construction of the marginalised. We thus consider mitigatory measures where rural feeder institutions are adequately funded and properly resourced to match the technological and skills and demands characterising higher education. We also explore the emancipatory vision of education where the marginalised and the educators serving them should join forces in pursuit of the practice of freedom despite their situatedness considering that rurality may not necessarily amount to a deficit. For their part, institutions of higher learning could put up bridging programmes to equip the deprived with requisite skills and competencies demanded in their subsequent degree studies. The responsiveness of many an institution of higher learning to the plight of such cases is critical if students from disadvantaged backgrounds are to be allowed not only equal access, but equality of participation and success in higher education. We begin the chapter by conceptualising and customising rurality in the Zimbabwean context. We proceed to theorise and problematise rurality as it relates to the plight of prospective college students who are in high school. While reflecting on the perceived challenges associated with rurality and preparedness for higher education, we also explore possible survival strategies the socially disadvantaged can exploit despite their situatedness. We thus discuss possible solutions to the puzzle as lying with individuals and communities concerned, as well as institutions  – both high schools and universities – and educators and those from the remote areas of the country.

6 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

Rurality: A Conceptualisation The concept and hence definition of rural has been a subject of contestations in local and international debates for decades with different definitions attributed to it and each centring on a unique specialised aspect; hence an all-encompassing definition of rural is neither anticipated nor sufficient. In affirmation, The European Commission, in its awareness of this challenge inherent in a consensual meaning of rurality made the following underlining statement in an official document (1997): … the popularity of terms such as rurality and rural areas, resides in their apparent clearness. They are immediately understood because they suggest a physical, social and cultural concept opposed to the concept of “urban”. However, to give an objective and unambiguous definition of rurality seems quite impossible. (European Commission (1997)

While there is no single agreed definition of the term rurality, as a research construct, it is derived from rural which means outside the city or living in the country or rural area. As Cloke and Johnston have observed, “‘Urban’ and ‘rural’ as a separation in binary perception have created conventional, administrative, imaginative and intellectual boundaries” (Cloke and Johnston 2005, p.  10) with respect to an integrated discernment of geographic space. As a concept, it is at once a demographic, geographic and cultural one (Roberts and Green 2013). It is also spatial, geographical and contextual (Green and Reid 2014). At a more conceptual level, the idea of rural has its roots in modernity given that “this binary view of rural as urban’s ‘other’ also has a strong place in the social sciences, where rurality’s invisibility is anchored within the roots of modernity with its urban development and modernization”. (Cuervo 2016). However, and more objectively, urbanity and rurality are ideal models, abstractions or simplifications of the real world (Kûle 2008, p. 10). The basis of this hypothesis is that there are essential differences between people residing in cities or towns and those who live in the rural areas. It can be noted, therefore, that research on rurality is not an end itself but rather serves to shed light on non-rurality specific phenomena such as

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

7

exclusion, change or universalisation and hegemonisation of dominant cultures (Leibowitz 2017). Thus rurality implies a category and set of experiences (Moreland et  al. 2003, p.  56) where the concerned are socially, economically and geographically marginalised. Rurality therefore refers to the condition of being rural, a condition which connotes deprivation, and social disadvantage. Although distinguishing between rural and remote rural is difficult (Randall et al. 2015), rurality can also be construed in terms of remoteness from major centres of population (Hayes and Bentham 1982). It tends to be conceptualised as physical space associated with various forms of exclusion, deficit and need. In the sphere of education, many stereotypes such as unsophisticated, low-level intellectual capacity and rearward nature of rural learners and their lack of knowledge regarding technological gadgets are used to express what rurality and rural education entail (Myende and Chikoko 2014). There are a number of variables and/or indices that are used to distinguish between ruralness and urbanness and these include, among others, population density, distance from urban centre, household amenities, provision and accessibility of services (Cloke 1977).

Rurality in the Zimbabwean Context The idea of rurality in the Zimbabwean context is steeped in the colonial history of the country. The Land Tenure Act of 1979, which saw the creation of the Tribal Trust Lands and ‘reserves’ with the black majority being removed from the prime land and allocated space on relatively unproductive land where they were crowded: all this being done to create space for the colonisers. Some blacks were allocated small scale commercial farms in areas other than the prime agricultural regions, where conditions are comparatively less favourable for high productivity: which do not make up part of Zimbabwe’s prime land, thus remaining effectively as good as rural areas. The rural base expanded at independence with the land resettlement programme where blacks were placed in some planned settlements purportedly to allow for improved provision of essential social services such as health education, transport, water, and shopping centres, among others. The situation moved from bad to worse with the

8 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

chaotic land reform programme of the year 2000 where some productive commercial farms were turned into communal land as people moved in their numbers to reclaim their heritage from their erstwhile colonial masters. We concur with Soudien et al. (2019) who argue that rurality, like poverty and inequality, is not pre-given, but is a result of complex forces at play. Thus, rurality in the Zimbabwean context largely implies poverty, underdevelopment, and a dearth of critical resources. We observe, a result of deliberate policies predicated on disenfranchising the blacks in the colonial past and perpetuated through the adoption of policies which are not informed by a correct diagnosis of the problem and appreciation of the concrete historical, economic, sociological and psychosociological processes involved (Erwin 2019). In this context, rurality therefore is presented and contrasted with urbanness in terms of provision of essential social services such as education, health, shops, housing, in terms of access and quality of the same. Thus the deficit model seems to punctuate the conceptualisation of rurality to an extent where the term is associated with challenges and dearth of services which allow for a high standard of living. It is upon this premise and general understanding of the term rurality that we seek to interrogate the state of preparedness of rural high school students for entry into university: whether they are set to enjoy a parity of participation or are literally structurally excluded, peripherised and relegated to comparative unimportance on the basis of their geography and socioeconomic situatedness. We shall explore the subject mindful of the need to guard against exaggerating the deficit construction where rurality is regarded as a deficit (Moletsane 2012; Keddie 2012). We note that where the term implies distance from the nearest urban centre, the rural is then segmented into different points: those closer to the centre described as peri-urban with the furthest regarded as remote (deep rural). In such circumstances, we are forced to ask: Does the provision of social services decrease in terms of quality with increased distance from the cities? Does rurality necessarily imply deficit? Do learners become unsophisticated because of geographical location? Do teachers become less effective because of the situatedness of the school? Do the rural secondary schools underprepare students for higher education mainly because of their geographical location? Is rurality the sole problem

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

9

to the perceived underachievement of concerned cases or could there be other intervening variables? How can the perceived and actual hurdles associated with rurality be addressed to ensure parity of participation (Fraser 2009) by students from rural areas upon entry at university? These and other relevant ideas are the issues under spotlight in this chapter. We thus proceed to interrogate rurality as a determinant of either success or lack of it in education, particularly how it impacts or compromises high school graduands’ readiness and/or preparedness for university education. In the next section we reflect on the plight of students in rural secondary schools, considering their challenges, actual and/or perceived and/or possibility of opportunities.

 he Plight of Rural High School Students: T Challenges and Opportunities In the Zimbabwean context, high schools are relatively fewer in rural areas than is the case with urban areas. Students travel long distances to get to school (Nyagura 1993). In most cases the curriculum is restrictive and barely accommodating of multiple students’ orientation. This is acute, particularly where it involves science subjects and when the nation is advocating stematisation as rural students are crowded out from participation because of the dearth of appropriate infrastructure. Most rural secondary schools do not have laboratories to allow for effective teaching of STEM subjects (Dekeza and Kufakunesu 2017). Thus in the case of rural secondary schools in Zimbabwe, the actual environment makes it extremely difficult for the students to succeed (Berliner 2004). Poverty is a major problem affecting rural secondary schools in developing countries (Harber and Davies 2006): and Zimbabwe is no exception. The dearth of critical resources compromises the opportunities of rural students to, for example, pursue the disciplines they prefer most. The students are thus channelled into areas which do not necessarily reflect their intellectual bent and aptitude. In terms of access to some potentially rewarding university programmes, they are thus technically excluded when they finally enrol at

10 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

university. The selection criteria barely reflects heterogeneity (Hlalele 2012) in terms of where students are coming from when it comes to what field of study one has to pursue. Although the practice is, in principle, a rational and defensible approach to allocation of students to programmes of study at university level, it is at the same time a case of segregation and discrimination of students based on where they originate. It is a form of social injustice, albeit structurally sanctioned by the system and condoned as objectivity. The life chances of students from rural areas are thus diminished from the start despite the potential they may have to pursue STEM-related fields at university. Is there a way to determine aptitude and intellectual bent regardless of what subjects one has covered at ‘A’ level? Is the use of ‘A’ level results the best and only way of enrolling students in specific programmes at university? Is this system alert to the structural form of injustice and smart discrimination? Should the enrolment into degree programmes be done strictly on the basis of the subjects they have done at high school level? We are persuaded to think that, in the interest of global social justice, effort could be made to level the playing field by possibly considering other selection criteria to programmes at university level.

 ural High Schools: Challenges R and Opportunities On the basis of their situatedness, rural high schools suffer a lot of disadvantages. While education levels may be high (UNICEF 2013), economic levels in surrounding communities are low, which undermines schools’ possibilities for pooling resources together to enhance educational quality (De Young 1991; Hlalele 2012; Mukeredzi 2013). It becomes difficult, if not impossible, for such schools to put infrastructure which allows for quality teaching and learning. The problems of ‘hard to staff, harder to stay’ are severe as competent and experienced teachers shun postings in these areas citing, inter alia, the issue of geography, socioeconomic conditions and the prevailing discourse of deficiency that views teaching in rural schools as low-grade (Arnold et al. 2005; Moletsane

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

11

2012). As a result, most teachers are either underqualified or unqualified and often barely motivated, thereby adversely affecting the quality of instruction: hence education in rural Zimbabwe lags behind educational development in other parts of the country (Majongwe 2013), and yet the majority of black Zimbabweans live in the rural settings (Chikoko 2006). Although the demography may have shifted with increased rural to urban migration, the situation remains critical and demanding of ameliorative measures. The problem of staffing may have been neutralised by the economic challenges where the country has produced more graduates who find teaching as the only field of employment available. However, such a scenario is not healthy as most of these caretaker teachers are barely equipped in terms of pedagogical skills and learner management: their commitment to the service and/or professionalism is not only suspect but egregious. Such a scenario exacerbates the situation of disadvantaged rural student, diminishing their bandwidth and chances of competing for place and success at university. This contributes to a restrictive curriculum. The staffing challenge could also be mitigated if teachers in rural areas are supported and incentivised (Monk 2007; Redding and Walberg 2012). Engaging the communities in a bid to transform the long-held practices allays the fears and suspicion of the teachers as outsiders imposing their own will on the locals allows for improved relations between the institutions (Carlson et al. 2002). This calls for visionary leadership on the part of the school spearheading the engagement. However, ineffective leadership has been observed to be a major stumbling block in the realisation of success on the part of rural secondary schools (Ncube 2014). With effective leadership, the rural secondary schools would rely heavily on resources available in the community (Redding and Walberg 2012): tapping the natural resources, the form of wealth available, for example, fees to be paid in the form of on-land produce and livestock. The school would either convert the material into cash or assist the community in marketing the products. The approach may go a long way in developing both the school and the community, thus allowing for the retention of the quality teaching personnel through improved infrastructural provisions, procurement of appropriate equipment, and as a result, improved instruction. We observe, however, that communities differ and thus

12 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

challenges vary from one place to another, so responses need to be contextualised. We also note that challenges need to be understood from the point of view of the affected (Feagin et al. 1991) if the response is to be ameliorative enough. Rurality does not always constitute a form of disadvantage (Leibowitz 2017). Put differently, people in rural areas are resilient and determined despite constraints to pursue a better life (Randall et  al. 2015). Rurality has long been associated with discourses of traditionalism, disadvantage and even backwardness, with educationists if rural students need to become less rural than what they are (Roberts and Green 2013). The seemingly adverse conditions can be exploited to develop a resilient character on the part of the student and a more civil and patriotic individual on the part of the teacher who, if rightly groomed, will offer a great service to the nation. Rutter (2012) submits that individuals respond differently to adversity: negative experiences may have either a sensitising effect or a strengthening ‘steeling’ effect in response to subsequent adversity. Despite the restrictive environment under which rural students operate, they develop coping strategies and overcome the challenges confronted on the way with minimum assistance; thus, thriving despite adversity. This probably demands a nuanced approach to understanding adversity and its effect on the individual. Thus resilience can best be represented conceptually as a person-in-environment exchange (Lipsitt and Demick 2012, p. 48). One would, however, ask whether the resilience argument is justifiable in the context of rural students, given their diminished prospects for access to preferred programmes at university, especially where the system is blind to the struggles they go through on their way to higher education. Would it be fair to apply affirmative action procedures especially where cut off points for entry into a programme are concerned? Doesn’t affirmative action in this context amount to lowering the standards bar to accommodate those structurally disadvantaged by rurality? Do these students possess any skill and ability to navigate the university terrain and realise success? Are they equipped with the barest minimal skill to succeed at university? Are they not likely to suffer stigmatisation and segregation as they are treated as a separate group that accessed university somewhat illegitimately? (Hlalele and Alexander 2012). The next section

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

13

reflects on the state of preparedness of students hailing from a rural background.

State of Preparedness for University Education In this section our debate focuses on the following topical questions: 1. In what way are students from rural high schools inadequately prepared for university education compared to their urbanised counterparts? 2. What is the effect of students’ rurality at the university entry point? 3. What is the impact of technology-driven universities on students of rural background? 4. What is the place of teacher preparation in delivering service to students in rural schools? Are teachers adequately skilled and/or equipped to deliver in their respective areas of specialisation? What could be the new-look conceptualisation of rurality in schools? The UNICEF (2013) report suggests that education is high even in rural areas although the communities are not adequately resourced to allow for provision of quality service delivery. This is particularly evident in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, Information, Communication Technologies (ICTs) and all the technology-driven aspects of the curriculum. The communities hardly afford resources to provide library services, yet these drive education first at high school level and more so at university level. Factors that prevail regarding education in most rural secondary schools include lack of supplies such as electricity, and internet connectivity; substandard facilities, and thus a less competitive student population (Cicchinelli and Beesley 2017; Mentz et al. 2012; Ncube 2014). Educational equity is based on the principle of justice as fairness (Rawls 1971), and what Fraser (2009) describes as distributive justice, especially in allocating resources, opportunities, treatment and success for every student. The question is, who desires such a situation? Is it attainable? Is it desirable? Is the situation rural secondary school students experience a social accident, an

14 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

inevitability, or itself a social construct? The fact that rural secondary schools struggle to attract quality teachers, let alone retain them (De Young 1991), and have to mobilise resources to obtain learning materials and equipment, points to the uneven distribution of human and material resources. Thus, students from such backgrounds find entry into and functioning in a university challenging. In the Zimbabwean situation, however, such challenges are not only restricted to rural schooling, but urban schools and the universities also experience internet connectivity challenges. Thus confining the challenge to rurality is a failure to appreciate the heart of the problem: rurality may not be Zimbabwe’s problem, although it is prone to be experienced acutely in such a setting. While in other countries the problem is restricted to rural areas and needs to be treated as such, the Zimbabwean case demands a nuanced approach, first to define where the problem stems from, instead of likening it to other economies. We argue therefore that for the institutions of higher learning to respond effectively to the plight of rural students, appropriate situation analysis needs to be done, at least to have a clear understanding of the socioeconomic dynamics involved.

Responsiveness of Universities to Students’ Backgrounds What sort of institutions are universities in Zimbabwe: elitist or tailored to accommodate students from diverse backgrounds? How responsive are the universities in Zimbabwe to the plight of the disadvantaged? Has effort been made to establish challenges associated with students from disadvantaged backgrounds and have such backgrounds been found to be largely rural? We observe that to respond to these teething questions, one must look critically at the situation in order to identify the source of the problem: for solutions need to be predicated upon correct diagnosis. While there may be obvious concerns the universities can address such as the need to help those from socially deprived backgrounds familiarise themselves with technology and use of the library, there could be aspects

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

15

which demand more protracted approaches. We also observe that universities in Zimbabwe, in terms of curriculum implementation, are at risk of flying past the content in a largely exam-oriented approach evinced through the semesterisation of almost all programmes instead of grounding first years into the university culture gradually and more systematically. Some of the challenges of preparedness on the part of students could be mitigated if institutions adopt need-driven approaches to instruction. We observe that universities in Zimbabwe parade a homogenised approach to student treatment upon entry into the system. Whether one is coming from an under-resourced rural school or ‘rural’ within urban areas (Leibowitz 2017), or coming from a well-resourced high school, the treatment is the same. We find this scenario inconsistent with principles of justice espoused by Rawls (Rawls 1971), and therefore demanding rethinking. The situation, however, allows us to see the impact of policies and ideologies that have become obscured by our familiarity with urban and/or non-rural life for what they really are: the losses we have incurred in the process of modernity which, normally taken for granted, are brought to light (Roberts 2014, p. 139). Is there a way to attend to the matter? Is the university system responsive and flexible enough to salvage a solution? We make tentative submissions as a response to the matter.

Rethinking Student Enrolment Criteria A rigid ‘A’ Level grades point system disregards the circumstances under which the marginalised rural students operate by expecting them to compete with their relatively privileged counterparts from well-resourced schools in terms of material and personal endowment. We thus propose a preregistration period: a phase in the university that students are taken through to determine their aptitude and placement into respective programmes regardless of what specific subjects they have done at high school. It is in this period that the students are inducted into academic writing and/or communication skills, library skills, technology-driven studying and/or learning and interactive seminars/symposia with professionals in the different fields. We acknowledge, however, that the approach

16 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

demands massive funding and reorientation of the student population and the general society.

Bridging Programmes Bridging programmes could be introduced, informed by a thorough diagnosis of skills deficiency and targeting a certain level of proficiency before the student is placed into a specific programme. Some may argue that within these deficit constructions there is an underlying assumption of cultural and experiential incommensurability where some group’s experience is branded incompatible with university academic achievement (Keddie 2012, p. 32). However, we argue that to pretend that there are no differences in terms of experience and readiness for academic rigour in the degree programmes is counterproductive and amounts to condoning of the homogenising the different. In this case the response springs from a recognition of the lived experiences of students from the different backgrounds (Leibowitz 2017), and is as such developed from the affected’s point of view rather than the elite (Feagin et al. 1991). We also note that rural students are not necessarily going through the same experience of rurality (Leibowitz 2017), hence the need for context-­ specific responses.

Restructuring Teacher Education Considering that universities are involved in teacher education, an effort could be made to prepare a teacher character ready to serve in disadvantaged areas. Urban university training does not adequately equip and prepare teachers to work in rural areas. It has been observed that education faculties do not prepare students for the realities of rural education (Masinire et al. 2014). While this may sound utopian, we submit that the teacher education programme may have the development of loyal citizens as one of its prime objectives. This does not suggest the development of an uncritical, unquestioning individual, but one who is committed to serve the society where duty calls. We also note that such an undertaking

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

17

does not rest with teacher education alone but with the commitment of all stakeholders: with the government, churches and others as key drivers of the same.

Summary and Some Concluding Remarks Although there is no one all-embracing definition of rurality, we saw it as an existential matter, a product of concrete historical, economic, sociological and psychosociological processes (Soudien et al. 2019). It reflects geographical, spatial and cultural situatedness characterised by want, disadvantage and struggle on the part of the affected. We have thus attempted to explore the elusive concept of rurality in the Zimbabwean context; not as a cosmological problem but an anthropogenic one which, as it emerged, adversely affects humanity’s existential situatedness. We also submit that the impact of rurality be explored and understood from the point of view of the affected. As it is socially constructed, demands that relevant social institutions be properly aligned to ameliorate the ills associated with the phenomenon. We further reflected on the matter by problematising the plight of rural high school students in their bid to locate and occupy space in the university regarding their access and success chances given their background. While the Zimbabwean situation is a case with unique features, it reflects general trends associated with rurality in the developing countries. Rural schools lack infrastructure, internet connectivity, electricity supply, quality teachers and leadership, all of which threaten and diminish the students’ life chances. Without magnifying the deficit construction, rurality compromises the students’ readiness for entry into the university. The dearth of critical resources, both material and human, diminish the access and success chances where it involves the latitude to pick preferred programmes and particularly STEM-related disciplines and associated university programmes. Students from rural high schools are excluded from the sciences because of their impoverished communities which could not supply them with them laboratories and libraries, let alone attracting and retaining skilled teachers. That they have not studied sciences at an advanced level does not automatically imply that they are weak in the disciplines;

18 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

unfortunately, the system seems blind to the idea of aptitude and natural bent. The affected are thus structurally excluded from pursuing natural sciences-related programmes on grounds that, though considered rational and defensible, are not reflective of social justice. We thus proffered some tentative ameliorative measures among which include preregistration, desemesterisation of modules done in the first year at university and bridging programmes which are skills-deficiency specific. We also highlighted the demand for resilience on the part of the individuals affected, a recognition of difference and a readiness to scaffold the disadvantaged on the part of the institutions, particularly the universities. We also submit that key stakeholders such as government, local communities, and religious organisations, among others, join forces to alleviate and mitigate the suffering of the disadvantaged. While we observe and acknowledge that there are no ready-made remedies to the adversities associated with rurality as they affect prospective university students in Zimbabwe, we proposed context-specific responses informed by appropriate situational analysis and proper diagnosis as this is crucial to addressing and mitigating the existential matters. The situation demands radical adjustments and paradigm realignment in policy formulation regarding the pre-university education and subsequent enrolment criteria into the different programmes on offer. What appears apparent, in our view, is that the challenges transcend rurality and therefore demand that we either learn from our history and experience and pursue a process of nation building around a more humane and egalitarian society, or turn a blind eye to the glaring inequalities and thus perpetuate the division so redolent of our past.

References Arnold, M. L., Newman, J. H., Gaddy, B. B., & Dean, C. B. (2005). A look at the condition of rural education research: Setting a direction for future research. JRRE, 20(6), 1–25. Berliner, D. C. (2004). If the underlying premise for no child left behind is false, how can that solve our problems? In K. Goodman, P. Shannon, Y. Goodman, & R.  Rapoport (Eds.), Saving our schools: The case for public education in America. Oakland: PDR Bks.

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

19

Carlson, L.  A., Thorn, A.  A., Mulvenon, S.  W., Turner, R.  C., & Hughes, M. F. (2002). The transformational approach: Organisational development strategies for transforming rural schools. The Rural Educator, 24(2), 31–37. Chikoko, V. (2006). Negotiating roles and responsibilities in the context of decentralized school governance: A case study of one cluster of schools in Zimbabwe (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. Cicchinelli, L., & Beesley, A. (2017). Introduction: Current state of the science in rural education research. In G. Nugent, G. Kunz, S. Sheridan, T. Glover, & L. Knoche (Eds.), Rural education research in the United States: State of the science and emerging directions (pp. 1–14). Cham: Springer. Cloke, P. J. (1977). An index of rurality for England and Wales. Regional Studies, 11, 31–46. Cloke, P., & Johnston, R. (2005). Deconstructing human geography’s binaries. In P. Cloke & R. Johnston (Eds.), Spaces of geographical thought: Deconstructing human Geography’s binaries (pp. 1–41). London: Sage Publications. Cuervo, H. (2016). Understanding social justice in rural education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. De Young, A. J. (1991). Rural education: Issues and practices. New York: Garkland Publishing Inc. Dekeza, C., & Kufakunesu, M. (2017). Implementation of STEM curriculum in rural secondary schools in Zimbabwe. Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy, 8(1), 11–15. Erwin, P. (2019). Evidence-based public health provided through local health departments: Importance of academic-practice partnerships. American Journal of Public Health, 109(5), 739–747. European Commission. (1997). Situation and outlook: Rural developments, CAP 2000. Working document of the Directorate-General of Agriculture (DG VI). Feagin, J. R., Orum, A. M., & Sjoberg, G. (Eds.). (1991). A case for the case study. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Fraser, N. (2007). Feminist politics in the age of recognition: A two-dimensional approach to gender studies. Studies in Social Justice, 1(1), 23–35. Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalising world. New York: Columbia University Press. Green, B., & Reid, J. (2014). Teacher education for rural-regional sustainability: Changing agendas, challenging futures, chasing chimeras? Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 32(3), 255–273. Harber, C., & Davies, L. (2006). School management and effectiveness in developing countries. London: Cassell.

20 

S. Nenji and A. P. Ndofirepi

Hayes, R. M., & Bentham, C. G. (1982). The effects of accessibility on general practitioner consultations, outpatient attendances and in-patient admissions in Norfolk,England. Social Sciences and Medicine, 16, 561–569. Hlalele, D. (2012). Social justice and rural education in South Africa. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 111–118. Hlalele, D., & Alexander, G. (2012). University access and social justice. South African Journal of Higher Education, 26(3), 487–502. Keddie, A. (2012). Pursuing justice for refugee students: Addressing issues of cultural (mis)recognition. Journal of Inclusive Education, 16(12), 1295–1310. Kûle, L. (2008). Concepts of rurality and urbanity as analytical categories in multidimensional research. Proceedings of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, Section B: Natural, Exact and Applied Sciences, 62(1/2 (654/655)), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.2478/v10046-008-0004-3. Leibowitz, B. (2017). 1: Rurality and education. Working paper for the SARiHE project. sarihe.org.za/publications. Lipsitt, L.  R., & Demick, J. (2012). Theory and measurement of resilience: Views from development. In M. Ungar (Ed.), The social ecology of resilience: A handbook of theory and practice (pp. 43–52). New York: Springer Science & Business Media. Majongwe, R. (2013, April 10). Zimbabwe education unions deplore use of temporary unqualified teachers. Sunday News. Retrieved from http:www. thestandard.co.zw/. Masinire, A., Maringe, F., & Nkambule, T. (2014). Education for rural development: Embedding rural dimensions in initial teacher preparation. Perspectives in Education, 32(3), 146–158. Mentz, E., Bailey, R., Havenga, M., Breed, B., Govender, D., Govender, I., Dignum, F., & Dignum, V. (2012). The diverse educational needs and challenges of information technology teachers in two black rural schools. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 70–78. Moletsane, R. (2012). Repositioning educational research on rurality and rural education in South Africa: Beyond deficit paradigms. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 1–8. Monk, D. (2007). Recruiting and retaining high quality teachers in rural areas. Future Children, 17(1), 155–174. Moreland, N., Chamberlain, J., & Artaraz, K. (2003). Rurality and higher education: A conceptual analysis. In M.  Slowey & D.  Watson (Eds.), Higher education and the life course (pp. 51–66). Maidenhead: OUP and SRHE.

1  Rurality in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Access, Participation... 

21

Mukeredzi, T.  G. (2013). Professional development through teacher roles: Conceptions of professionally unqualified teachers in rural South Africa and Zimbabwe. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 28(11), 1–16. Myende, P., & Chikoko, V. (2014). School-university partnership in a South African rural context: Possibilities for an asset-based approach. Journal of Human Ecology, 46, 249–259. Ncube, A. C. (2014). Barriers to learner achievement in rural secondary schools in developing countries: The case of rural Zimbabwe. Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies (JETERAPS), 5(1), 1–5. Nyagura, L. (1993). Quantitative developments, quality and equity concerns in Zimbabwean primary and secondary education sectors. Zimbabwe Journal of Educational Research, 5(1), 21–40. Randall, W. L., Clews, R., & Furlong, D. (2015). The tales that bind: A narrative model for living and helping in rural communities. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Redding, S., & Walberg, H.  J. (2012). Promoting learning in rural schools. Lincoln: Center on Innovation & Improvement. Roberts, P. (2014). Researching from the standpoint of the rural. In S. White & M. Corbett (Eds.), Doing educational research in rural settings: Methodological issues, international perspectives and practical solutions (pp.  135–147). Abingdon: Routledge. Roberts, P., & Green, B. (2013). Researching rural places: On social justice and rural education. Qualitative Enquiry, 19(10), 765–774. Rutter, M. (2012). Resilience as a dynamic concept. Development and Psychopathology, 24(2), 335–344. Soudien, C., Reddy, V., & Woolard, I. (2019). Poverty and inequality: Diagnosis, prognosis, Responses: State of the Nation. Cape Town: HSRC Bks. UNICEF. (2013). Zimbabwe-statistics: Life expectancy, total adult literacy rates and primary school net enrolments. Writer, J. H. (2008). Unmasking, Exposing, and Confronting: Critical Race Theory, Tribal Critical Race Theory and Multicultural Education. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 10(2), 1–15.

2 Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year Undergraduate Rural Student Experiences on Campus Elizabeth S. Ndofirepi and Felix Maringe

Introduction Post-1994 South African higher education has been mandated by the government to redress the injustices brought about by the apartheid regime. The opening of university doors to students from previously disadvantaged communities like rural areas is one such mandate. This change in demographic profile of the student body over the last 20 years has had adverse effects. Thus, the complexity and scope of higher education has increased owing to the diverse nature of the current student body entering the universities (CHE 2010). This points to the need to look into issues of space and student experiences. Among other disadvantaged groups, rural students are victims of circumstances. The problems they face upon entry into university include, among others, the inadequacy of the school system in preparing them for university life, the complex challenges posed by the university’s social and academic demands and

E. S. Ndofirepi (*) • F. Maringe University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_2

23

24 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

students’ lack of familiarity with the modus operandi within the learning spaces (CHE 2010). These formidable challenges impact adversely on their success as university students, thereby widening the social inequality gap. There is a dearth of research that looks into the experiences of rural students, more specifically in relational spaces. In our view, if such spaces are left unchecked, they tend to derail and work against the achievement of epistemological access which South African higher education is currently clamouring for. What this chapter seeks to address is that it is no longer just a consideration of the physical spaces that students occupy but relational spaces too. The main purpose of this chapter is to highlight that rural students have inert and inherent social capital they bring with them, and universities need to provide conducive spaces for its development and utilisation. Thus, the chapter explores the nature of the relationships that rural students have with other people on campus and how these relationships reduce or worsen the barriers they face as they enter higher education. The key objectives are: (a) To unveil, through reviewing literature, the rurality discourses and related existing studies; (b) To explore, using student voices, how and why students interact with others and academic staff on campus; (c) To establish the effects of the bonds, the links and the bridges emanating from rural students’ interactions with others on campus; and (d) To explore the implications of such interactions to the university. This chapter points out that to survive and thrive on campus undergraduate students, especially first years from rural areas, resort to what they grew up learning – the creation of relational space. The term ‘relational space’ refers to patterns of peer support, building of shared goals and mutual respect that emerge through some distinct configurations of networking (Gittell 2003).When this fails, some students enter into ‘mute space’ – a situation where silence takes precedence over interaction between the students and some members of the academic staff (Ndofirepi 2015). In this case, issues of pedagogic distance, teacher immediacy, transactional distance, social presence and social exclusion (CHE 2010),

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

25

which depict sources and dimensions of the ‘mute spaces’, are evident from the students’ narratives about their experiences on campus. The peer formation and networking demonstrate the applicability of social capital concepts of bonding, bridging and linking, while the mute space is indicative of less – or absence of – students linking with the people in power or with the required resources to address their needs and enhance student experience. Based on vignettes of student experiences at a university in South Africa and existing literature, this chapter argues that enhancing the bond, the bridge and the link for student relational spaces goes a long way in improving rural student experiences on campus. Thus, this chapter can aid existing literature in filling the current gaps on studying rural students pursuing higher education. To arrive at this, three key sections make up this chapter. Following the introduction is a section that locates the study within current literature. This section comprises a literature review foregrounding theory and empirical research in the area, notions of rurality, challenges faced by rural students and then issues and dimensions of epistemological access. The next section covers methodological considerations. These include, among others, the qualitative case study, the how and the why aspects of the vignettes of students, data collection procedure and the data analysis process. The final section presents and discusses the findings before giving the concluding remarks.

 heoretical Review: Foregrounding Theory T and Empirical Research In higher education, two forms of access endorse a high school graduate as a student. These are formal access and epistemological access (Morrow 2009). Formal access is when one merely registers as a student to physically gain entry into the university system – a process that can be necessitated by policy or some other agency other than the ‘self ’, taking into consideration issues of entitlement, equity and equality of opportunity. For universities to consider this access, which according to Ramrathan (2016, p.  1) is evaluated through “number-counting”, is rather

26 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

problematic. On the other hand, epistemological access happens when the registered student learns “how to become a successful participant in the academic practice” of a tertiary institution (Morrow 2009, p. 78). In this case, the student develops an understanding of the operations and ‘thinking’ of the institution and uses one’s own initiative to gain entry to the practice of searching for knowledge. This process includes, but is not limited to, efforts in utilising institutional resources and facilities (CHE 2010). Contrary to formal access, the ‘self ’, that is the individual student, is the agent for gaining epistemological access. This is where the challenge lies. The rural students’ school and social background never opened their minds to such spaces and ways of doing things – there is lack of familiarity with the university’s modus operandi. These students are not exempted from feelings of alienation, intimidation and bewilderment exerted by the unfamiliar academic culture and campus environment (CHE 2010) which impact on their success right at the beginning, well before the universities bring forth a mixed bag of interventions. Ramrathan (2016, p. 2) notes these interventions as including “identification, monitoring, supporting and tracking of students identified as at risk of failing; introduction of access and foundation programs and secondary support programs like financial support, food security and student counselling”. The space that the rural student understands and grows up knowing and participating in is sharing (Human Science Resource Council (HSRC), 2005). In that rural space it is about ‘us’ and ‘ours’ when it comes to resources. No one runs dry, because relationships are a key value since they find power in relationships – their social capital – what Putnam (2000, cited in Smith 2000–2009, p. 3) defines as “connections among individuals – social networks and norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them”. Citing the World Bank (1999), Smith (2000–2009, p.  3) refers to social capital as “the glue that holds them together”. Rural students are familiar with creating and organising themselves in and through the physical and relational spaces within their own everyday spaces, contrary to the campus-wide space. In his model ‘Relational Model of Organizational Change’ from his research, Gittell (2003) discusses how to create relational space for mutual respect, building shared goals and shared knowledge. Valente (1995, cited in Van der Merwe and Van Heerden 2009) uses the term ‘relational’ in a model and

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

27

explains that relational models deal with advice, patterns of friendship, communication, or support that exist among members of a social system. Finding a space on campus is problematic for these students as they grapple with negotiating life before university and the life facing them as university students (Ndofirepi 2015). The inert social capital rural students have can be utilised in negotiating of spaces. From existing literature, this chapter draws on the notion of mediation as the basis for the domain of the perceptions of students about peers and staff and the concepts of bonding, linking and bridging from Woolcock and Narayan’s (2000) social capital theory. The domain of students’ perceptions is about how the students view others as they interact with them in their social spaces. It is assumed that the perceptions they hold could enable or hinder student success. We view Woolcock and Narayan’s (2000) concepts of bonding, linking and bridging as a critical manifestation of the power of relationships and they are therefore relevant in informing us about how students relate with other people on campus. According to Woolcock and Narayan (2000), the concept ‘bonding’ refers to a position where you are with people like you. Thus, it is assumed that people are connected because they have some common features. For instance, students who do the same programme and are in the same year of study are connected on these grounds and so relate with each other. The bond between them is what they have in common – they feel comfortable when they are together. By the concept ‘bridging’, Woolcock and Narayan (2000) mean to connect with people ‘not like you’. With reference to students, it implies that, though different, they are linked by some shared activity. It “involves overlapping networks” (Stone 2003, p.  13). For instance, the students may belong to different years of study but are doing the same degree. Their concept ‘linking,’ assumes building connections with people of influence – those who are in positions of power by virtue of their socioeconomic or cultural capital, who can open avenues to resources. In a university set up, it is about students connecting with, for example, academic staff and even senior students – those in authority who “can be used to garner resources” (Stone 2003, p.  13). The assumption is that these people are experts and so play crucial roles in students’ lives. The

28 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

assumption is that students get assistance from these people on how to negotiate their way on campus, perhaps in their academic work. The concepts of bonding, bridging, and linking point to issues of networking and friendship as expressed in ‘relational spaces’ – a term that becomes relevant in this study about experiences of rural students on campus.

Rurality and Rural Education Phenomena Rurality and rural education are complex phenomena which are generally associated with deficit discourses of disadvantage, lack and diminished capitals to deal adequately with the demanding requirements of studying in universities, the majority of which are located in urban settings (Nkambule et al. 2011). In absolute terms, rural students fare badly relative to their urban counterparts. In South Africa, while there are rural schools which defy the odds (Christie 2001), the majority tend to provide fewer opportunities for learners to succeed and progress beyond basic education levels to tertiary institutions, more especially universities. Two major perspectives tend to dominate conceptualisations of rurality (Nkambule et al. 2011). First are perspectives which define the concept in spatial terms, as for example a geographical area characterised by traditional rather than modern arrangements, facilities, cultures and infrastructures. Such definitions tend to encompass legal interpretations of rurality used to differentiate such spaces from urban settings which are characterised by trappings of modernity including densely populated spaces with life-enabling infrastructures, industries, road networks, communication facilities and readily available commodities. The other perspective is to view rurality as a socioeconomic and cultural condition of groups of people who live in circumstances of relative or absolute poverty and who eke out a living largely from the land through subsistence, poorly or unmechanised farming practices. Such conditions place severe limitations on all aspects of people’s lives. For example, children in rural areas tend to travel long distances to get to school and often have to make the journey to school on foot, arriving there exhausted and

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

29

hungry. The schools they go to are poorly constructed, have few supportive facilities, have poorly and frequently inadequately or untrained teachers, receive weak instruction and have little or no access to books and, worse still, to modern technologies of instruction. A unifying theme in these two conceptualisations is the notion of deficits (Ramírez-Miranda 2014). Rarely, if at all, do we have definitions of rurality which focus on the benefits or advantages of rurality. For example, discourses of rurality do not capture the value of traditional livelihoods, the communal condition of togetherness and sense of shared purpose in rural spaces, the prevailing condition of Ubuntu through which life is defined as a shared struggle of survival and problem solving and where progress and success are measured not so much through the exploits of individuals, but through the advances of the group (Balfour et al. 2009). Such values are rarely tested for their contribution and efficacy to the human condition. Short (2006), for example, sees rurality as an idyllic, mystical space where people live happy lives in ample spaces, with unlimited resources of free-­ flowing water in rivers, free food from extensive gardens and fields, clean unpolluted air and a very stress-free lifestyle away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Such notions have been described as romantic narratives of rurality which misrepresent and deceive rather than accurately portraying the reality of living in those spaces. The truth about rurality is probably somewhere in between. These so-called romantic discourses of rurality are largely marginalised discourses which have effectively been discarded from the contemporary discourses and narratives of life and human progress. In this chapter, we take an integrated view of both the dominant and submerged perspectives of rurality and offer the following definition: Rurality is defined as marginalised geographical spaces and human conditions characterised by disadvantage and lack but with hidden and discarded potentials to contribute to the development of humanity in ways that can propel humanity in yet unimaginable ways. We think this definition contributes to a better and more nuanced understanding of rurality, not just as a space of disadvantage and deficit, but also as a space of advantage and benefit that can revolutionise thinking about rural schools, rural people and rural education.

30 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

 ural Education and Education R in Rural Schools The two ideas are ordinarily and mistakenly used interchangeably. For us, rural education, like science education, would be studies dedicated towards understanding the rural contexts as both spaces of challenge and opportunity in much the same way as people would invest in knowledge from urban studies, for example (Budge 2005). Rural education studies have recently become an important area of study at some universities on the continent. At the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) for example, there is a Chair for Rural Education which has led important research and through it many doctoral students have been awarded degrees in aspects of rural education. In a recent study by Nkambule et al. (2011), a number of universities in South Africa, including the University of Johannesburg (UJ), UKZN, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Stellenbosch University (SU), amongst others, are regularly producing doctoral and masters graduates in rural education studies. Analysis of the positioning of rurality in the theses in this area has shown rurality being conceptualised as a specific space and as a social condition (Nkambule et al. 2011). On the other hand, education in rural schools is a concept which speaks to teaching and learning in schools located in rural areas. Here again the nature of such research falls broadly into two broad areas. The first is lived experience research depicting stories by people who narrate personal experiences of having been involved with education in rural spaces; the second tends to be mixed methods research including quantitative surveys and interviews with people working in or learning in rural-­ based schools. A wide range of challenges faced by young people from those spaces trying to gain access in urban-based universities has been identified.

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

31

 hallenges of Access to Urban Universities C by Rural Students A significant corpus of research exists in South Africa and elsewhere which sheds light on barriers and facilitators to entry into universities by rural students. Below we summarise what is well known in this regard. Since 1994, the participation rate in higher education of students from rural schools has significantly increased. Education Stats SA (2018) shows that rural student numbers have increased from a mere 5% in 1996 to about 30% in 2017. This has happened on the back of government redress and equalisation policy initiatives since the dawn of democracy. The largest expansion of rural student numbers in higher education occurred between 2016 and 2018 following the #FeesMustFall protests which secured government commitment to free higher education. Rural students show a greater preference to study in urban universities for a number of reasons including the sheer attraction of urban living, the increased opportunities for accessing part-time employment in urban areas while they are still studying, the opportunity to escape the drudgery of rural life, and the opportunity of studying far away from their parents which enhances their growth, development and independence (Budge 2005; Jenkins and Oliver 2004). Students from rural schools who enter universities tend to be less well intellectually prepared for academic studies than their urban counterparts. The pass rates at Matric level in South Africa are decidedly in favour of urban schools. For example, in the 2018 Matric results, the average national pass rate for rural schools was about 42%, while schools in urban settings had an average of about 72%. (DBE Matric Results 2018). Students from rural schools have been found to be less secure socially, culturally, psychologically and financially, making them more vulnerable to failure in higher education settings (Binswanger-Mkhize 2014). They do not possess the same intellectual, social, cultural and economic capital as their urban counterparts, factors which contribute strongly to success in higher education. In South Africa, the wastage rate in universities is very high. Of all students starting university, almost 60% do not complete their studies,

32 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

through failure, or dropping out. Of this percentage, it has been estimated that 85% are students from rural schools and from similarly disadvantaged backgrounds (SA Stats, Education 2018). We also know that most students from rural areas tend to study in disciplines such as the arts, languages, commerce and humanities and are poorly represented in the hard sciences, mathematics, technology, engineering, mining and medical sciences (Binswanger-Mkhize 2014). The poor representation in these subjects generally channels those rural students who succeed in their studies into less rewarding careers, thus reproducing and perpetuating the relative poverty and disadvantage they were seeking to escape through participation in higher education. Boliver (2017), Marginson (2016), and Schofer and Meyer (2015) have argued that higher education reproduces rather than reduces social inequality. The foregoing suggests that rural students face formidable challenges in respect of both physical and epistemological access in higher education. What we know less about is the extent to which universities try to build internal mechanisms to reduce the barriers rural students are confronted with once they gain access to higher education study. In this chapter, we use data from a doctoral study (Ndofirepi 2015) to examine how educational and social spaces mitigate the barriers faced by rural students in gaining epistemological access in universities.

Methodological Considerations The data for this chapter is based on a doctoral qualitative study (Ndofirepi 2015) about undergraduate students’ experiences of social and academic spaces on campus at a particular university in South Africa. We used a descriptive qualitative case study design (Merriam 2001). The university studied is in an urban setting, a geographical positioning that makes it very easy to get students from the local urban schools and affluent social backgrounds but, as was previously alluded to, like any other South African university, it has been is mandated by the government to enrol students from remote rural and disadvantaged background settings. This makes our sample unique.

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

33

Selection of Vignettes of Students While the main study was informed by in-depth interview data from a diverse population, our chapter examines data from rural student respondents only. For the purpose of this chapter, we purposively sampled interview data to get vignettes of these students. At this juncture, we decided to move away from the multi-dimensional approach in which the rural student is defined. In the South African context, there are expensive state-­ of-­the-art high schools located in the rural setting, but these are meant for learners from rich elite communities. For this chapter, students from such schools were not considered as rural students. To sample the vignettes, we adopted “homogeneous sampling”; a purposeful sampling strategy (Creswell 2012, p. 208) where we “intentionally select” (Creswell 2012, p. 206) the transcriptions by first reading the responses to questions about students’ backgrounds so that we got the real rural students. A total of nine rural student respondents’ transcriptions from the major study were chosen due to the richness of the narratives. Our proposition was that undergraduate students’ experience of campus life is best understood through the students’ voices – their narrations. Although our sample is small, it provides a valuable insight into the experiences of this group of students. Of particular interest is the rural students’ voices which surprisingly stood out as they expressed their experience of interactions with others when negotiating the university campus spaces – sharing their own realities which are “local”, “specific”, and actively “constructed” and which depend on the actor’s frame of reference within the setting (Guba and Lincoln 1994, p. 110). The narratives are a mixture of voices. For example, voices expressing fear, excitement, uncertainty, being lost and overwhelmed, shocked and smart. This openness, we assume, was triggered by two facts: (1) ethical considerations, especially the signing of consent forms and assurance given to them that confidentiality and anonymity of the information that would be shared would be maintained, and (2) the opportunity and space given to talk freely to someone who was eager to listen as they told their stories vividly. This is typical of the rural way of life  – telling stories. It is this richness

34 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

and rigour of the stories and not the number that attracted us to this particular data.

Data Analysis In terms of analysis of data, we drew on the nine transcriptions sampled from data for the main study and followed the same data analysis procedure – use of Osborne’s (1990) phenomenological data analysis process. This process entails the researcher reading through all the transcriptions, extracting and establishing the units of meaning relevant to the research questions followed by paraphrasing them to facilitate the creation of first order themes. The next step involves clustering the first order themes into fewer second order themes, which then are consolidated into more general and fewer higher-level thematic abstractions that form a pattern of the phenomenon (Osborne 1990). These higher order thematic abstractions became our interpretive themes of the emerging issues. For this chapter we just considered the issue of power relationships (Ndofirepi 2015) as illustrated by formation of friends and interactions with peers and staff. The next section presents these findings and the discussions. Suffice to say that we make use of direct quotes from the respondents in order to capture the lived experiences of rural students as they interact with others on campus. To observe ethics issues, we have used pseudonyms to camouflage the respondents.

Emerging Issues and Discussions Our research indicates how rural students build relationships with others to confront the challenges they face upon entry into university. As already stressed in the section above, the overarching theme that emerges from the analysis which we chose to consider for this chapter is the power of relationships (Ndofirepi 2015). Through interactions and relations with other students and staff, this aspect clearly comes to the fore in the form of relational spaces and mute spaces.

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

35

Relational Spaces Students reported the formation of relational spaces as a way of dealing with the challenges they face on campus. This happens through friendship formation and interaction with peers.

Domain of Friends: The Bond … The only way you could overcome that is to study and, you know, get into a community of friends that are doing the same course and basically to share ideas as to how to come up tops against that kind of work. (Itumeleng)

These views by a respondent point out that students mingle with communities of friends they rely on given the pressure of work they face. Students reported that making friends is no easy process, as expressed by this student: …the only thing that stands out to be particularly successful would be making friends that I am compatible with. Of all people here I managed to get decent group of friends that I don’t think I would change. (Ayanda)

Language is a huge glitch in the process of establishing friendship. Students reported that: … I will approach a black student, but I won’t greet her in my own language: yebo or kunjani? [hello or, how are you?]. I say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ It was bad but funny, you know. I had seen how people respond, ‘Hey, how are you’. I started to do that: ‘Hey, how are you?’ (Tshakane) Yeah! Language barrier, I am really embarrassed. It’s not that I don’t encourage mother tongue, but the thing is it has been over encouraged here that … you know, I can’t count the number of students I meet who find it difficult to construct a sentence without ‘mina’, ‘nje’, ‘pela’. You know, they use these [vernacular] words, they can’t get conjunctions easily. (Itumeleng)

36 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

There was also an expression of mistrust in some students on this issue. This serves to highlight the significance attached to trust and respect in establishing relationships (Fox and Wilson 2009) as expressed in comments like: … in an environment with different people, [the challenge] is meeting wrong people. Like not everyone is good. Not everyone is the right person for you… That’s the challenge, meeting wrong people you know… some people are just there to destroy you, you know, destroy everything about you, but it has been a good experience so far. (Gugu)

These expressions of scepticism point to the students’ deep concern about who to relate to, and the way they engage with each other to enhance their social experiences. Similar literature notes: “… friendship is about having friendly faces around and making initial contacts which may and may not develop into friendship” (Wilcox et al. 2005, p. 713). The rural students we interviewed reported that making friends is a hit-­ or-­miss exercise so there are criteria for selecting friends. The commonest criterion is that of choosing friends from students at the same level of study or who are doing the same course. It appears students are steadfast in their bond with their own kind (Woolcock and Narayan 2000). The following is representative of most of the respondents’ sentiments: … being with the one that you are on the same level; the ones that you are working with. Being able to gain and share information with it’s much better, it makes it easier… I have friends that I work with most of the time. Yeah, we work well. (Itumeleng)

The issue is not just about doing the same course, the same level of study and assisting each other; the students’ social life has gone through unprecedented changes because of heavy workloads on campus. This respondent estimated “70% study, 30% social life” (Sisonke); another, regretting changes in his social life, openly declared “This is unbelievable! I don’t really have a lot of time for my social life” (Thato). Another was also parochial and miscomprehended “You don’t have a social life; your

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

37

life revolves around books. Books, that’s the varsity culture, you study, study, study” (Rue). So, the students would rather socialise as they work: … socially, we tend to… hang out with the people who are doing the same courses and what not because we spent a lot of time in the company of each other because of the load of the course (Ayanda).

