Unisa 2008 Research Report - University of South Africa

S A R C H I C H A I R I N D E V E L O P M E N T E D U C AT I O N
The South African Research Chairs Initiative
(SARChI) is a strategically focused knowledge
and human resource intervention that has three
interrelated operational objectives that set the
parameters for the goals of the SARChI–nRF
Chair in Development Education at Unisa:
• Stimulation of strategic research across the
knowledge spectrum and thereby increasing
the level of excellence in research areas of
national and international importance
• Creating research career pathways for highly
skilled, high quality young and mid-career
researchers that effectively addresses historical
racial, gender and age imbalances
• Improving and accelerating the training of
highly qualified personnel through research.
The Chair in Development Education is
expected to challenge education and other
disciplinary knowledge areas from a developmental
standpoint, undergirded by the African
perspective. All its activities are transdisciplinary,
transversal and transnational. This implies
extensive outreach, consultations, research and
deep enquiry that would lead to the preparation
of a framework document defining the
parameters of the field of Development Education,
with clear propositions as to how such an
area reads itself into the structure, strategy,
and content of Unisa’s ongoing academic
undertakings.
The Chair has already taken huge strides and
impacted on various levels, as can be seen by
the following highlights of its activities during
its first year.
emBedding within unisa’s
stRategic plan
Under the leadership of the Pro Vice-Chancellor,
Unisa has embarked on transformation
processes in key areas within which the SARChI
Chair’s expertise and involvement have been
sought. These include curriculum, assessment,
multi-, inter- and transdisciplinarity (MIT),
Africanisation and indigenous knowledge (Ik)
systems. The following are just some of the
activities the Chair undertook in these areas:
• Pro Vice-Chancellor’s summit ‘Towards a
new institutional and academic identity:
revision, rehabilitation and rebirth’. Participated
in various roles including as panellist,
facilitator, and gave a plenary address on
Knowledge production, innovation and Africa’s
development: challenges for a transforming
institution.
• Respondent to Dr T karunakaran, Unisa’s
Founders lecture keynote speaker, on his
address The concept of a university in a
developing society.
• keynote address The teacher, the learner and
society: balancing the expectations of didactics
and dialectics in education at the ‘Teacher
education at a distance: trends and
challenges’ conference.
• Seminar address Towards problematising
xenophobia: confronting the inhuman face of
humanism at seminar convened by Unisa’s
Research Directorate and the School of
Graduate Studies in the College of Human
Sciences.
• Interdisciplinary workshops and seminars
with postgraduate students convened by the
Research Directorate and the School of
Graduate Studies in the College of Human
Sciences.
paRtneRships and
collaBoRation
This SARChI Chair has generated a lot of excitement
and positive responses from different
national institutions and international bodies.
These are a few of the Chair’s involvements in
2008:
• Paper: Regional conference on ‘Universities
as Catalysts for Sustainable Rural Development’
hosted by the Centre for Education
Policy Development. (Paper: Culture, language,
indigenous knowledge and the role of
universities in sustainable rural development.)
• Panel member: SABC Africa. (Panel discussion:
Universities as catalysts for sustainable
rural development.)
• Paper: The South African Human Rights
Commission (SAHRC) project ‘Unity in diversity’
to promote national dialogue on ‘Advancing
constitutional values in South Africa’.
(Paper: When democracy and human rights
are not enough.) (To be published in the
journal Perspectives in education in 2009.)
• keynote address: British Association for
International and Comparative Education
Societies (BAICES) conference on ‘Internationalisation
in education: culture, context
and difference’. (keynote: Education, culture
and society in a globalising world: implications
for comparative and international education.
(To be published in British journal Compare
in 2009.)
Prof. Catherine Hoppers,
Incumbent of the SARCHI Chair
• keynote address; Department of Science and
Technology ‘youth and Science Partnership
Forum’. (keynote: Making science accessible
for all.)
• keynote address: Human Sciences Research
Council (HSRC), International Social Science
Council (ISSC), Council of Philosophy and
Humanistic Studies (CIPSH) and national
Research Foundation (nRF) symposium on
‘knowledge and transformation: social and
human sciences in Africa’. (keynote: Renegotiating
agency in knowledge production,
innovation and Africa’s development in the
context of the triage society.)
• Retreat facilitator: ‘Reflection and strategy
on development education goals with special
focus on science and society, peace and
sustainable development, indigenous knowledge
and the integration of knowledge
systems, and universities and society in
Africa. A high level retreat that brought
together professors from the natural and
social sciences, members of the Academy of
Science of South Africa (ASSAF), and Unisa
staff and students.
• Panel member: UnESCO ‘21st Century
Talks’. (Panel discussion: The future of
lifelong learning in Africa. The other panel
members were the European Commissioner
for Education, Mr Jan Figel, and the advisor
to former French president Mitterand,
Mr Jacques Attali.)
• Panel member: Academy of Science of South
Africa (ASSAF) (Panel: ‘Future of humanities
in South Africa’.)
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