Towards the end of 2010 I was confronted with the reality of leaving the State of Ohio, a place I had grown to call home; a place where I spent my formative years. I accepted a position at the University of Colorado at Boulder as an Academic Technology Consultant (ATC). A place with a strong reputation for excellence and quality education, whereby students are valued, appreciated, and celebrated, and as such I could not resist the offer. Beyond the university’s reputation, the position offered another opportunity to grow personally and professionally in the exciting and complex world of higher education.

I joined a dynamic team of professionals working on various projects intended to accelerate teaching, learning, research, and innovation in various domains such as Learning Management Systems (LMS), Web Development, Data Visualization, Mobile Computing as well as Content and Resources Development. As I came on board we agreed as a team to provide integrated set of services to enable timely and effortless access to resources. All this was possible because we managed the campus community expectations as a service department. Managing the users expectations became an obvious ingredient to achieve long-term quality of service and the community of scholars’ satisfaction. As a team we had to make fuzzy expectations precise, implicit expectations explicit and unrealistic expectations realistic.

The presence of ATCs within the Office of Information Technology (OIT) provided a different mix of capabilities to transform projects being implemented in the office. As a team we provided a big picture perspective to ensure overall success of any projects, as we were always on the ground working with the end users. Becoming part of the ATCs’ group opened my eyes about the importance of listening and basing decisions on user’s needs and expectations. Our presence in the OIT office afforded any project access to just-in-time user’s experience, which is very important as successful projects are measured on user’s satisfaction. I felt like an agent of meaningful and realistic expectations.

My confidence grew and I started offering insights on a new LMS functionality, bottlenecks, faculty experience and perception on the system. That led to a new role in the project as a Solution Architect to minimize undesirable consequences in a long run. Beyond all the technical know-how and working with my dynamic team I have to manage relationships upward for personal and political reasons. My experience has been great because I always remember that I am working to achieve the best possible results for myself, my superiors, the OIT department, and the institution; this big picture does guarantee our success.

My parents’ named me ‘Gcobani’ (meaning ‘happy’ in English) because for them I was their ‘miracle baby’ that they were happy to receive. My mother was already in her early forties when she gave birth to me, whereas my father was sitting just three years shy of 50 years. I never consciously thought about what this meant for me or how it would impact my life. I was always one of the youngest in my classes having been about three years ahead of the national standard at which most South Africans start Grade 1. Consequently my parents were often confused for grandparents by friends who had younger parents.

My father retired in the early 2000’s and my mother when I was in was in my first year at Rhodes University in 2007, and immediately from there onwards it became clear that financing my studies at Rhodes would become an issue for both my undergraduate and post-graduate studies without my mother’s solid income. While I qualified for government funding in terms of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme of South Africa¹, my parents were against it because of the possibility of ending up in perpetual debt as the funding comes in loan form.

By my third year at University therefore I was already paying for my own fees through bursaries, various vac works, internships, and university employment. I often envied my friends whose primary concern/worry was to study and just really enjoy ‘the varsity experience’. It came as no surprise therefore that by the end of my Honours year in 2010, I wanted very little to do with further studies, but I wanted to start working full time so I can for once start working without worrying about University fees.

At the beginning of the year, my Masters supervisor sent me a link to an article (2006) by Solani Ngobeni² who brought to light the Human Resources for Knowledge Production in South Africa report which paints “the extremely sad point that 98% of all scientific research output in South Africa is produced by white academics, albeit ageing ones”. I replied to my supervisor immediately and said that I hoped I always remember that article as I hoped it would convince me and many of my friends “to study further towards the big PhD… [although it is] really difficult though in a society that is increasingly favouring “mainstream” ideas and black youth who aspire to the “black diamond lifestyle” I said.

My supervisor replied that: “The money might not be in academia at the moment, but it will be, as we start to practice what we preach! We need young blood like you and Gugs [a classmate], otherwise the social reproduction of our state becomes a laughing matter!”. And this became one the reasons why I decided to give up my job at an internationally respected research institute to go back to studying full time and finish my Masters.

I have now come to think of the mind and expanding one’s learning in terms of Yoko Ono’s definition/understanding of reincarnation as “mirror becomes a razor when it’s broken. Wood becomes a flute when it’s loved”. This year has been a powerful reminder that the universe rewards hard work, that although I have not travelled a smooth academic road due to many constraints, that the world recognises the effort I have made thus far.

So as I prepare to move into my second year of Masters, my heart smiles as I think about the road I have travelled thus far. I am reminded and deeply grateful for my supervisor who has been extremely supportive and has helped to mould broken wood into a flute. I am grateful that even when my mirror wanted to break, that there have been many people willing to catch it recognising the danger of razors.

