This paper aims to map the landscape of higher education transformation in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations while exploring the status of BRICS nations in some of the global university rankings and analysing their potential to give new meaning to notions such as excellent and world-class universities. The study…

There is some disparity in the quality of education among the various races and provinces in South Africa. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, the government has tried to bridge the gap using quintile categorisation of public schools and its concomitant funding. The categorisation is based on the socioeconomic status of the community in which the…

The paper sets out to show that teaching is among the five undeniably oldest and historically character-shaping professions in the world, the others being engineering-architecture, medicine, law, and accounting and each of these professions has a unique story in connection with its genesis and its influence on social organisation. The paper…

In South Africa, the Grade 12 "classes of 2008 and 2009" were the first to write examinations under the revised Life Sciences (Biology) curriculum which focuses on outcomes-based education (OBE). This paper presents an exploration of what students (as learners) considered to be difficult and interesting in Grades 10-12 Life Sciences…

This article critically examines the methodology of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by generating raw scores for the "big five" South African research universities (Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Kwazulu-Natal, Pretoria and the Witwatersrand, henceforth referred to as SU, UCT, UKZN, UP and WITS) using the ARWU…