Speaker
Description
Malangeni, S.
Nelson Mandela University
silindile.malangeni@mandela.ac.za
Track: Inclusion, Equity and Digital Access
This paper explores how humanising pedagogy can contribute to the development of inclusive, student-centred and future-ready higher education in Africa. While digital transformation offers opportunities to expand access and enhance learning, technological innovation alone cannot ensure meaningful inclusion. Future-ready higher education also requires learning environments in which students are recognised, heard and actively involved in shaping their educational experiences.
The study employed Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) with 15 second-year Bachelor of Education students enrolled in the PEDS202: Curriculum Policy and Development module at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. Through Action Learning Sets, students reflected on their curriculum and pedagogical experiences, identified barriers to participation and belonging, and collaboratively explored possibilities for curriculum transformation. This approach positioned students as active contributors to knowledge production rather than passive recipients of predetermined knowledge.
Findings reveal that students experienced aspects of the curriculum as disconnected from their lived realities, identities and community knowledge. Hierarchical classroom relationships, assessment-driven learning and limited opportunities for dialogue contributed to student silence and passive participation. Participatory dialogue, however, enabled students to move from silence to voice and from passive participation to active engagement. Students emphasised contextual relevance, dialogue, recognition of diverse knowledge, inclusive relationships and shared responsibility as conditions for meaningful learning.
Drawing on these findings, the paper proposes the Humanising Curriculum Transformation Model (HCTM), which foregrounds epistemic recognition, dialogue, contextual responsiveness, co-creation, relational accountability, praxis and institutional embedding. The paper argues that future-ready African higher education should place human relationships, student agency and inclusive knowledge-making alongside technological innovation, ensuring that transformation does not simply digitise existing inequalities but creates more equitable and responsive learning ecosystems.