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Chapter 34: Assessment of Prior Learning: A South African perspective

AUTHOR: R. Osman

ABSTRACT: Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) as a policy goal in higher education in South Africa has emerged in a context of educational change and wider social transformation.  Among other changes RPL is posited as a key mechanism for educational redress for those whose education was disadvantaged under apartheid.  RPL is identified in a number of different national policy documents and is represented as a significant mechanism that facilitates equity, access and redress for unequal educational practices of the past, and simultaneously, as an assessment instrument to increase the knowledge and skills base of the workforce in the interest of global competitiveness.    RPL’s prominent place on the national policy agenda links it to globalisation, as well as to pressure to transform the education and training system locally, making it one of several imperatives competing for attention in the terrain of teaching, learning and assessment in higher education. While RPL is proposed as a cornerstone of change and transformation in an emerging education and training system as a whole, it is new and remains an untested policy in higher education in South Africa.  Very little is known about RPL practices either within or across institutions.  Drawing on original research in South Africa this chapter will argue that the portfolio process is a useful assessment approach in the recognition of prior learning not only because it acknowledges academic knowledge as a powerful form of capital, which students need, but it also creates a space for prior knowledge to become visible in higher education and the workplace.

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Chapter 7: The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) in South Africa

AUTHOR/S:  K. Greenop, J. Fry, D. de Sousa

ABSTRACT: The K-ABC was published in 1983 (revised and re-standardised, K-ABC ll, in 2004) as a measure of cognitive ability in children aged 2-12:6 years. The revised edition appropriately extends the age band to 18:11 years and modifies, subtracts and adds subtests. The K-ABC measures fluid and crystallised abilities, short and long term memory and visual processing and aligns with the Cattell-Horn-Carroll hierarchically organized model. The battery is based on Luria’s model of mental processing and has correlated significantly with scholastic achievement. Of greatest relevance is that the K-ABC was designed to have a reduced language and cultural load and the second edition has altered two sub-scales that were shown to load differently for diverse cultures.  The degree to which the K-ABC is able to offer a reduced cultural load test is debatable. Cross-cultural research, in Zaire and South Africa predominantly, has demonstrated that the K-ABC has value in cross-cultural settings but with specific caveats. Importantly the Sequential and Simultaneous processing scale offer more value that the Mental Processing Composite which has a knowledge basis that is culturally specific. The few studies have been conducted on the K-ABC in South Africa, have demonstrated its assessment value in a diagnostic, remedial and dynamic assessment framework, especially in comparison to alternate intelligence tests. However, caution is raised due to the absence of a strong South African normative basis.

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Chapter 5: Assessing school readiness in children using the JSAIS

AUTHORS: L. Theron

ABSTRACT: Drawing on personal professional experience as a practicing educational psychologist from 2000-present (which includes weekly use of the JSAIS as part of a school readiness assessment for a private boys school), I provide a brief introduction to the JSAIS. The introduction summarizes the structure, broad aims and general modus operandi of the JSAIS. I emphasize that the JSAIS should be used to provide a profile of weaknesses and strengths that will allow intervention towards optimal school readiness. The focus of the chapter, however, is a critical examination of the JSAIS in our multicultural, 21st century South African context with its multiple challenges and chronic violence. As part of this critique, I look at items which favour acculturated knowledge and have the potential to trigger previous traumas in order to guide students towards fairer assessment practices. I also provide extensive guidelines, based on my extensive observation and reflection, on using the JSAIS diagnostically with regard to emotional readiness for school, concentration difficulties, language barriers and motor difficulties. In essence, the chapter encourages students not to limit the JSAIS to a measure of intelligence, but to use it as a tool to comment qualitatively (rather than just quantitatively) on children’s readiness for formal learning.

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