The fourth industrial revolution reconsidered: On advancing cosmopolitan education

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On the unintended consequences of online teaching: A response

This article is a response to claims that online education is a pedagogical risk for teaching-learning. Of course, notions of privacy, authenticity, and ownership are real challenges to higher education but these complexities do not have to subvert engaged teaching-learning at higher education institutions. I offer a brief response as to why teaching-learning as a deliberative encounter does not have to be sacrificed with-in online education.   &nbsp

On studious philosopohy of (higher) education?

Over a decade my reading of Giorgio Agamben’s writings on philosophy in relation to politics, aesthetics, and religion revolved around how notions of infancy, (im)potentiality, becoming, community, rhythmic and kairotic action can guide an understanding of higher education. Although Agamben has not written specifically about education the above concepts can be recognised as significant to a theory of higher education particularly because his ideas invariably radicalise any understanding of higher education. Such a radicalisation of higher education involves thinking anew about higher education that remains unfinished or what Igor Jasinki (2018) refers to as “education without ends”. In this article, I offer a way of how to think differently about a philosophy of higher education concerning the notion of “education without ends” and in reference to Agamben’s (1985) idea of studious play

Is democracy still relevant in South African higher education?

At least, over the past four decades post-colonial African higher education has undergone significant changes in the quest to cultivate democratic educational / pedagogical actions in universities. From its early insistence on deliberative action (Waghid 2001), more recently, it assumed the forms of both ethical pursuits (Davids and Waghid 2016) and caring (Waghid 2019). Yet, as South Africa continues its unprecedented transition into a democracy, it is becoming abundantly evident that what is needed in higher education should surpass deliberative, ethical, and caring encounters. The expectation that a democratic climate would ease the deep inequalities in higher education, would somehow set the scene for a renewal of knowledge, and restore opportunities for historically marginalised communities, lies in limbo. Instead, what we witness is the awakening of renewed resistance – this time, not against an unjust apartheid regime, but against a democracy that seems incapable of yielding to its own ideals. In this article, therefore, we argue that for higher education to enact its democratic imperative – that is, its transformative ideals, necessary not only for its own public thriving, but for its citizenship – it ought to invoke the idea of resistance (Davids and Waghid 2021)

Educational theory as rhythmic action: From Arendt to Agamben

Traditionally, educational theory has been couched as modes of human action through concepts such as poiesis and praxis. Inasmuch as poiesis and praxis have significantly shaped educational theory, we argue that such modes of action – if considered as mutually exclusive – do not sufficiently explain the interrelationship between educational theory and practice. Firstly, we extend the notion of action as explained by Arendt. Next, we offer an account of Agamben’s ‘opening of rhythm’, which integrates the notions of poiesis and praxis to pave the way for an understanding of educational theory as creative will that moves human action from enacting the unexpected into ‘an increasingly free and rarified atmosphere’. Secondly, in re-examining the Aristotelian concepts of poiesis and praxis, we argue that Agamben’s ‘opening of rhythm’ extends the Arendtian notion of action to perform the unexpected, and offers an as yet unexplored lens through which to understand the nexus between educational theory and practice

Glo-ubuntu as an extension of Global Citizenship Education: Cultivating the notion of an African university

In previous work (Waghid et al. 2023) we offered an account of ubuntu and its implications for South African higher education. The main thrust of our argument is constituted by understanding that ubuntu involves interdependent-cum-autonomous human relations that impact university education in expansive ways: independent and collaborative with the possibility of being forward-looking. Yet, what we have not done hitherto, is to examine ubuntu in the realm of global citizenship education, considering the latter seems to intertwine with constitutive aspects of ubuntu. In this article, we reconsider ubuntu with global citizenship education (GCE) and its implications for higher education. Firstly, we proffer an understanding of GCE about pedagogical praxis; secondly, we show how ubuntu can advance GCE within higher education; and thirdly, we examine some of the implications of a glo-ubuntu for higher education in South Africa

A Foucauldian analysis of the CA profession in South Africa: Implications for society

