A research project funded by the South African National Research Foundation. This project addresses the urban-rural linkages network in the PASCAL Learning Cities 2020 programme.

Project title: Sustainable Urban-Rural Connections

Partners: Julia Preece, Sandra Land (Durban University of Technology); Dipane Hlalele, Cias Tsotetsi (University of Free State, South Africa).

The National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa is a government supported agency to support research and innovation in South Africa’s universities.  One of its activities is to provide competitive funding opportunities for research in areas that are of strategic interest.  In line with the Department of Higher Education and Training’s policy inclusion of community engagement as an integral aspect of teaching and research in universities, applications have been invited since 2012 for engagement research on an annual basis.  The following project has recently received funding from the latest round.  It is due to start in 2017 and complete in the latter half of 2018.  The proposal is in direct response to a recent White Paper on Post School Education and Training which has stimulated an interest in fostering, amongst other activities, community education and the notion of learning regions.  Although not a new idea in South Africa, this is the first time that it has received government interest and the project is directly addressing recent interest in these concepts.

This proposal draws on the participating universities’ connections with the PASCAL International Observatory Learning Cities network and collaborations with the University of Botswana. Both these connections have evolved from a historical involvement in PASCAL’s earlier initiative led from the School of Education at the University of Glasgow to support the role of universities around the world in their regional engagement role. Within this initiative, the PASCAL Universities Regional Engagement (PURE) project, the University of Botswana and the city of Gaborone were participating actors.  Since then aspects of PURE, concerned with the development of learning cities and regions, have been absorbed into and developed within PASCAL's current Learning Cities Network and its Learning Cities 2020 activities which are facilitated from PASCAL’s European Centre at the School of Education in the University of Glasgow, directed by Prof Mike Osborne and PASCAL Associate in Brisbane, Peter Kearns.

Proposal abstract

This proposal asks: how can universities engage with the assets, felt learning needs and connections between urban and rural communities to facilitate sustainable learning ecologies? This is a qualitative study by the University of the Free State (UFS) QwaQwa campus and the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Indumiso campus, using case studies and participatory methodologies.  The proposal is further contextualised by a growing global interest in the development of learning cities and regions and South Africa’s own National Development Plan and Spatial Development Plan which focus on the development of rural environments and improved services in historically disadvantaged areas. For DUT the proposal is further contextualised by the urban Imbali Education Precinct Draft Development Plan (DHET 2014) which highlights the need to build on local educational networks of institutions and where the DUT campus is positioned to facilitate the development of the Imbali region’s learning complex. For UFS the proposal is contextualised by the region’s rural learning ecologies initiative whereby learning is defined as a constantly evolving ‘activity that takes place within, between and across contexts’ (Hlalele 2014: 564). The Qwaqwa and Indumiso campuses are geographically placed in rural and urban areas respectively but with urban and rural connections. Both universities, therefore, are well positioned to address the under-researched area of urban-rural linkages and the role of higher education institutions in contributing to learning precincts or learning ecologies. The paucity of learning cities/learning region initiatives on the African continent adds further impetus to this study (Biao et al 2013). The study will use asset based community development theory and a capabilities approach as its analytical lens.

Details of research: problem identification

The main research question for this proposal is: drawing on a theoretical framework of asset based community development and a capabilities approach, how can universities engage with the assets, felt learning needs and connections between urban and rural communities to facilitate sustainable learning ecologies? This will be a qualitative study by the University of the Free State (UFS) QwaQwa campus and the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Indumiso campus, using case studies and participatory research methodologies. It will draw comparisons with a parallel project in Botswana.

Settlement patterns in rural and urban areas in South Africa still reflect former apartheid and colonial policies (Hlalele 2014, DHET 2014).  In relation to this just over one half (54%) of South Africa’s children live in rural areas (DOE 2005), although adult migration to urban areas is skewing normal population ratios.  The UFS Qwaqwa campus is situated in a former homeland region of the Free State and has recently completed small scale community engagement projects with schools and NGOs in the area.  Hlalele (2014) highlights that rural areas are characterised negatively in terms of poor infrastrucure, poor schooling, poverty, rural-urban brain drain and child labour. There is limited public awareness of rural diversity and limited rural education research, with insufficient understanding of urban-rural linkages. Hlalele argues therefore for a coordinated approach to addressing urban and rural migration patterns for the purpose of facilitating learning opporunities.  The DUT Indumiso campus is situated in the Greater Edendale/ Imbali urban area where approximately 36% of the Pietermaritzburg City’s population live.  Imbali is also characterised by high levels of poverty, rapid population growth including in-migration from rural areas, poverty and lack of facilities.  The Imbali Education Precinct Development Plan (DHET 2014) is a government initiative to develop a coordinated learning environment in order to address these issues.  In this respect the recent White Paper on Post School Education and Training (DHET 2013) continues to support earlier government policies towards university community engagement but is concerned with the ‘ad hoc’ and ‘fragmented’ nature of community engagement that is not linked to academic programmes. (p.39). This same White Paper precipitated the proposed development of a community based learning centre based at the DUT campus.  However, existing education programmes in the area are poorly articulated and do not reflect local community needs (DHET 2014).  The experience of rapid growth cities in other parts of Africa, such as Dar es Salaam, points to the significance of understanding the layers of urban/rural interconnections as a foundation towards building sustainable and learning friendly environments (Kearns 2012) which will, in turn, contribute to academic programmes for community engagement.

