Personal Blog and Website with Links to Open Access Publications on Higher Education in Africa - Student Experience - Student Politics - Student Affairs - Institutional Research - Higher Education Policy and Politics Research
Friday 4 December 2020
Congratulations - Dr Keamo Morwe
Thursday 3 December 2020
Aftermath: Violence and Wellbeing in the Context of the Student Movement
I would like to proudly present to you:
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.
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.
Thursday 10 September 2020
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.
Thursday 20 August 2020
University World News - Special Report - Higher Education Student Affairs and Services
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.
Friday 24 July 2020
JSAA publishes two book reviews on the "Student Leaders' Reflections" book
The latest issue of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (Vol. 8 Issue 1) is out and it deals with various aspects of the student experience in Africa. Centring the student experience is therefore its central theme. In the introduction, Birgit Schreiber, Teboho Moja and I also reflect on the current context of the student experience globally and in Africa, which we talk about in terms of two viruses affecting higher education and the student experience: Corona and Racism.
What I am also excited about is that my book "Reflections of South African Student Leaders, 1994 to 2017" was reviewed by two scholars and Birgit, who is the book review editor, prepared the reviews to publish in this issue. They are great reviews, insofar as they are not just 'praise' for the book but they also give some good ideas of where one needs to be more critical still.
Overall, it is amazing to see student affairs and student politics related research in and on Africa to be gaining much exposure and traction, and I am extremely grateful to be able to play some role in this. It is rewarding to see the work of colleagues, especially young and emerging scholars as well as established scholars, black and women scholars, and professionals who have not previously thought of their work in scholarly or academic terms, to be researching, writing and getting published.
Thursday 25 June 2020
The Global Handbook of Student Affairs has just been published - free online!
URL: https://iasas.global/student-affairs-services-in-higher-education-global-foundations-issues-and-best-practices/
Tuesday 5 May 2020
Supporting students in the time of COVID-19
A message from the IASAS President:
The pandemic spread of the coronavirus around the world has dramatic consequences in higher education and student services. In so many places, institutions of higher educations are closed, many are sick or afraid of infection, and many might be worried about being at a heightened risk.
However, at the very same time, so many of us keep on supporting students and providing core services such as housing, counselling and advice or health care. The coronavirus has taught us – if anything – that the globe really is one single place, that borders are meaningless to its rapid spread, and that only a collective effort that respects and simultaneously engages everyone in society will bring it to a halt. It has also shown us that no individual, no group, no region or nation can fight this alone. We encourage all our colleagues in student services to join this effort, to keep on supporting each other and to continue their efforts for students in whatever situation they might be. And we appreciate all your efforts supporting students which currently need your assistance more than ever. Please continue the crucial work you are doing. We are all in this together.
Achim Meyer auf der Heyde
IASAS President
Global Research Study: Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 on Student Affairs
I am happy to announce that the following survey has just opened: the COVID-19 Impact on Global Student Affairs and Services - please participate!
The survey is available HERE. Please complete it (once) if you are a student affairs practitioner / professional in higher education. The survey is designed to be completed by those who work in student affairs and services roles and will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
It is clear that this pandemic and its effects on higher education and student affairs and services has been vast and nuanced; please feel free to provide individualized context in the open ended responses. Please share this survey with other student affairs and services colleagues.
The results of the survey are meant to inform our practice for the good of students and higher education worldwide. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact any of the four professionals/researchers who developed it:
The survey was developed by:
- Dr Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo who is in the United Arab Emirates at the University of Sharjah
- Dr Brett Perozzi, USA, who is at Weber University
- Dr Birgit Schreiber at Germany's Albert Ludwigs University, and
- Prof Thierry Luescher, at HSRC in South Africa.
Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo, UAE, lmoscaritolo[@]aus.edu
Brett Perozzi, USA, brettperozzi[@]weber.edu
Birgit Schreiber, Germany, birgitdewes[@]gmail.com
Thierry M Luescher, South Africa, tluescher[@]hsrc.ac.za
Thursday 30 April 2020
Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 on Student Affairs in Africa - Part 1
Wednesday 22 April 2020
Get your free copy - Reflections of SA Student Leaders - published!
