Making a new South African learner: An analysis of the South African schools act

This paper interrogates the relationship between South Africa’s most important piece of educational policy, the South African Schools Act (SASA) (Republic of South Africa, 1996b), and learner identity. It seeks to understand how this central piece of South African educational legislation foreshadows, intersects with, foregrounds, prescribes and/or disturbs dominant notions of South African learner identity. What does the SASA say about the South African learner and particularly about what it expects the learner to be? The perspective used in this paper is that identity is constructed from history, memory, social and cultural institutions and power apparatuses. The specific interest of the paper is not to look so much at the mediation of identity in its practical forms, as in actual interchanges between subjects in the classroom, but to develop an understanding of the symbols and signifiers that are privileged in the formal and legal prescripts that surround the process of mediation. What significance this holds for the achievement of equality and justice in South Africa is what is explored here

Obituary: Dr Dimitri Tassiopoulos

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A influência das classificações e sistemas de incentivos nas publicações académicas nas Universidades Sul-Africanas

This essay looks at the influence of ranking and incentive systems on decisions higher education institutions are making with respect to research and academic publishing. It describes and analyses how institutions within the South African higher education system have navigated their way through the contradictory forces confronting them. Characterizing these forces are, on the one hand, the country’s higher education policy platform which calls for institutions to address South Africa’s legacy issues of inclusion and social redress, and, on the other, the demands for institutions to maintain and grow their research profiles. The paper argues that South African institutions are struggling with this tension, as they struggle to pose, to articulate, and deliberately to respond to the question of what it means to be ‘excellent’.  Drawing upon institutional documents in the public domain, this paper shows how significantly this tension animates the decisions that institutions are making about their research and publication policies and practices.En este ensayo se analiza la influencia de la clasificación y sistemas de incentivos en las decisiones de las instituciones de educación superior con respecto a la investigación y las publicaciones académicas. Este trabajo describe y analiza cómo las instituciones dentro del sistema de educación superior de Sudáfrica han navegado las contradicciones que enfrentan. La caracterización de estas fuerzas son, por un lado, la plataforma política de la educación superior del país que aboga por las instituciones para hacer frente a problemas de inclusión y de reparación social, y por otro , las demandas de las instituciones para mantener y hacer crecer sus perfiles de investigación. Este trabajo sostiene que las instituciones sudafricanas están luchando con esta tensión, en su lucha por representar, articular, y deliberadamente para responder a la pregunta de lo que significa ser "excelente". Basándose en documentos institucionales de dominio público, este trabajo muestra cómo esta tensión anima las decisiones que las instituciones están haciendo acerca de sus políticas y prácticas de investigación y de publicación .Neste trabalho são analisadas a influência das classificações e sistemas de incentivos nas decisões das instituições de ensino superior em relação à pesquisa e publicações acadêmicas. Este artigo descreve e analisa como as instituições dentro do sistema de ensino superior na África do Sul têm navegado as contradições que enfrentam. A caracterização dessas forças são, em primeiro lugar,  a plataforma política das instituições de ensino superior do país para tratar as questões de inclusão social e de reparação , e, de outro, as demandas das instituições para manter e crescer os seus perfis de investigação  Este artigo argumenta que as instituições Sul-Africanas estão lutando com essa tensão, para representar, articular e para responder à pergunta sobre o que significa ser "excelente". Com base em documentos institucionais no domínio público , este artigo mostra como essa tensão incentiva decisões que as instituições estão a fazer sobre as suas políticas e práticas de pesquisa e publicação

Caste, Class and Race: Continuities and Discontinuities across Indian and South African Schools

This essay is based on a study conducted from 2002 to 2004, Inclusion and Exclusion in Indian and South African Schools (Inexsa), which sought to explore processes of inclusion/exclusion at community and school levels in selected schools in India and South Africa. This examination entailed a focus on race in the South African context and on caste in the Indian setting

Affirmative action and admissions in higher education

This set of articles is offered in an attempt to share with a wider reading public the kinds of issues that arose in the course of a review at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that was undertaken into its admissions policies. They encapsulate the major elements on the debate within the review and are presented here in an attempt to open up the discussion of how the higher education community in South Africa might seek to take forward the challenges that relate to the development of equitable admissions policies for the country

The 2020 Academy of Science of South Africa Book Award – We build a culture

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The crisis of COVID-19 and opportunities for reimagining education

Our argument in this brief contribution is that Covid-19 has brought the experience of education to a crisis with respect to its practices and the theories which inform it. The practice crisis is about the glaring inequalities in peoples’ access to education. The theory crisis is about how we learn. Our contention is that our dominant cohort learning approaches fail to address the multiple differences children bring to the learning task. In response we make two key moves: firstly, to restore the centrality of cognition in all processes of teaching and learning, and, secondly to situate cognition in its full biopsychosocial complexity. With respect to the first move we begin our discussion of teaching and learning with a focus on cognition and particularly on executive function component of cognition. We provide the explanation of what it is, and with that move to our second to show the importance of new learnings about epigenetics which explain the relationship between the biological and the social to the cognitive process

Shaping social literacy through HIV in Higher Education curricula

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