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Development and sustainable impact the result of action learning journey

22 February 2024 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo SUPPLIED

Action Learning Workshop 2024 — Along with Prof Richard Teare (far right) are some of the workshop attendees, which consisted of a group of 15 students, academics, and community organisation leaders.

The Directorate Community Engagement at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently hosted Prof Richard Teare, the President of the Global University of Lifelong Learning (GULL). During his visit, he presented a workshop on action learning.

GULL, established 17 years ago, offers lifelong learning opportunities for people in communities and workplace organisations around the world. It provides frameworks and awards in support of lifelong learning.

Prof Teare described what the process of action learning entails and how it differs from the notion of ‘training’. According to him, action learning occurs when people learn from each other, create their own resources, identify their own problems, and form their own solutions. He stated, “The process is so enriching that every learner is able to identify personal and life-transforming outcomes. These commonly include expressions of enhanced self-confidence, self-belief, renewal, enthusiasm for learning, a new sense of direction and purpose for career and life – along with news skills, insights, and the sense of being equipped for the future.”

The workshop, attended by a group of 15 students, academics, and community organisation leaders, had an element of self-directed development, according to Dr Karen Venter, Head of the Division of Service Learning at the University of the Free State (UFS). “Participants learned how action learning can enable self-directed personal and professional development,” she said.

Skills and leadership characteristics

GULL pathways were also profiled to outline some of the innovative ways in which it can be used to facilitate continuous development aligned with professional certification. It offers three generic pathways, each with five levels (or certification points) leading to professional bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees,” explained Dr Venter.

“In practice, community leaders who have obtained one of these professional degrees can now become change agents for community development in their own community organisations, using the action learning pathway and certification offered by GULL,” she said.

Dr Venter added that a group of students from the UFS – the Active Community Citizens through Engaged Scholarship for Sustainability (ACCESS) group – embarked on a Professional Bachelor pathway certified by GULL last year. Not only did the group of 11 students successfully earn certification, including one Level Two certificate, five Level Three diplomas, three advanced diplomas, and one bachelor’s degree at the Engaged Scholarship Awards 2023, but they also developed a range of skills and leadership characteristics during the process. These include eco-brick making, vermiculture and gardening, eco-entrepreneurship, soap and candle making, and creative recycling, to name a few.

Furthermore, the pathway is underpinned by community-based research to drive initiatives of student structures towards implementing impactful community engagement in three clusters, namely sustainable environment, well-being, and social justice.

Addressing SDGs and embracing Vision 130

Lifelong action learning is one of the innovative approaches for the development of graduate attributes. In this light, the outcomes of not only the action learning workshop, but also the learning opportunities presented by GULL, align with the UFS Vision130. “Using action learning for bringing social change, students can address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and embrace the values of the UFS’ Vision130 – impact, care, excellence, sustainability, accountability, and social justice,” stated Dr Venter.

One of the attendees communicated the experience as follows: “I learned that action learning is a process for self-determined personal and professional development – the change starts with me developing myself and then sharing it with others.”

For further opportunities presented by GULL, visit the website here.

News Archive

Bullying in schools: Everyone’s problem

2005-06-03

From left: Prof Gerhardt de Klerk, Dean: Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Corene de Wet; Prof Rita Niemann, Head of the Department of Comparative Education and Educational Management in the School of Education and Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS

It is not only learners who are the victums of bullying in schools, but also the teachers. Prof. Corene de Wet from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management at the University of the Free State reported, against the background of two studies on bullying in Free State secondary schools, that bullying is a general phenomena in these schools.

Prof. de Wet, who delivered her inaugural lecture on Wednesday night, is from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management which resorts under the School of Education at the University of the Free State. She is the first women who became a full professor the School of Education.

Prof. de Wet says, “A student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative action on the part of one or more students. Bullying always includes the intentional use of aggression, an unbalanced relationship of power between the bully and the victim, and the causing of physical pain and/or emotional misery.

In some Free State schools there are victims and perpetrators of direct and indirect verbal, as well as emotional, physical and sexual bullying.

“Adults who say that bullying are part of the growing-up process and parents who set not only academic expectations but also social expectations to their children cause that victims are unwilling to acknowledge that they are being bulled. Many parents are also unaware of the levels of bullying their children are exposed to.

“Some of the learners were at least once a month the victim of direct verbal harassment, 32,45% were assaulted by co-learners and 11,21% of them were at east once per week beat, kicked, pushed and hurt in any other physical way. Free State learners are very vulnerable to bullies at taxis and on the school yard they are mostly exposed to bullies in bathrooms.

“Learners are usually bullied by members of the same gender. However, racial composition also plays a role in some Free State schools. A grade 12 girl writes, ‘There are boys in my school who act means against black people. When the teacher is out they take a red pen and write on the projector and spray it with spirits. It looks like blood and they would say it is AIDS and my friends and I have it.’

“Educators must take note of bullying in schools and must not shrug it off as unimportant. Principals or educators could be find guilty of negligence. A large number of educator respondents, 88,29%, indicated that they would intervene in cases of verbal bullying and 89,71% would intervene if they saw learners being physically bullied. However, only 19,97% of the learners who were victims of bullying were helped by educators/ other adults from their respective schools.

“The learners’ lack of trust in their educators’ abilities and willingness to assist them in the fight against bullying has important implications for education institutions. The importance of training must be emphasised.

Learners bully their educators to undermine their confidence. In Prof. de Wet’s study on educator-targeted bullying in Free State schools 24,85% of the respondents were physically abused by their learners, 33,44% were the victims of indirect verbal bullying, and 18,1% were at one time or another sexually harassed by their learners. These learner offences may lead to suspension.

“Educators are not only victims of bullying; some of them are the bullies. The South African Council for Educators prohibits bullying by educators. It is worrying that 55,83% of the educators who participated in the research project verbally victimised learners, 50,31% physically assaulted learners and a small percentage was guilty of sexual harassment.

“Every educator and learner in South Africa has the right to life, equal protection and benefit of the law, of dignity, as well as of freedom and security of the person. These rights will only be realised in a bully-free school milieu.

“To oppose bullying a comprehensive anti-bullying programme, collective responsibility and the establishment of a caring culture at schools and in the community is necessary,” said Prof. de Wet.

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