HSRC Integrated Annual Report 2018/2019

PART B: PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW Profile of ESD The ESD Research Programme believes that social justice, and educational reflection on it, along with access to and success through education and training, enhances every person’s opportunity to a better life. It therefore conceives, designs and conducts ethical, forward-looking research to: improve the quality of basic education; ensure young people are adequately skilled and prepared for a technologically disrupted future; contribute towards a responsive and developmental higher education sector; and encourage communities of practice that are able to apply principles of social justice towards transformation. Our vision is for the just inclusion of young people in a country and continent still emerging from an unequal and unjust past. ESD takes its mandate from current national priorities related to improving the Quality of Basic Education for all (MTSF outcome 1), sustaining a Skilled and Capable Workforce to Support an Inclusive Growth Path (MTSF outcome 5), and the role of education in transformation, social cohesion and justice (Sustainable Develop Goal 16 along with 1, 4, 8, 9 and 10). ESD’s overarching aims are to develop evidence to inform policies, including the redress of inequalities; support efficient resource allocation decisions; and guide reflection on the role of education to bring about social change. Research Highlights In the year under review, the programme focused on, amongst others: • Dialogues and reviews, in partnership with the DS T and the European Union to understand the implications of, and opportunities to harness the potential of, the 4 th Industrial Revolution, for education and policy; • The conclusion and handover to the Department of Basic Education of an online platform – Teacher Assessment Resources for Monitoring and Improving Instruction (TARMII); and • The conclusion of the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership (LMIP) Project with the Department of Higher Education and Training. Gearing up to harness the potential of the 4 th Industrial Revolution for education and policy During the review period, the ESD Programme was active in the intellectual and policy spaces that have evolved in response to the 4 th Industrial Revolution (4IR), and issues relating to the social and economic aspects of technological disruption, digitalisation, automation, and post humanism, amongst others. The HSRC’s response to the 4IR is coordinated through a multi-disciplinary task team, led by researchers within the programme. In defining a research agenda to respond to the complexities of the 4IR, the task team conducted reading groups and video learning sessions and a series of public seminars and dialogues. The most notable of these dialogues took place in December 2018, in partnership with the DST and the European Union (EU) delegation to South Africa. Entitled, ‘Disruptive technologies and public policy in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’, this event brought together European and South African experts and stakeholders. The dialogue facilitated an exchange of ideas about key 4IR topics, culminating in the development of a high-level policy framework; the identification of pathways for further engagement between the EU and South Africa regarding joint cooperation in identified science, technology and innovation areas; and the beginnings of a critical network of scholarly and practitioner engagement with a policy focus for the future. The programme also provided research support for the development of the DST’s 4IR Industrial Revolution Science, Technology and Innovation plan of action. This includes a review of the South African and international literature on the 4IR, as well as a baseline study of the 4IR strategies and investments of the public sector and higher education institutions in South Africa. Dr Michael Gastrow, has been appointed to the 4IR coordinating committee of the DST, and to the Presidential Advisory Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. EDUCATION AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT (ESD) 24 / HSRC INTEGRATED ANNUAL REPORT 2018/19