An Anthropology of the Student Movement?

To study the student movement ethnographically shows that protesting comes in many more forms than may be expected. 

Many years ago I came across James C Scott's work on the Arts of Resistance where he showed that there were 'hidden transcripts' in play among subordinate communities to express in thinly disguised ways effective ways of subverting the dominant order and resisting everyday exploitation. 

Among the most memorable parts of this work was to me his description of various art-forms of resistance, like dances and plays; processions; songs and chants; rituals; paintings. 

Chapter 6 of my current book project on #FeesMustFall and related student movement campaigns of 2015/16 also deals with the aesthetic and artistic (but not quite hidden) forms of protesting. South Africa has a rich protest culture. 

Many will know that under apartheid, funerals were often a combination of mourning the death (and celebrating the life) and political protest. Struggle songs, protest dances, and so forth are so common that many a youth knows them intimately. They have been part of their lived reality, their normality, in their communities. 

I also remember reading Barrington Moore’s work in my undergraduate years, making precisely this argument about social movements, or in my case a student movement, arising from the everyday normality. 

For students, this everyday reality is also intimately connected with the digital world; they have digital selfs, avatars, choreographed online persona, that are equally protesting. 

The combination of text, illustration, pictures as well as online content (AR content) in the book will hopefully be able to reflect the rich tapestry of protesting during the 2015/16 South African student movement.

Photos: Name Trees spray-painted during the February 2016 #ShimlaPark protests on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State. 

Featuring: 

- Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana)

- Julius Nyerere (Tanzania)

- Winnie Mandela (South Africa)

- Chris Hani (South Africa)

(c) T Luescher

Global Student Affairs and Services: Key to Covid-19 response but first to be downsized

The webinar on the findings of the Global C-19 Student Affairs Survey held on 20 May 2021 showed how central SAS practitioners have been in the responses of universities across the globe to the pandemic. The presentation (done by Drs Brett Perozzi and Birgit Schreiber) attracted a large number of SAS professionals affiliated to ACPA and/or IASAS from across the world. The four researchers who conducted the survey in May 2020, which includes the two presenters as well as Dr Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo and me, who won the 2020 NASPA Excellence in International SAS Research Award (see previous post), have published several articles on the work in University World News, and the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, with more articles in preparation for publication in journals like Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, Journal of International Students, and Studies in Higher Education. For now, among the worrisome comments from the webinar were those that alerted the global SAS community about increasing reports of downsizing in universities, partially in response to less international students, partially because campus-based student life and education is still restricted in many countries. Apparently among the first departments to get the cut are Student Affairs departments. This will need to be studied in detail and it is clear that more work must be done - on student engagement, etc. - to show the absolute indispensability of SAS work for levelling the student learning and development field in higher education.

New African Higher Education Book Series Launches - linked to African Union CESA

Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA)—Higher Education Cluster

This post mirrors the one at http://www.inhea.org/the-african-higher-education-series/ 

The African Union, in partnership with the Member States and key stakeholders, developed and adopted the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016-25) to respond to the multiple continental crises by transforming Africa’s education system. The strategy is in line with the African Union 2063 Agenda and the Common African Position on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

The twelve strategic objectives of CESA articulate high-level results that aim to reorient and provide qualitative and quantitative improvements to African education and training systems and provide the continent with requisite human resources for achievement of the African Union’s Vision and Agenda 2063.

Under each strategic objective, a set of intermediate-level goals, called action areas are provided to specify the critical elements and results the CESA 16-25 must accomplish before achieving the strategic objectives. These action areas are the basis on which operational plans for implementing the CESA 16-25 are developed.

CESA also serves as a platform for bringing together all education actors across the continent behind a transformative Pan African agenda for education. It is in this regard that the thematic cluster approach was adopted to bring together various stakeholders in specific fields of education to contribute to meeting the CESA strategic objectives. To date, twelve CESA thematic clusters have been launched.

Implementation of the Continental Strategy will require concerted, harmonious and systematic efforts to deploy all key stakeholders towards realizing the common vision. It is therefore necessary to mobilise all key stakeholders around a shared understanding and anticipated undertaking of the major priorities for education development in Africa.

