Constructivist Capacity Building and Systemic Evaluation of Adult Basic Education and Training in South Africa

Abstract

What follows is a discourse of coherence: first through an epistemic triangle conjoining three epistemological traditions of systems thinking, dialectical thinking and constructivist thinking; and, second, in a praxeological triangle that unites planning, implementation and evaluation in one single act of reflective action with purpose. Working from within these two mutually embedded triangles of coherence, a discourse on the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) initiative of South Africa was developed in necessary and sufficient detail, to capture the calculus of means and ends of ABET as well as the dynamics between its intended objectives and its actual effects. This one general discourse is subsequently used to generate two specific scripts: one on capacity building, and another on evaluation. There are implications here for theory and practice for both program development and program evaluation. Understandings of how the social world works, holistic educational planning, functional specialization without fragmentation, reflective action for implementation, critical management, participative learning, inbuilt evaluation, and thereby economy in the deployment and use of materials and professional resources, all become possible.