It seems bonding with the other of the same course develops the students’ sense of community (Woolcock and Narayan 2000), as articulated here: … I chill with friends, but there is not enough time in our days to chill. There is too much work, so we must work most of the time. I live with friends on res. For now I think there is being a shift on my social life because I’m now friends with people who are doing the same thing as me, the same level and everything… that’s what it is all about now studying, getting what you have to get. Yeah, no friends from outside. (Tshakane)

Due to the heavy academic workload, students’ relationships are essentially work/study related. Working relentlessly could be detrimental to students’ health. This resonates with the literature on shared learning experience where learning communities strengthen friendships and “bridge the academic-social divide that typically plagues student life” (Tinto 1997, p. 610). Students get the opportunity to meet the two often competitive needs: social and academic. Learning communities assist the students to draw these two worlds together (Tinto 1997). Another popular criterion students use is choosing friends from the ones doing the same course but at different levels; “…maybe those who are doing third year, second year. They help you, giving you all this advice, what you should do with a particular course and stuff ” (Sisonke). Another commented: … people I study with, yah, people I do the same course with. Even if it can be a second year, third year or first year, it doesn’t matter because you are doing the same course. We help one another. (Rue)

38 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

What we note here is that the issue of relationships is not about the juniors seeking assistance from the seniors; it is reciprocal. The emphasis is on the same course; “Someone like me” as one student pointed out. “My friends, they are doing the course with [me] so they know exactly what I’m going through” (Gugu). Another student, Ayanda, said: “I can learn from them what they know and it’s easier with someone that I know compared to someone that I don’t know”. There are also constraints linked to mobility. Most of the respondents reported making friends with others who are not only doing the same course, but in the same residence and same campus. These students have no time for unnecessary movement: “We are always looking at books” (Thato), and “There is a lot of pressure” (Itumeleng, Rue, Xolisani, Ayanda, Tshakane and Joe). Hence, they prefer friends within proximity. … most of my friends are on campus, at res, so most of my social life is here on campus, and I suppose the workload necessitates it to have your social structure close to you. (Sisonke)

In these cases, the impression we get is that like-mindedness is critical. The first inclination is to get people who are like you academically and socially – bonding and then building bridges with the ‘other’ to increase resources. What this suggests is that students befriend those who experience and have some understanding of the circumstances surrounding them. This concurs with Woolcock and Narayan’s (2000) concepts of bonding, linking and bridging. This seems to suggest a campus environment characterised by a lot of pressure from work. These findings confirm those of a previous study on first year experiences of Science students (Malcolm et  al. 2000) which established that “the chief learning concern was unanimously declared as the volume of work”. Yet working continuously with no time to relax, may be detrimental to the students’ academic health (see Tinto 1997). We also noted that it is not just friends that matter, but peers too.

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

39

Interaction with Peers: The Bridge … when we have maybe an assignment we come together as students who are doing that course and we discuss regardless of being friends or not being friends. We always come in with one point, with one thing in mind to discuss the assignment. We interact... (Sisonke)

Besides interacting with friends, the students also relate with other students, for example when they are involved with group activities on campus. Reference was made as to how students relate to peers in a way that helps them gain social capital (Woolcock and Narayan 2000) through sharing ideas (Itumeleng, Joe, Tshakane, Sisonke and Thato) and “…you learn more from your peers … and become a community of knowledge where you actually interact and share information” (Gugu). Students reported that they benefit from peers when lecturers and tutors are not well understood or are unavailable: … sometimes we study in groups, so we help each other when we are studying ... because I can learn from them what they know and it’s easier with someone that I know compared to someone that I don’t know like the lecturer. (Ayanda)

Some students reported being motivated to work when they see their peers working: “… the people around, the resources we use, like looking at possibilities, they actually promote positive learning” (Gugu). Joe concurred: ... every time when you come like outside of res or outside of a lecture, you always see students like with their books. And, when you go to the library, you’d see that there are other students who are very committed in their careers. Yeah, so it’s a good thing. It also encourages you that you need to work smart; you need to work hard like those people… (Joe)

From this, we have observed that there is a change in student behaviour as a result of peer influence. The impression we get is that some students establish those kinds of relationships with people who share

40 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

their aspirations. This supports what is in the literature that the development of supportive peer groups assists students in balancing the many challenges they confront on campus (Tinto 1997). In the same vein, Putnam (2000, as cited in Smith, 2000–2009, p.  5) states that social capital, besides resolving collective problems, “also operates through psychological and biological processes to improve individuals’ lives”. The environment also compels the student to work and uphold peer values, as articulated by this participant: Like your colleagues and staff, they have really high expectations and you also have high expectations and do well to keep up with them to move and not stay behind. So yeah, its things like that… (Tshakane)

The issue of students’ interaction with peers resonates with findings in Malcolm’s et al. (2000, p. 7) research where they report that “students found that peer support and social acceptance was crucial” to their stay on campus. Similarly, Tinto (1993) affirms that peer interaction is one of the main ways of successfully integrating the social and the academic systems of the university culture. Existing literature further asserts that isolation and potentially limited peer interaction could be a result of lack of serious academic involvement and any activity that draws students’ time and energy away from campus impacts negatively on the students’ campus experience (Astin 1993). It is against this backdrop of a supportive network of peers that academic engagement arises (Tinto 1997). One question we flag at this point is: Of what importance are friends and peers in those privileged spaces?

The Role of Friends and Peers ... sometimes I ask some second-year students whether they understand this; help me with some of that, even my group, or my friends, I even ask my roommate; oh, help me… (Joe)

Peers and friends play a vital role in the lives of some students on campus. All the respondents reported assisting each other with academic

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

41

work as the commonest role, thus gaining access to resources and sharing them: Usually the first port of call is the person who sits next to you in class and if you get help there, I don’t think there is a point in moving to the lecturer. (Itumeleng) … you will find that they [peers] know what you don’t know and then you understand. (Joe) I always go to my friends… yeah, I go to my friends, if I really have problems let’s just say with an essay or something… if I’m stuck with something, I always ask. (Gugu)

Seven of the respondents reported studying together  – working on assignments or some projects. These activities are a follow up on what takes place in the lectures or tutorials. Students reported finding the material presented in lectures challenging, to the extent that they have difficulties understanding it especially at the start of university studies. In this regard, Putnam (2000, as cited in Smith 2000–2009, p. 5) contends that “[t]he networks that constitute social capital also serve as conduits for the flow of helpful information that facilitates achieving of our goals”. Students also reported that friends also fill in as family in the empty space created by being away from home. Some students explained that: … just because we are here it doesn’t mean that we have lost touch with our families, you find your mom called: your brother is sick. That affects you… [You] need them [other students] to support you. They are not just friends… (Thato) … They are sisters. Yeah, like you have found a new family here… (Ayanda) … I speak to somebody, let me say like if I’m not doing well in something, if I take it out and that person start giving advice, I feel welcomed and I feel encouraged and I feel like I get the strength to stand… (Sisonke)

42 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

This is supported by what Morosanu, Handley and Donovan (2010), found in their study that student friendships created and developed at university become important sources of emotional and practical support, as expressed here: “… with personal issues, especially if you are not performing the way you wanted to perform, then you talk to them. You cry and then it’s fine” (Itumeleng). One respondent categorically asserted that: … my social is like my support group. We come together. We sit together and if you had a bad lecture, we can sit together and like convene… we can talk about some boys too, the assignment or a lecture to lecturers … everything … (Rue)

Existing literature conceptualises social support as constituting six functions of personal relationships  – social integration, reassurance of worth, attachment, opportunity for nurture, a sense of reliable alliance, and the obtaining of guidance – each generally connected to a particular type of relationship (Wilcox et al. 2005) and these seem to concur with the findings above. When students feel socially accepted and make connections through friends and peers, “this is culturally consonant with the ontological concept of ubuntu” – a worldview perspective that claims: ‘I am because of you’ (Malcolm et al. 2000, p. 8). The respondents went further to recount how some friends provide reassurance: … if you are not doing so well and your friends are like, ‘Don’t worry I’m also not doing well.’ It makes you feel better, sort of like: so don’t think you are alone… when my friends feel the same way as I do and there are some people in my class who do voice their opinions and then I feel like okay I’m not alone, so I’m like okay good maybe… (Gugu) … like if I speak to somebody, let me say like, if I’m not doing well in something, if I take it out and that person start giving advice, I feel welcomed and I feel encouraged and I feel like I get the strength to stand… (Tshakane)

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

43

Other students view friends as a source of inspiration: “My friends love work and eh, they have a really good impact on me” (Itumeleng), and “… having to know that somebody believes that you can do it” (Joe). In situations such as these, chances are that the students’ worries about failure and probably academic “exclusion” (Rue and Sisonke) are overcome and hope of success prevails. Thus, a student may benefit from the goodwill of friends and realise the need to persist and continue to work knowing that one is not alone in this predicament. The findings correspond with what literature has documented about the students’ views. Of importance is emotional support for feelings of self-confidence and ease in the self, but instrumental, informational and appraise support give students confidence in terms of their academic work (Wilcox et al. 2005, p. 720). In addition to seeking friends and peers for collaborating on academic work and/or emotional support, students in our study find themselves bonding with friends and bridging with peers when they decide to take a rest, as expressed by Joe: “…we always go out, we always do stuff together, we sit together at break, yeah, [and] we are like really close...” Itumeleng expressed a sense of socialisation: “We talk about everything; from religion to music to how the day was. We talk about everything, difficult issues at home”. While some respondents said friends “have very good influence” (Tshakane), for others, peer pressure is too strong: … some friends you know, like they are the ones who push you to the edge like fail. So, yeah, for me it’s peer pressure. Like, you want to be in the same standards with your friends ... for example, if she goes to parties you want to go even though you know your workload that you are not done with your work, but still you wanna go there. For me it’s just peer pressure. (Rue)

Thus, such friendship is detrimental to one’s life on campus and some students are aware of what Ndofirepi (2015, p. 187) refers to as “boundary maintenance – how students create spaces between themselves and their friends in a situation where they realize their friends are distracting them from focusing on their studies”.

44 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

The shared experiences of learning networks cement friendship as well as “bridge the academic-social divide that typically plagues student life” (Tinto 1997, p. 610). Tinto further contends that the two spheres are usually areas of contestation, causing students to feel torn between the two worlds. Now students are able to “meet the two without having to sacrifice one in order to meet the other” (Tinto 1997, p. 611). The students’ constructs on friendship and peers point to some interesting insights. First, the transition from school to university which tends to coincide with other forms of transition, particularly the transition from a social space where individual life is shaped, influenced and supported by family members to a situation where most of the choices and decisions come to depend on the individual student – creating a gap that can only be filled by peers and friends as replacement for family absence. Friends thus become a fundamental need on campus; without them the student can be left with feelings of loneliness and insecurity that can translate into inadequacy in academic life. This resonates with Malcolm et al.’s (2000, p. 6) finding that “making friends was seen as the single most important factor” among the first year Science students they studied at a university. Similarly, Holdsworth (2006) asserts that the time students spend at the university is not just limited to the attainment of qualifications but, as most stakeholders are aware: … one of the most important aspects of going to university is the opportunities it provides for making new friends, enjoying less restricted social life and taking part in a range of non-academic activities. Yet, this rather privileged ideal of education is not something that all students feel they have, or even want access to. (Holdsworth 2006, p. 496)

As was mentioned earlier in this chapter, for some students, friends are a necessity on campus for dealing with challenging situations that confront them. So, the students choose friends according to the purposes they serve in their lives at university. As this respondent pointed out: “If I’m not with them then I find someone to be with” (Tshakane). This seems to suggest that some students fear loneliness and perhaps the gloomy social side of campus life and therefore seek the assistance and support of friends. Our concern was the students who are just by

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

45

themselves, as evident in comments like: “… so many students who are isolated because they go by themselves. They don’t interact with other people out here because the environment is quite strange…” (Gugu). Such loners are likely to succumb to pressure and leave. We pose the question: How exactly does loneliness come about and with what effects?

The Mute Spaces As was alluded to in the section above, some students become sceptical about making friends on the pretext that it might distract them from their studies: “When I came here I decided that I don’t want to have any friends just because I just felt like I know what I came here to do and I must just do that” (Rue). Students like these are what Cross et al. (as cited in CHE 2010) call “loners” – these who willingly choose to be so. However, in our study rural students talk of extenuating circumstances that place them into what Ndofirepi (2015) coined the mute space – “a situation where silence takes precedence over interaction between some of the students and some of the staff” (p. 198). We found some interesting insights when our rural student respondents reported their experiences of interacting with academic staff. From their responses we realised that much of the creation of such mute spaces is due to interaction with staff or lack of such interactions or the link.

Interaction with Staff: The Link The way university life is; it’s one of that kind of, ‘I meet you, you teach me, then I go’, and you really don’t get to interact that much with the person. (Itumeleng)

The quotation above echoes the type of relationship some students have with the academic staff (Scanlon et  al. 2007), that of pedagogic (CHE 2010) and social distance. Most of our respondents’ experiences when interacting with academic staff widely pointed to anecdotal happenstances they had with tutors and lecturers both in and outside of the

46 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

classroom. The rural students made very strong reference to problems of language when it comes to interaction with staff. Respondents reported that those from rural and even township schools are not familiar with the university’s medium of instruction – the English language. The language issue is multifaceted. The worst is that some of the rural students cannot make a distinction between “good and bad English…” (Tshakane, Itumeleng, Joe, Gugu and Ayanda). This impacts negatively in their speaking and writing: “failing assignments” (Gugu). Furthermore, students feel uncomfortable in class: “We are never that free when it comes to the white lecturers ... sometimes they use English that is not familiar with us ....We always prefer black lecturers because they understand us” (Itumeleng) or “... you have to adapt to the accent and stuff ...” (Joe). Ayanda commented that: ... we find it difficult at times to adapt to the funny accents. Okay, maybe ‘funny’ is not a good word to use, but ... some of our lecturers have got acquired accents ... so it’s more ... than just relying on what the lecturer says in class ... You must copy or read for yourself because when they read, you won’t hear a single thing that they say some of them. That’s how bad it is ... (Ayanda)

This language issue, especially about the lecturers’ accent, echoes with Malcolm et al.’s (2000, p. 7) finding where their respondents reiterated that “some students laughed that: ‘we don’t even know if they are speaking English!’”. It is now common knowledge that, due to the school crisis in South Africa, most schools – especially those in rural areas and townships – lack in preparing their learners adequately for university life. This seems to point to a disjuncture between what the university expects and what some schools do to prepare students for higher learning. The major challenge hiccup is that most subjects in schools are taught in the vernacular (Rue). The respondents’ narratives below bring to the fore a somewhat dramatic picture particularly on this issue of language: People from rural areas come here and they find that no one is gonna accommodate them in terms of language. There is a language barrier. English is not commonly used in rural areas. Unlike those who attended

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

47

urban area schools, in rural areas, teachers there … teach in Zulu and their local language. (Sesonke) [At] home, at schools ... so most of the time I was speaking my home language … and we were taught some subjects in vernacular language. Then I came here [where] you always must speak in English … At first, because you know people are like so good in this language and wena [you] are not as good and then you like: oh, let me keep quiet because … people are going to laugh at me with my poor English ... (Tshakane)

The university environment becomes unwelcoming as students are silenced; thus, widening the challenges rural students already face.

Sources and Dimensions of Mute Spaces We also found out that students get labels from some lecturers as a result of poor use of the English language. Very often the language problem becomes a double-barrelled issue when tutors and lecturers find it difficult to work with rural students. We have tutors who go like, ‘Your English is black’. I am a second English speaker. Not everyone is from Model C high schools [former historically white schools]. (Tshakane) [They] say, ‘Don’t speak that newspaper English’. So, I just keep quiet because I know that my English is a newspaper one and I always keep quiet. They tell you: ‘Don’t speak this type of English, it’s bad’… which frustrates me. I am always shy. You wouldn’t talk to tutors in tutorials because your English is poor, so you will always keep quiet ... (Gugu)

These labels make students feel not only robbed of esteem: “that makes me sad” (Gugu), but also silenced: I always keep quiet ... I just sit still ... I don’t know how to put this, but not just because your English is poor or something like that and then because some students, including myself, now we are, we wouldn’t talk to tutors in

48 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

tutorials because they say, ‘Your English is poor what, what ...’ we are afraid to just talk ... So, you will always keep quiet and stuff so ... (Tshakane)

In this case, the language issue has created a ‘mute space’. Students reported minimal interaction with lecturers, or absence of it: “No really that interaction, unlike at high school” (Sisonke) and another frankly commented: Interaction with lecturers is limited. I don’t generally consult with lecturers. I don’t feel like ... I don’t feel comfortable to have friendly chats with them… I don’t know them. Eh, I get uncomfortable having personal conversations with people I don’t really know… (Ayanda)

Most of our respondents reported absence of interaction with academic staff outside the classroom. The most plausible encounter they referred to was during consultation times. While every student seems to be aware of the bureaucracy around consultation of lecturers and tutors, somewhat ironically it is this red tape, coupled with fear of the lecturers and lack of confidence to speak in English, which deter some from seeking the much-needed help. The narratives below sum it up: Yes, you can go to your lecturers at consultation times and ask for help and everything, but it’s not like at school where you can get everything. Here you must do things in a certain way for the certain procedures. It is quite difficult. (Sesonke) See the lecturers for help? No. I think it’s more of my colleagues. It’s not the lecturers. No, I’ve never consulted with a lecturer … lecturers and teachers from high school they are quite different. With a lecturer, they don’t ... I won’t say they don’t want to help students. They do want to help but it’s not in the same way; they won’t sit down and lecture to you. It’s more like to say, ‘It’s consultation time’. There’s still a queue you know, out there. People want to consult the lecturer. You must be precise and be on your point. Let me say, I’m just confused, I’m going to a lecturer to consult, no, no; ‘You have to be concise and come to me with some substance. You just cannot come here and say you don’t understand a simple term; you haven’t

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

49

studied that term’. It’s more like saying consulting a lecturer you must prepare yourself, so yeah … (Itumeleng) … if I need help, I’ll see a tutor because they always make time to be available to help … consult with lecturers, no …: because I feel lecturers to be busy people, they are not gonna have time for me … It’s just my own little understanding of what I feel a lecturer to be a very busy person. Like I feel that they … to us the lecturer, then I always think about the big gap between us, I’m just a first-year student and here you have a lecturer probably a doctor and… (Joe)

What is evident here is that for some students, consultation with lecturers is the last resort. Some of our respondents view lecturers as individuals who are too busy to interact with students outside the classroom and “the resources have actually been friends and the tutors” (Sisonke). Others experience how impersonal some academic staff are: “They don’t even know your name; you even graduate without any of your professors knowing your name” (Joe). This seems to contradict Woolcock and Narayan’s (2000) concept of linking which assumes that students connect with people in power to have access to resources. Yet literature points out that students who get the opportunity to interact with academic staff through involvement in staff projects find satisfaction in doing that (CHE 2010; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, and Associates 2005).

 tudent-Staff Interactions- Expectations S Unmet or Enhancing the Link? Some of the respondents talked about what is absent, their expectation and they called for reassurance. One participant itemised his/her expectations: … more support from lecturers, where they can like, make themselves available more often and tell us, when they are available, where we can access them, tell us not to be afraid to come to ask them… Sometimes when you have this connection with your tutor or lecturer then you develop

50 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

that relationship between you two, then like somehow when you know the person, then maybe you want to perform better in their subject… you’d probably develop a greater understanding of what they’re teaching and it’s also gonna allow you to perform better… (Rue)

Another suggested how to create a positive environment to break the silence: … if you are comfortable where you are, then it’s positive. If you speak, if you are comfortable where you are, that’s very important. Then you become very positive because you can be able to talk, to explore, to experience you know that you are free. (Tshakane)

This section has revealed unhealthy student-staff relationships. Scanlon et al. (2007) similarly found out that distance between students and academic staff can be seen in the classroom context and that academic staff did not easily avail themselves to students in the way as teachers in schools did. On a similar note, Maringe and Sing (2014, p. 769) in their research on large class dilemma point out that “[I]n large classes the chances that many students can complete a whole term or semester of study without experiencing a single episode of interaction with the tutor is very high”. There appears to be a disjuncture between the current nature of student-­ staff interaction or lack of it with what the students expect and vie for. Considering the already existing challenges which rural students are confronted with, which we alluded to earlier, this type of relationship if left unmonitored is likely to drive out the student packing. From the preceding sections, our study has indicated that the accounts presented by the respondents in the above sections, though not totally exclusive, tend to privilege more bonding than bridging and linking. Students find their friends predominantly within the cohort (those in the same year of study), the affinity group (those doing the same course), the same social space (those occupying the same residence or same campus, or even the same hobbies or recreational interests) and so forth. The implication is that, worsened by the negative relationship between students and staff, the consequence is the widening of the access and participation gap for the rural student. This is thus, not a guarantee of

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

51

epistemological access that requires participation and becoming a member of the academic community (Morrow 2009). Mitchel, Wood, and Witherspoon (2010, p. 295) indicate that the “inclusion of the marginalised groups signal[s] an increase in diversity of the organisation and agency of the marginalised”.

Concluding Remarks In this chapter we sought to explore the nature and effects of the relationships that rural students have with other people on campus as they enter higher education. In particular, we explored how educational and social spaces mitigate the barriers faced by rural students in gaining epistemological access in universities. While the exemplar case study through vignettes cannot be generalised, it serves as an opportunity to bring to the fore issues of exclusion experienced in many other university campuses relational spaces. Rural students come to university with social capital which they have gained from their day to day way of life in the rural environment. Describing experiences of and activities in rural areas, the South African Rurality in Higher Education (SARiHE) Project booklet (2018, p. 4) points out that “Rural areas are about togetherness, and most importantly, showing Ubuntu toward one another. The environment is grassroots for learning chores, discipline, self-dependence, and respect. People in these areas are governed by custom, tradition and welfare”. For the rural student, relationships matter. What we have established from this research is that relational experiences culminate in the creation of relational spaces and mute spaces as students bond, link and bridge (Woolcock and Narayan 2000) or fail to do so. Academic staff tend to disarm the rural student thus socially excluding them and pushing them into the mute space, exacerbating exclusion. If such spaces are left unconstrained, they tend to disrupt and work against the achievement of epistemological access which South African higher education is currently clamouring for. We reiterate that universities need to put in place mediation of campus practices at the centre of institutional interventions to enhance bonding, bridging and linking strategies that create a shared campus space to which all the students attach greater shared value and

52 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

feel accommodated. Further research into interrogating what counts as institutional mediation strategies targeted at resolving the challenges identified in relational spaces will help take a step further in this debate on inclusion and social justice on campus.

References Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Balfour, R. J., Mitchell, C., & Moletsane, R. (2009). Troubling contexts: Toward a generative theory of rurality as education research. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 3(3), 95–107. Binswanger-Mkhize, H. P. (2014). From failure to success in South African land reform. African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 9(4), 253–269. Boliver, V. (2017). Misplaced optimism: How higher education reproduces rather than reduces social inequality. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 38(3), 423–432. Budge, K. M. (2005). Place as problem or possibility: The influence of rurality and a sense of place on leaders in one rural school district. University of Washington. CHE. (2010). Access and throughput in South African higher education: Three case studies. Pretoria: Council on Higher Education. Christie, P. H. (2001). Improving school quality in South Africa: A study of schools that have succeeded against the odds. Journal of Education, 26, 40–65. Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conduction, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education. Fox, A., & Wilson, E. (2009). ‘Support our networking and help us belong!’: listening to beginning secondary school science teachers. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(6), 701–718. Gittell, J. H. (2003). The Southwest Airlines way: Using the power of relationships to achieve high performance. New York: McGraw-Hill. Guba, E., & Lincoln, S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N.  K. Denzin & Y.  S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. London: Sage. Holdsworth, G. (2006). Don’t you think you are missing out, living at home? Student experience and residential transitions. The Sociological Review, 54(3), 495–519.

2  Relational Spaces: A Possibility for Enhancing First Year… 

53

Human Sciences Research Council, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Education Policy Consortium (South Africa) & Education Policy Consortium (South Africa). (2005). Emerging voices: A report on education in South African rural communities. HSRC Press. Jenkins, T., & Oliver, T. O. V. E. (2004). Conceptualizing integrated tourism in Europe’s marginal rural regions. Regional Development on the North Atlantic Margin, 61–86. Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., Whitt, E. J., & Associates. (2005). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. Washington, DC: Jossey-Bass. Malcolm, C., Keane, M., Hoopla, L., Kaka, M., & Ovens, J. (2000). Borders, boundaries and frontiers: First experience in a culturally diverse university. ‘People working together: A study of successful schools. Johannesburg: RADMASTE/Department of Education. Marginson, S. (2016). The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: Dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems. Higher Education, 72(4), 413–434. Maringe, F., & Sing, N. (2014). Teaching large classes in an increasingly internationalising higher education environment: Pedagogical, quality and equity issues. High Education, 67, 761–778. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734013-9710-0. Merriam, S. B. (2001). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mitchel, R. W., Wood, K. G., & Witherspoon, N. (2010). Considering Race and Space: Mapping Developmental Advising. Equity and Excellence in Education, 43(3), 294–309. Morrow, W. (2009). Bounds of democracy: Epistemological access in higher education. Cape Town: Human Science Research Council (HSRC) Press. Ndofirepi, E.  S. (2015). Rethinking social spaces in higher education: exploring undergraduate student experience in a selected South African University (Doctoral thesis). Retrieved from http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/discover. Nkambule, T., Balfour, R. J., Pillay, G., & Moletsane, R. (2011). Rurality and rural education: Discourses underpinning rurality and rural education research in south African postgraduate education research 1994-2004. South African Journal of Higher Education, 25(2), 341–357. Osborne, J. W. (1990). Some basic existential-phenomenological research methodology for counsellors. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 24, 79–91.

54 

E. S. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

Ramírez-Miranda, C. (2014). Critical reflections on the new rurality and the rural territorial development approaches in Latin America. Agronomía Colombiana, 32(1), 122–129. Ramrathan, L. (2016). Beyond counting the numbers: Shifting higher education transformation into curriculum spaces. Transformation in Higher Education, 1(1): 1–8. Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://thejournal.org. za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/6/28. Scanlon, L., Rowling, L., & Weber, Z. (2007). ‘You don’t have like an identity…you are just lost in the crowd’: Forming a student identity in the first– year transition to University. Journal of Youth Studies, 10(2), 223–242. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13676260600983684. Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. W. (2015). The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review, 70, 898–920. Short, B. (2006). Idyllic ruralities. Handbook of Rural Studies, 133–148. Smith, M. K. (2000–2009). ‘Social capital’, the encyclopedia of information education. www.infed.or/biblio/social_capital.htm. South African Rurality in Higher Education (SARiHE). (2018). Going to university: Stories from rural students. Project Booklet. SARiHE. Stone, W. (2003). Towards building capacity and sustainable communities: Bonding, bridging and linking with social capital. Stronger Families Learning Exchange Bulletin, 4(Spring/Summer). Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: The University of Chicago. Tinto, V. (1997). Classrooms as communities: Exploring the educational character of student persistence. The Journal of Higher Education, 68(6), 599–623. Van der Merwe, R., & Van Heerden, G. (2009). Finding and utilizing opinion leaders: Social networks and the power of relationships. South African Journal of Business Management, 40(3), 65–76. Wilcox, P., Winn, S., & Fyvie-Gauld, M. (2005). ‘It was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people’: The role of social support in the first-year experience of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 30(6), 707–722. Woolcock, M., & Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research and policy. The World Bank Research Observer, 15(2), 225–249.

3 The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access to Higher Education in Zimbabwean Universities Joseph Pardon Hungwe

Introduction Though I did both my primary and secondary school in an urban area, I was required to spend in the rural areas. During such school holidays, I used to carry out chores such as assisting in tilling the field, harvesting crops and herding the cattle. Besides the often-strenuous chores, school holidays were always convenient times to socially interact with family members and peers who reside and attend schools in the rural areas. For some implied reason, as an urban school-going learner, I was always treated socially with utmost and ‘undeserved’ regard by my rural peers who assumed that I was cleverer, more ‘civilised’ and more knowledgeable than them. In Zimbabwe, the urban–rural migration and vice versa facilitates the continuous social interaction between the urban and rural populace. Stereotypically, rural residents are culturally unsophisticated, backward and hold anachronistic scientific and social ideas (Matshinhe 2011). It is within the broad scope of rurality stereotypes in Zimbabwe

J. P. Hungwe (*) College of Education, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_3

55

56 

J. P. Hungwe

that this chapter analytically exposes how rural students negotiate social spaces in geographically-located urban higher education institutions. Students from rural areas who relocate into urban areas upon completion of secondary school level education encounter rurality stereotypes in Zimbabwe. The perceived rurality social, cultural and economic backwardness is a migratory attachment that rural students encounter socially when they enrol and pursue studies in the urban-located higher education institutions (Ncube 2014; Tshabalala and Ncube 2014). Using the critical race theory in accounting for the rural stereotypes encountered by rural students in the urban-located higher education institutions, this chapter advances the central argument that rurality stereotypes must be regarded as impediments to access to higher education in Zimbabwe. In setting out the rurality stereotypes that rural students encounter in the Zimbabwean higher education institutions, there are five interlocking subsections in this chapter. As a foreground to the conceptual configuration of rurality, it is imperative to outline the theoretical framework and the historiography of rurality in Zimbabwe.

Theoretical Framework This chapter employs critical race theory as its theoretical framework to analyse rurality stereotyping in the higher education sector in Zimbabwe. The oppressive negative stereotypes that rural students encounter in urban-located higher education institutions can be aptly explicated and dismantled through critical race theory. Critical race theory as an offshoot of critical theory affirms that society is often organised along binaries of marginalisation and dominance. In this case, the rural symbolises marginalisation, while urbanity is perceived to represent dominance. In other words, the rural culture is marginalised through cultural stereotypes, while the urban is conceived as superior. The central characteristic of critical race theory is the notion that race is a permanent feature of society. The concept of race is highly contestable and debatable in most nation states as it reflects the challenges associated with social diversity. From a broad perspective, it is important to state that “scientists seek to classify races as groups of people with distinctive

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

57

combinations of physical traits that set them off from other groups” (Horton and Hunt 1976, p. 335). On this view, physical appearances – skin tone and hair colour, shape of the nose, eyes and lips – are forms of racial categorisation that classify people as black, white, Indians, coloureds or Africans. However, in accordance with critical race theory, race is a notion that is socially constructed, and it holds different meanings and interpretations for different people. Ortiz and Jani (2010) argue that race has not prefixed explanations, in other words, there is no static universally defined and conventionally accepted understanding of race. Such contentions associated with the definition of race imply that race cannot be restricted to biological factors such as skin complexion alone, but include social group statuses. It is the case that for a long period, race was understood as a binary between black and white people. Ortiz and Jani (2010, p. 178) state that race is defined by the dominant group in a society as a way of promoting and sustaining social stratification. It seems that “those placed outside of the dominant group are afforded fewer social resources and opportunities and less access to social goods”. In view of the conceptual elasticity of race, this chapter develops and assigns race to the dichotomy between rural and urban students in Zimbabwe. In agreement, “this redefinition has determined which of these groups’ traits are more desirable, which are less desirable and more likely to lead to social marginalisation” (Ortiz and Jani 2010, p. 183). Critical race theory as a theoretical framework identifies the stereotypes that are attached to rurality. Essentially, race is a system that socially privileges the dominant group in relation to vis-à-vis the excluded and marginalised groups. Accordingly, within the confines of rurality, race is enacted through stereotyping. It is a form of classification that seeks to ‘justify’ the existence of a culturally dominant and an oppressed social group. According to Huber (2010), there are three bases upon which racism rationalises itself. Firstly, a social group convinces itself to be superior over others. Secondly, such a group may conduct harmful acts towards the supposedly inferior group. Thirdly, racism negatively impacts several ethnic and racial groups. At this point it is now appropriate to define racism as “an internal frame of reference that directs a person’s opinion with regard to other individuals or groups. It is a doctrine that ascribes inferior

58 

J. P. Hungwe

qualities to another race, and which can justify exemption from usual moral restriction” (Albury 2015). It seems that racism unfairly discriminates, degrades other people’s value systems and is prejudiced based on race. Critical race theory acknowledges that social practices, beliefs, values and assumptions which are unjust do not always manifest themselves explicitly in physical, violent confrontations between racial groups. Many times they are hidden and subtle since they are embedded in society’s fabric (Aleman 2009). In this regard, the task of critical race theory takes into account rural stereotyping as a form of social oppression. There are three central characteristics of critical race theory that makes it indispensable in the analysis of rurality stereotyping in the higher education sector in Zimbabwe. Firstly, critical race theory seeks to initiate ideological confrontations that will result in the emancipation for those who are marginalised by a given set of beliefs. For this reason, Huber (2010) agrees that critical race theory challenges hegemonic tendencies inherent in oppressive ideologies with the goal of achieving human emancipation. Secondly, critical race theory is transformative as it challenges the racial stratification in the society. Accordingly, critical race theory holds the “view that society is a human construction that needs reconstruction” (Freeman and Vasconcelos 2010, p.  7). The constant reconstruction of the society includes changing negative attitudes, beliefs, perceptions that people hold against the other who might be different from them. It is argued that critical theory can alter the conditions by identifying and unmasking beliefs and practices that compromise human freedom, justice and democracy (Bohman 2012; Brookfield 2005). Thirdly, critical race theory enables the constant critiquing of the human social arrangements. Closson (2010) aptly points out that critique is essentially a way people interrogate or contest against oppressive social, political and economic conditions. In critiquing, there is an explicit realisation that in some circumstances, human institutions, values, norms and even cultural practices are tailor-made to suit the interests of a certain social group at the expense of the other (Regelski 2005). Basically, critique involves a well-informed art of challenging structures that constrain human freedom.

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

59

In as much as the generic conceptualisation of race divides people in accordance with perceived phonotypical skin colour appearances, the rural-urban dichotomisation regionalises and socially categorises the student social composition in higher education institutions in Zimbabwe. In consideration of the fact that race is a social construct, it is possible to attribute the rural stereotyping as the means by which perceived social differences are entrenched and constructed into a race category. Critical race theory as a theoretical framework is important in this chapter as it not only describes stereotypes but proffers ways of dismantling the rurality stereotypes in higher education. In cognisance of the fact that rurality stereotypes in Zimbabwe emanate from the rural establishment that can be traced to the colonial dispensation, the following subsection gives a historical overview of rurality in Zimbabwe.

Historiography of Rurality in Zimbabwe With around 62% of its population residing in rural areas, it can be stated that Zimbabwe is a highly ruralised country (ZimStats: 2012 population census). However, the conceptualisation of rurality cannot be exhaustive without locating it in its historical and political context. The colonial regime forcibly removed black Africans from fertile lands and relocated them to dry, semi-arid and agriculturally infertile places (Shumba 2018). Through legislations such as the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, and Land Husbandry Act of 1950, the county was partitioned into Tribal Trust Land, urban centres and commercial farming areas. Under colonialism, there was deliberate and sustained legislative, political and social efforts to create rural areas that economically disempowered the black Africans. Rural areas were established in conjunction with urban areas during the colonial epoch in Zimbabwe as a means of entrenching separate development between the black Africans and the white European settlers (Tom 2015). The systematic dispossession and consequent eviction of black Africans from their agriculturally productive land and high pattern of rainfall resulted in the creation of reserve areas (Murove 2014). Though the colonial regime’s idea was to confine black Africans to the reserve

60 

J. P. Hungwe

areas, the industrial growth and mandatory taxes occasioned the need for black African labour in urban areas. Thus, authorities in urban areas in which industries were located developed township houses to accommodate black African industrial workers. Besides township bungalows, the urban housing policy prescribed hostels which were ideal for accommodating single black African male industrial workers (Anderson 2001). In these urban areas, black Africans were supposed to carry identification documents that restricted their movements and access to certain areas of the city. Urban areas were designed in such a way that there was limited social interaction between black Africans and the white populace. Upon termination of employment, black African males were deported back to the rural areas. Moreover, black African females were discouraged from living in urban areas since they were deemed as redundant in the provisions of hard labour and long working hours that were often required in the industries. However, by 1950, there was a growing trend of both male and female black Africans who were residing and formally employed in the urban areas (Anderson 2001). From this subsection, it has become apparent that the colonial regime ensured that there was no concurrence of economic and social development between the rural and urban areas in Zimbabwe. Manufacturing, communication service providers, piped water, electricity and a tarred road system all became synonymous with urban areas. On the other hand, rural areas were economically neglected and its agricultural produce was often undervalued. In this regard, rural areas began to be associated with deprivation and deficiency, while urban areas were places for progression and development. Within the education sector, rural areas are characteristically run by underqualified teachers, schools are dilapidated and often learners must walk long distances to access education (Mukeredzi 2015). While considering the view that the concept of rurality is derived from a historical, political and social context as alluded to in this subsection, the following subsection locates the concept of rurality within the context of Zimbabwe.

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

61

 owards the Conceptualisation of Rurality T in Zimbabwe The concept of rurality cannot be generally applied to all settings. Rurality differs from country to country; in other words, in some rural areas of some countries necessities such as piped water, electricity, and a reliable transport system are available. There is scholarly concurrence that the concise and universal definition of the notion of rurality is rather elusive (Mutale 2015; Masinire et al. 2014; Moletsane 2012). In most instances, rurality is conceptualised in accordance with specific academic disciplines. In this regard, demographers concentrate on the population density in which the population is sparsely concentrated. For economists, rurality is defined in terms of the people’s economic reliance on agriculture and livestock. Politically, rurality denotes the administrative perspective of a district, outskirt or farming area that is outside the urban set up. Additionally, sociologists and anthropologists consider the idiosyncratic cultural values, a socially cohesive communal life and shared beliefs systems as the defining characteristics of rurality (Carrington and Scott 2008). In an encompassing definition, Hlalele (2014, p. 463) succinctly sums up rurality as “a way of life, a state of the mind and a culture which revolves around land, livestock, cropping and community”. The conceptualisation of rurality in Zimbabwe is laden with stereotypes that depict the negativity of rural areas while impressing the urban set-up as the epitome of advancement. To this end, the residents of urban areas are seen as economically, socially and politically superior and elite citizens in contrast to those who reside in the rural areas of Zimbabwe (Anderson 2001). Urban areas are associated with modernisation, individualisation and change. On the other hand, the rural areas are associated with community, locus of traditional values, conservatism, kinship ideology and attachment to land (Anderson 2001). However, it would be a misconception to suggest that there is a dichotomous relationship between the urban and rural areas. On the contrary, there is a persistent cross-migration between the rural and urban which is necessitated by the social relations between the urban and rural populace (Anderson 2001). For instance, urban residents visit their rural peers and relatives during

62 

J. P. Hungwe

the public holidays such as Christmas, Independence Day and school holidays. The disparities in terms of educational facilities between rural and urban areas in Zimbabwe mean that students from rural areas are compelled to relocate to urban areas in order to access higher education. While obstacles to access higher education in Zimbabwe are mostly framed in terms of socioeconomic challenges, this chapter outlines rurality stereotypes in Zimbabwe as another dimension to access to higher education. It is instructive to state that higher education institutions are ‘conveniently’ located in urban areas. Subsequently, it is such ‘urban convenience’ that makes it necessary for the following subsection to analyse the mapping of Zimbabwean higher education institutions.

Mapping Zimbabwean Higher Education At the attainment of political independence in 1980, the University of Zimbabwe, located in the capital city Harare, was the only university. By 2017, the number of universities had expanded to thirteen, of which nine are state-owned while the other four are run by Christian church denominations. The expansion of the university sector in Zimbabwe is principally underscored by the imperative to broaden access to higher education for deserving students. In its articulated vision of higher education, the government of Zimbabwe envisages that each metropolitan province should have its own university (www. Government of zimbabwe.org). However, beside the nascent Lupane State University, all the universities – both public and private – are geographically located either in the urban or peri-urban areas. The geographical location of universities in urban areas means that, students who would have undertaken their primary and secondary school level in the rural areas must migrate into urban areas to pursue higher education opportunities. In addition to universities, the Zimbabwean higher education sector comprises teacher training colleges, vocational training colleges and industrial training centres. The main objective of expanding the higher education sector is underscored by the imperative to widen access to higher education for all academically deserving students. However, the

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

63

geographical location of universities and other facets of higher education are mostly in the urban centres. Because of underdevelopment, the unavailability of basic services such as water, electricity and the poor road conditions, rural areas are deemed to be unsuitable for setting up universities. There is an open distance university education provider called the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU); however, students from rural backgrounds who enrol in the ZOU are inevitably forced to travel to urban areas where enabling facilities such as internet, computers, printing machines and libraries are located. In line with urbanity superiority perceptions, universities and other higher education facilities that are geographically located in urban areas are held in high regard. For instance, the oldest university – the University of Zimbabwe, which is in Harare, the capital city  – is depicted as the ‘best’ university in the country despite its derelict infrastructure (www. sundaymail, 17th February 2016). Higher education students often tease each other that in Zimbabwe there is only one ‘authentic’ university, in reference to the University of Zimbabwe. Contrastingly, the nascent Lupane State University, as the only rurally located university, is associated with many stereotypes. An impression is given that it is a derelict institution constructed of muddy buildings with thatched rooftops (www.lsutimes, 1–31st May 2018). Some graphic stereotypes deride the university as offering fireplaces for students to warm themselves before they go to bed due to the limited availability of electricity, while students who pursue Agriculture are attached to nearby rural homes to herd cattle as part of their training practice programme. While the nature of stereotypes is often to negatively portray a situation or a group of people, they are contextually generated within the prevalent assumptions of an area. In that respect, stereotypes associated with Lupane University are derived from the negativity associated with the broader rural area. In Zimbabwe, most higher education institutions are strategically located in the urban areas. Electricity, a piped water reticulation system, transport, information and technology system, accommodation and banks are services that are more available in urban than rural areas. Moreover, the commercial companies that may provide experiential attachment for the university students are stationed in the urban areas. It

64 

J. P. Hungwe

could be argued that the urban geographical location of higher education institutions further entrenches the negative stereotypes associated with rural areas. It is in this vein that the next subsection samples some common rural stereotypes in Zimbabwe.

Rural Stereotypes The myriad rural stereotypes in Zimbabwe depict the general tendency towards ridicule, derision and low regard that the urban populace have towards the rural social, economic and cultural context. Drawing from newspaper articles, this subsection samples some common rural stereotypes that are further extended to the rural populace. It is vital to state that a rural area does not only symbolise a geographical space, but encompasses the culture, economy and the human inhabitants (Chiyadzwa 2014). To that end, a geographical space cannot be separated from its inhabitants. In consideration of the social demographics of Zimbabwe, common rural stereotypes are drawn from isiNdebele and chiShona which are the two widely spoken national languages. People from the southern Ndebele-speaking rural areas are derided as the VK – an abbreviation of vele khaya (Tshabalala and Ncube 2014, www.sundaynews.co.zw, 19th February 2016). Vele khaya, which literally translates to a person who originates from a rural place, is laden with derogatory insinuations. A rural area is depicted as an uncivilised place and therefore, by extension, anyone with a rural background is deemed ‘uncivilised’. From the historical perspective of colonialism, rural areas were defined as reserve areas. The concept of ‘reserve’ was appropriated to areas allocated to both black Africans and encaged wild animals (Murove 2014). However, it is of equal importance to highlight that owing to colonial social restricting, rural areas were valued for guaranteeing a state of permanence rather than the urban areas where one could only live in based on employment. Accordingly, urban dwellers were coined as mabhoni-­bhoni, mabhoni rokesheni as derogatory terms of being born in the urban townships. Black African urban dwellers were often derided as having lost their cultural identity through assimilating into the urban lifestyle that was considered to be European.

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

65

Rural areas are stereotypically referred to as komnyama ubambile which literally translates to land of darkness or the least developed area (www. sundaynews.co.zw, 16th October 2016). The pictorial impression of rural areas as dark areas is deduced from the absence of service facilities such as electricity and a piped water reticulation system. Closely linked to the darkness stereotypes, rural areas are sometimes referred to as emaguswini which can be defined as densely forested and isolated places (Ncube 2014; www.newsday.co.zw, 13th July 2014). Among the chiShona speaking populace, rural areas are typically known as ruzevha which is a direct translation to the colonial establishment of reserve area (Murove 2014). Reserve areas were geographical locational machinations of the colonial regime which were characteristically unsuitable for agriculture. In other words, reserve areas were and are still synonymous with deprivation and misery (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2009). Through stereotypical appropriation, rural populaces are generally regarded as economic migrants who are pushed out of the rural areas because of ‘grinding poverty’. In urban areas, people who conduct themselves in a ‘strange’ manner are often chided as munhu wekumusha (a person of rural origins). Furthermore, rural inhabitants who migrate into town are mocked as suffering from a ‘syndrome’ casually termed High Rural Background. In juxtaposing the high rural background and the ‘urbanised’ social set up, impressions are usually created that a rural background is deficient and limiting in many areas compared to ‘modern’ lifestyles. In the education sector, for instance, both primary and secondary schools in Zimbabwe have derelict infrastructure, underqualified teaching staff and the children often have to walk ten kilometres to access the nearest school (Chronicle, 05th February 2017). Furthermore, rural schools in Zimbabwe do not have electricity, libraries or laboratories. Rural schools are shunned by suitably qualified teachers to the extent that the government introduced the incentive called the rural school allowance for in order to retain teachers. From a mythical perspective, rural areas in Zimbabwe are often associated with the practice of black magic such as witchcraft, traditional diviners and sorcery. Rural areas across Africa are generally viewed with witchcraft suspicions accompanied by imaginative stories of magic and

66 

J. P. Hungwe

superstitious beliefs (Matshinhe 2011). In pursuit of an exposition of common stereotypes in Zimbabwean higher education, the following subsection succinctly discusses the methodology of this chapter.

Methodology Data was collected through qualitative interviews that consisted of focus groups and individual higher education students. Qualitative methodologies emphasise the collection of “primarily non-numerical data, that is, think descriptions of events, in-depth interviewing and the use of written or recorded evidence and artifacts” (Creswell 2007). In the collection of data, interviews are the most common instrument employed within the framework of qualitative methodologies. Stereotypes are negative experiences of social exclusion and social stigmatisation that rural students tend to encounter in urban-located higher education institutions. To that end, it was imperative for the researcher to organise interviews that enabled interpretation. In the employment of the qualitative research methodology, semi-­ structured questions were used in focus groups and individual interviews. The participants were purposively selected from six public universities. The selection criterion was that such students had to have learnt and completed their primary and secondary school levels in the rural areas. Both male and female students were chosen as participants. It is critical to state that due to cultural and economic circumstances in Zimbabwe, male students are culturally conditioned to be ‘resilient’ when confronted with challenges. Accordingly, male rural students ‘migrate’ with their sense of resilience to the urban areas. In this regard, male students from rural areas found it rather difficult to admit that they were encountering challenges in the geographically-located urban areas. On the other hand, female students generally expressed their challenges unreservedly. Resilience refers to practices of identifying and utilising the available strengths and resources to navigate and eliminate challenges that one encounters (Mapuva 2015). Students of rural background are neither a socially nor homogeneous cohort within the Zimbabwean higher education sector. Rural people

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

67

often live within a geographically defined cultural social area. In Zimbabwe, provincial geographical areas are often demarcations of tribal ethnic social groupings. For instance, Ndebele, Tonga and Nambya are some ethnic-linguistic social cultural groups found in the Matabeleland rural area. Though most students interviewed were from a rural background, the researcher interviewed a small number of urban-background students. Interviewing urban-background students was intended to militate against the biasness that rural students may generally have towards the urban students in higher education. From this foregoing subsection, a discussion on findings, discussions and rural students’ social negotiations constitute the last part of this chapter.

