Background: Research has shown the benefits of play for children's learning and development. Play can also be harnessed for pursuing pre-determined learning goals related to school curricula through "guided" play. Aim: The research inquired into the implementation of a pre-service teacher education course on play as pedagogy to evaluate…

Entrepreneurship education is critical to many countries' efforts to ameliorate youth unemployment. Embedding entrepreneurship content or skills into school subjects can contribute to these efforts. Although youth unemployment is especially rife in South Africa, its school curriculum does not include extensive entrepreneurship education. For these…

A long-standing concern in teacher education is the variability in the quality of practicum experiences afforded to preservice teachers. Although some variability is due to their personal attributes, preservice teachers often find it difficult to connect theoretical insights to teachers' classroom practices. These challenges can be exacerbated…

The focus of this paper is on the contestations and dilemmas emergent in the higher education curriculum in a context of increasing processes of unbundling, digitisation and marketisation. The paper explores the notion of contestation through the theoretical lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. It points to illustrative examples of this…

Principals' management of curriculum change is critical in successfully implementing transformation in schools. This is particularly crucial in South Africa where the curriculum has been in a constant state of flux since 1994. In this article, we explore principals' experiences on the support they receive in the management of the implementation of…

Teacher quality in primary schools in South Africa is a serious concern, and how best to prepare teachers in initial teacher education--with regard to mathematics--remains an open and vexing question. There is a confluence of challenges facing the mathematics education community in South Africa: poor conceptual understanding of mathematics amongst…

The subject Mathematical Literacy (ML) prioritises an interplay of mathematics and real-life contexts in pursuit of an empowerment agenda for improved life opportunities. In seeking to identify processes of inclusion-exclusion afforded by different conceptualisations of this interplay, a network of Bernstein's theoretical constructs --…

Teacher training requires teachers to learn not only the academic content they must teach but to learn how to teach. In the modern world where changes are constant and the teaching demands are many, pre-service teachers must learn skills but they must also learn certain attitudes and beliefs that will allow them to be successful and effective in…

Background: Scholars have identified the benefits of using African languages and bilingual approaches in South African education; at the same time, the dominance of language ideologies and systemic constraints work against the full implementation of bilingual education. Objectives: This article tracks the early responses of the pre-service and…

What knowledge matters in health professions education is an issue of debate in the literature, foregrounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and informed by calls for students who are not only clinically competent, but also critically conscious of global health inequity. Building on this work, this paper explores what kinds of knowledge are legitimated…

The employability of graduates in South Africa is a crucial issue that requires attention from educational institutions due to its impact on the economy, the challenges faced by graduates, and the need to support students in developing employability skills. Therefore, the present study aims to explore educational perspectives on fostering graduate…

While prior scholarship has theorised on how to incorporate decolonisation in curriculum and pedagogy, there is limited empirical work on how students experience this initiative. With a goal to provide a more diverse and inclusive educational experience, this paper explores ten undergraduate students' perceptions of their learning in a revised…

Purpose: One of the most discernible initiatives of entrepreneurial universities constitutes the launch of innovation centers, where students and alumni can incubate their business ideas and collaborate on innovative projects with the purpose of converting them into start-up ventures. While incubators and accelerators are quintessential in Western…

The term as below Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) has been adopted worldwide. In practice, approaches to ERT have been contextual with diverse lecturer and student experiences owing to complex assemblages of sociomaterial practices. Approaches to ERT as mobile learning by necessity are understudied. The 'pivot' to ERT was particularly challenging…

Effective student support is key in stemming the dropout in distance education. This article reports on the student support provision in a hybrid teacher education programme. Altogether 160 participants were purposively selected; 126 completed a survey, 33 (30 students and 3 administrative staff) took part in six focus group discussions; and one…