CESA capitalizes on numerous, and active, players ready to mobilize financial, human and technical resources within national, regional and continental coalitions for education, science and technology. Thus, the Strategy seeks to provide each education stakeholder the opportunity to make its best contribution to education and training in Africa.

The concept behind CESA as a ‘Strategy’ and not a definitive “Action Plan” provides a robust opportunity for a variety of players to participate, on their own and/or in coalition, in the implementation of the continental framework. Every participating agency contributes with its particular strength towards the achievement of the overall vision and mission of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa, within identified action areas.

A partnership-based approach is adopted for achieving the objectives of the strategy and overall implementation through effective coordination, facilitation and follow up. The implementation platform therefore consists of thematic clusters which brings together actors working on similar and related themes to achieve the strategy’s expected results.

Clustering under thematic areas has been identified as an effective tool for enhancing coordination and strengthening partnerships around common themes. This is anticipated to enhance alignment and harmony among stakeholders as well as facilitate the identification and deployment of synergies for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and its negative impact on Africa’s education systems is calling on all education stakeholders at the regional and continental levels to come together to act with speed and scale to implement innovative initiatives that improve the resilience of Africa’s education system and ensures continuous learning. The African Union’s DOTSS approach provides the framework for action and point of confluence for the work for clusters.

The African Higher Education Series is intended to reinvigorate the CESA Higher Education Cluster through research, policy analysis, and publishing evidence-based studies and analytical pieces.

CESA HE: Sub-clusters

Agenda 2063 of the African Union affirms that “Africa’s human capital will be fully developed as its most precious resource, through sustained investments in higher education, science, technology, research and innovation. Access to post-graduate education will be expanded and strengthened to ensure world-class infrastructure for learning and research and support scientific reforms that underpin the transformation of the continent.”

African higher education has recorded massive growth in the last two decades. An estimated 15-20 million students are enrolled in the sector currently with Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria and Ethiopia leading the list. Yet, still the enrollment rate in the continent remains low in an elite category, according to Trow’s classification. The implications of this massive—and sharp—growth which has typically taken place in many countries abound. The CESA HE cluster is intended to contribute to advancing the sector through multiple interventions.

CESA HE cluster is organized under a dozen clusters headed by a coordinator/s. One of these clusters, jointly coordinated by the International Network for Higher Education in Africa and the Association of African Universities, is the Higher Education Cluster. This cluster has the following 13 sub-clusters headed by respective coordinator/s.

• Harmonization, quality assurance and accreditation
• Leadership and management
• Research and graduate studies
• Publishing and knowledge dissemination
• Private higher education
• Internationalization and diaspora mobilization
• Gender inclusivity, equity and diversity
• Student affairs
• The professionalization of the Academia
• ICT, library and university networking
• Curriculum, teaching and learning
• Distance and online education
• Innovation and entrepreneurship

The sub-clusters are responsive to the significance and implications of COVID-19 on higher education in the continent within the framework of DOTTS as conceived by the African Union Commission. The cluster will be keenly responsive to the key issues of quality, relevance, equity and employability—issues which continue to beset the higher education sector in Africa.

Rationale

The CESA Higher Education Series is conceived as a strategic intervention in the advancement of higher education in Africa in the framework of the Higher Education Cluster of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa. The Series is intended to systematically produce evidence-based knowledge through a rigorous process of collective, academic and professional engagement with direct implications on informing policy, discourse and actions from continental perspectives guided by the African Union’s blue print compass, Agenda 2063. This initiative is also intended to systematically building the next generation of academics, researchers and policy makers in higher education.