Anyone who knows me well will most probably be aware of my intense admiration for the work and scholarly output of feminist scholar and cultural critic bell hooks. This is particularly because of hooks’ idea of ‘education as a practice of freedom’. It came as no surprise to many of my friends therefore that I decided to pack my bags and leave the big city lights of the City of Tshwane in South Africa where I was a Research Consultant at a notable think-tank, for the little university town of Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, to begin my new life as a lecturer at Rhodes University’s department of Political and International Studies.

So there I was on the 3^rd of January (2011) barely settled into my office, and yet already running to the library, taking this and that book, printing this and that article, putting together assessment tasks/presentations, weekly response papers, essay questions and so on; in the hope of building solid courses for my students for the year. As with all new beginnings, self doubt started to creep in: I soon feared that perhaps I had not made the right decision to come to teach. I thought I was far too inexperienced and that the students would most likely not listen to me: who was I to teach anyone anything? Did I know anything? I would soon discover that all these questions happen to haunt all teachers, young and old, experienced and those that are still learning.

It is the contestant positive affirmation from my colleagues and friends who I consider the ‘cheerleaders’ we all need to keep perspective in moments of self-doubt who have reminded me on a daily basis why I chose this profession. It was a friend and colleague who helped me to make sense of this year and perhaps the teaching encounter. She said to me that I’d best enter the classroom fully prepared with accessible readings, clear assessment tasks and so on, all in the effort to make the administrative load for students easy. But that this is not enough on its own. The true encounter happens in the classroom when you are able to make it a human experience by exposing your vulnerabilities to the students so as to make it easy for them to bring themselves as they are into the classroom as well.

This is negotiating vulnerability. This is primarily due to the simple fact that the classroom can indeed offer some questions, but by all accounts the classroom is a space of questioning which challenges any attempts at providing absolute answers to how our world functions. So after hours of panic for that first time you stand in front of students, I realized what hooks was alluding to, that there is a temptation to reduce the classroom encounter to a display of how much knowledge I have and how much of it I can ‘deposit’ to the students.

But teaching as freedom means that I, as a facilitator of knowledge enter the classroom to communicate only a small part of our world in which I and the students seek meaning. What I take away from this first year of teaching is that my duty is that of facilitating that safe space where I and the students seek to shift in our old ways of thinking towards a new consciousness- to transgress or at times to deepen our perceptions of our world. Regardless of which direction we move, the classroom must provide a space of safety for these interactions, that engagement with the time and the place of thinking. It demands that we try to break down the walls of ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ and see one another as human beings as Frantz Fanon and Paulo Freire demanded.

It is not an easy process; it is even a painful process as bell hooks notes, but I am convinced in my limited experience that, that’s why the classroom still exists in an era when students could presumably download the information at home and learn on their own via the internet/self learning tools: it is that the learning process needs solidarity, that is community. As hooks states, “the classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom” (bell hooks – Teaching to Transgress, p. 207). And this year, I dare say has been a powerful reminder of that!

Studying abroad has been an enriching and eye-opening adventure, one that has helped me mature, personally and intellectually. The experience has provided an opportunity to travel and has been an optimal way to immerse myself in French culture and to learn the language. In fact, with this form of learning that extends beyond classroom walls, I have been able to attain transnational competencies that will, in the not so distant future, come handy in my full time job as a researcher.

At an academic level, studying abroad has opened my eyes to both the good and bad of European pedagogical methods. As much as it has introduced me to commendable specificities of European modes of teaching (such as strong emphases on critical thinking, problem-solving, team work and development of “know-how” expertise), it has also exposed me to theits shortcomings . For instance, most of the curriculum in most European Universities is largely Eurocentric- it is North/Western oriented and for the most part designed for European students. There is less, if any, infusion of literature from other parts of the world. To European professors, it seems as if their counter-parts from the global South do not exist in the global knowledge system. If you are lucky to come across literature from the global South, these will mostly be in the form of carefully selected texts, based on the professor’s epistemological, methodological and ideological orientation.

Texts that one often finds in the recommended reading list are those written by scholars who rely on extroverted scholarship- those who can be said to be suffering from “status-anxiety” (want to be relevant to the western “other”). In this case, you are likely to hear a lot about Achilles Mbembe’s On the Postcolony. If you happen to be in a class about security and development studies, the usual suspects, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Liberia are always used as case studies. If you happen to have a course on policy-making and political institutions, you will eat, sleep and talk about the European Union for the duration of your studies.

