Page 20 - Transformation Indaba Report

3. Teaching and Learning: general features (slide)
• In addition to bridging programmes; remedial academic development courses, such as English for Academic
Purposes; and extended degree programmes, a number of the universities were now offering first-year courses
which had been designed to address a number of goals simultaneously.
• Increasing numbers of universities across the system were introducing credit-bearing first-year “grounding”
modules and courses. These included modules on African culture and philosophy; decolonising understanding
and knowledge; and humanising pedagogies.
• More than half of the country’s universities had developed or revised, finalised or approved their language policies
between 2016 and 2019.
• The decolonisation projects and processes reported by the universities were still generally in either their initiation
or conceptualisation phase in the 2018 and 2019 annual reports, or in the early stages of implementation.
• The annual reports showed that there was a wide disparity among the 26 universities in integrating ICTs in teaching
and learning.

decolonisaTion
Issues linked to the decolonisation of the university included:
The decolonisation discourse fostered transformation in that […] changing the nature of knowledge, decolonising the cur-
it invigorated debate on institutional culture, symbols, naming riculum, deconstructing teaching and learning, the hidden
and commemoration, as well as the whiteness of academia in curriculum of institutional identity, architecture and culture,
some institutions; and produced significant reflection on the patterns of socialisation, Africanist perspectives, multiling-
epistemological dimension of transformation in higher edu- ualism, and the contribution of internationalisation to the
cation. At DUT, decolonisation was seen as a response to a decolonisation of the curriculum, economic transformation,
range of challenges facing the institution and its students. and community engagement. (DUT, 2019)

4. Research and Knowledge production (slide)

• All institutions were undertaking activities to enhance their research function. These have improved the diversity
of those who produce knowledge and their institutional location in the university system.
• The universities reported increasing numbers of rated researchers and prestigious research chairs, some of whom
were specifically transformation-themed or focused on transformation-relevant research.
• The universities reported a substantial increase in knowledge outputs. This included HDUs.
• There has been a clear shift to publishing increasingly in quality, high-impact journals.
• The institutions reported having introduced a wide variety of support mechanisms, some of which, with the
support of the NRF, were specifically focused on emerging academics, and black and female academics, e.g.
mentorship programmes, support for the attainment of master’s and doctoral qualifications, and sabbatical grants.
• Many institutions were conducting significant institutional research, especially by means of surveys, some of which
would benefit from becoming standardised and implemented system-wide (such as in the case of graduate tracer
studies).
• A growing number of student surveys was being used to inform interventions aimed at improving student engage-
ment; the student experience; and institutional culture, thereby strengthening social cohesion and improving
student throughput rates and the prospects of academic success. Examples included: First-year experience surveys;
Institutional climate/culture surveys for students; The South African Survey on Student Engagement; Postgraduate
experience surveys; Graduate exit surveys; A drop-out study; and Graduate tracer studies/alumni surveys. He went
on to say that the surveys proved to be extremely useful.

NelsoN MaNdela UNiversity • traNsforMatioN iNdaba • 2022 14