Sindile Amina Ngubane

University of South Africa | unisa · Institute of Open and Distance Learning (IODL)

This qualitative study intentionally gathered insights from 12 educators of varying seniority across three schools in the Nkangala Education District, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, regarding their experiences with mobile learning (facilitated through Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp Messenger) as a professional development and knowledge retention...

In South Africa, higher education is a constitutionally enshrined basic human right and one of the cornerstones for accomplishing the ideals of offenders’ rehabilitation and preparation for life beyond bars. However, acquiring higher education whilst serving a sentence in a correctional centre is compounded by many institutional challenges especial...

In knowledge-based institutions such as schools, productivity is associated with effective creation and application of operational knowledge. Using collective fingers theory, this qualitative case study explored how a considerably effective partnership between a South African township secondary school and a network of community organizations/struct...

Propounded by reflective theory, this qualitative case study drew on TVET lecturers' reflective evaluations of factors that they considered to have a bearing on optimal supervision and delivery of the National Certificate (Vocational) curriculum. Data for the study were collected from participants across three campuses of a TVET college in the East...

Although significant research has already been conducted on the intricacies of the criminal record in South Africa and internationally, literature points to a disjuncture between research and policy, especially around topics relating to access to higher education (HE) and admission to professional registration councils by formerly incarcerated stud...

The undeniable impact of implementing school management systems on the efficiency of school administration in the Global South is evident. Nevertheless, the implementation of school management systems can provide significant challenges, particularly in educational settings with little resources, such as township schools. This qualitative study exam...

In line with the philosophy of inclusion and various legislative instruments which encourage 'education for all', ODL institutions have made provision for sign language interpreters (SLIs) to facilitate participation for deaf students. Although, some studies have examined issues of virtual learning and the ODL programme; a paucity of studies assess...

This qualitative study involves six lecturers who have supervised students with disabilities. Participants were purposively selected and interviewed telephonically using semi-structured interviews. The study adopted a thematic data analysis approach to identify patterns in supervision experiences. The paper problematises a deficit approach that is...

Open educational resources (OER) are gaining popularity in higher education spaces and more attention in open distance e-learning (ODeL) institutions as they are gradually substituting printed prescribed textbooks in the teaching and learning space. The adoption and development of OER have been researched; however, the roles of knowledge management...

This special issue is focused on the topic of open educational resources (OER).

Open educational resources (OER) are gaining popularity in higher education spaces and more attention in open distance e-learning (ODeL) institutions as they are gradually substituting printed prescribed textbooks in the teaching and learning space. The adoption and development of OER have been researched; however, the roles of knowledge management...

All public service organisations in the world use social policies as a guide to render services for the greater good of their citizenries. Operating in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) implies that schools need to reinvent their role (administratively, pedagogically and otherwise) to ensure that they become catalysts for t...

The consumption of technical and vocational education and training has increased exponentially over the past two decades. In terms of inclusion, it is without a doubt that today’s TVET sector is a far cry from what it was before the democratic government took over the baton from the apartheid government. TVET has become a refuge to many hopefuls fr...

Foundation Phase (FP) educators are deemed productive when cohorts of learners who pass through their hands cope well with learning beyond the initial three grades of schooling. In South Africa, despite empirical evidence showing that FP educators in historically disadvantaged schools contend with overcrowded classes, low parental involvement and a...

Literature frequently describes how ineffective implementation of instructional policy frameworks can make distance learning a lonely and unrewarding academic pursuit, characterized by high student drop-out rates, high failure rates and academic exclusion. In trying to mitigate this catastrophe, academic departments in distance learning institution...

The funding of higher-education students contributes to their skills development and renders them employable and self-sustainable. Research indicates that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) (a South African tertiary education government funding agency) has done remarkably well in funding a large number of students from historically d...

