KovsieJournals - University of the Free State (UFS)
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Emergency remote education in higher education institutions during COVID-19: Students’ voices
Get PDFThe outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic was declared a public health emergency of international concern. In South Africa (SA), institutions had to adopt emergency remote education, thus resulting in significant challenges for both students and lecturers. This article investigated students’ views and perceptions towards emergency remote education. The Diffusion of Innovations (DoI) model was used as a lens to understand students’ views regarding emergency remote education. The researchers applied a qualitative research approach within the interpretivist paradigm since it offered an opportunity to explore and understand participants’ lived experiences. Purposive sampling was used. The participants included nine undergraduate students from a public university in Gauteng province. Findings highlighted students’ ambivalent views towards online teaching and learning. Some participants support emergency remote education, while some believed that they did not acquire the depth and scope of the content of the module in comparison to contact lectures. Participants indicated that it was challenging to follow lecturers due to unstable network connectivity. They highlighted socio-economic conditions, lack of resources and an unconducive learning environment affected their education. For effective online teaching and learning, appropriate planning and infrastructure were recommended to be available and accessible to all students
Crisis leadership: Reflecting on the complex role of academic (middle) leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFThis article examines the experiences and coping strategies of four university middle-managers during the unprecedented time of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the research approach of autoethnography to reflect on our experiences and decision-making processes. To reflect on how we managed the rapid change and moved from survivalist actions to more systemic responses in a new and uncertain reality, we draw on concepts which highlight the importance of connectedness, distributive leadership and communicating clearly. Intuitively following these principles, and being decisive and pragmatic are what enabled all four departments to stabilise and move out of a survivalist reactive mode. Two clear patterns emerged from our reflections. Firstly, it is evident that the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing challenges and shone a bright light on existing shortcomings. A second pattern was that there was simply no other option but to improve systems and processes. We conclude that it is vital to continue asking difficult questions about the long-term implications of the profound changes delivered by the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the move to hybrid teaching and how we can regai
Early childhood care and education policy intentions and the realities in rural areas
Get PDFEarly Childhood Development (ECD) policies are primary determinants in the provision of quality early childhood development outcomes. Healthy and safe environments play a critical role in enhancing children’s care and development. This is even more critical for children living in marginalised communities to develop foundational knowledge and thrive beyond their primary years. However, ECD practitioners in rural areas are faced with a severe lack of basic health facilities, care and learning resources. Regardless of this, education and care at these rural ECD centres are expected to continue. Young children are progressed from these inadequate ECD centres to formal schooling for enrolment in Grade R with limited foundational knowledge. The study intended to look into ECD policies and challenges faced by the under-resourced ECD centres whose mandate is to provide quality learning opportunities for young children. The research applied a qualitative approach within an interpretivist paradigm. Data were obtained through semi-structured interviews, writing field notes, observations and photographs. Three (3) education officials, two (2) ECD managers and four (4) practitioners were purposefully sampled. The study found that unregistered ECD centres in rural areas do not have the basic resources required to provide children with foundational knowledge. The findings recommend that ECD practitioners at these centres should be empowered and upskilled in the registration processes to access quality programmes, infrastructure, water and sanitation facilities. This will ensure that young children are provided with a safe and secure learning environment to enhance development opportunities
Bridging gender disparities in the teaching profession in tertiary institutions for globalisation
Get PDFGlobally, female teachers have established careers in teaching. In Nigeria, there are more females in the teaching profession at lower levels of education than at tertiary institutions. This study examined the gender distribution rate of teachers in secondary and tertiary institutions and the factors that caused differences in gender balance at tertiary institutions using mixed method research. A proforma form was used to collect quantitative secondary data, while the interview guide was used to collect qualitative data. Descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage were used to analyse the quantitative data collected to establish the rate of male and female teachers. The qualitative data were analysed thematically with the aid of Atlas ti. The results showed that the rate of female teachers outweighed their male counterparts by 4.35% at secondary schools, while male lecturers outnumbered female lecturers by 54.67% at the tertiary level. Lack of ambition to aspire higher, as well as societal perspective and marriage, among others, were factors responsible for the low rate of female lecturers in tertiary institutions. In order to address the gender gapidentified at tertiary institutions for globalisation, educational policy makers were advised to ensure that tertiary institutions increase the percentage of women in their academic recruitment
