HELTASA Board
Rieta Ganas
Prof Sue Pather
Dr Greig Krull
Prof Kasturi Behari-Leak
Dr Whitty Green
Mandisa Cakwe
Mahlubi “Chief” Mabizela
Robert Pardo Silva
Mary Kiguru
Dr Whitty Green
Mandisa Cakwe
Bio coming soon.
Mahlubi “Chief” Mabizela
Robert Pardo Silva
I´m an educator, a practitioner, and in that role, I have worked in companies and educational institutions, including two years working for a foundation as the Principal of a school located in one Chile´s most socially disadvantaged areas. Currently, I´m the Director of the Learning Center at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and I also direct its Certificate (Diploma) in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. I´m really passionate about learning and educational development. I was for four years Director of the Chilean Network of Learning Centres, the first of its kind in Latin America, and in 2021 I became Vice-president of the International Consortium for Academic Development. I´ve got a degree in Linguistics from Universidad de Chile, a degree in Education from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, a professional degree in Psychopedagogy from Educares Institute, and a Master’s Degree in Cognitive Psychology and Learning from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Mary Kiguru
Coordinating Council
Prof Sue Pather
Deputy ChairRieta Ganas
Chair
Dr Nelia Frade
Project Manager
Dr Ntsoaki Malebo
Project Manager: AD SIG
Sisonke Mawonga
Project Manager: Sustainable Membership
Dr Patricia Muhuro
Project ManagerDr Greig Krull
Deputy Chair
Dr Rosaline Govender
Project Manager: Professional Learning
Leanri Van Heerden
Project Manager: Media & Comms
Dr Desiree Scholtz
NUTA
Dr Sandra Williams
ConstitutionProf Kasturi Behari-Leak
PHD Project
Prof Daniela Gachago
Project ManagerDr Sarah Godsell
Project ManagerRieta Ganas
Prof Subethra Pather
Prof Subethra (Su) Pather is currently the Teaching & Learning specialist in the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). She plays an important role in enhancing UWC’s student success initiatives. Prof Pather is UWC’s Siyaphumelela Lead for the Student Success project. She is Deputy President of HELTASA and forms part of the co-ordinating council working collaboratively with scholarly project managers to enhance teaching and learning in higher education. Prof Pather is manager of UWC FYE and Tutor Enhancement Programme at institutional level. Her research interests are located within the higher education field with particular focus on first year student transition, support, retention and success. Her extensive academic publications and academic presentations are located in this field. She is also involved in several national and international networks in first-year experience to advance student success in South Africa and her research agenda.
Sandra Williams
Prof Kasturi Behari-Leak (PhD)
As interim Director of Academic and Professional Staff Development in the Centre for Higher Education Development at UCT, I am passionate about working with academics at all stages of their trajectories to support, enhance, deepen and transform the way teaching and learning are conceptualised and practised in HE. My work in this area focuses on the exploring the interplay between structure (national, institutional, departmental and disciplinary) and culture and how this influences academics’ critical agency in the interest of change. I am President of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) and have been duly elected as the President-elect for ICED (2020-2021) and President of ICED (2021-2023). I am project leader of a national academic staff development collaborative project (UCDG), NATHEP. I was co- chair of the Curriculum Change Working Group at UCT, commissioned to facilitate discursive engagements on curriculum change and decolonisation across the university. I am on the advisory committee for GHEAR, a sub-committee of the World Universities Network. I am part of several national and international research consortia, focused on HE. I have published in the area of higher education studies and decolonising pedagogies/ decolonising the curriculum.
Dr Sarah Godsell
Sisanda Nkoala
Nomfundo Siqwede
I am HELTASA secretary working closely with all the Executive members in their portfolios.
Dr Greig Krull
Dr Nelia Frade
Dr Rosaline Govender
Anthea Adams
Dr Ntsoaki Malebo
Dr Mlamuli Hlatshwayo
The Strategic Project Teams
Sustainable Membership
The Sustainable Membership project works together to assist and support the other project teams and their members with their ongoing operations.
