Even though quality education is important for the empowerment of individuals and development of society, some rural schools in South Africa continue to function amid tough conditions. Because little research on the topic exists, with this article I explore and identify teachers' experiences of the working conditions in rural schools in South…

The unprecedented extended COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns forced higher education institutions (HEIs) to find innovative ways to effectively deliver student tuition and support. The lockdown brought many challenges to the education sector, including increasing the blurring of the work-home boundaries. This study investigated how COVID-19 accelerated…

This study sought to research first-year South African university students' attitudes towards interactive school learning and then to determine their perspectives and reflective experiences regarding interactive learning. Data was gathered during the first week of their first university lectures. The sample was 129 freshmen. The study adopted a…

This article examines the experiences and perceptions of academics about student engagement and how their professional practice in a professional community enhances students' persistence and success in a university in South Africa. While previous research has widely focused on students' perception of how student engagement enhances student success…

This article focuses on the navigation and negotiation of a Zulu student on a diverse university campus in South Africa. Students in higher education institutions bring their life stories, shaped by lived experiences, culture, history, and language, to the campus, while the interconnection between race, language, culture, and gender creates new…

Out of school youth (OSY) are adolescents who have not completed their schooling and are not currently enrolled in school. This study sought to understand why learners drop out of school by interviewing 41 OSY (aged 13-20 years). Respondent Driven Sampling was used to recruit OSY. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Gender differences…

This article explores student teachers' resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic and their ability to thrive in online teaching practice. Amid the pandemic's unprecedented challenges, student teachers exhibited remarkable adaptability in navigating the shift to remote teaching. Through qualitative research and thematic analysis, this article delves…

The growing concern about the mental health and psychological distress of first-year students warrants a greater understanding of their well-being. This study explored the insights of 16 staff and service providers who engage with first-year students at a South African peri-urban campus and built on quantitative studies using the Job…

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that education is a fundamental human right for everyone. Education promotes equality, but this can only be possible in the absence of social injustices within school systems. Social justice in education entails challenging any inequalities that may exist in the education system. This study focused…

In March 2020, the South African President Mr Cyril Ramaphosa announced a national lockdown due to the rising cases of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, some of the higher education institutions closed under lockdown level 5 and strategies had to be developed to adapt to the "new norm". Consequently, students and the living and…

A grassroots understanding of well-being can be an effective approach to meeting the needs of children in low-resource settings. Due to this, evidence on how to sustain such approaches is needed. "Successful Pathways for the Well-Being of Black Students" addresses a long-standing need for a book that focuses more on strength over…

Girls' vulnerability to sexual violence and harassment is a recurrent theme in much of the literature on schooling in sub-Saharan Africa. Within this research, girls are often framed as passive victims of violence. By drawing on a case study, this paper focuses on 12 to 13-year-old South African school girls as they mediate and participate in…

In the study reported on here we investigated the nature of the organisational climates of well-performing, historically disadvantaged secondary schools. These schools were designated for Black learners during the apartheid era in townships and rural areas. Despite their "disadvantagedness", many of these schools have consistently…

Higher Education institutions robustly adopted digital pedagogy during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This article reports on a study focussing on postgraduate students' first-hand experiences of digital pedagogy for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. This study was conducted at one higher education…

Background: Teachers' support for addressing cisgenderism and cisnormative cultures in schools is necessary to support students' freedom to express gender in expansive ways and to embrace trans identities. However, few questions are asked about how primary school teachers grapple with trans identities in South Africa. Purpose: The article fills…