Higher education transformation in South Africa, as correctly argued by Petro du Preez,Shan Simmonds and Anné Verhoef, should become more 'fluid ["and"] open-ended'. However, even more fluidity and open-endedness might not necessarily be sufficient in enacting transformation in the higher education realm. Consequently, in this article I…

Too much is being made of educational technology often valorizing it as a savior of pedagogical relations. The reasoning is: If educational technology 'is used' in teacher training, then teachers possessing such capacities and skills could just be the panacea education systems require to respond to the challenges of learning, teaching, and…

This article takes a critical look at three conceptions of Islamic education. I argue that conceptions of Islamic education ought to be considered as existing on a minimalist-maximalist continuum, meaning that the concepts associated with Islamic education do not have a single meaning, but that meanings are shaped depending on the minimalist and…

Despite the advances made in the liberal Western philosophical and educational tradition to counteract unethical, immoral and inhumane acts committed by the human species, these acts of inhumanity persist. It would be inapt to apportion blame only to Western thinking, which has its roots in Greek antiquity, as Plato and Aristotle, for instance,…

In this article we address the issue of why democratic citizenship education should be incorporated more meaningfully into Islamic education discourses in formal institutions in the Arab and Muslim world. In the Arab and Muslim world civic and national education seem to be the dominant discourses. We argue that the latter discourses are inadequate…

After more than a decade of democratic citizenship education in public schools in South Africa, the Department of Basic Education (DoBE) has still not produced sufficiently plausible ways for how democracy and citizenship ought to be taught in classrooms. I argue that the recent "practical guide" on how to cultivate "responsibility…

That the issue of violence sits uneasily on the conscience of higher education is evident in the view that educated people are as likely as uneducated people to participate in violence. The concern of conscience is equally prevalent in the view that the public role of the university is "the responsibility of a community of thinking".…

The euphoria of the recent Arab Spring that was initiated in northern African countries such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and spilled over to Bahrain, Yemen and Syria brings into question as to whether democratic citizenship education or more pertinently, education for democratic citizenship can successfully be cultivated in most of the Arab and…

In this article, I reflect on Nelson Mandela's (Madiba, the clan name of Mandela) education legacy. I argue that Madiba's education legacy is constituted by three interrelated aspects: firstly, an education for non-violence guided by deliberation, compassion and reconciliation; secondly, education as responsibility towards the Other; and thirdly,…

I point out that supervising students sceptically might engender moments of acknowledging humanity within the Other (autonomous action or ijtihad), experiencing attachment to the Other's points of view with a readiness for departure (deliberative engagement or shura) and showing responsibility to the Other (recognitp[ion of the other or ta`aruf).…

In this article we argue that "ubuntu" (human interdependence) is not some form of essentialist notion that unfolds in exactly the same way as some critics of "ubuntu" might want to suggest. Rather, we offer a philosophical position that (re)considers the situation of the self in relation to others. The article starts from the general issues at…

Sceptics of an Africanisation of education have often lambasted its proponents for re-inventing something that has very little, if any, role to play in contemporary African society. The contributors to this issue hold a different view and, through the papers included in this issue, arguments are proffered in defence of an Africanisation of…

Educators, not to mention philosophers of education, find themselves in a difficult position nowadays. With the disappearance of the so-called metanarratives, it seems that the secular society has made it difficult, not to say almost impossible, to justify a particular idea of the good life that can be shared by all or at least many. The paper…

Educators, not to mention philosophers of education, find themselves in a difficult position nowadays. They are confronted with problems such as which kind of values one would want citizens to embrace, or to what extent social practices of a particular group may differ from what is generally held. In this essay, Paul Smeyers and Yusef Waghid focus…

Nowadays education in the madrassahs (Muslim schools) is constantly being placed under the spotlight, such as being considered as seedbeds for terrorism. This article takes a critical look at some South African madrassahs with the aim to find out what these educational institutions do and whether or not the possibility for radicalisation and…