TRIPLE E TRAINING HOLDINGS

LATEST NEWS

LEARNING ABOUT ABET LEARNERS

Although OBE is a wonderful and exciting way for learners to acquire competencies in a range of skills, we have experienced the following in dealing with adult ABET learners:

• Learners are often resistant to "unlearn" the way they have been taught at school. They believe that the 'teacher's job" is to teach and their job is to "study and memorise. They insist on some formal knowledge being taught before they will interrogate the principles.
This can be due to a number of reasons i.e:
• Familiarity with 'old' school systems
• They have been ridiculed for so long because of their lack of education that they do not have the confidence to expose and explore their own intellectual capacity
• Education is perceived to be a right with no associated responsibility
• They are embarrassed by their own knowledge and/or lack thereof and due to the cultural diversity in the classroom and the perceptions that exist in their minds about different cultures, some learners tread very lightly before exposing their knowledge to a group (even if they are co-workers)
• Historic developments in their education has forced them to believe that 'swotting' is the only way you gain knowledge and 'application of skills' is a huge paradigm shift for these people
• They are not educationalists, but learners. They struggle to understand and interpret what outcomes are and how they are supposed to 'use' outcomes outside of the classroom. What you learn at 'school' stays at school

Basic OBE principles such as group work and problem-solving is perceived by the learners as 'laziness' on the part of the facilitator. They still expect the facilitator to 'have all the answers'. This disturbs the trust and rapport relationship between the learners and the facilitator. It takes a facilitator at least 16 to 20 hours of learning time before he/she can engage the learners in group work and they have to be 'eased' into it.

Although learners fear mathematics, because of the formal approach used at schools, they insist on being taught mathematics in the same way, because it is the way they know and brings them comfort to know they have conquered it. Often learners revert to old methods and approaches, because it makes them 'feel safe'. They have an inherent belief that math's is for the 'clever-ones' and attach a status to being able to do math's.

Learners often compare what and how they are learning with what and how their children are learning at school and because the school is such a privileged institution, the adult learners question the approach used to develop competencies. Until such time as the school system has rolled-out OBE, their will be resistance.

A perception has been created that ABET is 'school' for those adults who are illiterate and stupid, because they cannot read or write or count and because they were too poor to go to school and it is our social responsibility to uplift them for no (particular) reason other than that we 'feel sorry' for them, because one of their basic human rights have been violated.

ABET is not 'sold' as a developmental tool to anyone and everyone:

• Who has forgotten what they learnt at school, and has to revise some work to enable better development and understanding
• Who has 'gaps' to fill, because of poor quality of education or educators
• Who had not yet developed their intellectual competence to perform well at school, but who now are able to 'see things differently'
• Who want to develop skills that they never had before to enable them to acquire competencies/qualifications that they deserve
• Ensure a conceptual foundation to lifelong learning.

Sharon Blignaut
Operations Director
Triple e Training