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Emmanuel Mgqwashu

Emmanuel Mgqwashu

Professor

Leadership RoleDean & Head of School

Higher Education Studies

Emailmgqwashue@ukzn.ac.za

Contact Number031-260-3459

Office AddressDeans Suite, Room 01-003, First Floor, Ellen Kuzwayo Building

Degrees Held

  • Bachelor of Pedagogics (BPaed), University of Durban-Westville 1997
  • Bachelor of Art (BA) Honours, University of Durban-Westville1998
  • Master of Arts (MA), University of Natal 1999
  • Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007

Research Interests

  • Higher Education studies
  • Literacies
  • Decoloniality
Research projects
  1. Primary Investigator -“Theorising T&L for Higher Education: a decolonial Place-based biographical participatory study” (2025 – 2027).
  2. Primary Investigator – “Theorising T&L for Higher Education: a decolonial Place-based biographical participatory study” (2024 – 2026) (Under review):

This is an NRF funded cross-institutional-types project involving a Research Intense university, Comprehensive University, University of Technology and Traditional University.  It is designed to respond to concerns about the slowness with which scholarship on theorising teaching and learning from a decolonial lens for higher education has been evolving. The study aims to: i) contribute to a nuanced and context-sensitive, theoretically and empirically informed perspective on learning and teaching from a decolonial lens ii) show how theorising teaching and learning from a decolonial lens is inseparable from a social, material and relational condition of students’ learning trajectories iii) contribute, via the focus on theorising teaching and learning from a decolonial lens, to an understanding of the explanatory potential of practices and practice-based theory in learning iv) suggest ways in which higher education can be more responsive to the decolonisation of the curriculum imperative and v) show how participatory research methods can add value to understanding institutional responsiveness to the decolonising learning and teaching imperative in the university sector.

  1. Primary Investigator – “Postgraduate Research Support” (2021 – 2023):

This is a DHET UCDP funded research project designed to Support Postgraduate students for Enhanced Throughput.  It responds to critical issues in the NWU data on the National Doctoral Review and the Ministerial statement for University Capacity Development Plan (2021-2023).  The focus is on retention and throughputs rates, and to provide an additional support to what faculties already do for post-graduate students. 

  1. Co-Investigator – SA Co – Leader “University Staff Doctoral Programme”

(2018 – 2023):       

This is a UCDG – British Council funded Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) collaborative project between Rhodes University and University of Fort-Hare in the Eastern Cape, and Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. The focus of the project is twofold: to enhance a doctoral partnership that empowers academic candidates in their inter/national research careers and to collaborate to address systemic bottlenecks which impede doctoral candidates’ who are academic staff timely completion. To achieve both acceleration and empowerment of academic staff who are also Doctoral students, the project offers a bespoke programme of facilitated workshops and events in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

  1. Co-Investigator and SA Co – Leader – “South African Rurality in Higher Education” (2017 – 2020):

This is a collaborative study between the universities of Bristol, Brighton, Johannesburg, Rhodes and Fort Hare. It is qualitative, targeting 12 second-year students in the Science Faculty, and 12 second-year students in the Humanities who lived and studied in rural areas. As co-researchers, documented their own lived experiences of learning in rural areas, of learning at university and how they make this important ‘transition’.

  1. Primary Investigator – “Learning to Read, Reading to Learn, Learning to Write: Literacy Development for Secondary Schooling” (2015 – 2017):

This is an NRF funded project that examined the role of the teaching of reading across the curriculum for epistemological access within schooling.

  1. Co-investigator – “Access and Inclusion in Higher Education” (2010 – 2016):

This is an NRF funded research project that investigated the role and effect of institutional structures, culture and agency in pedagogic practices in higher education involving 18 HEIs, including UoTs, Traditional, as well as Research Intensive universities.

  1. Primary Investigator – This is a University of KwaZulu-Natal Teaching and Learning Office funded research project. It is called “Teach Me to Read for Understanding: Turning Read Knowledge into Sensible Written Ideas in Higher Education” (2010 – 2014):

This research examined the fundamental relationship between reading and writing in higher education for epistemological access and academic success. It focused on the Faculty of Education first year undergraduate BEd students.

  1. Primary Investigator – “Academic Literacy in the Mother Tongue: A Must for Epistemological Access” (2010 – 2012):

This is a University of KwaZulu-Natal Teaching and Learning Office funded research project. Its purpose was to investigate, design, and pilot isiZulu-medium modules for B.Ed. Honours for students who majored in isiZulu at undergraduate studies in the Faculty of Education. 

  1. Co-investigator – “Language and the Postcolonial Condition: the South African Experience” (2003 – 2006):

This NRF research project involved visiting the following universities: University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Moi University in Kenya from July to September 2003, and the University of Namibia in Namibia in July 2006. The project investigates the Language Policy and implications for Languages of Teaching and Learning at selected primary and high schools, as well as selected universities at the three countries.

