In this paper we address an area that has been largely neglected by researchers-state provision of adult education in South Africa. We argue that there have been decades of neglect, or, at best, token support for our country's adult education system, and we look at how the system could be revitalised, both in terms of minimal requirements for immediate basic improvement as well as for a more radical and forward looking transformation of the system. South Africa has a history of attempts to provide school equivalent education to black adults through night schools. Suppressed in the 1950s and 1960s, they resurfaced after the 1976 Soweto revolt, and in 1996 the Constitution secured adult basic education as a right. State night schools were renamed Public Adult Learning Centres (PALCs), and seemed poised to become a powerful delivery mechanism, but continued as inadequate night schools. In 2015 the PALC system was ostensibly transformed into a community college one, but this transformation was based on the weak foundation of inadequate PALCs. A new 2019 plan for the Community Education and Training College System includes long needed major overhauls that must be made if adults' right to effective and relevant education is to be finally realised.

This article argues that we have lost the plot in South African reading education. To find it, we need to move beyond the predominant mode of reading as oral performance, where the emphasis is on accuracy and pronunciation, to reading as comprehension of meaning in text. While reading research in South Africa has been conducted mainly in school contexts, this case study is of a school and Adult Basic Education and Training Centre in a rural KwaZulu-Natal community near Pietermaritzburg. It found that an oratorical approach to reading dominated in both settings. It suggests that developing the way in which teachers understand the teaching of reading and transforming the teaching practices of those who teach as they were taught in the education system of the apartheid era are key to improving the teaching of reading.

OBJECTIVE: To obtain a snapshot of the maternal and newborn care provided by different types of maternal and child health providers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to 1) better inform advocacy and programmatic strategies and interventions to improve the quality of those services in the region, and 2) determine the need for more rigorous study of the issues. METHODS: A rapid assessment of 83 health workers providing antepartum, intrapartum, and immediate postpartum and newborn care (within two hours of birth) in eight LAC countries was conducted in November and December of 2011. Health workers were observed by two-person expert maternal/newborn clinician teams using pretested forms based on international quality-of-care standards. A total of 105 care encounters were observed, primarily in urban, public, referral-level settings. Providers of care included obstetricians, midwives, generalist physicians, medical residents, registered nurses, auxiliary nurses, and students of medicine, midwifery, and nursing. RESULTS: Hand washing, as an indicator of quality of antepartum care, was observed in only 41% of the observed encounters. Labor management often lacked certain elements of respectful maternity care across all provider groups. Several clinical tasks of high importance in the identification and prevention of common complications of antepartum, intrapartum, and immediate postpartum/newborn care were not documented as performed during the observation periods. Providers self-reported limited competence (ability to perform to a defined level of proficiency) in manual removal of the placenta, bimanual compression of the uterus, and newborn resuscitation. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that 1) the quality of maternal and newborn care and 2) the competence of maternal and child health providers in the diverse selection of LAC countries that were studied require substantial attention.

OBJETIVO: Obtener una visión panorámica de la atención materna y del recién nacido prestada por diferentes tipos de proveedores de salud maternoinfantil en América Latina y el Caribe para 1) fundamentar mejor las estrategias e intervenciones de promoción de la causa y programáticas con objeto de mejorar la calidad de esos servicios en la región, y 2) determinar la necesidad de estudios más rigurosos sobre estos temas. MÉTODOS: En noviembre y diciembre del 2011, se llevó a cabo una evaluación rápida de 83 trabajadores sanitarios que prestaban atención antes del parto, intraparto, y posparto inmediata y del recién nacido (durante las dos horas posteriores al parto) en ocho países de América Latina y el Caribe. Los trabajadores sanitarios fueron observados por equipos de dos clínicos expertos en atención materna y del recién nacido mediante el empleo de instrumentos previamente puestos a prueba y basados en estándares internacionales de calidad de la atención. Se observaron 105 encuentros de atención que tuvieron lugar principalmente en centros de atención urbanos, públicos y de derivación. Los proveedores de atención fueron obstetras, parteras, médicos generalistas, médicos residentes, personal de enfermería titulado, personal auxiliar de enfermería, y estudiantes de medicina, partería y enfermería. RESULTADOS: El lavado de las manos, como indicador de la calidad de la atención antes del parto, solo se observó en 41% de los encuentros observados. El manejo del parto a menudo carecía de ciertos elementos de atención respetuosa a la maternidad en todos los grupos de proveedores. Durante los períodos de observación, no se pudo comprobar la realización de diversas tareas clínicas de alta importancia para detectar y prevenir las complicaciones comunes de la atención antes del parto, intraparto, y posparto inmediata y del recién nacido. Los proveedores autonotificaron limitada competencia (capacidad para operar a un nivel definido de habilidad) en la extracción manual de la placenta, la compresión bimanual del útero y la reanimación del recién nacido. CONCLUSIONES: Los resultados indican que 1) la calidad de la atención materna y del recién nacido y 2) la competencia de los proveedores de salud maternoinfantil en los países de América Latina y el Caribe estudiados requieren considerable atención.