Joseph C. A. Agbakoba
is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nigeria. He has been Visiting Professor and scholar at Goethe University, Frankfurt and the University of Cape Coast. Professor Agbakoba has held many research fellowships, which include the Georg Forster Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bayreuth Academy Fellowship, and a grant/fellowship of the Volkswagen Foundation from 2005 to 2009. He has been Head of the Department of Philosophy, Dean of the School of General Studies at the University of Nigeria, and Deputy Vice Chancellor at Madonna University, Nigeria. He is a former president of the Nigerian Philosophical Association; member of the Steering Committee (Committee of Directors) of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies; Regional Coordinator for Africa for the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (Washington DC); and Vice President for Africa of Conférence Mondiale des Institutions Universitaires Catholiques de Philosophie. Agbakoba’s many existing and forthcoming publications deal with the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. His latest book is Development and Modernity in Africa: An Intercultural Philosophical Perspective (2019, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag). His current research focus is in the area of philosophy of development and intercultural philosophy.
Saleem Badat
is Research Professor in the Department of History at the University of the Free State. After leading the Education Policy Unit at the University of Western Cape, in 1999 he became the first chief executive officer of the Council on Higher Education, the policy advisory body to the minister of higher education and training. Between 2006 and 2014, he was vice-chancellor of Rhodes University, and then served as the Program Director of International Higher Education at the Andrew Mellon Foundation in New York. He is author of The Forgotten People: Political Banishment under Apartheid (2013), Black Man, You Are on Your Own (2010), and Black Student Politics, Higher Education, and Apartheid (2002). He is co-author of National Policy and a Regional Response in South African Higher Education (2004), and co-editor of Apartheid Education and Popular Struggles in South Africa (1990).
Chris Brink
is Professor and former Vice-Chancellor (President) of Newcastle University UK 2007–2016, Rector of Stellenbosch University in South Africa 2002–2007,
Abdul Razak Esakjee
is a professional engineer and obtained his BEng (Mechanical) and MEng (Mechanical) degrees from the University of Johannesburg; he thereafter obtained his MBA from Wits Business School. He has gained the majority of his engineering experience in the rail industry, where he registered a patent for the design of a New Generation Timber Wagon. Within engineering science, Abdul Razak specialises in finite element analysis coupled with material science for material performance and optimisation. He served as a commissioner in the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (PC4IR), chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Abdul Razak is also a serial entrepreneur who has founded business ventures in engineering consulting, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and waste beneficiation. Abdul Razak is currently pursuing a PhD qualification at the Postgraduate School of Engineering Management, University of Johannesburg. The title of his thesis is “Engineering an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the fourth industrial revolution”.
Aslam Fataar
is Research & Development Professor attached to the Transformation Office at Stellenbosch University and Professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University. He was a member of Council for Stellenbosch University and the Universities of the Western Cape and Cape Town. He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Professor Fataar has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited nine books and over 100 academic articles and book chapters. He is former President of the South African Education Research Association and the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Southern African Review of Education.
currently holds the Research Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation and is Deputy Vice Chancellor for Engagement and Transformation at Nelson Mandela University. He served as a Director and Deputy Chief Executive Officer at the South African Human Rights Commission and on the Commission for Gender Equality, before joining the university sector. Since entering the higher education field, André has held professorial positions at the universities of Pretoria, Fort Hare and Free State. He has been serving as a transformation adviser and practitioner in various capacities in the sector. Apart from interests in human rights and social justice education, André’s current research and postgraduate supervision focus on radical approaches to the study of higher education, such as critical and abolitionist university studies.
Jane Knight
is Professor at the Ontario Institute for the Studies of Education, University of Toronto and Research Associate at the Ali Mazrui Centre of Higher Education Studies, University of Johannesburg is a long-standing scholar of the international, intercultural, and global dimensions of higher education and more recently of knowledge diplomacy and international relations. Her work in over 75 countries brings a comparative, development and international perspective to her research, teaching, and policy work. She is the cofounder of the African Network for International Education and the Brill book series ‘African Higher Education: Developments and Perspectives.’ She sits on the advisory boards of several international organizations, universities, and journals and is the author of numerous books, journal articles, chapters and commissioned reports. She holds a PhD in Higher Education and a PhD in Political Science and is the recipient of several international awards including two honorary doctorates.
John K. Marah
is Professor and Chairperson of the African and African American Studies Department at State University of New York College at Brockport from 1995 to 2012. He is a native of the Republic of Sierra Leone, West Africa. He earned his doctorate at Syracuse University, writing his dissertation on Pan-African Education. He is the author of Pan-African Education: The Last Stage of Educational Developments in Africa (1989); African People in the Global Village (1998); co-editor of The Africana Human Condition and Global Dimensions (2002); co-editor of Africana Studies: Beyond Race, Class and Culture (Routledge, 2015). He has authored several articles in The Journal of Black Studies, and has also been published in the Journal of African Studies; Journal of World History;
Mukovhe Masutha
is Lecturer at the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies, while at the same time he is a Director of the Centre for Emerging Researchers at the University of Johannesburg. He has held several positions including Policy and Strategy Analyst at the City of Tshwane’s Division of Economic Intelligence and Manager: Research, Strategy and Policy Analysis at the African National Congress’s HQ Policy Unit. He has lectured at the University of Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and has served on several high-level advisory committees, notably as a Member of the Black Health Matters Research Group based at the University of Toronto, the Technical Task Team of the South African Government’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Higher Education Funding and the South African President’s Youth Working Group. He recently completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship and serves as a Research Associate under the South African Research Chair in Teaching and Learning (funded by the Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation). Dr Masutha has a PhD in Higher Education Policy and Management from the University of Bath, UK. His research interests include higher education funding policy, experiences of black working-class students in higher education, critical race theory, social reproduction in education and society and interest groups and public policymaking. He has several publications to his name, including a co-authored book, book chapters and journal articles.
