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My African husband did not conform to gender roles while supporting me through doctoral studies
(2023-11-21) Ts'ephe, Lifutso
Both men and women with doctorates are known to have significantly contributed to the advancement of continental and national growth through knowledge and skills acquired while conducting research in the pursuit of a doctorate. However, the percentage of women on the African continent with PhDs is still low across all nationalities. Students enrolled for PhD programmes have been known to exit at some stage for a variety of reasons, including financial hardships, obligations to one's family, and demotivation engendered by prolonged research. Some women seek divorces because they believe that their husbands hindered their paths to accomplishing their goals. This article presented a research narrative on an African woman PhD graduate who attended a university in South Africa. Mandisa talks about how her husband assumed gender roles perceived to be that of a woman to help her successfully complete her doctoral studies. This qualitative research was underpinned by the interpretivist paradigm. Through the lens of the capabilities approach, this article demonstrated how spousal support is essential for a wife to achieve success in PhD studies. The results revealed that Mandisa's husband inspired her to succeed in her doctoral studies by relieving her of taking care of the household chores. The article envisions promoting doctoral education scholarship through highlighting the value of familial support, especially for African women.
Transforming learning : reimagining writing centre tutor training in a university context
(Durban University of Technology, 2023-11-21) Govender, Nereshnee; Ndadziyira, Tafadzwa
Tutors in the higher education environment play an important role in facilitating student learning. However, they are often inadequately supported in the contexts in which they work. Tutors often require support through structured training and development programmes that embeds theory and practice to equip them with the powerful knowledge needed in their work with students. A re-examination of the support, training and development of tutors is therefore needed. This paper explored a Writing Centre tutor training progamme within a University of Technology (UoT) context. An academics literacies approach to tutor training has been implemented as it enables the creation of opportunities for students and tutors to question the ways in which they are working with knowledge and demonstrating that knowledge through their writing. Through tutors’ narrative, written reflections and within a qualitative inquiry, this paper explored theory based tutor training and how it contributes to a more responsive Writing Centre practice by developing tutors’ undertsanding of their role in transforming thinking, teaching and learning. It argues for the implementation of on-going, structured and theoretically embedded training that foregrounds Writing Centre pedagogy and creates a foundation for tutors’ cognitive development in their work with students.
(Non)fungibility of socio-cultural capital for rural-based students in South African universities
(AOSIS, 2023-08-31) Khumalo, Nonhlanhla Patience; Sibanda, Nyamadzawo
The number of university students coming from rural areas has significantly increased in South Africa in the last two decades. While this is a positive sign of inclusive social growth and development, the fact that 70% of South African universities are still located in urban areas creates challenges for a number of these students. This is also compounded by the fact that most rural schools in South Africa offer sub-optimal preparation for post-school activities. As such, the first barrier for most of these students is negotiating various levels of access to higher education (HE), using forms of social and cultural capital that may be incommensurate with urban-based HE institutions. Using an in-depth review of literature on the subject of rural education, transition to higher education, student success and reflections on the professional experience of the authors in student support services in higher education. This study argues that since most South African universities are “urban enclaves”, students from rural areas take time to adapt and accumulate relevant socio cultural capital to enable them to thrive and succeed. The transition of students from rural schools to urban-based universities is a socio-cultural as much as it is an epistemological mobility. As such, this “troubled transition” of rural students can be ameliorated through a trans-sectoral or transdisciplinary transitional intervention to simultaneously enable epistemological access and create commensurate socio-cultural capital. However, previous interventions on student transition have been generic and lacked the nuanced intersectional analysis of rurality on student access and success. Transdisciplinary contribution: The study proposes a trans-sectoral or transdisciplinary transitional space in which education institutions (basic and HE) collaborate with government and non-state partners to ensure sufficient and effective transition, especially for rural school learners.
"In the trenches" : South African vice-chancellors leading transformation in times of change
(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2023) Buccus, Imraan; Potgieter, Cheryl
This paper examined the transformational goals and strategies of nine black university vice-chancellors in South Africa in order to understand how they direct transformation of higher education in the country. The paper draws from narrative inquiry underlined by transformational leadership theory, and focuses on in-depth interviews with university vice-chancellors. The study focused on the key themes that direct vice-chancellors' transformational leadership strategies. These are devolution of power, the needs to transform the institutional culture and attain social equity through putting students first, and addressing the next generation of academic scholars. Finally, the paper draws attention to the enduring imperative to transform universities through a social equity lens and the significance of vice-chancellors' transformational agendas and strategies in this regard. The local context of the university plays an important role in transformational leadership goals and strategies
Theorising decolonisation, globalisation and internationalisation in higher education
(2019-03-01) Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Fomunyam, Kehdinga George
The higher education landscape in South Africa is complicated with a rich dose of challenges and opportunities. From apartheid South Africa to democratic South Africa, the higher education system has been dramatically influenced by several isomorphic forces that have led to the current educational call for decolonisation, which scholars in the higher education sector are trying to handle. Amongst these forces are colonialism, globalisation and internationalisation. While the nation has moved passed colonialism, its legacies still hold the higher education sector hostage creating the need for decolonisation. Globalisation has a complicated history dating back centuries. Vincent-Lancrin and Kärkkäinen (2009) argue that globalisation is a comparatively new term used to describe an old process that began with our human ancestors moving out of Africa to spread across the globe. They continue that the term has been used differently by different people owing to its different facets. Marginson and Rhoades confirm this by defining globalisation as meaning ‘becoming global.’ They provide an alternative definition by looking at it as ‘the development of increasingly integrated systems and relations beyond the nation’ (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002, p. 288) . Globalisation, therefore, moves towards making nations become more and more entangled with one another.
