The value of internationalization within the limits of mobility has become more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic. As reflection occurs on our own history, navigating a period of reset and renewal, this paper examines how to advance our thinking, and explore and transverse essential differences within the digital space. Hence, recalibrating…

The theme of the conference seems to assume that most countries had functional and well-performing education systems before the COVID-19 pandemic. All they need to do now is to recover and restore their systems to their former glory. Evaluations of the South African education system between 1994 and 2022 have been extremely negative. The question…

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, paper-based delivery of the National Benchmark Tests (NBTs) was not possible during the 2020 testing cycle. The NBTs, being a large-scale national assessment project, did not have alternative options, other than to offer the tests online. Moving these high-stakes tests online meant that certain considerations had to…

The advent of COVID-19 exposed the lack of readiness for school leaders to cope with demands of leading during a pandemic. Globally, school leaders were not trained to deal with a crisis of COVID-19 proportions. Leaders in the twenty-first century need to have the required skills like the twenty-first century leadership skills and Fourth…

The pandemic nature of the COVID-19 virus and the infectious potential that this virus has for the global population demands a radical response. This article focuses on school education within the context of COVID-19 and asks a fundamental curriculum question around what knowledge is most worthwhile for school education in response to this…

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused havoc in the world, radically changing our lives and raising new and old questions, both existential and educational. This pandemic has revealed the underbelly of South African society in general and its education system more specifically--it has laid bare the gross inequalities that are the legacies of apartheid…

This book offers an important contribution to the field of curriculum studies and higher education by examining the impacts of colonialism and neoliberalism in the South African education system and addressing ways to decolonise curriculum and teaching. Drawing on Pinar's work in curricular theory, the authors call for integrating self-reflective…

The COVID-19 pandemic is the largest social and economic shock of our lifetimes. As governments grapple with their responses to the virus, more than half the world's countries have closed their schools and severely limited almost all forms of public life. This will have a profound impact on children, both now and in the decade to come. As many…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing advances were made by higher education institutions (HEIs) to support remote online teaching and learning for student success and access, which are increasing areas of research. The major objective of this paper is to address the shift to remote teaching and learning practices that COVID precipitated in higher…

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 article examines the experiences and coping strategies of four university middle-managers during the unprecedented time of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the research approach of autoethnography to reflect on our experiences and decision-making processes. To reflect on how we managed the rapid change and moved from…

This article reflects on our participation in two efforts at education organising at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic -- the national C19 People's Coalition, and the Progressive Organisations Formation (POF). We suggest our experiences as participants in these movements reflect a broader political climate in South Africa in which large-scale,…

In this conceptual paper, borne from the experiences of two academic literacy lecturers at the NWU, we ask, regarding elements of assessment, how we can sensibly adapt an intervention-style writing course in a post-COVID higher education context. We propose a course correction model, applicable to academic literacy writing courses, to address the…

This paper reflects on what we learnt about teaching geography during the COVID-19 pandemic. We interrogate how we, as geography educators working in different contexts, navigated the novel teaching spaces created during the pandemic using two key registers; courageous and compassionate pedagogies. Our premise is that understanding in more nuanced…

This article addresses whether dialogical, online teaching and learning platforms in higher education can be framed as socially just and decolonized pedagogies at all universities in South Africa (Africa). It is suggested that inclusive pedagogies like dialogue and care on online teaching and learning platforms such as Blackboard, if effectively…