The Themes: Kick off

The CESA African Higher Education Series will publish thematic issues, in a series, along the identified sub-cluster themes noted above. The following themes are identified to kick off the Series:

• Harmonization, quality assurance and accreditation
• Research and graduate education
• Private higher education
• Publishing and knowledge dissemination
• Curriculum, teaching and learning

 Leadership

The respective themes of the African Higher Education Series are coordinated by lead editor/s and include:

• Prof. Juma Shabani: Harmonization, quality assurance and accreditation
• Prof. Olusola Oyewole: Research and graduate education
• Asso. Prof. Wondwosen Tamrat: Private higher education
• Prof. Thierry Luescher: Publishing and knowledge dissemination
• Dr. Charmaine Villet: Curriculum, teaching and learning

In addition to the production of knowledge which will contribute towards shaping the African higher education discourse, the editors and the respective contributors are expected to contribute to policy pieces in prominent regional and global media such as the University World News and the International Higher Education.

The Series is headed by Prof. Damtew Teferra, as its General Editor. Teferra, who is the Founding director of the International Network for Higher Education in Africa, is the co-coordinator of the Higher Education Cluster along with the Association of African Universities. INHEA is the coordinator of the African Higher Education Series.

The African Union Commission, through the Department of Human Resources and Science and Technology, HRST, is the patron of the Series.

#WitsProtests #Asinamali #FeesMustFall2021 - Still no Uhuru!

 

It is shocking what has been playing out in the last few days in Johannesburg. Police have decided to deal with the protesting students from the University of the Witwatersrand as if they were criminals. Like it was in 2015/16 at Wits - every student is a suspect! - but even more so if you are a black student. It is a disgrace for a state that builds its very raison d'etre on a post-apartheid non-racialist, democratic ideal. Meanwhile, the political elite and their repressive state aparatus deals with protesting students that seek social justice in the way any white apartheid regime would have dealt with any black protesting group: riot police, dogs, guns, stun grenades, and eventually, murder. That is what is happening and it is not only deeply saddening; it is deeply enraging.

I feel indeed very upset by this. I read the posts of Fasiha Hassan and many other #FeesMustFall activists from the 2015/16 era now on Twitter and like me they are deeply moved. How, in 2021, do academically deserving students still need to battle financial exclusion? How? I am just so upset by our political leadership who seems so unimaginative, so self-important and self-centred, and seemingly unable to fix all the broken systems and deliver on all the broken promises. 

Since Sunday I am in Phutadijhaba, Qwaqwa, in the Eastern Free State, hiding out here to write three chapters of the book "From #RhodesMustFall to #FeesMustFall" which has been in the making (and in parts published) since 2016. It is abundantly clear that the lessons from #FeesMustFall have not been learnt by student leaders and activists; and they have not been learnt by the political leadership and the police. Or rather: all the wrong lessons have been retained. 

Global Research Award for Covid-19 Student Affairs Study

 

I am immensely proud and grateful to be working with this team: 

Dr Birgit Schreiber, Dr Brett Perozzi and Dr Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo from Germany, the USA and the UAE respectively, on the Global Student Affairs Covid-19 Study. 

In acknowledgement of our work we have just received the 2021 Award in Excellence in International Research by ACPA, the large American and international association of student affairs professionals. 

Current projects

And here is what I am currently most involved in: 

The South African Student Movement: From #RhodesMustFall to #FeesMustFall

The 2015/16 student movement known by various campus-based formations and hashtags including #RhodesMustFall, #OpenStellenbosch, #FeesMustFall, #EndOutsourcing, #RUReferenceList and so forth, has been the largest protest movement to date in democratic South Africa and among the most successful ones. It is of tremendous significance for higher education and higher education policy in particular, and political society in South Africa in general. The Student Movement project has three main components: the history of student leadership in South Africa, interviews with student activists, and the impact of the movement on policy, universities and activists’ biographies. The three components are respectively funded/co-funded by the Council on Higher Education, the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, and the National Research Foundation. The Co-PI on the NRF project is Dr Keamo Morwe and Dr Angelina Wilson-Fadiji manages the sub-project. See web presences here at IED and here and  here on SAHO.

Community Engagement in Secondary Cities: The Case of Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley 

The third function of higher education – i.e. community engagement, has been seen for a long time as the minor function trailing behind the teaching and learning and the research functions of universities. Meanwhile, the call for relevance and for ‘engaged scholarship’, as well as the need for viewing universities as among the key ‘anchor institutions’ in city regions, is changing the perception that community engagement is in some way separate from research or teaching and learning. This project, which is a collaboration between the HSRC and academics at Sol Plaatje University, is funded by the National Research Foundation. The Co-PI is Prof Jesmael Mataga of Sol Plaatje University and Dr Sam Fongwa manages the project.

