COVID-19 is affecting the functioning of most countries globally, creating a situation now described as the “new normal”—a time of unexpected educational change. The national lockdown, accompanied by the closure of educational institutions, brought economic hardship and deepened the digital divide between the rich and the poor. Educational institutions capable of transitioning to an online mode of delivery made that shift, while the majority of South Africa’s schools remained excluded due to poverty and lack of technological infrastructure. The educational sector is at wits’ end to find strategies to curtail the growing digital divide. This paper offers a digital resource mobilisation approach as framework to keep schools on the path to achieving the National Development Plan’s aim of ICT capacitation. To consider developmental possibilities and respond to the digital exclusion of township schools, we asked the question: “What are the online teaching and learning experiences of school stakeholders?” Responses to this question assisted development of a digital resource mobilisation theory that is offered as a viable approach to digital inclusion and social change. Data were collected by telephonic interviews with three teachers, three learners, three school governing body parents, and one school principal. Based on the findings, recommendations for digital inclusion are suggested.
Despite the fact that South Africa attained freedom nearly three decades ago, rural schools still struggle to acquire resources that will deliver quality education. International and local research confirms the critical role of school-community partnerships in advancing quality education and maximising learning outcomes. However, a paucity of research explores school-community partnerships as a nexus for resource mobilisation in South African rural schools. This qualitative study sought to explore and identify school-community partnerships through which schools within rural contexts can mobilise resources, as supported by boundary-spanning leadership and resource mobilisation theories. Data were collected, using free-attitude interviews and transect walk with photo voice, from 15 participants in three schools in a KwaZulu-Natal rural municipality. The school stakeholders included three school principals, three teachers’ school governing bodies (SGBs), three parents’ SGBs, one trade union, two nonprofit organisations, two corporate social responsibility managers, and one local municipality manager. Thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data. Seven main school-community partnerships findings emerged from the data, which were used to make recommendations to address and improve the quality of education in the rural schools. We argue that all hands are required on deck from all school stakeholders, so as to enable the school-community partnerships aimed at resource mobilisation to work.
The process of Africanisation teaching and learning in universities in Africa is an extremely important endeavour; yet, this noble undertaking is conceptually disputed and trivialised in certain scholarly circles. Owing to the negative perceptions associated with Africa, there are reservations associated with Africanisation. Accordingly, there are perceptions that Africanisation may compromise the standard of education, the quality of lecturing staff and research, as well as the general deterioration of infrastructure. Additionally, in some scholarly cycles, Africanisation is regarded as anachronistic and confrontational to global dimensions of knowledge, as well as teaching and learning. On the other hand, proponents of Africanisation uphold the perspective that teaching and learning draw relevance by incorporating local knowledge traditions. Against the backdrop of these conceptual contestations, the concern that dominates this article is that it is imperative that the process of Africanisation be founded on guiding philosophical principles. In this article, the argument is made that notions of humanity and rationality provide a philosophical framework for the process of Africanisation.
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