Planning and governance for blended pedagogies and engagement of knowledge economy for South Africa's national development agenda

Abstract

The thesis drew from a combination of phenomenology, interactionism and critical theories because South Africa in itself consists of a polity with national dynamics, within the matrices of globality in which connectivity plays a determining role, especially in terms of the capacity to competitively participate in the global knowledge economy. Guided by reading collectively and critically from the economic, physical development, policy analysis, interpretative as well as collaboration planning approaches, among others, and the mono-centric, multilevel and adaptive models of governance, the thesis constructed a conceptual argument that the primate enablers for modernized infrastructure, skills and culture attached to the preconditions for blended pedagogies, are modernized planning and governance. However, the attainment of planning, governance, infrastructure and skills is in itself inadequate to inculcate the culture necessary for the integration of elearning with conventional didactics. This observation is confirmed through international experiences that involve the developed countries that are in the very high and high Human Development Index (HDI) categories such as Australia, Poland and Korea as well as Thailand, Brazil and Algeria, respectively, where the presence of planning, governance, infrastructure and skills has not automatically precipitated a culture required for blended pedagogies. This evidence does not seek to underplay the significance of planning, governance, infrastructure and skills in the integration of e-learning with conventional didactics, but the thesis has established that the existence of modernized planning, governance, infrastructure and skills are a necessary, rather than a sufficient, condition.

From the literature review, the thesis deduces that e-culture is a virtually sufficient condition for the establishment of blended pedagogies. Hence, variables such as GDP per Capita, Gross Fixed Capital Formation, Average Annual Growth of General Government Final Consumption Expenditure, Research and Development Expenditure and Public Expenditure on Education, that demonstrate the level of human development of a country, do not necessarily reflect capacity to enable the establishment of blended pedagogies. Such conditions do not always coexist with pre-eminence of communication using Internet and/or Mobile Phones, characteristic of the “Net Generation Culture”. The vi

latter, as a specific form of e-culture, is heavily dependent on infrastructure and skills which are, among others things, reflected in Gross Fixed Capital Formation, Employment to Population Ratio, Labour Force Participation Rate, Labour Force with Tertiary Education, Total Electrification Rate as well as Employment to Population Ratio. The observation made above is corroborated by the experiences of developing countries such as Vietnam, Zambia and Kenya, which are in the medium and low HDI categories, wherein the absence of appropriate and adequate infrastructure, skills and e-culture together with planning and governance imperil the evolution of the national culture into that of the “Net Natives”.

From an empirical perspective, consistent with the hybridization of philosophy, the thesis conveniently selected a target population that consisted of a total of 15 countries, wherein 14 of these observations provide a backdrop against which South Africa’s relative readiness and appropriateness of planning, governance, infrastructure, culture and skills for blended pedagogies are determined. A combination of purposive and quota sampling procedures was adopted to select the 15 countries across the four HDI categories. The 15 countries are classified in terms of the 2015 United Nations Development Programme HDI conceptions, which produced four levels of “very high”, “high”, “medium” and “low”. A total of 28 variables were selected for Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The thesis used secondary data sources for textual and empirical data, where the latter was largely drawn from the United Nations Development Programme Reports. The textual data were analysed qualitatively through thorough descriptions, classification and drawing of connections, the statistical data were organized into a 15 (observations) by 28 (variables) raw data matrix and analysed through the PCA. Verbal tools were used to provide thick descriptions of contexts regarding historical, social, demographic and economic backgrounds in order to situate the motive underlying the planning and governance of blending e-learning pedagogies with conventional didactics in South Africa. From a quantitative perspective, PCA was used for statistical modelling that standardized the data and produced a variety of useful statistical summaries such as Principal Components, Eigenvalues, Communalities, Correlation Matrix, Component Loadings, Component Scores and Scattergrams. vii