All in all, very few professors in European Universities, at least in France, are well informed about other regions, besides Europe and America. This creates imbalances in the content of the curriculum and it deprives students of an opportunity to broaden their perspectives by looking at different regions of the world. The experience of studying in European universities can be more rewarding if the curriculum is broadened, diversified, adapted to the realities of a changing world and separated from the ‘Europeanization’ agenda.

Choosing to study further, at Masters level is rarely complicated at the beginning. While you’re busy with your coursework, presentations, and seminar papers, you tend to forget that at the end of it all, you have to submit something, on some topic or other that may or may not advance the cause of academia, the sciences and you in particular. This is of course, until the time comes to hand in your selected thesis topic and proposal.

Universities have varying understandings of what this means, some expect some sort of bibliography and proposal; others simply need a title and topic. This is irrelevant, the point is, by the time you’re submitting a title, topic and/or proposal, your life for the next 9 to 12 months will pretty much involve living, breathing, eating and sleeping your thesis.

Scary bits aside, the thing that will keep you going for that time, is simply PASSION. When you choose to study further, it’s no longer about having or not having a degree, but simply about something that interests you at a personal level that you want to engage on a deeper theoretical level. In order to successfully invest months of your life into that piece of work, you need passion in your subject.

This is what will keep you motivated and patient through the tedious, and yes sometimes boring, task of preparation, writing and editing of your thesis. The time will come when you will start filling in ‘University Library’ under the home address section of forms; and when your family and friends will resort to referring to you by your thesis title, because frankly, that is the only thing you will respond actively to.

 The time will also come when you will get sick of the topic, the opinions of other learners, scholars and your thesis in general. Passion is the only thing that will not allow you to give up. That and supportive family and friends. My recommendation to you: the student reading this and still calculating the benefits of studying further? Be passionate, write every thought down, drink lots of coffee and take time off to eat, sing, dance or whatever else it is that relaxes you. When the going gets tough, indulge in small surprises. Put in the words of a good friend: “it is the process itself that’s important, the moments of panic come with the package, enjoy it.”

It is hard to believe that a year has passed since I started my job as the Assistant Director for the African Studies Program here at Ohio University. I was formally appointed to the position in August 2010 and only started working full time in November 2010. The hold up? United StatesImmigration. Those few months I was waiting, or more specifically panicking, for my work authorization to arrive must have been the hardest. But through all of that, and something that has come to characterize my work environment, the unconditional support, confidence and understanding that my boss, and co-workers, showed me kept me sane. Respect is another important aspect of our relationship.

The formula for an awesome working environment is to have a great boss. This person need not be your ‘buddy’, but they need to be a friend; in the sense that they have your back all the time but yet do not compromise on the standards of the work environment. They should be able to truthfully and respectfully compliment you for a job well done and inform you if you make a mistake; and most of all your boss should help you develop both professionally and personally. I have been lucky to be working for such an individual and cannot even begin to imagine a place where these characteristics are missing. I proudly say I love and enjoy my job!

by Maha Al Aswad

Although much has been said recently in the mainstream media about the current situation in Egypt, most of these accounts are largely influenced by the type of media submitting these reports: and given the nature of the Egyptian revolution as being citizen-led, it is important to hear these accounts from a citizen’s voice as well.

On Friday 18 November 2011, there was a huge demonstration in Tahrir Square calling for an end to military rule, to military trials for civilians (more than 12,000 civilians have been tried in military tribunals) and to the ever continuing use of supra-constitutional principles to govern the nation. There were huge numbers of citizens from different communities that attended the demonstration, most departing only in the evening. In addition to this, sit-ins were also held in different areas, including Tahrir Square, by those injured during the revolution and the families of the martyrs of the revolution. Throughout, they have been calling for the state to cover their medical expenses and pay compensations, based on the state’s responsibility in their suffering.

 On Saturday, 19 November, security forces violently dispersed this injured group from their locations, provoking once more a return to Tahrir Square, as support to the injured and families of the martyrs, a movement similar to that held on 28^th and 29^th June. (See http://eipr.org/en/pressrelease/2011/07/04/1191). Many have claimed that this is an Islamist revolution to access power. Based on facts on the ground, one is forced to dispute the veracity of this claim, as what we see at the moment is ordinary Egyptian citizens revolting against police brutality and military rule.

Security forces are using different types of tear-gas, rubber bullets, bird-pellets and live ammunition against protesters in an excessively violent manner with each passing day; causing the death of 35 persons and leaving more than 1700 injured so far (official records from the Ministry of Health). People are being arrested arbitrarily and violently, including volunteers, field doctors and journalists covering the events. Field hospitals are being attacked to prevent doctors from helping the injured.

