Search

Learning and teaching of Accounting at all levels of education require the adoption of learner-centred approaches. However, a number of studies have shown that educational initiatives that entail a shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred learning and teaching practices often fail at classroom level. Lack of ability to teach in learner-centred ways may be constrained by limited understanding of learner-centred pedagogy which is caused by various mechanisms including conflicting cultures and discourses. This paper is different from other studies in that it neither analyses pedagogic practices nor explains why teachers cannot teach in learner-centred ways, but attempts to support teachers as agents of change by developing an understanding of learner-centred pedagogy from a Bernsteinian perspective. Bernstein's principles of classification and framing are used as a framework for describing and explaining learnercentred pedagogy with the aim of making contributions towards improving Accounting learning and teaching practices through enhancing the "recognition" of learner-centred pedagogy as an important step towards its "realisation".

Portfolio assessment of teaching practice was first introduced into the University of Botswana's Faculty of Education in May 2010. This study sought to investigate the impact of this innovative new professional development/assessment system on the professional growth and development of in-service teachers. The findings of the study suggest that although student teachers found portfolio development to be cumbersome and time-consuming, the general consensus was that developing portfolios provided useful and valuable learning experience which enhanced their creativity, reflective practice and continuous professional growth. Overall, students found portfolio development and its assessment and evaluation of a cumulative collection of their creative works to be a better approach for the assessment of teaching than the traditional approach. The study also found out that there was a lack of consistency in the way supervisors assessed students' portfolio and for this reason, it concluded with the recommendation that in order to increase the reliability and credibility of portfolio assessment, there is a need to provide intensive orientation and clear guidelines to students and all classes of supervisors in future in the form of clear expectations for the purpose of selection of artifacts, organization, reflection, assessment and evaluation of portfolios. (Contains 1 table.)

Meaningful and emancipatory education which empowers citizens as democrats is the ideal education which can propel the socio-economic and political fibre of nay nation-state. After independence, Botswana aligned her education system with the envisioned development process. The sad thing about this ambitious approach in Botswana is that it sought to produce citizens who would pragmatically be engaged in the development of a democratic nation-state yet the pedagogically approaches to education were at variance with pragmatic and empowering democratic education. The ultimate result became mass production of the educated or degreed citizens who could not penetrate the job market. Bookish and examination-oriented education which is far divorced from vocation and the realities of the job market ultimately results in the perpetuation of frustrated educated citizens who roam the streets as victims of the diploma disease. Botswana is traumatized by the diploma disease as evidenced by escalating figures of unemployed graduates. As such, this paper argues that Botswana's education system should focus on the ideals of pragmatic democratic education by embracing and advancing Business Education which will empower citizens to develop vocational skills which they can utilize to create jobs for themselves, thus countering the current traumatic scourge of the diploma disease.