scholarly journals Can COIL be effective in using diversity to contribute to equality? Experiences of iKudu, a European-South African consortium operating via a decolonised approach to project delivery

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Alun DeWinter ◽  
Reinout Klamer
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South African ◽  
English Language ◽  
Project Delivery ◽  
First Year ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Internationalisation Of Higher Education ◽  
Internationalisation At Home ◽  
Funded Project ◽  
International Learning

The iKudu project is a north-south collaboration between five universities in South Africa and five in Europe. As an EU-funded project, the overall aim is to capacity build around internationalisation at home through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). Originally presented at IVEC2020, this paper explores how iKudu navigates and utilises concepts of equality, equity through decolonisation, and Africanisation. Drawing from experiences of the first year of operation, this paper presents how the iKudu project was designed with equality in mind in order to ensure that as many students can engage in internationalisation activities, but notes how the realities of decolonisation introduce challenging contradictions for the consortium to navigate, particularly around the use of the English language in a global context. This paper also presents some of the underlying working philosophies from the perspective of the iKudu leadership to show just how COIL can be effective in contributing to equality within internationalisation of Higher Education (HE).

Creating epistemic access through a scaffold approach: Academic literacy skills development for South African first-year public administration students

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-174
Author(s):  
Gerda HG van Dijk ◽  
Brenda A Vivian ◽  
Lianne P Malan
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
South African ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
Epistemic Access

For higher education institutions to produce graduates capable of contributing to society and the economy in a productive manner, educational emphasis is placed on the development of critical thinking. The above necessitates that higher education institutions are able to engage in responsive curriculum design and delivery for enhanced student success and access. Public Administration programmes focus on equipping students to work within the broader government sector, able and capable of delivering public functions responsive to the needs of society. Literature suggests that there are a number of factors which influence the success ratio of any undergraduate programme in the South African context, including, inter alia, increased enrolments, student–staff ratios and the overall decline of professional and intellectual life in the country. Further complicating matters are classes too big to be participatory and crammed syllabi preventing in-depth discussions. The notion of embedding academic literacy development in curriculum design through a scaffolded approach aims to influence the academic performance of students through engaged and active learning in order to attain a higher level of achievement as well as benefit from the process of scaffolding. The research comprises a mixed method approach using a case study of the first-year students enrolled for a Public Administration degree. Data collected included an analysis of 2015, 2016 and 2017 student cohorts in: determining their academic literacy level upon registration (set as a baseline before any academic literacy intervention); tracking their academic performance through their formative and summative assessments (through a scaffolded approach); and reflecting upon their learning through their completion of a semi-structured survey. The research intends to argue that the use of a scaffolded approach to learning enhances epistemic access, which sees students moving beyond propositional, or foundation knowledge to epistemic or reflexive knowledge.

scholarly journals Supplemental Instruction as a Tool for Students' Academic Performance in Higher Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oyinlola Omolara Adebola
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
South African ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Academic Support ◽  
Supplemental Instruction ◽  
Dropout Rate ◽  
First Year ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
First Year Students

Supplemental instruction (SI), which can be referred to as academic support has been linked to the successful academic performance of university students both locally and internationally. This study explores the successful implementation of SI to encourage students toward academic performance in a South African university. Constructivism theory (CT) was adopted as the theoretical framework for the study while Participatory Research (PR) was the research design. A focused group interview was used to collect data because of its relevance and assumptions of academic support such as supplemental instruction. Two lecturers, two tutors, two tutees, and two SI personnel were selected for the study from a selected university. At the same time, thematic analysis was chosen to analyse the data generated. The findings showed that through the intervention of SI, first-year students' academic performance increased while the dropout rate has also reduced.

scholarly journals Internationalisation of Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean:

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-156
Author(s):  
Jocelyne Gacel-Ávila
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Current Process ◽  
Internationalisation Of Higher Education ◽  
Internationalisation At Home ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Primary Form

This article assesses the current process of internationalisation of highereducation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on data and findingsfrom different national, regional, and international studies, it showsthat, while the region’s primary form of internationalisation is studentmobility, the numbers are relatively small compared to other regionsand that other strategies such as internationalisation at home are largelyunderdeveloped. The article concludes that, while some progress has beenmade in past decades, the internationalisation process needs to be consolidatedand strengthened, particularly in terms of public policy at national and the regional level.

scholarly journals Present-Day Dillemas And Challenges Of The South African Tertiary System

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 285 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Mouton ◽  
G. P. Louw ◽  
G. L. Strydom
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Education System ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
School Level ◽  
First Year ◽  
Exit Point ◽  
The South ◽  
Higher Education System

The Education White Paper 3 on Higher Education aimed to transform the higher education system. Change within tertiary education included adjusting the size and shape of institutions, the meaning of autonomy and accountability, the nature of higher education, the character of student demographic distribution, management and governance, roles of student politics, models of delivery, the notion of higher education in terms of the relationship between free trade and public good, programme changes and the nature of the academic workplace. At this stage, transformation in higher education is leaping outwards to fulfil the criteria set by international competitiveness and related efficiency criteria that can be attributed to globalisation pressures and to deeper factors inherent in the nature of higher education, especially in terms of its resistance to change and modernization. In this regard, the tertiary higher education system in South Africa is faced with many multi-dimensional challenges that need to be addressed in this article. This includes stating whether Grade 12 results as the outcome of this exit point at school level are, internationally speaking, a reasonable predictor of first-year academic success at university. In South Africa, there is no benchmarking of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination; therefore, first-year students have difficulty in adapting to the university environment as they find themselves devoid of indispensable bases for the pursuit of their studies and the weakness of the level of education given at school level in a large number of instances. Furthermore, five universities were placed under administration in the 2011-2012 period because of appallingly poor levels of management, which adds extra layers of suspicion to the notion of the impact of higher education in South Africa. Many other challenges are facing the South African tertiary education system, which will be analysed and recommendations arrived at that will attempt to contribute to an enhancement of tertiary education in South Africa.

