Rhodes University, South Africa - University rankings are an unscientific and socially damaging billion-dollar game

Title:

University rankings are an unscientific and socially damaging billion-dollar game

 

Author:

Professor Sioux McKenna

Director of the Centre for Postgraduate Studies at Rhodes University

 

Published:

Rhodes University, 23 November 2022

https://www.ru.ac.za/latestnews/universityrankingsareanunscientificandsociallydamagingbillion-dollargam.html

From the article:

Many universities expend vast sums of money to improve their place on the rankings. And they make strategic decisions that favour rankings placement over transformation.

 

Decolonising the Criminology curriculum in South Africa: Views and experiences of lecturers and postgraduate students [Scholarly Article - Transformation in Higher Education, January 2022]

Title:

Decolonising the Criminology curriculum in South Africa: Views and experiences of lecturers and postgraduate students

 

Authors:

Lufuno Sadiki, Department of Social Work and Criminology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa 

&

Francois Steyn, Department of Social Work and Criminology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

 

Published:

Transformation in Higher Education, 27 January 2022

 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/150

 

Abstract:

Background: For many years, the lived experiences, knowledge systems and histories of previously colonised people have been misinterpreted, removed and devalued in university teaching. The present curricula of African universities are predominantly Eurocentric and Criminology is no exception. In the wake of the #RhodesMustFall student protest action, there is a recognition and need to include African epistemology within the discipline of Criminology.  

 

Aim: The study investigated the views of lecturers and postgraduate students regarding the content, transformation and decolonisation of Criminology curricula.  

 

Setting: South African universities offering Criminology as a degree and/or academic subject.  

 

Methods: A total of 87 respondents, 42 lecturers and 45 postgraduate students, voluntarily participated in an online survey. Lecturers were purposively selected whilst postgraduate students were recruited via snowball sampling.  

 

Results: Nearly all the respondents had heard of decolonisation before, with the majority of the academic staff members being aware of it prior to #RhodesMustFall. Respondents agreed that the Criminology curriculum needs to be decolonised, with statistically significant differences emanating between black lecturers and white lecturers.  

 

Conclusion: Decolonisation and transformation have been debated for many years without meaningful translation in and changes to Criminology curricula.

 

BOOK REVIEW - Understanding Higher Education – Critically [Authors: Chrissie Boughey & Sioux McKenna; Book reviewed by Kathy Luckett in SAJS, 2021]

Title of book:

Understanding Higher Education - Critically

 

Authors:

Chrissie Boughey & Sioux McKenna

 

Reviewed by:

Kathy Lukett

Institutional Planning Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa

 

Review published:

South African Journal of Science, Volume 117, No 11/12, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2021/12444

 

From the book review:

This book is an excellent critical introduction to contemporary issues facing higher education. It is based on the knowledge and experience of two authors who have worked in and researched South African higher education for over two decades, at both institutional and national levels in roles that have covered student, staff, research and institutional development as well as contributed to national policy development. The book offers substantial commentary and critical analysis on the following topics: policy and dominant policy discourses in higher education; the discursive positioning of students and the implications thereof for teaching and learning; the importance of knowledge for higher education curricula; and the impact of institutional history, culture and type on changes and challenges to the academic job and academic project, policy implementation and possibilities for transformation. The authors correctly argue that, although written from the South African higher education context, the book holds relevance for all readers interested in understanding more about higher education, especially for those from Southern contexts. The book is a must-read for higher education researchers and practitioners in a range of roles – senior managers, policymakers, academics and postgraduate students, especially those on higher education studies programmes. 

Academics' conceptions of higher education decolonisation [Scholarly Article - SAJHE, July 2021]

Title:

Academics' conceptions of higher education decolonisation

Author:

J. Sibanda

Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa

Published:

South African Journal of Higher Education, 35(3), 182-199, 12 July 2021

https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/3935

Abstract:

The urgency for a decolonised university curriculum in South Africa, occasioned by student protests, demands interrogation of conceptions of decolonisation academic staff hold, seeing that the design and implementation of decolonised education rests largely with them. To determine the academics’ conceptions, the study adopted the interpretivist paradigm, using semi-structured interviews to solicit data from 13 purposively sampled academic staff at a South African university. Data analysis took a grounded analysis approach, where content analysed categories/themes emerged from the transcribed and coded data, not from apriori assumptions. Findings reflected both the conception of decolonisation as recentring and decentring. Findings also pointed to the ubiquitous use of the terms Africa and African(s) in defining decolonisation, conflating Afrocentric philosophy and Africanisation with decolonisation. Such findings represented the conception of decolonisation as a recentring of curriculum from the West to Africa as the centre. Other academics’ conceptions also represented a decentring of knowledge from Western hegemony without necessarily recentring it to African hegemony. Much advocacy was for achieving equality and parity between extant knowledges and hitherto marginalised local knowledges. There was also a manifest vacillation in respondents’ conception of decolonisation as they responded to the different questions, almost evincing a continuum between what can be termed a hard version and a soft version of the concept. The study recommends broader, intensive, institutional discussion of conceptual issues around curriculum decolonisation prior to implementation, issues around curriculum decolonisation prior to implementation.

Eritrea: Transforming communities through literacy [United Nations, Africa Renewal, August 2021]

Title:

Eritrea: Transforming communities through literacy

 

Author:

Fikrejesus Amahazion

 

Published:

United Nations, Africa Renewal, 3 August 2021

https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/august-2021/eritrea-transforming-communities-through-literacy

From the article:

While education comprises many dimensions, among the most fundamental is ‘literacy’.   

 

Defined as the ability to read and write at a basic level, literacy is important for several reasons - it supports economic growth; and is critical for sustainable development, ultimately empowering people, enabling them to participate fully in society, and contributing to improvements in livelihoods.   

 

Notably, advancing literacy represents an integral part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union's Agenda 2063. 

Short Article: Towards Higher Education for a Better Civil Society

Title:
Towards higher education for a better civil society

Authors:
Patrick Blessinger, Enakshi Sengupta & Craig Mahoney

Published:
University World News, 7 December 2019

From this article:
"Higher education around the world is at a juncture. For instance, academics are now challenged to protect academic freedom, to treat lifelong learning as a human right and to reinvent the institutional vision, mission and values so they are compatible with the realities of the emerging world paradigms of globalisation, social responsibility and sustainable development.

To this end, educators must first understand what it means to be a socially responsible institution  and their role in civil society."

To read this article:
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20191202120655146