Although the history and evolution of open distance e-learning (ODeL) universities in South Africa and elsewhere are well documented, there remains a need to deepen scholarship on teaching and learning in ODeL to establish evidence-informed and values-driven foundations for teaching, learning, student support, and assessment, particularly in the context of neoliberal, market-oriented pressures. In this theoretical-conceptual article, I draw on my experiences of teaching in an ODeL university in post-apartheid South Africa to reflect on and theorise about my use of student voice as a decolonial pedagogical approach within a Research Methodology module as part of the Bachelor of Education with Honours programme. Framed through voice as a decolonial pedagogy, and employing an autobiographical approach as methodology, I explore and examine how this pedagogical approach positioned my students as co-creators of knowledge. Rather than seeking to demonstrate measurable impact, I use autobiographical insights to highlight the potential of this pedagogical approach to centre marginalised knowledges and advance decolonial impulses in distance education.
The promotion of quality higher education through decolonising pedagogical practice remains a primary concern in higher education contexts. However, the contemporary neoliberal university project reinforces Eurocentric cultural standardisation through the continued hegemony of colonial languages that prioritise global marketability over local epistemic relevance. This critical decolonial conceptual article explores the structural relationships among language intellectualisation, classroom translanguaging and the broader mandate of epistemic justice in South African higher education. Drawing on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s conceptualisation of decolonisation and scholarship on decoloniality, the article analyses how indigenous languages can be conceptually reconstructed as essential pedagogical interventions to confront market-driven standardisation of knowledge that systematically marginalises the cultural identities of African students. Moving beyond an empirical critique of Eurocentric practices, the article theorises a framework for a transformative, translingual pedagogy to delineate how bridging the gap between students’ indigenous linguistic repertoire and academic discourses fosters cultural heritage. Ultimately, the article provides a conceptual synthesis demonstrating that a multilingual shift can challenge the market-driven logic that views language as a commodity. Such a shift is necessary for fostering social equity and ensuring that the higher education sector serves as an emancipatory, pluriversal space that provides epistemic access for all students.
Student hustle presents a critical dilemma for South African higher education: while income-generating activities may expand students’ entrepreneurial capabilities and support their educational needs, the necessity to earn can also expose socio-economic inequalities that constrain meaningful academic participation. Drawing on scholarship concerning student hardship, informal livelihoods, time poverty and the Capability Approach, I argue that student hustle should be understood through both its developmental possibilities and the circumstances that make it necessary. Using institutional documents from the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of Venda (UNIVEN), I examine how universities promote entrepreneurship while navigating their responsibilities for student welfare, academic participation and campus governance. UFS’s business incubator and student market, alongside UNIVEN’s rapid incubation centre, illustrate structured support; residence rules highlight equally legitimate responsibilities for shared spaces and safety. Rather than assuming unequal institutional treatment, I question whether existing support arrangements adequately accommodate students whose income-generating activities emerge outside formal entrepreneurship programmes. I argue that transformative governance requires balancing entrepreneurial opportunity, financial necessity and proportionate regulation without romanticising student hardship or compromising academic responsibilities. Ultimately, higher education transformation should be judged not merely by the enterprises universities recognise, but by whether students have meaningful opportunities to pursue livelihoods without sacrificing their education.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping teaching, learning, and knowledge production in higher education. However, limited attention has been given to justice-oriented frameworks that connect AI-mediated education with epistemic agency and critical consciousness, particularly within market-driven university contexts. This conceptual article explores how teaching can be reimagined to cultivate epistemic agency and critical consciousness in AI-mediated higher education through a justice-oriented pedagogical framework. The article draws on frameworks such as critical pedagogy, decolonial theory, and epistemic justice to foreground the findings of this research. It employs a narrative-integrative review methodology to synthesise contemporary scholarship on AI and social justice in higher education. The article argues for a shift beyond transmissive and instrumental models of learning towards relational pedagogies that position learners as active co-creators of knowledge. It examines how AI technologies may reinforce or disrupt epistemic hierarchies through algorithmic bias, automated decision-making, and changing processes of knowledge production. The original contribution is a justice-oriented conceptual framework that integrates pedagogical design, institutional cultures, power relations, and technological systems for a better education experience. It recommends embedding critical AI literacy across curricula and aligning pedagogy with principles of epistemic justice to support equitable and socially transformative higher education in an increasingly algorithmic world.
