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Postgraduate studies in South Africa's higher education and the world have come to occupy an important position not only due to the high level of professional development attached to it but also due to the significance of post-graduate research towards the university's research output. This chapter is based on a combination of informal interviews with supervisors and doctoral students, observing student supervisor interactions as well as personal experiences within the doctoral study trail. The notions of agency and pedagogy related to the complexities surrounding how supervisor-student interactions could shape various forms of agency that may act as enabling or constraining within the doctoral study route are explored. This is particularly with respect to poorly resourced universities, particularly those often referred to as the historically disadvantaged universities (HDUs) in South Africa.

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This chapter focuses on the experiences of academics with disability within a Zimbabwean university context. Transforming universities under the Education 5.0 policy in Zimbabwe despite its good intentions has revealed some of the unresolved challenges. This chapter reveals how transformation practices especially with increase in technology use have presented opportunities and challenges for disabled sections of academic society within university spaces. The chapter also highlights how academics with disabilities face and how they ultimately negotiate their way within diverse structures that act as enablers on the one hand whilst being equally a source of barriers on the other. In-depth interviews, observations, and literature are used. The chapter concludes by highlighting how the importance of being conscious to contextual factors and embracing day to day experiences could represent opportunities for broadening access to technology and subsequent inclusion of academics with disability whilst also aiding transformation of universities and the broader Zimbabwean society.

The shift from contact to online classes as universities sought to ensure continuity in its academic enterprise not only happened within a context of uncertainties, hesitancy, and contestations but it had huge implications on pedagogic access and educational success for students from disadvantaged academic and social backgrounds. This article uses an ethnographic approach that draws from a combination of personal interactions with 24 participants who included 12 extended students, 4 parents, 4 academic and 4 administrative staff drawn from two South African universities, one of them in an urban and the other in a rural setting. Two key objectives feature in the article, that is how students in the extended curriculum programme have experienced online pedagogies and with what effects on their academic access and success. The article’s key findings highlight how through inclusive pedagogies with a holistic focus, the influences of societal and university ethos together with teacher competencies and other features become central when exploring pedagogic access and access nuances that confront students particularly the extended students within a setting featuring disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The article further makes a case for the relevant pedagogies that can be adopted for dealing with student success issues especially under periods of disruptions. The article further highlights ways in which the move to online pedagogies has not just threatened the success of these students but the very foundations of the extended curriculum programme which aims at addressing issues of student exclusion and success. The article concludes that while the experiences of the extended students represent a microcosm of the broader challenges faced by university students in general, there is evidence that successful inclusive models are those that are holistic with a focus on addressing diverse issues associated with university teaching and learning especially when untested online pedagogies are adopted.