Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT)
The
Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (UJ) and the Chair in
Community, Adult and Workers' Education congratulates Dr Mondli
Hlatshwayo for the Review of African Political
Economy’s Ruth First award for his article on the struggles of
precarious workers in South Africa and specifically the organisational
responses of community health workers. The article can be accessed for
free from our website.
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Here’s a formal statement from the Review of African Political Economy:
The
Editorial Working Group of Review of African Political Economy is
pleased to announce the 2018 winner of the Ruth First prize. The prize
is awarded for the best article published
by an African author in the journal in a publication year.
This year, the prize was awarded to Mondli Hlatshwayo for his article
‘The
new struggles of precarious workers in South Africa: nascent organisational responses of community health workers.’ It was published in ROAPE Volume 45, Issue 157 in Autumn 2018.
The
article shines the spotlight on community health workers (CHWs), who
remain a blind spot in the literature on South African labour studies.
Abandoned by mainstream unions and
often ignored by labour scholars, the article reveals that CHWs are
crafting their own nascent organisational responses as women and as
precarious workers.
Hlatshwayo
highlights the ‘paradox of victory’ for the African National Congress
(ANC), by which trade unions and workers achieved a formal dismantling
of apartheid laws and gained
organisational rights for labour, but economic liberalisation led to
massive retrenchments, the rise of labour flexibility and the
pauperisation of workers. This demands more focus on workers’ struggles
outside the formal union structures. In Hlatshwayo’s case-study
of health workers, it is a struggle for recognition as employees of the
state who receive a living wage, rather than the ‘volunteer’ with a
stipend and no employment benefits. They have constructed alliances that
include left wing, labour-supporting non-governmental
organisations and health organisations. Beyond this, the Gauteng Health
Workers’ Forum is influenced by the Cuban health care system and debates
the reconceptualisation of their role as agents for social change, no
longer alienated from control of their work
and with the interests of the poor and marginalised at the centre of
their practice.
The
ROAPE Prize Committee commented on Hlatshwayo’s article: ‘it was a
strong piece of research exploring precarious work and alternative forms
of organising, outside the straitjacket
of established unions. The struggles of CHWs represent new worker-led
initiatives in South Africa. This is bread and butter analysis for
ROAPE. Particularly pleasing is that the women themselves are at the
centre of the article.’ Furthermore, ‘in terms of Ruth
First’s legacy, the paper was the most relevant and crucially engages
actively with the flesh-and-blood subjects of its theoretical arguments
and assumptions about labour struggles, something unfortunately all too
rare in academic literature.’
Another
member of the committee said it ‘addresses an understudied area in
labour struggles, through examining the labour struggles of precarious
community health workers. It also
explores the human consequences of many key themes of neoliberal state
policy by showing the effects of precarious labour, the rise of
‘volunteerism’, cuts in health spending and the outsourcing of public
services in South Africa. I really liked the way that
it engaged with the health workers themselves, allowing them to make key
empirical and theoretical points. Also, this paper is definitely the
most in line with Ruth First’s work, looking at labour struggles, the
exploitation of workers, and issues of gender
and class.’
Mondli
Hlatshwayo is a Senior Researcher in the Centre for Education Rights
and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg. Previously he
worked for Khanya College, a Johannesburg-based
NGO, as a researcher. His areas of research include precarious work,
female migrants, migrant workers, workers’ education, trade unions and
social movements. Hlatshwayo has published a number of peer-reviewed
journal articles and book chapters on these topics.
He is co-editor (with Aziz Choudry) of the Pluto Press book,
Just Work? Migrant Workers’ Struggle
Today. His Doctoral thesis, which he completed in 2012, was on trade union responses to technological changes.
The article can be read for free until July 2020 and can be accessed
here.Event
7th Annual Neville Alexander Commemorative Conference
Date Saturday, 30 November 2019Time 09:00 – 16:00
Venue UJ Hockey Club
46 Radnor Road, Westdene
RSVP katlegot@uj.ac.za
by 20 November 2019

Prof Linda Chisholm’s recently published new book, Teacher Preparation in South Africa

