This paper is based on a study conducted to establish if academic practice in a university designated as Azania is aligning or diverting from the expectations of the rising knowledge society in South Africa. The paper is motivated by the emerging national needs specific to the production, dissemination and application of knowledge as the country…

In this article I shall reflect on the issue of humanising pedagogy, taking a view that dehumanisation, in general, comes from two kinds of oppression. I shall argue that, apart from oppression of the political type, tertiary education is also a victim of another type of oppression which contributes to its dehumanisation, viz. the oppression…

Postgraduate output is important in any country's knowledge development and their knowledge economy. The development of postgraduate output especially at master's and PhD levels in South Africa is at risk due to its slow pace. An argument that can be made is that undergraduate experiences lend to postgraduate access and success. This article…

Taking the example of post-1989 teacher education reform in Lithuania, and comparing that with teacher education reform in South Africa, a country that also underwent a total societal reconstruction at the same time as Lithuania, this paper defends the thesis that the configuration of education at grass roots level, is the outcome of a dialectical…

The role of research-embedded higher education is regarded as one of the driving forces of any growing economy. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are recognized, among their peers, for their quality of research outcome. Hence, with growing emphasis on research worldwide, HEIs strive hard to improve their research output. The proposed study…

The pace of global transformation places a great emphasis on the need for development, with higher education identified as a key agent in the development of a knowledge economy. Higher education systems have been challenged with providing the necessary skilled person-power to complement the changing labour market. Postgraduate supervision is a…

Research is conceptualised in multiple and contradictory ways within and across Historically Black Universities (HBUs) with consequences for knowledge production. Under the apartheid regime, research was deliberately underdeveloped in such institutions and this continues to have an impact. We argue that if HBUs are to move from the constraints of…

The paper addresses the question of what we should make of Michael Young's recent work with respect to curriculum theory by considering the particular case of South African curriculum reform. The paper thus traces two trajectories: the evolution of Michael Young's ideas over time and South African curriculum reform in the post-apartheid period.…

The ways in which Africanisation and decolonisation in the South African academy have been framed and carried out have been called into question over the past several years, most notably in relation to modes of silencing and epistemic negation, which have been explicitly challenged through the student actions. In a similar vein, Canada's…

Drawing on the theoretical and analytical tools from the sociology of education, in particular the work of Basil Bernstein and Karl Maton, the paper explores the tensions within curriculum reform discourses and how these tensions play out in different global contexts. The analysis focuses on two curriculum reform policies--Hong Kong and South…

The role of knowledge in the current knowledge economy cannot be overly emphasised. Successful regions are continuously being linked to excellence in the production, accumulation, and application of knowledge. Universities have increasingly been at the centre of such knowledge production, application and transfer. Yet, there is little research and…

After decades of decline, African higher education is now arguably in a new era of revival. With the prevalence of knowledge economy discourse, national governments in Africa and their development partners have increasingly aligned higher education with poverty reduction plans and strategies. Research capacity has become a critical development…

The knowledge society arises from the combination of four interdependent elements: the production of knowledge through research, its transmission through education, its dissemination through information and communication technologies, and its exploitation through innovation. For this reason, higher education institutions (HEIs) are the main…

Transformation in higher education in South Africa over the last 20 years has been strongly shaped by post-apartheid pressures. Recent research shows that South Africa's current higher education system can be described as medium knowledge-producing and differentiated, with low participation and high attrition. In the decade following 1994, both…

In this paper, following some brief introductory remarks, I provide a context to this Symposium by presenting a brief autobiographical account explaining how I became involved in curriculum theory and the idea of a knowledge-led curriculum and how I was led to write the paper under discussion. I then make brief comments on each of the six papers…