An integrated mentoring strategy for service learning in higher education

UNESCO believed that college students play an important role in sustainable development, and service learning in higher education is an important stage in establishing students’ social responsibility, sustainable community development and sustainable awareness. The purpose of this study was to design a performing arts service-learning course so that participants could truly understand the actions of social responsibility, devote themselves to the action of sustainable development in the community, cultivate awareness sustainable in action, and predict the achievement of sustainable development goals. This study implemented a 3-month “Performing Arts Service-Learning Course”. A total of 90 performing arts college students (57 females and 33 males) voluntarily participated in this research. Reflection activities and questionnaire survey will be carried out immediately after the course ends. The results of the study showed that after the course ended, the participants reflected on the activities and believed that service learning can establish a good partnership between the school and the community. Gain first-hand experience from serving others, serve social justice, serve the less privileged, and spread love and joy to more people. Questionnaires: Both males and females were satisfied with the topics of “social responsibility” and “sustainable community development”. All participants agreed with the topics of “sustainability awareness” and “sustainable development goals”. Males and females were highly correlated with social responsibility, sustainable community development, sustainable awareness, and sustainable development goals (4, 5, 11, 16, 17). Finally, the social responsibility, sustainable community development, and sustainable awareness of males and females could effectively predict the sustainable development goals (4, 5, 11, 16, 17). The conclusion of this study showed that service learning can help college students learn to solve problems from practice and understand the value of sustainable development through community service and caring for environmental changes. From now on, the 17 goals of sustainable development goals should be planned into courses in various fields. It is helpful to broaden students’ horizons and move towards the era of global sustainable development goals.

Calls for the decolonisation of higher education in the world and South Africa in particular, has gained momentum since the student protests in 2015 and 2016. This takes place after some efforts have been made to transform and democratise the higher education landscape. Efforts made include: National Commission on Higher Education, White Paper 3 1997, The Higher Education Act of 1997 and the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) Act of 1995 which led to the creation of National Qualification Framework (NQF). The policies had promises on issues of access, equity, equality, inclusivity and social justice. After 20 years of democracy, students started to question the progress or lack thereof in the transformation of higher education in South Africa. They started to make demands for access, free education, decolonisation of the curriculum, changes in the pedagogy and epistemic practices. They also demanded the removal of certain statues on some of the campuses. The protests jolted some academics to start debating and writing about the decolonisation of higher education in South Africa. This was done by picking up different aspects that were made points of focus in terms of decolonisation. Consequently, some academics focused on the decolonisation of the curriculum, some on the higher education system whilst others focussed on teacher education. In this article, we intend to contribute to the debate by focusing on Continuing Teacher Professional Development (CTPD) that is an aspect within teacher education. The focus on CTPD was prompted by the fact that not much has been done on the decolonisation of CTPD in South Africa. Furthermore, this is a critical area, because unless teachers are empowered and reskilled to drive the decolonisation process, they may resist and ultimately render the whole process unworkable. It is based on the study that was conducted, focusing on CTPD in the teaching of physical sciences in some of the rural schools in Limpopo Province. The choice of physical sciences was because physical sciences is a gateway subject and most physics sciences teachers in Limpopo Province are based in rural areas. Generally, these schools do not have the appropriate facilities and equipment to teach physical science. Physical sciences teachers also face many challenges such as negative perception about the subject, lack of resources, limited room for professional development, poor teacher training, and inadequate support from within the school and the Provincial Department of Education. This study focussed on creativity and teacher empowerment by enabling physical sciences teachers to reflect on their implementation of science inquiry. Physical sciences teachers were empowered to be creative in handling scientific inquiry especially in the absence of the necessary scientific equipment. The study was conduct at a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Limpopo Province where teachers, from rural schools, are specifically invited to the university for the National Science Week, which included a component of ongoing Continuing Teacher Profession Development (CPTD). During the National Science Week physical sciences teachers attend an in-service workshop on Improvisation in Science. Ninety (90) physical sciences teachers participated in this study. Data were generated by using a questionnaire and unstructured interviews. The findings of the study revealed that the success of CTPD is not so much in spending more funds in CTPD programmes, but it is in the approach that is used to prepare teachers to respond appropriately to the needs and the demands of the classroom environment. The article argues that the decolonisation process should prioritise the CTPD programmes at universities. This is due to the fact that teachers as agents of change need to be empowered and reskilled, so that they can be in the forefront of the decolonisation process. This can be achieved by adopting a transformative approach that encourages improvisation in science teaching. This approach to CPTD demands that teachers’ professional development should shift from the traditional approach to an approach that empowers teachers to be able to make a meaningful contribution to the classes that they teach.

