The Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training (CIPSET) contributes to the role of the Nelson Mandela University as an engaged transformative university. CIPSET is a centre of learning, engagement and research excellence through socially engaged public scholarship in the areas of community, vocational and worker education. CIPSET works collaboratively for progressive community, adult and worker education by developing the capacity and power of young researchers, and community and worker educators to conduct socially engaged transdisciplinary research and to mobilise, organise and build a progressive critical transformative educational praxis in South Africa and construct an enduring platform both for the genuine transformation of the post-schooling system and for its sustainability over time.
Vision and Mission Statement
Vision
To become a centre of learning, engagement and research excellence through socially engaged public scholarship in the areas of community, vocational and worker education.
Mission
CIPSET is a research and engagement centre at the Nelson Mandela University, working collaboratively for progressive community, adult and worker education by developing the capacity and power of young researchers, and community and worker educators to conduct socially engaged transdisciplinary research and to mobilise, organise and build a progressive critical transformative educational praxis in South Africa and construct an enduring platform both for the genuine transformation of the post-schooling system and for its sustainability over time.
Values and principles
In contributing to the achievement of Nelson Mandela University as an engaged transformative university, CIPSET values and seeks to promote:
Socially engaged scholarship which recognises that
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The university and its current processes of knowledge creation are complicit in the reproduction of social and economic inequality.
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The process of engagement should help to articulate existing relations of power and support actions that challenge the domination and subordination of marginalised communities
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An epistemological shift is required which frames socially engaged scholarship as a shared process of enquiry and learning with the potential to transform the relation to knowledge of both university academics and community members.
Community solidarity and learning through praxis, is premised upon:
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Shared reflection and critique of social reality is not enough, university academics and communities need to act together in solidarity to transform oppressive and exploitative social relations in a sustained collaborative exchange.
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Solidarity in struggles should seek to build relationships which acknowledge the autonomy and agency of marginalised and exploited communities.
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Acknowledging that differences in wealth, power, and status between universities, and communities and organisations of the marginalised, are often glaring and bring forth contradictions and challenging questions which need to be jointly examined and confronted.
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A democratic process constituted through critically reflective dialogue and which results in constant adaptation and change.
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Accommodating dissent and at the same time offering mutual respect and a commitment to shared accountability.
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Articulating the relationship between thinking, knowing, doing and being, in order to “make social relations of power and exploitation ‘knowable’ and ‘transformable’.
Carpenter, S., Ritchie, G., and Mojab, S. (2013). The Dialectics of Praxis. Socialist Studies. The Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies. Spring 2013.
Strategic Priorities and Objectives
Strategic priorities
In order to advance and implement the mission of Nelson Mandela University, CIPSET will:
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create spaces for the critical analysis of post schooling responses to the urgent problems arising from the contemporary processes of globalization, inequality, unemployment and poverty
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anchor new approaches to socially engaged scholarship through support for catalytic and innovative processes and projects which focus on key developmental and social challenges conceptually and practically
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develop and support strategic collaborative platforms and a community of scholars locally, across sub-Saharan Africa and in the global South
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enable the development of a new cadre of emerging scholars in marginalised and under-resourced areas of post-schooling.
Objectives
To achieve its strategic aims, CIPSET will:
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Define, develop and implement a research agenda that supports the development of post-schooling in South Africa and which engages with developmental challenges for democratic societies.
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Build research capacity that advances the post-schooling system in South Africa and supports the development of a cadre of new post-schooling researchers.
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Collaborate with educational groups, institutions and agencies and engage with decision-makers in order to develop and strengthen post schooling.
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Establish programmes and projects that support post-schooling and specifically vocational, adult, community and worker education in South Africa through innovative approaches to socially engaged scholarship.
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Strengthen the relationship between public education institutions and marginalised communities.