With evidence of global climate change and ongoing ecological degradation, there is an urgent need to give more attention to sustainability within VET to ensure that VET does not remain complicit in reproducing the unjust and unsustainable trajectories of current economic and development pathways. At present, the VET literature does not adequately…

Does empirical evidence or ideology most influence homeschooling policy? It depends. Where empirical research and social experience abound, regulations seem less restrictive but where there is less data or experience policies seem more restrictive and ideologically driven. By comparing Europe and the United States with a look at South Africa,…

In 2019, the South African government approved the Department of Higher Education and Training's (DHET) Policy Framework for Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa. The framework provides policy guidelines universities will need to follow when developing institutional internationalisation policies. Using critical discourse…

Over the past few decades, internationalisation of higher education in South Africa has been framed and conceptualised based on the dominant approaches, concepts and definitions from the global North. Using a decolonial lens, we focus on how internationalisation is defined in South Africa. This is important as definitions influence strategic…

Epistemicide occurs when one knowledge is exalted at the expense of local or indigenous knowledge systems leading to the demise of such knowledge systems. In this article, I focus on how some conceptions and ways of incorporating indigenous knowledge systems seem to be entangled in the same misnomer to which they owe their existence (i.e. a…

This article seeks to examine how two discourses -- of "lifelong learning" and "techno-solutionism" -- tangle with each other in South African education policy imaginaries, particularly the latter discourse as a response to an (arguably manufactured) frame of "crisis". The author suggests that the discourse of…

Principals are confronted with an exceptional degree of difficult decisions. One of the key challenges that school principals are facing in many parts of the world today is how to maintain a balance between professional discretion and accountability with the legislative and policy framework in which they must perform their duties. Every judgement…

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…

The literature identifies that education policies in Brazil are the backbone of their success in reducing inequality as measured by the GINI index. Since 1994, Brazil is the only BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nation to achieve this. This article presents a comparative study of South Africa and Brazil, and the policies applied…

Curriculum reform was high on the agenda of South Africa's post-apartheid governments. Yet as time passed, the initial reforms were seen as increasingly problematic, especially when pedagogical realities met policy priorities. There was reluctance on the part of policymakers to give up what was seen as the democratic imperative behind the reforms.…

The public university in the global South continues to be trapped in an existential slumber, struggling to self-define/self-diagnose its purposes, rationales, goals and agenda(s). Despite the emergence of the #FeesMustfall, #RhodesMustFall, and more recently the #Asinamali student protests, South African higher education continues to adopt…

In many countries, the contours of skills formation systems are traced back to early struggles over control of apprenticeship. This paper uses a curriculum lens to examine two distinctive policy moments in the history of formal apprenticeships in South Africa and to trace the legacy imprint of direct and indirect race-based exclusion as well as…

This conceptual paper explores the integration of "Ubuntu" philosophy in the school social work practice in South Africa, suggesting a transformative framework to enhance social work practice in a school setting based on the principles of interconnectedness, compassion and community. Drawing from critical social work theories, cultural…

The interplay of digital technologies and inequalities are increasingly discussed in contemporary research, mostly focusing on different forms of digital divides and often addressed as a "problem" that societies should face. Hence, digital education and its governance becomes a major arena for addressing inequalities. In this paper, we…

Nancy Fraser and Participatory Parity provides a philosophical framework based on the work of Nancy Fraser, examining how her ideas can be used to analyse contemporary issues in higher education and reimagine higher education practices. Providing a forum for considering Fraser's work in relation to participatory parity in higher education, the…