workshop – IEASA Conference

WORKSHOP 1
WORKSHOP 2
WORKSHOP 3

TITLE:
DHET Policy: Institutional strategies and policy frameworks for post-lockdown plans, decolonising and VUCA agendas

The workshop aims to provide a strategic reading of the 2019 Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) – Policy Framework for the Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa.
To explore divergent perspectives to develop institutional and faculty-led int’l strategies.
To support institutional and continental 2030 visions of comprehensive internationalisation.
To be interactive, drawing upon diverse perspectives from the presenters in understanding the policy landscape.
To explore specific institutional contexts.
To locate this to the continental, regional, national and institutional imperatives to internationalise within a decolonised and VUCA agenda.

Space is limited to 30 participants. All participants will receive a certificate of completion.

Date:
Tuesday, 22 August 2023

Time:
08:30 – 13:00
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

Venue:
Suite 1

Target Audience:
International Education Professional Staff and Academic Staff.
New and emerging leadership.

Cost:
IEASA Members – R800
Non-members – R1000

Expected Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the session participants will be able to draft a framework or internationalisation strategy at either an institutional or Faculty level.
Participants will also understand the process of policy development – using a case study approach.

Schedule:

08:00 – 08:45	Coffee and tea
08:45 – 09:00	Welcome and Introduction of workshop participants
09:00 – 09:30	Macro and strategic reading of the 2019 Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) – Policy Framework for the Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa
09:30 – 10:30	Theoretical framing and global perspectives
11:00 – 11:30	Refreshment break
11:30 – 12:30	Group work – Case studies – Strategic Partnerships
12:30 – 12:55	Group work – Frameworks for institutional and faculty internationalisation strategic plans
12:55 – 13:00	Wrap up and closure
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch

Facilitators:
Prof Judy Peter, Director Strategic Initiative & Partnership, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Ms Tracy G Beckett, Manager of International Relations
Ms Divinia Jithoo, Specialist International Education, Durban University of Technology
Ms Grace Meadows, Head of ARTS South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) lead for Culture Connects, British Council
Dr Tasmeera Singh, Manager International Relations, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Dr Nelisiwe Maleka, Manager Research Uptake, Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Interactivity:
Workshop participants will be engaged in discussions with panellists focusing on strategies for inclusive, comprehensive internationalisation. Discussions will explore the concept as an objective to overcome the historical impacts of higher education in South Africa. Furthermore, the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted social inequalities will be explored within the context of internationalisation.

Required reading:
Participants are requested to familiarise themselves with the 2019 Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) – Policy Framework for the Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa.

Suggested reading:
Woldegiorgis, Et, Turner, I, Brahima A (Eds), (2021) Decolonisation Of Higher Education In Africa perspectives From Hybrid Knowledge Production Routledge

Heleta, S. and Chasi, S. (2022). Rethinking and Redefining Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa Using a Decolonial Lens. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management.

Prof Judy Peter

Director: Strategic Initiative & Partnerships
Professor Judy Peter is an art historian, curator, and Director – Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. She has published and presented in the areas of gender studies, post-colonial studies and cultural studies both nationally and internationally. She has participated in various platforms, including South African Visual Arts Historians, the College Art Association, the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, and the South African Jewellery Council.

Ms Tracy G. Beckett

Manager of International Relations
Tracy Beckett is a senior executive with more than twenty years’ experience in education management and administration across multiple education enterprise divisions and private, public and NGO/NPO business sectors in the United Kingdom, South Africa and the USA.

Ms Divinia Jithoo

Specialist International Education
Divinia Jithoo has 15+ years of experience in higher education internationalisation. She has a keen interest in higher education transformation. Ms Jithoo has gained extensive expertise in International Virtual Engagement, specifically in COIL as an approach to inclusivity in internationalisation.

Ms Grace Meadows

Head of ARTS South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) lead for Culture Connects
Grace Meadows is a Cultural producer –awarded in areas of international friendship and cultural diplomacy. Having graduated from Wits University (SA) with a MA in Applied Arts, and perusing a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) in Creative and Cultural studies, Grace works in the Creative Economy and in Cultural Leadership with a keen focus on Programme Design to facilitate international connections, and reciprocal, multi-lateral partnerships within a South – South focused discourse – across multiple art disciplines.

Dr Tasmeera Singh

Manager International Relations
Tasmeera Singh, PhD, is an international higher education specialist with over 22 years of experience in the field. She is currently employed at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology as the Manager: of International Relations. Before her appointment at CPUT, she was at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, as the Principal International Advisor.

