DEAN’S REPORT Dr Christa Thornhill
The faculty was favourably positioned to study the impact of the pandemic on education in South Africa, as all teaching and learning moved to online and digital platforms.
As a result, some journal articles and book chapters published this year were about the effect of the pandemic on education. Examples of such publications include: a) Evidence and education policymaking in South Africa during Covid-19: Promises, researchers and policymakers in an age of unpredictability, in Southern African Review of Education: A Journal of Comparative Education, and b) Towards cultivating a critical pedagogy of space: A response to teaching practices in Higher Education amidst COVID-19, in Re-thinking the Humanities Curriculum in the Time of Covid-19. Research webinars were also presented by the Centre for Initial Teacher
45 Education (CITE) in the faculty on the impact of the pandemic on education, including: a) Curriculum in times of crises, at The Annual World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) Colloquium Webinar: Curriculum implementation in Covid and 21st century, and b) Disruptions: Professional and policy responses to Covid-19, at The Future of the Teaching Profession in Africa seminar series: Teacher professionalism in the context of pandemics and other crises. The Literacy Development Research Unit ran seven seminars for master’s and doctoral students and supervisors throughout the year. International research was somewhat curtailed due to travel restrictions, although some conferences could be attended with virtual paper presentations, and long-term projects could continue with online projects, inter alia with Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, the USA and Ethiopia. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, the faculty is able to boast the largest number of NRF funded research grants secured across all faculties at CPUT, namely R4 442 617, as well as the largest number of NRF grantholder-linked student bursaries across the faculties, namely R873 340. Three staff members attained NRF rating: Dr Zayd Waghid (Y2), Prof Liesel Hibbert (C2) and Dr Pieter Boer (Y2). A fourth staff member, Dr Andre van der Bijl, also attained an NRF rating (C2), but sadly passed away before receiving news of this.
CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
During 2020, the faculty’s research focus and activities changed significantly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on all academic endeavours. Due to its field of research in education, the faculty was favourably positioned to study the impact of the pandemic on education in South Africa, as all teaching and learning moved to online and digital platforms, with various consequences arising in the lives of teachers and learners alike.
RESEARCH REPORT 2020
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
