This book presents the case for a conceptual and pragmatic revolution of Africa’s formal educational systems. Using the context of Ubuntu-inspired education, the authors explore innovative ways to tackle the challenges faced by governments from the local and national level and beyond. Along the way, the editors and their contributors examine important policy questions to encourage fresh thinking on ways to improve the educational system and, in turn, to buoy the development of the region as a whole.
Despite the current impressive numerical growth of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Africa, there remain some concerns about the extent to which the church is making the desired impact in the public space. As the church grows numerically, the African continent is ironically plagued with many regrettable stories of corruption, bad governance, sexual abuse, gender discrimination and perversion, environmental degradation, robbery, economic crisis (leading to poverty and hunger), wars, and other social vices. This paradoxical increase in vices, alongside the demographic growth of the Christian population on the continent, has caused many to question the social impact of African Christianity. Re-Visioning African Pentecostal-Charismatic Ecclesiology in the Public Sphere is a response to these observations. The contributors to this volume, who are made up of seasoned academics (theological educators and missiologists) and mission practitioners, have engaged the subject from multidisciplinary perspectives, highlighting significant contributions of African Pentecostalism while pointing out critical areas for urgent attention. The volume is intended to stimulate conversations around the church’s mandate of influencing the public sphere as an agent of social transformation.
This book explores the state of open education in terms of self-directed learning on the African continent. Through a combination of conceptual, systematic literature review and empirical chapters, readers will get a research-based impression of these aspects in this area. Apart from presenting existing wider trends regarding open education, this book also reports on effective open practices in support of self-directed learning.
Recognizing that institutes of higher education function simultaneously in local and global contexts, this volume explores the applications of domestic and global policies in a range of industrialized nations in North America and Australia, and developing ones of Brazil, Indonesia, Myanmar, and in Southern Africa and the Caribbean The chapters focus on policies relating to global matters such as diversity, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) innovations, and development amid natural disasters and conflicts. In each case, authors consider how policies were envisioned, how they compare to the realities of implementation, and how far they have been successfully supported by the communities and translated into legislations and formal or informal programs. Based upon decades of research and executive positions by senior scholars and perspectives of emerging professionals, the volume concentrates on motifs that portray relationships among policies and comparative analysis that reveals the need for global collaborations. This important book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, postgraduates, and government and philanthropic professionals in the fields of higher education, public and educational policy, comparative education, and international affairs.
This book enters the discourse of the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education in Africa. The book provides critical insights comprising topical themes from transformation, citizenship and gender, researching to ethical perspectives of teaching and learning.
This book makes a strong case for the inclusion of Indigenous Elders’ cultural knowledge in the delivery of inclusive education for learners who are members of minority communities. It is relevant to curriculum developers, teachers, policy makers and institutions that engage in the education of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other minority students. This book provides opportunities for exploring the decolonization of educational approaches. It promotes the synthesis of multiple types of knowledge and ways of knowing by making a case for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous Elders as teachers in learning spaces. The book is of interest to educators, students, and researchers of Indigenous knowledge and decolonizing education. Additionally, it is important for educational policy makers, especially those engaged in looking for strategic solutions to bridging educational disparities and gaps for Indigenous, Black, Latinx and other minority learners.
The similarities between the United States and South Africa with respect to race, power, oppression and economic inequities are striking, and a better understanding of these parallels can provide educational gains for students and educators in both countries. Through shared experiences and perspectives, this volume presents scholarly work from U.S. and South African scholars that advance educational practice in support of social justice and transformative learning. It provides a comprehensive framework for developing transformational learning experiences that facilitates leadership for social justice, and a deeper understanding of the factors influencing personal, national and global identity.