The Imprint of Education 

The Imprint of Education (TIE) project is led by my boss, Prof Sharlene Swartz. The project aims to investigate the impact of university education on first generation graduates  - both their career trajectories and their contributions to family, community and society. The study comprises a number of learning areas: (1) a quantitative longitudinal tracer study over five years that maps trajectories and outcomes; (2) an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on understanding and overcoming obstacles and enablers to graduates’ impact; (3) a study on what it means and what it takes to be a leader on the African continent and that provides resources to African universities to help students develop into the kinds of leaders our continent needs; (4) a wide ranging engagement with experienced scholars and thought leaders on the kinds of universities we need to ensure that we have a continent able to deal with its challenges and take its place in the world; and (5) a study on the structural barriers that may hamper livelihood generation for young people in Africa. I am involved in the learning area 2 where I am responsible for the alumni cohort and collaborating universities in Rwanda. I am also the coordinator of learning area 4 which looks at and imagines the future of African universities. The project is funded by the MasterCard Foundation. Web presence at IED here.

Publish, publish, publishing publisher!

In my early career imaginations, I never really considered anything like a research or teaching profession - well, except perhaps the time when I wanted to become a biologist and environmentalist... hmm... or when I got that Chemistry kit with the microscope that just didn't work so well. From about the age of 12, I also realised that astronaut and catholic priest were for different reasons not viable - perhaps slightly childish career choices. Especially since my choice of catholic priest was mostly based on my admiration for Cardinal de Bricassart, and Switzerland didn't have a space programme to talk of.... I started to be interested in the writing professions. 

By the age of 18, being about to complete a certificate in public administration and commerce at the college of commerce and the municipality of Rohr, I finally settled on what appeared a fitting choice. I wanted to become a publishing editor. The only minor problem about that was that the typical career path of a publishing editor was not via a vocational matric in public administration and commerce but taking the academic high school route, after which the aspiring publishing editor would typically study language for a few years at a local university along with subjects in fields of future publishing interest. Eventually they would add professional development courses and experience and on-the-job developed skills to their expertise. 

So I ended up going back to school - evening school for adults - to get a general matric and gain access to the university to study German, literature, and possibly philosophy or so. Four years later I ended up in South Africa and came to study an undergrad subject combination which could well make an African Studies degree: African language and literature/isiXhosa; Historical Studies (mostly about Southern Africa); Political Studies (in a manner that elsewhere would be called 'political anthropology'), as well as the famed (and immediately discontinued) introductory course to Africa in the Humanities taught at the time by Prof Mahmood Mamdani. 

Years have gone by and I have become a researcher, professor, and author of scholarly works... but one thing I still enjoy greatly: I love helping others realising their research and publishing projects. In the past year I have done so with two books, two journal issues, and several individual book chapters and articles that I have guided and co-written. Moreover, in 2020 two my PhD students completed and excelled in examination. 

What happened for the first time in 2020 and which I was so happy when I saw it is that my first publication reached over 100 citations. For someone who is in a small, peripheral field, straddling Political Studies and Higher Education, and who writes often based on ethnographic work on matters that is not that 'sexy', like student politics, this was such a happy news.   

Student Affairs in a traumatic year - 2020 in retrospective

JSAA Vol. 8 Issue 2 "Deepening scholarship on the first-year experience" was published in December 2020 with the following Editorial by Prof. Teboho Moja, Dr Birgit Schreiber, and I: 

"The year 2020 is a year that we will remember globally in higher education as having been most unusual, indeed, traumatic. If at the beginning of 2020 the year had a hopeful ring with plenty; as it comes to an end it is hard to just try and make sense of the extent that the experience of higher education has been changed so incisively within a short time for both staff and students. And the signs are already there that the post-COVID‑19 period will not be short of new challenges either. Challenges like addressing the increased mental health issues students suffer due to the crisis, illness, loss of loved ones and more. Moreover, there are many student groups whose ability to learn has been severely impacted by the pandemic and lockdown, including students from poor households, rural students, and students with special needs. As we noted in our last editorial, for these students, the campus environment and the services offered by Student Affairs departments is normally able to level the ‘playing field’ of learning. It will require yet another extra effort by student affairs professionals, academics, administrators, fellow students and the communities and families to ensure that these students can catch up and have access to the same quality and quantity of learning opportunities within supportive contexts over the course of their studies as others who have been less impacted.

