Page 71 - Research & Innovation Report 2020

EDUCATION

Damon explains: “Hope as a relational and contextual psychological
construct exists on a collective level when all members of a
community collectively strive for a better future for all.”

The grant includes bursaries for two PhD and three master’s
students for inter- and transdisciplinary research. The ‘inter’
includes the Faculty of Education and the ‘trans’ includes the
Social Development Professions in the Faculty of Health Sciences
and a broad range of stakeholder communities.

PhD fellow Silindele Malangeni’s study title is: A community school
model to reconceptualise basic school functionality and quality
education in low-income South African communities.

PhD fellow Noluvo Rangana’s study title is: Exploring the application
of a Participatory Action Learning and Action Research (PALAR)

Leading courageously Prof Veonna Goliath

Charles Duna Primary in New Brighton is one
of the schools with whom the CCS partners approach in developing and implementing school improvement
in collaboration with the Manyano network of plans in community schools.
community schools. It has 1063 learners from
Grade R to Grade 7, courageously led by Principal “A key output of this project is to see the next generation of
Nombulelo Sume since 1998. Many of the learners African and global scholars emerging, using this project as a
come from informal settlements where their lives springboard,” explains Professor Veonna Goliath, head of the
are hard; unemployment is rife, as are gangs, Department of Social Development Professions, and who is a co-
violence, single parent homes, orphans and HIV/ investigator for the grant, together with the Faculty of Education’s
AIDS. Despite this, over the past 15 years they Dr Deidre Geduld and Dr Heloise Sathorar.
have turned the school into a place of optimism,
with 27 parent volunteers on site, a well-managed “The three-year grant started in 2019 when we held several capacity-
library and reading clubs, science labs and a building working sessions with associates and stakeholders – we
computer lab, all from funding they raised. call the collective groups action learning sets (ALS),” says Prof
Goliath. “H♥PES consists of postgraduate students and their
supervisors. The students are from a cross-section of academic
disciplines. H♥PES has also opened its space to include education
and social work practitioners who have expressed an interest in

“We had done a lot of work in the

CCS in the form of demonstrating the

potential of schools to be beacons of
hope ... however, we needed to back

this up with critical, collaborative,

evidence-based research ... “

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