Background: Teacher education programmes often prioritise theory over practical experience, leaving students struggling to connect classroom learning with real-world application. Addressing this gap, a proposed model integrates online coursework with mentored practicebased experiences through full-time placements in selected schools. Aim: The…

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched by the United Nations in 2015, established ambitious targets to be achieved by 2030, including in education. SDG 4, which focuses on ensuring "inclusive and equitable quality education and promot[ing] lifelong learning opportunities for all", attracted attention from the adult education…

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the consequent lockdown took the world by surprise, forcing the trimming of the school curriculum and institutions of higher learning to urgently adopt online platforms to continue teaching and learning. This article is a case study that explores the use of a social media platform, WhatsApp, to improve peer learning…

Academic advising, if done effectively, can play a significant role in supporting student retention. However, as a relatively new field in South Africa, there is limited locally contextualised research into advising interventions and their effectiveness. So, there is a need for evidence-based approaches that will lead to more intentionally…

This paper reports on the lessons learnt from the COVID-19-induced emergency remote (online) teaching and learning of a one-year teacher education course. The final-year course, within a four-year Bachelor of Education programme, aimed at developing pre-service teachers' knowledge of the nature and process of learning and how to guide and support…

The COVID-19 pandemic has led all role players in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) sector in South Africa, including the particular non-profit organisation (NPO) under investigation, into unchartered territory. The organisation, which is involved in training and mentoring community-based Early Childhood Development centres in…

In this article we argue that school leaders should ensure that teachers experience a supportive professional learning community committed to collaborative, thoughtful inquiry and be enabled to create similar communities in their classrooms. This study followed on one published in 2017 that explored school leaders' responses to an introduction to…

This study addresses underlying principles to interpret scholarly-based service-related teaching and learning. Such principles include addressing specific concerns of communities, transforming theoretical knowledge into lived experiences for students, making the knowledge generated within communities meaningful and forging constant growth and…

Black African women are grossly underrepresented as academic staff in engineering programs at South African universities. The problem is exacerbated at historically White institutions (HWI) where Black women are simply absent as engineering research and teaching staff. The absence of Black African women in the academy occurs despite Black African…

The introduction of technologies into the teaching and learning environment has implied changes to the way education plays out in an e-Environment. Previous research has highlighted the many barriers and challenges in integration technology into teaching and learning. Technology is said to be underutilised. However there are studies that have…

Curriculum transformation is a central concern for higher education in response to rapidly expanding technologies, globalisation and the widening diversity of the student and staff body. This is particularly true for South Africa, which is still grappling with inequalities and pressure for social redress in its universities. Early responses to…

The current emphasis on curriculum leadership implies the need to update school leaders' pedagogical knowledge. This paper will interest local and international readers because it highlights both essential content and the importance of the pedagogy employed to convey it. The study explored the initial effects of an introduction to Cognitive…

This article explains the naive theory of biology that the pre-school child uses to explain the cause of death. The empirical investigation showed that the young participants do use a naive theory of biology to explain function and do make reference to "vitalistic causality" in explaining organ function. Furthermore, most of these…

The role of knowledge in the current knowledge economy cannot be overly emphasised. Successful regions are continuously being linked to excellence in the production, accumulation, and application of knowledge. Universities have increasingly been at the centre of such knowledge production, application and transfer. Yet, there is little research and…

Distance education is expanding in all continents, and the use of video has dominated internet. Synchronous Video Communication (SVC) has not been an option thoroughly investigated and practitioners, who use and design synchronous learning scenarios, are in urgent need of guidance. Distant learners face many barriers, and as a result, they drop…