The first-year experience (FYE) holds for many student affairs professionals a special place. One group of students that has been particularly impacted by the campus and national lockdowns imposed by the global COVID‑19 pandemic have been first-years. For much of the year, COVID‑19 has robbed this cohort of first‑year students of the thrills and fears, joys and cries, of a ‘normal’ first year. In those universities that start their academic year the second half of the year, the impact has been less profound. But in higher education systems like South Africa’s, where the academic year starts in the course of February, first‑year students experienced just a few weeks of induction into university life on campus.

The FYE provides the central theme of this issue of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. It is the mission of JSAA to contribute to the professionalisation of student affairs inter alia through the development of partnerships with professional organisations in the field. In this spirit we are pleased to host for the third time an issue guest edited by Annsilla Nyar of the South African National Research Centre of the First‑Year Experience at the University of Johannesburg. Her first guest-edited issue titled “The first-year experience, student transitions and institutional transformation” was published as JSAA 4(1) in 2016 and the second issue “First-year experience in perspective” in 2018 as JSAA 6(1).

Indeed, JSAA has been proudly associated with a number of guest editors over the years, starting with “Student power in African higher education”, JSAA 3(1) of 2015, which was jointly guest edited by Thierry Luescher, Manja Klemenčič and James Otieno Jowi. This was followed by “Tutoring and mentoring”, guest edited by Nelia Frade in 2017 and published as JSAA 5(2), and most recently JSAA 7(1) on “Space, language, identity and the student movement” guest edited by Philippa Tumubweinee and Thierry Luescher. A guest-edited issue allows JSAA and the guest editor to focus attention on a specific theme and enables a particular kind of depth of scholarship. It mobilises a number of researchers, employing a range of research methodologies and frameworks to focus on that theme, thus advancing scholarship in this domain. This, too, is what Annsilla Nyar has done with this her third guest-edited issue, and JSAA is proud to be playing a part in developing the scholarship on the first-year experience (FYE).

In addition to the eight research articles and the reflective practice article on the FYE guest edited by Annsilla Nyar, this issue includes a campus report on the Stellenbosch University Experiential Education Conference which explored the intersection of experiential learning with student success. This was a particularly timeous and topical conference as we are moving into an era of distance- and online-learning which raises major concerns about the developmental experiences in the social and community domain of higher education.

As in every issue, we are happy to publish in this issue the review of a book relevant for student affairs professionals in universities in Africa and beyond. Birgit Schreiber reviews Engaging Students: Using Evidence to Promote Student Success, edited by Francois Strydom, George Kuh and Sonja Loots, which was published in 2017 by SunMedia Bloemfontein. With this book, the editors have been able to bring together an impressive set of contributions that illustrate in so many ways the importance of having good data to understand the student experience, enhance student engagement and ultimately improve student success. Schreiber argues: “It is a must-read for Student Affairs practitioners, not only in Africa, but in all contexts that seek to offer teaching and learning opportunities that advance equitable participation of the learning in the learning process.”

Surviving Covid-19

 

On 30 December 2020 I fell ill and on 4 January 2021 I went for Covid-19 testing at the public primary health care clinic in Claremont, Cape Town. A day later, the result came back positive. By then, my health was already quite strained.

Over the next 10 days I was getting very weak, tired, sore body, fever and headaches. Eventually, also coughing and sore lungs, but I was never 'out of breath' to the extent that I felt I needed extra-help. I sunned myself 30 min per day, took my vitamins BCD, Zinc, Selenium, Calcium and Magnesium, and other supplements, as well as Aspirin and at night flu-medicine. Most importantly perhaps was lots of rest, care, and faith. There were days that I slept 16 to 18 hours. 

