3rd Global Conference
The Idea of Education
Monday 9th August - Wednesday 11th August 2004
Prague, Czech Republic
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Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 3: Analysing
Education
Chair: Jayne R. Beilke
Disabled Students have to be Counted……Let us Hear
their Perception
Brian Malindi
Project Manager: Academic Development,
Vaal University of Technology,
(Formerly Vaal Triangle Technikon)
Vanderbijlpark, South Africa
People with disabilities do not form a homogenous group.
Despite the fact that they have similar rights, their needs, concerns
and challenges differ remarkably. Because the staff at most institutions
of higher learning are not sensitized to the abilities and potential
of disabled students, many fields of study and careers are still inaccessible
to such students (Koen, 2003).
The Higher Education (HE) in South Africa
is undergoing major transformation challenges at different levels. One
of the challenges is to widen access of disabled students to institutions
of higher learning. This is as the results of the first democratic elections
in the country, disability has become a human rights issue no more a
health issue as it was pre-democratic era. The National Plan on Higher
Education (NPHE, 2001) states that “the
HE must increase the participation rate through recruiting workers, mature
students and the disabled; it is proposed to establish
a 5% target for such enrolments. This paper aims to explore the perceptions
of disabled students at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) and the readiness
of VUT to substantially increase the intake of disabled students. Individual
in-depth interviews will be conducted with disabled students to explore
and describe their perception on challenges they encounter at VUT. The
university’s policy on disabled students will be examined. The
findings of this study will be imperative to:
- To disabled students, they will share their stories and narrate the challenges they face in the institution of higher education.
-to Department of Academic Development, in its quest to formulate and implement intervention programmes aiming at enhancing students’ performance and retention.
- To VUT, the extent in which it meets the goal of NPHE on disabled students.
The Changing Landscape of Education: The Integration of Pre-Registration
Nursing Education within Higher Education
Anne Grant
Nurse Lecturer, University College Dublin, Ireland
In Ireland, in 2002, the full-scale integration of pre-registration
nursing education into higher education began with the commencement of
a four-year Bachelor of Science (Nursing) program. Consequently, lecturers
in nursing have been faced with the challenge of coping with transition
from a predominantly hospital-based educational programme to a college-based
academic degree programme. In integrating nursing with higher education
to advance nursing education, the commitment of nurse lecturers has been
tested. Nurse lecturers have had to adapt to a new culture while balancing
the administrative, clinical, teaching and research demands of the academic
role.
The teaching context has a significant impact on lecturers’ perceptions
of their professional role. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that
nurse lecturers are experiencing varying degrees of difficulty in adapting
to the recent change in teaching context and work practice. The literature
suggests that lecturers may face difficulties when they are asked to
change their practices because of the persistence of past images concerning
teaching. The context and culture of hospital-based programmes differs
greatly from college-based academic degree programmes. Lecturers’ in
nursing find the increased focus on administration and research particularly
demanding.
This paper reviews the integration of nursing education within
higher education and in particular, the impact that the context of teaching
has on the lecturer’s perception of their professional role. A
review of material from nursing and educational sources will highlight
both the problems and opportunities for nurse lecturers as they perform
their academic role. The paper will conclude by making recommendations
as to how lecturers can be facilitated to adapt to their changing role.
Download Full Conference Paper - 
Who Do You Think You Are? Analysing the Potential Development of a Professional
Ethos with PG Cert (FE) Students
Elaine Fisher and
Kevin Fisher
Centre for Widening Participation and Education,
Gloscat,
Brunswick Campus,
Gloucester, United Kingdom
The Further Education sector has undergone a period
of extensive change in both regulation and student cohorts targeted.
Qualifications at all levels of the educational provision have been re-examined
in light of new needs and pressures. With the establishment of new awarding
bodies, increased funding and new inspection regimes the analysis of
practitioners and their role in the sector has become under greater scrutiny
as the cultural, sociological and political geography of the sectors
alters.
This period of change requires adjustment during which the formal
an informal links between practitioners and various stakeholders have
altered significantly. Analysing the factors that establish a professional
ethos within this changing environment appears timely given the potential
impact on quality and future roles within the sector.
There is consideration
on how far the sector may have moved from Carr’s
(1992) almost self actualising supererogatory model whilst considering
the possibility of attraction to axiological factors.