Access to education is a significant determinant in future success, not only for a country but equally for individuals. Higher Education (HE) thus is an integral part of the Sustainable Development Goals and vital in supporting African development. Despite this, there is often a lack of access to HE in many parts of Africa, distance education can subsequently play an important role in increasing access to education by providing materials online. Even though institutions such as the University of South Africa, a provider of Open Distance Learning (ODL), can open access to HE for many marginalised and peripheral communities, we cannot separate access to ODL education from the debate of access to ICTs. Students in urban areas have a significantly different educational experience to students with poor ICT access in peri-urban and rural areas. This paper explores the nature of access to ICT and how this affects students' ability to access HE.

No abstract

There is now a large literature discussing how mobilities are part of contemporary everyday power geometries and is a resource to which people have unequal access. This body of work has, thus, valorised mobility as a desirable good. Why some people choose immobility and what has to be mobilised to enable this immobility has received much less attention. This paper draws on interviews with international distance education students in Namibia and Zimbabwe studying at the University of South Africa (UNISA) to explore the spatio-temporal underpinnings to why students choose to remain at home while studying abroad and how this is arranged. It outlines the infrastructures of reach that enable student immobility and how their incomplete nature means that students have to rely on extensive systems of mobilities of other people and objects to ensure that their study progresses without their own educational mobility. In doing so we move away from considering immobility as a result of limited access to mobility. Instead, we set out a new research agenda on why and how the infrastructures of immobilities are important in mobility research.

No abstract

No abstract

In this editorial we ask key questions about what it means to publish ‘a journal’ in a world of publishing which is driven by individual article metrics and online access. Seeing the value of journals as venues for intellectual debate, we therefore set out a renewed vision as to how the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers can provide space for more collective and collaborative approaches to geographical debate. This approach revolves around the idea of ‘transactions’ itself and creating spaces in the journal for more commentary, debate and dialogue, alongside continuing to publish landmark papers.

The steady migration of higher education online has accelerated in the wake of Covid-19. The implications of this migration on critical praxis—the theory-in-practice of pedagogy—deserve further scrutiny. This paper explores how teacher and student-led educational technology research and development can help rethink online critical praxis. The paper is based on a recent research project at the University of Edinburgh that speculatively explored the potential for automation in teaching, which generated insights into current and future pedagogical practice among both teachers and students. From this project emerged a series of pedagogical positions that were centred around visions of the future of teaching in response to automation: the pedagogical potential of visibility and invisibility online, transparency, and interrogating the hidden curricula of both higher education and educational technology itself. Through the surfacing of these pedagogical positions, this paper explores how critical pedagogy can be built into the broader teacher function and begins to identify the institutional structures that could potentially impede or accelerate that process.

Background Malnutrition among children under five years of age is a major public health issue in many low and middle-income constrained countries. According to WHO, 5.3 million under-five children die every year and about 45% of these deaths are linked to malnutrition. While it is clear that poverty and lack of food are important factors in children’s malnutrition, less is known about the ways in which local conceptions of malnutrition affect parents’ treatment choices. In Ethiopia, child malnutrition is a severe public health problem and a common cause of child death, and this paper explores the local views of malnutrition and how these shape people’s health-seeking behaviour. Methods The study was conducted in eastern Ethiopia from December 2017 to January 2019, conducting interviews and focus group discussions to explore different views and treatment options malnutrition. The study used grounded theory because it allows new and unexpected themes to arise from the data. Researchers’ assumptions on local terminologies of child malnutrition are also controlled as a principle of ground theory. Results Child malnutrition was not only perceived to be related to lack of food but was understood in a wider local conceptualization of health and illness. Parents often relied on healers because they are long-standing members of the community, possess indigenous knowledge, and cost less than other options. Because health professionals and the community perceive and speak of health very differently, people often do not seek support from health services. The misalignments between how health professionals and healers diagnose and treat malnourished children have implications on the possibilities to implement change to reduce malnutrition. Conclusions Through an exploration of people’s own terminology and understandings of what a malnourished child is, as well as the underlying reasons for their illness, this paper explores how people understand malnutrition symptoms and why many tend to rely on healers rather than seeking care from health centres.