Findings and Discussion Rural areas in Zimbabwe are generally remote with poor road and mobile phone communication networks. Newspapers in which universities place recruitment advertisements are not accessible in rural areas. There is no television reception and the radio reception is often intermittent. Rural areas are colonial designates.

 ural Generic Stereotyping in Urban-Located Higher R Education Institutions Students of rural background point out that they encounter multiple stereotypes from their urban counterparts at universities. As Student 1 observed, “Both lecturers and urban students come to us to inquire the validity of stereotypes that are associated with rural areas.” As highlighted already in this chapter, due to colonial social and economic structuring, there has always been rural-urban interface in Zimbabwe. Consequently,, it is less likely that there are urban dwellers that have never been to a rural area and, conversely, rural dwellers that have never been to an urban area.

68 

J. P. Hungwe

Hiding the Identity: A Sense of Shame In trying to organise students for interviewing, an administrative staff member at one of the public universities pointed out that it would be difficult for students to ‘openly admit’ that they were from the rural areas. As Staff Member 1 observed, “When we register students, we do not request them to identify themselves as either urban or rural. Besides that, it is unlikely that students would want to be publicly identified as rural. Rural has negative connotations”. There is a sense of shame in being identified as ‘someone’ from the rural areas. Some of the common stereotypes attached to rural areas are ‘a village girl’ or ‘village boy’. The interviewed students mentioned that such stereotypes give an impression that students from the rural areas are primitive because they are disconnected from the urban vibe.

Lecture Seating Arrangements Students from a rural background pointed out that some students of urban background deliberately avoid sitting next to them in a lecture hall. One student participant said: “The moment they realise that you are from a rural area, students would leave and relocate to another seat in the lecture hall.” There are stereotypes that rural people do not bath regularly, do not use deodorants or do not have knowledge of using shower bathrooms which consequently result in them emitting odours. Accordingly, students from rural backgrounds congregate together in university lecture halls.

 erception of Rural Inhabitants P as Witchcraft Practitioners The practice of witchcraft and sorcery are associated more with the rural than the urban populace in Zimbabwe. Students of rural background in universities state that their urban counterparts deride them as ‘novice

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

69

witches’. The irrational fear of students from rural background as witches results in social isolation. I feel so much pain and some level of self-hatred when students from Harare city accuse of practice harmful witchcraft. I don’t know whether they will be joking when they say that no one should make me angry because I have the magical powers to manipulate the rain clouds into targeted thunder strike. (Student 3)

While the practices of witchcraft are disputable among Africans, there is often a perception that such practices are practiced more in the rural than the urban areas.

Dress Code The dress code is generally associated with reflecting a culture of a given society. Stereotypically, the dress code of the rural populace is categorised as ‘unsophisticated’. The students of rural background are said to be old-­ fashioned and dress ‘like ancient people’. To this Student 5 said “We are told that we do not follow modern trends of dressing.”

Not Accustomed to Urban Amenities Students from rural backgrounds attest to instances where urban students make fun of them that they are not accustomed to using urban service amenities like electrical gadgets such as fridges, irons, television remote control devices and mobile phones. Owing to the non-availability of electricity in the rural areas, students from urban backgrounds assume that students from rural backgrounds have no knowledge of electrical gadgets. The rural-urban dichotomy is underlined by the perception that electricity is symbiotic to civilization. The non-availability or limited access to electricity in the rural areas means that students from rural backgrounds encounter challenges in the use of computers as required in higher education in Zimbabwe. Student 4 pointed out that her most scary moment in the early days at the

70 

J. P. Hungwe

university was when the lecturer stated that all assignments should be typed. He observed that “I got so much discomfort when the lecturer said that assignments must be typed, line spacing is 1.5 and use the Times Roman. I did not know what all this means since I did not use a computer for all my life.” Subsequently, the limited knowledge of computers that students from rural backgrounds have disadvantages them in the pursuit of academic knowledge. While students of urban background tend to quickly learn how to use the required technological accessories, students from rural areas may struggle to get settled in a university.

 ural Students’ Social Negotiation R at Urban-­Located Higher Education Institutions Rural students observe and ‘imitate’ the dress code of their urban student counterparts. Student 1 noted that “I had to abandon my long dresses in favour of trousers, mini-skirts and other city fancy clothing” Equally, Student 6 said. “I know at home, they will not culturally appreciate me to wear a trouser as it is male clothing. If they see me wearing a trouser then at home, they will say that I am now a woman of loose morals”.

The Need to Prove a Point Students from rural areas are putting ‘extra’ effort into their studies to prove that they can do as well as their urban counterparts. You must prove that though you are from the rural areas, you are intelligent just like the urban students. Fellow students and lecturers get surprised when you get a better grade than them. They always expect you to fail because you are from the rural areas. (Student 3)

The expectation of failure which is attached to rural students is derived from the impression that in general all rural school facilities are substandard in comparison to those in urban areas. Both lecturers and fellow

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

71

students assume that rural students are not adequately prepared for the higher education level. Closely linked to the impression of under preparedness, rural students are sometimes mocked for their ‘limited’ knowledge of the English language. A fellow student asked me how I as a student from an exclusively Shona-­ speaking isolated rural area can be conversant in English. (Student 2)

Stereotypically, English is considered a superior language to indigenous African languages. With the supposed superiority, English is not associated with the rural people as the marginalised race but with urbanity.

Hiding Identity In highly rural-urban polarised universities, students of rural background change their original official names and adopt the commonly known Shona names to hide their identity. For instance, one female participant pointed out that she dropped her Tonga name in preference to a Shona name. As a student at the university X, which is located in a Shona dominated area, it makes safety sense to adopt a Shona name so that one is not easily identifiable.

Social Conformation Students from rural backgrounds tend to imitate the social habits practised by their urban colleagues. Some rural students interviewed in this research acknowledged that the urban peer pressure is irresistible. In three focus group interviews, students from rural backgrounds concurred that there is a ‘need to constantly wash away their rural background’ so that they get accepted in the urban culture. I learnt to drink alcohol so that I also appear cool among fellow students in the campus. My parents will kill me if they hear that I am now drinking. (Student 5)

72 

J. P. Hungwe

Formation of Exclusive Social Cliques To minimise instances of social exclusion, rural students tend to deliberately form social cliques among themselves. Students form social cliques along geographical rural origins. For instance, students from the Gokwe rural area establish their own social cliques, while those from Murehwa, Binga, Lupane, Tsholotsho, Mutoko and others socially relate and interact among themselves. Students of rural background admit that they do feel socially accepted and understood when they interact and relate to fellow students from other rural areas.

The Use of Religion Closely linked to the formation of social cliques, students from rural backgrounds resort to their religious affiliation to draw solace and comfort from the challenges of social exclusion. When I go to church on Sundays, I somehow feel normal. It is funny that some students who regularly tease us during the week become friendly when we meet at church. (Student 5)

Drawing from the religious affiliation as a strategy of social negotiation, it is crucial to state that not all urban students dislike the rural background students. The last two sections have offered a catalogue of some common stereotypes that students from a rural background encounter in urban higher education. Beyond that, this section has highlighted and analysed the ways in which students from a rural background negotiate social spaces in higher education. It is central in this chapter to state that rurality stereotypes should be perceived as impediments for students from a rural background to access higher education in Zimbabwe. Ideally, higher education institutions should nurture an academic and social environment that eliminates or combats all forms of social discrimination.

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

73

Conclusion and Recommendations It is apparent that students from rural backgrounds in Zimbabwe encounter stereotypes within the urban-located higher education institutions. Despite the presence of stereotypes of students of rural background, higher education institutions do not provide recourse facilities where students can report instances of social stereotyping. In that respect, this chapter recommends that higher education institutions should establish Social Cohesion offices whose objective would be the elimination of all forms of social discrimination. Furthermore, the negative rural stereotypes should be considered an impediment towards access to higher education in Zimbabwe.

References Albury, N.  J. (2015). Objectives at the crossroads: Critical theory and self-­ determination in indigenous language revitalisation. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 12(4), 256–282. Aleman, E. (2009). Through the prism of critical race theory: Niceness and Latina/o leadership in politics of education. Journal of Latinos and Education, 8(4), 290–311. Anderson, J. A. (2001). Reinterpreting the rural-urban connection: Migration practices and socio-cultural disposition of Buhera workers in Harare. Journal of the International African Institute, 71(1), 82–112. Bohman, J. (2012). Critical theory, republican and the priority of injustice: Transnational republicanism as a non-ideal theory. Journal of Social Philosophy, 43(2), 97–112. Brookfield, S. D. (2005). The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching. San Francisco: Joey-Bass Publishing Company. Carrington, K., & Scott, J. (2008). Masculinity rurality and violence. British Journal of Criminology, 48(1), 641–666. Chiyadzwa, I. F. (2014). Patterns of social media usage amongst marginalized rural Zimbabwean peasents: The case of Bikita. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 19(8), 61–66. Closson, R. B. (2010). Critical race theory and adult education. Adult Education Quarterly, 60(3), 261–283.

74 

J. P. Hungwe

Creswell, J.  W. (2007). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. London: Sage Publications. Freeman, M., & Vasconcelos, E. F. S. (2010). Critical social theory: Core tenets, inherent issues. New Directions for Evaluation, 127, 7–19. Hlalele, D. (2014). Rural education in South Africa: Concepts and practices. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(4), 462–470. Horton, P. B., & Hunt, C. L. (1976). Sociology. London: McGraw-Hill Publishers. Huber, L.  P. (2010). Using Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) and racist nativism to explore intersectionality in the educational experiences of undocumented Chicana college students. Educational Foundations, 2010(Winter– Spring), 77–98. Lupane State University. (2018, May 31). The LSU Times. www.lupane.state. university.co.zw Mapuva, J. (2015). Skewed rural development policies and economic malaise in Zimbabwe. African Journal of History and Culture, 7(7), 142–151. Masinire, A., Maringe, F., & Nkambule, T. (2014). Education for rural development: Embedding rural dimension in initial teacher preparation. Perspectives in Education, 32(3), 146–160. Matshinhe, D. M. (2011). Africa’s fear of itself: the ideology of ‘makwerekwere’ in South Africa. Third World Quarterly, 32(2), 295–313. Moletsane, R. (2012). Repositioning educational research on rurality and rural education in South Africa: Beyond deficit paradigms. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 1–9. Mukeredzi, T. G. (2015). The journey to becoming teaching professionals in rural South Africa and Zimbabwe. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(10), 83–105. Mutale, Q. (2015). Challenges facing school children in rural Zimbabwe: A case of Tyunga and Luunga wards of Binga district. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 9(5), 32–40. Murove, F. M. (2014). Ubuntu. Diogenese, 59(3–4), 36–47. Ncube, A. C. (2014). Transforming rural secondary schools in developing countries: Towards educational equity in Zimbabwe. Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies, 5(3), 323–329. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2009). Making sense of Mugabeism in local and global politics. So Blair keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe. Third World Quarterly, 30(6), 1139–1158.

3  The Ruzevha/Ekhaya Coloniality Neologisms and Access… 

75

Orz, L., & Jani, J. (2010). Critical race theory: A transformational model for teaching diversity. Journal of Social Work Education, 46(2), 175–193. Regelski, T. A. (2005). Critical theory as a foundation for critical thinking in music education. Visions of Research in Music Education, 6, 1–24. Shumba, J. M. (2018). Zimbabwe’s predatory State: Party, military and business. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press. Sunday News. (2016, October 16). Retrieved March 18, 2019, from www.sundaynews.co.zw Tom, T. (2015). Post Zimbabwe’s fast track land reform programme: Land conflicts at two farms in Goromonzi district. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 20(1), 87–92. Tshabalala, T., & Ncube, A. C. (2014). Teachers’ perception on challenges faced by rural secondary schools in the implementation of the technical and vocational eduducation and training policy in Nkayi district. International research Journal of Teacher Education, 12(1), 10–15. www.governmentofzimbabwe.org www.lsutimes, 1–31 May 2018. www.newsday.co.zw, 13 July 2914. www.sundaymail, 17 February 2016. www.sundaynews.co.zw, 19 February 2016.

4 The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher Education Hellen Agumba

Introduction Universities are spaces where values and norms about academic achievement, life chances, and ethnicity are constantly reproduced, resisted, and challenged by students and academics (Leibowitz 2012; Hall 2012). The extent to which higher education promotes equity and access will have a direct bearing on social and class stratification. Access to university education may provide a step-wise change in circumstances, especially for students from rural and less privileged backgrounds (Hall 2012). In her position paper on rurality and education, Leibowitz (2017) argues that ethnicity, race and class intersect with rurality in important ways. This is because factors such as demographics, race, culture and language often lead to differences in student access to and success in education. In contemporary South Africa, efforts have been made to redress the effects of apartheid by widening participation, access and achievement of

H. Agumba (*) University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_4

77

78 

H. Agumba

students. However, substantial disparities in educational achievement by both socioeconomic class and race still exist. These disparities deny the common good by significantly undermining the ability of individuals to participate in South African society, to fulfill their potential, or to work and thereby have their material needs met. Machin (2006) and Hirsch (2007) found that educational and employment opportunities and social disadvantages are linked. In this regard the context in which an individual grows up is seen as a critical factor in determining learner achievement or underachievement and subsequent employment opportunities. In many cases, the understanding of rurality tends to position the rural as deficient rather than as different (Atkin 2003). Often it has been constructed as a residual space imagined outside the boundaries of modernity or outside the geographic boundaries of cities and metros, and even backward. This conception needs to be interrogated because rurality does not constitute a form of disadvantage. Roberts and Green (2013) argue that rurality is usually defined in contrast to the urban, and not always appreciated for its own sake. Rurality, rather than a marker of place or culture, should be understood as a demographic as well as a social category which intersects with other indicators of social inequality (Roberts and Green 2013). In the South African context, the concept of rurality can be understood as reflecting the broader history of colonialism and dispossession given the displacement effect of apartheid. This chapter aims to explore and gain an in-depth and holistic understanding of how rurality influences students’ experience at university and how university could support these students better and perhaps contribute to a broader understanding of inclusion and social justice. Divided into four sections, the chapter starts with a rationale that justifies the need for bringing the institutional misrecognition of students into view. This is followed by a set of theoretical considerations based on Soja’s trialectical account and Nancy Fraser’s theory of social justice and her account of misrecognition. This is then followed by a discussion of the implications of such understanding on access and success of rural students at university. The final and concluding section presents a normative argument that calls for more studies to examine the complex life that rural students develop in their quest for a university education and for universities to

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

79

envision different ways of including these students to enable their epistemic becoming.

 ituating Rural student S at the Post-Apartheid University The concept of rural is contested and thus there is no collective definition (Khattri et  al. 1997). The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (FAO/UNESCO 2005) define the term ‘rural’ as the opposite of ‘urban’, while others define the term in relation to the population density of an area (Khattri et al. 1997). This conception of rurality is based on European definitions which are significantly different from the way rurality is viewed in the African and in particular in the South African context. The European conceptualisation of the concept of rurality is based on the understanding that both urban and rural areas are changing. In the South African context, the concept of rurality can be understood as reflecting the broader history of colonialism and apartheid. The concept ‘rural’ in South Africa refers to: … sparsely populated areas in which people farm or depend on natural resources, including the villages and small towns that are dispersed through these areas. In addition, they include the large settlements in former homelands, created by the apartheid removals, which depend for their survival on migratory labour and remittances. (Government of South Africa (GSA) 1997)

This definition is reflective of the conditions that affected the rural population prior to the change of government in 1994 (Jacobs and Hart 2012). This definition includes both commercial farming areas and homelands which were created by the apartheid government. In this context, rural areas are distinguished from urban areas in terms of population density, settlement patterns, livelihood, and availability of resources and the history of rural areas.

80 

H. Agumba

Rurality, in particular, has received little attention in South Africa. Specifically, limited literature exists surrounding the experiences of rural students at university in South Africa. Research on student achievement and social disadvantage regionally and internationally has focused primarily but not exclusively on the underachievement of students and the difficulties they have with remaining in the system or completing their education (Khattri et  al. 1997; Roscigno and Crowley 2001; Makuwa 2005). In this case the social disadvantage is associated with rurality. Internationally, research has been conducted in various geographical areas exploring experiences of students from rural areas in higher education, for example, in China (Yang 2010; Li 2010), in Canada (Looker and Andres 2001; Lehmann 2012), in America (Maltzan 2006; Ast 2014; Holmes and Dalton 2008), and in Australia (Roberts and Green 2013). This chapter suggests that the apparent advantages of urban students are principally due to the subtle but significant differences in school achievement, and psychological support available to support access and success in higher education. There have been several studies conducted in South Africa that provide an overview of the complexities of the problems of rural communities and schooling (for example, HSRC and EPC 2005; Pennefather 2011; Balfour et al. 2008), but limited focus has been paid to rural students’ experiences at university. A study by Leibowitz (2012) revealed that the majority of student testimonies about prior learning experiences showed that rurality, in combination with race, co-produced the repertoires – in terms of practice, literacy, and values – that the students use as they transition through higher education. Although explicit policies to keep black students out of certain universities were eliminated after 1994, some barriers such as unequal institutional funding arrangements, the unfair admission process and the outright financial hardships provide unequal university opportunities for students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds (especially those from poor rural areas). Perhaps the most relevant element to the inequality issues regarding access to South African higher education is the economic disparities based on geographic regions. South Africa’s (SA) higher education institutions have been trying to widen participation, facilitate access and enhance performance of

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

81

students. Post-1994, there have been several transformation-oriented initiatives seeking to effect institutional change in higher education (HE) institutions. While some higher education academics, policy makers and managers have pointed to the deep multifarious challenges that confront university education, the sector has not fully understood, nor engaged with, the complex nature of students’ experiences. For instance, two academic managers commented: While university student bodies have grown and diversified rapidly, we ask whether universities have been responsive to these changes or whether they are unprepared in remaining unchanged in their staffing and ways in which they construct their academic programs and curricula, and whether their deeply entrenched cultures, rituals and traditions inhibit meaningful access to higher education. (Dhunpath and Vithal 2012, p. 2)

Dhunpath and Vithal (2012) identify staffing, institutional cultures and curricula as inexorable in universities’ response to the educational requirements of their diversified student population. They further suggest that universities need to expand the gaze to put both the question of “underprepared students and underprepared universities under the spotlight” (Dhunpath and Vithal 2012, p. 2). Specifically, they call for closing the pedagogic distance between the university’s teaching expectations and students’ learning achievements. This will require universities to fundamentally change the terms of their recognition of students’ cultural histories and identities in the key message systems of curricula, pedagogies and assessment. Of equal concern has been the marginalisation of students of working-class and rural social origins, especially when considering equity of opportunity and outcome, as well as students’ prior knowledge and their experiences with the higher education curriculum as well as in research (Badat and Sayed 2014; Mgqwashu 2016). If higher education institutions are to contribute to a more equitable society, then access and success must be improved for black South Africans (particularly Africans) and other socially disadvantaged groups; and for non-traditional learners, including students from working-class and rural backgrounds (Council on Higher Education (CHE) 2004).

82 

H. Agumba

Rural students come from backgrounds underpinned by values and sociocultural systems that are very different from those privileged in higher education. As such, their primary experience of higher education cannot be the same as that of urban students and those who come from economically privileged backgrounds. The extent to which a student can integrate academically and socially depends in part on his or her tertiary pre-entry characteristics: prior schooling, family background, skills and competence, aspiration and goals (Yosso 2005).

Conceptualising Rurality As elaborated earlier, rurality is a contested idea. It is often positioned as deficit rather than as different and as a residual place often imagined outside the boundaries of modernity (Green 2008; Green and Letts 2007; Green and Reid 2014; Halfacree 2006; Hlalele 2012). The confluence of the ambiguous and amorphous spatial notion of rurality creates a challenge in understanding the way in which it interacts in educational discourse and practice. As pointed out by Halfacree (2006), rural is essentially a spatial term, therefore it is difficult to understand it as a singular phenomenon. Intersecting the multiplicity conception of ruralities can highlight its impact across time and place. The perspective for rurality adopted in this chapter is informed by the view that while defining rurality is problematic, it is still remains an important aspect of understanding the impact of policies and ideologies that have become obscured by the familiarity of modern metropolitan life. Central to the argument is a perspective that rurality needs to be more than a setting for research or a point of difference. Instead, it should be understood in terms of the nuances, subjectivities and particularities of places and the opportunities that it affords in all aspects of life. As argued by several authors including Green (2013), Green and Letts (2007), Reid, Green, Cooper, Hastings, Lock and White (2010) and drawing on Lefebvre (1991), and Soja (1996), rurality is best understood trialectically. This means understanding it in terms of place, space and scale (Gulson and Symes 2007; Leander et  al. 2010; Reid et  al. 2010; Green 2013). These three aspects interrelate in social semiotic practice

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

83

and in a dynamic manner (Green 2013). Rurality is both real and imagined—a complex sometimes contradictory, and always political, overlap of the imaginary, the symbolic and the material (Corbett 2016). In advancing this perspective, the chapter borrows from cultural geographer Edward Soja’s (1996) concept of real and imagined spaces. His trialectical account of ‘historicality’, ‘spatiality’ and ‘sociality’ will enable an exploration of notions of space, equity and rurality and how all these aspects impact on education. By utilising these ideas, the chapter hopes to suggest that there are multiple and contested material, social and discursive conventions, expectations and purposes that structure everyday spatial identities and practices, including education. Soja (1996) sees spatial awareness and orientation as a trialectics of spaciality in terms of ‘First Space’, ‘Second Space’ and ‘Third Space’. The ‘First Space’ is the space of literal physical perception of materiality and of the body. It represents a spatial, social and historical awareness that can be empirically tested and tends to privilege objectivity. First Space epistemologies concentrate on accurate descriptions of surface appearances, material conditions and mapable geographies (Soja 1996, pp. 74–78). The ‘Second Space’ is the space of imagination and conceptual thinking, of the mind, metaphor and belief. It reflects spatial, social and historical knowledges produced and reproduced through thought, imagination and discourse. Representations of the Second Space are reflective, subjective, introspective and individualised (Soja 1996, pp. 78–81). These are the imagined geographies and cognitive maps of thinkers and artists who are concerned with images and ideas. The Third ‘space’ is the space of lived experiences that brings together First and Second space awareness, retaining the reciprocal and contradictory relationships between these different spatial knowledges. The Third Space is labelled as “real and imagined” as one word, indicating that the binaries that structure conceptions and perceptions are mutually informing and if separated would destroy the lived connections between the two. For Soja, the Third Space is where people’s conceptions, perceptions and lived experiences are often multiple, contested, reciprocal combinations of spatiality, imagination and social practices that, though they often clash, are mutually constitutive, continuously constructed and reconstructed.

84 

H. Agumba

“Space Matters” in Higher Education Space appears to be the most underexamined concepts in educational theory (Green and Letts 2007). Cultural geographers such as Edward Soja see space as a site of social and ideological production and reproduction. In it in spaces that identities are constructed through experiences of place as an historically contingent and geographically specific context in which we live our lives. The deficit view that often tends to define rural in relation to urban is already a matter of spatial differentiation. Soja’s (1996) investigation provides a relational analysis of the connections and disconnections between different localities. This means that rurality can only be understood relationally and not as a set of uniform characteristics (Corbett 2017). The important aspect to consider in this regard is that geographic location has long been identified as one of the factors affecting whether and where an individual participates in higher education. Some areas are more privileged and powerful than others and hence what must be accounted for is what Thomson (2002) describes as geographies of distinction and indeed of inclusion and exclusion. Our experiences of space and materiality are therefore informed by embodied practice, ideological beliefs and communicative and discursive forms that come together to structure everyday life (Minca 2001). It is worthwhile to argue that geographic location has an impact on educational attainment as well as expectations. Although rurality is not to be defined or delimited or determined by geography alone, nonetheless geography is clearly an important consideration. This means, among many other things, taking into consideration matters of distance and terrain as well as location, all of which have implication for and effects on educational access and equity. From Soja’s conception, the chapter can draw a crucial connection between the material, the social and the discursive and argue for the inclusion of spatial experiences of rural students at university. An important aspect to note is that educational phenomena are distributed in space. For Foucault, space is a useful resource in thinking about power and knowledge in a manner that greatly illuminates curriculum history and rurality alike. In a broader perspective, theorisation of rurality evokes

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

85

notions of social justice. The next section discusses Nancy Fraser’s conception of Social Justice by analysing the broader economic, political, and social contexts of individuals and their impact on the access and success of students from rural backgrounds.

Social Justice and Education Social justice is conceived as a complex phenomenon because it requires more than just a fairer distribution of resources (McQuillan et al. 2009). Social justice is based on the endeavours that focus on human condition, and forms of oppression and equity. The idea of justice is founded in the philosophical traditions of Plato, Kant, Rousseau and Rawls, among others. Based on their ideals of freedom and equality, social justice reflects a variety of facets that entail equal redistribution, recognition and promotion of the cultural diversity necessary for a democratic life. According to Gerwitz, Ball and Bowe (1995), theories of social justice advocate mechanisms used to regulate social arrangements in the fairest way for the benefit of all. In essence, social justice is concerned with equal justice in all spheres of society. Even though contemporary understandings of social justice are embedded in European enlightenment and the civil rights movement (Behr 2007; Boyles et al. 2008), it has always been fundamental in the African struggles against slavery, colonialism and apartheid (Mandela 1994; Meiring and Tutu 1999; Tikly and Dachi 2009). Social justice issues in education in Africa are multi-layered. They are overdetermined by realities of poverty, and inequalities on the continent. Fraser’s analysis draws us to the complexities of social justice and pushes us to consider “the broader economic, political, and social contexts” (Tikly and Dachi 2009). Fraser’s (2003) theory on justice is specifically concerned with institutionalised obstacles that may prevent some people from participating as full partners in social interaction. The major goal of social justice as understood by Fraser (2005) is ‘participatory parity’. By this she means being able to interact as peers in an equitable way in social life. Fraser articulates three distinct dimensions to participatory parity: the distribution of resources, the politics of misrecognition and lastly the politics of misrepresentation and belonging (Fraser 2009). For

86 

H. Agumba

her these three-dimensions act as obstacles to participatory parity and they correspond to distinct species of injustice: economic (achieved by maldistribution), cultural (achieved by misrecognition) and political (achieved by a lack of representation). She presents the idea that in order for parity of participation to be fully achieved, the three complementary dimensions need to be considered (Fraser 2009). Recognition is concerned with how people are regarded in relation to the social markers or attributes ascribed to them. People can also be prevented from interacting in terms of parity by institutionalised hierarchies of cultural values that deny them the requisite standing; in that case they suffer from status inequality or misrecognition (Fraser 2009). Misrecognition, in terms of lack of respect for individuals on the basis of their social markers – race, gender, religion, background, for instance— may prevent people from interacting in an equitable manner with others (Bozalek and Leibowitz 2012). Lack of parity of participation means that the chances of an academically capable student gaining access to and successfully completing higher education is somewhat predetermined by their background. Background includes prior schooling, socioeconomic status, geographical location (for example urban or rural), language or any other feature that is relevant social and cultural capital that students bring with them to university. The assumption is usually that one has to conform to dominant norms. For Fraser, this is an obstacle that needs to be overcome by employing a social justice perspective that will replace values that impede parity of participation with ones that foster it (Fraser 2000). It is important to acknowledge the multiple strengths of rural students in order to serve a larger purpose of struggle towards social justice. The representation principle is more of a political dimension that refers to social belonging and provides a frame for determining who counts as a social member. Representation in discussions and decisions affects lives through, for example, curriculum knowledge selection. It also concerns whose voice will be heard as legitimate and who thus has a right to access structural arrangements for support and care. It is necessary for institutions to meet obligations in terms of these three dimensions for full participation, access and success. The dimensions interact in a complex manner, and their impact will vary from one individual to another. In

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

87

order for institutions to achieve participatory parity for their students, they must take into consideration how the three dimensions influence an individual’s trajectories of how and why they function as they do. Redistribution relates to access to economic resources and opportunities, including quality education and its potential outcome. In higher education, redistribution of resources would include economic structures that deny one the resources one needs in order to interact with others as peers. In this case, they suffer distributive injustice, for example, access to computers, mobile phones, being able to afford a meal, and access to transport. All these affect a student’s ability to participate fully in university life (Bozalek and Leibowitz 2012). For example, students from more privileged backgrounds may have powerful literacies such as the use of PowerPoint or traditional academic texts, which gives them greater access. Education for social justice is the root of teaching and learning in a democratic society; the rock upon which democracy is built. Therefore, Fraser’s three-dimensional view of social justice—economic redistribution, recognition and representation—provide insights in examining ways in which a student’s background and current institution may influence their chances of gaining access to and successfully completing a qualification. Specifically, her theory illuminates’ ways in which institutional practices and social arrangements may permit/exclude students from rural backgrounds from participating as full partners and lower their chances of successfully completing a degree. Her theory troubles the social structures that enable material inequality (North 2006). For her, social justice works to undo socially created and maintained differences in material conditions of living, therefore her perspective seeks to improve the wellbeing of the marginalised (Fraser 2007). In addition to her three ‘3-R’ dimensions—redistribution, recognition and representation—Fraser suggests that questions of justice entail complex contingencies and so cannot be assigned formulaic procedures. Instead she offers two meta-principles: the principle of ‘all subjected’ and the principle of ‘participatory parity’. The ‘all subjected’ principle can be applied to the question of whose knowledge counts as worthwhile. This suggests that everyone’s knowledge, especially the knowledge of those excluded, should be included in the university’s knowledge amalgam. The focus then shifts to whose knowledge should be included in the

88 

H. Agumba

curriculum. The Participatory parity places the framing emphasis on the nature of the educational participatory processes of students, focusing on the nature of the pedagogical processes in the university. Rural students at university ought to be understood in the light of the complex access paths and practices that they establish across their community, school and university spaces which are important in the educational becoming. In the next section I discuss the implications of such understanding to the university in influencing access and success of rural students.

Implication of Access and Success of Rural Students Social justice is central to the pursuit of education. Zajda, Majrianovich, Rust, and Sabina (2006) posit that the nexus between social justice and education indicates the problematic relationship between education and the society. Therefore, social justice is a key terrain of mediation between capitalism and democracy, first through redistribution demands as well as through recognition politics (Dale and Robertson 2009). Social justice presupposes that all students are worthy of human dignity and that all are worthy of the same opportunities. Despite the learners’ unequal histories, academics must strive to bring each student up to their capacity threshold. This recognition leads to the realisation that rural is in fact imbued with powerful social and cultural knowledge. Therefore, the perspective of the marginalised can help create more objective accounts of the world and should therefore be taken into consideration. This will therefore mean that all forms of knowledge and experiences need to be recognised as always produced from somewhere. Soja’s ideas provide an entry point to thinking about rurality. His notion helps to understand the social spaces of present, in terms of both historical and geographical relations between people, place and social practice. The reassertion of geography into the social-historical relationship proposes space “is not an empty void. It is always filled with politics, ideology and other forces shaping our lives and challenging us to engage in struggles over geography” (Soja 2010, p. 19). By intersecting the social

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

89

and historical relationships with space, as fluid, historical, contested and stratified, this provides access and alternative approaches to the intricacy of social process (Pearson 2017). Soja’s (1996) conception of ‘Space’ has been significant in consideration of geography as space and its implications for higher education and institutional diversity. Nevertheless, the significance of space continues to be underestimated and disconnected in societal and historical processes. This is particularly evident in higher education institutions where there is pushback to address and facilitate a culture of diversity and inclusion, especially for the marginalised populations of students. The theory on social justice is premised on the philosophy that all humans should have equitable access to opportunities irrespective of difference or group membership (North 2006; Cochran-Smith et al. 2009). As further argued by Burke (2012), the questions of access and participation pose challenges for higher education practice because such questions are bound up with longstanding histories of inequalities. Burke posits that in order to develop strategies to address these challenges, attention be paid to the different practices and the contexts in which these inequalities are formed. The two interrelated, though distinct, dimensions of these practices arguably include first, the structural dimensions, which are the ways in which race, class and gender are tied up and reproduced in relation to power and structural inequalities, and how these relations determine the nature and the experience of students in university. Students from rural impoverished backgrounds are able to mobilise a limited range of resources in support of their university studies and educational aspirations compared to those urban middle class students whose access to resources and cultural capital is more closely aligned with the requirements of the university life. This structural dimension positions rural students at a distance from mainstream university experience, limiting the quality and extent of their engagement with the university. This distancing pushes them into a parallel existence in respect of the university’s formal education structures from where they work out their education becoming through strategic educational practices that intersect with their programmes, lectures and support services.

90 

H. Agumba

The second dimension refers to ways in which such structural inequalities are produced at the university. This process is signposted as misrecognition. Misrecognition, as argued by Bourdieu, is not a lack of recognition but rather the social practices of individuals or institutions that misattribute selective discrimination based on differences in cultural inheritance as something else, in the process normalising exclusionary institutional behaviour (Bourdieu 1979). In other words, misrecognition in education can be seen as the way in which inequality is naturalised, and how it goes unquestioned in everyday educational practices. At South African universities these congealed and concealing processes typically include intractable institutional cultures (Tabensky and Matthews 2015) and untransformed curricula (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2016). These processes have succeeded in masking, or misdirecting attention from the structural inequalities that are embedded in the university and which powerfully inform the educational experience of students. They operate at symbolic, cultural and emotional levels, where they are central to the production of subtle and insidious forms of inequality (Burke 2012), manifesting in high student failure rates that are projected as individualised failure. The outcome of such systemic misrecognition has been that universities have failed to align themselves with the backgrounds and aspirational requirement of their students. According to Calderwood (2003) and Solomon and Murphy (2000), the reality of social justice is that the mechanisms of injustice are largely invisible, even to those who strive to live their lives and carry out their work ethically. Education in South Africa is a social justice issue, and it requires that the voices and aspirations of marginalised groups are recognised and represented in educational discourse. Universities in particular need to put a concerted effort into understanding their student population and creating a concomitant academic platform whose fundamental function would be working towards a fuller recognition of the specificities associated with the student’s epistemic becoming.

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

91

Conclusion In conclusion, this section provides a normative argument that places universities in a position to establish an educational platform that will allow full engagement of students with the institution for the sake of their educational becoming. The chapter has argued that universities have continued to misrecognise black rural students. This misrecognition is reflected in untransformed institutional cultures, uneven educational development and support infrastructure and narrow and unengaging curriculum and pedagogical processes. Like other social justice conundrums, the access and success gap is dauntingly complex, and too overwhelming because factors contributing to the achievement gap are vast and varied. However, the complexity of the achievement gap is a call to action. The core challenge for university education is the emergence of a broader social-structural commitment to social justice. Whether universities can transform is greatly dependent on development of the broader social-reproductive apparatuses of society. Fraser’s emphasis on the hegemonic dynamics that constitute social and institutional arrangement is central to understanding how just conditions are established. Fraser’s insistence on the prominence of the redistributive dimension means, for instance, that unequal and deficient funding for universities would have to be addressed. In emphasising the recognition dimension, this would mean that universities need to establish welcoming and inclusive learning platforms that recognise and work with the students’ learning and knowledge repertoires as a way of better engaging them and fully supporting their educational becoming. Both the structural and the institutional cultures ought to be understood in respect of the nature of the curriculum knowledge to be taught at the university. This calls for knowledge pluralisation which refers to incorporation of the complex ways of knowing of all the previously excluded groups including the rural students. As suggested by Fraser (2009), the ‘all subjected’ approach to knowledge is based on an intercultural understanding of multiple and heterodox forms of being human in social-historical contexts. This approach seeks to undermine ‘knowledge parochialism’, which

92 

H. Agumba

is the idea that one’s own knowledge is superior and thus sufficient for complex living. Finally, about pedagogy which relates to Fraser’s participatory parity principle, this calls for a kind of pedagogy that enables students to actively participate in acquiring the intellectual capacity for understanding and rigorously working with the knowledge in their respective courses. This means moving beyond the simplistic knowledge transfer pedagogies and narrow assessment routines. Instead, a process-oriented pedagogy is advocated where students can make productive intellectual connections between the knowledge disciplines and its application in contingent contexts. This will include developing teaching strategies and curriculum materials and processes that effectively enable students to weave between the rich knowledges and literacies of the rural students together with their university learning. Such active educational engagement processes are key to students’ epistemic becoming.

References Ast, K. M. (2014). Exploring the lived experiences of rural college student transitions. Master’s thesis. Oregon: Oregon State University. Atkin, C. (2003). Rural communities: Human and symbolic capital development, fields apart. Compare, 33(4), 507–518. Badat, S., & Sayed, Y. (2014). Post-1994 South African education: The challenge of social justice. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 652(1), 127–148. Balfour, R. J., Mitchell, C., & Moletsane, R. (2008). Troubling contexts: Toward a generative theory of rurality as education research. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 3(3), 95–107. Behr, H. (2007). The European Union in the legacies of imperial rule? EU accession politics viewed from a historical comparative perspective. European Journal of International Relations, 13(2), 239–262. Bourdieu, P. (1979). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of social taste. London: Routledge. Boyles, D., Carusi, T., & Attick, D. (2008). Historical and critical interpretations of social justice. In W.  C. Ayers, T.  Quinn, & D.  Stovall (Eds.), Handbook of social Justice in education (pp. xiii–xv). New York: Routledge.

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

93

Bozalek, V., & Leibowitz, B. (2012). An evaluative framework for socially just institutions. In B. Leibowitz (Ed.), Higher education for the public good: View from the South. London: Sun Press. Burke, P. (2012). Widening participation in higher education: Radicalised inequality and misrecognition. In C. Alexander & J. Ardey (Eds.), Aiming higher: Race, inequality and diversity in higher education (pp.  21–24). Runnymede Trust: London. Calderwood, P. E. (2003). Toward a professional community for social justice. Journal of Transformative Education, 1, 301–320. Cochran-Smith, M., Shakman, K., Jong, C., Terrell, D.  G., Barnatt, J., & McQuillan, P. (2009). Good and just teaching: The case for social justice in teacher education. American Journal of Education, 115(3), 347–377. Corbett, M. (2016). Rural futures: Development, aspirations, mobilities, place, and education. Peabody Journal of Education, 91, 270–282. 10.1080/01619 56X.2016.1151750. Corbett, M. (2017). Book review of “Understanding social justice in rural education”. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 32(1), 1–4. Council on Higher Education  – CHE. (2004). Higher education in the first decade of democracy. Pretoria: Council on Higher Education. Dale, R., & Robertson, S. (Eds.). (2009). May. Globalisation and Europeanisation in education: Symposium Books Ltd. Dhunpath, R., & Vithal, R. (2012). Alternative access to university: Past, present and future. Alternative access to higher education: Underprepared students or underprepared institutions (pp. 2–20). Cape Town: Pearson Publishers. FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation) & UNESCO (united Nations Education, Scientific & Cultural Organisation). (2005). Education for rural development: Towards new policy responses. Paris: FAO and UNESCO. Fraser, N. (2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 3(May/ June), 107–120. Fraser, N. (2003). Social justice in the age of identity politics: Redistribution, recognition and participation. In N.  Fraser & A.  Honneth (Eds.), Redistribution or recognition? A political-philosophical exchange (pp.  7–109). London: Verso. Fraser, N. (2005, Nov–Dec). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36(99), 69–88. Fraser, N. (2007). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. Global Inequality: Patterns and Explanations, 252–272.

94 

H. Agumba

Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York: Columbia University press. Gewirtz, S., Ball, S. J., & Bowe, R. (1995). Markets, choice, and equity in education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Government of South Africa (GSA). (1997). Rural development framework. Compiled by the Rural Development Task Team (RDP) and the Department of Land Affairs, Pretoria. Green, B. (Ed.). (2008). Spaces and places: The NSW rural (teacher) education project. Wagga Wagga: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University. Green, B. (2013). Literacy, rurality, education: A partial mapping. In B. Green & M.  Corbett (Eds.), Rethinking rural literacies: Transnational perspectives (pp. 17–34). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Green, B., & Letts, W. (2007). Space. Equity and rural education: A “Trialectical” account. In K. N. Gulson & C. Symes (Eds.), Spatial theories of education: Policy and geography matter (pp. 57–76). New York/London: Routledge. Green, W., & Reid, J. A. (2014). Social Cartography and Rural Education: Researching Space (s) and Place (s). In Doing educational research in rural settings: Methodological issues, international perspectives and practical solutions (pp. 26–40). Melbourne: Routledge. Gulson, K. N., & Symes, C. (Eds.). (2007). Spatial theories of education: Policy and geography matter. New York/London: Routledge. Halfacree, K. (2006). Rural space: Constructing a three-fold architecture. In P.  Cloke, T.  M. Marsden, & P.  Mooney (Eds.), Handbook of Rural Studies (pp. 44–62). London: Sage. Hall, M. (2012). Public good and private benefits of higher education. In B. Leibowitz (Ed.), Higher education for the public good: View from the South. London: Sun Press. Hirsch, D. (2007). Experiences of poverty and educational disadvantage. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Hlalele, D. (2012). Social justice and rural education in South Africa. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 111–118. Holmes, D., & Dalton, R. (2008). Peak experiences: Raising aspirations and educational achievement of rural youth in Adirondack communities. Cornwall, Vermont: Foundation for Excellent Schools. Human Sciences Research Council – Education Policy Centre (HSRC & EPC). (2005). Emerging voices: A report on education in South African rural communities. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

95

Jacobs, P., & Hart, T. (2012). Rural innovation assessment tool (RIAT) concept paper series. Pretoria: HSRC-EPD. Khattri, N., Riley, K. W., & Kane, M. B. (1997). Student at risk in poor rural areas: A review of the research. Journal or Research in Rural Education, 113(2), 79–100. Leander, K. M., Phillips, N. C., & Taylor, K. H. (2010). The changing social spaces of learning: Mapping new mobilities. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 329–394. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell. Lehmann, W. (2012). Working-class students, habitus, and the development of student roles: A Canadian case study. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 33(4), 527–546. Leibowitz, B. (2012). Higher education for the public good: View from the south. London: Sun press. Leibowitz, B. (2017). SARiHE position paper: Rurality and education, Johannesburg: Unpublished manuscript. Li, H. (2010). Educational trajectories of rural students in an Elite university: English learning experience and beyond. Doctoral dissertation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Looker, E. D., & Andres, L. (2001). Rurality and capital: Educational expectations and attainments of rural, urban/rural and metropolitan youth. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 31(2), 1. Machin, S. (2006). Social disadvantage and educational experience. Paris: OECD. Makuwa, D. (2005). The SACMEQ II project in Namibia: A study of the conditions of schooling and the quality of education. Windhoek: Ministry of education. Maltzan, T. L. (2006). Rurality and higher education: Implications for identity and persistence. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University. Mandela, N. (1994, May 24). State of the nation address by the president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Houses of Parliament, Cape Town. McQuillan, P. J., D’Souza, L. A., Scheopner, A. J., Miller, G. R., Gleeson, A. M., Mitchell, K., Enterline, S., & Cochran-Smith, M. (2009). Reflecting on pupil learning to promote social justice: A Catholic University’s approach to assessment. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, 13(2), 157–184. Meiring, P., & Tutu, D. (1999). Chronicle of the Truth Commission: A journey through the past and present-into the future of South Africa. Vanderbijlpark: Carpe Diem Books.

96 

H. Agumba

Mgqwashu, E. (2016). Education can’t be for the public good if universities ignore rural life. The Conversation. March 16. Minca, C. (2001). Postmodern geography: theory and praxis. WileyBlackwell, Wiley. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (2016). Exploring the educational engagement practices of disadvantaged students at a south African university. Education as Change, 23(1), 90–112. North, C. E. (2006). More than words? Delving into the substantive meaning (s) of “social justice” in education. Review of Educational Research, 76(4), 507–535. Pearson, H. E. (2017). Moving towards the Trialectics of space, disability, and intersectionality: Intersecting spatiality and arts-based visual methodologies. Knowledge Cultures, 5(5), 43–68. Pennefather, J. (2011). Landscape shapes mindscape: Partnerships as agency in a community of learning. In F. Islam, C. Mitchell, N. De Lange, R. Balfour, & M. Combrinck (Eds.), School-university partnerships for educational change in rural South Africa. New York: Edwin Mellon Press. Reid, J., Green, B., Cooper, M., Hastings, W., Lock, G., & White, S. (2010). Regenerating rural social space? Teacher education for rural-regional sustainability. Australian Journal of Education, 54(3), 262–276. Roberts, P., & Green, B. (2013). Researching rural places: On social justice and rural education. Qualitative Enquiry., 19(10), 765–774. Roscigno, V. J., & Crowley, M. L. (2001). Rurality, institutional disadvantage, and achievement/attainment. Rural Sociology, 66, 268–293. Soja, E.  W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Real-and-Imagined places. Oxford: Blackwell. Soja, E. (2010). Seeking spatial justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Solomon, R. C., & Murphy, M. C. (2000). What is justice? Classic and contemporary reading. New York: Oxford University Press. Tabensky, P. A., & Matthews, S. (2015). Being at home: Race, institutional culture and transformation at south African higher education institutions. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Thomson, P. (2002). Schooling the rustbelt kids: Making the difference in changing times. Crow’s Nest: Allen & Unwin. Tikly, L., & Dachi, H. (2009). 10 social justice in African education in the age of globalization. In Ayer, W., Quinn, T., Stovall, D., (Eds), Handbook of social justice in education, NewYork: Routledge.

4  The Rural Gaze: Access, Participation, and Success in Higher… 

97

Yang, X. (2010). Access to higher education for rural-poor students in China. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 9(3), 193–209. Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. Zajda, J., Majhanovich, S., Rust, V., & Sabina, E. M. (Eds.). (2006). Education and social justice (Vol. 4, no. 3). Dordrecht: Springer.

Part II Integrating Rurality in Teacher Preparation

5 Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue of Social Justice in a Post-Apartheid South Africa Thabisile Nkambule

Introduction During the apartheid era, the history of teacher education in South Africa was fragmented and discriminatory in nature, as noted in the designing of the 19 governance structures that were present at the time to produce teachers that would support the policy of separate development (Diko 2017). The post-apartheid government developed a national system underpinned by democracy, equity, redress and transparency, and this included the closure and incorporation of colleges of education into universities (Botman 2016; Diko 2017). While Sayed (2004) has stated that the decision to locate teacher education at universities had to do with “a strong focus on ‘subject/learning area content knowledge’ and a research culture which universities rather than colleges are seen to provide” (p.  287), Diko (2017) highlighted that the rationalisation and repositioning of teacher education institutions within higher education and the

T. Nkambule (*) University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_5

101

102 

T. Nkambule

closure of teacher training colleges sent a wrong message that teaching was not important. Although it is unclear how the closure of colleges meant teaching was not important when it was relocated to the universities, the consequences of the process resulted in the number of teacher trainees dropping (Jansen 2004; Welch and Gultig 2000) because it became more expensive to study at a university than a college. To ensure the successful training of teachers, the curriculum for teacher education and development had to be addressed, and Breier (2001) commented that a differential institutional capacity to respond to policy initiatives was strongly aligned to historical advantage. He noted that: There were indications that some universities had used the opportunities of the NQF to change, quite substantially, the structure of their curricular, as well as the process and pedagogy or to give attention to quality. Others had not got beyond the administrative procedures associated with qualification registration. (Breier 2001)

This meant some universities were able to implement the changes with ease, while institutions that were situated in rural areas had extreme inequality of teaching and learning programmes and curricula did not extend subject knowledge beyond matric (Gordon 2009, pp.  16–17). Similarly, Kruss (2009) stated that the differentiated and unequal nature of the higher education sector in South Africa was also reflected in the differentiated or varying experiences of institutions and their ability to deal with restructuring and recurriculation. This chapter seeks to contribute to the dialogue on the role of teacher education in the transformation of the curriculum, focusing on the training of student teachers to prepare them to teach in rural schools. The chapter engages with the debates about curriculum change to recognise alternative knowledges and interrogate how the courses at Wits School of Education introduce student teachers to other epistemologies.