Ubuntu is an African philosophy, which translates to the idea that a person’s existence is intrinsically linked to the existence of others. The individual–collective relationship is based on core principles of interdependence, care, respect, and sharing, which are compared to inclusivity values like togetherness, equality, participation, and accept...

Background: Assistive technologies (ATs) enable persons with visual impairment (PwVI) to equitably benefit from public library resources and services as their sighted counterparts. However, the extent to which this facility is available and used at public libraries in less-developed countries remains largely unknown. Objectives: This study reports...

With the emergence of COVID-19 this brought about changes in teaching and learning worldwide. In most parts of the world including South Africa students were sent home in March 2020 and learning was moved to an online virtual learning environment. In the process, the government implemented various stringent measures to flatten the curve of new infe...

This chapter explores the intersecting facets of people with disabilities and open distance learning. It examines how the increased decolonisation of Higher Education (HE) and experiences for students with disabilities in a South Africa university can be positively and negatively affected. I relate the biggest issues to the institutional level stra...

Technology mediated pedagogies of the 21st century present new and unprecedented challenges for incarcerated tertiary students. The researchers, employing a qualitative exploratory research design, sought to explore the learning experiences of UNISA students incarcerated at Baviaanspoort Medium Correctional Centre. Six participants were sampled pur...

This chapter explores the intersecting facets of people with disabilities and open distance learning. It examines how the increased decolonization of higher education (HE) and experiences for students with disabilities in a South Africa university can be positively and negatively affected. We relate the biggest issues to the institutional level str...

The purpose of this literature-based study was to investigate the way in which psychological and disability perspectives, in a South African context, can be accommodated in the Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education model to promote inclusive approaches in mobile learning. This model aims to guide the way in which learning material...

The transition from basic education to higher education and, finally, to work, can be difficult to negotiate for any young person. Such a transition can be challenging, particularly within the current labour market conditions accompanying the social and economic changes facing developing industrial nations. Students with disabilities face additiona...

Nationally and internationally, higher education institutions offer teaching practice as one of the teacher training support strategies to develop pre-service teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and skills. The University of South Africa is one of the higher education institutions that offer open and distance learning and has a high number of pre-servi...

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools provide an ideal mechanism by which students can interact closely with their lecturers in an open distance learning (ODL) context. This is especially true for students with disabilities who require access through alternative formats. This paper demonstrates teaching and learning practices in an O...

Students with disabilities have been going through different forms of discrimination and exclusion. These include inaccessible learning materials and learning platforms, negative attitudes from lecturers, fellow students and more. This paper comes from a qualitative study that sought to explore how Covid-19 deepened these educational inequalities a...

The aim of this paper is to analyse and explore the progress of curriculum development, which remains a contentious issue, particularly in the context of higher education expansion, massification, commodification and the so-called 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'. This paper examines how the curriculum is developed within the complexities of a shifti...

The aim of this paper is to analyse and explore the progress of curriculum development, which remains a contentious issue, particularly in the context of higher higher education expansion, massification, commodification and the so-called 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'. This paper examines how the curriculum is developed within the complexities of a...

Open Distance Learning (ODL) universities are required to make policy provisions for students with disabilities (SwDs) to have full benefit of open access to higher education. Despite access to further education being a Constitutional imperative in South Africa, some programmes offered in ODL institutions are structured in a manner that disregard S...

Open Distance Learning (ODL) universities are required to make policy provisions for students with disabilities (SwDs) to have full benefit of open access to higher education. Despite access to further education being a Constitutional imperative in South Africa, some programmes offered in ODL institutions are structured in a manner that disregard S...

Male rape is a phenomenon that is assumed to be rampant in warzones and prisons, where the perpetrator is commonly a man. In contrast, male rape where the perpetrator is a woman in the domestic space is still ambiguously conceptualised across cultures, largely because of the hegemonic masculinities embedded in society. Written from a hidden masculi...