Given that the raw data consisted of 15 observations by 28 variables, a 28 by 28 variables correlation matrix was generated. Of the 378 correlations that the thesis discovered, 183 are direct and 195 are indirect. However, 276 of the 378 relationships are negligible; only 102 correlations were strong and significant enough to deserve closer examination. Principal Component Analysis extracted a total of 15 Principal Components; and, the first seven according to the thesis, accounted for the cumulative percentage of 92% in the interrelationships. Furthermore, it is evident that Principal Component 1 consists of the characteristics of Modernized, Planning, Governance, Infrastructure, Skills and Culture, which are diametrically different from the Frustrated Development, Unsustainable State Intervention and Societal Inequalities, Limiting e-infrastructure, e-skills Constraint, Muted Development Potential and the Non-existent e-culture that are associated with the rest. Given the significance and strength of the eigenvalue and component loadings on Principal Component (PC) 1, it should signify the presence of enabling environments for e-infrastructure, e-governance, e-culture and e-skills consistent with modernized planning and governance of blended pedagogies. Therefore, a country that scores negatively on PC 1 and positively on PC 2 would represent a society that is far less prepared for blended pedagogies where an unrelenting state investment for e-infrastructure, e-governance, eskills and e-culture would translate into a replacement behaviour rather than integration of conventional didactics with digital technologies. This infers that the status of governance, infrastructure, skills and culture would remain less optimal for the adoption of blended pedagogies. For such countries, investing heavily in blended pedagogies without first creating the requisite conditions for engagement in the global knowledge economy would imply that they would have sought to exploit non-existent capacity in governance, infrastructure, skills and culture.

South Africa's component score on PC 1 is -0.58, which would in terms of the analysis mean that this country lacks the character of modernized planning, governance, infrastructure, skills and culture that are necessary for engendering blended pedagogies. Countries such as Norway, Australia, Poland, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Sri Lanka that have variably trotted the blended pedagogies score positively on PC 1. Besides, viii

some of these countries have not been successful in blended pedagogies, notwithstanding their apparent enabling environments. Conversely, South Africa's component score on PC 2 is extraordinarily higher than all of the 14 countries; and, it is 2.15 points higher than the nearest score. It is important to recognize that South Africa's score on PC 2 is an extreme case and a virtual outlier that has no connection to the rest of the fourteen countries, especially those in the Medium and Low HDI. Overall, South Africa's component scores highlight the relative dearth of appropriate planning, governance, infrastructure, skills and culture, that are necessary for the adoption of blended pedagogies. Whereas the thesis finds that there is no direct correlation between the level of human development and adoption of blended pedagogies, the latter appears to be a result of convoluted processes that involve the creation of enablers for e-culture largely through planning, governance, infrastructure, skills and culture. These qualities are embedded with societal equality, equity of access to services, capital formation, employment, education as well as Internet infrastructure. The thesis therefore, concludes that South Africa's potential for human development is derailed through endless planning that has become an end in itself. Planning for its own sake, which defines South Africa's democratic history, means that modernized governance, skills and e-culture that are necessary for blended pedagogies have remained substandard.

The thesis establishes that South Africa’s national as well as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) planning demonstrates ambition and interest, which is however pursued in the absence of effective governance of implementation and adoption of appropriate educational technologies. Evidently, South Africa is yet to attain modernized planning, governance, skills and culture appropriate for the implementation of blended pedagogies, notwithstanding the infrastructure provided in some of the schools for teaching and learning. Instead, South Africa’s pedagogic digital transformation is characterized by replacement of conventional didactics with e-learning rather than integration for blended pedagogies. Therefore, this evidence suggests that, although South Africa’s educational ICT infrastructure seems to be relatively modernized, the absence of appropriate and adequate planning, governance, skills and e-culture impairs the successful implementation of blended learning. The thesis, therefore, recommends ix

that adoption of blended pedagogies should be supported through the creation of eculture in households, underwritten by modernized planning, governance, infrastructure and skills for competitive participation in the global knowledge economy.