Friday 27 March 2020
Innovation policy at the intersection - A global round-up
The chapters in this book follow three broad concerns: (1) The theories and approaches that have historically informed science, technology and innovation policy-making, along with the most influential current approaches in different country contexts; (2) The development and application of comprehensive STI monitoring and evaluation systems as developed and implemented by various public agencies; and (3) The role and function of STI policy advisory bodies within their respective contexts.
Innovation Policy at the Intersection provides a comparative lens of different theories and practices across a unique spectrum of national contexts, including Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Finland, Iran, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, South Korea, and Sweden.
The open access version of the book will be available within 6 months from the HSRC Press and my open access sites. Early bird versions of the e-book can be requested from me.
Just published: Innovation policy at the intersection: Global debates and local experiences
Edited by Mlungisi BG Cele, Thierry M Luescher, Angela Wilson Fadiji
Monday 6 January 2020
Student residences research in the spotlight
Taabo Mugume and I wrote a few years back on the student politics involved in the establishment of a public-private partnership in the South African student residence sector, investigating the case of the University of the Western Cape's Kovacs Residence in Cape Town. Since then, numerous private student residence developments have mushroomed (ironically around the wealthier universities and uni suburbs), by private providers operating as Campus Key, Unilofts, and the like. At the same time, student affairs departments in many universities have established accreditation criteria and processes for private student housing providers, and they have given them, in some cases, preferential access to campus facilities for their resident students. The SA Department of Higher Education and Training has also done it's own investigations into the provision of student housing, the backlog of provision and costs, and developed some standards in this respect. The situation in rural universities is particularly precarious with substandard provision (both by universities themselves and privates) and a dearth of available, academically conducive, safe and affordable student rooms. The residence provision - as is with the higher education system as a whole - remains highly unequal and unfair, as rural universities, and other historically black metropolitan universities and universities of technology are almost entirely attended by black and poorer students who are not receiving the same kind and level of service.
Much more research must be done on the important topic of residence life and student housing in Africa. With this journal issue, JSAA is again seeking to stimulate such research. Here there are articles on the relationship between student accommodation and academic success, as well as articles on topics that go beyond the residence theme and research students with disabilities as well as student politics. The issue can be downloaded open access at https://jsaa.ac.za/index.php/jsaa/issue/view/306/showToc
Thursday 28 November 2019
Are we witnessing a student revolution?
In a compact article compiled by Phil Altbach and me, we engage these questions and ultimately ask the question whether the post-2008 decade and 2019 in particular will go down in the history as a replay of the 60s student revolution and '68 in particular.
The article has been published on University World News and can be read / downloaded either from UWN or my Academia.edu account. The Spanish version of the article published on the Mexican website Nexos is available here.
Wednesday 16 October 2019
Student affairs and the politics of space, language and identity
The Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (JSAA) doesn't cease to amaze in the way it is able to attract and publish top quality scholarship as well as emerging researchers' contributions on cutting edge topics. In its 2019 July issue, vol. 7(1), JSAA is publishing a number of guest-edited articles that respond in various ways to matters raised in the course of the 2015/16 student movement or attribute the political salience of their analysis to concerns raised by various student campaigns since 2015.
I felt very happy to work with my former PhD student, now Dr Philippa Tumubweinee on this guest-edited issue on the politics of space, language and identity in higher education.
The opening research article by Philippa and I called ‘Inserting Space into the Transformation of Higher Education’ focuses specifically on the significance of space in the transformation of higher education. In this article, we argue that the concept of social space can provide the conceptual tools for reframing policy and designing new policy interventions in pursuit of higher education transformation goals. We start out by arguing against a notion of space merely as physical infrastructure or a void to be filled. Rather, in keeping with Lefebvre and others, we conceptualise a ‘sociopolitical’ notion of space as socially produced and as co-producer of the social. Using this understanding of space, we conduct an analysis of four national cornerstone policy documents on higher education transformation in South Africa (1997 to 2017). Our analysis shows that, since the original post-apartheid White Paper on Higher Education of 1997, it is only the most recent national policy document, the Draft National Plan for Postschool Education and Training of 2017, which blurs the lines between the social ills affecting the student experience of higher education (and indeed society at large), which we call ‘the realities of the everyday’ on campus, and different functions of space. Our article suggests new conceptual tools for a research agenda that explores the (social) organisation of space in higher education which will allow policymakers to insert space-related concerns into the policy debates on decolonised higher education that have been (re-)ignited by the student movement.