As this violence continues, more people are taking up to the streets in support of those already on the ground in more than five cities. It is crucial to portray this situation as it is, in order to assist this civilian-movement and promote their courage. A simplification of the revolution to a fight over power by religious/political groups and the army downplays the efforts of these brave people fighting for their rights. Accountability is crucial to the advancement of a people, this is what the Egyptians are fighting so ardently for.

One can help support the movement with the help of the following links:

Videos:

http://youtu.be/zJ7FHUtxePw - http://youtu.be/54-1qNeef0E -

http://youtu.be/O94sWWDc8Ig
Images:

 http://goo.gl/OkNPL - http://goo.gl/qpA6A - http://goo.gl/Qxm2H -
http://goo.gl/wK4Ia - http://goo.gl/EhjrA  - http://goo.gl/edRSw -
http://goo.gl/Nw3Iu

- Joint Statement by Egyptian Groups:  

http://goo.gl/UzEqC

- Human Rights Watch   <http://goo.gl/zq5nR

Maha Al Aswad is an MA Candidate in International Human Rights Law at the American University in Cairo (AUC)

About two years ago we reflected on the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) for Development, looking specifically at EASSy, SEACOM, and GLO-1 Submarine projects. The hope was that these projects would transform Africa’s place in global society, unfortunately the Africa Competitive Report 2011 reported that African economies’ export growth rates continue to lag behind, more than those of other developing regions. Those who followed the implementation of those projects expected citizens of the continent to have access to high-speed Internet at low cost. Unfortunately this has not been the case as the continent continues to suffer from contextual, strategic, and operational problems.

The continent lacks production and export diversification making it susceptible to external economic breakdown. For the African continent to attain sustainable growth there is a need to develop a well-diversified export sector to reverse its marginalization in the global trade. African governments need to invest heavily in information technology and telecommunications infrastructure, in order to create enabling environments that attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and promote the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). In most African countries SMEs represent the largest proportion of established businesses, thus their role cannot be under-estimated with respect to economic growth, employment, and gross domestic product (GDP). Enabling ICT environments would help SMEs respond to business environment pressures, while fulfilling customers’ demands and gaining competitive advantage, as they cannot rely solely on the limited domestic markets.

In Africa, mobile phone usage has grown exponentially, thus we need to create mobile-enabled or techno-enabled economies. Today, SMEs could take advantage of mobility-enabled devices such as blackberries, PDAs, digital cameras, and laptops as entry points into new business landscapes, especially e-commerce. It is a must that SMEs adopt information systems and use them beyond accounting and cost control to help create new technical paradigms for future growth. Thus, enabling SMEs to access adequate information and consider a number of parameters as they plan for long-term goals. Africa’s economies need to look at information as a mode of development and the adoption of technology as a powerful working tool. Accessing information will guarantee that the Small and Medium Enterprises are competitive in a knowledge intensive market, and also guarantee the continuity of local societal values.

The challenge is that all the information systems are predominantly developed for Western conditions. Though some of the systems can be easily adopted by SMEs in developing economies, we cannot make implicit assumptions about infrastructure efficiency and availability.  In developed nations, the technological dynamics of the telecommunication services have provided these nations with an added advantage to capture all markets globally. The presence of FDI in African countries could stimulate growth by helping to develop technology infrastructure, technological capabilities, managerial skills, and provide technical assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises.

In countries such as Singapore, India, Indonesia, and Brazil, SMEs have an important place in economic growth. In order for Africa to achieve the millennial goals or attain developed nation status there is a need to create enabling environments, adopt new technological skills, and allow new sets of leaders to transform governments. In 1995, Singapore reported 65,000 SMEs dominating retail and wholesale trade, thus supporting economic growth. African countries could learn from countries like Singapore, where foreign investments and local enterprises are heavily promoted simultaneously.

It is important that SMEs acquire the technical know-how and take advantage of information technology to rapidly differentiate their products and services. There are SMEs in African countries that are taking advantage of information systems to improve their strategic position and access to global markets, but the numbers remain small. With the growing influence of the open-source movement, technology is more affordable and indispensable than ever before. As a continent, we cannot overlook local enterprises’ ability to sustain economic growth.

By: Moses Masitha**

South Africa is about to cross the Rubicon, one that many fledgling democracies in the history of developing nations have failed to navigate successfully. The historical narrative of these governments, led by former liberation movements is one of an initial positive outlook, followed very shortly by an implosion from within. South Africa too has arguably arrived at the cusp of this historical moment.

