Browsing by Author "Van Den Bergh, Camryn"

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    COVID-19 : insights and prospects from shifting learning experiences in Stellenbosch University’s postgraduate diploma in sustainable development
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Van Den Bergh, Camryn; Davies, Megan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Centre for Sustainability Transition.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: The world finds itself amid a profound and complex socio-ecological polycrisis. The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions that impacted education systems and practices. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have the potential to play a significant role in cultivating sustainability leaders who, in turn, are poised to contribute towards solving complex sustainability challenges. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is one framing of Higher Education (HE) that explicitly focuses on the links between education and sustainability and signifies the potential that HEIs might have in contributing to transformations to just, equitable, and sustainable futures. ESD, in many ways, attempts to challenge and decolonise conventional education paradigms and propel education by reimagining teaching, learning, and assessment appropriate for the challenges of the time. The pandemic’s impacts on HEIs in general, and ESD contexts in particular, are the focus of the research in this thesis, and the extent to which the ruptures triggered by the COVID-19 crisis might be leveraged to enhance ESD. This research study investigated the unique window of opportunity created by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on HE and explored the extent to which this rupture might potentially accelerate and deepen the necessary shifts in approaches to education that are urgently required for advancing ESD. Many of these nascent trends existed before the onset of the global pandemic; however, their capacity as seeds of potential for ESD was never fully realised. The qualitative inquiry was informed by a paradigm of complexity and explored COVID-19 disruption and its impact on learning experiences within the specific context of the Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) in Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University (SU). The inquiry surfaced various themes that might shape the approach to ESD within this programme at HEIs in South Africa going forward. More specifically, the research revealed that learning in place, technology in learning, emotions in learning, and building a learning community support the mission of ESD. The thesis unpacks how these nascent education trends existed before and are catalytic for transcending normative, established, and conventional education paradigms. The author argues that these nascent trends were accelerated and further realised for their propensity to shape transformative education because of a window of opportunity that COVID-19 presented. The analysis traced the shifted learning experiences of students and institutional representatives involved in the PGD from March 2020, the year of the COVID-19 lockdown, to March 2021. After exploring nascent education trends and investigating them symbiotically with empirical insights and tensions, four key prospects were identified that are particularly relevant and important for shaping transformative ESD in the PGD going forward. These prospects are translated into possible and practical recommendations for the Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST) to implement in the wider context at SU. As the need for sustainability education grows, the author argues for increased recognition of the possibilities these nascent education trends may offer for reimagined education in a post-pandemic world.