In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits…

The paper contributes to current debates about decolonising curriculum and advancing corresponding 'humanness pedagogies' in South Africa by developing a capabilitarian approach and foregrounding epistemic justice capabilities. This is aligned with and to fostering a shared African ethic for individual transformation-in-context and for building…

Higher education institutions have been complicit with the ongoing coloniality project that reinforces and perpetuates inequities, dismisses interests, knowledges, alternative discourses, and world views different from Western European thought (Bell, 2018; Dastile & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013; Harms-Smith & Rasool, 2020). Education is rooted in…

Drawing insight and inspiration from our comrade Aziz Choudry, in this paper, we explore the role of political education and knowledge making in social movement struggles to contest the state and capital around access to water and other public services. Drawing on a decade of organising work in the city of Cape Town and at wider scales, we…

On 20 September 2019 in Cape Town, as part of the global protests on inaction on climate change, the African Climate Alliance submitted a memorandum of demands to South African government representatives, one of which was 'the creation of a mandatory climate-education curriculum for South Africa'. This raises the question of how this imperative…

This paper presents findings from a review of 19 national curriculum policy frameworks (NCPFs) across the globe and discusses dominant and culturally specific discourses that shape early childhood education (ECE). We combine two frameworks of developmental universality and specificity and culturally contextualised pedagogy to explore whether and…

In the research reported on here we explored teachers' understanding of what they perceived as core values of ethical leadership in education. Using qualitative research within an interpretivist design, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with teachers and school management team (SMT) members and analysed using Tesch's coding…

Learning outcomes are predominantly framed in narrow and measurable terms, with students as decontextualised learners. As an alternative, the paper outlines a capabilitarian approach, building a four-dimensional matrix for reconceptualising learning outcomes. It is made up of a varied, multi-dimensional set of opportunities, processes and outcomes…

This study sought to evaluate the impact of perceived justice on students' negative emotional responses during service recovery. Quantitative, descriptive multi-variate regression analysis and a cross-sectional study were undertaken using a judgmental sample of 430 students drawn from three public Higher Education Institutions in South Africa. The…

South African schools are tasked with providing sexuality education through the Life Orientation curriculum as a means of challenging continued high rates of HIV, unwanted pregnancy and gender-based violence. While in theory schools are well positioned to provide appropriate knowledge for reproductive health and navigating sexual challenges within…

This article seeks to delve deeper into the discourse about the epistemic decoloniality of Westernised higher education in South Africa. Discrete academic studies have indicated that African Knowledge paradigms have not found a home in South Africa's Westernised academies yet; knowledge patterns remain foreign and colonized. The current curriculum…

This paper analyses the current state of postcolonial and decolonial science teaching, based on a systematic review of the literature, with a special focus on the European context. It shows that currently, a very narrow view on postcolonial science teaching prevails, limiting its scope to former colonies. A total of 227 articles published…

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in…

The indigenous sub-Saharan African philosophy of "ubuntu" that comes down to the expression: "I am a human being because of being with other human beings", developed over centuries. This philosophy, embodying the notion of deep respect for all human beings, is rooted in a humane inclination towards kindness and sound…

This article reflects on our participation in two efforts at education organising at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic -- the national C19 People's Coalition, and the Progressive Organisations Formation (POF). We suggest our experiences as participants in these movements reflect a broader political climate in South Africa in which large-scale,…