Theorising open curriculum charges as pathway to responsiveness in South African higher education
(BRILL, 2020-12-14) Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Khoza, Simon Bheki; Fomunyam, Kehdinga; Simon, Bheki
Curriculum discourse in South African higher education has always involved debates around responsiveness and how best to make the curriculum respond to local needs. This was amongst the reasons for the call to decolonise the curriculum. With encounters in education being a function of the curriculum at play, it follows that the curriculum shapes the educational experience, and how prepared students are for the job market, be it to create employment or to seek such. With the rate of unemployment in South Africa increasing, the nation needs graduates who are job creators, not jobseekers. The open curriculum offers an excellent pathway for educational encounters which are not only responsive, but uniquely career-oriented. This chapter adopts Aoki’s conceptualisation of the curriculum as lived experience, making three fundamental arguments. First, the chapter argues that there is a need for the deconstruction of academic curriculum standardisation. Second, the chapter argues for an itinerant curriculum; and lastly, the chapter argues for curriculum encounters propelled by responsive curriculum matters in the South African higher education. The chapter concludes that career pathways have been hindered by poor curriculum choices. Such has been engendered by curriculum standardisation and hegemonic curriculum practices adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. For a higher-education curriculum to be responsive, students, as co-constructors or creators of knowledge, need to be part of the process, driving the change they want to see in their future.
Transforming the teaching and learning process in South African higher institutions
(Horizon Research Publishing Co., Ltd., 2022) Matola, Noluthando; Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Moyo, Sibusiso
Teaching and learning is a complex process, which deals with different individuals with different expectations from diverse backgrounds, with different cultural and social capital involved in this process. The teaching and learning process in most South African institutions of higher learning has been plagued by several challenges over the last decade. In this research, the experiences of international postgraduate student lecturers teaching at a university in KwaZulu-Natal were examined. Utilizing the curricular spider web as its framework, it evaluates the experiences of international students lecturing at a university in KwaZulu-Natal, in order to identify the challenges faced by students in this institution during the teaching and learning process, and create a transformation path that can be adopted by other South African institutions of higher learning. This framework utilizes ten different components, each answering some key questions, and all stemming from the rationale for teaching and learning. Using a qualitative case study approach, this research conducted semi-structured interviews involving six participants who were pursuing different postgraduate degrees at the University. Interviews with each participant were conducted in English, lasted about 60 minutes each, and were digitally recorded and transcribed afterwards. Data were analyzed using an open coded process and findings reveal that transforming the teaching and learning process at these institutions of higher learning will largely involve making major changes to the curriculum content, learning activities, and learning resources.
African female doctoral graduates account for success in their doctoral journeys
(AOSIS, 2022) Tsephe, Lifutso; Potgieter, Cheryl
Doctoral education is regarded as a crucial engine for development by the knowledge economies, thereby making the research capacity of scholars play a critical factor towards development. Widening participation within doctoral education is seen as a way of enhancing this capacity. However, African scholars produce only 1.4% of all published research, indicating that Africa lacks research capacity. Even though both men and women contribute to the development of their continent and their countries, the number of women holding doctoral degrees on the African continent remains low across all nationalities. In high-income countries, there are 3963 PhDs per million people, whereas in some African countries (such as Tunisia, Egypt and Kenya), the number ranges from 100 to over 1500; however, in most lowincome countries (such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania), the number is less than 100. Much research in doctoral education examines the reasons for low graduation rates and high attrition rates, but little research examines the contributors to the doctoral study for African women, especially in these times when doctoral education is viewed as a driver of the economy. Based on a qualitative study that interviewed 14 women from African countries, this article aimed to investigate how women account for completing doctoral studies. Data were gathered through semistructured interviews and analysed thematically using a capabilities approach as a theoretical framework. The findings suggest that institutional support, peer support and academic support played a role in their achievement. Contribution: The article contributed to doctoral education scholarship of African women and indicated that religion contributed to African women’s success in doctoral programmes, granting them strength to push until completion. This research may greatly encourage more women to enrol in doctoral programmes when reading other women’s success stories

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