Commemoration Services of Mudney Halim

Invitation Education, decoloniality and transformative sustainable development in Africa
DATE AND TIME | Tuesday, 2 April, 13:00
VENUE | CERT, House 8, Research Village, Bunting Road Campus
RSVP |
katlegot@uj.ac.za 011 559 1148 by 25 March.
South African Research Chair in Community, Adult and Worker Education
Masters and PhD bursaries and
Postdoctoral fellowships 2019
CLOSING DATE | 28 March 2019
Applications should be sent via email to katlegot@uj.ac.za
History’s Schools: Past Struggles and Present Realities (UKZN Press,2018) edited by Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally
Date: Thursday, 22 November
Time: 18:30 to 20:00
Venue: Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building,
East Campus, Wits University
Speakers Prof Noor Nieftagodien, Prof Linda Chisholm,
Dr Trevor Ngwane and Prof Archie Dick
RSVP katlegot@uj.ac.za by 16th November.
Details about the book: http://bit.ly/HistorysSchools
A more affordable, paperback, local version of the book ‘History’s Schools: Past Struggles and Present Realities’ has been published by UKZN Press. It will be available at the Paulo Freire/ Neville Alexander conference this Friday together with the books listed below.
For more information about the book go to:
http://bit.ly/HistorysSchools For information about the conference contact katlegot@uj.ac.za or phone (011) 559-1148.
Books that will be available at the conference:
- The Student Guide to Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Antonia Darder) – R250
- History’s Schools: Past Struggles and Present Realities (Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally – eds) – R250
- Foundation Phase Matters: Language and Learning in South African Rural Classrooms ( Brian Ramadiro and Kim Porteus) – R100
- Learning for Living: Towards a new vision for Post - school learning in South Africa ( Ivor Baatjes – ed) – R250
- African History and the Struggle to Decolonise (Neville Alexander) - R100
Invite: 50 years of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Reflections on the Praxes of Paulo Freire and Neville Alexander.
Read more
Date: 7 Sept
Venue: UJ Hockey Club
RSVP: katlegot@uj.ac.za

Join us for a discussion with visiting U.S anti-racist educators and activists. Issues include the challenge of engaging with Africa’s complex realities in the classroom, the ethics and process of promoting dialogue in the age of Trump and the intersectional realities of inequality.
The delegation is led by veteran African – American Civil Rights, Labour and Anti-Apartheid activist Prexy Nesbitt
Read more
Topic: The Challenges of Teaching “Africa” in a Transnational Age: Countries, Continents and Global Social Justice
Date: Tuesday, June 26
Venue: Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT), Cottage 8, Research Village, UJ Bunting Road Campus
Time: 1:30 – 3:30
RSVP: Katlego Tshiloane, katlegot@uj.ac.za or 0115591148
Education and work for young South Africans: exploring Human Capital Theory, its conceptualisation, consequences and short-comings
Date: 18 June 2018
Time: 12:30 – 14:00
Venues in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town
Read more
The director of CERT giving the keynote address at the conference on education and poverty on 22/03/2018 held in Villaricca, Chile. For further information go to: es.ciep2018.cl

Green Machines? Destabilizing Discourse in Technology Education for Sustainable Development
Date : 25 April 2018
Venue : Research Village Cottage 8 (APB Campus)
Time : 12:00 – 13:00
RSVP : Katlego Tshiloane, katlegot@uj.ac.za or 011 559 1148
Read more
Between WorldsGerman Missionaries and the Transition from Mission to Bantu Education in South Africa
Click image for larger view of Between Worlds Book Launch Event
New Book by CERT: Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements – History’s Schools
The Learning Post was launched by SACHED (South African Committee for Higher Education) Trust as a weekly education supplement in the Sunday Post. Written largely by Neville Alexander, it was a popular and trailblazing initiative then and is just as important and relevant in the struggle to decolonise knowledge and the curriculum today.
Read more
Emerging Voices 2 vol News 3
In 2006 a community activist came to Thembisihle Sefatsa’s (Thembi’s) gate in Evaton North, Gauteng and
told her that he was working with numeracy and literacy groups in the community.
Emerging Voices 2 vol News 3