Thato Mokoena is a researcher and development practitioner working in education, youth development, and public policy. A former student leader during the #FeesMustFall movement at Wits and SRC Transformation Officer (2016–17), Thato’s activism centred on access to higher education and institutional transformation—issues that continue to shape his academic and professional journey. He is the co-founder of Afromanifesto, a non-profit initiative tracking African election commitments to strengthen political accountability, and has worked in youth development, including running a civic and political education programme at Afrika Tikkun. Thato also designed and delivered a critical soft skills programme at BluLever Education, an artisan training institution. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in Inequality Studies at Wits, focusing his research on the social impact of austerity and economic downturns on the African continent.

Zama Mthunzi is a Global Campaign Coordinator - transforming public education systems to be anti-racist – building a global movement on anti-racist public education, and connecting with over 100 anti-racist education initiatives. This includes a strategic link to the University of Bristol School of Education (leading academics on race and education) and close work with global education movements. Zama was a #FeesMustFall / #RhodesMustFall movements leader of 2015/2016 at Wits University, in which he convened the direct action task team of the movement and also initiated and led a protest against racism at Wits.

Shaazia Ebrahim (she/her) is the Digital and Communications Specialist at the Climate Justice Coalition, a South African alliance of trade unions, civil society, grassroots, and community-based organisations. The coalition is committed to advancing a transformative climate justice agenda that tackles the intersecting crises of inequality, poverty, and environmental injustice. She holds an MA in Transnational Queer Feminist Politics from SOAS, University of London. Her dissertation, titled ‘Towards Queer Utopia: Building and Sustaining Feminist Revolution in South Africa’, was awarded with distinction and received the Centre for Gender Studies' Dissertation Innovation Award.

She completed her Joint Honours in Politics and Philosophy at Wits University in 2016–2017, during the second wave of the Fees Must Fall protests, anexperience that deepened her commitment to radical transformation and feminist theories of change. Shaazia was a journalist at The Daily Vox from 2016-2019 where she reported on everything from politics to pop culture, with a particular focus on protest movements - including Fees Must Fall and feminist mobilisations.
Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to social justice, with particular interest in social movements, activist burnout, and the pursuit of radical but sustainable change.

Omhle Ntshingila is a South African writer, researcher, and activist. She serves as Project Coordinator at the Right2Protest Project, where she works on campaigns , research and strategic litigation protecting the right to protest and challenging state and corporate repression. Ntshingila is currently completing her Master’s in Development Studies, with research focused on gendered dynamics and transnationalism in informal cross-border trade. Ntshingila is also an author focusing on freedom of assembly, civic space, political memory, and leads cultural and policy work commemorating movements like #FeesMustFall. Ntshingila passionate about youth development and works toward their realisation of their civic freedoms.

Dina Zoe Belluigi’s research considers intellectuals’ negotiation of the politics of participation in universities in contexts undergoing transition from conflict and oppression, and the conditions for the enactment of authorship, authority, flourishing and freedom. She has been fortunate to learn from the various methodologies of collaborating with educators, artists, storytellers and researchers based in South Africa, India, the island of Ireland and beyond. She is currently Professor of Authorship, Representation and Transformation in Academia at Queen’s University Belfast, and a Visiting Professor to the School of Women’s Studies at Jadavpur University and to the Chair for the Critical Studies of Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) at Nelson Mandela University, and serves on the Scholars at Risk Ireland committee.

Keynote Topic
Deliberations (with educators) on that made fragile: Academic commemorations of #Fallists’ calls for decolonisation a decade on

Abstract
In what ways may, and do, academic educators commemorate the radical calls of #Fallist movement a decade on? In the concept note for the University of the Witwatersrand’s academic development conference, it is posited that there is virtue in remembrance through educational practice. This invited keynote reflects, firstly, on such possibilities of recollection for historical consciousness and praxes within the ‘post’-colonial academy. Secondly, it connects with transnational scholarship on why the decolonisation of ‘knowledge’ (single) within the university matters, to discuss what this means for knowledges (plural) made fragile. As a deliberation for and with educators, it recognises the intellectual authority of educators in academia, and affirms their individual and collective political agency to engender counter-hegemonic and reclamatory transformations through their professional freedoms, public intellectualism and social engagement. The talk draws primarily from “Why decolonising “knowledge” matters: Deliberations for educators on that made fragile”, a book chapter in ‘Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures’ edited by Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin (2023, Open Book Publishers, https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0363.05).

Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis is a Professor and Director at the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies (AMCHES), University of Johannesburg. He holds a PhD from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he also worked as a researcher between 2015 and 2019. Emnet holds a joint Master’s Degree in Higher Education Studies from Oslo University (Norway), Tampere University (Finland), and Aveiro University (Portugal). He is an established researcher with a portfolio of over 45 peer-reviewed academic publications, primarily focusing on research in higher education. Emnet has received advanced-level research training in higher education from the Centre for Institutional Cooperation (ICIS) at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, as well as specialised training in Leadership and Management of Higher Education Institutions from Maastricht School of Management. Emnet is currently the Chair of the World Council for Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) Peace Education Task Force. He is also an advisory board member of the Finnish Higher Education Partnership Programme (HEP) and a member of the Advisory Committee for the Danish Knowledge and Innovation Programme. Prior to pursuing his PhD, Emnet served in various roles, including Head of the Quality Assurance Office and Department Head of various academic entities.

Abstract
" South African universities stand at a historical crossroads, caught between the unfinished business of post-apartheid transformation and the intensifying pressures of neoliberal globalisation. While significant progress has been made in expanding access and diversifying student demographics, deep systemic fractures remain, manifest in persistent inequalities, governance failures, epistemic marginalisation, and the corporatisation of academic life. This paper advances the argument that reclaiming the social mandate of South African universities requires reimagining their futures not merely as sites of knowledge production but as ethical, responsive, and socially embedded institutions. Drawing on global and local debates on social responsibility in higher education, the analysis emphasises the need to shift from a supply-driven model of academic excellence to a demand-driven responsiveness to societal challenges, including inequality, decolonisation, and sustainable development. Ubuntu philosophy is invoked as a counter-hegemonic epistemology that transcends the public–private good binary by reframing higher education as a relational and shared good, fostering both individual flourishing and collective well-being. At the same time, strategic transformation requires moving beyond compliance-based reforms towards participatory governance, futures literacy, and ethical leadership. The paper contends that universities must reclaim their legitimacy through an emancipatory praxis that integrates responsiveness, epistemic justice, and social solidarity. The paper concludes that reimagining the future of South African higher education entails reclaiming the university’s social mandate as a philosophical and practical project of humanisation, justice, and transformation."