KovsieJournals - University of the Free State (UFS)
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The challenges of litigating the right to basic education in South Africa: Is the right realisable immediately or subject to resource limitation?
Get PDFThe right to education is embodied in section 29 of the South African Constitution. Section 29(1) distinguishes between the right to basic education and the right to further education: the former is unqualified, while the right to further education has an internal qualifier. Like other socio-economic rights in the Constitution – such as the rights to housing, healthcare, food, water and social security – the right to further education imposes a positive obligation on the state to take reasonable measures within available means to realise the right progressively. The courts’ approach to this duality has thus far been that the right to basic education, unlike the right to further education, does not depend on the availability of resources or progressive realisation: it is “realisable immediately”. The difficulty with this approach is that it assumes that the right to basic education can be enforceable without resource implications as a limitation common to all socio-economic rights. The purpose of this article is to interrogate this assumption. The central hypothesis is that the right to education can be better realised if it is understood as an economic right par excellence subject to the common limitations applicable to the enforceability of economic rights in South Africa and at the international level.
 
Global Trends in Climate Communication Research on Print Media
Get PDFThis article reports on a bibliometric investigation of peerreviewed research articles on climate change reporting in the press, primarily in newspapers, from January 2013 to December 2023. The results indicate that while there has been a general increase in the amount of climate communication research, it is heavily tilted towards highincome countries in terms of the region of research focus and the host countries of the authors. Moreover, the discipline was found to be restricted in its discussion of public response and the influence of stakeholders in climate conversations. Additionally, the study points to an emerging pattern of interconnectedness between research on communication of global health crises like Covid-19 and climate change. The study highlights an urgent need for diversity in accommodating voices from the Global South for more holistic growth of climate communication
Kobus Schoeman: A “bridge-builder” practical theologian, bridging divides in the publics of the church, the academy, and society
Get PDFThe concept of “bridge-builder” is used within the context of higher education, understood as a form of engaged scholarship, where researchers function within both the academy and their field of practice or industry. The article focuses on the academic contribution of Prof. Kobus Schoeman whose career can be described as revolving between society, his work as a spiritual leader and minister within the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa (DRC), and as academic/researcher at the Universities of Pretoria and the Free State. The article focuses first on how his sociology background impacted on his understanding of the church and, more specifically, congregations as a researchable phenomenon, and how insights and experience in statistical analysis accompanied his theological journey and its positive implications for the three publics. Secondly, the article focuses on his theological contribution, illustrated through the themes in his writings, the students he supervised, as well as the projects he led with colleagues locally and globally. Thirdly, the article considers the impact of these two publics ecumenically and societally for the South African context and its global relevance. These endeavours show the many ways in which Schoeman can be described as a “bridge-builder” who refused to be irrelevant and impractical in his theological journey and who demonstrates how the local congregation can become a safe space for reflexive praxis, an “ecclesiology from below” in the truest sense
Some implications of the condition of South Africa’s public sector fixed infrastructure
Get PDFThis third article in a planned series on the state of South Africa’s public sector fixed infrastructure examines the implications of its deteriorating condition. The first two articles focused on efforts to monitor infrastructure conditions and on studies of its state and findings. This review outlines the extent to which the poor condition of infrastructure negatively impacts on the economy and quality of life, providing specific examples from sectors such as land transport, electricity, water, and waste water, with agribusiness as a case study. The article discusses how the failures of institutions such as Eskom (including its neglect of capacity expansion), PRASA, Transnet, and municipal authorities have hindered economic growth and stifled improvements in citizens’ quality of life. Central to this analysis is the argument that the root cause is institutional breakdown: the failure of these institutions preceded the deterioration of infrastructure, and only through fundamental institutional reform can these challenges be addressed. The article concludes that institutional reform should be a primary focus in addressing South Africa’s infrastructure crisis
Marcien Towa, father of Cameroonian Critical Theory: a comparison with Max Horkheimer
Get PDFIn this paper, I examine the extent to which Marcien Towa (1931-2014) can be considered the Father of Cameroonian Critical Theory. In this regard, I compare what can be called his social philosophy with the project of a critical theory of society, as outlined by Max Horkheimer (1895-1973). I specifically consider Marcien Towa’s idea of philosophy, which I confront with Horkheimer’s project from the perspectives offered by their sociopolitical premises, conceptual references, and progressive goals. On each of these aspects, I discover sufficient correspondences that allow me to argue that Towa and Horkheimer, who barely knew each other, formulated a somewhat similar claim, namely to provide a critical theory of society, whose aim is not only to understand society but more importantly to change it
Teachers’ lived experiences of school violence and their coping strategies
