A critique of andragogy in the South African TVET context

Abstract

Andragogy, the ‘art and science of helping adults learn’ (Knowles, 1980:43), had some purchase in the South African technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector, where writers and lecturers have been attracted to the idea that adult education has its own theoretical and epistemological principles. Recently, a notable number of writings in African countries, including South Africa, have advocated the adoption of andragogic methods to overcome the inadequate provision of workplace (procedural) learning in relation to formal (propositional) learning in TVET institutions. However, this article argues that andragogy is culturally biased because it is based on white, male, middle-class norms of the 1960s. Its assumptions about adult learning tend to marginalise others on the basis of race, gender, and cultural difference. This tendency is given a peculiar form in South Africa owing to the historical relationship between andragogy and fundamental pedagogics in the academic theorisation of apartheid ideology. On the strength of these historical, political, and cultural levels of criticism, it is suggested that andragogy has little veracity or credibility for TVET.