Benita Bobo
Project ManagerSisonke Mawonga
Scholarly StrategistWanga Gambushe
Scholarly Strategist
Abram Mashatole
Scholarly StrategistSisonke Mawonga
Benita Bobo
Wanga Gambushe
Abram Mashatole
Media and Communications
Leanri Van Heerden
Project ManagerBalitiye Monareng
Scholarly Practitioner
Adriano Giovanelli
Adriano Giovanelli
WITS
Aviwe Matiwane
Aviwe Matiwane
RU
Thaiurie Govender
Thaiurie Govender
IIE Varsity CollegeErna Olivier
Adriano Giovanelli
Aviwe Matiwane
Aviwe is a Lecturer at Rhodes University and a research associate at the Albany Museum. She hails from a small village in Mqanduli known as Lower Ngqwara outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. She obtained both her Honours and Master of Science degrees at Rhodes University looking at the plant biodiversity of the Southern Mistbelt Forests of the Eastern Cape. Aviwe is currently working on a palaeobotanical and biostratigraphic project. Miss Matiwane was also named as one of the Mail Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2018 and recently an Inspiring Fifty South Africans winner. She was also part of the South African FameLab top ten national finalists and was featured in Forbes. Her passion and enthusiasm have captured many people, leading her to be featured in many national and international science communication platforms and guest lecturing in international academic/research institutions, including Harvard University. She has also received numerous awards and accolades for her MSc and PhD work. Aviwe has a strong passion for science communication, animals, education, outreach, and women empowerment.
Thaiurie Govender
Balitiye Monareng
Bio coming soon.
Digital Learning and Teaching
The main focus of this project is to support HELTASA to organise and facilitate the annual HELTASA conference at the end of the year as well as several other events this year, working together with all the other HELTASA project teams. This team will focus on the planning and logistics so that things run smoothly. Given the continued disruption of the Covid pandemic, our events are most likely all going to be virtual this year. This year we will be doing something different and organising an “unconference” which aims to be less of a traditional or hierarchical conference and more of a participant-driven summit. This will enable members of the South African higher education sector who are passionate about learning and teaching to come together, share experiences, discuss ideas, and look forward for this sector.
We would like to have as many people participate in the “unconference” as we can. As we are doing things a bit differently we would like to involve HELTASA members as well as the wider community in the development of the different themes and formats and to submit their ideas and later their abstracts for different types of discussions and interactions during the unconference. More information will be shared soon!
Please contact the project manager at greig.krull@wits.ac.za
Daniela Gachago
Project ManagerDr Greig Krull
Nicola Pallitt
Shanali Govender
Simone Titus
Ass Prof Daniela Gachago
Nicola Pallitt
Shanali Govender
Simone Titus
Leanri van Heerden
The Scholarly Project Teams
Professional Learning
The work of the Professional Learning Project (PLP) is underpinned by the National Framework for Enhancing Academics as University Teachers (2018) and is directed at Academic Developers and lecturers in Higher Education. Ngwenya (2019) argues that “academic developers as critical educators have an important role in creating conditions for the fundamental transformation of Higher Education curricula, epistemologies and approaches to pedagogy (Ngwenya, 2019:97).
We envision the PLP to be an enabling platform for lecturers and academic developers to:
- Share and reflect on good practices
- Participate in structured professional learning programmes
- Collaborate on projects on teaching and professional learning in HE
- Engage in scholarly debates and engagement
- Engage in scholarly research on HE Connect and
- Collaborate with other HE professional learning organisations at a national and international level
We are very open to innovative ideas on professional learning from the HELTASA membership and would also love to engage with members who want to join the extended project committee.
For more information, please contact the team as follows:
Dr Rosaline Govender (DUT), rosalineg@dut.ac.za
Dr Anthea Jacobs (SU), jacobsa@sun.ac.za
Mr Thabang Mafokoane (UJ), tmafokoane@uj.ac.za
Dr Rosaline Govender
Project Manager
Prof Muhammad Nakhooda
Scholarly Strategist
Anthea Jacobs
Scholarly Researcher
Salosh Govender
Scholarly StrategistThabang Mafokoane
Prof Muhammad Nakhooda
Dr Anthea H M Jacobs
She currently works as Academic Developer/Advisor to Higher Education Teaching and Learning at the SU Centre for Teaching and Learning. The core focus of her job is the professional development of academics, which gives her the opportunity to live out one of her passions, which is empowering and building the capacity of others.
Salosh Govender
Daniel Maposa
Prof Maposa has published more than 25 journal research articles in internationally accredited journals including Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis Group, Copernicus Publications, among others. He has published two book chapters and three accredited conference proceedings. He has attended conferences and presented his research work globally in countries such as New Zealand, Australia, China, Switzerland, Brazil, Morocco, Botswana and Malaysia. Most of his international conference travels were being sponsored by the World Bank Trust Fund. Prof Maposa is an experienced university lecturer with an international exposure and he has won the Vice-Chancellor’s (VC’s) Best Overall Established Teacher of the Year Award in 2021 for the VC’s Teaching and Learning Awards and also won the Pro-Vice Chancellor’s (PVC) Early Career Researcher of the Year Award in 2013 for the PVC Research and Innovation Awards while he was with Monash University.