Get PDFSchool violence perpetrated against teachers is becoming a scourge in South African schools, and as a result, teachers feel stressed, depressed, unsafe and demotivated to continue teaching. This problem, which has had a severely negative impact on the quality of teaching and learning, has also permeated the entire educational system in South Africa. Hence, the emergence of this study, which applied the routine activity theory also to investigate factors influencing perpetrators (learners) to target their victims (teachers) in the absence of capable guardians. This qualitative study adopted a phenomenological case study design to establish teachers’ lived experiences of school violence and their coping strategies to improve teaching experiences. The sample size comprised eight purposively selected high school teachers who had experienced at least one form of violence at a school in the Free State Province. Data were collected via audio recordings during face-to-face semi-structured interviews, which were then transcribed and analysed following Braune and Clarke’s thematic analysis approach. The findings indicate that the teachers interviewed were emotionally stressed and demotivated by their experiences of school violence. Additionally, data revealed that the teachers in the study expressed strong feelings of insecurity and disappointment with the teaching profession. Regarding teachers’ coping strategies, the findings indicate that school-based counselling services and sharing experiences with colleagues help to alleviate the influences of school violence. It is recommended that incidents of school violence experienced by teachers be reduced or even eliminated if all relevant stakeholders consider the coping strategies
Ecological hermeneutics as a current trend in Old Testament research in the Book of Psalms
Get PDFThis article addresses an urgent ecological crisis of this century. It explores the transformative potential of ecological hermeneutics as a current trend in Old Testament research in the context of the Book of salms. As we face the unprecedented ecological threat of global devastation, this article identifies a new kind of speech emerging from current ecological trends in biblical research. The article examines the historical implications of biblical texts in the discussion about ecological degradation by providing an overview of the development of ecological hermeneutics. It then presentsmethodologies such as dark green religion and the ecobosadi approach and advocates for ways in which they reshape culture and have the potential to play a crucial role in reshaping it
The right to education for children with autism in Lesotho: A review of the legal and policy frameworks
Get PDFA child’s access to equal educational opportunities is considered a basic human right, which extends even to children with disabilities. However, the realisation of international agreements protecting this right lies in individual countries’ interpretation and implementation of such rights. This study examined how the right to education for children with autism is provided for, protected and promoted in Lesotho’s existing legislation and policy frameworks. A critical policy analysis was employed to explore how explicit or implicit the language used in the legal and policy frameworks is to generate opportunities and/or social inequalities in realising this right for autistic children. Reviewed legislation and policies were purposively selected to address the phenomenon of the study. The documents selected were four legislations; the Constitution of Lesotho (Lesotho, 1993), Education Act, No.3 of 2010 (Lesotho, 2010), Children’s Protection and Welfare Act 2011 (Lesotho, 2016b), Persons with Disability Equity Act of 2011 (Lesotho, 2021), and two policy documents; National Disability and Rehabilitation Policy of 2011 (Lesotho, 2011a), and Lesotho Inclusive Education Policy of 2018 (Lesotho, 2018). The findings revealed that while there are laws, including the Constitution of Lesotho (Lesotho, 1993), and policies that recognise the right of children with disabilities to education in Lesotho, there seemed to be no legal obligation to warrant the provision of this right for children with autism. Thus, this may have a negative impact on the provision and access to equitable education for these children and, in turn, the right to education for children with autism. Therefore, a legislation and policy review is recommended if this right is to be realised for children with autism
Pedagogy with a heartbeat: The transformative potential of citizen science in education
Get PDFOver the past few years, we have worked together in a citizen science project called Diamonds on the Soles of our Feet (see also Goldin et al. 2021, Goldin et al., 2023). In this project we engaged with 420 young learners in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. We came to see participating schools as collaborative ecosystems where young citizens become entangled with water through experiential encounters that make science alive and relevant. Through our engagement with citizen science, we experienced the transformative power of affect and the relevance of emotions in education as a social and political project. In our pedagogy we depart from the idea that human beings are separate from the biosphere, thus recognising the interdependency of all life forms on earth. We believe that keeping science education in laboratories and libraries affirms what Bozalek and Zemblyas (2023) call “privileged irresponsibility”. We propose that citizen science and its transformative potential can be one way to redress such irresponsibility. Through impactful encounters with human – nonhuman entanglement and the emotions which are evoked in this process, citizen science can create opportunities for responseability (Bozalek & Zemblyas, 2023), through teaching and learning with the heart. Such entanglement also resonates with relationality as the currency of care theorists. In the context of our citizen science work, caring for unfamiliar others is a form of non-humancentred care with unfamiliar water bodies in which the binary of inside-outside learning becomes porous as the geographies of water penetrate the classroom walls. In Diamonds on the Soles of our Feet, we noted how watery spaces and images move back and forth caring-with and through human bodies – waterbodies to school, school to waterbodies. The entanglement with the nonhuman resonates with Massumi’s (2015) notion of becoming where there is an unrolling of an event that is a becoming of two together