This paper focuses on policy initiatives and strategies used to promote the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education in South Africa. It explores a wider international outlook and current debates in South Africa to map out an emerging South African perspective concerning the integration of ICT in higher education. It also provides a brief survey of key policy developments on e-education in general to contextualize the use of ICTs. In doing so, the paper addresses the following questions: What general goals do policy makers in South Africa express in national policy documents for the integration of ICT in the education system? What is the role of government regarding the use of ICT in higher education? What policies and strategies for ICT do leaders of South African higher education institutions develop? How do South African national priorities and higher education institutional strategies match?

Universities, in their multiplex roles of social, political, epistemological and capital reform, are by their constitution expected to both symbolise and enact transformation. While institutions of higher education in South Africa have been terrains of protest and reform – whether during apartheid or post-apartheid – the intense multiplex roles which these institutions assume have metaphorically come home to roost in the past 2 years. Not unlike the social-media-infused rumblings, coined as the ‘Arab Spring’, the recent cascades of #mustfall campaigns have brought to the fore the serious dearth of transformation in higher education and have raised more critical questions about conceptions of transformation, and how these translate into, or reflect, the social and political reform that continues to dangle out of the reach of the majority of South Africans. What, then, does transformation mean and imply? How does an institution reach a transformed state? How does one know when such a state is reached? These are a few of the concerns this article seeks to address. But it hopes to do so by moving beyond the thus far truncated parameters of transformation – which have largely been seeped in the oppositional politics of historical advantage and disadvantage, and which, in turn, have ensured that conceptions of transformation have remained trapped in discourses of race and racism. Instead, this article argues that the real challenge facing higher education is not so much about transformation, as it is about enacting democracy through equipping students to live and think differently in a pluralist society.

Higher education in South Africa has experienced a number of challenges for the past three decades: from the days of apartheid to post-apartheid South Africa, to the challenges of transforming the higher education landscape. The merger of several South African higher education institutions in 2004 created a plethora of challenges to add to the already existing ones. These challenges were political, sociological, structural and fiscal in nature. The desire to address these challenges has in a way created an epistemological backlog where access to higher education has increased drastically but epistemological access remains a challenge. These amongst other things fuelled the decolonisation movement which demanded for the decolonisation of knowledge. However, the decolonisation of knowledge amongst other things cannot be effective or complete without a re-engineering of the sociology of education. this chapter articulates a pathway for the re-engineering of the sociology of education by articulating four sociological constellations.

South Africa's higher education institutions (HEIs) continue to face challenges in implementing inclusive language policies that integrate indigenous African languages into academic settings, even three decades after apartheid. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) face significant challenges in integrating indigenous African languages into academic settings. Despite progressive reforms, higher education institutions face significant challenges in integrating indigenous African languages into academic settings. This scoping review aims to evaluate the current state of language policy implementation in South African public HEis. Specifically, it seeks to: (1) map the integration of multilingual policies into teaching, research, and administrative practices; (2) identify persistent barriers to effective policy implementation; (3) explore successful strategies for promoting multilingualism (4) assess the extent of African language usage in academic contexts; and (5) identify research gaps to guide future investigations. The review will adhere to the PRISMA-ScR guidelines and follow the framework outlined by Arksey and O'Malley, ensuring a systematic and transparent approach. A comprehensive search will be conducted in databases including Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, and African Journals Online (AJOL), covering studies published from 1994 to the present. This will be supplemented by grey literature from government and institutional sources. Three independent reviewers will screen studies using predefined eligibility criteria, managing and screening articles through Rayyan. Data will be extracted using a standardized form, and thematic analysis will synthesize the findings, with stakeholder consultation to validate results. This review will provide a comprehensive assessment of language policy implementation, highlighting successful strategies and persistent challenges across institutions. The findings will inform policy refinement, identify effective practices, and guide future research directions for achieving linguistically inclusive higher education in South Africa, while contributing to a broader understanding of implementing multilingual policies in post-colonial educational contexts. This protocol is preregistered on OSF, available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AU2SD.

