www.saseeduc.net

The Southern African Society for
Education (SASE) was founded by academics in faculties of education of the
first three historically black (only African) universities of the erstwhile
apartheid South Africa way back in 1971.
The main objective of this initiative was to create an academic forum
for academics in these institutions from which they could debate academic and
professional issues that impacted on them and their clientele and the South
African educational agenda of the time.

The institutions involved or founder members were:  the University of Fort Hare; the University
of Zululand and the University of the North.

The Society was originally named
the South African Paedagogic Society (SAPS) reflecting the sentiment of the
founder member institutions that preferred to refer to their field of study as
Paedagogics rather than plain Education.
It should be noted that although these universities admitted only
African student according to their ethnicity, the majority of academics working
in them were white, and mainly of the Afrikaner origin.  This to some extent explains the allegiance
to the European terminology rather than the Anglo-Saxon terminology in the
field of education.

The number of only African
universities increased in the mid-seventies with the increase in the number of
homelands and further fragmentation of African (black) people into even more
closed ethnic groups.  This saw the
opening of universities such as the University of Transkei (UNITRA), the
University of Bophuthatshwana (UNIBO), University of Venda (UNIVEN) and the
University of Qwaqwa (UNIQWA).  Some of
the academics from the founder institutions transferred to these new
institutions either to be closer to their homes or on promotion, and they
introduced SAPS in their new institutions. The new universities, some of them
now operating in independent homelands, recruited academics internationally and
many of the recruits came from neighboring African countries, such as Lesotho,
Swaziland, Ghana, Uganda Namibia and others.

These new members brought in a new culture to the Society, and increased
the number of African scholars.  It was
time to revisit the constitution and name of the Society.  The number of Afrikaner academics (in only
African universities) actively participating in the Society had, with the
passing of time, become smaller, and the influence of what had come to be known
as the Pretoria School had waned.  In the
mid-eighties the Society was renamed the Southern African Society for Education
(SASE) making it more inclusive and to lean more to the Anglo-Saxon
tradition.

By this time the Society had
expanded its membership to include academics in colleges of education, and
senior education students were encouraged to be members of SASE.  At the same time, the membership had also
been opened up to include academics from faculties other than faculties of
education in recognition of the fact that all academics at university were in
reality dealing and wheeling in the field of education.  After the 1994 elections, which, among other
things, ushered in a new educational dispensation that brought along a new
policy for higher education, South African education academic bodies began to
exploring possibilities of merging with the hope of forming a unified voice for
the South African Education community. Talks were held with other organizations
of the time, and back-to-back conferences were held in the hope of finally
bringing the organizations together and creating one strong education
organization.  These attempts did not
bear the envisaged fruits, but as far as SASE was concerned they did give the
Society valuable exposure to affiliates of other organizations who later added
SASE to the lists of the academic bodies they supported.  As a result SASE members now cut across the
institutions of higher education in South Africa including academic
universities and universities of technology.

Reasons for the failure of efforts to merge the academic organizations
could be attributed to the fact that all of them had in the past developed individual
cultures that were difficult to melt into a new monoculture.  It soon became apparent that in a
multicultural society that constituted the South African society, it was not
feasible to create a culture-free academic body that was untainted with the
legacies of its merged components.

During the early nineties some of the ex-patriot academics from the neighboring
African countries returned to their countries taking SASE with them to
introduce in their new academic homes.
The first annual conference of SASE to be held outside South African
borders was held at the University of Namibia in 1995.  This trend was repeated in 1997 when the
University of Swaziland hosted the SASE annual conference.  The 2003 conference was initially scheduled
to be held in Zimbabwe; unfortunately this had to be rescheduled due to
financial constraints in that country.

The 2005 annual conference will be held in Mozambique, and will be
hosted by the Eduardo Mondlane University.
These conferences attract participants from countries like Botswana,
Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Mozambique, and we can say SASE truly
provides the platform for an academic discourse on educational issues that
impact on the Southern African society.