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

103

Initial Teacher Education in South Africa Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes and courses are important to introduce student teachers to knowledge and information about the teaching profession, and to make student teachers aware of the diverse and complex school contexts before they commence teaching practicum. Nespor (2008) has stated that teacher education programmes are in a difficult position because they must take into consideration the rules and conditions to produce highly qualified teachers. In order to maintain accreditation, ITE programmes must adhere to strict mandates regarding curriculum content and credit hours, however, the selection of the courses that should be part of the curriculum are not necessarily prescribed. It is the decision of each university which courses it wants to design for its student teachers, and which knowledge in the selected readings it wants to expose them to. Lecturers in teacher education programmes recognise that the practice of teaching “draws upon a variety of knowledge resources” (Liakopoulou 2011, p. 73) which includes a combination of academic subject matter knowledge, curricular knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, practical knowledge and skills, experiential or situated knowledge, and tacit knowledge (Gamble 2009). Even MRTEQ indicates that “specific mixes of the types of learning and knowledge depend on the purpose of the qualification and provide the basis for the design of curricula for specific learning programmes” (Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) 2011, p.  12, as cited in Reeves and Robinson 2014, p. 12). In South Africa, the Wits School of Education also must comply with the strict mandate from the Department of Higher Education Training (DHET) to ensure that teachers of the twenty-first century are well prepared with relevant content and credit hours for courses and teaching practicum. The DHET is expecting universities to produce “technicians who may be able to replicate performance in similar contexts, but who are severely challenged when the context changes” (DHET 2011, as cited in Rusznyak 2015, p. 9). For student teachers to be challenged in different contexts depends on whether their courses expose them to diverse complex contexts that will confront their thinking about such schools’

104 

T. Nkambule

and communities’ contexts. Before we engage in the debate of knowledge, it is important to locate the development of scholarly understandings of teacher knowledge and the implications within the context of teacher education in South Africa.

 he Conceptualisation of Professional T Learning Curricula for Pre-service Teacher Education The professional education programmes in South Africa traditionally comprise four main elements, namely: general education theory; pedagogical/methods study; disciplinary/subject matter studies; and school-­ based experience (Reeves and Robinson 2014). The education theory provides students with access to a range of general theories of education, schooling, and development related to teaching, through foundation courses such as psychology, history, philosophy and sociology of education. Pedagogical or methods study courses have conventionally incorporated both general pedagogy and subject pedagogy’. The former focuses on basic teaching techniques such as general strategies, and skills or procedures for teaching, while subject pedagogy focuses on how particular subjects are taught, and how to deal with common misconceptions or problems children have in understanding the particular subject (Center for Research in Math and Science Education 2010; CEPD 2009). To a certain extent, the teacher education programme at Wits School of Education also follows this conception and structure in the Bachelor of Education degree, where Education Theory and Curriculum Studies represent the compulsory courses and then subject content. Even though MRTEQ allows for institutional flexibility and discretion in teacher education programmes (DHET 2011), Deacon, Osman, and Buchler (2009) noted with concern that the different epistemological positions, philosophical traditions, and theoretical assumptions and beliefs driving teacher preparation may be more implicit than explicit. Reeves and Robinson (2014) have stated that teaching professional educational theory followed by practice is the model that has conventionally

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

105

been employed in teacher education programmes in South Africa. The underlying assumption, according to Clarke and Winch (2004), is that teaching practice is a theoretically informed field and student teachers first need to acquire theoretical and conceptual knowledge through course work in order to put the knowledge they have gained into practice. There is a socially critical-reflective-practice model which assumes that student teachers need to become more critical of the role of education in the larger socio-political context and develop an understanding of how schooling reproduces inequality (Morrow et  al. 2004 in CEPD 2009a). This is promoted in courses such as Sociology of Education and Curriculum Studies and understanding how such courses encourage alternative ways of knowing and thinking during discussion is of interest. According to Reeves and Robinson (2014), this model is implicit in the MRTEQ, which argues that teacher education programmes should incorporate situational and contextual elements that assist teachers in developing competences that enable them to deal with diversity and transformation (DHET 2011, pp.  9–10). The argument against this model is that it is not enough to become critically reflective; student teachers must also be able to provide disadvantaged learners with epistemological access to ‘powerful’ school knowledge (Wheelahan 2010). The teaching of theories with practice is another model that Reeves and Robinson (2014) have identified in teacher education programmes, with the understanding that theory (understanding why) should be cross-­ referenced with practice (knowing how) through ‘scaffolding’. It is important for student teachers to be able to question, explain, justify, and articulate the reasons for actions, which means it promotes ‘interrogation’ of the readings in relation to the practices they have observed and engaged with. The length of the course and time allocation for lectures and tutorials should be considered because they play a role and influence the ability and promotion of critical dialogues. Regarding the interrogation of knowledge systems in the readings in relation to teaching practice, the Wits School of Education has two projects that expose student teachers to rural and farm communities and schools through the Kwena—Based and Acornhoek Teaching Experience, in Mpumalanga Province. However, it is not clear how students are encouraged to problematise the nature of knowledge in the courses in

106 

T. Nkambule

relation to such exposure. In other words, it is not clear whether the discussions about such contexts and their epistemologies are supported in the generic courses, especially when considering that there are students that come from such contexts within the courses. MRTEQ also supports such engagement through “situational learning that considers knowledge of various learning contexts and learning to work with diverse challenges” (DHET 2011, pp.  11–12), whether these knowledges are considered during discussion is another research. I will argue that Wits School of Education possibly uses a hybrid approach as the design of courses see practice as structured by the principles of constructivism, while at the same time promoting student teachers to see themselves as subject experts. Lastly is the debate about the relationship between pedagogical knowledge and disciplinary or subject knowledge (Adler and Reed 2002; Hoadley 2009). This includes seeing pedagogical theory and skills as generic and applicable within and across subject domains, and the position that supports the teaching of pedagogical knowledge within a particular subject domain. For the former, the pedagogical skills and knowledge apply to the teaching of all subjects, where student teachers are provided with access to a range of pedagogical theories, principles and approaches to allow them to select and make choices about which theories and approaches, or combination of theories and approaches, are relevant for use in their teaching in different subjects, classrooms and school contexts (Reeves and Robinson 2014). Concerns are that it can lead to the notion that how to teach, is more important than student teachers’ disciplinary knowledge-base and can downplay the role of teachers’ subject knowledge (Levine 2006; Reeves and Robinson 2014). This was one of the central criticisms of the policy of outcomes-based education in South Africa (Shalem 2010), leading to the development of a more content-­driven school curriculum. The subject pedagogy courses focus on how particular subjects are taught and learnt, and the practice of teaching draws on the conceptual knowledge of the domain. The pedagogical approach needs to be developed or redefined in relation to different domains of knowledge, because different knowledge domains (e.g. the natural and social sciences) are structured differently (Bernstein 1996, 1999). A critique of such an

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

107

approach is that student teachers may have sound content knowledge, but limited or ineffectual teaching repertoires (Rusznyak 2018). In addition, such an approach “ignores the complexities of transforming this knowledge into appropriate opportunities for learning in school classrooms” (Adler et al. 2002, p. 151). Notwithstanding this, the idea is that the practice of teaching is structured by the principles of pedagogy as well as the principles of the subject domain. At Wits School of Education, we teach educational theories, pedagogical knowledge, and methods, and disciplines also teach pedagogical knowledge in their respective courses, for example, English, Science, Mathematics, and Information Communication Technology. Graven (2005) is concerned that if student teachers are not in control of the subject knowledge and the intention is to also improve subject content knowledge, mixing content knowledge and method tends to result in difficulties with keeping a focus on improving their subject knowledge. This chapter agrees with Lunenberg and Korthagen’s (2009) argument that teacher education will be more effective if the triangular relationship between experience, theory and practical wisdom is taken seriously as the basis for curriculum development and teacher educator interventions. It is therefore important that teacher education programmes take into consideration student teachers’ own biographies, their personal experiences, their particular social conditions during teaching and learning, and how their ways of thinking and knowing can be infused into the design of the programme, rather than being an add-on module or intervention.

 ecolonising Curriculum Debate: Implications D for ITE Courses The above discussion addresses the need to understand the historical development of disciplines, which is linked to the “second generation colonialism of the mind through disciplines, such as education, science, economics and law” (Odora-Hoppers and Richards 2011, p. 7). According to Le Grange (2016), the second-generation colonialism resulted in the denigration and decimation of indigenous knowledges, which De Sousa

108 

T. Nkambule

Santos (2014, p. 92) has referred to as ‘the murder of knowledge’ thus epistemicide. Le Grange (2016) stated that South African universities adopted a Western disciplinary knowledge of academic organisation that was entrenched during apartheid, and largely excluded and decimated the knowledges of marginalised people. It is because of such backgrounds that the outcry of decolonising the university curriculum emerged, to find new ways of thinking and understanding by responding to historical events as potential carriers of new possibilities (Pindar and Sutton 2001). This chapter is motivated by the question: “How do Wits School of Education ITE courses, which represent specific bodies of knowledge, prepare and expose student teachers to diverse schools and community contexts?” The bodies of knowledge continually influence each other, demonstrating the dynamism of all knowledge systems without dichotomising indigenous and Western knowledge—in this chapter the rural and farm ways of knowing and suburb/urban/township ways of knowing. Hall and Tandon (2017) have talked about knowledge democracy that acknowledges the existence of multiple epistemologies, or ways of knowing, understanding that knowledge is a powerful tool for acting in the process of using that knowledge. This means ITE programmes should expose student teachers to other ways of knowing that will encourage them to be sensitive to the diverse communities of problem solving, as they usually experience complex challenges in different schools during teaching practicum. De Sousa Santos (2016) posited that “the scientific knowledge that brought us here (the presence) will not be able to get us out of here, we need other knowledges, recognising that science is one form of knowledge that needs to work with other knowledges”. Similarly, this chapter does not disregard the importance of scientific knowledge that has linked some forms of knowledge with progress, science and the future, but supports open access to multiple epistemologies and sharing of knowledge, so that everyone who needs knowledge will have access to it (Hall and Tandon 2017). As mentioned earlier, the Kwena based Farm and Acornhoek Rural Teaching Experience projects expose student teachers to different communities, schools, and multiple epistemologies, even though they are not formally recognised in their courses. Thus, considering that we take

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

109

students to the rural and farm communities and schools, how do we prepare them for such exposure, given the curriculum that focuses on powerful knowledge to ensure epistemological access? Given the powerful epistemological access, how do student teachers gain access to other epistemologies to give them the opportunity to interact and understand other ways of knowing and thinking? Therefore, as lecturers, we need to look at our ways of thinking about other communities and school contexts in teacher training institutions, because the ways of thinking are fundamental to the way we understand the world (Leibowitz 2017). Our training as university lecturers influences all aspects of our thinking, possibly leading many of us to an inability to think outside of those frames. Mbembe (2016, p. 42) observed that “The hegemonic notion of knowledge production has generated discursive scientific practices and has set up interpretive frames that make it difficult to think outside of these frames.” While this might be the case, the diversity of students we engage with every day should encourage us to interrogate and rethink the stories we tell in our courses, and also how we tell those stories about theories and readings. Harraway (2016) stated that “It matters which stories tell stories, which concepts think concepts. Mathematically, visually, and narratively, it matters which figures figure figures, which systems systematize systems” (p. 101). I argue that theories and concepts tell stories about themselves then are continually systematising themselves as they require students to adapt for epistemological access. This is illustrated by the engagement with the same theories and concepts from first to fourth year and also repeating some of the theories and concepts at postgraduate courses (Piaget, Vygotsky, Bernstein, Bourdieu, Pinar, Taylor), arguing detailed discussions at this level, instead of recognising that we enculture students to a particular way of thinking that might be biased towards their ways of knowing and thinking. hooks (1994) encouraged lecturers to view their students as whole human beings who bring into the university classroom complex lives and experiences. Giroux (1993) also supported the notion that students’ experiences must be situated within the pedagogy of learning, provide space for the ‘unknown’ and create new types of courses that will promote cognitive justice (Visvanathan 2009; Leibowitz 2017).

110 

T. Nkambule

Cognitive justice requires the bringing into relation of different knowledges, “the plural availability of knowledges” (Visvanathan 2016, p. 8), allowing for the unknown and the awareness that our knowledge forms have absences (De Sousa Santos 2014). Of importance for cognitive justice is the recognition of difference in order for democracy and creativity to flow, and it is an awareness that all knowledges can and should be flexible. This requires awareness that our student teachers arrive at university with religions, languages, and cultures that give them a distinctive voice, Giroux (1993) stated that we can critically engage student teachers’ experience and move beyond it, but we can’t deny it (p. 16). Thus, the enacting of open dialogue in ITE lectures and tutorial classes become critical to disturb the taken for granted conditions of power, privilege, and otherness in the classrooms (Roux and Becker 2016). According to Nolan and Stitzlein (2010), for meaningful transformation to occur in teacher education, there is a need for educators who are “engaged in hoping to look beyond themselves to the larger context within which they are hoping, and to investigate issues at a more global level” (p. 8). The concept of hope has been identified by Cherrington (2017) as important in the context of teacher education, because “institutions of higher education continue to grapple with the necessity of equipping student teachers with pedagogical tools that can foster culturally inclusive teaching contexts” (p. 73). It is therefore fundamental that lecturers “do not only strive to transfer knowledge from the books and journal articles, but also bring the ideals of cultural diversity and social justice into the classrooms” (Waters 2011). Thus, reflecting on our courses that prepare teachers of the twenty-first century is important, as well as constantly asking ourselves how to do we give hope to other knowledges that are not represented in teacher education classrooms to bring about social change.

Issues of Powerful Knowledge and Epistemological Access in ITE Courses According to Lebakeng, Phalane and Dalindjebo (2006), the dominant curriculum continues to be a source of alienation in South Africa, resulting in education being a cognitive and epistemological disaster to all that

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

111

endure it. They continue to argue that “often the curriculum does not speak to the experiences of learners, because it does not reflect the philosophical, social and technological realities of their environment” (Lebakeng et al. 2006, p. 74). This resulted in the call for decolonising the curriculum; especially since that the new constitution offered space for constructing a discourse that mainstreams local relevance and vocalises silent voices. This section focuses on curriculum issues and then links it with the debate on powerful knowledge and epistemological access. This is followed by the role the concepts possibly play in the slow process of change in ITE courses and debates on multiple epistemologies. There are different views about the meaning of curriculum in general, and specifically, at universities. According to Grumet (1981, cited in Le Grange 2016), curriculum is the stories that we tell students about their past, present and future. Le Grange (2016) has posited that this view of curriculum enables us to ask which stories students are told about their past, present and future, who tells the stories, and whether students are given the opportunity to tell their story? While Lebakeng et al. (2006) has argued that “often curriculum does not speak to the experiences of learners and students, since curriculum does not reflect the philosophical, social and technological realities of their environment”, Leibowitz (2017) has stated that the “abstract meaning of curriculum implies various more formal and more informal aspects of the experience of a student’s university learning and the aspects that influence learning, such as social behaviour or residence life”. Even though it is not explicit, what Leibowitz referred to by “various more informal aspects … that influence learning, such as social behaviour or residence life”, the statement could be addressing the last part of Lebakeng et  al. (2006), that “curriculum does not reflect the philosophical, social and technological realities of their environment”. However, this discussion raises an important question: To what extent, if at all, does the university allow student teachers to talk about their philosophical, social and technological realities of their environment, in a curriculum that foregrounds and prioritises engaging with powerful knowledge to ensure epistemological access? Aoki (1999) presented another view of curriculum and argued that it “should not focus only on the planned (curriculum-as-plan) but also on how it is lived (curriculum-as-lived)—how the curriculum is lived by

112 

T. Nkambule

students and teachers” (cited in Le Grange 2016, p.  7). According to Aoki (1999) legitimating the curriculum-as-lived does not discard the curriculum-as-plan, but legitimating the former produces a tensioned space in between the two, that of struggle, creativity and transformation. Thus, legitimating the curriculum-as-lived necessitates taking seriously how students are experiencing the current university curriculum and using this as a basis for its decolonisation and the opportunity to present their epistemologies (Le Grange 2016, p. 7). Research on the latter should still be encouraged, especially in teacher education campuses, as Le Grange (2016) has stated that for some students “the culture of the university is foreign” (p. 1) because it alienate them. The concept of curriculum has a history that should not be taken for granted, and Deleuze and Guattari (1994) contended that a concept is not a name attached to something, but a way of approaching the world. Their interest was not in what a concept is, but what it does. This thinking about curriculum provides a critical approach to the understanding of what it does to the ways of being for the student teachers in our campus, especially in relation to their ways of being and thinking that they bring to the university, as knowledge has a way of shaping an individual’s thinking. Wallin (2010) presented an interesting way of thinking about curriculum from Pinar’s Latin currere, which means ‘to run the course’, to refocus the curriculum on the significance of an individual’s experience, “whatever the course content or alignment with society or the economy” (Pinar 2011, xii, cited in Le Grange 2016). For Wallin (2010, p. 2) [To] run implies that the conceptual power of currere is intimate to its productive capacity to create flows, offshoots, and multiplicitous movements. For example, the ‘running’ roots of rhizomatic bulbs and tubers extend to create new interfaces with other organic and nonorganic bodies, extending the experience of what a body can become…

This way of understanding curriculum is linked with newness, creation of things unforeseen, experimentation, expanding of difference and movement. This notion of curriculum opens up multiple pathways for the becoming of pedagogical lives, and the basis for difference as valued for its intrinsic worth (Le Grange 2016). The perspective goes back to Pinar’s

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

113

argument of currere as a complicated concept, because each of us is different—in our genetic makeup, our upbringings, our families, and more broadly our race, gender, and class. This addresses curriculum as an active conceptual force that does not have fixity or closeness, and is not conveying an a priori image of a pedagogical life. It instead relates to the immanent potential of the becoming of a pedagogical life—the multiple coursings of a pedagogical life that exists prior to thought. Drawing from the concept of hope, as Jacobs (2005) said, “hope is a necessary condition” for an education aimed at bringing about social change, because currere also encourages the use of students’ diverse experiences. Similarly, hooks (1994) stated that combining the theoretical with the experiential offers a richer way of knowing, which could enable spaces for student teachers to learn to listen to the multiple voices that contribute to the enhancement of alternative epistemologies and learning processes. This way of training will also give student teachers the skills to encourage multiple epistemologies in the classrooms during teaching practice and further. According to McDermott and Hastings (2000), it is not only the education context but also the curriculum that lends itself to hope enhancement, because many students can then be reached simultaneously. The above discussion introduces Leibowitz’s (2017) analysis of Bourdieu’s, Bernstein’s and Morrow’s concepts of knowledge as a form of capital—thus a commodity, account of the role of social relations in influencing the acquisition of knowledge, and the concept of epistemological access respectively. Again, the concept of knowledge as a form of capital thus a commodity and social class relations through distributive regulation links to the concept of access to powerful knowledge, which Wheelahan (2010, p.  9) referred to as “distributional justice” that addresses access to powerful knowledge and the ability to participate in the creation thereof. As Leibowitz (2017) stated, the notion of powerful knowledge as a form of capital has been popular in South African institutions of higher learning as a form of redressing the past. It was and still is dedicated to making adaptations to the curriculum so that students from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds can be successful within the current system, rather than transforming higher education and its content more substantially (p.  99). Within the institutions of higher learning we seem to

114 

T. Nkambule

‘secure’ powerful knowledge in ITE courses through recycling meta-­ narratives, and training students to think within those narratives even when critiquing them. This way of knowing and thinking perpetuates knowledge superiority and forecloses thinking of alternatives, which is supported by a discourse of a “multitude of different long generational minds that intermingled and combined their ideas, experiences and feelings to produce a very special intellectuality that is infinitely richer and more complex than that of the individual” (Moore 2010, p.  152). This statement constrains Wheelahan’s (2010, p.  9) notion of “distributional justice” that could provide student teachers with the opportunity to participate in the creation of powerful knowledge, because of lack of recognition for indigenous generational minds that have been generating knowledge. Anyway, the promotion and protection of powerful knowledge in teacher education courses result in limiting using alternative other epistemologies which recognise student diversity and accept student teachers’ experiences and cultures we cannot deny. This is particularly true when you constantly hear that it is powerful knowledge that should be more equitably distributed, hence linked to the phrase, ‘epistemological access’ (Leibowitz 2017). In the South African context, the concept was introduced by Morrow (2007) and implies that all students, irrespective of social and educational backgrounds, should have access to the present knowledge system to address issues of social justice. Lebakeng et al. (2006) argued against such ideology as representing a “cognitive arrogance and epistemological disaster and injustice” (p. 76) because of its emphasis on the known and the given while overlooking what has not yet been said (Leibowitz 2017). It is this knowledge gap that teacher education should close, by allowing student teachers time to discuss their experiences in the classrooms to empower each other with other ways of knowing. I acknowledge that small tutorial groups are designed for such activities, however what is eventually foregrounded is engaging with powerful knowledge and epistemological access and a little squeezed time for reflections on experiences. If we want to promote the culture of tolerance and hope and provide student teachers with tools of engagement and interaction in different communities during teaching experience, we need to create

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

115

time for engagement in tutorials. Another way of explaining this was presented by De Sousa Santos (2014, p. 157): In order to identify what is missing and why, we must rely on a form of knowledge that does not reduce reality to what exists. I mean a form of knowledge that aspires to an expanded conception of realism that includes suppressed, silenced, or marginalised realities, as well as emergent and imagined realities.

It is therefore time for ITE programmes to reflect on the nature of knowledge we have been promoting, to give attention to different forms of knowledge that student teachers bring into university classroom. Thus, the argument that one needs access to powerful knowledge to think of the unthinkable could be contested because exposure to multiple epistemologies might result in diverse powerful knowledge that will add to the Western traditional discipline knowledge. This discussion supports the promotion of equal treatment for all forms of knowledge, that is, “cognitive justice”, but does not mean that all forms of knowledge are equal (Van der Velden 2006, p. 12). It means that the equality of knowers forms the basis of dialogue between knowledges, and that what is required for democracy is a dialogue amongst knowers and their knowledges (Leibowitz 2017). The dialogue provides place and space for student teachers to understand alternative knowledges from diverse contexts, at the same time encouraging co-construction of new knowledge which could be understood anew through critical discussions in lectures and tutorials. Such engagement might result in the understanding that “through knowledge we liberate ourselves; through knowledge we question the limitations of a single culture/nationalistic identity” (Anzaldua 2015, p. 91). At the same time, we can also use knowledges to answer questions or plug the gaps created by unitary knowledge systems (De Sousa Santos 2014). The concept of museumification of other knowledges (Visvanathan 2002) is relevant here, which means other knowledges become an object of study, lifeless and without voice, rather than equal players, because it will be familiarised by constant and continuous discussions in a place that generates knowledge.

116 

T. Nkambule

Similarly, De Sousa Santos (2014) called this hegemony ‘epistemicide’, in that not only are the forms of knowledge lost or destroyed, but the practices of which they are a part become extinct, however, if the knowledges are talked about all the time and used continually they will eventually be used without hesitation. Lebakeng et al. (2006) have added that the pedagogy should devote more effort to evolving and sharpening teaching methods that are responsive to or consistent with the sociocultural background and educational needs of African learners and students. This statement addresses congruency between the provision of the courses with multiple epistemologies or democratic knowledge and the pedagogy that considers the diversity of student teachers’ cultures during lectures and tutorial discussions.

 he Challenges of Including Rural T Epistemologies in ITE Courses: Research Focus There is detailed documentation that attracting and retaining teachers for rural and remote areas is a pervasive global problem (Canter et al. 2007; West and Jones 2007; Grant 2010; OECD 2008) because governments focus more on urban areas and less on rural areas. Researchers (Christiaens 2015; Barley 2009; Nespor 2008) have been concerned that rurality and rural education and schooling are underutilised emphases in teacher preparation programmes. For example, earlier Gibson and King (1998) reported that 45% of all universities included a compulsory student involvement in rural issues, however the final report stated that only 12% of all universities reported they included a compulsory rural practicum experience as part of their programme. The authors suggested that the percentage of universities that require preservice teachers to undertake both a compulsory rural education subject plus a compulsory rural practicum, and successfully complete both aspects as a graduation requirement is at best 12% and may well be much lower (Gibson and King 1998). Barley’s (2009) assessment of 120 mid-continent teacher preparation programmes found only 17 had a rural emphasis and even fewer offered rural-focused courses or rural student-teaching placements.

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

117

Similarly, Trinidad, Sharplin, Ledger, and Broadley’s (2014) study revealed that only 11 out of 39 Australian universities provided a dedicated course focussed on rural education. The courses offered in many instances were predominantly electives rather than core courses. A recent review of teacher education programmes by Thompson and Gereluk (2017) revealed that most Canadian teacher education programmes are urban-based programmes, which might result in a lack of interest in teaching in rural and remote schools. As teacher education academics working in urban universities, it is important to reflect on our commitment to student teachers who will want to teach and will teach in and for rural schools, by diversifying our discourses and discussions to be inclusive. Researchers (Burton et  al. 2013; McDonough et  al. 2010; Barley 2009) noted that teacher preparation programmes tend to be tailored towards the needs of urban or suburban schools, resulting in the absence of rural and farm knowledge and life from university programmes. The term “metro-centric” has been applied to teacher education programmes (Stack et al. 2011, p. 2), suggesting a lack of recognition and attention to issues related to teaching in rural communities and supporting rural students within teacher education programmes. Atkin (2003, p. 515) argues, “[i]t is as if rural society is judged in terms of a deficit discourse (dominated by the desire to make them like us) rather than a diversity discourse (recognition and value of difference)”. The designed courses in ITE programmes should develop student teachers’ inquiry skills to help them meet changing needs of different learners from diverse communities and school contexts, against the background of their own funds of knowledge (Wenger and Dinsmore 2005). The access to funds of knowledge means starting from what students know or have been exposed to in different school contexts (township, rural, urban, farm, suburb), the differences and similarities about the contexts, and what they know and have learned about or in each context, and discussing the implications for teaching and learning within the respective contexts. Thus, the promotion of dialogues in tutorials should be designed to encourage student teachers to reflect safely on their unexamined information and knowledge about other school contexts and student colleagues, and seek out new funds of knowledge held by other students. It is therefore our responsibility as teacher educators and teacher

118 

T. Nkambule

education researchers to be effective as a force for rural-farm sustainability by providing preservice teachers with access to research and debates on professional and pedagogic capital that can successfully support their teaching in rural and farm social spaces (Reid et  al. 2010). This goes beyond the academic courses and, according to Reid et al. (2010), it is this other, the reference to the reality of the everyday life that is ‘there’ rather than ‘elsewhere’, which is often missed from teacher education courses. The importance of exposing student teachers to diverse contexts is emphasised by Trinidad et al. (2012) when they state that preservice education institutions need to expose their students to the significant, broad and complex issues relevant to rural, regional and remote education. The rural education researchers have been critiqued for their representation of rurality and rural education, and Sherwood (2001) warned that some rural researchers apply an urban bias to rural scholarship and a deficit lens to rural areas. This is not surprising if it is considered that most of the national personalities in education today spring from urban and academic settings, making it a no understatement to say that most of them do not see rural schools as where the action is, and some even fail to take them into account (Stern 1995).

There is general agreement from researchers (Stern 1995; Larson 1998; Sherwood 2001; McClure and Reeves 2004; McDonough et al. 2010; Azano and Stewart 2015) that intense study of rural schools has suffered from a lack of consistent support by government and academic institutions, largely due to: (a) relatively little networking in the professional and research communities around rural education research; (b) a paucity of professionals devoting their careers to continuous study of rural education; and, finally, (c) longstanding lack of consensus concerning rural education’s domain and research priorities. This has implications for teacher education if we want to design courses and use readings that address issues and debates on rural education and schools, because they are supposed to be supported by the research.

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

119

Conclusion The issue of knowledge in teacher education programmes needs to be seriously taken into consideration if we want to address issues of social justice, given that universities have students from different sociocultural backgrounds and only exposing them to one way of knowing and thinking is unjust. If an institution, like Wits School of Education, has projects that introduce students to rural and farm communities and school contexts during teaching experience, it is important that we also introduce readings that prepare them for such contexts. In addition, research within the projects should be encouraged to generate knowledge that can be used in teacher education courses to introduce other students to the experiences through lecturers and tutorial discussions. There is an argument for democratising knowledge support using student teachers’ funds of knowledge to give space for other ways of knowing and thinking in relation to the powerful knowledge, to represent the diverse student cohort in campuses. We must make sure that “cognitive arrogance and epistemological disaster and injustice” is not promoted in teacher education courses.

References Adler, J., & Reed, Y. (Eds.). (2002). Challenges of teacher development: An investigation of take-up in South Africa. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Adler, J., Reed, Y., Setati, M., & Bapoo, A. (2002). Incomplete Journeys: Codeswitching and Other Language Practices in Mathematics, Science and English Language Classrooms in South Africa. Language and Education, 16(2), 128–149. Anzaldua, G. (2015). In A.  Keating (Ed.), Light in the dark/Luz en lo oscuro: Rewriting identity, spirituality, reality. Durham: Duke University Press. Aoki, T. (1999). Interview. Rethinking curriculum and pedagogy. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 35(4), 180–181. Atkin, C. (2003). Rural communities: Human and symbolic capital development, fields apart. Compare, 33(4), 507–518.

120 

T. Nkambule

Azano, A. P., & Stewart, T. T. (2015). Exploring place and practicing justice: Preparing pre-service teachers for success in rural schools. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 30(9), 1–12. Barley, Z. A. (2009). Preparing teachers for rural appointments: Lessons from the mid-continent. The Rural Educator, 30(3), 10–15. Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. London: Taylor & Francis. Bernstein, B. (1999). ‘Pedagogy, Identity and the Construction of a Theory of Symbolic Control’: Basil Bernstein questioned by Joseph Solomon. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2), 265–279. Botman, B. V. (2016). A Freirean perspective on South African teacher education policy development. South African Journal of Higher Education., 30(5), 48–67. Breier, M. (2001). Curriculum restructuring in higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. Bellville: Education Policy Unit, University of the Western Cape. Burton, M., Brown, K., & Johnson, A. (2013). Storylines about rural teachers in the US: a narrative analysis of the literature. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 28(12), 1–18. Canter, L.  L. S., Voytecki, K.  S., & Rodríguez, D. (2007). Increasing online interaction in rural special education teacher preparation programs. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 26(1), 23–27. Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD). (2009). Literature review on initial teacher education models. Choices in the design, delivery and management of initial professional teacher education in South Africa: Increasing diversity, quality and success. Johannesburg. Center for Research in Math and Science Education. (2010). Breaking the cycle: An international comparison of U.S. mathematics preparation: Initial findings from the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M). Michigan State University. Available at: http://usteds.msu.edu. Accessed 06 Aug 2019. Cherrington, A. (2017). Positioning a practice of hope in South African teacher education programmes. Educational Research for Social Change, 6(1), 72–86. Christiaens, R. (2015). Small kid in the big city: Toward an understanding of rurality in student identity development. The Vermont Connection, 36(7), 40–49. Clarke, L., & Winch, C. (2004). Apprenticeship and applied theoretical knowledge. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(5), 509–521.

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

121

De Sousa Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. De Sousa Santos, B. (2016). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers. Deacon, R., Osman, R., & Buchler, M. (2009, March). Audit and interpretive analysis of education research in South Africa: What have we learnt? Research report submitted to the National Research Foundation. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? (trans: Tomlinson, H., & Burchell, G.). New York: Columbia University Press. Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). (2011). National Qualifications Framework Act (67/2008): Revised policy on the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications. Government Gazette, 596(38487). 19 February. Available at http://www.dhet.gov.za/Teacher%20 Education/National%20Qualifications%20Framework%20Act%2067_2008 % 2 0 Re v i s e d % 2 0 Po l i c y % 2 0 f o r % 2 0 Te a c h e r % 2 0 Ed u c a t i o n % 2 0 Qualifications.pdf. Accessed 17 May 2019. Diko, N. (2017). Teacher education. Education and skills development: Towards a 20 year review: Basic and School Education. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Press. Gamble, J. (2009). Concept paper: The relation between knowledge and practice in curriculum and assessment. Paper commissioned by Umalusi, Pretoria, October. Gibson, I. W., & King, S. (1998, October 7–10). Preparing for rural teaching: A national survey of Australia’s efforts in providing appropriately trained teachers for rural and isolated communities. Paper presented 14th National Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia conference, Alice Springs, Northern Territory. Giroux, H. A. (1993). Living dangerously: Identity politics and the new cultural racism: Towards a critical pedagogy of representation. Cultural Studies, 7(1), 1–27. Gordon, A. (2009). Restructuring teacher education. Issues in education policy, No. 6. Johannesburg: Centre for Education Policy Development. Grant, A. C. (2010). Tearing down the walls: creating global classrooms through online teacher preparation programs. Distance Learning, 7(2), 37–41. Graven, M. (2005). Dilemmas in the design of in-service education and training for mathematics teachers. In R. Vital, J. Alder, & C. Keitel (Eds.), Researching mathematics education in South Africa (pp.  206–232). Cape Town: HSRC Press.

122 

T. Nkambule

Grumet, M. R. (1981). Restitution and reconstruction of educational experience: An autobiographical method for curriculum theory. In M.  Lawn & L.  Barton (Eds.), Rethinking curriculum studies: A Radical approach (pp. 115–130). London: Croom Helm. Hall, B., & Tandon, R. (2017). Decolonization of knowledge, epistemicide, participatory research and higher education. Research for All, 1(1), 6–19. Harraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press. Hoadley, U. (2009). Pedagogy and social class: A model for the analysis of pedagogic variation. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(1), 63–78. hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Jacobs, D. (2005). What’s Hope Got to Do With It? Toward a Theory of Hope and Pedagogy. Journal of Advanced Composition, 25(4), 783–802. Jansen, J.  D. (2004). Autonomy and accountability in the regulation of the teaching profession: A South African case study. Research Papers in Education, 19(1), 51–66. Kruss, G. (2009). Knowledge-intensive University Spin-Off Firms in South Africa: Fragile Network Alignment? Industry and Higher Education, 22(4), 233–243. Larson, K. A. (1998). ALAS: Achievement for Hispanic Americans through academic success. In Staying in school: A technical report of three dropout prevention projects for middle school students with learning and emotional disabilities (pp. A1–A71). Minneapolis, MN: Institute on Community Integration. Le Grange, L. (2016). Decolonizing the university curriculum. South African Journal of Higher Education, 30(2), 1–12. Lebakeng, J. T., Phalane, M. M., & Dalindjebo, N. (2006). Epistemicide, institutional cultures and the imperative for the Africanisation of universities in South Africa. Alternation, 13(1), 70–87. Leibowitz, B. (2017). Cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. Journal of Education, 68(6), 18–30. Levine, A. (2006). Educating school teachers. Washington, DC: The Education Schools Project. Retrieved April 17, 2019 from http://www.edschools.org/ pdf/Educating_Teachers_Report.pdf. Liakopoulou, M. (2011). The professional competence of teachers: Which qualities, attitudes, skills and knowledge contribute to a teacher’s effectiveness? International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1(21), 66–78.

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

123

Lunenberg, M., & Korthagen, F. (2009). Experience, theory, and practical wisdom in teaching and teacher education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(2), 225–240. Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29–45. McClure, C., & Reeves, C. (2004). Rural teacher recruitment and retention review of the research and practice literature. Charleston: Appalachia Educational Laboratory. McDermott, D., & Hastings, S. (2000). Children: Raising future hopes. In C. R. Snyder (Ed.), Handbook of hope: Theory, measures, and applications (pp. 185–199). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. McDonough, A., Sexton, M., Miller, J., Mitchell, F., & Watson, S. (2010). Learning to teach and teaching to learn: Productive partnerships to build teacher capacity. Paper presented at the 14th annual primary and secondary teachers’ mathematics conference, Mathematics Teaching and Learning Research Centre, Australian Catholic University. Moore, R. (2010). Knowledge structures and the canon: A preference for judgements. In K. Maton & R. Moore (Eds.), Social realism, knowledge and the sociology of education (pp. 131–153). London: Continuum. Morrow, W. (2007). Learning to teach in South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC Press. Morrow, W., Samuels, M., & Jiya, Y. (2004). Chapter 2: Creating critical discursive spaces for professional teacher development: Research, policy, theory and the practice of teacher education in context. In Developing the field of teaching education in South Africa: Some aspects of the work of the NCTE. Uncited reference in CEPD 2009a. Nespor, J. (2008). Education and place: A review essay. Educational Theory, 58(4), 475–489. Nolan, C., & Stitzlein, S. M. (2010). Meaningful hope for teachers in times of high anxiety and low morale. Democracy & Education, 19(1), 1–10. Odora-Hoppers, C., & Richards, H. (2011). Rethinking thinking: Modernity’s ‘other’ and the transformation of the university. Pretoria: Unisa Press. OECD. (2008). Reviews of national policies for education: South Africa. Paris: OECD. Pinar, W. F. (2011). The character of curriculum studies: Bildung, currere and the recurring question of the subject. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pindar, I., & Sutton, P. (2001). Translators’ introduction. In The three ecologies, ed. F. Guattari. Translated by I. Pindar & P. Sutton. London: The Athlone Press.

124 

T. Nkambule

Reeves, C., & Robinson, M. (2014). Assumptions underpinning the conceptualisation of professional learning in teacher education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 28(1), 236–253. Reid, B., Green, M., Cooper, W., Hastings, G.  L., & White, S. (2010). Regenerating rural social space? Teacher education for rural-regional sustainability. Australian Journal of Education, 54(3), 262–276. Roux, C., & Becker, A. (2016). Humanising higher education in South Africa through dialogue as praxis. Education Research for Social Change, 5(1), 131–143. Rusznyak, L. (2015). Knowledge selection in initial teacher education programmes and its implications for curricular coherence. Journal of Education, 60, 7–29. Rusznyak, L. (2018). What messages about teacher professionalism are transmitted through South African pre-service teacher education programmes? South African Journal of Education, 38(3), 1–11. Sayed, Y. (2004). The case of teacher education in post-apartheid South Africa: Politics and priorities. In L. Chisholm (Ed.), Changing class: Education and social change in post-apartheid South Africa (pp.  247–265). London: Zed Books. Shalem, Y. (2010). How does the form of curriculum affect systematic learning? In Y.  Shalem & S.  Pendlebury (Eds.), Retrieving teaching. Critical issues in curriculum, pedagogy and learning (pp. 87–100). Cape Town: Juta and Co.. Sherwood, T. (2001). Where has all the “rural” gone? Rural education research and current federal reform. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 16(3), 159–167. Stack, S., Beswick, K., Brown, N., Bound, H., & Kenny, J. (2011). Putting partnership at the centre of teachers’ professional learning in rural and regional contexts: Evidence from case study projects in Tasmania. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 36(12), 1–20. Stern, J. (1995). Reflections of a recently retired federal analyst in rural education. Rural Education Newsletter, Supplement. Thompson, M. B., & Gereluk, D. (2017). Research brief: Pre-service teacher education availability in rural Canadian communities. Retrieved from http://hdl. handle.net/1880/51805 Trinidad, S., Broadley, T., Terry, E., Boyd, D., Lock, G., Byrne, M., Sharplin, E., & Ledger, S. (2012). Going Bush: preparing pre-service teachers to teach in regional Western Australia. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 22(1), 17–30.

5  Student Teacher Preparation for Rural Education: An Issue… 

125

Trinidad, S., Sharplin, E., Ledger, S., & Broadley, T. (2014). Connecting for innovation: Four universities collaboratively preparing pre-service teachers to teach in rural and remote Western Australia. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 29(2), 1–13. Van der Velden, M. (2006). A case for cognitive justice. Unpublished paper. Visvanathan, S. (2002). Between pilgrimage and citizenship – The possibilities of self-restraint in science. In C. Odora Hoppers (Ed.), Indigenous knowledge and the integration of knowledge system: Towards a philosophy of articulation (pp. 39–52). Claremont: New Africa Books. Visvanathan, S. (2009). The search for cognitive justice. http://www.indiaseminar. com/2009/597/597_shiv_visvanathan.htm. Visvanathan, S. (2016). The search for cognitive justice. Retrieved from: http:// www.india-seminar.com/2009/597/597_shiv_visvanathan.htm. Wallin, J. J. (2010). A Deleuzian approach to curriculum: Essays on a pedagogical life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Waters, L. (2011). A review of school-based positive psychology interventions. The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 28(2), 75–90. Wenger, K. J., & Dinsmore, J. (2005). Preparing rural preservice teachers for diversity. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 20(10), 12–25. Welch, T., & Gultig, J. (2000). Teacher Education: Looking in the Mirror to Plan the Future. (10th Anniversary Edition). Johannesburg: SAIDE. West, E., & Jones, P. (2007). A framework for planning technology used in teacher education programs that serve rural communities. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 26, 3–15. Wheelahan, L. (2010). Why knowledge matters in curriculum: A social realist argument. London: Routledge.

6 Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training Approaches: Reflecting on the Net Value of Implementing a Collaborative Model in a South African University Nontsikelelo Mapukata, Alfred Masinire, and Thabisile Nkambule

Introduction Standard education training approaches for teacher educators and medical personnel are basically centralised in nature. Under this approach, learning to practice often takes place in urban-based settings such that both curriculum offering and placements are offered in higher education institutions, hospitals, clinics and schools within proximal distances of

N. Mapukata (*) University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] A. Masinire Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_6

127

128 

N. Mapukata et al.

each other. There is a growing concern that such centralised training may not be attuned adequately to respond to the diverse contextual realities that characterise the South African health and education clientele. For example, within teacher education, the urban-bias of training and curriculum are well described by Islam (2012), Masinire et al. (2014) and Nkambule and Mukeredzi (2017). Similarly, within the medical training field, Govender et al. (2018) reported that current service placements are predominantly in well-resourced tertiary and district hospitals in urban areas, with only limited placements in rural and underserved communities (Mapukata et  al. 2017). Decentralisation of the training of health and education professionals is proposed as an intervention to mitigate the challenges imposed by centralised approaches in developing personnel equipped to work effectively in rural communities where their expertise is needed most (Rabinowitz et al. 2008; Mtetwa and Thompson 2000). In South Africa, upon graduation prospective educators are often appointed to work in communities in which they have not practised. Without any prior experience of working in rural and remote contexts, the new appointees are exposed to enormous professional, social and cultural challenges which leave them with an aversion to continue working in such communities (Masinire 2015). Similarly, the ongoing shortage of health care professionals (HCPs) in rural areas compared to urban areas is widely reported (Ross and Couper 2004; Tumbo et al. 2009; Rose and Janse van Rensburg-Bonthuyzen 2015), despite rural communities having greater health needs (Haskins et al. 2016, p. 174). This shortage of health professionals parallels international trends depicting an acute shortage of professionals in rural areas (Adedeji and Olaniyan 2011; Boylan and Bandy 1994). While there are various strategies that have been employed to attract and retain education and health care professionals in remote and rural communities (Ross and Couper 2004; Couper et  al. 2007; Wilson et  al. 2009), we suggest a decentralised training approach as a sustainable alternative. Decentralised training of educators and health professionals is a recent practice with limited evidence-based insight into processes, challenges and actual benefits of implementing T. Nkambule University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

129

such initiatives. This chapter seeks to provide insights and broaden scholarly engagement on decentralisation by examining the net value of implementing rural placement for preservice teachers and medical students as a collaborative initiative in a South African university.

What Is Decentralisation? The concept of decentralisation is highly contested. The aetiology of decentralisation of political, economic, and educational institutions in Africa may be traced back to the early 1960s as the once colonised states gained political independence (Olowu and Wunsch 2004; Rugo 2013). Decentralisation was commensurate with democratic principles and an approach to include the previously disenfranchised and marginalised local communities in the orbit of economic and political participation (Rugo 2013). In South Africa, it was only after 1994, post-apartheid, that decentralisation was pursued vigorously. Decentralisation is considered a critical component in transforming approaches to training of students in several faculties in institutions of higher education, following the declaration of South Africa as a democratic state (Wenger 1998; SADE 2005). The manifesto on values and education in 2001 directed the process to be followed to advance the interests and rights of individuals irrespective of race and creed (SADE 2005; Sayed 1997). Decentralisation, considered as a strategic approach to education reform, is an international phenomenon described by Sayed as having three broad dimensions as a policy initiative (Sayed 2008). This, he proposed, may assist in the structuring of an education system and direct decisions in how power is shared and redistributed, and may also encourage active citizenship. On the other hand, Karlsen (2000) is of the view that decentralisation is an important strategy for achieving efficiency and accountability based on its ability to transfer power from central to local bodies and should be considered a form of empowerment within the local structures. Further to the above, Karlsen asserted that decentralisation promotes innovative process development, exposes intrinsic capabilities that facilitate design of systems and teaching approaches to

130 

N. Mapukata et al.

respond to the needs of local communities. He considered this a fair and rational approach in the distribution of resources. According to Kapoor (2007), with devolution there are mutually beneficial and coordinated relationships between central and local governance structures. Tan and Ng (2007) noted that changes to the educational landscape do not only prepare students to meet their learning objectives; through them it is possible to contribute to the knowledge economy, the social agenda and the transformation of communities. The learning that takes place in such a social context was described by Wenger (1998) as a dual process of engagement and production of physical and conceptual artefacts, as well as being a dynamic and active process. It is also considered to be an empowering tool where students have opportunities to contribute, improve or maintain the wellbeing of targeted vulnerable and previously disadvantaged communities (Balfour et al. 2012). In a paper that was prepared for the World Bank, Rondinelli et  al. (1983) described decentralisation as an incremental process of institutional capacity-­ building that has been implemented in several developing countries with mixed success. The authors presented the typologies of decentralisation as deconcentration, delegation, devolution or privatisation (Table 6.1). In our decentralised training approach, we isolated deconcentration and devolution as two typologies that are relevant to our work. With respect to deconcentration, our respective departments granted us some level of autonomy to design and plan our logistics as well as appropriate curriculum for the rural experience. This autonomy was crucial since we shared the same ideology and were of the view that rural contextual realities should influence the way we planned, implemented and evaluated our students. We also had to ensure that we upheld the expected standards in terms of reporting protocols. Thus, our authority was delegated from our central administration. We still depended on the financial support of our respective schools. We were required to account for all expenses and, at the same time, demonstrate the professional and educational value of our proposed decentralised training approach.

