Purpose: In the past decade, against increasing global inequality, higher education has grappled with increased demands for social justice, transformation and decolonisation. While a lot of research in South Africa has focused on the (im)possibilities of fostering racial, gendered, socio-economic and cultural change, the connection of such change…

A quarter of a century after South Africa's transition to democracy, the rhetoric of 'transformation' remains firmly ingrained in its higher education policy and discourse. In many of the reviews, reports, proposals, and frameworks on the transformation of the South African university system, one thing stands out: an oversupply of rhetoric and a…

The turn to democracy in South Africa brought hope for a higher education sector that would play a key role in tackling racial inequalities and injustices. However, transformation promises ended up being largely smokescreens for maintaining entrenched racist and capitalist logics rooted in colonialism and apartheid. Instead of focusing on…

As institutions increasingly reckon with histories entangled with slavery and Indigenous dispossession, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts occupy a central role in the strategy and resources of higher education. Yet reparation is rarely offered as a viable strategy for institutional transformation. In Reparative Universities, Ariana…

Student affairs practitioners and researchers are well positioned to contribute holistically to student success and as such could play a strategic role in the transformation of higher education. The aim of this article is to illustrate that a key strategic objective of student affairs is to contribute significantly towards student success. This…

Purpose: Higher education institutions (HEIs) play a key role in facilitating increases in socio-economic growth and economic development. Sustainable development goal 4 (SDG 4): quality education is dedicated to ensuring inclusive and equitable access to quality education and lifelong learning opportunities. This study aims to gain leadership…

The emergence of the teaching an pandemic was a fundamentally disruptive force in the global higher education system that called on us to re-think the very purposes of higher education, our values, and who the academy is inherently for. Largely driven by the then panic over the unpredictable and infectious nature of the COVID-19 disease, higher…

This paper focuses on the potential, challenges, and limits of participatory, narrative and multimodal research methods as contributions to decolonising research on understanding student experiences of teaching and learning in higher education. Drawing on Fraser's social justice concepts of participatory parity, redistribution, recognition, and…

Access to higher education has been one of the critical areas of concern in South Africa, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Corona-virus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought the systemic cleavages into sharp relief, with 'access' and subsequent 'success' emerging as an important variable. Availability of digital facilities…

Could a transformative, inclusive and emancipatory educational framework like the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) advance academic success for all? Could racism and dis/ableism be dismantled through such an emerging educational trend that offers a redefinition of dis/ability abolishing oppressive pedagogical practices that perpetuate…

This paper explores how academics navigate the Higher Education (HE) landscape being reshaped by the convergence of unbundling, marketisation and digitisation processes. Social Realism distinguishes three layers of social reality (in this case higher education): the empirical, the actual and the real. The empirical layer is presented by the…

Social inclusion policy in higher education--also referenced as affirmative action, reservations, schedules, or antidiscrimination--has been used widely to promote equity and access for minority and historically discriminated subgroups who wish to participate in tertiary education. Inclusion is often protected de jure through a country's…

This paper addresses the paradox of transition to online distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries. The systematic review methodological procedures were employed to draw some limitations and possible opportunities that may inform future practices on online distance learning. The…

This paper explored the challenges lecturers face in teaching through online platforms. Online learning has become increasingly prevalent in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions, offering opportunities and challenges for TVET lecturers. The transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to online environments…

In the 21st century, knowledge has become the driving force behind societal progress, emphasising the need for higher education to produce contextually relevant knowledge that addresses the multifaceted challenges faced by local communities. It is in this respect that knowledge needs to be generated through one's position of epistemic location in…