In recent years there has been growing interest in the notion of learning cities and the role that universities can play in facilitating learning networks in geographical contexts (PASCAL learning Cities 2020 in PASCAL.org).  The notion of learning cities has now spread to an interest in rural learning (PASCAL.org; Hlalele 2013, 2014) fuelled by post apartheid concerns in South Africa with the neglect of rural life by universities (Mgqwashu 2016).

The drive to explore rural-urban connections has arisen more recently in response to the recognition that the mobility dynamics of rural-urban connections potentially impact on the development needs of both locations and the university’s role as a public good (Konvitz 2014; Mgqwashu 2016).

However, there have been few successful initiatives on the African continent (Walters 2009, Kearns and Ishumi 2012, Biao Biao, Esaete and Oonyu 2013).  Nevertheless both the University of the Free State and Durban University of Technology are associated with the PASCAL global movement and are involved in discussions that support local initiatives in this respect.  UFS has initiated an edu-village concept at its Bloemfontein campus and its Qwa Qwa campus has hosted colloquia on the associated concept of rural learning ecologies.  Similarly, DUT Indumiso campus is at the centre of a recent DHET plan to develop the Imbali Education Precinct (DHET 2014) that will serve as an interconnected learning resource for the urban region of Imbali.  These initiatives are contextualised within the South African Government’s National Development Plan and Spatial Development Plan to develop rural environments and improve services in historically disadvantaged areas.

Furthermore, within South Africa its recent White Paper (DHET 2013) proposes an integrated approach to post school education and training in South Africa.  The White paper provides a framework for developing community based learning centres (community colleges) which include a focus on non-formal community education as well as vocational education and training, with a menu of programmes that would be linked to South Africa’s national qualifications framework and broader social development agendas.  Such programmes would feed directly into graduate community service training and post school teacher training.

The National Development Plan and National Spatial Development Plan both place emphasis on the development of a rural economy to address the disadvantages of historical settlement patterns by building on local educational networks of institutions (DHET 2014).

However, although development plans are in place at national and regional levels, there is evidence of limited progress in rural areas (Hlalele 2013, 2014) and generally in cities (Awumbila, Osusu and Teye 2014). In particular, Hlalele (2014) has highlighted there is limited research in terms of understanding rural education and rural diversity.  In the context of the apartheid settlement patterns there is a need to explore how to facilitate interaction between communities and institutions.  In particular, it has been highlighted that ‘existing education and training programmes do not necessarily reflect the local community and the broader city and regional development needs’ (DHET 2014: 11). Equally there is a need to understand the nature of linkages between rural and urban dwellers who often retain strong ties in Africa (Biao et al. 2013).  There is also a need for research approaches that embrace a critical, emancipatory paradigm that will help citizens to take ownership over their identified problems and identify their own solutions and conditions that will contribute to making these solutions work (Mahlomaholo 2009).  In order to address these gaps in understanding the study wishes to adopt a qualitative and participatory research approach to explore the nature of existing assets and felt needs of rural and urban dwellers with a view to recommending learning pathways that establish a complementary relationship between cities and rural areas and between institutions. 

This proposal, therefore, is a timely intervention for ongoing policy discussions. It builds on previous collaborations between the named investigators of the South African universities and the University of Botswana.  It develops the findings of recent community service-learning research that highlighted the need for more sustained community relationships and networks that focus on grass-roots led engagement initiatives from an asset based perspective (Preece and Manicom 2015; Hlalele and Tsotetsi 2015).  The findings will feed directly into the Imbali Education Precinct Draft Development Plan (DHET 2014) for the Pietermaritzburg area and the discipline based community engagement and service learning programmes for both universities.  The role of the university campus as a mediation point for learning precincts will be central to the project.

In addition the findings will directly inform the programme content of proposed new teacher training qualifications in adult community and vocational education that are currently being devised by DUT for the country’s Teaching and Learning Development Capacity Improvement Programme (DHET 2016) that is funded by the European Union in response to the White Paper for Post School Education and Training (DHET 2013).

This research will draw on asset based community development theory (Chaskin 2001, Vidal and Keating 2004, Walker 2006) and a capabilities development approach (Sen 1999) as a lens to explore what people feel they are actually able to do and be. The capability focus is on the concept of freedoms to lead the lives people have reason to value. The lens of capability will be used to explore the role that universities can play in communities in addressing any sources of unfreedom that might constrain genuine choices and how diverse individuals are affected (Walker 2012). A central question to ask in this respect would be whether some people get more opportunities to convert their resources (distribution of good things in life) into capabilities (freedom to use and access those goods) than others.  The study will use the capability to lens to explore how higher education can contribute to educational and other functionings in community contexts. In this context capabilities are the real and actual freedoms (opportunities) people have to do and be what they value being and doing (Sen 1999, Nussbaum 2006).  The asset based community development focus is on the concept of assets which are resources or identifiable advantages within a community. ‘[B]y focusing on its assets, the community as a whole will see its positive aspects’ with a view to building on those assets (Phillips and Pittman 2009).

The proposal aims to advance the knowledge base for these issues by starting with a situational analysis survey of the views of relevant government and community leaders, opinion leaders and organized interest groups, such as non-governmental organisations, which serve the areas.  Subsequent data collection methods will be qualitative within a participatory case study design that targets selected geographical locations that have potential rural-urban linkages.