This is followed by a number of excellent articles on thematically related matters. Of the articles in this issue I particularly like:
"What Are We Witnessing? Student Protests and the Politics of the Unknowable" by my former colleague at the University of the Free State, Dionne van Reenen. Here Dionne analyses student movement discourse. Her analysis shows that grand narratives are rejected in student movement discourse in favour of attributes such as complexity, infinity, individuality, contingency, discontinuity, flux and unknowability. Students focused on the ‘lower attributes’ through which they were able to articulate individual life-history narratives. As a result, this led to disagreements in communication between students and university leaders. In addition, the author uses the theoretical frame of Stewart et al. (2012), which posits that movements utilise persuasive tactics of affirmation. In particular, she analyses the student movement in terms of identification, polarisation, framing, storytelling, and power. In doing so, the article problematises the student movement narratives, considering the dominating and silenced voices.
"#FeesMustFall: Lessons from the Post‑colonial Global South" by Sipho Dlamini is a well-researched and written article that feels a bit ... funny... it feels like Sipho was out to show how much free higher education is a must in a post-colonial country and then gets all surprised by finding that elsewhere in Africa, the development related to higher education tuition fees has been the opposite - namely introducing cost-sharing... I really like this sense of bewilderment about the article (it really feels like something has been learnt here!) and also how Sipho disentangles himself from the conundrum, arguing that the inequalities in SA are just to stark not to address them with the partially free HE policy that is operative now.
"Theorising the #MustFall Student Movements in Contemporary South African Higher Education: A Social Justice Perspective" by Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo, Kehdinga George Fomunyam and
#FeesMustFall Protests in South Africa: A Critical Realist Analysis of Selected Newspaper Articles"
by George Mavunga also squarely deal with student movement matters, the one from a social justice approach, the other more empirical.
But let me not spoil anything for you. The Journal is open access available at https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/jsaa/issue/view/284/showToc
But be sure to also read the book review by Monica McLean of Talita Calitz' book (2019). Enhancing the Freedom to Flourish. London, UK: Routledge
Tuesday 15 October 2019
University Freedoms and Responsibilities: Responding to the Challenges of the Future
I have just arrived in Hamilton, Canada, after 28 hours of flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg, to Addis Ababa, to Dublin and to Toronto, Canada. This is crazy.
Fortunately, I have planted this year already two orange trees, two banana trees, 4 blueberry bushes, one jasmin climber, one granadilla climber and two christophene climbers, and turned a backyard that was entirely concreted up for at least two decades into a garden that produces peas, radish, creeping beans, spinach, cucumber, butter nut pumpkin, strawberries, spring onion, thyme, rosemary, garlic and rocket salad... otherwise I would probably succumb to climate guilt.
And fortunately this travel is for a really important matter: the freedoms, rights and responsibilities, of universities. The Magna Charta Observatory, the University of Bologna and the McMaster University are hosting a conference at McMaster in Hamilton, Canada, and a Ceremony for the Signing of the Magna Charta by universities committed to the principles of the Universitatum.
I have been invited to lead a workshop on Wednesday, 16 October, on "The role of representative student associations, current challenges and strategies in response". The workshop seeks to explore, and share experiences of, the challenges that representative student associations (such as student unions, student guilds, and student representative councils) experience to their role and how they respond to such challenges. We will explore questions related to:
- the different roles of representative student associations,
- the effectiveness of student interest representation in formal decision-making structures and processes,
- informal interactions with university authorities and stakeholders, and
- the experience, effectiveness and impact of student protest action.
And fortunately also, this is not the only thing I took this very long trip for. Indeed, despite the importance (and honour) of participating in this conference and facilitating this workshop, I would not have made this very long trip just for one thing. So I was able to add another thing, which is also exciting.
I will be giving a seminar in the Boston College Centre for International Higher Education (CIHE) on Thursday and spend the rest of the day catching up with the wonderful Dr Rebecca Schendel, with the head of CIHE, Prof Hans de Wit and his colleagues, and with Dr Manja Klemencic who I will go to visit briefly at Harvard and attend a seminar with her there.