SAWUBONA. A theo-ethic for everyday decolonial gestures
Get PDFThis article takes a pentecostalicity engagement with the Zulu notion of Sawubona to construct a theo-ethics of everyday decolonial gestures of life-giving, affirmation and enhancing in the context of global coloniality and cultures of death that define and determine life in modern capitalist societies. Pentecostalicity is grounded in the Spirit’s freedom to greet (Sawubona) creation as happened on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) with pneumatic gestures of redemption, liberation, emancipation and recognition of the singularity of life and co-becoming of all things in the universe. I demonstrate how indigenous forms of greeting embody pentecostalicity resources that could be mobilised to construct a theo-ethics ofeveryday decolonial gestures. I underline that such an approach helps to perceive indigenous greetings such as Sawubona as dynamic philosophical terms saturated with incredible meanings deeply rooted in the pro-existential spirituality of care for life
“This is what black girls do”: lamenting the bruised umntu and resisting dehumanisation
Get PDFThis article seeks to analyse the infamous urine incident that happened at Stellenbosch University in May 2022. This analysis will be done in relation to space, language, and belonging. The question is: To what extent does the urine incident relate to the issues of space, connection through language, and belonging at Stellenbosch University? Indigenous storytelling methodology is employed to answer the above question. The metaphors of amaXhosa (umntu ngumntu ngabantu1 and endleleni2) are used to find a connection and pave the way forward
Confessing church today?
Get PDFConfessing church today? The article responds to the question from Reformed ecumenical circles regarding what it could mean to be a confessing church today. It revisits Karl Barth’s influential contributions to the same discussion during the 1920s and for several decades after that. It calls to mind some major claims from Barth’s authoritative paper for the ecumenical Reformed world in 1925 on the question of whether the Reformed community needed a general confessional document – a proposal in regard to which he strongly rejected both the possibility and the desirability. It then traces the legacy of these claims through the reception history of the Theological Declaration of Barmen, the Confession of Belhar and the Accra Covenant on Justice and the Ecology, and thereby suggests possible answers to the original question
Pointing out persuasion in Philemon: Fifty readings of Paul’s rhetoric from the fourth to the eighteenth century
Get PDFThis informative and insightful work reveals the vast field of the history and life of the Letter to Philemon after it was written. This approach to biblical texts has received greater attention in recent years when the reader’s contribution to the meaning of textswas first recognised. This attention to the reception of biblical texts is the special subject of the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (EBR), which started in 2009 and of which 20 volumes have already been published. This encyclopedia surveys not only sermons and commentaries, but also the various ways in which biblical texts have been received, such as in the creative arts, including paintings, sculptures, novels, films and music. Professor Tolmie’s study, however, focuses on how commentators and preachers have “pointed out persuasion” in this Pauline letter. He has selected, as the subtitle indicates, 50 readings of Philemon from three periods, the early church (starting with Ambrosiaster in chapter 1), the Middle Ages (chapter 2), and the period from the 16th to the 18th century (Chapter 3). For each of these interpreters, Tolmie offers a brief introduction and then focuses on the way they explain the rhetorical situation. He then focuses on the way each author explains the rhetorical strategy by moving through the letter, section by section. Chapter 4, the conclusion, is actually a synthesis, in which Tolmie looks for tendencies in the interpretation of Paul’s letter by focusing first on the way the rhetorical situation is imagined and then on Paul rhetorical strategies in the different literary units of Philemon
Corpses and numbers: the portrayal of black African refugees in It Will Be Chaos by Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo
Get PDFIn this article, I provide a literary analysis of the award-winning 2018 documentary, It Will Be Chaos, to highlight the discursive significance of its portrayal of the black African refugees who survived the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck. The documentary by Italian filmmakers Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo focuses on the turbulent journeys of African and Middle Eastern asylum- seekers through the Mediterranean Sea at a time that marks the beginning of the so-called European refugee crisis. Though I focus especially on one of the main protagonists, Aregai Mehari, who survived the shipwreck, I also consider a significant difference in the portrayal of Aregai and that of a Syrian refugee family who are the film’s other main protagonists. These representations, I argue, offer important clues for understanding the often problematic and unique ways in which the African refugee in particular, and Africa in general, figures in contemporary European imaginaries