  1. Co-investigator – “English Language Development” (2000 – 2002):

This is a University of Natal, Howard College campus Faculty of Humanities funded research project. In 2000, the ex- University of Natal acknowledged the need to provide substantial and sustained English language development for its students given that the medium of instruction is English.   The findings of the project contributed into the development of two compulsory Foundation modules for first year students: Academic Learning in English and Language, Context and Text.

Research Visits
  1. Visiting Researcher: Latin American Centre for Solidarity Service Learning and 27th Service – Learning International Conference, Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA), Argentina. 29 – 30 August 2024.
  2. Visiting Researcher: Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, 21 – 31 January 2021.
  3. Visiting Researcher: South Africa Institute of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. 1 – 9 April 2017.
  4. Visiting Scholar: University of Sydney, Australia, Faculty of Education and English Department from July to September 2005. These visits were part of my PhD study, with an intention to include a comparative element in my thesis.
  5. Visiting Researcher: University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Moi University in Kenya from July to September 2003, and the University of Namibia in Namibia in July 2004. These visits were in relation to the Postcolonial Research Project with the theme: Revisiting the Postcolonial Condition: A South/African Perspective.  
  6. Visiting Researcher: University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand and Rhodes University from July to September 2002. These visits were in relation to my PhD study.

Teaching Interests

  • Higher Education studies
  • Supervision Pedagogy
  • Professionalisation of Academics as University Teachers

Selected Publications

Community Engagement

  • International platforms
  1. Mgqwashu E.M. (2023). ‘Becoming a professor at a time of decolonisation, marketism’. University World News. 6 April 2023. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20230405184502285
  2. In South Africa, what are we supposed to do away with when we decolonise the curriculum? OpenDemocracy free thinking for the world. Wednesday, 1 March 2017. https://opendemocracy.net/wfd/emmanuel-mgqwashu/in-south-africa-what-are-we-supposed-to-do-away-with-when-we-decolonise-curriculum
  3. Laura Czerniewicz & Najma Agherdien & Johan Badenhorst & Dina Belluigi & Tracey Chambers & Muntuwenkosi Chili & Magriet de Villiers & Alan Felix & Daniela Gachago & Craig Gokhale & Eunice Ivala & Neil Kramm & Matete Madiba & Gitanjali Mistri & Emmanuel Mgqwashu & Nicola Pallitt & Paul Prinsloo & Kelly Solomon & Sonja Strydom & Mike Swanepoel & Faiq Waghid & Gerrit Wissing (2020). A Wake-Up Call: Equity, Inequality and Covid-19 Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning. Postdigital Science and Education  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42438-020-00187-4
  4. Belluigi, D, Czerniewicz, l., Khoo, S, Algers, A., Buckley, L.A., Prinsloo, P., Mgqwashu, M, Camps, C., Brink, C., Marx, R., Wissing, G., Pallitt, N. (2020). Needs Must”? Critical reflections on the implications of the Covid19 ‘pivot online’ for equity in higher education. Digital Culture and Education (ISSN: 1836-8301).
  • National platforms
  1. Mgqwashu E.M. (2023). ‘The changing profile of university students calls for a decolonial re-thinking of higher education’. Daily Higher Education News (DHEN). 25 August.  https://www.usaf.ac.za/the-changing-profile-of-university-students-calls-for-a-decolonial-re-thinking-of-higher-education-says-professor-emmanuel-mgqwashu/
  2. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). Umhlobo Wenene (SABC isiXhosa Radio Station): Current Affairs Live Show with Mbulelo Dlamini Maqhubu: “Universities can’t decolonise the curriculum without defining it first”. Sunday, 16 October.
  3. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). SAFM Live Radio Interview: Evening Live Show with Naledi Moleo: “Universities can’t decolonise the curriculum without defining it first”. Wednesday, 26 September.
  4. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). “Conceptual clarity on the makings of an African University”. Mail and Guardian, September.
  5. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). “African curriculum must exist in dialogue with others”. The New Age: Feature, 24 August.
  6. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). “Universities can’t decolonise the curriculum without defining it first”. The Conversation, 22 August 22. Link –Universities can’t decolonise the curriculum without defining it first
  7. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). “Education fails rural millions”. Mail and Guardian, April 1 -7, p.4.
  8. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). “SAFM Live Radio Interview: Morning Talk Show with Kgomotso Mautloa: “Universities can’t be for ‘the public good’ if it ignores rural life”. Monday, 21 March.
  9. Mgqwashu E.M. (2016). Universities can’t be for ‘the public good’ if it ignores rural life”. The Conversation, March 16. Link – Education can’t be for ‘the public good’ if universities ignore rural life
  10. Mgqwashu E.M. (2015). “Decolonisation should be about appreciating difference, not despising it”. The Conversation, 1 December. Link – Decolonisation should be about appreciating difference, not despising it

