On relevance, decolonisation and community engagement: The role of university intellectuals

This article examines the role of intellectuals in building and sustaining engaged African universities. These intellectuals have enormous roles in conjuring and nourishing the vision of enhanced, working institutions. As guardians of nationalism and progress, they cannot and should not eschew aspects such as the politics of identity, social consciousness as well as other pertinent philosophies. It would, for example, be inconceivable to contemplate the African institutions’ transformation without reflecting on concepts such as decolonisation and Pan‑Africanism, and these are scrutinised in the ensuing discussion. The article also explores the dynamic, painstaking roles that intellectuals have to engage in. The topic on relevance and community engagement will always be important as debates on decolonisation continue. Intellectuals inside and outside the academe will always be useful in transforming society and its institutions. Yet, the work of intellectuals and their influence are buoyed by the characteristics that intellectuals possess. Whether one is a denialist, loyalist, knower or planetary intellectual will inform society of their role in mobilising communities and universities for transformation. Furthermore, the article examines the role of all intellectuals rather than those based at higher education institutions only. Oftentimes when society speaks of intellectuals, it is not the subaltern that they refer to – people outside the university who have been dominated by the hegemony displayed in higher education institutions regarding knowledge ownership. Antonio Gramsci postulates that this hegemony encompasses cultural, moral and ideological leadership over the subaltern. The findings in this debate demonstrate that it will be conscientious and selfless intellectuals who will fortify intellectual engagement for transformation of higher education institutions. The conclusions demonstrate that intellectuals have a judicious responsibility in safeguarding stability and meaningful transformation&nbsp

Democratic Education: A Theoretical Review (2006–2017)

This theoretical review examines how democratic education is conceptualized within educational scholarship. Three hundred and seventy-seven articles published in English language peer-reviewed journals between 2006 and 2017 are discursively analyzed. Democratic education functions as a privileged nodal point of different political discourses. Two discourses against (elitist and neoliberal) and six discourses pro democratic education (liberal, deliberative, multiculturalist, participatory, critical, and agonistic) construct its meaning. It is argued that the different versions of democratic education respond to various (a) ontological and epistemological assumptions, (b) normative approaches to democracy, and (c) conceptions of the relationship between education and politics. For educational policy, the review provides a critique of elitist and neoliberal policies and support for participatory decision making across discourses. Recommendations for educational practice are made by identifying pedagogies across democratic education scholarship as well as specific pedagogies for each discourse

Public Service, Leadership and Innovation in South Africa

In South Africa public service institutions are the implementing arm of government. These include services such as education, electricity, health, housing, transport and water. Government services such as municipalities are also part of this and have always bore the brunt of citizens who protest about the non-delivery of services. Community members demanding service delivery from government departments have been initiating unending strikes which are frequently destructive. Yet, various South African government departments have experienced employees' non-commitment, corruption and wastage of government resources. The purpose of this article is to utilize literature review to examine the role of public service leaders in transforming public service for effective governance. Arguably, public service institutions with weak leadership and no vision will always falter. The discussion focuses on how conscientious leaders can employ values, ethics and ownership to strengthen the function of these public service institutions. Furthermore, the article examines how in a time of decolonization and transformation leaders could adapt strategies for revamped African public institutions. The conclusions show that it would not be enough for leaders to know the Batho Pele principles and the Constitution of the democratic South Africa of 1996, but it is being able to be a transformational and ethical leader that one can lead public service institutions

Analysing European gender equality policies abroad : a reflection on methodology

Can gender equality quality criteria developed for assessing EU internal policies be used unequivocally for evaluating EU external policies? Or might a methodological adaptation be necesary? To engage with this dilemma, the author evaluates the two-dimensional quality model of Krizsan and Lombardo and examines what a reorientation of the model would entail to better allow for the analysis of gender policy implemented outside of Europe. The author argues that to allow for an in-depth analysis of EU gender policy abroad, the model’s procedural criteria ‘empowerment of women’s rights advocates’ and ‘transformation with reference to the prevailing context’ need to be brought centre stage and mainstreamed throughout the research design. The author suggests doing this by explicitly involving the views of gender activists from the national context in the analysis and using their perspectives as a touchstone for the evaluation of quality. To examine the proposed methodological model’s suitability for analysing the quality of gender policies in EU external relations, this operationalization is applied to the case of EU–South African development cooperation. The article concludes that the inclusion of gender advocates’ perspectives is necessary to avoid stereotypical, paternalist and Eurocentric ideas about the meaning of gender equality abroad and allow for a contextually grounded reflexivity on the quality of gender policy. Finally, it is argued that it is the role of feminist research to enhance women’s capacity for self-determination methodologically and to hear the voices of national actors that might otherwise not be heard in EU external relations

Adopting a Theory of Change Approach for ICT4D Project Impact Assessment - The Case of CMES Project

Part 1: Pushing the Boundaries - New Research Methods, Theory and Philosophy in ICT4DInternational audienceA compendium of impact assessment (IA) frameworks are available to understand the impact of ICT4D initiatives in Low Income Countries. However, existing frameworks do not adequately address the unique challenges of IA for ICT4D, especially the multi-level and time variant characteristics of the IA. To address these challenges, we propose the use of Theory of change (ToC) as a generic framework for IA of ICT4D projects. Based on the seminal work by Weiss [8], we argue that ToC can be viewed both as a methodology and a deep critical reflection process. We demonstrate the ToC approach for IA using a case study of an ICT4D project for LICs