This paper addresses two questions: (1) what barriers do the blind students face with assessment in ODL contexts? And (2) How can these barriers be removed in order to promote the Right to Education? The paper focuses on the distance education through which most students with disabilities elevate their chances of accessing higher education. It furt...

Background: This article emanates from a study funded by the KwaZulu-Natal chapter of South Africa's National Research Foundation on the 'Archaeology of Ubuntu'. It explores the notion of ubuntu and disability in a group of Zulu people from four communities within KwaZulu-Natal. The study is based on the notion that ubuntu is humaneness. Being hum...

South Africa finally has a disability policy that’s specific to the higher education sector. The new policy framework should be celebrated as an achievement. Its value is that, because it’s specific to the sector, it gives institutions (such as universities) a common vision. It also enables monitoring and evaluation of progress that is context spec...

This conceptual and exploratory article seeks to explore the implications of the University of South Africa's (Unisa) shift from open distance learning (ODL) to open distance e-learning (ODeL) on Teacher Education. In addition, the article problematizes the shift as a policy imperative. Unisa's mandate to provide teacher education opportunities to...

Innovative teaching is a concept based on student-­‐‑ centred teaching strategies. Access to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects has not been equitable due to use of traditional teaching strategies. These strategies tend to exclude students with disabilities who can effectively learn in environments that appropriately a...

This chapter discusses the potential of using of Ubuntu values to ground delivery of Open Distance e-Learning. It highlights the crucial role that learner-centeredness of adult learning situations play in ensuring that students get to access and succeed in higher education. ODeL learning delivery is unpacked in relation to Ubuntu values. The author...

Ubuntu philosophy promotes communal humanness and shuns individuality. This article debates the conflict that exists between personal and universal rights. These rights are tested in a single case study of a rape survivor who while dealing with violent trauma is pregnant as a consequence thereof. The survivor loses her inalienable rights to be ackn...

All children, including those in conflict with the law, deserve to have access to appropriate and quality education. Failure to access education normally leads to many social ills including engagement in criminal activities. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a study on promoting digital literacy at three juvenile facilities in Gau...

This chapter explores the University of South Africa (UNISA)’s immanent shift from open distance learning (ODL) to open distance e-learning (ODeL). It considers UNISA’s initial mandate as an ODL institution that provides higher education opportunities to previously disadvantaged, predominantly African students who would otherwise not be able to obt...

This paper presents results of a study which sought to investigate policies related to open access for students with disabilities at an Open Distance Learning (ODL) university, blind students in particular. Basing on Frankfurt's Bullshit theoretical framework, this case study, the paper looks at issues of access policy implementation within the hig...

Teaching science to young children is important as it encourages innovation while boosting creativity and high thinking order. However, the increasing numbers of young offenders in South Africa possess a number of challenges to teachers regarding appropriate ways to teach science in prison school population. This paper reports on a research project...

The purpose of the study was to project the academic community’s perceptions of students with blindness with an aim of promoting access to Education for All. Framed by the theories of social construction and critical disability theory, this qualitative study uses the case study approach. Data were collected through life stories and telephonic inter...

The purpose of the study was to project the academic community’s perceptions of students with blindness with an aim of promoting access to Education for All. Framed by the theories of social construction and critical disability theory, this qualitative study uses the case study approach. Data were collected through life stories and telephonic inter...

The goal of this research was to explore how students with blindness (SwBs) use information and communication technology (ICT) for learning at the University of South Africa (UNISA). To do this the critical paradigm was used as a way of viewing the educational world. Underpinned by Transactional Distance Theory, Cultural Historical Activity Theory,...

For students with visual impairments, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an important means through which they can learn and access learning materials at various levels of education. However, their learning experiences in using such form of technologies have been rarely documented, thus suggests society’s lack of understandin...

The goal of this research was the development of an e-learning model to address the needs of the South African corporate sector. To do this it was necessary to reach an understanding of: the South African corporate training needs; the difference between training, education, academic learning and learning theory; academic e-learning best practices a...