Ponte Academic JournalApr 2021, Volume 77, Issue 4 TRANSFORMATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL SYSTEMSAuthor(s): Jeremiah MadzimureJ. Ponte - Apr 2021 - Volume 77 - Issue 4 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2021.4.7 Abstract:Transformation of higher education in South Africa cannot be accomplished as a separate entity because education is a dependent variable and does not operate in a vacuum. The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of the following social systems, demographic / environmental systems; socio-economic systems in higher education; science and technological systems; language as medium of facilitation, the role of the state in education and cultural diversities in higher education. This article concludes that these systems are relevant for advancement of higher education. If these systems are effectively used in higher education, the quality of education will be enhanced. This article further demostrated that each system entails that there is a transformation in higher education. Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Re-curriculation is currently the most talked about topic in Higher Education in South Africa because of the new Higher Education Qualification Sub-Framework alignment process required by all Higher Education Institutions. However, the lecturer in the classroom, especially new lecturers, are also faced with the task of designing the actual curricula of a subject once the new qualification is to be implemented, in terms of achieving the aims and objectives of the subject area. In other words, ensuring that the outcomes of the subject are achieved by the student. Ideally all lecturers at institutions of higher learning should develop strategies for their “own” curricula. Developing the aforementioned strategies might be challenging to first time lecturers. The methodologies of developing a new qualification and strategies for building curricula is discussed in this paper are different curriculum planning methods and strategies. The aforementioned strategies are focusing on students, mentoring, supportive tools such as software programmes, feedback and assessments. The findings of this paper are proper curricula development to enhance the ability to understand, recall and apply information. The main objective is to use proper curricula development to empower students with a diversity of cultures to understand the material presented by the lecturer. This paper concludes that curricula planning should allow students to be given space to grow and interact and ultimately attain deep life-long learning.

In South Africa, the question of whether a Western education system can lead to the achievement of equality among citizens is quite a problematic one. Thus, the question that has since the advent of the post-apartheid South Africa been a subject of contestation among scholars, is that of, how can the higher education system that was founded on colonial and apartheid white supremacy and hegemony be transformed into a transformative tool that addresses inequalities characterising South African society in the democratic era? This article seeks to provide a de-colonial perspective of how the higher education system of the post-apartheid South Africa can be transformed to address different developmental needs of a heterogeneous population. The purpose is not to dictate answers, but to create avenues of (re)thinking the knowledge production in the South African higher education sector in the quest for an equal and inclusive society. The article’s key argument is that a higher education system such as that in South Africa which was founded on colonial and apartheid ideologies, interests and agendas needs a de-colonial transformation in order to respond to the developmental needs, challenges and aspirations of its heterogeneous population. After an engagement with the myths and assumptions of a decolonised world that conceals coloniality of knowledge, this article, delves into the South African higher education system and the quest for equality that confronts the country. The need to ‘unthink’ and ‘unlearn’ present forms of imagining higher education in South Africa is emphasised.

El presente artículo es una reflexión acerca del valor ético y cívico de los proyectos de Aprendizaje Servicio, a partir de argumentos y pruebas procedentes de un proceso de revisión bibliográfica, pero elaborando asimismo una fundamentación propia a partir de un análisis hermenéutico de esta metodología de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Se concluye que los proyectos de Aprendizaje Servicio favorecen desde la práctica una síntesis de la ética del cuidado y de la justicia, y contribuyen a una nueva definición del concepto de educación, en tanto que fomentan el aprendizaje significativo y revitalizan la dimensión ética y ciudadana de los procesos educativos, en sintonía con las propuestas de desarrollo humano y de la educación entendida como bien común de organismos internacionales como la Unesco. Tras la fundamentación teórica, se presenta un caso de su institucionalización en Educación Superior (Universitat de València), a partir de la reconsideración de la universidad como espacio público comprometido con la formación ética del estudiantado y la responsabilidad social universitaria.

