This paper reflects on the results of a national quantitative survey on giving in South Africa. It explores the extent and character of giving; who gives, to whom, with what intention? The survey results revealed that South Africa is richly resourced with a diverse and multicultural spectrum of giving behaviors, which are commonplace in everyday life. The spectrum of giving behaviors is so diverse in shape and form that it contradicts many of the basic assumptions of the philanthropic literature, which locate the act of giving primarily in the domain of the wealthy and powerful.

While all students are affected by the advent of the Covid‑19 pandemic, the first‑year student population remains a special category of vulnerability for higher education. This is on account of the way the Covid‑19 pandemic has disrupted their transition into university and complicated the nature of their entry into and through the formal academic cycle. This article uses the notion of a ‘double transition’ as a framework for positioning and locating the first‑year student transition within the context of the prevailing Covid‑19 pandemic. ‘Double transition’ refers to an additional transition coupled with that of the first‑year transition, with regard to the extraordinary situation of students navigating their entry into the unfamiliar terrain of academia while simultaneously navigating the Covid‑19 pandemic. The article provides a circumscribed summary of the effects of Covid‑19 on university students and looks to describe and explain the nature and shape of first‑year transitions in relation to the transition necessitated by the Covid‑19 pandemic. It concludes with four key strategies for supporting first‑year students as the pandemic continues.

The focus of this paper is a particular set of actions which have become broadly known as ‘service delivery’ protests. It considers various protest datasets currently being used to inform understandings of ‘service delivery’ protest action. The limitations of each of these databases are highlighted and discussed in order to stimulate thinking about the possible development of independent, critical and accessible sources of protest data. Recommendations are made as to the improvement of quantitative data sources on protest action. The paper argues that ‘service delivery’ is a complex phenomenon which requires further critical examination as well as rigorous and co-ordinated data-collection initiatives. It concludes that the development of comprehensive, informed and reliable data sources can support improved critical reflections on the meanings and consequences of ‘service delivery’ protest for purposes of transformation and development at community-level.

No abstract