Student Learning
The Student Learning Project focuses on interventions and strategies that promote holistic student care and development. The Project aims to offer a holding space where practitioners can debate, collaborate and strategize around issues pertaining to intentional and sustainable student support. The Project will promote scholarly conversations around student support structures in areas such as tutorials, mentorship and coaching, FYE programmes, academic advising, and offer opportunities for professional development in practical areas of student learning for overall student success.
We welcome input and look forward to collaborating with practitioners working in the field of student learning.
Dr Nelia Frade
Project Manager
Mzwandile Khumalo
Scholarly Strategist
Arthi Ramrung
Scholarly Practitioner
Danie de Klerk
Scholarly ResearcherDanny Fontaine-Rainen
Mzwandile Khumalo
Arthi Ramrung
Danie de Klerk
Programme Development
Anthea – As Project Manager of the scholarly project, Programme Development, my role is to work collaboratively with my team members to conceptualise, initiate, plan, implement and monitor projects that focus on academic programme development in diverse higher education contexts.
Charlene – As Scholarly researcher, my role is to identify research areas and themes that can help us become more inclusive and representative in our focus on programme development and curricula based on the kind of institutions where we work.
Lauren – As Scholarly Strategist, I am committed to using long-term strategic objectives to find effective ways to identify, use and amplify the impact of available and potential scholarly and professional resources. We will collaborate meaningfully, deeply, and widely around pertinent aspects of Programme Development and Curriculum that shape and influence the future of student success in the modern South African University context.
Marike – As an ad hoc member, I holistically render support to fellow members to achieve project goals.
There is scope for people outside the team to get involved in the programme development projects that we have identified and decided to take on.
As many are aware, programme development includes many sub-areas such as the extended and mainstream curricula, the evaluation of teaching, courses, and programmes. As a result, there is a lot of opportunity for us as academic developers and teachers to enhance our practice through collaboration with other project teams, discipline experts and role-players in the higher education sector.
Our belief is that such collaborations will not only enable us to collectively explore, illuminate, and unpack the relevancy of curricula and the tensions that exist in the curricula of mainstream offerings and that of extended or foundation programmes. But will amongst other, also provide enabling environments / conditions that facilitate critical reflection and discussions on decoloniality that are more inclusive, informed by theory, and practice-based.
Anthea Adams
Project Manager
Charlene Geduld
Scholarly Researcher
Marike Kluyts
Scholarly Researcher
Mrs Lauren Davids
Scholarly ResearcherDr Patricia Muhuro
Scholarly PractitionerLauren Davids
Lauren is registered for the PhD in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University. Her doctoral research seeks to explore university access programme pathways of first-generation graduates from a West Coast town.
Lauren also serves as a project team member in the HELTASA Programme Development Team under the leadership of Anthea Adams.
Charlene Geduld (Van Wyk)
Mrs C Geduld- Van Wyk has an Mphil in Emergency Medicine from UCT. She has also obtained a PGDip in HE from Rhodes university. She has been working within the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at the Central University of Technology, in the Department of Health Sciences where she coordinates the health management programme, and in the Department of Clinical Sciences where she coordinates the Emergency Medical Care programme. She has developed a keen interest in programme development and has a clear career focus which is aligned to the ways in which the higher education sector can meet its transformational mandate, by developing programmes that creates inclusive spaces for learning and further development. She has served on a National level by serving on a task team for National Health. Where institutionally she serves on several teaching, learning, assessment, and quality enhancement committees. She is a newly appointed committee member of the HELTASA where she currently serves in the programme development task team where she hopes to further her career objective of creating inclusive spaces through programme development.