Dr Nelisiwe Maleka (PhD)

Manager Research Uptake
Nelisiwe is an interdisciplinary researcher in Public Health and specialises as a monitoring and evaluation practitioner. She is currently a Manager of Research Uptake at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). In addition, she provides support to full-time international students.

TOPIC:
The role of Collaborative Online International Learning towards internationalization and its societal impact at DUT

At the Durban University of Technology, Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) has been a key feature in internationalisation of higher education since 2017. Globally, COIL and virtual engagements have come to prominence since the COVID-19 pandemic. Online and virtual engagements provide an opportunity to universities to create a ‘new normal’ in higher education where internationalisation is sustainable and inclusive for all.

The purpose is to unpack the societal impact of internationalization by discussing COIL as a tool for comprehensive, sustainable and equitable internationalisation.

This dialogue will reflect on DUT being a local yet globally engaged higher education institution, through a dialogue presentation with DUT stakeholders incorporated in COIL activities. Further unpacking whether COIL is a useful and important tool for curriculum innovation and internationalization, by addressing the following questions:

These questions will help address the challenges and possibilities of COIL, open dialogue to identify how COIL is an integral part of academic programmes and share best practices with the positive outcomes of COIL at DUT. Thus, highlighting the societal impact of internationalisation in higher education, the case of DUT.

Space is limited to 30 participants. All participants will receive a certificate of completion.

Date:
Tuesday, 22 August 2023

Time:
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00

Venue:
Suite 1

Target Audience:
Academics and administrators in higher education particularly those new to virtual exchange as a pedagogy.

Cost:
IEASA Members – R800
Non-members – R1000

Expected Learning Outcomes:

Identifying some of the challenges and possibilities of engaging with academics around the world through COIL.
Suggestions as to how COIL can become an integral part of academic programmes and courses.
Describing some of the positive outcomes of COIL at DUT?

Schedule:

13:00 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 14:15	Introduction
14:15 – 14:30	Benefits and Challenges (case study)
14:45 – 15:30	Group discussions (Brainstorning ideas for COIL project
15:30 – 16:00	Refreshment break
16:00 – 16:45	Feedback and Q&A
16:45 – 17:00	Wrap up

Facilitator/s
Dr Penelope Orton, Durban University of Technology, pennyo@dut.ac.za
Ms Lindelwa Mkhize. Durban University of Technology, LindelwaM2@dut.ac.za

Interactivity:
Participants will have an opportunity to work in small groups with the facilitators circulating around the groups.
Feedback to the entire group with question and answer time.

Materials:
During the workshop participants in small groups will be given flip board paper, marker pens and post it notes in order to capture their ideas.

Penny Orton

Penny is currently working as a Collaborative Online International Education (COIL) Specialist in the Department of International Education & Partnerships at the Durban University of Technology. Penny is a specialist nurse educator who holds a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Lindelwa Mkhize

Lindelwa is a COIL Coordinator for the International Education and Partnerships Office at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). She holds a Degree of Bachelor of Child and Youth Care. She has worked as a Child and Youth Care Worker with children, youth, families, and communities in KwaZulu Natal and Cape Town, South Africa.

TITLE:
The role of community engagement in the development of a societally impactful internationalization in higher education agenda

Internationalization is a crucial part of the agenda of any modern higher education institution. It takes various forms – from collaborative research to virtual teaching and learning, from student-staff mobilities to joint projects; from joint curricula and degree programmes to joint supervision and so on. Done correctly, undergirded by mutual respect and professionalism, it should enhance not only the global competitiveness of a higher education institution, but also its societal impact in circumstances of a win-win situation for mutual benefit. Importantly, in the Global South, internationalization in higher education carries with it the risk of neocolonialism. Neocolonialism in internationalization in higher education manifests in a variety of ways; in the transfer of a Western way of seeing, knowing, and understanding (teaching and learning), in the adoption of foreign practices and traditions of generating knowledge (research), and in the prioritization of Northern agendas and interests. Many times this happens to the complete neglect of local contexts. In such a scenario, internationalization not only fails to be locally impactful but also becomes harmful to the project of social transformation that higher education institutions are tasked with in unequal countries such as South Africa.