Shireen Motala
is Professor and Chair of the NRF/DHET SARChI: Teaching and Learning (Tier 1) at the University of Johannesburg. Professor Motala was Head of the Postgraduate School (PGS), University of Johannesburg (UJ) until September 2020. She is a member of the Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf). Prior to joining UJ in 2010, Prof Motala was the Director of the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has held numerous leadership roles related to higher education including Chairperson of the Education Policy Consortium (2006–2010), Chairperson of the UNESCO South African Commission (2001–2006) and first inaugural president of the South African Research Association (SAERA) (2013–2014). She was appointed by the Minster of Higher Education and Training to serve on the Council of Higher Education (CHE) for two terms from 2010–2018. An NRF rated researcher, her
Sibongile Muthwa
is Vice Chancellor and Principal of Nelson Mandela University. Leading organisations in the quest for equality and a more socially just world has been the hallmark of Muthwa’s career. She is a former director of the University of Fort Hare Institute of Government and further is the former Deputy Vice Chancellor: Institutional Support at Nelson Mandela University. Before that, she served as Director General of the provincial public service of the Eastern Cape. She is the current Chairperson of Universities South Africa, a membership organisation representing the leadership of South Africa’s 26 public universities. She has chaired the Ministerial Task Team on Sexual Harassment and Gender Based Violence and Harm in South African Universities, and is a member of the Presidential Human Resource Development Council of South Africa. She previously served as a Trustee of South African Women in Dialogue, and as the Deputy Chairperson of the South African Financial and Fiscal Commission.
Uchenna Okeja
is Professor and Head of Department of Philosophy at Rhodes University and a research associate at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. His background is in political philosophy, ethics and critical theory. His current research focuses on migration, global justice, democratic education and deliberative democracy. His most recent publication is Deliberative Agency: A Study in Modern African Political Philosophy (Indiana University Press, 2022).
Saurabh Sinha
obtained his degrees in BEng (with distinction), MEng (with distinction), and PhD in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pretoria. As an established researcher, rated by the National Research Foundation, he has authored or co-authored over 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals and at international conferences. Professor Sinha served University of Pretoria for over a decade; his last service was as Director of the Carl and Emily Fuchs Institute for Microelectronics, Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering. On 1 October 2013, Professor Sinha was appointed as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Johannesburg. As of December 2017, Professor Sinha has been the University of Johannesburg Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation. Among other leading roles, Professor Sinha has also
Crain Soudien
was educated in the fields of education and African Studies at the Universities of Cape Town and UNISA in South Africa and the State University of New York at Buffalo. His PhD dissertation from Buffalo was on South African youth identity. He is a former Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, where he remains an emeritus professor in Education and African Studies and the former Chief Executive Officer of the Human Sciences Research Council. He also has honorary professorial appointments at Nelson Mandela University and the Cape University of Technology. His publications in the areas of social difference, culture, education policy, comparative education, educational change, public history and popular culture include four books, one co-authored book, six edited collections and over 230 articles, reviews, reports and book chapters. He has an A-rating in the South African research system. He is involved in several local, national and international social and cultural organisations and is chairperson of the Independent Examinations Board, a founder and former chairperson of the District Six Museum Foundation, a former president of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies, and has served as the chair of three Ministerial Committees of Enquiry, including the Ministerial Committee on Transformation in Higher Education and the Ministerial Committee to Evaluate Textbooks for Discrimination. He is a fellow of the International Academy of Education, the African Academy of Science, a Senior Fellow of NORRAG (Geneva Graduate Institute), a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, a former fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, and is further the SARCHI Chair in Development Education at University of South Africa. He is also a former fellow of the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research, University of Alberta. Professor Soudien serves on the boards of several cultural, heritage, education and civil society structures.
Yusef Waghid
is a leading African philosopher of education and a tenured distinguished professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His most notable scholarly contributions in the field of African philosophy of higher education feature in international scholarly books which include, inter alia, Towards an Ubuntu University: African Higher Education Reimagined (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2022, with Zayd Waghid, Judith Terblanche, Faiq Waghid, Lester Shawa, Joseph Hungwe, Thokozani Mathebula); Education, Crisis, and Philosophy: Ubuntu within Higher
Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis
is Associate Professor and Director of the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies, University of Johannesburg. Professor Woldegiorgis has been researching higher education issues in Africa since 2006. He completed his PhD at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he worked as a researcher from 2015. His research focuses on South–South partnership models, regionalisation and internationalisation of higher education in Africa. He did his joint Master’s degree in Higher Education Studies at Oslo University in Norway, Tampere University in Finland, and Aveiro University in Portugal. He is certified in two advanced-level research training courses in higher education in the Netherlands (at the Centre for Institutional Cooperation at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and the Leadership and Management of Higher Education Institutions, Maastricht School of Management). Prior to his position at Bayreuth University, he was Head of the Quality Assurance Office, Head of Department and team leader at Mekelle University, Ethiopia, for four years. He has published several articles and book chapters on higher education issues, particularly theories of regionalisation, student mobility, cost-sharing and harmonisation of higher education systems in Africa. Currently, he is working on the re-conceptualisation of academic freedom in Africa.