Chartered accountants are often business leaders who frequently need to make decisions. Consequently, it is of importance for the fractured democratic South Africa that citizens (especially business leaders, such as chartered accountants) develop a socially just consciousness. In this article, we provide the results of an analysis of one of Michel Foucault’s genealogical works, and introduce some of Foucault’s views pertaining to knowledge and power. Foucault (1995) identified three disciplinary power mechanisms, namely hierarchical observation, normalising judgement, and the examination. Consequently, we used this particular Foucauldian lens to analyse the disciplinary power mechanisms evident in the CA educational landscape. Lastly, we identified the consequences for education (and therefore ultimately society) as a result of the particular power relations in the chartered accountant educational landscape and profession

Chartered accountancy and resistance in South Africa

In recent times, the chartered accountant profession was regularly in the news for reasons pertaining to the unethical and unprofessional behaviour of members. The profession has an important role to play in the South African economy, as members will often fulfil important decision-making roles in business. In a response to the dilemmas the profession is facing, we analysed the implications for the profession and society due to a resistance to include research as a pedagogical activity in the chartered accountancy educational landscape. Through deliberative research activities, students have the opportunity to engage with community members and with societal challenges that could foster reflexivity and humaneness in students. In addition, critical and problem-solving skills are cultivated. These are skills that are difficult to assess in the form of an examination, and the absence of research as pedagogical activity in this particular educational landscape, impacts the cultivation of these skills in future chartered accountants. This is so, as the chartered accountancy educational landscape is significantly influenced by the power that resonates within the profession and culminates into the disciplinary power mechanism of the examination. The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) set an external examination, called the Initial test of Competence (ITC), which graduates need to write upon leaving institutes of higher learning. Success in this SAICA-examination therefore impacts on the teaching and learning pedagogy adopted by chartered accountants in academe. If chartered accounting students were instead primarily being exposed to technical content assessed via an examination, also being exposed and introduced to deliberative research, the possibility exists that students, through critical reflexivity, could move beyond the constraints of the self to that of the communal other in line with the African notion of ubuntu can be enhanced

Prioritising higher education: Why research is all that matters

Birthdays are joyfully relative events, which, at times, become more about reflection, and at times, regret, with each passing year. As Stellenbosch University embarks on its 100th year, celebrations and commemorations have adopted tentative nuances and burdens of heavily-laden legacies of wrongs and ills, which stand to be corrected. Much has been said, and rightly so, of assuming responsibility for questionable roles in highly divisive and harmful practices. In turn, much is envisaged for future actions of remedy and redress – particularly in relation to social responsibility and community interaction. In considering the role and responsibility of a university, many would agree that if the core of higher education is its epistemological contribution, then its impact is determined by its social worth. In this sense, any teaching and learning should not only be cognisant of its social context, but teaching and learning should always be both responsible and responsive to the world which it encounters. Yet, a university’s responsibilities can, and should never be at the expense, or risk of research. As will be discussed in this article, prioritising higher education means prefacing, and giving precedence to research. Prioritising higher education through research creates the spaces necessary for a philosophy of dialogue. Moreover, research is indispensable to meaningful teaching and learning. Put differently, it is with research that a university sustains and advances its intellectual, social and ethical project into the realm of the public. And, this implies a renewed look at the university with an ecological parlance of inquiry that accounts for the university on the basis of assemblages, engagements, reflections and sightings – whether smooth and or striated

On the relevance of an African philosophy of higher education

CITATION: Waghid, Y. 2021. On the relevance of an African Philosophy of Higher Education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 35(5):1-3, doi:10.20853/35-5-4871.The original publication is available at http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajheNowadays, higher educational theory seems to be concerned with positional thinking that reconsiders what universities ought to accomplish to justify their existence in the realm of higher education (Waghid and Davids, 2020). I want to extend this claim by arguing in defence of an African philosophy of higher education – one that is genuine and enframes higher education as a pedagogical space for resistance, critique, deliberative iterations, autonomy, and intellectual activism. Put differently, an African philosophy of higher education is one that is not only concerned with thinking and justification but expands into notions of democratic engagement, citizenship, and activism. When the latter are present, African philosophy of higher education has a real chance of manifesting ubiquitously in higher pedagogical actions, mostly teaching and learning. Only then, it possibly maintains its relevance to higher education discourses.https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/4871Publisher's versio