The nation is currently in a historical continuum, that period just after the advent of liberation but yet still caught between effective governance for a people deprived of social justice for so long and the need to balance the scales of a negotiated settlement. As the world looks on to see how the country with the highest economic inequality of all the nations of the world goes about the business of re-building old ruins, so too does Africa: a family so psychologically impaired that it is a looking for a silver lining. A brother who would give the rest of the siblings hope, that all of them can get out of the rut. Necessarily therefore, to rebuild South Africa then is to begin a long journey towards restoring Carthage to her majestic excellence.

Harvard University scholar Professor Eva Hoffman argues very convincingly on the ‘Meta-narratives’ that make up the national psyche of a nation recovering from a distorted past. The premise from which she departs is that of a second generation holocaust survivor who had listened to individual narratives of her mother and others who had firsthand experience of the harrowing experience. She arrives at a very profound conclusion on how individuals can deal with the shared trauma caused by such a collective occurrence. Her equation is as follows: individual narratives are single components that build into other narratives, which make up the meta-narrative. However in a country like South Africa where the narratives are contested terrain, the next phase to move on to is recognition of individual experiences as part of history. She argues that arriving at the conclusion of removing oneself from the base of hurtful narratives to viewing things from an historical perspective with a clear observation that men have in the past committed many evils, is the first step towards building new narratives and consequently creating new history.

This can mean various things for South Africa, but in the greater scheme of things I would contend that it means one thing in particular, the relegation of Apartheid (and its thinking) to the abyss of history. Sure, this is easy enough to do right? Apartheid is gone and may well never happen again in any other form. The harsh reality however is that the country is where it is because of a distorted Apartheid reality that stares us in the face every day.

It is written on the face of a neat looking middle-aged man standing at the traffic lights on Saturday night, with a huge card-box and paint brush in his hands, refusing to go home without the certainty of earning an income for his family the following day. This reality, the advent of a dysfunctional society is played out in the astounding figures that say about twelve percent of all teachers in rural Kwazulu-Natal are HIV positive and have to constantly miss school. Worse yet, is the knowledge that over a thousand teachers remain on the Department of Education’s payroll without the basic qualification(s) to teach. Furthermore it is reasonable to say that for as long as children in the Eastern Cape have to study in mud-schools under awfully administered schools the legacy of Apartheid will not be relegated to the abyss of history. For as long as the provision of quality housing, sanitation and basic services do not become a reality, the distortions of Apartheid will continue.

South Africa, Africa’s last genuine hope of building a thriving post liberation democratic society is faced with two scenarios:

1)      An internal implosion because of an inability to imagine a way out of a distorted past that reels in to the present.

2)      The creation of a value driven future (society) that prizes collective prosperity through pragmatic solutions that translate to tangible results for South Africans.

If  South Africa is to move away from being a nation with eschewed values and the greatest economic inequalities in the world, it will have to imagine its way out of the current predicament with an incredible mixture of conventional and unconventional thinking. In short it will have to INVENT the FUTURE.

The point of departure towards inventing the future should be a re-imagined education system, one that stimulates children to engage with their immediate society and re-think old models. Every school in the country should have a functional library, should have proportionate leaner-to-teacher ratios, every child should be in school (social grants should be used as an incentive to ensure that children are in school), teachers should be rewarded adequately and technology should drive the learning process. The state should invest in developing a new academic cadre, while not discarding the old guard.

Inventing the future further involves a  re-awakening or re-inventing of values as well, government employees (public servants) and/or politicians should guard against conspicuous avarice. They should be moral leaders in society, who prize the re-building of social institutions.

Recreational facilities in townships, which were inexplicably outsourced and eventually shutdown after the fall of Apartheid, should be re-opened and managed by young people who are parading idly in the streets. A new culture of service should be instituted, one that speaks to an imagined future.

The future can only be invented by demanding excellent standards throughout. The narratives of victimhood stand in the way of excellence, they give leeway to greedy people who claim to speak on behalf of the poor to exploit them. The recognition of a shared history encourages collective teamwork, one that will eventually shrink government and expand the autonomy of citizens. The onus of responsible citizenship can only be exercised in a society that sheds the distortion of the past and encourages all citizens to share in the pain of their fellow citizens and contribute towards their well being. This should be done without the clouded cynicism that is so prevalent in the private sector.

To shed the distortion of the past though, to relegate Apartheid to the abyss of history, requires an INVENTION of the future; an invention of shared values.

** Moses Masitha sits on the board of equal education. He was on the list of the Mail and Guardian 200 young people in 2010. He is the former SRC President at the UFS (the first African), and is currently running critical thinking workshops with educators and learners in the Free State