Fighting for Relevance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Nombulelo Tholithemba Shange
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Black People ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Medicinal Uses ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Revolutionary Movements

South Africa's recent higher education protests around fees and decolonizing institutions have shone a spotlight on important issues and have inspired global discussion. We witnessed similar resistance during apartheid, where African languages and ideas were limited. The educational space was the most affected by clashes between languages and ideas; we saw this in the prioritizing of English and Afrikaans over indigenous African languages and the prioritizing of Western medicine, literature, arts, culture, and science over African ones. This chapter will show how formal education and knowledge production in South Africa has been used as a tool to repress Black people, while discrediting their knowledge systems. This discussion will draw from impepho, which is rejected by Christians because its main use is for communicating with ancestors. The herb has many other medicinal uses, but it is still rejected. African practices are used and revitalized by AIC like the Shembe Church and revolutionary movements like FMF.

“Still haven't found what I am looking for”: rural black students' perceived work readiness and assessment of labor market access

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinashe Harry ◽  
Willie Tafadzwa Chinyamurindi
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Education System ◽  
Black People ◽  
Market Access ◽  
Work Readiness ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Labor Market Access

PurposeSouth African Black graduates experience a transition challenge between the higher education context and the labor market system. The study focuses on rural Black students' perceived work readiness and assessment of labor market access in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachFocus groups and unstructured individual interviews were conducted with 30 final-year students enrolled at a historically Black university in South Africa.FindingsFour main narratives were found to affect rural Black students' perceptions of work readiness and their assessment of labor market access in South Africa. These include: (1) language of instruction within the higher education system, (2) challenges around access to career counseling and guidance services, (3) dealing with a curriculum system not relevant to the lived experiences of Black people and finally, (4) challenges inherent within higher education institution attended by Black students. A thread among these four appraisals appears to be the rural Black students' concern around the entire education system from basic to higher education.Originality/valueThe paper sheds light and presents an understanding of perceptions of an educational system and issues around work readiness and labor market access in South Africa.

scholarly journals The African languages in South African education 2009–2011

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-124
Author(s):  
Rosemary Wildsmith
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Language Education ◽  
National Language ◽  
African Education ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Educational Domain ◽  
South African Education

South African National Language Education policy (South Africa, DoE 2002) enshrines multilingualism (ML) as one of its major goals. The implementation of such a policy is a slow process, however, particularly in the educational domain, where parents, teachers and students favour the dominant, ex-colonial language (English) for both historic and instrumental reasons (Dalvit & de Klerk 2005). However, results of the National Benchmarking Test (NBMT Report 2009) conducted at selected South African universities show that most non-English speaking students in higher education have underdeveloped language and numeracy skills for study at this level, one of the main barriers to access being that of language (Council on Higher Education 2007: 2). Efforts have thus intensified in South African institutions to introduce the home languages of learners into the educational domain, either as learning support alongside the main medium of instruction or as alternative languages of instruction, working towards the development of a bilingual education model. This report documents developments in research in the promotion and use of the African languages in education in South Africa in recent years, particularly since the publication of the previous report (Wildsmith-Cromarty 2009), which discussed various initiatives in the teaching, development and use of the African languages in South African education during the period 2005–2008. This report considers further developments in the use of the African languages for academic purposes in the following areas: the learning and teaching of these languages as additional languages and for professional purposes in selected disciplines for specialist programmes, and their intellectualization, which includes their use as languages of instruction, in the translation of materials and other learning resources, and development of terminology.

Nico Cloete, Peter Maassen and Tracy Bailey (eds) (2015) Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-111
Author(s):  
Sintayehu Kassaye Alemu
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
African Higher Education

Nico Cloete, Peter Maassen and Tracy Bailey (eds) (2015) Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds, 295 pp., ISBN: 978-1-920677-85-5.

The chartered accountant profession in South Africa: In dire need of decoloniality and ubuntu principles

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Terblanche ◽  
Yusef Waghid
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Social Awareness ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Leadership Positions

The chartered accountant (CA) profession plays a significant role in the South African business society, as individual members often fulfil leadership positions. Consequently, whether CAs are cultivated into being responsible and socially just leaders whilst they are at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa is an important aspect to consider. Decoloniality and ubuntu principles, those associated with restoring human dignity through recognition, contribute to the fostering of the appropriate conditions for human engagement that could result in a social awareness. So far, the CA profession has largely ignored the call for decoloniality, and we argue for a certain response by the profession that will result in meaningful transformation of the profession, the fostering of relationships, and a socially just consciousness. In particular, such a response has to do with openness towards other knowledge systems, a willingness to deliberate and the adoption of deliberative teaching and learning approaches.

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