Thousands of students from the University of the Witwatersrand demonstrate during protests against fee increases which have spread to other major universities in the country.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
The next step in South African students’ fight against high university fees could be taken beyond campuses. The final battle will be fought at the country’s National Treasury and Reserve Bank.
Students protest outside one of the University of Cape Town’s main administration buildings.
Imraan Christian
Students and academics are fed up with the situation at South Africa’s universities. One way to improve conditions is for universities to be run as institutions of learning – not big businesses.
A student at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand sums up the motive for ongoing campus protests.
Pontsho Pilane/The Daily Vox
South Africa’s higher education sector is dramatically underfunded. Polite conversations between vice-chancellors and the government have failed. It’s time the voices of student activists was heard.
Students at Rhodes University in Grahamstown protest against the institution’s minimum initial payment, a one-off fee to secure an academic place.
Madeleine Chaput/Activate
Fee protests have shut down a number of South African university campuses. The question is, how should universities balance fee increases with their other obligations?
A statue of colonialist and mining boss Cecil Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town. How can we best measure how higher education is being transformed?
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Universities need to change to become more equitable learning spaces. But what’s the best way to measure their transformation, identify gaps and emphasise successes?
University deans must wear many hats while they try to act as a pivot between academics and management.
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It is important that all South Africans learn to speak an African language. But is making a single language a compulsory university subject the best way to make this happen?
University students are protesting various issues related to transformation on campuses across South Africa.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
There is enormous potential for long term and genuine change if universities change their approach to dissent – and reinvent themselves as more agile institutions.
Somali university students celebrate their graduation. Universities that fare well on national measures may be ignored by international ranking systems.
Feisal Omar/Reuters
The news that African universities will soon be ranked has generated a great deal of hype. But the initiative seems likely to be doomed from the start.
Students graduating from the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, University of Law in Hyderabad.
Reuters/Krishnendu Halder
India has learned valuable lessons about language and bodies of knowledge that could be applied in South Africa’s universities.
A protester outside the US Supreme Court of Appeal objects to gay marriage. An incident at a Cape Town university has raised issues of religious freedom.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The furore around freedom of sexual orientation vs religious freedom at a South African university should lead to deeper thinking about Christianity’s historical role in promoting liberalism.
South African teachers must operate in extremely varied socioeconomic conditions. Their practical training in schools needs to prepare them for this reality.
EPA/Nic Bothma
There are a number of ways to improve the experience that student teachers have while completing their compulsory practical period in a school.
Many of South Africa’s primary and secondary schools are dysfunctional. But should universities use this as an excuse to turn all applicants from these schools away?
REUTERS/Ryan Gray
Nelson Mandela called education “the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world”. How can universities bring his words to life?
A student protests against colonial-era statues at the University of Cape Town. Changing the curriculum structure is another way to decolonise South Africa’s universities.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
It’s not just the content of South Africa’s university curricula that needs to be re-examined. The country’s degree structure should be reconsidered, too.
Young academics need a strong, properly structured support system to climb the ranks and one day become professors.
From www.shutterstock.com
There are compelling educational reasons to employ more black academics in universities and to give them all the support they’ll need to become professors.
Some students say they are too frightened to bring a same-sex partner back to their residence.
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Director of Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University & Visiting Research Professor in Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Rhodes University
Previous Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DSI-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria
Chief Director: Tshwane University of Technology – Institute for Economic Research on Innovation; Node Head: DST/NRF SciSTIP CoE; and Professor Extraordinary: Stellenbosch University – Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology., Tshwane University of Technology
Associate Professor of Higher Education Studies. Head of Department of the Centre for Higher Education, Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes University