This paper attempts a brief meta-reflection on quality assurance policy and practice in South African higher education, with a focus on methodology. More specifically it seeks to answer the question "What are the effects of the Higher Education Quality Committee's (HEQC) quality assurance technologies on institutional practice and how could…

This article discusses the current dynamics at African universities concerning the quality of teaching, the role of research, the level of community outreach, and the position of higher education in the educational sector as a whole. Points of reference are experiences at the University of the North in South Africa as well as experiences at…

The Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society is now running in its thirteenth year. From its modest beginnings thirteen years ago, to its impressive size today, a tradition has been the production of a conference book, consistently launched on the first day of the conference each year. This year, Volume 13 of…

Educational reform in South Africa envisions schooling where all students, irrespective of their background characteristics, have the opportunity to succeed. To achieve this vision, the South African education system needs to function in such a way that students' success does not depend on their backgrounds; that is, if school processes and…

Scaling up good corporate social investment practices in developing countries is crucial to realizing the "Education for All" and "Millennium Development Goals". Yet very few corporate social investments have the right mix of vision, financing, cross-sector engagement and leadership to come to scale. Globally, 67 million…

Teachers' conceptions of what they learn and how they professionally develop through their teaching roles are key to classroom practice and learner achievement because they influence teachers' pedagogic approaches and choice of materials, content, and learner activities. This article reports on some of the findings from a doctoral research project…

Disparities emanating from South Africa's apartheid history still pose a number of challenges to the country, especially in education. Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the prescribed government school curriculum has undergone several revisions in an endeavour to set standards and provide instruction of a high quality. On the language…

The aim of this article was to determine the international impact of Education research in South Africa, through a citation analysis of articles published in the "South African Journal of Education" from 2000 to 2010 The citation impact (nationally as well as internationally) was found to be low. The international impact has been…

Every nation or society prides itself of the quality of its citizenry. Education enlightens citizens to think rationally and to be responsible people. The notion of enlightened citizens through education as an agent for revealing and perpetuating the characteristic of a successful society, is the impetus for most countries to adopt the education…

In South Africa, the development of the 2001 White Paper No. 5 on Early Childhood Development (ECD) has been an instrumental policy in the development of changes to assist in preparing children for formal schooling, along with a strong focus on early childhood education. However the extent to which these are being enacted is relatively unknown.…

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) educators in higher education are constantly challenged to look for innovative ways to improve their pedagogical practices (i.e., facilitated learning, mentoring and assessment). Pair Teaching (PT) has many benefits allowing educators to design and present better learning experiences for students. The…

Since 1994 South African further education and training (FET) has undergone significant and fundamental changes. These changes include the transfer of colleges between state departments, curriculum revision, forced mergers and a shift in the student population. As a result of the growing interest in, and funding of, vocationally aligned education,…

The South African Constitution guarantees the right to basic education for all learners, including children of immigrants from across the country's borders. In view of this constitutional imperative, the Department of Basic Education is mandated to provide quality education to all learners, irrespective of their socio-economic and other…

Principals, as one of the professional leaders in a school, are accountable for the quality of education in the school. This is a part of the normal job description and expectations for the person in such a post. In the South African context with a large number of underperforming schools, there is an intention to have an additional performance…

While South African higher education has, in many respects, achieved remarkable achievements since 1994, a series of serious problems continue to beset the system, and a low internal (high attrition rate) and external (alignment with the employment market) efficiency. There also exist the problems of large scale youth unemployment and the policy…