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Resilience and sustainability in African higher education: A post-Covid, collaborative autoethnographic reflection
Kezia H. Mkwizu
Independent researcher, Tanzania
Kathija Yassim
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
The trends in higher education's post-pandemic recovery and towards sustainability are not new concepts and are still being discussed in various contexts. Evidence shows that higher education suffered greatly from the pandemic due to closures of institutions. Hence, more post-pandemic studies are necessary to understand its effects and how sustainability can be a reference framework towards the path for future resilience. Our research uses collaborative autoethnography complemented with content analysis as a methodological approach to explore resilience and sustainability in African higher education in two countries, Tanzania and South Africa. Specifically, we explore female academic's resilience and sustainability in higher education institutions by contrasting two African countries that approached the pandemic very differently. Tanzania did not have a lockdown, while South Africa had a lockdown which was imposed for at least a year. Our post-Covid reflection using a collaborative autoethnographic approach provides unique insights into resilience and sustainability in higher education, in both countries and in the broader African context.
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Authors: Dr Kezia H. Mkwizu (corresponding author) holds a PhD in Tourism. She is currently an independent researcher. Her research interests are TV advertising, domestic tourism, domestic tourists' experiences, novelty, enjoyment, national parks, but not limited to these areas. Her research is disseminated in journals, conferences, podcast, YouTube, book chapters and a monograph. Also, she is a reviewer for local/international journals, and conferences. She received awards for Outstanding Reviewer from international journals. Also, Editor for a Conference Proceedings. In 2023 she was an Editor and Coordinator for a book, Contemporary issues in tourism: Implications for Eastern and Southern Africa. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/9976606117] ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4436-9603 Email: kmkwizu@hotmail.com Dr Kathija Yassim is an Associate Professor in the University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Education, Department of Education Leadership and Management. She currently coordinates and teaches on online postgraduate programs in the field of education leadership and management. She also supervises student research at masters and PhD levels in the niche "Leading Education for Sustainable Futures in the era of 4IR". ORCID: http://orcid.org/0009-0009-1805-1061 Email: kyassim@uj.ac.za Please cite as: Mkwizu, K. H. & Yassim, K. (2024). Resilience and sustainability in African higher education: A post-Covid, collaborative autoethnographic reflection. Issues in Educational Research, 34(4), 1451-1468. http://www.iier.org.au/iier34/mkwizu.pdf |