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

131

Table 6.1  Decentralisation typologies Typology

Nature

Deconcentration The handing over of some amount of administrative authority or responsibility to lower levels within central government ministries and agencies. Giving some discretion to field agents to plan and implement programmes and projects, or to adjust central directives to local conditions, within guidelines set by the central ministry or agency headquarters. Delegation Transferring managerial responsibility to specifically defined functions outside the regular bureaucratic structure and which are only indirectly controlled by the central government. Ultimate responsibility remains with the sovereign authority. Devolution The creation or strengthening, financially or legally of subnational units of government, the activities of which are substantially outside the direct control of the central government. Local units of government are autonomous and independent and their legal status makes them separate or distinct from central government. Central authority frequently exerts only indirect supervisory control over such units. Privatisation The total transfer of authority to private establishments or individuals. Rondinelli et al. (1983)

Why the Decentralised Training Approach? There are various reasons why our schools proposed to take our students for rural professional learning. The reasons ranged from social justice, conceptual, pedagogical, research and professional reasons. A significant number of training programmes often adopt an urban or metro-centric bias (Masinire et al. 2014; Barter 2008; Islam 2012). Such approaches have assumed that the urban and rural contexts may be served productively with one broad-brush training policy (Maringe et al. 2015). In our training approach, we recognised the conceptual poverty of assumptions of rurality that have influenced training approaches in higher education institutions. As such, we considered seriously Cloke’s (2006) exhortation

132 

N. Mapukata et al.

that “we need to understand how different theoretical frames of rurality illuminate very different pictures of rurality and indeed steer rural research and practice [our emphasis] down very different pathways”. Our conception of rurality was one underscored by contextual variability and diversity where urban frames were inadequate to inform rural professional practice. We were sensitive to the colonial/apartheid constructions of rurality and poverty in South Africa. The deliberate economic and educational legislation and policies had created conditions of deprivation, oppression and marginalisation of rural communities. We therefore understood our training approaches as designed to empower rural communities by providing medical and educator graduates who had the capacity to appreciate and work effectively in rural hospitals and schools. In a way, rural social justice was an underlying philosophy in our training programme. In terms of research, we set our training programme as a platform to generate research knowledge for professional training in rural communities. The decentralised training approach offered us an opportunity to attend to several compelling issues ranging from professional practice and research to rural social justice. The dominant urban-based training programmes had at best offered piecemeal solutions (Boylan 2004, p. 7) and at worst ignored rurality and rural issues in their conceptualisations and implementation (Schafft and Jackson 2010). Barter (2008, p. 468) has argued that “alternative epistemological and pedagogical approaches in teaching and learning are required that are aligned to rural education challenges and development”. The decentralised training approach was offered as an alternative pedagogical approach underpinned by epistemological evidence (Barter 2008; Rusznyak and Masinire 2018). With that, we acknowledged rurality and rural education as under theorised (Nkambule 2017; Moletsane 2012; Balfour et al. 2008). Thus, knowledge generated from our programme would help close the research gap. We also considered the difficulty that rural hospitals and schools face in attracting and retaining qualified professionals (Rose and Janse van Rensburg-Bonthuyzen 2015) as a global concern (Handal et  al. 2013; Miles et al. 2004; Wallace and Boylan 2007; Trinidad et al. 2010; Ross and Couper 2004; Tumbo et al. 2009). We also concur with other scholars that exposing student teachers and medical students to a rural

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

133

working environment during training will instil in them a sense of appreciation of rurality and entice them to work in such places after graduation (Masinire 2015; Mapukata et al. 2017). In that regard, the pursuance of decentralisation in this context extended beyond the university’s mandate to provide solutions for the prevailing human resources challenges in the rural areas of South Africa, as it considered the perceived benefits of transformation to self and others (Wadesango 2011). This collaborative model was inspired by the realisation that both the School of Clinical Medicine (SoCM) and the School of Education (SoE) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) allocated some of the final year medical students and teacher education students to a community in the Mpumalanga province for their rural placement. Karlsen (2000) has referred to the dynamics of initiation of decentralisation as a fundamental multidimensional process that can be steered from grassroots, influenced by funding, policy, academics or bargaining power of unions. As this was a transformation initiative, it was critical to clarify how each school contributed to the social transformation of self and the community that is described by Kapoor (2007). At the operational level, it was necessary to understand if there was a shared vision between the two schools, and if it was possible to mobilise resources with regard to transport and accommodation. Thus, in this chapter, we explore as a collaborative model, the value in decentralised training approaches implemented as rural placements of students from SoCM and SoE at Wits.

Methods An opportunistic encounter in 2014 led to the realisation that academic staff both in the Division of Rural Health, SoCM, and in the Policy and Leadership unit, SoE, allocated some of the final year medical students and preservice teachers to the Mpumalanga province for their rural placement. Unbeknown to us, both groups of Wits students were based at the Wits Rural Facility, a facility that caters for students, staff and visiting academics and is linked to the Agincourt Research Centre as an established Wits entity (https://www.agincourt.co.za)

134 

N. Mapukata et al.

In order to understand the process that was undertaken by each School in allocating students to schools and health facilities in the Mpumalanga province, two mapping meetings some weeks apart were held in the SoE offices at the Education campus. This was followed by a session in the Division for Rural Health offices at the Parktown campus. The six attendees included two lecturers from each unit/division who were coordinators of the respective programmes as well as the respective Heads of Departments. Adopting a narrative approach as an established information gathering practice for action research and collaborative school development (Somekh 1989), key informants from each school engaged in a comparative programme review to evaluate synergies in the decentralised training approaches of the respective programmes (Table 6.2). The two meetings, each scheduled for sixty minutes including an extended email engagement before and after the face to face meetings, provided insight into programme objectives as well as expected learning outcomes for the students. It was during these meetings that we also identified divergences in the respective programmes (Table 6.3). The process was interactive, the exchange continued until each group was clear on what the other was doing. Additional resources to support this process included an exchange of guidelines as well as published work. The rationale that motivated the two schools to consider decentralisation as an institutional directive identified issues that are inherent to rural Table 6.2  Parallels in decentralised training approaches Key points Rural placement of students

Common features between SoCM and SoE

Mpumalanga province: Shared accommodation at the Wits rural facility Selection Self-selecting placements Methodology Service learning Briefing session to understand Expressed or identified need and appreciate Chronic shortage of staff, the crisis and the urgency Attitudes of community to wellness and learning Motivation to use the facilities Poor compliance; quadruple burden of disease (SoCM) High drop-out rate and poor matric results (SoE)

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

135

Table 6.3  Divergences in decentralised training approaches Key points

SoCM (medicine)

SoE (education)

Top 10 students ± 65%, Student placement Four students per site in 7x 2nd or 3rd years twice rotational placement since per semester since 2013. 2006. MOU with the Department Faculty MOU with the Memorandum of of Education, Department of Health, understanding Mpumalanga. Mpumalanga. (MOU) Duration of the Six weeks of active placement Three weeks of active teacher-education (TE) block including a day of school experience supervised by health education supervised school-based educators by locally based clinicians. and Wits lecturers. Student support Telephonic weekly contact Daily interaction with Wits with Wits based consultants. lecturers. A different approach to Accrued benefits Managing undifferentiated patients in a PHC setting and teaching, exposure to teaching in a resource-­ appreciating the value of challenged environment. clerking their own patients. On-site group reflection Evaluation Self-reflection at medical and a structured post-­ school and a structured placement questionnaire. pre- and post-placement questionnaire. Pedagogy of rural Adopted as part of curriculum Conducted a scoping exercise planned practice review with a subsequent approach to integrate launch of an integrated rural education in graduate entry medical teacher education in Programme in 2003. 2012.

areas as parallels in the training approaches (Table 6.2). As part of the interactive discussions both the SoCM and the SoE considered the distinctiveness, agency and strength of rural communities as they responded to the policy brief to decentralise the training of medical and teacher education students (SADE 2005; Karlsen 2000). The teams also considered the deficits in the planning and execution of health and education programmes where the focus is on urban-based facilities yet 35.7% of South Africa (SA) is rural, according to Arndt et al. (2018), but most of the teaching is urban based (Masinire et al. 2014). The deficits in planning and execution of programmes are such that the focus is on urban-based facilities. The expectation is that service providers

136 

N. Mapukata et al.

in rural area communities will adjust to meet the needs of the communities or find means to compensate for the ongoing challenges. There was consensus that students need to acclimatise to rural practice if they were going to be effective as future service providers, as literature suggests that rural clinical placements for medical students with a specific focus on rural health topics could create interest in working in a rural setting (Couper et al. 2007).

Findings  he Pedagogy of Rural Practice: School T of Clinical Medicine In the SoCM, the pedagogy of rural practice was accepted as part of the medical curriculum review in 2002 with the launch of the Graduate Entry Medical Programme (GEMP) in 2003 as a four-year training programme that complemented the existing traditional approach to medical training as a faculty initiative at Wits. As one of the initiatives that would strengthen the Faculty of Health Sciences and the university’s commitment to decentralisation of training approaches, community engagement activities included exposure to rural and community health practice. In GEMP 1 and 2 a two-week elective is undertaken in a community setting under the supervision of either a medical practitioner in private practice or staff in a local hospital. In GEMP 3 students spend two weeks in a rural hospital as part of the public health block. They also have an option to spend four weeks of their elective time in local or international rural and/or urban hospital complexes. The Integrated Primary Care (IPC) block involves an extended compulsory six-week placement in a range of primary health care settings (PHC) (Nyangairi et al. 2010). These PHCs provide a context for final year medical students to achieve some of the core competencies of an integrated curriculum in a reciprocal relationship that facilitates for students’ understanding of not only the disease profile but also the health care needs of that particular community (Nyangairi et al. 2010). Tintswalo hospital in the Mpumalanga province constitutes one of these PHC facilities and is housed within a reasonable distance from the Wits Rural Facility.

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

137

The Pedagogy of Rural Practice: School of Education In 2012, SoE conducted a scoping exercise as a planned approach to integrate rural placements in teacher education. Informed by emerging theoretical developments of place consciousness and a sensitive pedagogy as well as context diversity and responsiveness (Gruenewald and Smith 2008; Villegas and Lucas 2002), SoE implemented a rural teaching practicum in 2013. The aim was to achieve a prescribed set of teaching and learning outcomes for teacher educators that focused on the needs of rural schools and rural communities (Hamilton and Margot 2019). With this plan, the practicum for preservice teachers focused on the following: • Exposing students to learn to teach in diverse and a challenging schools’ contexts; • Developing knowledge and a set of skills that are appropriate for poorly resourced schools in the absence of standard teaching resources; and • Understanding the relationship between the school and the community. Ultimately, we wanted to provide enough exposure to rural community settings. We wanted to grant our students an option to consider rural schools as a possible career destination upon completion of their training.

Benefits of a Collaborative Model The comparative programme review highlighted the benefits of using rural communities in the Mpumalanga province as decentralised training platforms, as well as the shared accommodation at the Wits Rural Facility. There was consensus on the need to acclimatise students to rural practice (Couper et al. 2007; Mapukata et al. 2017). The plight of the rural areas was considered as having a notably poor culture of teaching, learning and health seeking behaviour as well as staff shortages that have been reported as often acute and cumulative, with resident staff reporting high levels of burnout (Balfour et al. 2012; Wilson et al. 2009). The divergences that we observed (Table 6.3) were mainly programme-specific training variables and these could not be manipulated.

138 

N. Mapukata et al.

In assessing the students’ activities, the teams identified similarities in the curriculum. The preservice teachers were required to prepare and present lessons that incorporated local knowledge, local resources and skill. It was also expected that they would demonstrate in their lessons the value of utilising local resources and knowledge in ensuring epistemological access beyond the immediate context (Morrow 2007; Nkambule and Mukeredzi 2017). Medical students, on the other hand, were expected to manage common presenting problems in primary health care facilities and undertake a home visit to understand the patient’s/family circumstances (Nyangairi et al. 2010). In that context, the expectation was that medical students would not only understand the disease profile but would also familiarise themselves with the health care needs of that community (Nyangairi et al. 2010). In addition to patient care and management, medical students had to reciprocate their learning by engaging in school health and career guidance. Similarly, preservice teachers motivated and provided career guidance to primary and secondary school learners. Further to this, it was mandatory for preservice teachers to be cognisant of the relationship between the school and the community, due to the complex demands in the broader social context outside the school (Palmieri and Palma 2017; Nkambule 2017; Roux 2007). Reflecting on the purposed value when students are based in local communities, Roux (2007) has encouraged university collaboration. Roux also supported a facilitated training approach that promotes multicultural education through research where students will have a defined role. Working under supervision, it was possible for the two groups of students to facilitate opportunities for services to be extended at the point of access. A personal benefit to the students was the opportunity to learn the local language and appreciate some of the traditional and cultural practices (Villegas and Lucas 2002), although this also presented a challenge for the medical and preservice students who could not converse in the local language. When assessing the benefits of transformation to self and others what was apparent was that when preservice teachers were based in schools, teachers had time to engage in other activities without compromising the learning plan. Villegas and Lucas (2002) have supported a culturally responsive curriculum as it encourages the students to see themselves as responsible for and capable of bringing about the change

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

139

that will make the training environment more equitable. Considering, the centrality of culture in how learning takes place, Gay (2010) stated that “culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centred approach to teaching that includes cultural references and recognises the importance of students’ cultural backgrounds and experiences in all aspects of learning” (p. 23). On the other hand, in the health care facilities, equitable access was possible as students could manage their own patients with limited supervision. As both groups of students self-selected and opted for rural placement, the principles of service learning that inform the training approach as a reciprocal practice were congruent with community of practice (COP). Wenger (1998) described COP as groups of people that have a common concern or passion for their chosen profession. Based on this methodology, the expectation was that both groups of students would use available opportunities to improve and adopt innovative methodologies as they engaged in experiential learning with and from the community, the learners and the patients. The mapping exercise alerted us to a corresponding responsibility  – that of supporting the professional development of supervisors/teachers as objective assessors. The opportunities that existed with this collaboration were the potential to share operational expenses and to source funding as a collaborative effort. Whilst the inherent benefits of social learning are well documented, it was the responsibility of the students to construct their own experiences in a community setting.

 hallenges Experienced in Implementing C a Collaborative Model The outcome of this engagement was the identification of divergences in decentralised training approaches that included variations in student placement, Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) that were signed with two provincial authorities, duration of the block, student support, accrued benefits, evaluation, and pedagogical differences. These presented as a series of challenges that we encountered as we implemented the decentralised training approach. The first was an absence of a tested and tried framework specific to medical and pre-service teachers. As such, we

140 

N. Mapukata et al.

did not have access to appropriate theoretical foundations for our work. The two programmes were not properly synchronised to facilitate shared placement as an annual activity. We had to adjust our model along existing government approaches to decentralisation to suit our own practice and come to terms with the politics and realities of rural education (Balfour et al. 2012). Secondly, the cost of running a decentralised training programme was practically prohibitive for a public higher education institution with limited resources. Rondinelli et al. (1983) have reported financial constraints as a threat to the successful implementation of a decentralised model. This was compounded by a lived reality where programme coordinators often attempted to balance personal (students’) needs with country needs (Mapukata et al. 2017). The cost of transport, accommodation and limited access to mobile learning technologies threatened viability of the programme. De Villiers et  al. (2017) observed similar challenges in a scoping review that focussed on decentralisation as a homogenous approach to medical training. Thirdly, living and learning in a rural context was also a challenge for students who were not previously exposed to such contexts. In the first week, the preservice teachers complained about the heat and fear of wild animals, in time, they appreciated being part of the ‘jungle’. For medical students, previous exposure and peer influence was reported to be a stimulus in the student’s choice of a rural placement (Mapukata et al. 2017). A concern that was expressed by the preservice teachers about the limited supervision that was offered by the school-based supervisors (Nkambule 2017) was the very reason that was cited as a deterrent by the medical students who opted out of rural clinical placements (Mapukata et  al. 2017). Despite the divergences in implementing decentralisation as a diverse institutional offering, the benefits still outweighed the challenges. For that reason, our shared view is that a decentralised training approach should be supported as a sustainable project.

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

141

Conclusion This chapter presented some of the potential benefits of approaching teaching and learning as a collaborative learning methodology focussed on the positive integrative experiences and the inherent benefits that are likely to accrue to students and to local communities. Our findings, though not exhaustive, justify the need for ongoing curriculum and assessment reviews, stakeholder engagement, and supervision which would reflect the affordances and constraints of decentralised rural placements. Based on the outcome of this evaluation, decentralisation is proposed as a collaborative training approach and an example of an interfaculty collaboration, which may be of interest to colleagues who wish to graduate socially accountable graduates and source funding as a shared initiative. Acknowledgements  We wish to extend gratitude to Prof Felix Maringe (HoS: SoE), Prof Couper (HOD: Division of Rural Health, SoCM) and Dr. Rainy Dube (Clinical Lecturer: Division of Rural Health, SoCM) for their contribution during the mapping process of this project.

References Adedeji, S.  O., & Olaniyan, O. (2011). Improving conditions of teachers and teaching in rural schools across African countries. Addis Ababa: UNESCO: International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa. Arndt, C., Davies, R., & Thurlow, J. (2018). Urbanization, structural transformation, and rural-urban linkages in South Africa. Southern Africa, Towards Inclusive Economic Development, SA-TIED Working Paper, No. 41. 1–35 Balfour, R., Mitchell, C., & Moletsane, R. (2008). Troubling contexts: Towards a generative theory of rurality as education research. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 3(3), 100–111. Balfour, R. J., de Lange, N., & Khau, M. (2012). Rural education and rural realities: The politics and possibilities of rural research in southern Africa. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), i–ix.

142 

N. Mapukata et al.

Barter, B. (2008). Urban mind-set, rural realities: Teaching on the edge, Learning/Work, 235–247. Retrieved on 23 June 2012 from www.hsrcpress.ac.za. Boylan, C. R. (2004). Putting rural into pre-service teacher education. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research Education conference. Melbourne, Victoria. Boylan, C., & Bandy, H. (1994, July 10–15). Education training for rural teachers. Proceedings of the International Conference of Rural Education Research and Development Centre, Queensland, Australia. http://files.eric.ed.gov/ fulltext/ED390603.pdf. Accessed 24 July 2012. Cloke, P. (2006). Conceptualizing rurality. In P. Cloke, T. Marsden, & P. Mooney (Eds.), The handbook of rural studies (pp. 18–28). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Couper, I. D., Hugo, J. F., Conradie, H., & Mfenyana, K. (2007). Members of the collaboration for health equity through education and research (CHEER). Influences on the choice of health professionals to practice in rural areas. South African Medical Journal, 11, 1082–1086. https://doi.org/10.7196/ SAMJ.118. De Villiers, M., Van Schalkwyk, S., Blitz, J., Couper, I., Moodley, K., Talib, Z., & Young, T. (2017). Decentralised training for medical students: A scoping review. BMC Medical Education, 17(1), 196. Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory research and practice. Teachers College Press, New York. Govender, P., Chetty, V., Naidoo, D., & Pefile, N. (2018). Integrated decentralized training for health professions education at the University of KwaZulu-­ Natal, South Africa protocol for the I-DecT project. JMIR Research Protocols, 7(1), e19. Gruenewald, D.  S., & Smith, G.  A. (2008). Making room for the local. In D. S. Gruenewald & G. A. Smith (Eds.), Place-based education in the global age: Local diversity (pp. xiii–xxiii). New York: Routledge. Hamilton, E.  R., & Margot, K.  C. (2019). Preservice teachers’ community-­ based field experiences in a public museum setting. Frontiers in Education, 4(115), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00115. Handal, B., Watson, K., Petocz, P., & Maher, M. (2013). Retaining mathematics and science teachers in rural and remote schools. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 3(3), 13–28. Haskins, J. L., Phakathi, S. A., Grant, M., & Horwood, C. M. (2016). Factors influencing recruitment and retention of professional nurses, doctors and

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

143

allied health professionals in rural hospitals in KwaZulu Natal. Health SA Gensonheid, 22, 174–183. Islam, F. (2012). Understanding pre-service teacher education discourses in communities of practice: A reflection from an intervention in rural South Africa. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 19–29. Kapoor, R. (2007). Transforming self and society: Plural paths to human emancipation. Futures, 39(5), 475–486. Karlsen, G. (2000). Decentralized centralism: Framework for a better understanding of governance in the field of education. Journal of Education Policy, 15(5), 525–538. Mapukata, N. O., Dube, R., Couper, I., & Mlambo, M. (2017). Factors influencing choice of site for rural clinical placements by final year medical students in a South African university. African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine, 9(1), e1–e6. https://doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v9i1.1226. Maringe, F., Masinire, A., & Nkambule, T. (2015). Distinctive features of schools in multiply deprived communities in South Africa: Implications for policy and leadership. Educational Management and Leadership, 43(3), 363–385. Masinire, A. (2015). Recruiting and retaining teachers in rural schools in South Africa: Insights from a rural teaching experience programm. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 25(1), 1–15. Masinire, A., Maringe, F., & Nkambule, T. (2014). Education for rural development: Embedding rural dimensions in initial teacher education. Perspectives in Education, 32(3), 146–158. Miles, R. L., Marshall, C., Rolfe, J., & Noonan, S. (2004). The attraction and retention of professionals to regional areas. Queensland Department of State Development: Queensland, Department of Premier and Cabinet, Australia. Moletsane, L. (2012). Repositioning educational research on rurality and rural education in South Africa: Beyond deficit paradigms. Perspectives in Education, 30(1), 1–8. Morrow, W. (2007). Learning to teach in South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC Press. Mtetwa, D. K. J., & Thompson, J. J. (2000). Towards decentralised and more school-focused teacher preparation and professional development in Zimbabwe: The role of mentoring. Journal of In-Service Education, 26(2), 311–328. Nkambule, T. C. (2017). Student teachers’ perceptions of a Wits rural teaching experience project: What to learn and improve. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(1), 191–206.

144 

N. Mapukata et al.

Nkambule, T., & Mukeredzi, T. (2017). Pre-service teachers’ professional learning experiences during rural teaching practice in Acornhoek, Mpumalanga Province. South African Journal of Education, 37(3), 1–9. Nyangairi, B., Couper, I. D., & Sondzaba, N. O. (2010). Exposure to primary healthcare for medical students: Experiences of final year medical students. South African Family Practice, 52(5), 467–470. Olowu, D., & Wunsch, J. S. (2004). Local governance in Africa: The challenges of democratic decentralization. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Palmieri, C., & Palma, M. (2017). The relationship between school and community as an opportunity to rethink teaching. US-China Education Review, 4(1), 496–503. https://doi.org/10.17265/2161-623X/2017.01.004. Rabinowitz, H. K., Diamond, J. J., Markham, F. W., & Wortman, J. R. (2008). Medical school programs to increase the rural physician supply: A systematic review and projected impact of widespread replication. Academic Medicine, 83, 235–243. Rondinelli, D. A., Nellis, J. R., & Cheema, G. S. (1983). Decentralisation in developing countries: A review of recent experience. Staff Working Paper, No. 581 Washington, DC: World Bank. Rose, A., & Janse van Rensburg-Bonthuyzen, E. (2015). The factors that attract healthcare professionals to and retain them in rural areas in South Africa. South African Family Practice, 57(1), 44–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 20786190.2014.977023. Ross, A. J., & Couper, I. D. (2004). Rural scholarship schemes: A solution to the human resource crisis in rural district hospitals. South African Family Practice., 46(1), 5–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/20786204.2004.10873025. Roux, C. (2007). Collaboration in teacher education through research in multicultural education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 21(3), 503–519. Rugo, M. A. (2013). Decentralization, citizen participation and local public service delivery: A study on the nature and influence of citizen participation on decentralized service delivery in Kenya. Unpublished MA Thesis, Potsdam: Germany. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-65085. Rusznyak, L., & Masinire, A. (2018). The role of developing pre-service teachers’ pedagogical reasoning to support contextually responsive teaching. In E. Walton & R. Osman (Eds.), Teacher education for diversity: Conversations from the global south (pp. 51–68). London: Routledge. SADE. (2005). Ministerial committee report on rural education: A new vision for rural schooling. Pretoria: SADE.

6  Parallels and Divergences in Decentralised Training… 

145

Sayed, Y. (1997). Democratising education governance in South Africa. Economic and Political Weekly, 44(15), 722–731. Sayed, Y. (2008). Understanding educational decentralization in post-apartheid South Africa. Journal of Negro Education, 66(4), 354–365. Schafft, K. A., & Jackson, A. Y. (2010). Rural education for the twenty-first century: Identity, place, and community in a globalizing world. University Park: Penn State Press. Somekh, B. (1989). Action research and collaborative school development. In R. McBride (Ed.), The in-service training of teachers: Some issues and perspectives. Brighton: Falmer Press. https://doi.org/10.1002/pdi.781. Tan, C., & Ng, P. T. (2007). Dynamics of change: Decentralised centralism of education in Singapore. Journal of Educational Change, 8(2), 155–168. Trinidad, S., Sharplin, E., Lock, G., Ledger, S., Boyd, D., & Terry, E. (2010, September 15–17). Developing strategies at the pre-service level to address critical teacher attraction and retention issues in Australian rural, regional and remote schools. 26th SPERA National Conference 2010. University of the Sunshine Coast, QLD. Tumbo, J. M., Couper, I. D., & Hugo, J. F. M. (2009). Rural-origin health sciences students at South African universities. South African Medical Journal., 99(1), 54–56. Villegas, A. M., & Lucas, T. (2002). Preparing culturally responsive teachers: Rethinking the curriculum. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(13), 20–32. Wadesango, N. (2011). Strategies of teacher participation in decision-making in schools: A case study of Gweru District secondary schools in Zimbabwe. Journal of Social Sciences, 27(2), 85–94. Wallace, A., & Boylan, C. (2007). Reawakening education policy and practice in rural Australia. Keynote address at the 19th Society for the Provision of education in rural Australia conference, Canberra. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, N.  W., Couper, I.  D., De Vries, E., Reid, S., Fish, T., & Marais, B.  J. (2009). A critical review of interventions to redress the inequitable distribution of healthcare professionals to rural and remote areas. Rural Remote Health [online]. Available from: http://www.rrh.org.au. Accessed 10 July 2019.

7 The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses by African Universities Bheki R. Mngomezulu

Introduction From a theoretical perspective, rurality is a contested concept across academic disciplines. Its re-emergence in recent times has brought this concept to the centre of discussion by many researchers and research institutions (HSRC 2005; Mtisi and Muranda 2018). Rurality as a phenomenon is irrefutably one of the characteristic features of the greater part of the African continent. This is true even after most of the African countries have embraced urbanisation, albeit in different magnitude. The rural identity cuts across all spheres of life, including the higher education sector. The rural graduate is by default the epitome of this rural identity. Similarly, academic institutions which produce rural graduates both wittingly and unwittingly get associated with those rural graduates. This happens even if higher education institutions are geographically located in urban centres. Whatever the rural graduate does after

B. R. Mngomezulu (*) University of Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_7

147

148 

B. R. Mngomezulu

completing his academic programme, even in an urban-based institution, the rural identity goes with him. It is true that some academic institutions are physically located in rural or semi-rural areas—commonly referred to as peri-urban areas. Others (especially historically white institutions or HWIs) are physically located in urban centres. That in itself creates a clear separation between urban institutions and their rural and peri-urban counterparts. But while this is the case, universities by their very nature have multiple identities (Mngomezulu 2012). They are perceived as local, regional, continental and international institutions at while the same time they serve a wider audience. As such, their focus transcends the local vicinity. Given these multiple identities, universities as academic institutions have to speak to different audiences at the same time and try to satisfy them all in one way or another. This balancing act is not always easy to maintain. An additional challenge facing African universities is that they rely almost entirely on international funding agencies or donors for their sustainability. These donors’ mandates and agendas do not always resonate with the African needs, agendas and contexts (Mngomezulu 2014). This leads to an identity crisis not only for African universities, but also for their graduates who must use their academic knowledge to eke out a living after graduation. At times African universities strive hard to have characteristic features and identities which distinguish them from their Western counterparts without necessarily deviating from the notion of a university as an academic institution anywhere in the world. This goal is not always easy to achieve. Similarly, rural graduates try to present themselves as being separate from urban graduates whose mandates and expectations tend to be somewhat different. However, they also strive to conform to the notion of a graduate in a general sense. This becomes a daunting task. As a result of financial and material constraints, it is common to find an African university satisfying international sponsors at the expense of ensuring its local relevance. At times they even do things they do not like simply because they want to ensure their continued existence in terms of financial sustainability. By so doing, the university as an academic institution portrays one of its identities (the international identity) but neglects

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

149

the other identity which is equally (if not more) important, i.e. its local identity. In the same vein, graduates from rural areas suffer from this identity crisis. On the one hand they want to retain their rural identity; on the other hand, they must deal with issues of global importance while neglecting their own immediate environment. In this regard, the rural graduate is placed in a tight corner. The pressure to address local needs is ever present. At the same time, the need to satisfy global demands is expedient since it makes the rural graduate transcend the rural setting and become a global citizen. This duality puts the rural graduate under immense pressure of not knowing who to satisfy first. Within this context, this present chapter discusses these identity challenges which the rural graduate must constantly negotiate to remain credible, relevant and compatible. In so doing, it draws examples from different African countries and proffers some ideas on the role African universities could play in addressing this identity conundrum. Among the various issues that are discussed in this chapter are the following: curriculum reforms, research focus, resource mobilisation as well as public/ private partnership. The chapter concludes by arguing that African universities have a major role to play in assisting the rural graduate deal with endemic challenges associated with being a graduate with a rural background. As implied above, the task faced by African universities is not an easy one. They are expected to assist rural graduates find an identity when they also constantly struggle with their own identity formation. As the apex of higher education, society looks up the university to take the lead in addressing societal challenges. Rural graduates form part of that society.

Contextual Overview The polarisation of communities as urban and rural communities is deeply rooted in the histories of different societies even beyond the African continent. To a very large degree, the bifurcation of societies into rural and urban is linked to development and industrialisation of those societies. It is true that almost all societies (including those of present-day industrialised countries) started off as rural societies to varying degrees.

150 

B. R. Mngomezulu

With the passage of time, certain places became crowded due to a number of pull factors. These included trade, education, and religious gatherings. As more people were attracted into certain areas, the need for accommodation necessitated the building of more houses than those found in rural areas so that the incoming numbers could be accommodated. Other amenities soon became necessary to enable the increasing population to survive. Subsequently, big markets, schools, shops, hospitals, universities, etc. were all built to serve this growing population. With the passage of time, once states were established, capital cities were built in these urban spaces. Such developments attracted even more people into these areas. Gradually, urban areas emerged with better resources and with more amenities compared to rural areas. These are some of the factors which triggered urbanisation as rural communities flocked into these better-resourced areas. Those who remained in rural areas suffered in all spheres of life—including education. When universities were established in these rural and semi-rural areas they were not as well-resourced as those located in urban areas. Even their credibility was somewhat questioned by those who preferred urban-based universities. The rural graduate had to go the extra mile trying to market himself or herself after graduating from a rural university. This is how the rural graduate has a different identity to the urban graduate. But even when a rural student graduates from an urban-based university the expectation is that such a graduate should have a different outlook and should view things differently—epitomised in the chosen priorities. In other words, the general expectation is that a rural graduate should have a uniqueness compared to an urban graduate. This chapter discusses the present theme of the rural graduate with specific reference to the African continent. It looks at how the rural graduate negotiates the balance between having a rural identity and being a global citizen as all graduates should be. This deliberate focus on Africa should not be misconstrued to mean that Africa is the only continent with rural areas. Countries such as Sweden, Britain, America, India, New Zealand and many others have conducted studies on rurality. The choice of Africa in this chapter is a deliberate decision which is informed by the need to promote Africanisation, decolonisation and localisation of research, all of which were not possible under colonialism and apartheid

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

151

due to political reasons. In the South African context, among other things, the #FeesMmustFall Movement which engulfed the country between 2015 and 2016 (reaching its saturation point in 2017) made a call for the decolonisation and Africanisation of the curriculum taught at South African universities. This was a valid call which was made by other African countries when they obtained political independence in the 1960s and 1970s (Lulat 2005; Mngomezulu 2012). With regard to Africa, archaeological, archival and oral evidence shows that urbanisation in Africa followed the same trend as in other parts of the world. What is also clear from various sources is that urbanisation in Africa predates the continent’s encounters with the outside world—be it the Asian/Arab world or the Europeans who came onto the scene much later. Africans built urban towns with the architecture which considered the local landscape and climatic conditions (Njoh 2006). Consequently, the African continent had big towns such as Djenne, Kumasi and Timbuktu in West Africa. There were also a few others in countries such as Egypt and Libya in North Africa. Africa’s encounter with the Asian world gave rise to towns such Mombasa and Kilwa in Kenya and Southern Tanzania, respectively. These became trade cities. Great Zimbabwe in present-day Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe in present-day South Africa are some of those very big ancient establishments. The list of such examples is too long to exhaust in this chapter. The point worth reiterating, however, is that urbanisation in Africa is not a colonial invention. Similarly, university education is not a colonial invention either as some African universities predate renowned universities in countries such as Britain (Ashby 1966; Lulat 2005; Woldegiorgis and Doevenspeck 2013). What should also be stated from the outset is the fact that urbanisation and industrialisation changed the lifestyle of the African people. In most cases, the able-bodied part of the community (including the youth) was more susceptible to move into the urban areas in search of work and to settle. In the process, rural areas suffered as they were deprived of their active population. The development of higher education in Africa also gave the youth more reasons to relocate to the urban areas. Concerned about this state of affairs, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, President of Tanzania, tried to keep Tanzanian university graduates closer to their rural communities. His argument was that rural graduates could

152 

B. R. Mngomezulu

not behave like urban graduates and ignore their own people simply because they had obtained university education and could now stand on their own. One of President Nyerere’s strategies was to promulgate a law in government that would make it compulsory for university graduates to serve their communities for a period of two years after graduation before starting a life elsewhere. According to this special arrangement, even medical doctors would first serve their communities for two years, receiving a small stipend before opening their surgeries in the cities. As would be expected, this initiative faced tough resistance, not just from the students alone but from their parents too. They argued that this decision was infringing on their individual rights to determine their fate. The fact that President Nyerere was not doing this for his own benefit did not seem to bother his critics. They simply did not embrace his idea. Eventually, President Nyerere’s government was forced to abandon what appeared to be a brilliant idea which was in line with the African philosophy of Ubuntu. What is also important to mention here is that President Nyerere was acutely aware of the distance between rural graduates and their rural communities. His primary aim was to bridge that gap. He strongly believed that the rural graduate could not behave in the same manner as the urban graduate who was serving his or her urban community by virtue of having been born and bred there. President Nyerere even likened rural graduates to hunters, arguing that a hunter who did not bring home his catch to share it with the family was not a good hunter. In the same vein, his view was that graduates who left their communities immediately after obtaining their degrees and went to reside in the cities after obtaining their academic degrees were sell-outs. He expected them to plough back into their local communities. The President’s argument was that it was these same communities that had made sacrifices in order for the graduates to obtain their qualifications. In his view, if the graduates were to abandon their rural areas soon after graduation and relocate to the urban cities, they would have abandoned their African way of life which was premised on the notion of communalism. This thinking was also in line with Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda’s notion of humanism (Kaunda 1966; Ikeda 2005; Kanu 2014). Both these leaders embraced an Afrocentric approach to leadership and expected the same

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

153

from rural graduates. They envisaged a rural graduate who would have a different identity from an urban graduate. The notion of the rural graduate is correctly associated with higher education, urbanisation and industrialisation. As mentioned above, graduates who come from rural areas face an identity crisis. On the one hand, they want to serve their rural communities using the education they obtained from universities whether they are located in rural areas or urban areas. On the other hand, they must live an urban lifestyle and even relocate to these urban areas where they feel that they belong after graduation. In the process they are not sure if they are urbanites or if they still retain their rural identity. This is so because even if they reside in urban centres, their rural identity goes with them. Some of their urban neighbours still view and address them as rural graduates. This invokes the notion of the identity crisis which the rural graduate has to constantly contend with. It is within this context that the present chapter discusses the rural graduate and some of the endemic challenges such a graduate has to wrestle with on a daily basis. The pressure exerted by the urban graduate on the rural graduate forces the latter to self -reflect and then make tough decisions that will determine the type of life to be lived. By virtue of the fact that universities mark the apex of education in any society across the globe, universities are expected to play their role in helping the rural graduate find an identity and be of service to a wider community beyond the rural setting but without ignoring it entirely. Many ways are suggested in this chapter as to how these universities could play their role in assisting the rural graduate. The underlying assumption here is that universities are the creators of new knowledge through research and publishing. Another assumption is that these institutions are well-positioned to influence the minds of the societies they serve. Importantly, universities have a better chance to influence the minds of the graduates that they train and subsequently deliver to the communities to provide the necessary services. Any university that is deficient in the area of research has a minimal chance to assist the rural graduate in finding an identity and in being of service to society. Moreover, any university that remains aloof and does not participate in addressing societal challenges is dubbed an ‘ivory tower’ and thus loses its credibility and dignity as an academic institution worth

154 

B. R. Mngomezulu

the name ‘university’ (Guenther and Wagner 2008; Stockhill and Danico 2012). These are some of the issues that are considered in the present chapter as it takes a closer look at the rural graduate and endemic challenges that rural graduates have to deal with in their resolve to find an identity for themselves. Where multiple identities exist, the rural graduate looks up to the university to provide the necessary guidance. Should a university fail to provide such guidance, it would have failed the rural graduate who holds it in high esteem. However, before expounding all the themes highlighted above, it is of cardinal importance to briefly delineate at least some of the key concepts used in this chapter. This will ensure that there is no uncertainty in the subsequent discussion in the rest of the chapter. Where a concept has multiple definitions, understanding what those definitions are will at least give the readers different contexts in which they can interpret and understand such a concept. The three concepts defined below are the following: urban, rural and rurality.

Conceptual Definitions It is an indubitable fact that not all concepts that are used in writing and oral discussions have universal or standard meaning which everybody everywhere could associate with. Some meanings attached to certain concepts have geographical specificity, while others are informed by the time factor and context. For example, Shubin (2006) opines that rural discourses are constructed over time and through political shifts. Moving from this premise, it is always important to define key concepts used in a text upfront before expounding a point or before carrying on with a discussion on a given topic on the assumption that everyone ascribes the same meaning to the concept being used at any given time. In line with this trajectory, this section will explain three closely related concepts: urban, rural and rurality. From a general perspective, various sources normally pay emphasis to the ‘urban-rural’ classification of populations. Alternatively, other sources tend to focus specifically on the ‘metropolitan/non-metropolitan’ classification of counties. These are some of the broad classifications developed

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

155

by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). While these distinctions are useful, they fail to address all the specific issues and meanings ascribed to the concepts listed above. It is important, therefore, to delve into each of these concepts in order to ensure that their meanings are fully understood from different contexts.

Urban The word urban is not as clear and straightforward as we would like to believe. Its meanings are context-specific. As these contexts change from time to time, so do the meanings. According to Demographia world of urban areas, the city has two generic forms: the ‘urban area’ which refers to the physical form and the ‘metropolitan area’ generally perceived to be the functional or economic form. From a general perspective, an urban area is commonly defined against the backdrop of a rural area. However, even after defining the concept ‘urban’ against ‘rural’, the reality is that it still has no universal or standard meaning. The call for a specific definition of the terms urban and rural has been going on since the mid-1960s (Ford 1966). To this day, there is still no universal definition. The same goes for the other concept, ‘rurality’. In fact, the definition of the concept ‘urban’ varies from country to country and at times from one area to another within the same country. Generally speaking, an urban area is usually defined as a human settlement with high population density as well as infrastructure of built environment compared to areas that are described as rural (www.demographia.com/db-define.pdf ). This only constitutes standard meaning. In the absence of universal meaning of this concept, authors normally resort to identifying what they perceive to be the characteristic features of an urban area and use those features to distinguish an urban area from a rural area. One of the common criteria used in this identification process is an administrative one or a political boundary. This refers to an area within the jurisdiction of a municipality or town. The second criterion is a threshold population size which varies between 200 and 50,000 depending on the size of that urban area. The third criterion is an economic activity whereby the significant majority of the population residing in the

156 

B. R. Mngomezulu

area is not primarily engaged in agriculture as is the case in rural areas. Here, features of an urban area include inter alia paved streets, electric lighting, sewerage system, refuse collection system, running water in taps. But while these definitions and characteristic features are somewhat useful in terms of giving us an idea of what we mean when we talk about an urban area, they fail to paint a conclusive picture which is devoid of any ambiguity. For example, some rural areas in countries like South Africa have paved streets and also have electric lighting and yet they are not classified as urban areas. Therefore, this shows that the struggle to find a universal definition of the term ‘rural’ still lingers. My own conception of ‘urban’ in this chapter is that it refers to an area located in an industrial area with a dense population and which has more amenities compared to rural areas. I do not in any way claim that this understanding or conceptualisation is conclusive. All I mean is that this constitutes what I would call a ‘working definition’ in the context of the present chapter.

Rural Like its sister concept urban, the meaning of the term rural is not as simple as it seems at face value. Many authors share this view. It was for this reason that Moseley (1979) once argued that there is no unambiguous way of defining ‘rural areas’. This is due to the fact that those who define this concept approach it from different vantage points and thus arrive at different conclusions. Cloke (2006) avers that the meaning of this term has generally been examined using three theoretical lenses. Firstly, it has been thought of and viewed in functional terms. Included in this approach are elements such as land use, population density, as well as behavioural qualities. Secondly, political-economic concepts are understood to “clarify the nature and position of the rural in terms of the social production of existence” (Cloke 2006, p.  20). Thirdly, there are social constructions of rural which tend to invoke postmodern and poststructuralist viewpoints (Taylor and Winquist 2001). In the absence of a universal meaning of this concept, Stelmach (2017, p. 33) concludes by saying that “Thus, ‘rural’ is conceptually evasive”. He

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

157

continues to assert that lack of consensus around the meaning of this concept poses a number of challenges and is therefore problematic. This same view is also shared by other authors who theorise this concept (Arnold et al. 2007; Coladarci 2007). Another view is that defining rural is a topic which deserves more attention given the fact that many authors tend to use it loosely. This is important because in the absence of standardised meaning some researchers are not aware of the various definitions associated with this concept (Hawley et  al. 2016). The warning sounded by Isserman (2005, p. 467) is relevant in this regard. He argues that “When we get rural wrong, we reach incorrect research conclusions and fail to reach the people, places, and businesses our governmental programs are meant to serve.” This is a compelling argument. As is the case with ‘urban’, authors who struggle to find any standard definition of the concept ‘rural’ resort to identifying at least some of what they consider to be its characteristic features. The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) states the following: There are two main rural characteristics. First, rural people usually live on farmsteads or in groups of houses containing perhaps 5 000–10 000 persons, separated by farmland, pasture, trees or scrubland. Second, most rural people spend most of their time on farms.

Various authors who write with specific reference to Sweden make the observation that rural areas have been classified using characteristic traits such as zero public exercise, not well-connected to transportation network, IT network and innovation, low technology for crop and livestock farming, as well as a poor savings culture (Hedlund 2017; Bostrom and Dahlin 2018). While these characteristic features appear to be somewhat useful, they lack any specificity. As such, many areas across Africa could quite easily fit this conceptualisation of ‘rural’. Therefore, we could argue that Shadish, Cook and Campbell (2002, p.  65) should be pardoned when they hold and espouse the view that operationalising rural “is a matter of construct validity, which involves understanding constructs and assessing them.” The bottom line here is that as much as we have a rough idea of what rural areas are, our understanding has no fixed meaning. All we can do in

158 

B. R. Mngomezulu

trying to define a rural graduate would be to take some of the many characteristics of a rural area enumerated above and ascribe them to the rural graduate with the view of distinguishing him from an urban graduate. But this too would not lead to the conclusion that at long last we have a standard definition of the term rural. Hawley et al. (2016, p. 7) submit that “a community’s rural designation in any given study or policy implementation is dependent upon the chosen operational definition of rural rather than representing an immutable truth.” It is for this reason that there is a need to define concepts in each and every study instead of assuming that the meanings of the concepts used are known to and by all the readers. In the context of this chapter, a rural graduate is understood to refer to someone who was born and bred in a rural setting but had to obtain university education either in a rural (semi-rural) or urban setting. Such a graduate constantly defines himself or herself by either aligning with a rural area or assuming the new identity after relocating to an urban area. But the reality is that even if a rural graduate relocates to an urban area, his rural identity follows him. As such, the chapter includes graduates who were born in rural areas and studied in rural universities, rural graduates who studied at urban universities, as well as urban students who studied at rural universities. Certainly, these types of graduates have different sets of challenges that they have to contend with. They also suffer from a constant identity crisis. Unfortunately, for as long as there is no universal definition of both urban and rural, the rural graduate will continue to wrestle with the identity challenges.

Rurality Just like the other two concepts discussed above, ‘rurality’ cannot be immune to the need to be subjected to some sort of a definition or definitions, no matter how difficult such an exercise might be. There is general consensus in the literature that this concept, just like the other two, has no unanimously acceptable definition. Some authors go even further to say that the term is actually ambiguous and thus confusing (Abdulwakeel 2017; Rousseau 1995). Jordan and Hargrove (1987, p. 15) concede that

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

159

the “operationalization of rurality has been a nagging problem.” This confirms that the challenge of defining this concept is not new. But while all these submissions have validity and credibility, they should not be misinterpreted to mean that the term rurality is useless for analytical purposes. It is for this reason that I still use the term in this chapter and consider at least some of the various definitions associated with it. After considering the different views of other authors and making a wide range of arguments, Abdulwakeel (2017, p. 3) concludes by giving us his definition of this concept. He opines: “From what I have discussed so far one could say that rurality is the term describing a location where farm activities are more pronounced with low population density, remoteness and a bit of nonfarm activities.” Other authors are unable to provide an explicit definition of this term. However, they list some characteristic features of rurality, which are crafted around themes such as geography, population density, provision of amenities, quality of life and economic wellbeing of people living in a relatively isolated and sparsely populated area. These are not definitions per se, but some characteristic features associated with the concept rurality. For the purpose of this chapter, the term rurality is simply understood to mean the state of being ‘rural’.

Challenges Faced by the Rural Graduate As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, one of the challenges faced by the rural graduate is identity formation. Among many questions is ‘How does a rural graduate differ from an urban graduate’? If graduates in general have to lead society and conduct research which addresses societal needs, how does a rural graduate operate outside of this framework? Is this even possible to do? In the areas of transformation, development, reform and reconstruction, the rural graduate is expected to take the lead with a view to improving the local situation. The problem is that there is a tendency to use these concepts interchangeably, thereby rendering them less useful and actually emptying them of their specific significance (Chisholm 2004; Badat 2009). As the rural graduate strives to transform, develop, reform and reconstruct the rural setting, the question arises regarding the form

160 

B. R. Mngomezulu

such changes should take. In all probability, there will be members of society who would like the rural context to take centre stage in this reconfiguration process. At the same time, others are likely to argue that they do not want to transform in isolation. Instead, they would argue for their inclusion in both the urban and the global community. This invokes one of the most pertinent questions: Are the concepts Africanisation/decolonisation/ localisation antithetical to the concepts globalisation and internationalisation? This question has been addressed elsewhere in the context of higher education (Mngomezulu 2017). The second challenge faced by the rural graduate relates to the curriculum. Having been trained through a Westernised curriculum, it is difficult for the rural graduate to Africanise and localise the curriculum when he begins to apply his acquired skills and knowledge. This problem derives from two sources. The first one is that the rural graduate is not familiar with the literature that promotes Africanisation and localisation. The second problem is that the students for whom the Africanisation project is aimed might not embrace the idea, arguing that they want to be part of the global community. The third problem might be the parents, some of whom prefer the Western curriculum at the expense of the local content which suits the local context. This is what President Nyerere and other East African political and academic leaders struggled with when they called for the Africanisation of the curriculum at the Federal University of East Africa (Kistner 2008; Letsekha 2013). The third challenge which the rural graduate has to wrestle with revolves around research focus and research methodology. The rural graduate grows up being exposed to oral histories and oral traditions. At the university, such methodological approaches are discouraged—both directly and in subtle forms. On completion of his or her studies, the rural graduate has to figure out the most acceptable research focus and research methodologies within the research community. This has a direct impact on the nature of the research outputs the rural graduate produces. Some of the research outputs could be theoretically sound but with no relevance to the local context. Linked to the above is the impact of the books used by the rural graduate while at the university. For example, in the health profession, African students in general, and rural students in particular, are taught using

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

161

books which are meant for the Western audience. In the process, rural African students are taught about diseases which are not found in their areas. After graduation, some of them struggle to diagnose and cure local diseases only to find that they are specialists in foreign diseases. This leaves the rural graduate frustrated. This is one issue which Ministers of Health across Africa must seriously think about when they send their medical students to countries such as Cuba, India, Germany, Britain. for medical training. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, the practice needs to be properly managed. The fourth challenge has to do with resource mobilisation. By their very nature, rural areas have scarce financial and material resources. As such, they rely on urban centres for their survival. Therefore, a rural graduate is at a disadvantage compared to his urban graduate counterpart in terms of access to resources. We can use many examples to illustrate this point. For example, many rural areas across Africa do not have libraries. This means that the rural graduate has no access to reading and research materials. Even in areas where libraries exist, there is no electricity supply. This means that books and other reading materials have to be located manually. Moreover, with no electricity, libraries cannot offer basic services such as printing and copying of documents or accessing the internet. Ideally, the rural graduate in the medical profession could use traditional medicine which is easily available. However, rules which govern the profession rule out this possibility. Medical Councils dictate that every medicine has to be subjected to various laboratory tests and be approved by the medical profession before it is used. This leaves the rural graduate frustrated. What he knows from traditional education and what he learnt at university do not match. Importantly, the power is skewed in favour of Western medicine. The fifth challenge which the rural graduate has to deal with is public/ private partnership. The reality is that most (if not all) industries are physically located in urban centres. This means that for an urban graduate it is easier to forge relations between the public and the private sectors. As for the rural graduate, this possibility is reduced or does not exist at all. When it comes to the rural graduate, options are very limited. Even establishing collaboration with other universities nationally and internationally tends to be tougher for the rural graduate compared to the urban

162 

B. R. Mngomezulu

graduate. Potential partners look ahead and consider how they would maximise the impact of such relations without having to invest more in terms of financial and material resources. For example, technological communication is not easy in the rural setting. The sixth challenge has to do with student numbers at rural education institutions. This is a global phenomenon. Kline and Walker-Gibbs (2015, p. 69) note that “rural depopulation and decline motivates concerns about rural renewal in many affluent western countries and has stimulated a search for solutions to the ongoing problems of population imbalance and the dissolution of country towns.” It is noted that supply and demand projections for various professionals suggest a national shortfall for rural schools and communities (Rowe et al. 2013. See also Wallace and Boylan 2006). Whether the rural graduate operates in a school setting or a rural university or any other institution, the reality is that the population remains a challenge. The situation gets worse for a rural graduate who is a school teacher. The Professional Provisional Norm (PPN) whereby teachers (educators) are allocated to the school as per the number of students (learners) results in rural graduates being moved from one school to another. In a nutshell, the discussion above leads to the conclusion that the rural graduate is at a disadvantage compared to the urban graduate. The irony is that society exerts the same amount of pressure on both types of graduates to be exemplary and to plough back to their communities. This is not always easy for the rural graduate who must deal with tougher situations compared to his or her urban graduate counterpart. Moreover, the rural graduate has to constantly deal with the identity crisis referred to several times in this chapter. In the final analysis, the rural graduate faces more challenges than the urban graduate.