Community engagement offers important opportunities for the facilitation of a societally impactful internationalization in higher education. If community engagement is established as a critical component of every international collaboration, it can become a tool to ensure that the interests and voices of local communities are centered. However, for community engagement to have that kind of transformative effect on internationalization, the practice needs to be transformed, and explicitly grounded in decolonial, and Africentric ethics, theories, and practices. Internationalization that permeates community engagements, therefore, can lead to improved standards of living, greater access to essential services (housing, health, water and sanitation, electricity), expansion in networks and collaborations between individuals, entities, NGOs, institutions, firms, communities, and governments – leading to economic growth, poverty reduction, reduced inequalities, and reduced environmental degradation.

The SoBEDS Community Engagement Committee proposes a workshop on the role of community engagement in the development of a societally impactful internationalization in higher education agenda. The workshop will make use of case studies and thought-provoking talks and facilitated discussions to answer the following questions:

How do higher education institutions internationalize while making critical contributions to the local communities they serve?
How might higher education institutions in South Africa navigate and overcome neo-colonial influences in international collaborations involving the Global North?
How might higher education institutions construct and acknowledge local populations/communities as knowers, co-producers of knowledge, givers and collaborators, rather than only as beneficiaries, charity cases, the subject of the Western gaze, and the object of curiosity and analysis?
How do we hardwire intentionality and reflexivity in internationalization in higher education?
How do we ground our international partnerships in explicitly defined and locally embedded ethics and philosophies concerning cooperation and collaboration?
How might we foster connections between international students/researchers/academics and local communities, in a reciprocal, bidirectional fashion that ensures knowledge sharing and knowledge exchange, rather than extraction, beneficiation and poverty voyeurism?

Space is limited to 30 participants. All participants will receive a certificate of completion.

Date:
Tuesday, 22 August 2023

Time:
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 17:00

Venue:
North Ilanga

Target Audience:
University academics, researchers, funders of research projects, postgraduate students, community engagement units, organizations/stakeholders interested in community engagement partnerships with higher education institutions.

Cost:
IEASA Members – R800
Non-members – R1000

Expected Learning Outcomes:

The potential to use internationalization in higher education to achieve societal transformation
The role of community engagement in the internationalization agenda
The role community engagement might play towards the decolonization of internationalization in higher education

Schedule:

13:00 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 14:10	Introduction
14:10 – 14:30	How might higher education institutions in South Africa navigate and overcome neo-colonial influences in international collaborations involving the Global North?
14:30 – 15:00	Group work/discussion
15:00 – 15:30	How do higher education institutions internationalize while making critical contributions to the local communities they serve?
15:30 – 16:00	Refreshment break
16:00 – 16:30	Group work/discussion
16:30 – 16:50	How might higher education institutions construct and acknowledge local populations/communities as knowers, co-producers of knowledge, givers and collaborators, rather than only as beneficiaries, charity cases, the subject of the Western gaze, and the object of curiosity and analysis?
16:50 – 17:20	Group work/discussion
17:20 – 17:35	Closing remarks and feedback

Facilitators:
Professor Yanga Zembe-Zondi, University of KwaZulu-Natal, zembezondiy@ukzn.ac.za
Professor Claudia Loggia, University of KwaZulu-Natal, loggia@ukzn.ac.za
Professor Oliver Mtapuri, University of KwaZulu-Natal, mtapurio@ukzn.ac.za

Interactivity:
Group activities and discussions

Materials:
None required

Yanga Zembe-Zondi

Prof Yanga Zembe-Zondi is an Associate Professor in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies: Community Development, at the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN). She holds a PhD in Public Health, obtained from Karolinska Institute. Prof Zembe-Zondi’s research examines the influence of structural factors such as poverty, gender and wealth inequalities on development and health outcomes.

Claudia Loggia

Prof Claudia Loggia is Associate Professor in Housing and Academic Leader for Housing at the School of Built Environment & Development Studies (SoBEDS), University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. She holds a PhD in Building Engineering and a MEng (summa cum laude) from Cagliari University (Italy). She has extensive experience in trans-disciplinary research projects and consultancy work in the areas of: energy efficient building design and retrofit, green infrastructure, sustainable urban regeneration, informal settlements upgrading.

Oliver Mtapuri

Oliver Mtapuri is a Full Professor in Development Studies in the School of Built Environment and Development. His areas of research interest include poverty, redistribution and inequality, community-based tourism, public employment programmes, research methodologies, climate change, scholarship of teaching and project management.

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