Traditional advising responsibilities are shifting to include a holistic, learning-based and developmental approach that favours advising of the entire university experience. A dearth of systematic empirical evidence exists on advisors’ perceptions of the value of advising students during the COVID-19 pandemic in the South African context. The purpose of this study is to elucidate advisors’ perceptions of the complexity and challenges inherent in their responsibilities during the pandemic. This case study draws on a qualitative research design; it is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews undertaken with nine advisors in 2020. The central research questions posed in this study are: how do advisors describe their perceptions of their responsibilities within the COVID-19 pandemic, and how might these contribute to future practices? The findings indicate that advising during the pandemic has transcended the typical transactional dissemination of information to include addressing contextual environmental and resource challenges, social justice imperatives, emergency remote learning, asynchronous advising challenges and data-informed advising. These responsibilities have encompassed a holistic approach to advising and to getting to know students as ‘whole people’. Adjustments and transitions to emergency remote learning have highlighted social inequalities in access to data, to internet and electricity connectivity, which have served as impediments to students’ learning, and to educational experiences. Some home environments were not conducive to studying but necessitated doing household chores and herding cattle. The findings also indicate that an institution’s advising delivery model should enhance advisors’ abilities to perform their responsibilities. A network of cascaded responsibilities that incorporates greater involvement of lecturers in advising could contribute to a shared responsibility between lecturers and central, faculty and peer advisors. Insights gained may lead to a more nuanced understanding of advisors’ responsibilities as they relate to student learning and to the overall educational experience to promote retention and student success in a post-pandemic era.

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Not much has been devoted to teaching and learning in the world university ranking debate. This theoretical article is based on a qualitative research approach with a case study research design guiding the literature review on global ranking systems. The findings indicate that in the South African context, ethical decision-making should guide decisions regarding whether a university should be ranked. As market leaders, global rankings have the potential to set new trends in rankings that focus on teaching and learning as essential functions of a university on par with research. In addition, the importance accorded to global rankings should not be considered for a few universities but for the value they add to the entire South African higher education (HE) system.

As a national policy imperative, transformation has dominated efforts towards change in higher education in South Africa in the post-1997 period. Twenty years later, students are echoing continuous calls for transformation by the government and scholars, with renewed attention to student fees and decolonisation of the curriculum. Recent violent national protests necessitate interventions at the national higher education policy level as well as at an institutional level. However, the relationship between quality assurance policies and decolonisation priorities has not been considered. The Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF) is proposed as a guide to inform curriculum development and programme accreditation. This qualitative study explored how the HEQSF could contribute to calls to decolonise the curriculum. As a national government directive, transformation was interpreted and implemented differently in the various higher education institutions. Due to a lack of adequate debate on how decoloniality should be implemented nationally, transformation and decoloniality will continue to co-exist as discourses in higher education until this is resolved. The analysis of the HEQSF indicates the possibilities and limitations of both the HEQSF and decoloniality to contribute to calls to decolonise the curriculum. The HEQSF was designed in line with a neo-liberal world view which militates against shifts towards embracing different ways of thinking and 'de-linking' from traditional perspectives. Reexamining the very notion of a qualifications framework and proposing relevant alternatives to facilitate the decolonisation of the An Analysis of the Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework 45 curriculum, is required. Since no alternative exists to replace the HEQSF, the possibility for change based on prescriptions in a decolonial context are questionable. The article concludes with possibilities and challenges for moving towards decoloniality in the South African higher education system.