All AET trainings at the mine in the North-West Province happen in the form of a project. The training programme has a start and end date and the learners need to be assessed at the end. The start date and end date are critical, and all management reports use these to calculate the progress of a project. Each project has one or more classes. A class is a group of learners that have something in common. Each computer-based class is made up of one or more students/courses, and roles and responsibilities are assigned to all users by the facilitator, who has administrative rights, as represented in Table 4.10. The service provider’s project manager has access to all functionality available in Navigate at the mine and is responsible for reporting system maintenance, user level setting and general monthly reporting to the service provider and the mine. The project manager determines what functionality is made available to the facilitator. Table 4.10 outlines reporting, monitoring and quality assurance. This theme covers facilitators and centre managers as presented in the biographical data Table 4.1.
Table 4.10: Reporting, monitoring and quality assurance Theme
number Categories Description Participants
a. Reporting and Monitoring
The company receives a monthly report from the Media Works project coordinator which outlines the attendance and progress of each learner’s and facilitator’s performance.
P9
b. Examinations Board There are two examination boards: Independent Examination Board (IEB) and Benchmark Assessment Agency, which is affiliated to Media Works, and learners are allowed to write any of the examinations.
P8
c. Quality Assurance The company is responsible for registering as an Examination Centre and for registering learners for examinations, not the service provider.
P6
d. Notional hours There are special arrangements made by the mine for learners to write the subjects the learners did not achieve. In order to complete, say, my subject, numeracy, they need in total 210 hours in six months.
P4
a) Reporting and monitoring
In response to the AET policy under the role of service provider and project management, P9 explained: The company receives a monthly report from the Media Works project coordinator
which outlines the attendance and progress of each learner’s and facilitator’s performance.
b) Examination Board
About examinations, P8 stated: There are two examination boards: Independent Examination
Board (IEB) and Benchmark Assessment Agency, which is affiliated to service provider, and learners are allowed to write any of the examinations.
c) Quality assurance
P3 stated: The external assessment bodies assess learners at Levels 1 to 4 in two semesters. National exams are held in June and November. Mock examinations are a prerequisite for summative examinations. All learners are expected to write and pass mock examinations with a minimum of 50% per learning area. Learners who do not achieve the required minimum as stated
above are not allowed to sit for summative examinations. P6 stated: The company is responsible
for registering as an Examination Centre and for registering learners for examinations, not the service provider.
Table 4.11 and Table 4.12 represent the AET project plan notional hours. These hours serve as a guideline only. The number of hours a learner takes to complete a level depends on the learner’s ability and potential. Not all learners are guaranteed to move to the next level within these time frames. Therefore, the mine allows the learners the opportunity to repeat a subject and carry over to the next level with the outstanding subject. P4 stated the following: There are special
arrangements made by the mine for learners to write the subjects the learners did not achieve. In order to complete, say, my subject, numeracy, they need in total 210 hours in six months.
Table 4.11: Multimedia or computer-based learning
Level English Numeracy
Leve1 1 180 hours 180 hours Level 2 160 hours 180 hours Level 3 160 hours 210 hours Level 4 240 hours 240 hours
Table 4.12: Face-to-face learning
Level English Numeracy
Leve1 1 200 hours 180 hours Level 2 200 hours 180 hours Level 3 220 hours 220 hours Level 4 240 hours 240 hours
The policy is much sterner for learners studying full-time because it is equivalent to a normal working shift in a day and learners still receive their cost to the company while studying. Learner progress is carefully monitored and documented because in some instances, but not all, temporary contract workers were employed as replacements to do the job in the absence of Full-Time learners. At Own-Time, the policy is more lenient as attending these studies is voluntary. One of the prerequisites for full-time studies is that a learner must have completed Own-Time studies to
enrol for Full-Time. Furthermore, placement assessments are conducted for all learners involved when enrolling for this programme.
In interpreting the findings in the facilitators’ and centre managers’ structured interviews, AT was used to make sense of the training interventions of AET at the mine as it prepared for the AET computer-based training program. Mwanza’s (2001) eight-step questions were applied as follows:
1. Activity of interest – what sort of activity am I interested in?
This question was answered by naming the AET computer-based learning program used for Numeracy and English communication on the LIMS supplied by the service provider during interaction with centre managers. The activity of interest was at Own-Time at the mines which engaged computers for learning.
2. Object or objective of activity – why is this activity taking place?
The objective was to redress the level of illiteracy for the mine workers by integrating computers for teaching and learning. Prior to concluding this study, I realised that the question which would have been relevant in describing the object which was acted on by the subject could have been: Which changes were identifiable from the subjects as a result of this activity? The object of the activity was engaging with computers for learning. At the same time, learners were being taught computer-based skills such as mouse handling and keyboard use as forms of input devices. This modification of Mwanza’s question could improve the meticulousness and transparency of what the mine hoped to achieve by implementing the training programme in the first place, and differentiates this question more clearly from the question of outcome.
3. Subjects in this activity – who is involved in carrying out this activity?
The subjects included seventeen participants who volunteered to participate in the study.
4. Tools mediating the activity – by what means are the subjects carrying out this activity? There was a wide-ranging list here in answering the question, which included textbooks, workbooks, white boards, computers and the computer lab.
5. Rules and regulations mediating the activity – are there any cultural norms, rules or regulations governing the performance of this activity?
Here there was a wide-ranging list pertinent to the use of computers in the lab in answering the question, which included policy and procedures for AET, policy for the mines’ information communication technology (ICT), classroom policy.
6. Division of labour mediating the activity – who is responsible for what, when carrying out this activity and how are the roles being organised?
In response to this question, all individuals involved were listed, e.g. service provider, HRD department and business operations who would be sending workers to attend the programme. 7. Community in which activity is conducted – what is the environment in which this activity is carried out?
The community consisted of the mine, facilitators, centre managers and learners.
8. What is the desired outcome from carrying out this activity?
Desired outcomes included enhanced performance at work from mine workers, the use of computers to execute daily tasks, communication via computers using e-mails, preparing presentation slides, typing memos and time sheets, and ability to communicate in English, thus being able to read safety signs underground to curb accidents.
The answers listed above represent an incorporation of this group of participants’ responses and their collective understanding at the time of this study. The responses were arrived at jointly during interviews.