Three weeks later I have restarted work - ironically one of the first projects I worked last week is the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa's Covid-19 Special Issue which is expected to be published in March 2021. 

 

Congratulations - Dr Keamo Morwe

Today I had the rare pleasure to attend a viva voce - an oral examination - of my PhD student, Ms Keamo Morwe, or rather, freshly baked Dr Keamo Morwe. Her grade according to the thesis examination committee: EXCELLENT! The viva voce was held, due to C-19, online.

The examination was done by the main university that Keamo was doing her PhD at, the University of Malaga in Spain. But she is in the fortunate position to have been co-registered at the University of the Free State in South Africa, and will therefore also have UFS co-confer the degree.

This wonderful outcome of yet another supervision process comes on the same day as I receive from Human Sciences Research Council the Award as the Best Mentor of the Year. This is in recognition of my work in capacity development, as formal and informal mentor, and as supervisor at universities. At the same award ceremony, two of my former mentees also received the top awards as junior researcher of the year, Nkululeko Makhubu, and as emerging, early career researcher of the year, Dr Angelina Wilson Fadiji, both of which co-published extensively with me in the last year. 

I am very happy to be able to play a constructive role in so many students, interns and emerging research staff members. While I often miss the formal work in learning facilitation that I had as a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Western Cape, there are opportunities even in the context of a science council and by my secondary affiliation with the University of the Free State. 

My association with Keamo is far from past. She is a co-PI with me on the "Violence and Wellbeing" project of which the previous post about the "Aftermath" exhibition is an outcome.

Aftermath: Violence and Wellbeing in the Context of the Student Movement

I would like to proudly present to you:

The exhibition, Aftermath: Violence and Wellbeing in the Context of the Student Movement, is a collection of 34 images taken and/or supplied by student leaders, which they reflect on as representations of their experiences of violence during the #FeesMustFall student movement - and their search for wellbeing after these experiences. 

The images have been selected and curated from more than 100 images that were produced as part of a photovoice research project hosted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in the course of 2019/20. The HSRC research team held photovoice workshops with 26 student leaders and activists on five campuses of universities which experienced high levels of violence during the 2015/16 #FeesMustFall student movement. Student participants were selected from University of the Western Cape (UWC), University of Venda (Univen), University of the Free State (UFS), University of Fort Hare (UFH) and Durban University of Technology (DUT) and participated in institution-specific, face-to-face photovoice workshops on their respective campuses. Among the criteria for participation were that they should have experienced violence as part of student protests on their campus - whether as observers, victims or perpetrators - during the 2015/16 student protests. In curating the exhibition, the themes that emerged were protest and violence, oppressive spaces, safe spaces, patriarchy (and the defiance of it), fear, escape, trauma, unity and wellbeing.

The aim of this exhibition is to raise awareness about the levels of violence on university campuses and the impact this has on student wellbeing. While trying to put pressure on often uncaring and unresponsive university leaders and policy makers, students end up being exposed to unacceptable levels of violence, either perpetrated by students themselves or as victims of the violent responses carried onto campuses by police and security services. 

The student leaders and activists, whose reflections are represented in these pictures and accompanying captions, have expressed the hope that by sharing their photos and stories, an awareness would be created in the public, in government and among higher education policy makers and university leaders. They hope that this awareness will ensure that student grievances are taken seriously without the need for protesting. They also hope that student counselling services are expanded to better support students who struggle with mental health issues.