SASE is a non-profit organization
that survives on conference fees from its members.  What it offers is a platform for a voice of
Africa on educational matters affecting the Southern African region of the
African continent.  In addition it
provides a capacity building forum, where young and/or inexperienced
researchers can present results of their work and get constructive feedback
from both their peers and senior researchers.

Many inexperienced researchers who presented their papers at some of
SASE conferences have reworked those papers into articles that have been
subsequently published by accredited journals nationally and
internationally.  In the present climate
of financial constraints in higher education (HE) institutions and the research
drive being heightened more than ever before we believe SASE has a big role to
play in building research capacity especially among young academics from
historically disadvantaged backgrounds.

For senior researchers and
academics SASE also offers a needed platform for the nurturing of those under
their mentorship.  Some professors indeed
have used this platform, co-authoring and presenting papers with their masters
and doctoral students at SASE conferences.

Whenever resources allow, SASE conference proceedings including
abstracts and full papers (if submitted prior to the conference) are bound and
made available to delegates at the conference.
This provides delegates with some useful resource to which they can
refer in their future academic writings in related areas.

Bringing together academics from
the Southern African region has the advantage of exposing them to a broader
spectrum of educational issues and how the different countries address
them.  It also encourages sharing of
experiences, and makes academics more aware of educational systems of their
neighboring countries.  This creates
fertile ground for cross-border academic collaborations on common issues.

P. O. Box 2288, PRETORIA, 0001: e-mail: sangoni.m@doe.gov.za ; LekhotlaM@gpg.gov.za

.

President                                            :  Prof Zola Vakalisa (UNISA)

Deputy
President                                            :  Prof Vika Gabela (UNIZUL)

General
Secretary  & Treasurer                    :  Ms Pototo Sangoni (NDoE)

Deputy
General Secretary & Treasurer     :  Dr Lekhotla Mafisa (GAUTENG DoE)

Managing
Editor                                                 :  Dr M Teu (NORTH WEST DoE)

.

.

Eastern
Cape               :  Mrs NI Monoana

Free
State                    :  Mr T Naong

Gauteng                      :  Mr Sefiso Khumalo (2006)

KwaZulu
Natal           :  Ms Nomsa Chalufu

Limpompo                   :  Mr Norman Mafuno

Mozambique               :  Prof Valeri Kuleshov

North
West                 :  Mr M Ndandani

Western
Cape              :  Ms Hale Tsehlana

Zimbabwe                   :  Mr Pharaoh Joseph Mavhunga

REGION	NAME AND CONTACT DETAILS OF THE REGIONAL CO-ORDINATOR
EASTERN CAPE	Ms Buli Monoana Faculty of Education Walter Sisulu University Mthatha Tel: 047 502 2630 Fax: 047 502 2625 e-mail: Monoana@yahoo.com
FREE STATE	Mr Tshedi Naong School of Teacher Education Central University of Technology, Free State Bloemfontein Tel: 051 507 3324 Fax: 051 507 3367 e-mail: mnaong@tfs.ac.za
GAUTENG	Mr Sefiso Khumalo OFSTED: GDE Johannesburg Tel: 011 8912 2100 Fax: 011 917 8370 sefisok@gpg.gov.za
KWAZULU NATAL	Ms Nomsa Chalufu Faculty of Education University of Zululand KwaDlangezwa Tel: 0359026216 Fax: 0359026260 e-mail: nchalufu@pan.uzulu.ac.za
LIMPOPO	Mr Norman Mafuno Faculty of Education University of the North Polokwane Tel: 015 2683356I Fax:  015 268 2869 e-mail: mafumon@unorth.ac.za
MOZAMBIQUE	Prof Valeri Kuleshov Eduardo Mondlane University Maputo MOZAMBIQUE
NORTH WEST	Mr Monde Ndandani Faculty of Education North West University (Mafikeng Campus) Mafikeng Tel: 018 389 2519 Fax: 018 389 2038 e-mail: ndandanim@uniwest.ac.za
WESTERN CAPE	Ms Hale Tsehlana Department of English Stellenbosch University STELLENBOSCH Tel: +27 21 808 2041 Fax: +27 21 808 3827 hts@sun.ac.za or htsehlana@uwc.ac.za