In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits…

This dissertation retells the history of women's studies from a global perspective, challenging traditional U.S. and Eurocentric narratives about this emerging interdisciplinary field. Beginning with questions about why women's, gender, and sexuality studies has incited backlash across a range of cultural and geographic locations, this study draws…

In this paper, drawing on an extensive research project across three countries (VET Africa 4.0 Collective 2023), we produce an emerging argument that it is necessary to rethink and reframe VET logics and approaches in a warming future dominated by informality and mass unemployment. Currently, neither the formal VET college or workplace are…

This paper explores the contrast between the policy vision for public technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges in South Africa, and governance and funding models that have shaped institutional forms and functioning over time. Policy aspires for TVET colleges to play a role in social inclusion and local economic development.…

The article tracks key moments in teacher education policy and curriculum in South Africa from the 1970s to the present day. Political and social features of education in each decade are outlined, from a racialised and fragmented system of teacher education, to the imagining of alternatives, and the imperative for educational transformation. The…

On 6 November 2020, the "Policy Framework for Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa" was promulgated. It provides high-level principles and guidelines for the internationalisation of higher education in South Africa, lays down specific rules for certain aspects of the process and aims to shape the process of…

Who we are and who we become as educators is intimately connected to the historical and socio-political milieus in which we, ourselves, were educated and continue to work as educators. In this article I demonstrate how conventional conceptual metaphors are effective analytical lenses, through which we can explore our personal educational…

Peer learning is a distinct category of student support gaining popularity globally and in South Africa, although these are typically informal approaches which have not been sufficiently researched to examine their influence and impact. Some scholars have criticised the available research as patchy, inconsistent, and methodologically weak.…

Having reviewed several pieces of strategy documents, policy papers, and literature, we concluded that there is no uniform definition of either institutional autonomy or academic freedom (AF). Many different points of view determine the interpretation of these terms. Furthermore, the policymakers (e.g., governments, legislators) can ignore the…

When opposing injustice, the failure to recognise wrong or translate knowledge into action are two problems with which moral education has to contend. The notion of 'social restitution' can be a helpful concept in addressing these challenges because it locates restitution at the level of interpersonal and communal moral responsibility. This is…

South Africa's first national democratic elections in 1994 marked a turning point in the history of the country. Since democracy much of the focus of African National Congress (ANC)-led government has been on redress and transformation across all spheres of society, including higher education. This paper examines one important aspect inherent in…

Background: The need for transforming South African education can ultimately be traced to a form of Western subjectivity which dominated Europe since the classical age (1600-1750). The notions of 'discipline' and 'subjectivity' suggest distinct associations with repressive regimes like apartheid, and the present article will argue that the…

A key indicator of the academic worth, value and development of a university is its research capacity and publications. The universities of technologies (UoTs) that merged from former technikons have been poorly ranked due to low research performance. Hands have been pointed at the academics, some school of thought blamed the institutions, others…

Background: This qualitative study examined apartheid-era South Africa, from 1948 to 1994, which established social and administrative policies that deliberately curtailed the education of Indigenous and other South Africans as a means of oppressing non-European ethnic groups. Analysis: In lieu of face-to-face interviews, the experience of…

The segregation enforced during apartheid has not only ensured widely disparate South African university landscapes, but also framed constructions of activism in historical discourses of racial disenfranchisement and marginalisation. As a result, activism is implicitly and explicitly associated with disadvantaged universities; with black students;…