This exhibition is available online at South African History Online at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/student-protests-democratic-south-africa and https://www.sahistory.org.za/exibition/aftermath  

Information about research outputs and the exhibition-related book can be found on the HSRC website at: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/departments/ied/student-movement 

Research team members:
Prof Thierry M. Luescher, principal investigator - HSRC and University of the Free State
Dr Keamogetse G. Morwe, co-principal investigator - University of Venda
Dr Angelina Wilson Fadiji, project manager - Formerly HSRC; Currently senior lecturer, University of Pretoria
Ms Kulani Mlambo, NRF master’s scholar - University of Venda
Ms Tshireletso S. Letsoalo, NRF master’s scholar - University of Pretoria
Mr Antonio Erasmus, graphic designer and photographer - HSRC

Student leaders and activists who participated in this project: 
University of the Western Cape: Azania Simthandile Tyhali, Sphelele Khumalo, Ncedisa Bemnyama, Asandiswa Bomvana, Siyasanga Ndwayi. 
University of Venda: Bob Sandile Masango, Abednego Sam Mandhlazi, Mabore Machete, Blessing Mavhuru, Frans Sello Mokwele, Conry H. Chabalala, Tshepo Raseala, Anyway Mikioni, Mulaedza Mashapha, Dimakatso Ngobeni 
University of the Free State: Tshepang Mahlatsi, Tshiamo Malatji, Thabo Twala, Sonwabile Dwaba, Anonymous, Kamohelo Maphike, Bokang Fako, Xola Zatu
University of Fort Hare: Madoda Ludidi, Yolokazi Mfuto, Anonymous, Siphelele Mancobeni, Wandisile Sixoto, Akhona Manyenyeza 
Durban University of Technology: Khulekani Ngcobo, Robert Thema, Lesley Ngazire, Siphephelo (Shange) Mthembu, Nomfundo Zakwe, Thalente Hadebe. 

Curator of the exhibition: Carl Collison

This project was funded by the National Research Foundation grant no. 118522 and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant no. 1802-05403. 

The impossibility of separating learning and development: What Covid-19 teaches us

This article was first published by University World News, 05 September 2020, 

By Birgit Schreiber, Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo, Brett Perozzi and Thierry M Luescher   

The impossibility of separating learning and development

The coronavirus pandemic has compelled universities around the world to send their students home – some with little more than a laptop or mobile phone, data and Wi-Fi access codes, some with more and most with less. In the switch to remote teaching, universities initially issued well-intended yet often insufficient guidance.

Over a remarkably short time, much of this has been improved upon. However, what could not be fixed in the remote teaching and learning model were the persistent infrastructure and network holes, glaring social-cultural inequities and social-community environments that are not conducive to learning.

It is these that have made remote learning extremely hard for some students, typically those from the most disadvantaged sections of society, for whom university offers an upward social-economic mobility pathway.

The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the inequities in the global higher education system. While we confidently hoped that education might be the road to upward social-economic mobility, the great social equaliser, we are now seeing the major potholes that lie in the way.

University campuses have been able to level the playing field to some extent – between the Global North and South, between the developed and underdeveloped, between rich and poor, privileged and disadvantaged and the connected and unconnected. However, in stepping off campus and into congested urban apartment blocks, shanty towns, small town peripheries and rural hinterlands, we can see how fragile this developmental model is.

The importance of the learning environment
Student Affairs and Services’ overarching function in higher education across the globe is to level the playing field through a developmental model of higher education which supports a global social justice agenda.

By promoting engagement; enabling compatible living and learning contexts; providing healthcare and counselling; offering housing and residence programmes; facilitating social, learning and personal safe spaces; implementing co-curricular programmes for students to learn beyond their discipline to develop as complex, healthy, whole people; by mapping learning and career pathways and supporting students to overcome their unique challenges along the way, Student Affairs and Services ensures a measure of equity and fairness on the campuses of institutions in our massified higher education systems.

The environmental impact theorists of student success, from Vince Tinto to Ernest Pascarella and George Kuh, all emphasise the interplay of at least four influences that impact on a meaningful educational experience: 1) the personal-cognitive resources of the students, 2) institutional-teaching-learning inputs, 3) familial-social influences, and 4) the macro-infrastructure factors in which the institution is embedded. These four need to converge to support the success of higher education, and Student Affairs and Services is essential to this.

When students are on campuses a supportive environment is possible, but when students study on sporadically working laptops in unstable Wi-Fi hotspots, with power outages and in congested, noisy home environments, then higher education cannot be the socially mobile pathway that so many students seek.

