Constructions of students as clients or partners in knowledge creation?

This study explored notions of ‘the student’ within the South African higher education context. Qualitative data from interviews with twenty-three executive and senior Student Affairs staff and practitioners were collected from three higher education institution in South Africa. The data were thematically analysed. The findings suggest that notions about students as ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘needing support’ as reflected in the South African policy documents is not congruent with the discourses in current Student Affairs in South Africa. Findings suggest that deficit discourses have been replaced by strengths based paradigms which construct the student in heterogeneous individualistic terms. Consumerist frameworks constructing the student as client have also emerged. The conceptual framework within which Student Affairs is embedded needs to reflect the changed discourse in Student Affairs practice in South Africa.International Bibliography of Social Science

The co-curriculum: Re-defining boundaries of academic spaces

No Abstrac

Mental health at Universities: Universities are not in loco parentis – Students are active partners in mental health

No Abstract

Luescher, T.M., Webbstock, D. & Bhengu, N. (Eds.) (2020). Reflections of South African Student Leaders, 1994 to 2017. Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds

No Abstract

Mental Health at Universities: Universities are Not In Loco Parentis – Students are Active Partners in Mental Health

Mental health is currently in the national and international and African spotlight (Jacaranda, 2018; Mabasa, 2018). Recently, the South African higher education mourned losses at Wits University, Stellenbosch University, as well as other institutions of higher learning (Mabasa, 2018). The U.K. media featured an article in The Guardian, quoting the U.K. minister of higher education as saying that higher education institutions risk “failing an entire generation of students” (Adams, 2018).  This article takes position on the emerging discourse around mental health in higher education. It discusses the extent of the problem and reveals the challenges in our understanding in terms of the absolute measures and highlights that particularly female students are at risk (Lochner et al., 2018). This article emphasises that constructions of students as active partners in higher education opens the opportunity to enlist students as active partners in creating conditions conducive to health and healthy choices that promote mental health

Engaging Students: Using Evidence to Promote Student Success by F. Strydom, G. Kuh & S. Loots (Eds.) (2017). Bloemfontein, South Africa: Sun Media.

No Abstract

Global Summit on Student Affairs: Africa joins the global conversations

No Abstrac

Student Affairs in Complex Contexts

While the Western world – with Brexit, Trump, Festung Europa, and so forth – seems to be increasingly retreating into narrow nationalism, the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa is connecting African academics, executives and administrators and is becoming an evermore accessed international, African platform for publishing research on higher education and Student Affairs in Africa.In this issue, we do not only publish several commentaries on the recent Global Summit of Student Affairs and Services held in October 2016 at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. We also publish contributions from Ethiopia alongside articles from Australia, the USA, and universities in South Africa (University of the Free State, University of Johannesburg).