South African Journal of Higher Education: Announcements

SAJHE Annual Report 2025

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 11:27:26 +0000

Report on Volume 36 (Six Issues) of SAJHE

Volume 36 presents a comprehensive and multidimensional exploration of contemporary higher education, particularly within the South African and broader African context. Across its six issues, the volume demonstrates strong coherence around the evolving identity, governance, pedagogy, and social responsibility of universities.

Collectively, the volume reflects engagement at three interconnected levels:

Structural and Systemic Dimensions

Several issues examine higher education as a regulated, contested, and politically situated system. Themes include:

Academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and public accountability
Governance, leadership, and organisational culture
Legal frameworks and policy reform
Managerialism, corporatisation, and competitive intelligence
Political activism and the moral positioning of universities

These contributions position the university within broader socio-political and democratic struggles, highlighting tensions between autonomy, accountability, and transformation.

Pedagogical and Curriculum Innovation

A strong emphasis throughout the volume is placed on teaching and learning reform, including:

Supervision and research development
Curriculum transformation and disciplinary renewal
Extended curriculum programmes and student transition
First-year experience and academic literacy
Digital pedagogy, AI, blended learning, and online assessment
Work-integrated learning and professional readiness

This strand presents higher education as an evolving pedagogical space responding to technological shifts, post-pandemic realities, and demands for employability and epistemic renewal.

Equity, Inclusion, and Transformation

Across the six issues, there is sustained attention to:

Decolonisation and indigenous knowledge
Gender equity and LGBTQ+ inclusion
Academic exclusion and under-preparedness
Multilingualism and mother tongue education
Student well-being and academic staff well-being

These themes underscore higher education as a site of social justice contestation and democratic reform.

Taken as a whole, Volume 36 portrays higher education as:

A regulated system shaped by law, policy, and governance pressures
A pedagogical laboratory adapting to digital transformation and curricular change
A professional formation space concerned with graduate competence and employability
A political and ethical arena negotiating academic freedom, activism, and public accountability
A transformative project grappling with equity, decolonisation, and epistemic justice

The progression across the six issues reveals a movement from structural and systemic concerns (Issue 1), to internal institutional practice (Issue 2), to practice-oriented pedagogical innovation (Issue 3), to deep normative debates on academic freedom (Issue 4), to political and ethical engagement (Issue 5), and finally to student-centred performance, curriculum, and professional identity questions (Issue 6).

Volume 36 offers a sustained and coherent engagement with higher education as a dynamic, contested, and evolving ecosystem. It captures the complexity of universities operating under conditions of technological disruption, democratic transformation, institutional accountability, and social inequality.

Overall, the volume reflects a sector simultaneously negotiating governance pressures, pedagogical reform, political responsibility, and inclusion – positioning higher education as both a site of constraint and a space of possibility.

All articles published in this volume underwent rigorous peer review and were returned to authors for revision. We are pleased to note that the authors responded thoughtfully and diligently to reviewers’ comments, strengthening their arguments, clarifying conceptual frameworks, refining methodologies, and enhancing the overall scholarly contribution of their work. The revised articles reflect a serious engagement with critique and a commitment to advancing knowledge in the field of higher education.

Our editorial office remained actively involved throughout the process of selecting, coordinating reviews, and compiling the six issues. Considerable care was taken to ensure that each contribution met the journal’s scholarly standards and aligned meaningfully with the thematic orientations of the respective issues. The final published articles attest to a high level of quality – both theoretically robust and practically relevant – offering informed, critical, and contextually grounded analyses of South African higher education.

We extend our sincere gratitude to our reviewers for their rigorous, constructive, and collegial evaluations, which were indispensable in strengthening the scholarship presented in this volume. We are equally appreciative of the authors for their intellectual commitment, responsiveness, and dedication to producing well-informed and impactful contributions. Together, these collaborative efforts have resulted in a volume that meaningfully advances debate, reflection, and research on higher education in South Africa.

Yusef Waghid
Editor-in-Chief South African Journal of Higher Education

ASSAF-and-SciELO Guidelines for the use of AI (artificial intelligence) Tools and Rexources in Research communication

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 06:50:00 +0000

ASSAF update on the Code of Conduct for Research

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 07:28:01 +0000

The Academy of Sciende of South Africa would like to take this opportunity to thank all stakeholders for the overwhelming responses and comments in the development of the code of conduct for Research, as per Chapter 7 of POPIA.

The Code of Conduct was submitted to the information Regulator (Regulator) on 19 April 2023 for review. The Regulator is required to give notice in the Gazette, inviting affected parties to make written submissions before the code can be approved. This will give all the stakeholdres another opportunity to submit comments for consideration before accreditation. the guidelines from the Regulator stipulate that it will take up to 13 weeks to approve a Code once it has been submitted.

The submitted copy of the Code is available on the ASSAF wesite : https://www.assaf.org.za/popia-a-code-of-conduct-for-research/

Please take note that comments can only be submitted to the Regulator once the notice is issued.

We thank all who have contributed to the discussion and debate to develop a Code of Conduct for Research that will provide both legal and practical guidelines on the interpretation of POPIA in the research sector.

Kind Regards

ASSAF POPIA Committee

26 April 2023

USING AI AND AI-ASSISTED WRITING TECHNOLOGIES IN ARTICLES SUBMITTED TO SAJHE

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:05:17 +0000

Additional author guidelines

It is the responsibility of authors and co-authors to submit articles to SAJHE that do not infringe on any copyright right violations.

SAJHE will continuously monitor developments around AI and AI-assisted tools such as large language models that can generate work used to create academic articles.

If AI and AI-assisted tools are used in the research approaches of the submissions, the authors should disclose having used such technologies if the article has been accepted for publication. Failing to do so would lead to a removal of the article from SAJHE’s website.

AI and AI-assisted should not be used to alter tables and other images that are considered for inclusion in articles. However, spelling or grammar checkers, and reference managers can be used without disclosure in the preparation of articles for submission to SAJHE.

Editorial response to articles that might have succumbed to AI and AI-assisted technologies

We recognise that the continuous development of software like Turnitin to detect generic AI-assisted writing such produced with the use of ChatGPT. Our reviewers and editorial committee rely on Turnitin to detect any plagiarism that might appear in the articles and inform authors duly of their responsibility to withdraw such submissions to SAJHE.

We encourage our reviewers to identify ‘fake’ references referred to as ‘hallucinations’ to address concerns about academic articles submitted to the journal.

Reviewers are also encouraged to identify generic writing through the assistance of ChatGTP and other AI-assisted technologies that might appear in the articles submitted for consideration to SAJHE.

1 March 2023

SAJHE Publication dates 2026 : Volume 40

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Ethics Approval

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

South African Journal of Education (SAJHE) makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in our publications. However, our publisher, and our licensor (HESA) make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by SAJHE. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. SAJHE shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to, or arising out of the use of the Content.