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

163

 esponses by African Universities: Real R and Envisaged Universities are the ones that produce graduates—both rural and urban graduates alike. Since they know the origins of their students, universities have the responsibility to train their graduates in such a manner that they would be able to be of service to their communities. The value of higher education in general and university education in particular has been recognised by many scholars. Chinyamurindi (2012) states that higher education can also offer an opportunity to those individuals who were excluded in the past to compete in the labour market. Corroborating this view, Phago and Thwala (2015) submit that higher education is essential for economic and social development and for meeting the needs of the knowledge economy. One way in which a university could be of service to the rural graduate would be to structure its curriculum such that it responds to the rural needs as much as it addresses global needs. If rural communities have an interest in agriculture, for example, the university should teach its students about the local soil types and local crops. In the same vein, it can teach its students about local insects and other crop diseases instead of using diseases which are alien to Africa or crops which are not found in the local area. If examples from elsewhere are used, these should not take centre stage. They should be just that, examples used for comparative purposes. This would ensure that the rural graduate becomes useful to the local community without being oblivious to what happens elsewhere. After all, it is incumbent upon the graduate (rural or urban) to be versatile or adaptive. In the area of linguistics, it does not make sense for a university to teach this subject strictly from a Western theoretical perspective. What would assist the rural graduate would be to teach linguistics in such a manner that it helps the graduate understand and analyse local languages first before looking at other languages from elsewhere. This approach would be useful in all other subjects and would actually go a long way towards responding to the ongoing call for the decolonisation and Africanisation of the curriculum.

164 

B. R. Mngomezulu

With regard to research, it is incumbent upon the university to encourage students to choose research topics that are relevant to their situations. The question ‘Research for whom and for what?’ (Mngomezulu 2009) is an appropriate one in this regard. If the university encourages research on topics and themes that bear no relevance to the rural setting, such research is not usable. Similarly, the university has to consider local research methodologies which speak to the local context. For example, in most rural areas oral evidence is still considered important. Therefore, universities have a responsibility to capacitate graduate students on how to use this methodological approach in order to address certain issues. These graduates should also be encouraged to use such data collection methods when writing their dissertations and theses. This does not preclude them from using foreign topics and other methodologies, but these should be introduced later once the students have made sense of their local setting. Lack of resources is a reality in most rural areas. Given this situation, it would be foolhardy for a university not to consider this reality. One way of addressing this challenge would be to carry out studies that would come up with strategies rural graduates could employ in order to survive in the rural areas. Among other things, universities could capacitate rural graduates on how to generate power, harvest rain water, produce organic fertilisers, preserve crops, etc. They could draw such knowledge from the elderly people in the local communities. Armed with this knowledge, the rural graduate would be able to survive in a rural setting and see no need to relocate to urban centres. Importantly, local people would benefit from this exercise. When it comes to public/private partnership, universities can play a key role in assisting its rural graduates. It is true that most industries are in urban centres, but this does not mean that the rural graduate can do nothing to venture into this area. Universities can assist rural graduates by forging relations with several companies from the private sector and compiling a database. While still pursuing their qualifications, rural graduates could establish relations with these private institutions. Once they leave the university and start working, they would continue to strengthen these relations to the benefit of their work institutions and rural communities. Universities could also lead the campaign to electrify rural

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

165

areas, thus making it possible for them to bring industries closer to rural universities and communities. The same approach could also be followed with regard to institutional collaboration. Not all universities in Africa and elsewhere in the world are located in urban centres. This means that a rural university in South Africa, for example, could forge relations with another rural university anywhere in Africa or abroad. Similarly, there are urban universities that want to forge relations with rural universities so that they could share experiences. The same applies to graduates. An urban and a rural graduate could forge relations that would benefit both, as well as their institutions. Universities could play a key role in facilitating these relations.

Discussion The discussion above has demonstrated in vivid terms that the success or failure of the rural graduate depends on himself or herself as much as it depends on the university that is responsible for producing such a graduate in the first place. If rural graduates do nothing to change their situation, this renders them expendable. Similarly, if the university fails to prepare the rural graduate for life outside the university, it risks losing its credibility as an academic institution. At the same time, it makes life difficult for the rural graduate once he or she leaves the university. Therefore, it is important to note that making the rural graduate a force to be reckoned with needs concerted effort by all parties—including both the rural graduate and the university. Rural communities look up to the rural graduate and the university to better their lives in all spheres. When their lives remain stagnant after the rural graduate has obtained his or her academic qualification, these communities lose interest in the university as much as they lose interest in, and respect for, the rural graduate. It goes without saying, therefore, that the credibility and prestige of both the rural graduate and the university is contingent upon these two parties playing their role in improving the living conditions and addressing the local needs of rural communities. While it is true that universities and other higher education institutions have a responsibility to produce graduates who are not far removed

166 

B. R. Mngomezulu

from their socio-political contexts, it is equally true that these institutions are also under immense pressure from different quarters to deliver. Harry, Chinyamurindi and Mjoli (2018, p. 2) note that higher education institutions are under constant pressure from policymakers to produce employable graduates. This means that at times these universities have to train their students not just for the sake of training them but in order to prepare them for the job market. As the job needs change, so universities are expected to change their curriculum focus and approaches. Failure to do so might see these universities remaining universities in name only, but with no respect from the communities they serve—nor the graduates that they train. This point is corroborated by Fallows and Steven (2000) who argue that it has become apparent for institutions of higher learning that the knowledge–based economy has changed the relationship between educational credentials and their returns in the labour market. Therefore, universities have to be adaptable and should respond to these changing needs and relations. In the same vein, rural graduates have to be innovative and versatile if they are to remain relevant and earn the respect of the communities they serve. In the final analysis, this means that when choosing universities, rural graduates have to be careful which ones they join. If after completing a degree the rural graduate cannot contribute to his or her society, the university would have failed to execute its responsibility of producing graduates that are able to lend a hand in addressing societal needs.

Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has demonstrated the challenges faced by the rural graduate. It has highlighted some of the endemic challenges the rural graduate has to constantly deal with. In the same vein, the chapter has enumerated the challenges faced by universities as they make indefatigable efforts to assist their students. Importantly, some ideas were proffered on how universities could lend a hand in assisting the rural graduate remain relevant to the local community while being knowledgeable about what happens across Africa and internationally. What was also

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

167

key in the discussion in this chapter was the recognition of the university’s multiple identities. It was in this context that suggestions were made on how the university as the apex of education could help the rural graduate fully comprehend the local context without being oblivious to the global context. Given the fact that concepts have no universal meaning, this chapter has addressed this issue adequately, using three concepts: rural, urban and rurality. The problematisation and contextualisation of these concepts demonstrated their complexities so that they are not taken lightly as though they have universal or standard meaning. In a nutshell, the purpose of this chapter was to focus on the rural graduate and the endemic challenges this graduate has to constantly deal with. But because it would be difficult to discuss the rural graduate without also infusing the urban graduate, the two types of graduates found expression in this chapter. Importantly, given the fact that both graduates are produced by universities, it became necessary and inevitable to include the university in the discussion. The infusion of concepts such as Africanisation, decolonisation and localisation gave this chapter currency since these concepts have been invoked in recent debates—including the #FeesMmustFall movement. Therefore, while the present chapter draws from history, it also fits neatly within the ongoing debates and therefore has currency and relevance. Lastly, if African universities are serious about protecting their image as academic institutions, they need to revisit their curriculum and study the calibre of the students they train. Importantly, they need to fully understand societal needs. This includes both the immediate and distant societies. After all, universities have multiple identities and thus serve different clients.

References Abdulwakeel, S. (2017). What is rurality? Livelihood and Conflict View Project. Arnold, M.  L., Biscoe, B., Farmer, T.  W., Robertson, D.  L., & Shapley, K. L. (2007). How the government defines rural has implications for education and practices. Issues & Answers Report, REL 2007 No. 010. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.

168 

B. R. Mngomezulu

Ashby, E. (1966). Universities: British, Indian, African. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Badat, S. (2009). The challenges of education and development in twenty-first century South Africa. Keynote address at the 15th a\Annual Conference of the Headmasters of the Traditional State Boys’ Schools of South Africa, Queen’s College, Queenstown, 26 August. Bostrom, L., & Dahlin, R. (2018). Young people’s opinions on rural Sweden. International Education Studies, 11(6), 45–58. Chinyamurindi, W. T. (2012). Stories of carrier change amongst distance learners in South Africa. South African Journal of Human Resource Management, 10(2), 1–11. Chisholm, L. (2004). Introduction. In L.  Chisholm (Ed.), Changing class: Education and social change in post-apartheid South Africa. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. Cloke, P. (2006). Conceptualising rurality. In P.  Cloke, T.  Marsden, & P. H. Mooney (Eds.), Handbook of rural studies (pp. 18–28). London: Sage. Coladarci, T. (2007). Improving the yield of rural education research: An editor’s swan song. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 22, 1–9. Fallows, S., & Steven, C. (2000). Building employability skills into the higher education curriculum: A university-wide initiative. Education and Training, 42, 75–83. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400910010331620. Ford, T. R. (1966). Comment on Schnore’s ‘the rural-urban variable: An urban724 ite’s perspective’. Rural Sociology, 31, 149–151. Guenther, J., & Wagner, K. (2008). Getting out of the ivory tower – New perspectives on the entrepreneurial university. European Journal of International Management, 2(4), 400–417. Harry, T., Chinyamurindi, W. T., & Mjoli, T. (2018). Perceptions of factors that affect employability amongst a sample of final-year students at a rural South African university. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, 44(0), 1–10. Hawley, L. R., Koziol, N. A., Bovaird, J. A., McCornick, C. M., Welch, G. W., Arthur, A. M., & Bash, K. (2016). Defining and describing rural: Implications for rural special education research policy. Rural Special Education Policy, 35(3), 3–11. Hedlund, M. (2017). Growth and decline in rural Sweden: geographical distribution of employment and population. PhD dissertation, UMEA University. Human Sciences Research Council – Education Policy Centre (HSRC-EPC). (2005). HSRC-EPC: A report on education in South African rural communities. Commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

7  The Rural Graduate and Endemic Challenges: Responses… 

169

Ikeda, D. (2005). Dr. Kenneth D.  Kaunda: A humanistic struggle. SGI Quarterly, (January), 1–2. International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), Rural poverty report 2000/2001 fact sheet – The rural poor. Retrieved from http://www.ifad.org/ media/pack/rpr/2.htm Isserman, A. M. (2005). In the national interest: Defining rural and urban correctly in research and public policy. International Regional Science Review, 28, 465–499. Jordan, S. A., & Hargrove, D. S. (1987). Implications of an empirical application of categorical identification of rural. Journal of Rural Community Psychology, 8, 14–29. Kanu, I.  A. (2014). Kenneth Kaunda and the quest for an African humanist philosophy. International Journal of Scientific Research, 3(8), 375–377. Kaunda, K.  D. (1966). A humanist in Africa: Letters to Colin Morris. London: Longman. Kistner, U. (2008). Africanisation in tuition: African national education? Mediations, Journal of the Marxist Literary Group, 24(1), 93–111. Kline, J., & Walker-Gibbs, B. (2015). Graduate teacher preparation for rural schools in Victoria and Queensland. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 40(3), 67–88. Letsekha, T. (2013). Revisiting the debate on the Africanisation of higher education: An appeal for a conceptual shift. The Education Journal, 8, 1–13. Lulat, Y. G.-M. (2005). A history of African higher education from antiquity to the present: A critical synthesis. Westport: Praeger Publishers. Mngomezulu, B. R. (2009). Research for whom and for what? Economic power and university research. Presented at the Research Seminar, University of Kwa-­ Zulu Natal, 1 October. Mngomezulu, B. R. (2012). Politics and higher education in East Africa from the 1920 to 1970. Bloemfontein: Sun Press. Mngomezulu, B. R. (2014). The impact of government policies on the sustainability of social sciences: Lessons from Africa. Presented at the ACSUS 2014 Conference, KKR Hiroshima hotel, Japan, 1–3 December. Mngomezulu, B. R. (2017). Internationalisation and Africanisation in a globalizing world. In M. Cross & A. Ndofirepi (Eds.), Knowledge and change in Africa. Volume 1 – Current debates (pp. 183–194). Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers. Moseley, M. J. (1979). Accessibility: The rural challenge. London: Methuen.

170 

B. R. Mngomezulu

Mtisi, S., & Muranda, Z. (2018). Business development support and the role of rural enterprises. Administratio Publica, 26(1), 107–122. Njoh, J. A. (2006). Tradition, culture and development in Africa: Historical lessons for modern development planning. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Phago, M., & Thwala, L. (2015). Baseline study on students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the HWSETA postgraduate research bursary programme. Retrieved from http://www.hwseta.org.za/wpcontent/uploads/2017/01/Baseline_study_on_students%2%80%99__perceptions_and_attitudes_towards_the_HWSETA_ Postgraduate_Research_Bursary_Programme.pdf Rousseau, N. (1995). What is rurality? Occasional Paper. Royal College of General Practitioner. Available at http://www.researchgate.net/researcher/ 4833162_N_Rouseau. Accessed on 14 Apr 2019. Rowe, F., Corcoran, J., & Faggian, A. (2013). Mobility patterns of overseas human capital in Australia: The role of a ‘new’ graduate visa scheme and rural development policy. Australian Geographer, 44(2), 177–195. Shadish, W.  R., Cook, T.  D., & Campbell, D.  T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Shubin, S. (2006). The changing nature of rurality and rural studies in Russia. Journal of Rural Studies, 22(4), 422–440. Stelmach, B. L. (2017). A synthesis of international rural education issues and responses. Rural Educator, 32(2), 32–42. Stockhill, B. C., & Danico, M. Y. (Eds.). (2012). The ivory tower paradox: Higher education as a site of oppression and resistance. Hawaii: The University of Hawaii Press. Taylor, V. E., & Winquist, C. E. (Eds.). (2001). Encyclopedia of postmodernism. London: Routledge. Wallace, A., & Boylan, C. (2006). Place, schools and communities: New beginnings in rural NSW. In C. Boylan (Ed.), Community, diversity and innovation in rural and remote education and training (pp.  140–158). Osborne Park: SPERA. Woldegiorgis, E. T., & Doevenspeck, M. (2013). The changing role of higher education in Africa: A historical reflection. Higher Education Studies, 3(6), 35–45. www.demographia.com/db-define.pdf

Part III Research and Lecturer Attributes

8 University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice Within a Rural South African Context Phefumula Nyoni

Introduction Efforts aimed at transforming the higher education curricula in South Africa date back to the pre-democracy period, with the post-apartheid era witnessing a combination of accelerated reform and policy interventions. At the centre of the efforts aimed at addressing some of the challenges faced in South Africa’s higher education sector, Kloot (2011) noted that as early as during the pre-democratic era, foundation programmes were implemented in higher education institutions. This constituted an intervention aimed at providing support to African students coming from so-called ‘lower standard’ schools in their debutant years at white, English-medium universities. These students were viewed as lacking the requisite academic qualities to deal with obligations of mainstream university programmes. There was fear that such students were ill-prepared to study programmes within the prescribed study timeframes. Curriculum

P. Nyoni (*) University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_8

173

174 

P. Nyoni

reform has therefore focused on underprepared students in South African higher education institutions. This under preparedness  – especially among the majority black students—has been blamed largely on the past and, in particular, on the consequences of the apartheid regime in South Africa, which are well documented in literature (Ramrathan 2016; Pather et  al. 2017; Gray and Czerniewicz 2018; Schmidt and Mestry 2019; Leibowitz and Bozalek 2014). Soudien (2010, p.  18) has hinted at the crisis in the South African higher education sector in terms of curricula, content, resources, and teaching methodologies, in spite of notable improvements in certain areas. Some factors are inherently internal to the higher education system, whilst others are external in terms of social, cultural and material circumstances. It is within the ambit of the aforementioned issues that the aspect of rurality comes into play as one of the external factors that can impact on South Africa’s higher education transformation. Malhoit (2005, p. 19) indicated that rural places frequently have significant numbers of “at risk” students. Such students include those living in poverty, students who are minorities, those with disabilities, as well as those with limited English proficiency. These students are not achieving to their fullest potential as they also face extensive and persistent gaps in achievement. Johnson (2017) has argued that it costs more to educate a student at risk; in addition to inadequate funding for high needs students, rural areas frequently lack the social services, non-profit, and philanthropic infrastructure which schools in wealthier areas rely on to supplement education services. Whilst commendable efforts that have included introducing and supporting extended curriculum programmes (ECPs) to formerly disadvantaged universities to broaden student access and success, research into student access to higher education has often emphasised the fact that access does not automatically translate into meaningful social and academic accomplishment (Pather et al. 2017, p. 160). It is in this context that this chapter explores some practices associated with nuances of lecturers as agents for social change within foundation programmes. This investigation is crucial since such initiatives are intended to improve academic access and success in their various forms. This is critical, especially drawing from the theoretical insight of Freire whose contention is

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

175

that it is essential to explore rural reality in order to ensure that education is adapted to the realities in those settings (Mahmoudi et al. 2014, p. 88). The question of agency, which is a key feature of critical pedagogy, is also drawn upon in the chapter. The issue of agency being critical in an education system has also been widely reported internationally particularly within the United Kingdom (UK) context where it has been positively associated with efforts to enhance professionalism of a previously deprofessionalised teacher (Priestley et al. 2012). A similar scenario can be related to the injustices of the apartheid policies on South Africa’s education sector, especially with respect to the prescriptive curricula and oppressive regimes associated with the education policies at the time. Bringing back agency was therefore seen as an important step towards transforming the previous system which took away teachers’ agency and replaced it with prescriptive curricula and oppressive regimes of testing and inspection. Agency as an action oriented concept presents itself in a multidimensional manner where instead of defining a lecturer’s or student’s mere capacity to act, it is used to identify the former with three core features, that is, the personal and professional character and values. This becomes crucial in exploring the position of lecturers as agents of change, especially using the theoretical lens of critical pedagogy by Freire. This chapter therefore presents reflections on various features of critical pedagogy and the relations emerging around interactions of actors in an ECP in the context of a formerly disadvantaged university located within a rural setting in South Africa. Relations and associated pedagogical processes shaped through human agency are explored within the context of enhancing social justice and attaining the broader goal of transformation. The chapter further presents reflections on some of the professional and personal features associated with lecturers involved in ECPs, which might inhibit their transformative potential—particularly if the relations are such that the lecturer becomes the authority in the traditional sense with students’ knowledge being marginalised to the extent of them not being granted the space to use their agency effectively.

176 

P. Nyoni

Methodological Positioning of the Argument The findings in this chapter are drawn from data collected within the social sciences setting of ECP practices, gathered mainly from the author’s experience as a programme coordinator and facilitator in a South African university which commonly falls into the bracket of an historically disadvantaged institutions. The data is drawn mainly from experiential interactions with various ECP students, lecturers and other actors who were involved in dealing with the cohort of students in the field of social sciences. The methodology used in this study draws therefore from a number of ethnographic methods, including formal and informal conversations with various stakeholders in this university. Observation was conducted during meetings, seminars, workshops and conferences involving higher education stakeholders, where ECPs featured in the discussions. In most of these engagements, the author occupied the role of the ECP programme coordinator and facilitator, whilst in some instances acting as a detached observer. The experiential field work took place between 2010 and 2015.

Rural Versus Rurality: A Conceptual Dilemma In efforts aimed at understanding the concept ‘rural’, it is important to begin with an acknowledgement of the impossibility of finding a common definition of the term. As much as we are frequently faced with a conceptual dilemma which is usually manifested in the common statements such as ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’; multiple truths and justice being blind, “Like concepts such as ‘truth’, ‘beauty’, or ‘justice’, everyone knows the term rural, but no one can define the term very precisely” (Weisheit 1995, p. 6). Wardorf (2007, p. 5) has argued that rurality is a vague concept that people have usually adopted to distinguish rural from urban. He goes on to argue that while the concept rural is commonly treated as a single idea, in research and every day usage, careful reviews have revealed its multidimensional nature.

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

177

In explaining the concept rurality, Corbett (2015, p. 9) has argued that one can firmly propose that rurality can be viewed as a demographic or material construction and a symbolic or imaginary construct. It is the latter that is explored further in this chapter, especially considering its proximity to the anthropological interpretive paradigm. As Corbett further explained, the symbolic construct has more to do with the way rurality is represented, experienced, and imagined. The symbolic construct of rurality also assists in dispelling narrowly construed commonly held qualifying mechanisms, especially those that have sought to identify rurality with primary industries such as agriculture, mining and fishing. Waldorf (2006, p.  1) has also emphasised the lack of consensus in defining or measuring rurality, which could result in drawing a precise distinction between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’. A continuous multidimensional measure of rurality is proposed which is referred to as the Index of Relative Rurality, which does not respond to the question of whether an area is rural or urban but rather focuses on addressing the degree of rurality. Four dimensions are used in qualifying rurality: population size, population density, extent of urban (built up) area and remoteness. Thompson (2014) has outlined features qualifying a rural context as follows: migration patterns, struggling economies, poverty, low educational attainment and the impact of rural policy.

 npacking Some Key Features That Commonly U Define Rurality Demographic aspects: These simply relate to the number of persons concentrated in an area, including where they are located. Rural in this sense therefore implies areas of sparse populations either in small total number of persons who live in the area or in low density (ratio of people to available space). A related though distinct feature is the geographic isolation of rural areas from other population areas and major urban centres and then fluence of location relative to official urban boundary designations (Thompson 2014, p. 7).

178 

P. Nyoni

Economic or occupational: This includes the question of how people in the area make a living; for example, a common stereotype is that rural people live off the land (closer to nature) and depend directly on the exploitation of natural resources. Communities are less technologically developed with simple non-industrial labour intensive economy (farming, mining, fishing etc.). Manufacturing and service provision have emerged as key sources of employment during the modernisation of the economies, modifying the common definition of rural to suit contemporary settings. Rural in terms of economic classification represents a deficit of diversity in the means through which people make a living combined with a low degree of functional differentiation in the community’s social structure. Social structural: This includes the social structural considerations that represent the distinctive character of social life and social order in rural communities. Such defining attributes include intimacy/familiarity; informality and a higher degree of homogeneity. Immediacy of social connections with kinship ties are commonly used in defining relations and the broader identity. Cultural features: These involve a distinctive set of attitudes, beliefs, values, knowledge systems and behaviours that define people living in the rural areas. Rural culture has thus been seen as traditional, slow to change, provincial and fatalistic. Rural groups are also viewed as intolerant to diversity and less receptive to outsiders. The intolerance to outsiders also constitutes a worldview that to a larger extent contrasts what generally defines urban dwellers whose spaces have attracted the tag of a ‘melting pot’ which has come to also define the diverse group coexisting though with incidences of conflicts. Malhoit, (2005, p. 12) has also added the dimension of access to technology as crucial in qualifying rural education, particularly when it comes to its impacts on student competencies and general access to important information. He has also documented the positive impact on student performance where technology is linked with instruction and a high-­ quality curriculum used. Technology, as an important vehicle for one’s personal and professional development, is equally said to be a defining factor for rural education institutions where the physical location of these institutions vis-à-vis communication infrastructure is characterised by

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

179

long distances that make it difficult and potentially expensive to provide the necessary connectivity to both students and lecturers, thereby creating a stumbling block for their development, as indicated by Kilfoil (2015). The dilemma of explaining rurality is also something that one finds when dealing with the South African setting. However, use of a combination between the current demarcations and the features shows that despite the conceptual dilemma of rurality, a combination of features such as demographics, economic/occupational, social structural and cultural bring important insight. For instance, demographic-wise Gauteng, an urban province, comprises the largest share of the South African population, with approximately 15.2 million people (25.8%) living in this province. Although KwaZulu-Natal has the second largest population, with an estimated 11.3 million people (19.2%) living in this province, it poses a conceptual dilemma as it is a combination of both urban and rural settlements (Stats South Africa Report 2019, p. v). Lehohla (2015, p. 21) has however released statistics showing that between 1994 and 2011, South Africa’s rural provinces of Limpopo and the Eastern Cape have consistently featured highest dependency ratios compared to other provinces. This becomes central in confirming the applicability of the features presented by Thompson (2014) in the South African context. Presenting the multiple dimensions of rurality is by no means an effort to find a precise definition of rural, but rather to present an insight not only into the conceptual dilemma involved but to also highlight existing useful efforts that have previously been explored when dealing with rurality at both theoretical and practical levels. Some scholars have argued that use of social theory in analysing assumptions about rurality and education in rural contexts, and its principle, affirms the idea that instead of being subject to their environment, people have different ways in which they exploit time, space and resources to enhance transformation (Balfour 2012, p. 2). It is from this multidimensional angle that the concept of rurality will be explored. In addition, this fits well with the proposition by Freire especially with respect to the theory of critical pedagogy, which explores how social justice and transformation can only be possible through experiential processes that ought to draw from close cooperation between actors, that is, the lecturer and the students in this instance.

180 

P. Nyoni

 CPs as a Foundation for Transformation E and Social Justice in Rural Settings Extended curriculum programmes (ECPs) are founded upon existing mainstream undergraduate programmes with the main distinguishing issue being on the former’s structure and variations across disciplines (Report of the Ministerial Committee for the Review of the Funding of Universities 2013, p. 310). As cited by Kloot (2011, p. 7), in its continuous efforts towards curriculum reform, the DoE’s 2013 review, Re-definition of Extended Curriculum Programmes, emphasises a pronounced national shift towards adopting foundation programmes in efforts to address the challenge of access and success. This is particularly encouraged for institutions that service rural settings, with a significant proportion of students coming from historically disadvantaged backgrounds and hence being underprepared. Despite some notable progress about transformation efforts targeting South Africa’s higher education, its verifiability remains a challenge as argued by Pather et  al. (2017). Soudien (2010, p.  19) has levelled the education sector challenges upon universities themselves. He has highlighted the challenges as being three dimensional, that is, the common inability of the system to properly engage with students, right from their point of admission; the composition of both academic and administration staff in the higher education sector; and the question of the curriculum, that is, what is taught.

Soudien (2010) further argued that a combination of these three issues represents the challenge of building a transformative climate for black students in the South African higher education system. Whilst Pather et al. (2017) have argued that access does not usually guarantee meaningful social and academic engagement, a view shared by the author, this chapter presents ECPs as crucial towards attaining transformation and social justice, especially within rural settings. This is largely because the ECPs do not just address access, but they also extend different types of support that enhance students’ social and academic competencies. It is

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

181

from this vantage point that the chapter focuses on the nature of relations created, especially when critical pedagogy is applied in defining the teaching and learning environment. The compulsion to assist underprepared students in triumphing over past inequalities brought upon them by a poor schooling system is fundamental in pursuing transformational goals, not only for the benefit of students, but also for society as a whole. Foundation programmes remain a key component of curriculum transformation in South Africa, particularly in enhancing access and success of students from ill-equipped schools such as those in rural settings and townships. The growth of foundation provision, evidenced by widening access and improvement in graduation rates, points to the importance of foundation programmes (Dhunpath and Vithal 2014; Arendse 2015; Pather et al. 2017). They are central to the transformational agenda of promoting equity and efficiency in the higher education sector in South Africa. The Report of the Ministerial Committee for the Review of the Funding of Universities, (2013, p. 317) noted that the foundation provision year becomes transformative in that it aims at formalising an extended curriculum in order to accommodate the large proportion of students who might otherwise fail to meet the demands of university learning and drop out of the system. A high dropout rate exposes the institution to income loss that it could have potentially obtained within the teaching grant received after a student has graduated. It is therefore crucial to note that it is not just the students and the societies where they come from who benefit from the successes of foundation programmes but the institution’s general academic and financial performance as well.

 ritical pedagogy and the University Lecturer C as an Agent of change and Social Justice This chapter draws its theoretical prowess from Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and activist whose theory of critical pedagogy constitutes an important approach to teaching and learning where focus is mainly on transforming the teaching and learning space (Aliakbari and Faraji 2011).

182 

P. Nyoni

In essence, relations of power which are oppressive and which lead to the oppression of the learners are targeted for transformation with the broader aim of humanising and empowering learners. With its foundations on the Sociology critical theory founded on the Frankfurt school and particularly associated with critical theorists such as Habermas, Adorno and Marcuse, its main concern is to entrench social justice within society in people’s diverse spheres of life. In terms of the critical pedagogy of Freire, transformation is aimed at the oppressed with the goal of saving them from being objects of education to becoming subjects of their own autonomy and emancipation as articulated by Aliakbari and Faraji (2011, p. 77). As further explained by Aliakbari and Faraji, critical pedagogy builds problem-posing education whilst at the same time interrogating challenges faced by learners with the aim of improving their lives whilst also amassing agency to enable them to partake in initiatives for building a more just and equitable society. Following the arguments by Mahmoudi, Khoshnood and Babaei (2014, p.  86), it is crucial to also note that Freire’s critical pedagogy becomes crucial for the South African context, especially where usage of ECPs are concerned, as it is focused on an education that aims at emancipating and educating everyone regardless of their race, class and gender, with the structure of an oppressive society being the target for transformation. The theory becomes key in the arguments of this chapter once more in that it seeks to challenge the traditional view of academics being the unquestionable authorities within the teaching and learning space. The view of the teacher being the pillar and bearer of knowledge that is meant to be deposited onto an ‘empty vessel’ or tabula rasa learner without question—as shall be argued later in the chapter—is dismissed through the critical pedagogy theory. In terms of the insights brought by the critical pedagogy theory on the subject of the curriculum in education, there is emphasis that there is no single methodology that can be used across learner populations. In the absence of a set curriculum, decisions ought to be taken with the student interests being central to choosing the curriculum and materials to be used in the teaching process. In essence, student experiences and realities become crucial for the success of the teaching and learning process. Through such a transformative oriented process, students tend to acquire

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

183

the requisite competencies for critical thinking which subsequently enable them not only to successfully deal with challenges they encounter in society but to also act as de jure transformers. Through the process of critical pedagogy, a lecturer is expected to play a facilitator role through bringing into the learning environment problems and subsequently empowering students with requisite critical skills to deconstruct these and come up with solutions. It is in this way that Aliakbari and Faraji (2011, p.  80) argued that the teacher ought to entrench a dialogical approach to learning which draws from appreciating the student’s viewpoints and learning from them. In this way, learners can draw from and develop their knowledge to be emancipated into subjects in charge of their learning and problem-solving competencies. As a coordinator and lecturer of the ECP programme at the institution of focus in this study, my experiences with both the students and lecturers teaching in the programme confirmed the importance of the lecturer taking a decisive step to open up the learning environment to ensure that the learners clearly understand that they have adequate support to take charge of their learning. Through observation and conversations with both students and lecturers, it was clear that students were more comfortable with lecturers who opened up the learning space and entrenched the spirit of dialoguing. Critical pedagogy is therefore set to produce results in a teaching and learning setting where the relationship between lecturers and students is fluid, that is, the ideas flow in both directions and not in a unidirectional manner.

 he Role of Lecturer Professional and Personal T Baggage in Entrenching a Just Environment Observations on how lecturers in the ECP relate to students in and outside the lecture room revealed that lecturers, despite being trained professionals, are by no means a homogenous group, especially when it comes to one’s role as a leader expected to create a just teaching and learning environment. In this regard, Arendse (2015, p. 178) has highlighted the important transformative edge implicit in how lecturers work with students, and the kind of support and attitude they proffer, especially in

184 

P. Nyoni

extended programmes. Enhanced lecturer-student engagement becomes a crucial form of agency that can enhance academic accomplishment by students in the foundation phase of their extended programme. These students are often catapulted from an initial condition of being underprepared to one of exceptional competency (Arendse 2015; Pather et al. 2017). Evidence suggests that the skills acquired at foundational levels— such as report writing and critical thinking—usually become a rich source of agency to propel these students forward, not only during the undergraduate phase of their academic careers, but also during postgraduate phases and beyond. From the observations and conversations with students in the ECP, it became clear that besides the professional competency, the day-to-day behaviour of a lecturer tended to be influenced by principles that define the individual as a human being. Although some of these traits are subject to perceptions, traits exhibited by a lecturer that include being friendly, generous, free, open, approachable, which played out outside the teaching and learning space tended to have a considerable influence on the actions of the particular lecturer towards their work. It can therefore be argued that critical pedagogy ought to be taken as a means to an end as opposed to it being an end in itself as it is likely that individuals who purport to practice its principles of entrenching a dialogical student-­ centred approach to teaching and learning may fall short of achieving the desired goal as long as the students feel the person lacks the expected persona. Taking a cue from Priestley et al. (2012, p. 3), and exploring the lecturer as an agent of change, it becomes critical to highlight the primacy of reflexivity and creativity among student actors who have to act to negotiate through academic constraints. This scenario further lays bare some of the usually taken for granted constraints that tend to have a bearing not only on student performance, as it also influences the broader objective of attaining a socially just teaching and learning environment.

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

185

Is a Senior Professional or a Lecturer Capable of Implementing Critical Pedagogy? There is no doubt that ECPs do well with senior lecturers being entrusted with handling students, especially at first year level where it is believed that a stronger foundation is crucial for the latter performance of the student. Seniority is usually associated with extensive academic experience and is frequently seen as an important prerequisite for academic excellence; thus, it is recommended that senior lecturers handle the foundation phase of ECPs. For the individual senior lecturer to be embraced as being transformative, they equally should be able to relate their knowledge to the students. Critical pedagogy, just like agency, is therefore not something that people can possess. It can largely be discerned in people’s actions, as emphasised by Priestley et al. (2012, p. 3) in their arguments on agency. In this instance, of importance is the quality of engagement of actors within the ephemeral-relational academic context as opposed to the quality of the actors themselves. A lecturer can therefore be senior and, whilst not undermining this important academic position, they may struggle to produce critical pedagogy-driven results, as it is not something that one can have but must rather manifest during interactions. Critical pedagogy is therefore experiential in nature, as it ought to be explored within interactive settings. It is therefore not surprising that some senior lecturers received very low approvals from students compared to their junior counterparts.

‘Being a black student’: An Unjust Criterion for Placement? Despite the aforementioned transformative potential of the ECPs, one of the critical issues has been the criterion that has been used to qualify ‘under preparedness’. The view that students have traditionally been categorised as underprepared simply for being black has been viewed as unjust and a form of unfair discrimination. Criticism has sounded louder in circumstances involving black students who possess good high school

186 

P. Nyoni

grades. It therefore follows that as with preparedness, ill-preparedness is not a given, but depends rather on many factors in the student’s secondary and tertiary learning environments, including the agency of the various actors involved. This criticism is supported by views of Soudien (2010, p. 19), Gray and Czerniewicz (2018), and Schmidt and Mestry (2019), who noted that in some instances, placement in an ECP is based on a racially-based myth that black students would fail their first-year university studies, despite their matric scores. This myth further unfairly places blame on the student and fails to acknowledge that besides academic performance being subject to the conduciveness of the environment created by institutions and the lecturers directly involved in teaching, failure to entrench agency through critical pedagogies could in itself constrain academic performance even where students have high scores. This implies that even in institutions where students perform well, the results have come as a result of direct interventions aimed at enhancing a culture of academic excellence. The high scores reflected at student admission are therefore not an end in themselves but a mere foundation that still need nurturing through investing financial, human and infrastructural resources. In addition to the resources, an emancipatory and student-centred academic culture which draws from critical pedagogy has inevitably shown to be central towards guaranteeing a conducive and just teaching environment that can translate to broader academic productivity. It also needs to be noted that another highly contested aspect of the ECPs has been the issue of placement. Niessen, Meijer and Tendeiro (2018, p.  1) have also highlighted that curriculum sampling tests are increasingly being used in admission procedures for higher education across Europe. The usage of the tests has thus been reported in countries such as Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands where they have been used in academic disciplines such as psychology, medicine, teacher education, computer science as well as economics and business studies. The tests are said to be for mimicking expected behaviour during the later stages of the student’s academic study. In the United States of America, standardising tests, especially during a student’s academic development, have formed part of the regularisation of educational standards with the broader aim of addressing poor educational outcomes following widespread concerns

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

187

about educational outcomes as argued by Benjamin and Pashler (2015). Whilst the same can be said surrounding the recommendation of using the standardised assessments in admitting students into ECPs in the South African context, this has come with more questions and concerns in terms of relying on such instruments, especially considering the failure to uphold the contextual differences defining the pool of students expected to sit for the tests. Despite curriculum sampling tests being commonly used as an important alternative to the regular university entry requirements, especially as an acknowledgement of the diverse routes and environments that learners go through in contexts outside Europe particularly in rural South Africa, few studies have been conducted to investigate the validity of these tests (Niessen et al. 2018, p. 2). Whilst in the South African context, student placement ECP programmes have progressively gone beyond the prescribed National Senior Certificate (NSC) requirements, questions have been asked around reliability of standardised assessment tests for academic placement (SATAPs) (Sibiya and Mahlanze 2018, p. 2). Scepticism about relying on SATAPs in South Africa, as has been the case in international settings where they have been used, has come from claims that some universities use arbitrary mechanisms in deciding whether students ought to join the mainstream programme or the ECP.  Kilfoil (2015, p.  24) acknowledges the complexity in effectively predicting students’ academic success. It can therefore be argued that whilst SATAPs have come with good intentions of rationalising entry into the ECPs, they can equally become a source of perpetuating the very injustices that the ECPs are aimed at addressing. This implies that it is always crucial to exercise caution before adopting so-called rationalising measures when dealing with the complex subject of transformation lest the same historical injustices creep into the well-intended programmes.

Conclusion It can therefore be argued that ECPs can be sources of transformation and justice within rural academic spaces, especially when processes are informed by critical pedagogy. Despite scepticism on the measurability of

188 

P. Nyoni

success in transforming higher education, there is room to point to some success that ECPs have brought, especially in rural contexts. This is mainly due to the positive impact the programme has had in broadening access, whilst also dealing with success issues of students who would otherwise have suffered exclusion from progressing with their education. Some of the features associated with the ECPs that include qualifying ‘under preparedness’ and assessments such as SATPs can equally constrain efforts aimed at enhancing the transformative nature of the programme. Despite the complexities in conceptualising rurality, there is wide consensus regarding some of the challenges that rural populations face compared to those in urban spaces. The chapter has also shown the richness of drawing on critical pedagogy in transforming academic spaces, especially in rural settings where historical disadvantages have long affected student personal and academic development. The possibility of transformative programmes such as ECPs particularly in rural areas can largely be achieved through processes that target emancipatory processes that can be possible through direct actions by lecturers levelling power relations within the teaching and learning field. This is however not given as it also depends on how the individual lecturer negotiates their professional and personal traits that usually has a bearing on their capacity to successfully entrench a transformative culture of justice founded on critical pedagogy.

References Aliakbari, M., & Faraji, H. (2011). Basic principles of critical pedagogy, 2011 2nd International Conference on Humanities, Historical and Social Sciences. IPEDR vol. 17. Singapore: IACSIT Press. Arendse, R.G. (2015). University of the Western Cape EMS foundation programme: Analysing its success. Garraway, J. (2009). Success stories in foundation/extended programmes. Higher Education Learning & Teaching Association of Southern Africa, Cape Town. Balfour, R.J. (2012). Rurality research and rural education: Exploratory and explanatory power. In Naydene de Lange, Robert J.  Balfour, & ‘Mathabo Khau (Ed.), Special issue: Rural education and rural realities: The politics and

8  University Lecturers as Agents of Change and Social Justice… 

189

possibilities of rural research in Southern Africa in Issue of Perspectives in Education, 30(10), 9–19. Benjamin, A. S. & Pashler, H. (2015). The value of standardized testing: A perspective from cognitive psychology. Policy insights from the behavioural and Brain Sciences, 2(1), 13–23. Corbett, M. (2015). Rural education: Some sociological provocations for the field. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 25(3), 9–25. Dhunpath, R., & Vithal, R. (2014). Alternative access to higher education. Underprepared students or underprepared institutions? Cape Town: Pearson Education South Africa. Gray, E., & Czerniewicz, L. (2018). 5 access to learning resources in post-apartheid South Africa. Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education, 107. Johnson, U. (2017). Success or failure? Student experiences of the Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) in the College of Humanities. PhD Thesis. Durban: University of Kwa Zulu-Natal. Kilfoil, W.  R. (Ed.). (2015). Moving beyond the hype: A contextualised view of learning with technology in higher education. Pretoria: Universities South Africa. Kloot, B. C. (2011). A Bourdieuian analysis of foundation programmes within the field of engineering education: Two South African case studies. PhD thesis. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Lehohla, P. (2015). Census (2011). Population dynamics in South Africa. Statistics South Africa, 1–112. Leibowitz, B., & Bozalek, V. (2014). Access to higher education in South Africa. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 16(1), 91–109. Mahmoudi, A., Khoshnood, A., & Babaei, A. (2014). Paulo Freire critical pedagogy and its implications in curriculum planning. Journal of Education and Practice, 5(14), 86–92. Malhoit, G. C. (2005). Providing rural students with a high quality education: The rural perspective on the concept of educational adequacy. Rural School and Community Trust. Niessen, A. S. M., Meijer, R. R., & Tendeiro, J. N. (2018). Admission testing for higher education: A multi-cohort study on the validity of high-fidelity curriculum-sampling tests. PLoS One, 13(6), e0198746. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal. Pather, S., Norodien-Fataar, N., Cupido, X., & Mkonto, N. (2017). First year students’ experience of access and engagement at a University of Technology. Journal of Education, 69, 161–184.

190 

P. Nyoni

Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2012). Teachers as agents of change: An exploration of the concept of teacher agency. Teacher agency and curriculum change, working paper 1 (1). Working papers (ESRC reference: RES-000-22-4208). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277798152. Ramrathan, L. (2016). Beyond counting the numbers: Shifting higher education transformation into curriculum spaces. Transformation in Higher Education, 1(1), 1–8. Report of the Ministerial Committee for the Review of the Funding of Universities. (2013). Pretoria. RSA: Department of Higher Education and Training. Schmidt, M. J., & Mestry, R. (2019). Through the looking glass: An intersectional Lens of south African education policy. In The Palgrave handbook of intersectionality in public policy (pp. 347–365). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Sibiya, M. N., & Mahlanze, H. T. (2018). Experiences of facilitators regarding the extended curriculum programme offered at a higher education institution in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Curationis, 41(1), 1–6. Soudien, C. (2010). Transformation in higher education: A briefing paper. Development Bank of Southern Africa. Stats South Africa Report. (2019). Mid-year population estimates, 2019. Statistical Release, P0302, Thompson, A.F. (2014). The role of higher education in rural community development. Theses and Dissertations, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Thurlow, M.  L., Lazarus, S.  S., Larson, E.  D., Albus, D.  A., Liu, K.  K., & Kwong, E. (2017). Alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities: Participation guidelines and definitions (NCEO Report 406). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes. Waldorf, B.  S. (2006). A continuous multi-dimensional measure of rurality: Moving beyond threshold measures. No. 379-2016-21891. Wardorf, B. (2007). What is rural and what is urban in Indiana. Purdue Centre for Regional Development report, 4. https://scholar.google.com/scholar. Weisheit, R. A. (1995). Crime and policing in rural and small-town America: An overview of the issues. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.

9 African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons for Universities in Africa Ephraim Taurai Gwaravanda

Introduction Around the world today indigenous ethnic groups are asserting the validity of their own ways of knowing and being, in resistance to the intensifying hegemony of mainstream epistemology from the metropolitan powers (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001). Literature on rurality and education tends to focus on geography (Roberts and Green 2013), space (Green and Reid 2014), history (Cuervo 2016), education (Masinire et al. 2014; Leibowitz 2009) material resources (Simandan 2011; Modi 2016) and identity issues (Gordon 2015). Universities in Africa carry out research in rural areas and knowledge has been produced in the areas of agriculture, anthropology, medical epistemology and related disciplines. Paradoxically, little has been researched regarding the epistemological thought systems and epistemological experiences that result in the management and control of rural environments. While universities in Africa1 may collect data in the rural areas, set up research centres and allow students to be attached

E. T. Gwaravanda (*) Great Zimbabwe University, Masvingo, Zimbabwe © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_9

191

192 

E. T. Gwaravanda

to the rural communities, the same universities use foreign epistemic lenses to understand rurality. Against the view that knowledge in rural settings fails to meet the criteria of knowledge (Horsthemke 2004), I argue that universities in Africa can borrow the understanding of knowledge that is used in rural areas in terms of knowledge as relational, knowledge as validated by the community and the use of the African epistemological paradigm to develop categories and concepts of knowledge. The aim is to allow consistency between knowledge production in universities and relevance to the communities that the universities serve (Ndofirepi and Gwaravanda 2018). Rurality tends to link truth claims in epistemology with ethical commitments and universities in Africa can pick important lessons for knowledge production. The contribution of this chapter is to defend the view that rurality must not only be seen in negative aspects of disadvantages, backwardness and marginality, but positively in terms of epistemic resources that universities in Africa can borrow. Makumba (2007, p. 128) argues that it is important for any society who wants to proceed meaningfully in knowledge production to, first, take stock of its own identity by discovering its epistemic resources which are the lifeblood for any human community. The epistemic resources are normally expressed in beliefs and thinking about the human person, community, authority and the world. It is only when these epistemic resources are identified that supplementary (foreign) epistemic patterns can be incorporated into the creation of a solid knowledge structure. The opposite is reckless; universities in Africa cannot make foreign epistemological paradigms the basis knowledge production, only to marginalise or dismiss worthy rural-grown knowledge systems as non-epistemic. The chapter is divided into four sections. In the first section, I explore various conceptualisations of rurality and link them with knowledge production by universities in Africa. In the second section, I argue that African epistemology has the potential to dislodge analytic individual epistemology that is dominant in universities in Africa. The third section explores the potential contribution of relational epistemology in knowledge production. In the fourth section, I critically analyse the link between epistemology and ethics as shown in African modes of knowing that have been marginalised as rural.

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

193

Conceptualising Rurality Conceptualisations of rurality tend to follow two main trends. The first trend, which is dominant in literature, focuses on the negative aspects of rurality in terms of marginality, resource limitations and underdevelopment. The second view of rurality tries to draw positive aspects from rurality in terms of indigenous epistemology, ontology and moral persuasions. It is the latter view that I attempt to defend in this chapter. An interesting observation by Cuervo (2016) is that communities might respond to hardship by romanticising their own conditions and pulling together in a laager as a form of defence. Traditional values such as hard work, responsibility and solidarity “serve to create a strong social solidarity in both communities. Through the idealization of the rural values some members of these communities, perhaps inadvertently, construct a ‘normalisation’ of what it means to belong to each place”. This run “the risk of further increasing the atomization and divisions within the communities” (Cuervo 2016). In Zimbabwe, for example, the categories of rural and urban may lead to a false assumption that one should either be rural or urban. This assumption is based on a false dichotomy for two reasons. First, it is both logically and empirically possible for one to experience both a rural environment and an urban life, thereby resulting in knowledge of both sides. Secondly, the existence of semi-urban locations such as growth points (Nyika, Mpandawana, Nemamwa etc.) provide both urban and rural experience, thereby proving the falsity of the rural–urban dichotomy. One should be wary of assuming that there are conditions of sameness for all rural areas. Such an assumption is both false and illogical. In reality, there are varying degrees of development in rural areas and it may be important to distinguish between what Gyekye (1997) calls spiritual and moral development on one side with economic and technological development on the other side. So, if there is underdevelopment in rural areas, it must be qualified to avoid vagueness. In support of this view, Leibowitz (2017) notes that there are varying degrees of poverty within rural areas, and cases of relative wealth amidst the poverty.