Patricia Muhuro
Marike Kluyts
Academic Development Special Interest Group
The AD Directors SIG recognizes that the work of AD and AD leaders should be informed by policies, research, and practices. These elements influence each other highlighting the importance of each element in AD work. The field of AD has been in existence for years in South Africa focusing mainly on providing support to black students who were accepted to Historically Advantaged Institutions (HAI). With the developments in higher education the role of AD and academic developers has evolved focusing on transformation, decolonisation, and recently emergency remote teaching/hybrid learning and teaching due to the Covid19 pandemic. The AD Leaders (ADL) are expected to lead in the drastic changing roles of the ADs and the HE contexts. The ADL SIG aims to provide the AD Leaders an opportunity to (voluntarily) work together in responding to the SAHE transformative imperatives. To support the new strategic direction of HELTASA, aligning it with the goal of being responsive, relevant and resilient, this project will focus will be on three main themes 1) Academic developer identity 2) Evolution of AD in the South African HE sector: where to from here? And 3) Pedagogies. The first theme will focus on debates that are ongoing in the sector about the status of Academic Developers within the HE space. Here we question the disparities that exist within the system where AD practitioners are either appointed as academic or support staff. We explore and engage with members within the HE sector to interrogate how all AD practitioners can gain recognition as academics within their respective institutions. We explore different methods that can be used for capacity development. In the second theme, we question the knowledge that is privileged within the AD field and explore how theories/knowledges from the global South can be acknowledged and included in the field of AD. In this project we anticipate collaboration with NIG on decolonisation. The final theme will focus on pedagogies in the context of the Covid19 pandemic, we question the notion of teaching excellence, we also explore the notions of epistemic and ontological access for learning and teaching conducted online. We further question the notion of assessment integrity online in a context where students face data and connectivity challenges. Collaboration with other SIGs and other members within the HE sector will be possible as there is overlap. A dialogue approach will be used to address matters that have emerged within the different themes using the notion of “LETSEMA”. LETSEMA is a Sesotho/Tswana word that is used in the agriculture context, the word means voluntary working together for a common goal to ensure sustainability. We view the work that will be conducted in this HELTASA SIG as voluntary work that requires collaboration for the greater good of the HE sector in the SADC region and Africa. As we prepare for the 2021 HELTASA conference the ADL SIG will use different approaches (online) to unpack the issues raised within the themes to embrace the notion on un-conferencing.
Dr Ntsoaki Malebo
Project ManagerLuyanda Marhaya
Scholarly Researcher
Muntu Chili
Scholarly Practitioner
Eunice Champion
Project Co-OrdinatorSiya Sabata
Scholarly PractitionerEunice Champion
Luyanda Marhaya
Muntu Chili
Siya Sabata
Decolonisation National Interest Group
Our national interest group is focusing on rethinking/re-evaluating/re-imagining teaching and learning practices and making sure they are transformative, decolonial and social just. We see the decolonial national interest group as playing the theoretical and philosophical anchor at Heltasa in calling into attention and informing all the work that Heltasa does as an organisation, but also as providing the spaces for critical engagement/strategic dialogue on what is to be done in the academy, and beyond.
We invite anyone to join the team and are more than happy to welcome those who are in the academy as well as outside to come and make a contribution in growing the research project.
Sarah Godsell
Project ManagerMelusi Dlamini
Metji Makgoba
Goitsione Mokou
Melusi Dlamini
Metji Makgoba
PhD Programme
The DHET- HELTASA Doctoral programme is a four-year programme leading to a PhD focusing on the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education in South Africa. It was launched in April 2021 with 10 academic staff developers registered as candidates at different universities in South Africa. The programme is steered by an Advisory Committee and flanked by a team of supervisors nationally. A twin project attached to the PhD programme is the Decolonial Supervision Programme which was launched in 2021.
There is always a scope for interested academics and decolonial scholars to contribute, share ideas with the programme. We have invited academic guest speakers to share their perspectives during our remote sessions building up to doctoral proposal for the students and reimagining of supervision in Higher Education.
Contact us: ntobeko.mbuyisa@uct.ac.za / ntobekombuyisa286@gmail.com, Cell no.: 0814162685
Prof Kasturi Behari-Leak
Project ManagerProf Labby Ramathan
Ntobeko Mbuyisa
Mr Ntobeko Mbuyisa is the Manager for Academic Staff and Professional Development (ASPD) at the University of Cape Town, Centre for Higher Education Development. I have previously worked as a Project Manager for Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching and Research Manager at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. I am passionate about working in Higher Education to support, enhance, deepen and transform teaching and learning, academic staff and professional development Mr Mbuyisa has a Bachelor of Science and Postgraduate Diploma in Finance, Banking and Investment Management and completing a master’s degree in commerce. Mr Mbuyisa has certificate in Leadership, Management Strategies for People and Resources certificates.
National Teaching Awards
The National Teaching Awards project works together to assist and support the other project teams and their members with their ongoing operations.
Dr Lizette de Jager
Scholarly Practitioner