scholarly journals A socially just pedagogy in the use of mobile devices in higher education? The case of Humanities first-year students at a South African university

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Carina Van Rooyen ◽  
Ingrid Estha Marais
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
South African ◽  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Mixed Methods Research ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Humanities Students

In a highly unequal society such as South Africa, higher education is seen as having a social justice mandate to widen participation, and using technology is one way to achieve this. One university in South Africa made mobile devices compulsory for all first-year students since 2014. This article, drawing on data collected from first-year Humanities students at this university, attempts to understand whether the use of mobile devices for learning met requirements for a socially just pedagogy. We used a sequential mixed methods research design, first surveying the first-year Humanities students in late 2015, and then followed up with focus group discussions in 2016 and early 2017. We utilise Nancy Fraser’s idea of ‘participatory parity’ to unpack a socially just pedagogy, and specifically focus on the component of access to resources. We found that most students had functional access to devices and on-campus data. The manner in which these were accessed was affirmative, rather than transformative. By extending the notion of access beyond just opportunity (functional access as owning or having access to a device and data), to also knowing how to use the opportunity (digital access through digital literacies and fluencies), we found that our case study fell short of being socially just pedagogy. We urge that lecturers take up a central role in enabling students to use their devices for transformative learning.   How to cite this article:VAN ROOYEN, Carina; MARAIS, Ingrid Estha. A socially just pedagogy in the use of mobile devices in higher education? The case of Humanities first-year students at a South African university. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South v. 2, n. 2, p. 53-70, Sept. 2018. Available at: http://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=66   This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Finnish Professors’ Experiences of Decolonisation and Internationalisation in South African Universities

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-24
Author(s):  
Ashley Simpson ◽  
Ning Chen ◽  
Fred Dervin
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
International Education ◽  
South African ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Internationalisation Of Higher Education ◽  
African Higher Education ◽  
South African Universities ◽  
Direct Outcome ◽  
South African Higher Education ◽  
Ambiguous Position

This paper examines the experiences of Finnish professors of education, who hold visiting positions in South African universities. As an international education utopia, Finland has developed strong Edu-business and education export around the world ‐ these visiting positions in South Africa being a direct outcome of these strategies. Using a critical form of discourse analysis, the authors scrutinize three visiting professors’ utterances about their experiences of South African higher education. During their interviews the political and economic dispositifs of internationalisation, of which their positions are symbolic, function through evoking idealised and exceptionalist representations about Finland. The participants also hint at the need for tolerance and respect towards the South African other, which reveal themselves through the reproduction of colonial discourses and images. The paper thus calls for further investigation into such forms of neo-colonialism in an African country that calls for rethinking Africanisation, decolonising of knowledge and internationalisation of higher education. It also problematises the under-researched and ambiguous position of Western scholars in these complex processes.

scholarly journals The expenditure and foreign revenue impact of international students on the South African economy

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naum Aloyo ◽  
Arnold Wentzel
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
International Students ◽  
South African ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Internationalisation Of Higher Education ◽  
South African Universities

In South Africa, there is still no clear policy of internationalisation of higher education, partly due to limited research. So far, only two efforts – at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in 2004 and Rhodes University in 2005 – have been made to determine the expenditure and foreign revenue impact of international students on South Africa. Each of these papers sampled only a single university, so they are of limited use for national impact analysis. To build on these studies, this research was conducted at six South African universities that admit the largest number of international students and also included the economic effects of spending items hitherto neglected. We show that international students (mainly from Africa) contribute significantly to South African GDP and balance of payments, but that South Africa still lags behind in exploiting and enhancing these benefits.

scholarly journals An investigation into the extent to which the National Senior Certificate equips university finance students with required skills

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
Annelie Oosthuizen ◽  
Riëtte Eiselen
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
South African ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
First Year ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
University Finance ◽  
University Studies ◽  
Critical Skills ◽  
South African Higher Education

Higher education institutions have an obligation to provide graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills to enter the workforce and contribute effectively to the financial and economic development of the country. After 1994, the South African educational system was redesigned. One of the major events in this process was the replacement of the Senior Certificate (NATED 550) by the National Senior Certificate, awarded for the first time in 2008. Questions have been raised as to whether the National Senior Certificate curriculum prepares learners adequately for success in university studies. The purpose of the exploratory research reported on in this article was to investigate the perceptions of students on the skills acquired in the National Senior Certificate, as well as the skills required to succeed in their university studies. The study was conducted amongst the first-year B.Com (Finance) students during the 2009 academic year at a South African higher education institution. The results of the study indicate that these students felt that they lacked some of the critical skills required for academic success at university.

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