194 

E. T. Gwaravanda

Advantages of rurality are that parents have more control over what their children are exposed to and that smaller class sizes allow for more intimacy. A related claim is that people living in rural areas are resilient and determined, despite the constraints, to pursue a ‘better life’ (Randall et al. 2015). Rurality has been associated with discourses of traditionalism, disadvantage and even backwardness (Roberts and Green 2013). Gyekye (1997) cites anachronism, supernaturalism and authoritarianism as philosophical ills of rurality. ‘Spatial blindness’ is a large source of concern, as it assumes students from metropolitan and rural areas have the same needs. A further serious concern, according to Roberts and Green (2013), is that educationists assume that rural students need to become less rural, or ‘other’ than what they are. Forcing rural folks to become less rural is based on the assumption that there is a better alternative to rurality and this usually points to modernity. However, it is question begging to judge rurality based on urbanism or vice versa. I argue that rurality should be understood without making reference to urbanity so that the epistemological systems that are the object of this study may be employed as alternative knowledge systems. Despite these shortcomings, it does not logically follow that the thinking or epistemic resources are also backward or underdeveloped. The fallacy of rurality lies in drawing a conclusion about epistemic claims from premises about lack of material resources. Technically this fallacy is called a non sequitur which is a statement that does not follow logically from the premises that precede it (Warburton 1996, p. 88). Even though material resources and facilities are required to actualise epistemic potentials, provision of such resources does not guarantee epistemic growth. Harding (1993, p.  356) argues that “all thought begins from somewhere” and it is important to decide from which somewhere one should view the world. Bell (2007) gives a distinction between two forms of rurality. First, rural refers to the epistemology of rural as space, as lower population density, as (at times) primary production, as nature, as the non-urban (Bell 2007). By second rural, then, I mean the rural we often have trouble knowing, and that we typically regard as a secondness, even when we do know it: the epistemology of rural as place, as unconfined to lower population density space, as (at times) consumption, as socionature, as meanings which we may never unambiguously see—the ideal

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

195

moment (in the philosophical, not the evaluative, sense) of the rural. I have in mind here a distinction closely related to what Halfacree (1993, 2004) has called ‘rural locality’ versus ‘representations of the rural’, the former a ‘material’ and the latter an ‘ideational’ mode of the rural which, as Halfacree notes ‘intersect in practice’. But I approach the question of ‘What is the rural?’ with a less ontological purpose, focusing moreon the epistemological question of differences in how we come to know what is the rural, and the politics that these differences embody and cultivate. I will call this rural first rural for it is first in our minds both as what we recognise the rural to be and, as I will explain, the ways of thought that are typically intellectually prior in modernism, from which the notion of first rural most directly descends. Bell (2007) argues for an inclusive conception of rural which embraces first rural and second rural equally, stimulates a correspondingly more inclusive and practical politics of the rural, and keeps our understanding of the rural forever moving on. Indigenous epistemology is important because rural development should and inevitably will experience a transformation every time it enters a new cultural milieu. The epistemology becomes a framework for evaluating categories and concepts from other epistemological paradigms to settle for a reasoned position. The view that there is some thinking that needs to be fixed in rural areas has to be challenged since it is based on the assumption that rurality must break free from tradition and institutional structures that block critical thinking. Rural people may borrow outside ideas, but it is important that they should always express themselves in their own languages and cultures, especially in the context of knowledge production.

Critique of Analytic Epistemology Epistemology refers both to the theory of knowledge and theorising knowledge, including the nature, sources, frameworks, and limits of knowledge (Goldman 1986, 1999; Fuller 1988; Landesman 1997; Audi 1998). Epistemology is concerned with who can be a knower, what can be known, what constitutes knowledge, sources of evidence for constructing knowledge, what constitutes truth, how truth is to be verified, how

196 

E. T. Gwaravanda

evidence becomes truth, how valid inferences are to be drawn, the role of belief in evidence, and related issues. Western analytic epistemology (hereafter called analytic epistemology) is characterised by emphasis on argumentative clarity and precision, conceptual analysis and formal logic in examining the nature of knowledge (BonJour 2002; Casullo 2003). Argumentative clarity sets out the justifications of knowledge claims. Conceptual analysis determines the criteria of what counts as knowledge and it spells out necessary and sufficient conditions for that exercise. In analytic epistemology, knowledge is defined as justified true belief and it is understood as an individual enterprise (Gettier 1963; Williamson 2000; Kornblith 2001). Analytic epistemology has historically and systematically marginalised, silenced, stereotyped, dislocated and decentred rural systems of knowledge, especially in the African space. The critique of analytic epistemology is necessary because it questions, refutes and challenges unwarranted assumptions, premises and conclusions that have been used to unfairly subjugate rurality and its systems of knowledge. I argue that there is a need to transcend analytic epistemology, broaden and democratise knowledge claims as shown by standpoint epistemology that asserts that “knowledge claims are always socially situated” (Harding 1993, p.  54) rather than universalistic. The critique focuses on three aspects of analytic epistemology (1) the use of physics as a model of knowledge (2) epistemological dualism; and (3) hegemonic tendencies. The first line of critique focuses on the use of natural sciences in general, and physics in particular, to provide a model for epistemology. In a critique to analytic epistemology, Code (1995) identifies five problems associated with the use of physics as a model in analytic epistemology. The first problem lies in the opposition between truth and falsity. Epistemology, it is argued, takes its examples and paradigmatic statements almost exclusively from the natural sciences, especially from physics (Code 1995, p.  189); the examples are stated in idealised—simple perceptual propositions—or elementary propositions (Code 1995, p. 189). It can be argued that reality is irreducible to physics. As a result, the model of physics, though useful in the natural sciences, remains inappropriate for philosophical studies. Furthermore, the model sidelines indigenous knowledge and rurality as unscientific. The richness of

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

197

rurality as an alternative source of knowledge is ignored. This involves excessive reliance on sense perception, thereby excluding other forms of knowledge. There is an overly simple opposition between true and false statements postulated (Code 1995, p. 189). The second problem involves the presupposition of an abstract and isolated subject of knowledge (Code 1995, p.  204). This tendency excludes knowledge forms that are generated by communities and this gives problems in the communal dimension of knowledge. In its abstract universalism this form of epistemology fails to be context sensitive (Code 1995). The context of knowledge production is culture and as a result plurality of knowledge forms should be as multiple as cultures themselves. Rurality is the custody of culture and cultural epistemology and the context of rurality in the production of knowledge cannot be ignored by universities in Africa. Thirdly, positivist epistemology constrains the concept of knowledge (Code 1995). If sources of knowledge are multiple, the concept of knowledge should be broad and enriched. The broad aspect of epistemology is inclusive enough to capture culture, history and the role of emotions in knowledge construction. Lastly, positivistic epistemology relies excessively on the principle of excluded middle that posits knowledge as either scientific knowledge or not knowledge at all. Code explicitly opposes the old positivist credo according to which knowledge is either scientific knowledge or it is not knowledge at all (Code 1995, p. 195). Against this line of reasoning, she advocates an epistemology of everyday life (Code 1995, p. xi). Epistemology of everyday life becomes a lived epistemology that is consistent with knowledge construction among rural communities. The epistemology of everyday life is based on cultural experiences and reflections. Code (1995, p. 206) denies the possibility of generalisation for an epistemology based on scientific examples because there are no reasons to assume and expect homogeneity across the physical and social world. The model of physics is seen as inappropriate in the study of how people and communities obtain knowledge. Even though Code is writing from a feminist standpoint, her contribution is important for this research because it exposes the false assumptions of positivist epistemology. The second line of criticism focuses on epistemological dualism. The ontological distinction between mind and body (Almog 2001; Dainton

198 

E. T. Gwaravanda

2008; Fumerton 2013; Robinson 2016) has epistemic consequences of the division between objectivity and subjectivity. Objectivity entails that the subject that speaks is always hidden, concealed, erased from analysis (Pannikar 1997; Grosfoguel 2011). Subjectivity involves the inclusion of individual experiences and emotions into the construction of knowledge. I argue that the objectivity/ subjectivity dualism should be dissolved, and subjectivity should be considered in the construction of knowledge. Knowledge should be understood in relation to knowers rather than objects. Alcoff (2007) argues against the spectator view and takes subjectivity into account contending that epistemological agents are communities rather than individuals. In other words, knowledge is constructed by communities—epistemological communities—rather than a collection of independently knowing individuals. Another perspective aimed at achieving the highest group competence emphasises the value of a diverse set of voices or points of view (Hong and Page 2004; Sunstein 2006; Landemore 2011). Diversity expands the problem-solving approaches employed by the community and gathers a wider range of relevant evidence. Hong and Page (2004) produce evidence alleged to show that group success at problem-solving is less a function of its members’ abilities than their diversity of methods. The third line of critique focuses on epistemic hegemony that comes through analytic epistemology. Dehegemonisation refers to attempting to undo the already established hegemony. Hegemony, in the context of rurality studies, is the legitimation of the cultural authority of colonialism, Western European exploitation and domination, including epistemological domination. The domination which occupies intellectual space and mindsets is more dangerous compared to economic or political domination. Grosfoguel (2011, p.  13) makes an important distinction between colonisation and coloniality. For Grosfoguel, colonisation allows us to think of the continuity of other forms of domination after colonial administration. Coloniality addresses present forms of situations in racist culture and the ideological strategies used by Western Europe. It involves rethinking the modern colonial world from the colonial difference point of view. Thinking from a colonial difference point of view allows us to modify important assumptions of our paradigms. Grosfoguel’s line of

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

199

thought gives room to rebut the false assumptions of Eurocentric thinking and validate and legitimise rurality and its systems of knowledge. Alcoff (2007, p. 80) notes that the epistemic effects of colonisation are the most damaging, far-reaching and least understood. The damaging effect is seen in the destruction of mindsets, denial of one’s own culture, uncertainties and contradictions that characterise colonised minds. The epistemic effects of colonialism are said to be far-reaching because they displace one’s epistemological paradigm to the extent of disregarding one’s indigenous forms of knowledge to think like the Eurocentric philosophers. The epistemic effects of colonialism are least understood because of the brainwashing victimisation created by Eurocentric epistemology among Africans. The impact of colonialism results in negative thinking about rurality, especially in the context of knowledge claims. Thinking about rurality not only requires conceptual analysis but conceptual revision as well. This requires the identification of colonialism as the source of negativity in rural areas and this calls for a decolonisation process. Decolonisation entails “divesting African philosophical thinking of all undue influences emanating from our colonial past” (Wiredu 1998, p. 17). Wiredu uses the phrase “undue influence” since he argues that it is irrational to reject everything brought by the colonial past. Wiredu sees colonialism as imposing both political and cultural elements upon indigenous people. The cultural imposition is deep and far-reaching since it displaces epistemic systems that are embedded in the cultures concerned. Philosophical studies of rurality involve a critical examination of the conceptual framework upon which the thought of a culture is erected. Grosfoguel (2011, p. 13) argues that one of the most powerful myths of the twentieth century was the notion that the elimination of colonial administrators amounted to the decolonisation of the world, resulting in the myth of the postcolonial world. The myth of postcoloniality results in a focus on physical spaces that were colonised, but it leaves out intellectual or mental spaces that were colonised on a much more dangerous scale.

200 

E. T. Gwaravanda

Relational Epistemology The conceptual roots of relational epistemology can be traced back to Thayer-Bacon (2003) who argues that what is primary are relations and not individuals. The primacy of relations further assumes the existence of multiple individuals. A relational epistemology is one that insists that subjects who possess knowledge provide tentative claims to truth, the standards of judging and evaluating knowledge are socially constructed and knowledge claims that are democratic in nature are always open to both criticism and reconstruction. The openness to criticism gives a flexible view of knowledge. Relational epistemology is inclusive and open to others because of its assumption of fallible knowers. And this epistemology must be capable of being corrected because of its assumption that our criteria and standards are of this world, ones we, as fallible knowers, socially construct. ‘Relations’ form the heart of this (e)pistemological theory and are a unique contribution I have to offer in terms of drawing our attention to relational forms of knowing as opposed to individual descriptions, which have dominated Euro-western epistemological theories for so long. I certainly do not want to claim to have discovered relational approaches to knowledge. In fact, to make such a claim contradicts my own theory. I argue that we become knowers and are able to contribute to the constructing of knowledge due to the relationships we have with others. None of us are able to make contributions without the help of others, and none of us discover new ideas all on our own. I describe a theory of knowing that aims to show how interconnected we all are, not just to each other personally, but also to our social environments, our cultures, past, present, and future, as well as our surrounding natural environment, and the forces of the universe as a whole. I also describe how much our individual, unique ideas are caught up within webs of related ideas. My relational epistemology calls for active engagement, aims at democratic inclusion, joins theory with praxis, and strives for awareness of context and values, while tolerating vagueness and ambiguities. I argue that knowing is something people develop as they have experiences with each other and the world around them. People improve upon the ideas that have been socially constructed and passed down to

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

201

them by others. They do this improvement by further developing their understandings and enlarging their perspectives. With enlarged perspectives, people are able to create new meanings for their experiences. African relational epistemology calls for active engagement, aims at democratic inclusion, joins theory with praxis, strives for awareness of context and values in the construction of knowledge. I argue that knowing is something people develop as they have experiences with each other and the world around them. In the Shona language of Zimbabwe, the relational nature of knowledge is ably captured by the proverb kuziva mbuya huudzwa (knowledge of a grandmother comes through others) (Gwaravanda and Masaka 2008). In the context of this research, people improve upon the ideas that have been socially constructed and passed down to them by others. This is possible through evaluation and criticism of other people’s ideas. Furthermore, they do this improving by further developing their understandings and enlarging their perspectives. With enlarged perspectives people can create new meanings for their experiences. African relational epistemology views knowing as something that is socially constructed by embedded, embodied people who are in relation with each other. African relational epistemology emphasises the transactional nature of knowing in a variety of ways. Most important, it emphasises the connections knowers have to the known and helps us understand that we are not spectators to Reality reporting on ‘it’; we are part of this world, this universe, affecting ‘it’ as we experience ‘it’. To describe ourselves as separate from each other and our world around us is really to miss all the ways we are connected and related, all the ways we are one with the universe, as a Buddhist might say. When we understand we are one with the universe, then we can begin to understand how connected we are, as knowers, not only to each other, but to our products as well, our knowledge. ‘Knowing’ emphasises that this is an active process in which we are all engaged; ‘we’ are meaning not just each other but also our wider world around us, in which we reside. Knowledge is made, by us, as products of this process of knowing. I do not mean to sound mystical, but it is impossible to talk about relationality without sounding mystical and mysterious. The mystical, mysterious, poetic kinds of qualities that emerge in discussions on relationality are really more of a reflection of our language and thoughts

202 

E. T. Gwaravanda

than on the concept of a relational epistemology itself. Language is used to classify and clarify. Our terms help us separate and straighten out our ideas. We use words to differentiate and distinguish, and what I am trying to do here is bring things together. I want to emphasise how things overlap, associate, integrate, refer, compare, connect, relate to each other and, in that relating, how things affect each other, and change each other. Our language tends to strive to create demarcations, either this or that, and I want to try to soften these marks and show how things are both, and to unify.

The Nexus Between Epistemology and Ethics African rurality is home to indigenous epistemology that sees a connection between knowledge and ethics. Among the Shona people of Zimbabwe, there is a saying that connects truth to ethics; it goes Chokwadi hachiputsi ukama (Truth does not destroy relations). Truth is both an epistemological quality of statements as well as a moral demand. Furthermore, epistemic value is seen as important in the pursuit of knowledge. Zagzebski (2012) argues that an adequate account of knowledge must explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Although Zagzebski is writing from a feminist perspective, her views are applicable for this chapter because both African rurality and feminist epistemology are peripheral philosophies from the margins which have a common history of rejection and displacement. For Zagzebski (2012), knowledge must be seen as possessing value independently of anything external to it. This means that knowledge must be intrinsically valuable. Aristotle made a related distinction between achieving some end by luck or accident, and achieving it through the exercise of one’s abilities or virtues. Knowledge should involve non-accidental possession of truth (Gwaravanda and Masaka 2008). When there is exercise of one’s abilities, knowledge becomes both intrinsically valuable and constitutive of human flourishing. “Human good”, he writes, “turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence” (Aristotle, in W. D. Ross 1984, p. 1735). The successful exercise of one’s intellectual virtues is both intrinsically good and constitutive of human flourishing. There is a close connection between

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

203

rurality and Aristotle’s conception of virtuous knowledge in the sense that both are concerned with the connection between knowledge and virtue. Although Aristotle himself dismissed the Socratic dictum that knowledge is virtue, he sees knowledge as subject to ethical evaluation. Code (1987) defends the moral implications of knowledge claims, and argues that there is a need to understand how directly connected morality is to epistemology. Code’s key proposition is that “knowing well is as much a moral as it is an epistemological matter” (Code 1987, p. 252). The intersection between knowledge and morality is based on the assumption that genuine knowledge should involve epistemic responsibility. Epistemic responsibility takes into account the ethical dimension of knowledge construction and involves honesty and truth-telling, among other ethical ideals. The way we understand that knowing well is a matter of considerable moral significance is to pay attention to the character of would-be knowers. Code tells us she is trying to shift the emphasis of investigation and evaluation so that knowers come to bear as much of the onus of credibility as “the known” (Code 1987, pp. 8–9). She wants to put “epistemic responsibility” in a central place in theories of knowledge. Traditionally, ethics has been mutually exclusive from ethics and questions of morality to the extent that ‘moral epistemology’ or ‘epistemological ethics’ were considered as incoherent expressions. In defence of subjectivity, Code (1995) argues that propositional knowledge is representative of received knowledge that is narrow and insufficient for the purpose of legitimate knowledge construction. For Code (1995), received knowledge entails conditions that are observer independent and they disregard the background, identity, gender, emotions and circumstances of the knower. One word that summarises these factors is subjectivity. Kukla (2000) relies on Ideals of objectivity and value neutrality to argue that Reason allows the subject to transcend particularity and contingency in the construction of knowledge. Thus the subject of knowledge is supposed to represent anyone and everyone. Consequently, knowers must be held accountable to their community as well as to the evidence. Accounting to the community does not only transcend individualism but it also respects the role of the community in the generation of knowledge. Such thinking is consistent with indigenous epistemologies that dominate rurality.

204 

E. T. Gwaravanda

Social moral epistemology also investigates the morality of our social practices involving truth, justification and knowledge. Truth is understood in Aristotle’s correspondence theory that holds that ‘to say of what is that it is true, while to say of what is that it is not or what is not that it is, is false’ (Gwaravanda 2011). The correspondence theory of truth is based on empirical investigations. Miranda Fricker (2007) provides perhaps the most influential example of recent work that exploits the intersection of epistemology and ethics. Fricker (2007) introduces the notion of epistemic injustice, which arises when somebody is wronged in his or her capacity as a knower. Wronging someone in one’s capacity as a knower is very relevant for rurality since epistemological thinking in rural areas has been historically and systematically side-lined. An easily recognisable form of such injustice is when a person or a social group is unfairly deprived of knowledge because of their lack of access to education or other epistemic resources. Fricker’s work focuses on two less obvious forms of epistemic injustice. The first is testimonial injustice, which occurs when a speaker is given less credibility than she deserves because the hearer has prejudices about a social group to which the speaker belongs. An example discussed at length by Fricker is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, in which an all-white jury refuses to believe the black defendant’s testimony because of racial prejudices. The second kind is hermeneutical injustice. This occurs when, as a result of a group being socially powerless, members of the group lack the conceptual resources to make sense of certain distinctive social experiences. For instance, before studies in rurality, rural folks had trouble understanding and describing the behaviour of which they were the victims of knowledge claims. Hookway (2010) builds on Fricker’s work and argues that there are other forms of epistemic injustice that exclude testimony or conceptual resources. For instance, a teacher may refuse to consider a student’s question or objection as worthy of serious consideration because of a prejudice about the social group to which the student belongs. Such a social group could be a rural setup. Critical thinking shows that background is irrelevant in the issue under consideration. Victims of epistemic injustice can suffer in practical terms. If a rural student is given less credibility than what he or she deserves, they may end up being regarded lower in terms of academic performance. But,

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

205

Fricker argues, the wrong done to somebody in her capacity as a knower is also an intrinsic harm. Thus, even universities in Africa are guilty of harming epistemic capacities of communities that surround them. Our abilities as knowers are instances of our capacity for rationality, which is part of what makes us human beings intrinsically valuable. Harming someone in his or her capacity as a knower may result in the harmed person thinking that he or she is less human. Epistemic injustice can also be harmful to the perpetrator herself: by giving less credibility to a speaker than she deserves, one may fail to acquire important knowledge. To remedy epistemic injustice, Fricker stresses the importance of individual virtues to correct the effects of prejudices. For instance, an individual who possesses the virtue of testimonial justice will be attentive to the possibility that biases, and prejudice affect her judgments about a speaker’s credibility, and will learn to distrust her credibility judgments when such biases may be operative. The demands of the virtue of testimonial justice are the demands expected of universities in Africa. Alcoff (2010) raises the worry that since cognitive biases are deeply entrenched and unconscious mental features, it may be difficult or even impossible to consciously correct the operation of these biases. The point raised by Alcoff is important for this study because the marginalisation of epistemic credentials of rurality has been judged as normal over the years. What is worse is that in the postcolonial period, universities in Africa, that ought to defend the African epistemological paradigm and uplift forms of knowledge that are embedded in rurality are seen marginalising rurality in the path of former colonisers. Because of similar worries, Anderson (2012) argues that we need epistemically virtuous social institutions, not only individuals. Universities in Africa must set examples of epistemically virtuous institutions yet they are showing evidence of epistemic vices due to failure to democratise knowledge in the name of pluriversality. If universities in Africa are still called universities, it means they are borrowing from one system of knowledge that is both Eurocentric and foreign. In order for these institutions to transform into pluriversities, they should learn to accommodate indigenous epistemological paradigms that spring from the communities they belong to before they can embrace foreign epistemological models. What is ideal is to have egalitarian educational systems that promote an equal respect for epistemic

206 

E. T. Gwaravanda

paradigms thereby helping to prevent members of marginalised groups such as rural populations from experiencing testimonial injustice. Jonathan Kvanvig (1992) argues for an alternative vision of the place of virtues in epistemology. Modern epistemology has a narrow Cartesian focus on individuals and particular beliefs. This narrow epistemology has dominated postcolonial universities in Africa. The Cartesian individualist epistemology is inferred from the thoughts of an individual to the fact of individual existence. The virtues are important, in Kvanvig’s view, because of their indispensable role in training people to seek, acquire and transmit truths—a distinctly social activity. If universities in Africa are to consider truth as a social activity, then they can include their background communities in knowledge production. African indigenous epistemology places emphasis on social and historical factors in the construction of knowledge. These social and historical factors cannot be adequately studied by universities in Africa if the richness of rurality is excluded from the centre of knowledge production. African ontology places primacy on the community and knowledge acquisition is seen as a social activity and knowledge is possessed by communities rather than individuals. Traditional epistemology, Kvanvig says, is dominated by an ‘individualistic’ and ‘synchronic’ conception of knowledge. Traditional epistemology as expressed in analytic epistemology are already discussed in this chapter, has seen itself as being the normal or standard epistemology in universities in Africa. It takes its most important job to be specifying the conditions under which an individual knows a particular proposition at a particular time. Kvanvig abandons this in favour of a genetic epistemology focused on the cognitive life of the mind as it develops within a social context. Universities in Africa can draw from rurality and provide an important social dimension to knowledge, especially through the involvement of rural populations in knowledge production. Questions about the group replace questions about the individual. Questions about cognitive development and learning replace questions about what an individual knows at a given time. Kvanvig’s views have important implications for rurality and epistemology in the African context. First, the community is seen as important in the construction of knowledge. Secondly, validation of knowledge is understood as community based and democratic in nature. The plural approach to knowledge widens perspectives and is

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

207

consistent with the ideal African university whose knowledge production should be informed by an African epistemological paradigm. Kvanvig sees at least two ways this new approach would feature the virtues. First, virtues are essential to understanding the cognitive life of the mind, particularly development and learning, which happens over time through various processes such as imitating virtuous agents and taking to heart cautionary tales of vice. It is the task of universities in Africa to develop learning in a manner that accommodates the experiences and realities of the indigenous communities that surround them. Although debates in transformation, Africanisation and decolonisation have been held, these debates are inadequate if they are silent about rurality and the epistemology that informs rurality. Second, virtues are essential in characterising cognitive ideals. For example, one way of organising information is better than another, Kvanvig argues, because in appropriate circumstances that is how an intellectually virtuous person would organise it. In line with Kvanvig’s suggestion, I argue that beyond virtuous persons, universities in Africa must be subject to moral evaluation, especially in their epistemic practices. It is both immoral and logically contradictory for a university which is supposed to respect all epistemological paradigms without bias, to accept foreign paradigms at the expense of their own rural epistemological paradigms. For me, the rural expresses the mark of authenticity and identity in the context of knowledge with less influence of both globalisation and internationalisation. I am not claiming that both globalisation and internationalisation should be resisted, but my argument is that these forces must be infused with an epistemological paradigm that belongs to the host country or place. It is uncontroversial to say that many virtues are emotional dispositions, even if they involve behaviour in addition to emotion. As mentioned above, intellectual courage disposes its bearer to appropriate fear and confidence in matters epistemic. The problem facing universities in Africa today may be the lack of courage to radically transform and accommodate the ways of knowing that characterise rurality. Alfano (2016) suggests that, because we are able to individuate emotions more clearly than virtues, it might be helpful to index virtues to the emotions they govern. These include such states as curiosity, fascination, intrigue, hope,

208 

E. T. Gwaravanda

trust, distrust, mistrust, surprise, doubt, scepticism, boredom, puzzlement, confusion, wonder, awe, faith, and epistemic angst. Alfano (2016) is thinking along the lines of early Greek philosophers who insisted that philosophy begins with wonder and in the history of philosophy, scepticism, faith, trust and hope, among other emotions, have been used to develop elaborate philosophies. Coming to universities in Africa, the use of emotions linked to knowledge may be used to explore and borrow epistemic emotions that are associated with rurality and its embedded epistemologies. Curiosity, fascination and wonder are key epistemic emotions that are linked to African rurality. The danger that has faced universities in Africa is that epistemic emotions have been regarded as creating biases and distortions in knowledge and hence they should always be excluded from knowledge. However, within the rural areas that surround universities in Africa, emotions are seen as part and parcel of knowledge claims. The resultant effect is that students from African rurality are expected to suspend their ways of knowing when they enrol into the universities and embrace analytic epistemology. However, such students may fail to fit back into the rural communities when they graduate because their knowledge may be irrelevant to rurality. Universities in Africa can benefit from theorising about epistemic emotions in at least three ways. One benefit of theorising intellectual virtues via epistemic emotions is that doing so furnishes practitioners with what is right and wrong. Universities in Africa can reflect and self-­ reflect using these virtues so that they can develop an epistemic moral vision that guides operations. Another benefit of the lens of epistemic emotion is that it helps universities in Africa to make sense of intellectual virtues as dispositions to motivated inquiry rather than just static belief. Emotions are, after all, motivational states, and epistemic emotions direct us to seek confirmation, disconfirmation, and so on. For instance, fear captures and consumes the attention of the fearful person, directing him to find and understand the (potential) threat or danger. What this means is that universities in Africa can use epistemic emotions borrowed from the study of rurality to assess risks associated with adoption of foreign epistemological paradigms. Finally, epistemic emotions help to make sense of the motivations and practices of scientists within universities in Africa. For example, rurality

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

209

has shown that epistemologies embedded in indigenous medicine, food processing and agriculture, among other ways of managing issues, may be related to interests and joy of the efficiency of the methods, thereby triggering further research. In addition, the literature on the demarcation between rurality and urbanism is peppered with the language of emotion—especially epistemic emotion. Popper (1962) talks of scientists’ attitudes to their hypotheses as one of “hope” rather than belief. Popper’s views have been chosen for this chapter because they help to justify the role of epistemic emotions in the development of knowledge. The inclusion of Popper must not be construed as an appeal to authority, but a way of drawing similarities between Popper’s thinking and that of African rurality. Popper distinguishes science from pseudoscience by sneering at the faith characteristic of the latter and praising the doubt and openness to testing of the former. Universities in Africa may learn from Popper’s critique of science that epistemic emotions, as shown in rurality, are important in knowledge construction. Popper argues that the “special problem under investigation” and the scientist’s “theoretical interests” determine her point of view. Rurality may also become a point of interest in the universities in Africa and this is consistent with epistemic emotions. Lakatos (1978) contrasts scientific knowledge with theological certainty that “must be beyond doubt”. Kuhn (1962) says that the attitude scientists have towards their paradigms is one of not only belief but also “trust”. He claims that scientists received the discovery of x-rays “not only with surprise but with shock”, going on to say that “though they could not doubt the evidence, [they] were clearly staggered by it”.

Conclusion Against the negative views of rurality that have dominated literature, I have argued that rurality must be considered as a positive source of indigenous epistemology that is capable of providing a viable alternative to traditional analytic epistemology that is dominant in universities in Africa. In this chapter, I have argued that indigenous epistemologies that dominate rurality see all epistemological systems as socially constructed and this refutes the claim by analytic epistemology that knowledge is

210 

E. T. Gwaravanda

objective, universal and neutral. A three pronged critique of analytic epistemology has been examined to show that the model of physical sciences that is used to validate knowledge excludes the human subject who is the knower. Epistemological dualism in the sense of a disjunction between objectivity and subjectivity is seen as flawed and too restrictive in the construction of knowledge. Epistemic hegemony has dominated knowledge construction in universities in Africa to the extent of side-lining rurality that offers alternative conceptions of knowledge. Relational epistemology dominates rurality, yet universities in Africa borrow from analytic epistemology to construct knowledge. Universities in Africa become irrelevant for rurality because communities use indigenous knowledge systems that have been both sidelined and trivialised in academic circles. It has been argued that rurality brings a nexus between epistemology and ethics. This means that knowledge should be subject to ethical evaluation and knowledge of ethics should be treated as valuable for the good of the community. While this chapter has focused on rurality and epistemology, further philosophical research can still be done in areas of rurality and ethics, and rurality and ontology.

References Alcoff, L. (2007). Mignolo‘s epistemology of coloniality. The New Centennial Review, 7(3), 79–101. Alcoff, L. M. (2010). Epistemic Identities. Episteme, 7(2), 128–137. Alfano, M. (2016). Moral psychology: An introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Almog, J. (2001). What am I? Descartes and the mind-body problem. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, E. (2012). Epistemic justice as a virtue of social institutions. Social Epistemology, 26(2), 163–173. Aristotle. (1984). Nicomachean ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans., and Ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Audi, R. (1998). Epistemology: A contemporary introduction to the theory of knowledge. New York: Routledge. Bell, M. (2007). The two-ness of rural life and the ends of rural scholarship. Journal of Rural Studies, 23, 402–415.

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

211

BonJour, L. (2002). Epistemology: Classic problems and contemporary responses. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Casullo, A. (2003). A priori justification. New York: Oxford University Press. Code, L. (1987). Epistemic responsibility. Hanover/London: Brown University Press. Code, L. (1995). Must a feminist be a relativist after all? Rhetorical spaces: Essays on gendered locations. New York: Routledge. Cuervo, H. (2016). Understanding social justice in rural education. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Dainton, B. (2008). The phenomenal self. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and ethics of knowing. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Fuller, S. (1988). Social epistemology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fumerton, R. (2013). Knowledge, thought and the case for dualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gegeo, D. W., & Watson-Gegeo, K. A. (2001). How we know: Kwara‘ae rural villagers doing indigenous epistemology. The Contemporary Pacific, 13(1), 55–88. Gettier, E. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis, 23, 121–123. Goldman, A. (1986). Epistemology and cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University. Goldman, A. (1999). Knowledge in a social world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gordon, L. (2015). Race and justice in higher education: Some global challenges with attention to the South African context. In P.  Tabensky & S. Matthews (Eds.), Being at home: Race, institutional culture and transformation at South African higher education institutions. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press. Green, B., & Reid, J.-A. (2014). Social cartography and rural education: Researching space(s) and place(s). In S. White & M. Corbett (Eds.), Doing educational research in rural settings: Methodological issues, international perspectives and practical solutions (pp. 26–40). Abingdon: Routledge. Grosfoguel, R. (2011). Decolonising post-colonial studies and paradigms of political-economy: Transmodernity, decolonial thinking and global coloniality. TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(1), 1–36. Gwaravanda, E. (2011). Philosophical principles in the Shona traditional court system. International Journal of Peace and Development Studies, 2(5), 148–155.

212 

E. T. Gwaravanda

Gwaravanda, E. T., & Masaka, D. (2008). Epistemological implications of selected Shona proverbs. Cape Town: CASAS. Gyekye, K. (1997). Tradition and modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halfacree, K. (1993). Locality and social representation: Space, discourse and alternative definitions of the rural. Journal of Rural Studies, 9(1), 23–37. Halfacree, K. (2004). Rethinking ‘rurality’. In T. Champion & G. Hugo (Eds.), New forms of urbanization: Beyond the urban-rural dichotomy (pp. 285–304). Ashgate: Aldershot. Harding, S. (1993). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is strong objectivity? In L. Alcoff & E. Potter (Eds.), Feminist Epistemologies (pp. 49–82). New York: Routledge. Hong, L., & Page, S. (2004). Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 101(46), 16385–16389. Hookway, C. (2010). Some varieties of epistemic injustice: Reflections on Fricker. Episteme, 7(2), 151–163. Horsthemke, K. (2004). Indigenous knowledge – Conceptions and misconceptions. Journal of Education, 32, 31–48. Kornblith, H. (2001). Epistemology: Internalism and externalism. Malden: Blackwell. Oxford University Press. Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kukla, A. (2000). Social construction and the philosophy of science. London: Routledge. Kvanvig, J. K. (1992). The intellectual virtues and the life of the mind. Savage: Rowman and Littlefield. Lakatos, I. (1978). The methodology of scientific research programmes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Landemore, H. (2011). Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Landesman, C. (1997). An introduction to epistemology. London: Blackwell. Leibowitz, B. (2009). What’s inside the suitcases? An investigation into the powerful resources students and lecturers bring to teaching and learning. Education Research & Development, 28(3), 261–274. Leibowitz, B. (2017). Rurality and education: Working paper for the SARiHE project. Johannesburg: sarihe.org.za/publications. Makumba, M. (2007). An introduction to African philosophy: Past and present. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa.

9  African Rurality and African Epistemology: Lessons… 

213

Masinire, A., Maringe, F., & Nkambule, T. (2014). Education for rural development: Embedding rural dimensions in initial teacher preparation. Perspectives in Education, 32(3), 146–158. Modi, A. (2016, September 25). Rural does not have to equal poor. Sunday Times. Ndofirepi, A. P., & Gwaravanda, E. T. (2018). Epistemic (in)justice in African universities: A perspective of the politics of knowledge. Educational Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2018.1459477. Pannikar, R. (1997). Myth, faith and hermeneutics. New York: Paulist Press. Popper, K. R. (1962). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York: Basic Books. Randall, W. L., Clews, R. A., & Furlong, D. (2015). The tales that bind: A narrative model for living and helping in rural communities. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Roberts, P., & Green, B. (2013). Researching rural places: On social justice and rural education. Qualitative Enquiry, 19(10), 765–774. Robinson, H. (2016). From knowledge argument to mental substance: Resurrecting the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Simandan, D. (2011). Kinds of environments—A framework for reflecting on the possible contours of a better world. The Canadian Geographer, 55(3), 383–386. Sunstein, C. (2006). Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press. Thayer-Bacon. (2003). Relational epistemologies. New York: Peter Lang. Warburton, N. (1996). Thinking from A to Z. London: Routledge. Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wiredu, K. (1998). The concept of truth in the Akan language. In P. O. Bodunrin (Ed.), Philosophy in Africa, tends and perfectives (pp. 43–67). Ile-Ife Nigeria: University of Ife Press. Zagzebski, L. (2012). Epistemic authority: A theory of trust, authority and autonomy in belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

10 Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising Collaborative Research and Partnership Practices in the African University Amasa P. Ndofirepi and Felix Maringe

Introduction A range of research publications makes reference to the merits of collaborative research, although few reports provide explanatory analyses of collaborative relationships (see Ritchie and Rigano 2007, pp.  26–27). Collaboration is emerging as a distinct focus of scholarly research. The importance of collaboration to the establishment, as well as the expansion and advancement of a high-quality research system, is widely recognised in Africa and beyond. Theoretical and experiential evidence suggest that within scientific communities research collaboration is on the rise;

A. P. Ndofirepi (*) School of Education, Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] F. Maringe University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_10

215

216 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

that collaboration can be promising for individual scholars (Luescher and Symes 2003); and that it is fundamental to scientific progress (Van den Berghe 1973). Universities are critical for doing research and researcher training and are thus invaluable cogwheels for knowledge production and innovation to meet local and global socioeconomic needs. Scientific communities such as universities and other research centres and organisations, as social entities whose institutional frameworks include rules promoting internal collaboration, have been advancing the cause of collaborative research. However, a fundamental, and often undervalued constituent of collaborative research capacity is the existence and observance of a code of ethics, which helps to keep researchers from pursuing the search for new knowledge and information in more ethically upward ways (see Weiler 2006). Rooted in diffuse reciprocity, members of the social communities are inspired to collaborate with their peers. Contemporary life in a progressively ‘networked’ world, the expansion in information and communication technologies and the accompanying global shrinking have increased the globalisation of the research agenda. This, in turn, has had a direct effect on promoting research collaborations, both locally and globally, in the last decade more than ever before (Keraminiyage et  al. 2009). This has called on geographically dispersed research groups to converge in tackling shared challenges. However, while collaboration can be one of the most exciting experiences in academic life, it can also be one of the most complex, as many academic staff describe their roles as isolated and lonely. In this paper, we provide strong evidence of how relationships in the enterprise of collaborative educational research in higher education exhibit themselves. Acknowledging collaborative scientific research in the university as an academic activity driven by co-dependency and a strong sense of cooperation, common purpose and working towards mutual gain, we isolate the relational ethic of ukama to account for the interpersonal and intercommunity relationship between researchers as individuals; between the protégé and the seasoned academic scholars; and between researchers as a group and larger research funders in the African university; in the context of developing countries, especially on the African continent; and, as Dell has asked in this relational puzzle: “International collaboration in African research – Who wins?” (Dell 2014).

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

217

While there is significant policy fervour for collaboration, there are unsettled challenges in the definition of the notion, which can be partially attributed to the fact that collaboration is, to a large extent, a matter of loose social conventions among researchers. However, a more popular dialogue takes place, characterised by sharing and mutuality, as the centrepiece of a collaborative research exchange (Clark et al. 1996). In this sense, collaborative research is a relational, dialogical affair in Buber’s (1970) conception of an emergent knowledge form and is not reducible to the separate individual’s participation. Hence, shared views lead to the construction of new knowledge. To this end, collaborative research in knowledge production is a process of the interplay of the virtues of relationality among participants. While a wide range of literature is available on the meaning and forms of collaborative research (Barnes et al. 2006; Cunningham 2008), the ethical dimension of the same, with its prime focus on commitment to relationship-building and maintenance via meaningful engagement, has received little attention. In this paper, we make a case for the ethic of ukama, a Shona word meaning relationships, to explain the nature of the interpersonal and intercommunity relations that exist at the interface of researchers as individuals; between the protégé and the seasoned academic scholars; and researchers as a group and larger research funders in the university. This discourse is premised on the claim that collaboration is a mutually-­ beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more organisations to achieve common goals. This involves a commitment to mutual relationships and goals, characterised by a jointly-developed structure and shared responsibility; mutual authority and accountability for success; and the sharing of resources and rewards (Kulati and Moja 2002). Using the ukama ethic as the springboard, we show strong evidence of the complexities embedding the practices of collaborative research, which mirror the establishment of partnerships and the distribution and control of power in the enterprise of research collaboration. Our question is: How can an understanding of the ukama ethic be the starting point for systematising, defending and recommending right and wrong conduct in collaborative research? We use this traditional African ethic of relationships to theoretically adjudicate whether or not the collaborative researchers in the university act ethically, although we are aware

218 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

that the communocratic environment, in which the ethic itself is embedded, is not pristine in its entirety—and hence not universally flawless. We provide evidence of how the virtues of harmony, equality, solidarity, co-­ operation, mutual profit and reciprocity—enshrined in the ukama ethic—are the most violated elements of the ethics of collaborative research in knowledge production in the university. In order to achieve the above, we begin this debate with a discussion of the concept of ukama; followed by a detailed examination of the notion of collaborative research and the different forms it takes, as revealed in the literature. We will proceed to critique the interplay of the ukama ethic in collaborative research at different levels within the university. We wind up the debate by providing alternatives and potentialities for a successful collaborative research ethic in the university.

Collaboration: Meanings and Rationales The concept of collaborative research is often misunderstood, owing to its multiple meanings in practice, thereby rendering it a complex phenomenon. It is often loosely conflated with partnership and an assortment of formal and informal research networks, alliances, pacts and understandings (Cloete and Fehnel 2002). In order to attempt to clear up the confusion, we suggest a split of terms by defining ‘collaboration’ and ‘research’ separately before explaining the concept of ‘collaborative research’. Collaboration can be said to be an act or practice whereby individuals work collectively towards a common purpose to achieve a defined goal. It is “…the mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve a problem together characterised by shared goals, the symmetry of the structure, and a high degree of negotiation, interactivity, and interdependence” (Lai 2011, p. 2). In this sense, it involves members who wilfully pool their coordinated resources and efforts in order to solve a problem together. It can also be referred to as an exercise in convergence, or construction, of shared meanings, in which participants reach conjunction through the construction, monitoring and repairing of shared knowledge (Roschelle 1992), or, more so, a “…co-ordinated,

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

219

synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem” (Roschelle and Teasley 1995). Originating from the Latin word recircere, which means to go round again (see McMillan and Schumacher 2006), research, in common terminology, refers to a search for knowledge; going around, exploring, looking within a situation, context or field. A more robust definition considers research as a systematic activity of gathering and analysing information to enlarge our understanding of the phenomenon under study. The tenet of systematicity in the procedures of research emphasises research as an art of careful investigation or inquiry, especially through the search for new facts in any branch of knowledge. In this sense, it can thus be rendered as being a voyage of discovery. At the heart of the research is inquisitiveness, which drives the search and, as Peters and White (1969, p. 2) suggest, research is “a systematic and sustained inquiry carried out by people well versed in some form of thinking in order to answer some specific type of question”. What then is collaborative research? Collaborative research describes a systematic collective and dialogical inquiry in search of answers to questions of mutual interest. In other words, collaborative research is “…the working together of researchers to achieve the common goal of producing new scientific knowledge” (Cloete and Fehnel 2002, p. 10). A more precise definition, though not necessarily a consensual one, posits that collaborative research involves individuals or teams working together to ask questions, develop theories of action, determine action steps, and gather and analyse evidence to assess the impact of their actions… By closely examining and reflecting on the results of their actions, individuals and teams begin to think differently. They begin to question long-standing beliefs and consider implications for their professional practices (Donohoo 2013, p. 2). In addition, and closely related to the above, is the view that Collaboration is a process in which autonomous or semi-autonomous actors interact through formal and informal negotiation, jointly creating rules and structures governing their relationships and ways to act or decide

220 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

on the issues that brought them together; it is a process involving shared norms and mutually beneficial interactions. (Thomson et al. 2007, p. 23)

Emanating from the above, we allocate to collaborative research a relational function based on mutuality and interdependence; the commitment to relationship-building and maintenance; and meaningful engagement in collaborative processes. From the above, one deduces that the definition highlights collaboration as a multidimensional, capricious construct constituted of key dimensions that are structural in nature, social capital-related and one which involves agency. Researchers who pursue collaboration must know how to conjointly make decisions about rules that will govern their behaviour and relationships and, in the process, allow all participants to choose the methods of solving the collective action problems, including “how costs and benefits are to be distributed” (Ostrom 1990, p. 51). In order to ensure that a collaborative environment prevails, participating researchers will need to reach a general consensus by negotiating a balance, where contest and conflict between partners still occur, but only at the peripheries. This calls for an understanding of the shared responsibility. In addition, the autonomous dimension of the collaborative research enterprise speaks to “…the potential dynamism and frustration implicit in collaborative endeavours… [in which] partners share a dual identity” (Thomson et al. 2007, p. 4). Tensions, however, surface, and are aggravated by the reality that in collaboration no formal authority hierarchies exist between collaborating partners, as working relationships between individuals are often formed on a goodwill basis. To settle the difference, the potential is to go for the transitional state: one where participants locate the potential dynamism embedded in this tension between individual and collective interests by maximising latent synergies among individual differences. Mutuality captures the nature of such synergies. In an environment where mutuality prevails, it is always underpinned by interdependence. When individuals and institutions engage in collaborative research, mutually beneficial interdependencies emerge, though based on differing interests. However, each participant may complement the other by sharing common interests. ‘Complementarity’ means that “parties to a network agree to forego the right to pursue their

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

221

own interests at the expense of others” and accommodation serves as the modus operandi of interaction (Powell 1990, p. 303). This happens in a situation where one party has exclusive resources (skills, expertise, and money) that another party needs, or could benefit from, and the reverse. Collaborative research is also underpinned by the two conceptually related principles of reciprocity and trust. It is a matter of an I-will-if-youwill mindset, in which members commit reciprocal obligations towards each other out of a sense of duty. In their examination of the dimensions of trustworthiness, Bakker et al. (2006) found that individuals tended to share more knowledge when they believed other team members were honest, fair and followed principles. Ideally, each member of the collaborative endeavour will: 1. make good-faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments, both explicit and implicit. 2. be honest in whatever negotiations preceded such commitments. 3. not take excessive advantage of another, even when the opportunity is available. (Cummings and Bromiley 1996, p. 303). Research collaboration is beneficial in that it enables researchers to share knowledge, skills and techniques. It makes it possible to transfer tacit knowledge; provides intellectual companionship; plugs the researcher into a wider network of contacts in the scientific community; and enhances the potential visibility of work, as well as reducing the costs of research (Onyancha and Ocholla 2007, p. 239). From the above analyses, we examine the various forms that collaborative research can take in the university.

Forms of Collaborative Research It is a truism that within the research system collaboration appears at several levels and this makes it problematic to distinguish between the different types of collaboration. However, it is noticeable that collaboration occurs between individuals, groups, departments, institutions, sectors and countries and “collaborative partnerships in higher education

222 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

make categorisation and identification of salient features an inevitable simplification of practice on the ground” (Cloete and Fehnel 2002, p. 13). In their Collaborative Approaches to Research Final Report (2000), Smith and Katz distinguish between three types of collaborative research: Type A: Corporate Partnerships Type B: Team Collaboration Type C: Inter-Personal Collaboration Type A is characterised by “‘means to an end’ collaborations; … (and) are corporately initiated and ‘owned’” (Cloete and Fehnel 2002, p. 14) [emphasis mine]. They are driven principally (but not solely) by access to external resources and may include collaborative bids for funding, sometimes with other universities and sometimes with industry, and are formally networked. Type B, referred to as Team Collaboration, consists of research-focused teams of researchers domiciled in various departmental, research centres or other units at two or more institutions with a formalised existence. The need for multi-disciplinary skills and experience drives the team, and hence the teams retain ownership and control, since these are high skill/discretion areas. As the name suggests, Type C Inter-­ Personal Collaborations are bottom-up, intellectually driven, discipline-­ based and, sometimes, discipline-organised. They are dependent essentially on personal relationships between two or more university-­ based individuals based on personal relationships, trust and the ability to work together (Cloete and Fehnel 2002, p. 15). In this case, there are no formal structures to individual collaborations, although many develop initially from formal research mentor/training relationships. To complement the above typology, John-Steiner (2000, p.  143) affirms that “there is no longer a single pattern of collaborations,” and proposes a roughly structured model that classifies four types of collaboration in research, although the patterns are flexible with time and place. Distributed collaboration is a prevalent casual pattern, where members of like interest link. Their conversations at times may lead to personal insights or even arguments. These usually result from conferences, working groups or committees and online discussion forums. The second pattern is complementarity collaboration: the most common form of

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

223

collaboration based on the complementarity of expertise, disciplinary knowledge, roles and temperament (John-Steiner 2000). This is often characterised by the division of labour and mutuality of partners. The third type is family collaborations, which involve flexible or evolving roles that cannot be sustained indefinitely. In this case, members can help each other shift roles and, as family members, can “take over for each other while still using their complementarity” (John-Steiner, p.  201). Last, but not least, is integrative collaboration in which members belong to prolonged periods of committed activity. These …thrive on dialogue, risk-taking, and a shared vision. In some cases, the participants construct a common set of beliefs, or ideology, which sustains them in periods of opposition or insecurity. Integrative partnerships are motivated by the desire to transform existing knowledge, through styles, or artistic approaches into new visions. (John-Steiner 2000, p. 203)

From the above characterisations of collaborative research, we find the integrative collaboration more promising and secure, with participants experiencing a sense of solidarity belonging to a group that infuses in them a commitment of “our sense of solidarity is strongest when those with whom solidarity is expressed are thought of as ‘one of us’, as opposed to ‘one of them’” (Rorty 1989, p. 191).