In higher education worldwide there has been a shift from quality control to quality assurance. Quality assurance in South Africa has been seen as an important element in the democratisation and transformation of education. The emphasis on quality assurance in education and training was seen as emancipatory because under apartheid the education which most of the population had access to was of very poor quality. The ‘quality’ discourse and quality assurance in higher education in South Africa shows that Quality Assurance (QA) is a focus area which is also relatively a new phenomenon and is still in its formative stages of development. This implies that educational institutions are required to establish their own quality management systems. A triangulation approach consisting of interviews, document exploitation and observations were used to collect the data from multiple sources in this qualitative study. To be able to develop a logical argument, the Social constructivist theory will be discussed first, then National Qualifications Framework (NQF)which is responsible for quality assurance, then Vaal University of technology, concepts like quality will first be discussed and this discussion will be followed by an interrogation of standards. Finally, last but not least, a discussion on relevance will be entered into. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed and limitations and future research directions are indicated. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n14p643

(2000). The Role of the Humanities in Higher Education in South Africa. Pretexts: Literary and Cultural Studies: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 225-233.

This article is an analysis of the transformation evaluations of higher education in South Africa. It offers a review of recent literature on conceptions of evaluation research models and practice, and of reform evaluations in education, specifically pertaining to higher education. From this analysis, a framework for the analysis of reform evaluations is proposed and used to review a selection of nine reports published since 1994 on evaluations of changes in higher education in South Africa. The findings are offered as a critical analysis of evaluation practices exemplified by the selected studies. The article develops an understanding of what competent evaluations of education transformation may involve. This article is based on research sponsored by a grant for senior researchers from the USA-SA Fulbright Commission. The research included a stay at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst from September 2004 to January 2005. The opinions expressed in the report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Fulbright Commission. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 21 (3) 2007: pp. 552-569

Purpose of the study: In this thesis on Enterprise Resource Planning Tools Management in Private Higher Education in South Africa, the study utilised multiple sources of data collection in a mixed manner, namely; use of interviews and focus groups (in-depth interviews) in qualitative investigations and questionnaires in the survey method in order to determine critical issues influencing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools in academic management in Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in South Africa. Research problem: Mithi, Mabiza, and Edoun (2016:42), stated that the integration of digital software technological tools (ERPs) to support academic management showed that it was “possible to digitalise learning systems and find adequate acceptance from stakeholders. However, there is still a need to understand whether an improvement in Enterprise Resource Planning Software tools is appreciated, fully supported in the vision of contributing to the academic activities of PHEIs as businesses. Research methods: A mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) research methodology was used pragmatically in the study paradigm to triangulate the results of the research from an interpretive position. The research analysed and reported on subjective and quantitative data to ascertain knowledge about the participants’ recognition of critical issues affecting management of ERP tools in academic management in Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in South Africa. In this study, the following groups of participants were purposefully sampled: students, lecturers and management staff working in the three PHEIs in Gauteng. The study found that academic attainment in PHEIs could be enhanced through ERP tools management in ICT integration. Findings and recommendations: In light of the research outcomes, the study suggests that there is enhanced coaching and students personal interactions through online conference tools, a practice that may be backed up and carry the same weight and recognition as physical learning contact hours. The qualitative data analysis raised a debate that HE ERPs must or may integrate all those particular factors that coordinate and interact as changes made in one factor should also reflect in another factor or module. ERP tools security features should be instituted at all levels of the main tools. Issues of integration in the selection of any robust, dynamic PHEI tools may call for a firm’s financial readiness and company-wide consultations with potential users of the system. Bringing in such a discussion in preparation to single out tools that may be selected over time may be an issue that is seldom shared by top HE executives, as other decisions in the ERP tools selection may seem to be imposed upon departments. HE ERP that does not have a student portal, without integrated online issues of applications, checking of results, enhancement of teaching and learning but partly integrating one or two departments in isolation to others, may not be considered fit or robust as a higher educational ERP.

Raising employment and improving the quality of education, are the two most critical and interrelated challenges, for eliminating poverty and reducing inequality in South Africa. To improve the quality of education, role-players need seamless access to critical information to guide planning and determine progress in different parts of the education system. Shortcomings in the current information infrastructure, especially at the nexus of the basic education and higher education systems, result in an information gap that needs to be eliminated, before a comprehensive picture of the education system and the factors underpinning its performance, can emerge. Local and international experts were consulted to understand best practice, describe information requirements and uncover the shortcomings in the existing infrastructure. Participants from the majority of the country’s higher education institutions took part in a survey to verify and refine the shape and consequences of the information gap. This article provides a foundation for creating an improved infrastructure that would provide the missing, critical information, highlighted in this study.