Basic needs – safe homes, clean water, reliable electricity, healthcare and social support – are also key foundational aspects of successful learning and development.

Local, tailored responses
How then should we respond? Again, we see too many divisions and tensions, fundamentally between collaboration and solidarity versus authority and competition. Tensions between the power of institution-level knowledge versus the authority of national regulatory bodies; between the scramble for political control and imposition of crude uniformity versus trust in the sophistication of local responses and the power of diversity.

And all of these tensions derail the more appropriate institutional and community-based flexible, context-relevant, autonomous, adaptive and innovative responses.

Despite the reality of inequality, learning must forge ahead in the myriad of ways that our diverse student body requires. We need indigenised responses that are designed at a local level for each unique situation.

In some regions this means that the best response may be to open universities just for some students for now – for those who need the campus environment and infrastructure for learning.

For other institutions it may mean that only PhD students can continue on campus, or only the science labs can open, or indeed only first-year students can attend who can be accommodated in low-density living arrangements.

A granular approach is needed, and for this it is essential that local decision-making endogenous to institutions – within the boundaries of outside scrutiny and accountability – is accelerated and supported. This should have primacy over uber-zealous regulatory bodies, attempts at control by central governments (such as China’s position on Hong Kong) or by national unions (as in South Africa) or blunt and short-sighted national political decisions (as in the case of the USA).

In Malawi, Kenya, Bangladesh and several other countries we have seen national decisions to temporarily close universities down. This is not only a huge setback for a country’s social and economic development, but also for social justice in these countries. Education is an avenue of social mobility that enables disadvantaged groups, particularly women, working-class and poor students, to leap ahead and beyond.

More than a Wi-Fi hotspot
Student Affairs and Services across the globe has an overarching ideal, whether or not explicitly stated: a deeply meaningful social justice mission. The current crisis shows how essential the overall provision of a (personal, social and physical) micro and macro environment conducive to learning and student engagement is, particularly for those who cannot count on that at home. Student Affairs and Services bridges that gap.

On the one hand, the COVID-19 responses have shown us the immense readiness of universities to adapt and innovate to enable learning in remote ways. On the other hand, remote learning has been a setback for social justice.

Universities are more than Wi-Fi hotspots for students. Universities are complex spaces that reduce systemic-social barriers to advancement, and Student Affairs and Services plays a critical role in this. To advance social justice for all, we need especially vulnerable groups to access universities and return to university campuses.

Birgit Schreiber(corresponding author) is a member of the Africa Centre for Transregional Research at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany, and vice president of the International Association of Student Affairs and Services and co-founder and editorial executive for the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. She is the co-editor of the recently published Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education: Global foundations, issues, and best practices, third edition, a 600-page volume in which 200 authors collaborated to provide a global overview of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education. Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo is vice provost for student life at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and the secretary general for the International Association of Student Affairs and Services. She is on the editorial team of the global overview of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education. Brett Perozzi is vice president for student affairs at Weber State University in the United States and serves on the global division executive for NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. He has published three books, more than three dozen scholarly works and is an author for the global overview of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education. Thierry M Luescher is research director for post-schooling and work in the Human Sciences Research Council and associate professor of higher education at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is a founding member of the editorial executive of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa and an associate editor of the global overview of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education.

University World News - Special Report - Higher Education Student Affairs and Services

University World News has started a Special Report on the newly published 3rd edition of the global Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education handbook. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was responsible for the section on "Student governance and activism", and I also co-wrote two additional entries one on "The student governance function" (with Birgit Schreiber) and the other about "Student Affairs and Services in South Africa" (with Angelina Wilson Fadiji). 

In the UWN Special Report I am writing about the Student Governance and Activism section. It is not normally my style to write personalised academic (or semi-academic) works - except of course in this blog - but in this article I went very personal, almost intimate, lol. 🙊

Again, for anyone who wants to access the handbook, it is fully open access as e-book: Ludeman, R. B., et al. 2020. Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education: Global Foundations, Issues, and Best Practices, 3rd ed, pp. 1-629.