The Notion of Ukama Ukama, in its etymological roots, is a Shona1 adjective from the stem hama, meaning ‘relative’. While U is the adjectival prefix, kama is the adjectival stem, and on its own means ‘to milk’ an animal. The notion of milking in the Shona culture implies closeness and affection (Murove 2009). To clarify, Mhaka adds that, “milking suggests a connection between the source, the means of livelihood and the beneficiaries” (Mhaka 2010, p. 20). The kama part of ukama is indicative of a hama (relative). As Gelfand elaborates: “In essence, Ukama is a brotherhood [sic] in which  Shona is the most common local language used in Zimbabwe.

1

224 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

members of the group share with one another and find peace through the love of all in the extended family, or clan” (Gelfand 1981, p. ix). We, therefore, posit ukama, in the traditional African sense, as a universal link of sharing and uniting all humanity. To that end, ukama in Shona means relationality, relatedness or relationships of people or things that share some bonds or commonalities (Ndofirepi 2013), in a situation where there exists “a dialectical interpenetration of the individual and the community” (Ndofirepi 2013, p. 241) of others. This relational dimension of the ukama ethic can thus be explicated by the assertion that … we are definitely not alone … we don’t form relationships, they form us. We are constituted by webs of interconnection. Relationship comes first, and we emerge as more or less distinct centres within the vast and complex networks that surround us… we emerge as subjects from intricate networks of interrelatedness, from webs of inter-subjectivity. (De Quincey 2005, p. 182)

Individuals, therefore, in the traditional African ethic of ukama live and grow with “the sense of being connected, bounded in one common life, (which) informs human relationships and defines behavioural patterns” (Sindima 1995, p. 127) [emphasis ours]. Given this background, what then are the virtues of the ukama ethic? The notion of community, which is the core of traditional African thinking about humanity and human relationships, grows outwards from the nuclear family to the extended family, including neighbours. We isolate the virtues of harmony, cooperation, compassionate and empathetic feeling, as well as reciprocity, as the primary concerns of ukama. The maintenance of a detailed and harmonious relationship matrix, in the totality of creation, is of fundamental importance in the African worldview. This is demonstrated through reverence of caring and empathy for others, hence it is imperative to mourn together, celebrate together, work together, and be together in times of need. Taking the ukama ethic to the epistemological level, traditional Africans uphold that …to know something, one has to participate cooperatively in a dynamic process involving mutual sharing with others, since knowledge is the

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

225

­ reserve of the community… one has an obligation to work with others p and, to know, it is a matter of—together we share and together we think. (Ndofirepi 2013, p. 246)

In the above sense, the summum bonum of the ukama ethic is sharing interdependence, rather than individualistic independence. In addition, if Buber (1957, p. 70) were to be asked about the virtue of the ukama ethic, probably he would aver that What is called for is not neutrality but solidarity, a living answering for one another – and mutuality, living in reciprocity, not effacing the boundaries between the groups, circles and parties, but communal recognition of the common reality and communal testing of common responsibility. (Buber 1957, p. 98)

It would be appropriate also to consider that ukama has its converse in kukamana, as ‘negative milking’, which is characterised by exploitation, dependence and oppression. This is always abhorred, in the context of traditional Africa, as it is a result of abuse of power, laziness and general reliance on resources accumulated by hardworking members, much to the profit of the advantaged. We use the ukama ethic and its opposite kukamana to provide a watershed from which the discourse of ethics in collaborative research in the university can flow. The question that comes to mind is: To what extent do research collaborations maintain ethical dimensions which are relationship-based, as in the case of the ukama ethic discussed above? Said differently: How can we use the virtues of ukama to explain the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the practices of collaborative research in the university? We turn to this in the next section by entering into dialogue with, and critique of, the relationships that prevail in situations where researchers claim to be collaborating to produce knowledge.

226 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

Collaborative Research in the African University Collaborative research emphasises teamwork and collective knowledge in the current knowledge economy. Knowledge production through collaborative research among African countries is minimal, notwithstanding scholars based in foreign countries, who frequently share knowledge with their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa. In their study of knowledge production through collaborative research in sub-Saharan Africa, it emerged that countries engage in joint knowledge production based on their geographic proximity (Onyancha and Maluleka 2011). This, in addition, explains how African countries contribute very little to each other’s knowledge production in terms of research articles. Should researchers consider it a moral obligation to publish or disseminate the results of their research in ways that can provide benefit to a wide range of audiences? We valorise relational ethics as integral to the mix of issues that collaborators need to tackle, including existing relationships between researchers and participants, as well as amongst team members (Cloete et al. 2002). As Hans Weiler rightly puts it: An important and often underestimated ingredient in a research capacity is the existence and observation of a research code of ethics which helps keep researchers resist the various temptations that result from outside research funding, conflicts of interest, or sheer pressures of work. These ethical standards are indispensable for maintaining the integrity, openness, and transparency of the research process, and to safeguard intellectual property. (Weiler 2006, p. 4)

We argue that the virtues that ukama as relationships proffers, mediate the interaction among those with knowledge, skills, and/or resources in order to create new knowledge, improve what already exists, or distribute what has already been created. The question is: Do collaborators in research act ethically as they interact in their efforts to produce knowledge? In Smith and Katz’s (2000) typology of the corporate partnership, discussed above, is the North-South collaboration, which is extensively acknowledged in the African university research enterprise of knowledge

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

227

production. Anecdotal evidence abounds of support and funding provided by donor agencies to enable partnerships between African and North American and European universities. Researchers from Africa work together with their Northern counterparts with financial support from the well-capitalised multinational conglomerates and global financial institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other European–based institutions. But we query such relationships in line with Jacques F. Gaillard’s puzzle: North-South Research Partnership: Is Collaboration Possible between Unequal Partners? (Gaillard 1994). African universities tend to gaze outward to western universities for research cooperation and collaboration, owing somewhat to a colonial education legacy which linked European and American universities with the central role of developing colonial universities in Africa. African countries generally exhibit substantively higher collaboration patterns than other countries in the world, with 29 countries publishing more than 90% of their articles in collaboration with others (Dell 2014). While the perpetuation of such a relationship has its downside, this is crucial if African researchers are to confirm themselves within the international academic community. The benefits of this model are clear from anecdotal and documented discussions. The benefits also come in the form of getting access to the resources, facilities and expertise of better-­ equipped institutions, enabling research to proceed at levels which would not be possible with the current state of many countries’ higher education infrastructures (Harle 2007). This is especially important as most African universities receive very limited portions from their respective national budgets, while external money accounts for 70–90% of research funding (see Teferra et al. 2003). We are equally challenged by Pouris and Ho’s question: “What drives researchers in Botswana and Zimbabwe, for example, to produce more than 74% of their collaborative publications outside Africa?” (Pouris and Ho 2014). Furthermore, they raise questions about whether there is a scarcity of researchers on the continent who are able to undertake research on their own. While Nigeria (29%) and Egypt (43%), are cited as exceptions on the African continent, the rest of the continent produces more collaborative articles with co-authors from other countries than with local co-authors (see Pouris and Ho 2014). In addition, and as Harle rightly observes:

228 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

The public has generally lost faith in the quality of research coming from institutions in developing countries, hence the lukewarm attitude towards the use of such research results in the public domain. When research is known to be jointly undertaken by an institution in collaboration with the UK or US institution, the public has more interest in its outcomes. (Harle 2007, p. 14)

This, in the context of this debate, highlights some interesting points, especially as one interrogates the costs of such corporate collaborations. If one were to use the ethical code of autonomy to explain the relationship trends, as explicated in the ukama ethic shown earlier in this paper, is it defensible to speak of collaborative research in the context of the above arrangements? Does the African agenda drive the collaborative research agenda, or is collaboration directed by international priorities? While we accept the view that the notion of partnership is fundamentally intricate, multifaceted and elusive, we submit to the normative language that designates partnerships as based on ‘shared interests’ and ‘mutual vision’. However, it catches the eye and ear to understand how forms of partnership and collaboration in research as described above are, to a large extent, concealing the fact that “ a great deal of governance power is shifting in favour of donors and international agendas” (Kuder 2005, p. 173). While external funding is acceptable, the cost that researchers from African universities bear are prescriptions of research agenda and research priorities by donor institutions, thereby compromising the autonomy of researchers and research institutions. For us, such a dependency by researchers from Africa typifies kukamana (milking the other). To this end, as Weiler confirms: It is here that, particularly in the South of the international system, autonomy is most severely compromised by the – conscious or semi-conscious, voluntary or involuntary the adoption of external research agendas that reflect other societies’ knowledge priorities and that tend to marginalize the knowledge needs of the institution’s own society. This uneven struggle between autochthonous and extraneous research priorities (which is often accompanied by similarly intense struggles between different theoretical frameworks, paradigms and methodologies) appears to lie at the very heart

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

229

of what was frequently described as a veritable crisis of identity in higher education in much of the poorer parts of the world. (Weiler 2006, p. 5)

If the virtues of the ukama ethic, rooted in mutuality, autonomy and reciprocity are anything to go by, we find such partnerships and research collaborations defeating the enshrining understanding of the notion of collaborative research. Instead, in the type of collaborative research described above, there is an absence of the ukama ethic, but rather a manifestation of kukamana characterised by exploitation, abuse of financial power and oppression of the poor African researchers. Such tendencies are often explained in the context of Neo-liberal economic policies [which]brought in from abroad and the use of technical expertise from outside the continent has marginalized African scholars and researchers. Many African academics have been reduced to carrying out consultancies, often driven by external donors. On the other hand, African policymakers rely more on external experts to the exclusion of local academics and intellectuals. This devaluation of African academics and research has led to stagnation in research outputs [emphasis ours] (see Trust Africa 2011)

We submit to former Senegalese president, Abdou Diouf ’s vision of what educational partnerships ought to entail, in his 1997 address to the Association for the Development of Education in Africa when he underlined that: [T]he type of partnership we should promote cannot be founded on a vertical relationship based on authority, constraint, the imposition of an imbalance of power, substituted sovereignty and the transportation of models, or... paternalism and condescension. Instead, it should be founded on conditions such as authentic dialogue in a horizontal relationship in which the actors recognise each other as equals and participate in an exchange considered mutually useful and enriching by both parties. (in Boak and Ndaruhutse 2011, n.p.)

230 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

However, we note how collaborative research ethics are always violated, where the gap in resources between members is too large, despite collaboration being beneficial in pulling together resources. Collaborative research in the African university also takes the form of Smith and Katz’s Type C Inter-Personal Collaborations, in which, on the basis of mutual trust, junior and senior academics are brought together to encourage intergenerational learning, while the latter gain research experience at the early stages of their careers—as assistants to senior academics, or as research fellows in a larger team. It is hoped that such a form of collaborative research will encourage and facilitate opportunities, which enable junior researchers to benefit from the experience of senior colleagues, while also providing experienced staff with ways of reinvesting their knowledge and skills for the future (Harle 2007). Senior researchers have a greater responsibility in their research teams by virtue of their experience and their position in the university community, including an obligation to mentor junior researchers and support them to become independent productive authors. Besides, seniors induct novice researchers into academic networks and provide access to new collaborators; and assist junior researchers in publishing their work, developing skills in establishing and managing projects and securing funding. While this is the ideal situation, in the context of this argument we question the practicality of such a reciprocal and mutual understanding in response to the ukama ethic, as explicated in earlier sections of this article. This relational situation is made more complex by the fact that; Unfortunately …the senior scholar is too distracted by consultancies and project-oriented research to devote much time to graduate supervision or the mentoring of junior colleagues. Moreover, as senior faculty have aged and moved towards retirement, they are not being replaced at the rate required to maintain the appropriate levels of mentorship of junior faculty and leadership of graduate programs. (Sawyerr 2004, p. 223)

Given the above complexity, the collaborative endeavour between the senior researchers is further exacerbated by an absence of incentives which would encourage senior academics to mentor junior colleagues. To that end, the former invest little of their experience in the novice researchers

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

231

in the name of weaning the latter, much to the detriment of quality research output. A worse situation emerges as the senior researchers leave the whole research process, from conceptualisation of the collaborative project to the final publication of results and the subsequent submission to journal, only after appending their names as co-authors to the manuscript. The question, in the context of this debate, is: To what extent is the ukama ethic upheld? We submit that the values of reciprocity, mutuality, trust and respect for the other are violated in this respect. Without offering prescriptions, we discuss some alternatives in defence of the presence of the ukama ethic in collaborative research in the African university.

Charting a Way Forward Africa’s universities continue to provide the vast bulk of its research and train virtually all its researchers, while alternative sites for the generation and adaptation of knowledge are emerging and assuming prominence through public research institutes, private research centres, firm-based research units, regional and sub-regional centres, and non-governmental organisations, among others (Sawyerr 2004, p.  215). The need to strengthen research capacity in African universities has been echoed with an increase in the growth of student enrolments (see Shils and Roberts 2004). To this end, individuals need to be supported through training and staff development in the presence of the necessary facilities, ranging from resources and equipment to good research leadership and management along national policies and funding. As Cloete, Bailey and Maassen put it, The lack of knowledge production in Africa’s flagship universities is not a simple lack of capacity and resources, but a complex set of capacities and contradictory rewards within a scarce-resource situation. This results in a fundamental lack of a strong output-oriented research culture at these universities. (2011)

In addition, however, we attribute the failure to the relationships and trust that exists between people as researchers and institutions, which is

232 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

also influenced by cultural values and political processes. In this section, we debate some alternatives to the relational patterns in collaborative research, as researchers in the African universities endeavour to produce knowledge. We address the question: How can the ukama ethic reflect itself and inform the practices of research collaboration and partnership in the African university? We noted how African universities are endowed with scarcity of research resources and this suggests that they are inclined to sharing and cooperation for the further development of research, especially as “becoming and remaining competitive in the world of research requires cooperation” (Weiler 2006, p. 16). Based on the ukama ethic, premised on the virtue of cooperation, we argue that facilities in developed research institutions which enable academics and research teams to discover matching interests between themselves and other institutions, would be particularly useful. This is especially crucial as many African researchers find challenges related to identifying partners to collaborate with due to a lack of international experience and exposure to knowing where to start. African research institutions and universities could be encouraged to host, and be assisted in hosting, international events in order to open up space for a greater number of African researchers, while also familiarising their colleagues from outside the continent with the African university environment. This is informed by the view that, as Paul A. David asserts, Information is not like forage, depleted by use for consumption; data-sets are not subject to being ‘over-grazed’ but, instead, are likely to be enriched and rendered more accurate, and more fully documented the more that researchers are allowed to comb through them. It is by means of wide and complete disclosure and the sceptical efforts to replicate novel research findings that scientific communities collectively build bodies of ‘reliable knowledge’. (David 2001, n.p.)

In this way, we foresee the element of mutuality, harmony and respect for, and tolerance of, the other closing in and hence fulfilling the ukama ethic in collaborative research. This will, in medieval historian Richard Southern’s (1952) view, lead emerging researchers and institutions in Africa to celebrate that,

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

233

We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size. (Southern 1953, p. 83)

It is ideal that collaborative research must be rooted in a true and equal partnership of members if long-term sustainability of research is to bear its authentic name. However, it is common practice that researchers from funding countries often assume leading roles, while there is also a propensity for decisions to flow the same way to African-based university researchers. To enter into a reciprocal relationship based on ukama, external researchers, seeking to collaborate with their African colleagues, need to acknowledge the limitations under which they work, and be sincerely ready to work in corroboration with the needs and priorities of their partners. In order to ensure mutuality and reciprocal commitment to the collaborative research projects, all participants, resourced or under-­ resourced, must be entirely engaged at all levels of the research project and, through regular meetings between participants, all members must collaboratively evaluate the progress and make collective decisions. While the great need for research cooperation among universities, both nationally and across borders, cannot be overemphasised, recognising the political dynamics of research systems, both within institutions of higher education and throughout their social, economic and political environment, is imperative. Much of this need is the result of limited resources at any one institution and of the economics of complementarity, but there is also a feeling that this kind of co-operation will broaden the perspectives of individual researchers, encourage fresh approaches to research, and overcome the isolation of researchers. There is a strong case for cooperation among universities within the south, but also a very open and favourable perspective on cooperation between Southern and Northern institutions, provided it works in both directions. This will help to counter the “scant support to the building of institutional capacity, given the likely external determination of topics and its generally applied character, nor is it likely to make much of a contribution to systematic theory building” (Sawyerr 2004, p.  217). We argue that such

234 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

collaborative endeavours need to be informed by the ukama ethic, rooted in the virtues of respect and tolerance of mutual partners involved in the research enterprise.

Concluding Remarks It has been observed in this chapter that there is a genuine need for the invaluable cooperation and collaboration among researchers, as individuals, and among different research institutions, including African universities and those domiciled throughout the world. African universities, in their entry into research partnerships with exotic colleagues and large-­ scale research funders, have been on the underdog, receiving end. The need for partnerships and research collaboration rooted in ethical principles has received little attention in previous studies. This chapter has located the notion of collaborative research in the context of the ukama ethic as a relational principle founded on the virtues of respect for the other and tolerance, mutuality and reciprocity of collaborative researchers. It was argued that for research to be collaborative, especially in the African university milieu, there is a need to consider the contribution of an understanding of ukama as an ethical principle that foregrounds mutuality and equal contribution and benefits of the research process in knowledge production and dissemination.

References Bakker, M., Roger, T. H., Leenders, A. J., Gabbay, S. M., Kratzer, J., & Van Engelen, J. M. L. (2006). Is trust really social capital? Knowledge sharing in product development projects. The Learning Organization, 13, 3. Barnes, T. A., Pashby, I. R., & Gibbons, A. M. (2006). Managing collaborative R&D projects development of a practical management tool. International Journal of Project Management, 24. Boak, E., & Ndaruhutse, S. (2011). The impact of sector-wide approaches: Where from, where now and where to?, from http://www.cfbt.com/enGB/Research/ Research-library/2011/r-the-impact-of-swaps-2011

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

235

Buber, M. (1957). Pointing the way (M. Friedman, Trans.). New York: Harper and Brothers. Buber, M. (1970). I and thou (translated with prologue and notes by W. Kaufman). New York: Charles Scribner’s. Clark, C., Moss, P. A., Goering, S., Herter, R. J., Lamar, B., Leonard, D., et al. (1996). Collaboration as dialogue: Teachers and researchers engaged in conversation and professional development. American Educational Research Journal, 3(2), 193–231. Cloete, N., & Fehnel, R. (2002). The emergent landscape. In N.  Cloete, R. Fehnel, T. Gibbon, P. Maasen, T. Moja, & H. Perold (Eds.), Transformation in higher education: Global pressures and local realities in South Africa (pp. 387–390). Cape Town: Juta. Cloete, N., Bailey, T., Pillay, P., Bunting, I., & Maassen, P. (2011). Universities and economic development in Africa. Wynberg: Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET). Cloete, N., Fehnel, R., Maassen, P. A. M., Moja, I. A., Perold, H., & Gibbon, T. (2002). Transformation in Higher Education. Global Pressures and Local Realities in South Africa. Lansdowne: Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd. Cummings, L.  L., & Bromiley, P. (1996). The organizational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. In R. M. Kramer & T. R. Tyle (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of theory and research (pp. 302–330). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Cunningham, W. S. (2008). Voices from the field: Practitioner reactions to collaborative research initiatives. Action Research, 6(4), 373–390. David, P. A. (2001). Will building ‘Good Fences’ really make ‘Good Neighbors’ in Science? from http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/headlines/archive. html#03 De Quincey, C. (2005). Radical knowing: Understanding consciousness through relationship. Vermont: Park Street Press. Dell, S. (2014). International collaboration in African research – Who wins? from h t t p : / / w w w. u n i v e r s i t y w o r l d n e w s . c o m / a r t i c l e . p h p ? s t o r y = 2014020317280463 Donohoo, J. (2013). Collaborative inquiry for educators: A Facilitator’s guide to school improvement. Thousand Oaks: Corwin. Gaillard, J. F. (1994). North-south research partnership: Is collaboration possible between unequal partners? Knowledge and Policy: The International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization, 7(2), 31–63.

236 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

Gelfand, M. (1981). Ukama: Reflections on Shona and Western cultures in Zimbabwe. Gweru: Mambo Press. Harle, J. (2007). Frameworks for Africa-UK research collaboration in the social sciences and humanities: African university perspectives. London: Association of Commonwealth Universities. John-Steiner, V. (2000). Creative collaboration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keraminiyage, E. K., Amaratunga, R. D. G., & Haigh, R. (2009). Achieving success in collaborative research: the role of virtual research. Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction, 14, 59–69. Kuder, J. (2005). UPE in Tanzania: SWAP-ing quality for quantity again? Globalisation, Societies and Education, 3(2), 165–181. Kulati, T., & Moja, T. (2002). Leadership. In N. Cloete, R. Fehnel, T. Gibbon, P. Maasen, T. Moja, & H. Perold (Eds.), Transformation in higher education: Global pressures and local realities in South Africa. Cape Town: Juta. Lai, E. (2011). Collaboration: A literature review. Upper Saddle River: Pearson. Luescher, T. M., & Symes, A. (2003). The transformation of higher education in South Africa: How much have we achieved? Perceptions of policy developments 1997–2003 and outlook for the next five years. Pretoria: Council Of Higher Education. McMillan, J., & Schumacher, S. (2006). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry. Boston: Pearson Education. Mhaka, V. (2010). “Becoming a Christ for your neighbour”: Exploring Luther’s notion of neighbourliness in light of ukama and Ubuntu in the Zimbabwean Lutheran church. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal. Murove, M.  F. (2009). Beyond the savage evidence ethic: A vindication of African ethics. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics: An anthology of comparative ethics. Scottsville: University of Kwa Zulu -Natal Press. Ndofirepi, A. P. (2013). Philosophy for children: A quest for an African perspective. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand. Onyancha, O., & Maluleka, J. R. (2011). Knowledge production through collaborative research in sub-Saharan Africa: How much do countries contribute to each other’s knowledge output and citation impact? Scientometrics, 87, 315–336. Onyancha, O.  B., & Ocholla, D.  N. (2007). Country-wise collaborations in HIV/AIDS research in Kenya and South Africa, 1980–2005. Libri, 57, 239–254. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

10  Ukama Ethic in Knowledge Production: Theorising… 

237

Peters, R. S., & White, J. P. (1969). The Philosopher’s contribution to educational research. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1, 1–15. Pouris, A., & Ho, Y. (2014). Research emphasis and collaboration in Africa. Scientometrics, 98, 2169–2184. Powell, W. W. (1990). Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 295–336. Ritchie, S. M., & Rigano, D. L. (2007). The emergence of solidarity in collaborative research. In S. M. Ritchie (Ed.), Research collaboration: Relationships and praxis. Bold visions in educational research (pp. 13–25). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roschelle, J. (1992). Learning by collaborating: Convergent conceptual change. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(3), 235–276. Roschelle, J., & Teasley, S. D. (1995). The construction of shared knowledge in collaborative problem-solving. In C. E. O’Malley (Ed.), Computer-supported collaborative learning (pp. 69–197). Berlin: Springer. Sawyerr, A. (2004). African universities and the challenge of research capacity development. Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 2(1), 211–240. Shils, E., & Roberts, J. (2004). The diffusion of European models outside Europe. A history of the University in Europe, Volume III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press (pp. 163 230). Sindima, H. (1995). Africa’s Agenda: The legacy of liberalism and colonialism in the crisis of African values. Westport: Greenwood Press. Smith, D., & Katz, J. S. (2000). Collaborative approaches to research: Final report, from http://users.sussex.ac.uk/~sylvank/pubs/collc.pdf Southern, R. W. (1952). The Making of the Middle Ages. New Haven, CT Yale. University Press. Southern, R.  W. (1953). Making of the middle ages. New Haven: Yale University Press. Teferra, D., Altbach, P., et al. (2003). African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook. http://lst-iiep.iiep-unesco.org/cgi-bin/wwwi32.exe/ [in=epidoc1.in]/?t2000=018608/(100). Thomson, A., Perry, J., & Miller, T. (2007). Conceptualizing and measuring collaboration. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19, 23–56. Trust Africa. (2011). Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education in Africa. Trust Africa Policy Brief. www.trsutafrica.org/en/publications-trust/ policy-brief.

238 

A. P. Ndofirepi and F. Maringe

Van den Berghe, P.  L. (1973). Power and privilege at an African university. Cambridge: Transaction Publishers. Weiler, H.  N. (2006). Challenging the orthodoxies of knowledge: Epistemological, structural, and political implications for higher education. In G. Neave (Ed.), Knowledge, power and dissent: Critical perspectives on higher education and research in knowledge society (pp.  61–87). Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

11 Rurality and Social Justice in Multiple Contexts: Deliberations Revisited Amasa P. Ndofirepi and Alfred Masinire

Overview In this final chapter the key themes that have emerged from the preceding chapters of the two volumes are synthesised. Drawing from diverse rural schooling and higher education contexts in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and South Africa, the chapters provide an overview of challenges and promising narratives of rurality and social justice in schools and higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Scholarly research has demonstrated the gross inequalities and injustices which confront rural education as compared to urban counterparts particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the dawn of a postcolonial dispensation within the continent, a distributive justice approach has dominated

A. P. Ndofirepi (*) School of Education, Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] A. Masinire Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0_11

239

240 

A. P. Ndofirepi and A. Masinire

interventions destined to steer the fortunes of rural schools as well as rural students in higher education. A distributive justice approach is driven by a neo-liberal egalitarian conception of justice wherein institutions assign rights and duties and distribute benefits and burdens through social cooperation (Rawls 1971). In the context of rural schools in Africa and elsewhere, distributive justice has been conceived with the hope of modelling an urban imagination of the rural, that is, to speed up the development of rural communities so that they catch up with their urban counterparts. While not claiming to be representative and exhaustive of all the myriad and diverse rural places in which schools are located and higher education institutions draw their students from, the chapters grapple with pertinent social justice issues that have historically hampered and still continue to confront and impact rural education provision. Working through conceptions of multiple ruralities and distributive justice (Rawls 1971), recognitional justice and associational justice (Gewirtz 2006b) these chapters do not subscribe to a consensual orientation of rurality and social justice. Indeed, the principles of justice and conceptions of rurality adopted in these chapters demonstrate the contested nature of a discourse as shaped by “competing norms and external constraints” (Cuervo 2016, p. 4). A persistent line of thought running through the various chapters is that the terrain of rurality and education in Sub-Saharan Africa appears to have reached a juncture where a reconceptualisation of rural education and social justice issues are urgently required. Thus each chapter interrogates rurality and social justice and their intersection with other categories such as history of colonialism, access, participation, achievement, parental involvement, gender, disability, social mobility, research knowledge and curriculum and space. Anchored on the notion of a socially just and equitable education, the two volumes on rurality and social justice in schools in Sub-Saharan Africa and rurality and social justice in higher education attempt such a reformulation of rurality. The key themes which recur in these two volumes are shifting conceptions of rurality, multiple and complex ruralities, expanded notions of social justice, as well as contested spaces. This chapter pulls together the key arguments in these volumes.

11  Rurality and Social Justice in Multiple Contexts… 

241

 hifting Conceptions of Rurality, Education S and Social Justice The fact that societies are socially unjust is not contested. Social inequality exists in all parts of the world. In the majority of countries in postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa the injustice has a historical social engineering executed through systems of racial separate development. Even though the inequality is unanimously agreed upon, identifying, analysing and prioritising dealing with unfairness is hotly controversial. Consequently, we find rural education in Sub-Saharan Africa located on the periphery and often completely absent from social justice agendas. If attention to the rural is made, it is often driven by assumptions of rural uniformity. This rural education oversight is often propelled by erroneous assumptions of rural which are derived in comparison with the urban. For a long time colonial images of rurality have dominated public and policy directives in education in Africa. Particular acceptable norms became the standards by which the rural and its people were identified and defined. Even to this day we find such narratives powerful and not serving the rural in any meaningful manner. Though articulated within an American/ Western context, we find Theobold and Wood’s (2010) observations relevant to the African rural education circumstances that, “somewhere along the line rural students and adults seem to have learnt that to be rural is to be sub-par, that conditions of living in a locale creates deficiencies of various kinds including educational deficiencies” (p. 19). The negative messages about the rural self are channelled by the dominant culture through the public media. Even curriculum and research text convey negative messages of rurality and schooling in these places. Similarly, the few successful rural graduates who enter higher education carry with them what we would call ‘a rural baggage’ which makes it practically difficult to navigate both the social and academic culture in an urban university. Such messages convey deficit conceptions of rurality and rural identities became embedded in the construction of rurality and schooling. Research and development about the rural has proceeded on similar assumptions of deficit. In the main there is nothing of significance that

242 

A. P. Ndofirepi and A. Masinire

can be drawn from the rural. Development assistance is parachuted from outside with the hope that it will impact change and move the rural schools forward. The call to adopt strength-based paradigms and conceptions of the rural has been anchored by Moletsane (2012). There is something about the rural which has escaped the imagination of the present modern discourse. How can we capture and utilise this rural strength? Corbett (2013, as cited in Corbett 2015) restates rural positioning as strength, thus, “how might we tap into the innovative, improvisational traditions that have marked rural living where people have always had to figure things out for themselves and develop multiple skill sets?” (p. 18). For example, Mbhiza in this volume reframes parental involvement in education in ways that show rural innovation against odds. This is empowering because dominant narratives have portrayed rural parents as basically unsupportive of the children’s educational welfare. Against these powerfully entrenched narratives of rurality and schooling the various chapters in these two volumes attempt to reframe rurality and education in both the schooling and higher education sectors in Sub-­ Saharan Africa. Thus, some rural dwellers have successfully shed the negative connotations of rurality, but the very act of dismissing these stereotypes becomes part of their identity. The chapters all reflect in different ways the need to shift our conceptions of rurality from colonial and conservative stereotypes to an appreciation of rurality as locations in space and time made up of unique attributes and opportunities. Understanding the above shifting conceptions has significant implications for curriculum policy development as well as epistemic pedagogical relevance. As argued by Ndile in these volumes, overcoming injustice would entail dismantling institutionalised obstacles through appropriate policies and their effective implementation that prevent some peoples from participating or benefiting on a par with others as full and equal members of a social system.

11  Rurality and Social Justice in Multiple Contexts… 

243

 ngaging with Multiple and Complex Rural E Spaces in Schools and Higher Education Public and even research discourses are filled with homogenous and erroneous assumptions of rurality and poverty which generate broad-brush policy approaches which have failed to adequately inform our understanding of the most deprived rural communities in South Africa. The dominant definitions of rurality have privileged deficit paradigms of rurality (Moletsane 2012) characterised by conservatism, disadvantage, remoteness, isolation and poverty underdevelopment. The various chapters in these volumes attempt to demystify such narrow categorisations of rurality. Rurality is indeed heterogeneous, dynamic and complex. Rural people are confined in a specific and bounded geographic material place, but time, space and resources compel them to experience the rural differently. There is life sustained in rural areas at times independent from urban authority. Corbett (2015) is informative when he argues that, In the current circumstances, there are multiple forms of rural community and multiple parenting and career strategies that need to be considered not en masse, both in terms of ‘thickness’ as Pat Thomson (2000) put it referring to the specifics of this family, this child and/or this community. (p. 19)

The heterogeneity of rurality warrants that consideration of social justice should be aggregated to the smallest unity rather than treating rural people as homogenous and essential blocks. Targeted intervention can reach the deserving category of people. In the quest for rural social justice in education, the complexity and multifaceted nature of rurality with its diverse community composition needs to be foregrounded. The chapters alert us to also consider rurality as composed of women, people with disability, and people living in flood-prone areas. Also, in Sub-Saharan Africa, different historical trajectories and education policies bear distinct imprints on education provision in rural areas. Thus, to perceive the rural one as amorphous is reductionist and robs the rural space of its potential power.

244 

A. P. Ndofirepi and A. Masinire

As we focus on the specifics of the local and rural, we are also oblivious of the danger of completely isolating the rural from the rest of the world. We recognise that the rural is also integrated into global processes and forces that transform virtually every space on the globe today, albeit on an unequal footing.

 Space for Rurality in Higher Education: A Broadening the Horizons of Social Justice The notion of rurality is gradually gathering force as a conceptual tool articulating and leveraging social justice in both the schooling and higher education sectors. The rurality discourse bears undertones of inclusion and at times subversion. Essentially, rurality is framed to contest the current curriculum structures, spaces and policies in higher education which were largely designed with a misrecognition of the rural. In general, there is a clarion call for higher education to respond to the needs and challenges of Africa. As noted by Dhunpath, Amin and Msibi (2014, p. 1), “Higher education, from this perspective, has to shape, plan, design and produce human capital and knowledges that are relevant to Africa.” We extend this call to the needs and challenges of rural contexts in Africa which broadly encompass multiple deprivation and poverty. This discourse is partly a response to the diversity which currently characterises schooling and higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. A persistent and emerging concern is how higher education has often alienated rural students, making it difficult for these students to access the knowledge and, subsequently, graduate. If we examine transformative efforts in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa in the postcolonial period from Gewirtz’s (2006a) social justice perspective, we can conclude that issues of recognitional and associational justice are still to be addressed with respect to rurality in higher education. The chapters grapple with the complexity embedded in attempts to recognise the rural attributes and affordances which rural students bring with them in the higher education pedagogic encounter.

11  Rurality and Social Justice in Multiple Contexts… 

245

From a perspective of rurality and social justice there are two issues evident in the context of higher education. One is the growing proportion of black students from the remote rural schools who due to democratisation of higher education have now gained expanded access and participation in the previously exclusive education system. The second issue is that higher education has not acted in a responsive manner to the emergent demography of black rural students. Dhunpath and Vithal’s (2012) postulation is informative in this regard when they argue that, … while university student bodies have grown and diversified rapidly, we ask whether universities have been responsive to these changes or whether they are unprepared in remaining unchanged in their staffing and ways in which they construct their academic programs and curricula, and whether their deeply entrenched cultures, rituals and traditions inhibit meaningful access to higher education. (pg. 2)

The consequence of that lack of response has been both the social and epistemological exclusion of the rural black students in higher education. Low throughputs and graduation rates manifest largely on the black rural students. The chapters in these two volumes provide some practical and pedagogical suggestions as to how higher education should attend to the confounding above issues in order to provide spaces for recognitional and associational justice. To move beyond distributive justice, the chapters in these volumes offer some insights and proposals as to why and how that should be pursued.

 ubversive Discourse and Practice: Rural S and Social Justice Imperative for Higher Education The participation and success of rural students in higher education is globally acknowledged. Commonwealth Australia (2019) notes that as a result of the greater academic, geographic, social and financial challenges they experience, Regional Rural Remote students are much less likely to undertake and complete tertiary study. Most of the ideas and proposals

246 

A. P. Ndofirepi and A. Masinire

offered in the above chapters have not yet made notable inroads in higher education. The authors present these ideas not as prescriptive dossiers, but as possible contenders to current normative higher education curriculum structures. A rural gaze into issues of access, participation and achievement is suggested by Hellen Agumba, calling for reconfiguration of higher education institutional landscape in order to expand access and success of rural students. Without this rural gaze, higher education will remain underprepared to engage productively with rural student clientele. What is significant in these accounts is the subversion and deconstruction of the notion of underpreparedness which has been disproportionally apportioned to rural students. Without a modicum of self-introspection higher education will for a long time to come remain underprepared to deal with rural students. Phefumula Nyoni’s and Joseph Hungwe reconceptualisation of extended curriculum programmes and colonial neologism echoes the same idea that nothing is wrong with the rural students, they are not deficient in any way but higher education programmes like the ECP might be. According to Nyoni, the gaze needs to shift to examine the personal and professional baggage that lecturers bring into the academic spaces, for they shape the emergent relations and norms of social justice. Gwavaranda suggests that research in higher education would be more relevant if it is informed by rural African relational and communitarian epistemology, while Amasa Ndofirepi and Felix Maringe suggest the potential of ukama ethical values in knowledge production in higher education. Elizabeth Ndofirepi and Felix Maringe grapple with issues of student experiences in higher education spaces. Rural students create social spaces and networks which become useful for their survival in a marginalising learning environment. Mapukata, Masinire and Nkambule suggest that training of professionals should be decentralised to rural areas.

11  Rurality and Social Justice in Multiple Contexts… 

247

 ocial Justice: An Indigenous S Africa Perspective Thinking beyond Western modernist perspectives of social justice is probably what should drive research and pedagogy in higher education. A few chapters in these volumes have provided very significant points of departure in thinking about justice and rurality in higher education and in rural communities. Normally we frame social justice in modernist Eurocentric terms as all other chapters in the volumes have done. A few chapters have used indigenous African concepts of justice to think about teaching and knowledge production in higher education. They are arguing that Western concepts of justice are inadequate in providing educational justice in an African university. At this juncture of research knowledge/curriculum decolonisation sweeping across academia in Africa and other non-Western worlds, indigenous conceptions and application of justice become useful in thinking about some practical ways of decolonisation knowledge and pedagogy in higher education. This becomes a potentially promising research thrust which requires further exploration. The proposals and rural insights in the above chapters steer an uncomfortable orientation to the current structural arrangement in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, in the current context of higher education which is coaxed with a pervasive neoliberal mantra, the proposals and insights will remain as isolated pockets of change initiated by the collective agency of individual staff and students. The two volume book provides the bedrock in the form of theory and practices that pervade education in both basic and higher education on which researchers and stakeholders can navigate and derive new insights to further contribute to the knowledge funds of educating rural and disadvantaged citizens of Africa and the world at large for social justice values of egalitarian and democratic citizenship.

248 

A. P. Ndofirepi and A. Masinire

References Commonwealth Australia. (2019). National Regional, rural and remote tertiary education strategy. Corbett, M. (2013). Remembering French in English: Reflections of an assimilated Acadian. In T. Strong-Wilson, C. Mitchell, S. Allnutt & K. PithouseMorgan (Eds.), Productive remembering and social agency (pp. 169–182). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Corbett, M. (2015). Rural education: Some sociological provocations for the field. Australian and International Journal for Rural Education, 25(3), 9–25. Cuervo, H. (2016). Understanding social justice in rural education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dhunpath, R., & Vithal, R. (2012). Alternative access to higher education: Underprepared students or underprepared institutions? Cape Town: Pearson Publishers. Dhunpath, R., Amin, N., & Msibi, T. (2014). Editorial: Re-envisioning African higher education: Alternative paradigms, emerging trends and new directions. Alternation Special Edition, 12, 1–12. Gewirtz, S. (2006a). Conceptualising social justice in education: mapping the territory. Journal of Education Policy, 13(4), 469–484. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/0268093980130402. Gewirtz, S. (2006b). Towards a Contextualized Analysis of Social Justice in Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 38(1), 68–81. Moletsane, L. (2012). Repositioning educational research on rurality and rural education in South Africa: Beyond deficit paradigms. Perspectives in Education, 30(1): 1–8. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Harvard University Press. Theobold, P., & Wood, K. (2010). Learning to be rural: Identity lessons from history, schooling and the US cooperate media. In K.A, Schafft & A. Youngblood Jackson, (Eds.), Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century: Identity, Place and Community in a Globalising World (pp. 17–33). Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Thomson, P. (2000). ‘Like schools’, educational ‘disadvantage’ and ‘thisness’. The Australian Educational Researcher, 27(3), 157–172.

Index

A

Access to education, 84 higher education, 5, 30–32, 51, 55–73, 77, 80, 245 opportunities, 4 resources, 4, 41, 161, 178 resources, Zimbabwe, 3, 14, 17 Acornhoek rural teaching experience, 105, 108 Africanisation, 150, 160, 163, 167 Africanisation and localisation, 160, 167 African relational epistemology, 201–202 See also Epistemology African rurality communitarian mode of knowing, 192, 246 indigenous epistemology, 202–205, 209

relational model of knowledge, 192, 246 values in knowledge production, 192 Agents of change, 181–185 See also Lecturers Analytic epistemology, 195–199, 209 epistemic hegemony, 198–199, 210 epistemological dualism, 197–199 physics as a model of knowledge, 196–198 Apartheid, 85 Apartheid education, 108 Aristotle, 202 C

Case study, 31–51 Code, Lorraine epistemic responsibility, 203

© The Author(s) 2020 A. P. Ndofirepi, A. Masinire (eds.), Rurality, Social Justice and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57215-0

249

250 Index

Collaborative approach, 134, 161, 165 benefits, 137–139, 141, 221, 226–230 challenges, 137–140, 228 Collaborative research, 215–234 agency, 220 complementarity, 220 meanings and rationales, 218–221 mutuality, 217, 220, 223, 225, 231, 232 reciprocity, 221, 231 relationships, 215–218, 220–225, 231 research community, 226–231 types, 221–223, 230 Colonial era Zimbabwe, 59–60, 65 Colonial history, 7 Colonialism, 85, 198–199 Coloniality, 198 Colonisation, 198 Critical pedagogy theory, 175, 180–188 agency, 175–185 personal and professional character and values, 175 Curriculum, 163–166 D

Decentralisation deconcentration, delegation, devolution, privatisation, 130 Decentralisation of training, 129–133 education and medical students, 128, 133

Decentralised training approaches, 127–141 See also Training approaches Decolonisation, 150, 160, 163, 167, 199 Deficit construction, 5, 17 See also Rural deficit, model Distributive justice, 239, 240 E

Education Zimbabwe, 11, 13 Education in rural schools, 30 Epistemic becoming, 90–92 Epistemic emotions, 208 Epistemic injustice Fricker, Miranda, 204–206 Hookway, Christopher, 204 Epistemology African, 191–213 analytic, a critique, 195–199 (see also Analytic epistemology) Cartesian individualist, 206 and ethics, 200–210 relational, 195–202, 210 rural environments, 191 Equity South Africa, 81, 84 Zimbabwe, 13 Extended curriculum programme (ECP), 175–176, 180–181, 184, 186–188, 246 for social justice, 177–181 for transformation, 177–181, 185, 188

 Index  F

Fairness Rawls’ theory, 4 Zimbabwe, 4, 13 Fraser’s theory of social justice, 78, 84–92 distributive justice, 13 Freire, Paulo, 174–175, 179, 181–182 Fricker, Miranda epistemic injustice, 204–206

251

socioeconomic (redistributive), 4–5 Interventions, 5 in Zimbabwe, 14–18 J

Justice Rawls’ theory, 4, 15 (see also Social justice) K

H

Higher education access, participation and achievement, 3–21, 77–89, 246 curricula transformation, 173 South Africa, 174 transformation, 179 Zimbabwe, 3–18, 55–73 Hookway, Christopher epistemic injustice, 204

Kaunda, Kenneth humanism, 152 Knowledge production, 215–234 Kwena-based farm, 105, 108 L

Lecturers, 45–52, 109–110, 173–188 M

I

Identity formation, 159 Indigenous epistemology, 202–205, 209 Industrialisation, 151, 153 Inequality, 8, 239, 241 South Africa, 80, 90 Injustice, 86, 90, 239 cultural, 4 cultural (recognitive), 4 political (representative), 4 social, 5

Mute space, 34, 45–48, 51 N

Nyerere, Julius communalism, 152 (see also Tanzania) P

Partnership practices the African university, 215–234 Popper, Karl, 209

252 Index R

Racism definition, 57 Rawls’ theory, 4, 15, 240 See also Social justice Relational epistemology, 195–202, 210 Relational spaces, 23–54 peer support, 34 Research, 160, 164, 219 localisation of, 150 Rural definition, 6, 79, 155–158, 176–178 Rural areas definition, 157–158 Zimbabwe, 55 Rural communities South Africa, 137 Zimbabwe, 12, 13 Rural deficit, 29, 60, 78, 82, 84, 178, 192, 241, 243 discourse, 28, 116–118 model, 8 (see also Deficit construction) Rural disadvantage, 28 Rural education, 30, 60, 240 South Africa, 101–119 Rural graduate, 147–167 challenges, 158–162 definition, 158 Rurality, 25–30, 77–85, 147, 191–213, 239–247 African, 191–213 concept, 78–79, 176–179 conception of, 6–7, 79, 242 conceptualisations of, 28, 61–62, 79–85, 193–195

definition, 6–7, 17, 61, 156–159, 176–179 discourses, 24 epistemic resources, 192 in higher education, 244–245 indigenous epistemology, 202–205, 209 negative aspects, 192, 241 positive aspects, 202–204, 243 South Africa, 132, 174 stereotypes, Zimbabwe, 63–73 Zimbabwe, 3–18, 59–62 Rural practice School of Clinical Medicine, 136 School of Education, 137 Rural schools, 26, 240 challenges in Zimbabwe, 3, 9–15, 17 curriculum, Zimbabwe, 9 interventions, 5 Zimbabwe, 9–10, 65 Rural students, 26, 28, 30–51 background, 86, 89 challenges, 31, 46, 50 challenges in South Africa, 23, 30–52, 79–82 challenges in Zimbabwe, 4, 9–10, 66–73 South Africa, 23–54, 173–188 Zimbabwe, 8–9, 12 S

Social capital, 40, 51 bonding, 24, 27–28, 38, 43, 50–52 bridging, 24, 27–28, 38, 43, 50–52

 Index 

linking, 24, 27–28, 38, 45–47, 49–52 theory, 27 Social justice, 4, 52, 84–92, 119, 132, 239–247 access, participation and achievement, 84–92 distributive justice, 13, 240 redistribution, recognition, representation, association, 85–92, 240, 244–245 (see also Fraser) South Africa, 173–188 through decolonisation, 247 Social space, 44, 56, 246 Social support, 42 Soja, 83–85, 88 concept of spaces, 83, 89 trialectical account, 78, 82–84 South Africa, 101–119, 127–141, 173–188 Staff, see Teachers; Lecturers Survival strategies for the socially disadvantaged Zimbabwe, 5 T

Tanzania, 151–153 Teachers Zimbabwe, 10–14, 65 Teacher training curriculum, 246 curriculum, South Africa, 104–119, 128, 130, 137–139, 141 South Africa, 101–119, 246 Zimbabwe, 13 Training approaches, 127–141

253

U

Ubuntu, 152 Ukama ethic, 215–234, 246 meaning, 217, 223–225 reciprocity, 218 Universities in Africa, lessons, 191–213 challenges, 148–167 dealing with the challenges, 14–18, 231–234 epistemic emotions, 208–209 interventions, 15–18, 24, 51, 73, 163–166, 173, 245 role of, 153–154, 159–167 University education African university, 215–234 curriculum, 160–161, 186–187 curriculum, South Africa, 104–119, 173 curriculum, Zimbabwe, 15 decentralised training approach, South Africa, 127–141 Zimbabwe, 12–13 Urban concept, 155–156 Urban and rural, 149–152 differences, 7, 28, 156, 239 differences, Zimbabwe, 8, 9, 13, 60–64 graduates, 150–153, 159, 161–162 schooling, 31 students, Zimbabwe, 57, 89 Urbanisation, 147, 151–153 Z

Zambia, 152 Zimbabwe, 3–21