Teaching Expertise

  • Synopsis on my Teaching PhilosophyTo be meaningful, education should be understood in its socio-historical and political context. A society that is still recovering from a history of legislated oppression and discrimination against a larger section of the population, and whose educational institutions from primary to tertiary levels are engaging in massification, requires a teaching philosophy committed to social redress, epistemic justice, equality, democracy, and freedom. This is the reason Critical Pedagogy has shaped, and continues to inform, my Teaching Philosophy for academic staff development and student support.Critical Pedagogy espouses a set of diverse principles with the possibility of transformation. The premise behind it is that of a critical nature and has a liberating function. It attempts to help participants in the learning and teaching experience question and challenge posited domination and undermine the beliefs and practices that are alleged to dominate. In other words, it is a theory and practice of helping participants in the learning and teaching experience achieve critical consciousness about their world and the surroundings, and thus brings into dialogue the ‘word’ and the ‘world’.

    As it may be evident in the teaching and learning encounters I least in this section, I draw from this philosophy to configure my role as that of empowering participants, posing problems to be solved, and not content to be memorised. I consciously re-construct my identity from being the knowledge constructor to being the joint constructor of knowledge with participants. Thus, my agenda is always to teach participants in the learning and teaching experience how to think, rather than what to think, and how to know, rather than what to know.

Teaching & Learning: courses for academic staff and students 

  • 8 – weeks Short Courses for academic staff

1. NQF – Level 9: “Curriculum Design in a Transforming Higher Education Context”.

  • The course is designed to enhance participant’s knowledge and skills to identify, analyse and evaluate approaches to curriculum planning, design development and implementation in ways that are responsive to i) a transforming and decolonising HE context, ii) 21st century appropriate graduate attributes for national and global employability, and iii) further study opportunities.

2. NQF – Level 9: “Higher Education in a Transforming and Decolonising Context”.

  • This course is designed to build a scholarly trajectory for future experts in higher education studies, first among academic staff, but also to ensure a pipeline for future postgraduate enrolments at master’s and doctoral levels. This is a low stake, yet rich exposure to key latest debates, theoretical developments, and concepts that continue to shape the growth of Higher Education studies as a discipline.

3. NQF – Level 9: “Research Methodologies in a Transforming Higher Education Context”.

  • This course focusses on developing academic staff understanding of research within the higher education sector from a decolonial lens. This is so that the knowledge generated leads to the democratisation of scholarship and learning, a niche that hasn’t received the attention it urgently requires.  Thus, this short course is designed to introduce participants to decolonising research techniques such as Indigenous research methodologies, with the intention to reduce the influence and current flow of research from domination by the north to avoid the influence of the prevailing political economy of knowledge production.

4. NQF – Level 9: “Managing and Enabling in a transforming Higher Education”.

  • The course addresses the need to develop academic staff as university teachers. More specifically, it offers academics from across disciplines and institutional-types opportunities to develop advanced and integrated knowledge and understanding of the relationship between learning, teaching and assessment. This is particularly crucial in transforming and decolonising higher education context that continues to undergo several waves of massification, ensuring access to groups previously barred from entering tertiary education.  Thus, the course focusses on advancing academic staff understanding of the relationship between content design and development, delivery of lessons, and setting of assessment tasks aligned to how content was packaged and taught. An advanced understanding of the characteristics and learning styles of a diverse group of students from different socio-economic backgrounds, as well as the ability to use assessment as a teaching tool, are additional skills and knowledge offered in this course.

5. NQF Level 8 Short Course: “Scaffolding Disciplinary Literacies for Student Success”.

  • The absence of the teaching of ‘reading’ within mainstream disciplinary areas of study and embedded in daily classroom engagements is the concern this course is designed to address. This omission is one of the most problematic areas in the educational arena.  Dismal statistics in Literacy and Numeracy both in South African schools and internationally indicate the consequences of this trend. The course thus focusses on developing advanced understanding of the value in scaffolding discipline-specific reading practices within mainstream disciplines as part of daily classroom practice in pedagogy.  The course presents this pedagogic approach as a powerful means of developing students’ discipline-specific reading and writing skills that will enable them to read for meaning, to understand texts and to re-work them with understanding as they produce written assignments.
  • Postgraduate modules

Master’s level

  1. Language and Education
  2. Contemporary Issues in Language Education
  3. Research Design for Language Education Research
  4. English Language Teaching

Honor’s level

  1. Understanding Academic Literacy
  2. Language in Education
  3. Language Teaching and Learning in Multicultural Multilingual Societies
  4. Research in Education
  5. English Language Teaching

Undergraduate modules

  1. English Communication (1st year)
  2. Academic Learning in English (compulsory at 1st year)
  3. Language and Literacy 220 (3rd year)
  4. English Major 310 (3rd year)
  5. Language and Literacy 320 (4th year)
  6. English Major 410 (4th year)
  7. Introduction to Research in ECD (4th year

Student Supervision