SoTL cultures in South African Higher Education and future directions: Insights from a multi-Institutional benchmarking study

SoTL cultures in South African Higher Education and future directions: Insights from a multi-Institutional benchmarking study

Manuela Fernandes-Martins & Musara Lubombo

Issue: Vol. 7 No. 2 2026 Article 2 pp.13-36
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/jelt.2026722 Published online 10th March 2026.

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ABSTRACT

Despite global recognition of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), its endorsement in national policy, and the availability of dedicated funding, higher education institutions (HEIs) continue to engage with conceptual ambiguity and uneven patterns of SoTL development. In the Global South, this has prompted sustained reflection and sector-wide efforts to strengthen SoTL cultures. This paper reports on a qualitative, external multi-institutional benchmarking study involving SoTL coordinators from selected South African public universities who participated in a two-day reflective workshop to examine SoTL institutional cultures, support mechanisms, and programme goals. The study is framed by John Biggs’ notion of the Reflexive Institution (RI) and Margaret Archer’s Social Realism (SR). A basic search commenced in 2023 with a desktop review of institutional SoTL websites and targeted email enquiries. Insights from this preliminary phase informed the purposive selection of HEIs with well-established SoTL programmes, whose representatives subsequently convened to explore the SoTL cultures within their respective contexts. Findings indicate that the institutionalisation of SoTL in South African HEIs reflects significant variation shaped by differing contexts and resource conditions. These variations, the paper argues, are less signs of conceptual confusion than adaptive responses that foster reflective practice and strengthen faculty agency. However, without a coherent strategy, embedded structures, and sustained resourcing, SoTL risks remaining peripheral to disciplinary research. The paper contributes to sectoral efforts to motivate new theoretical insights and transformative practices that advance SoTL in ways that are both impactful and locally relevant.

Keywords: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Slow SoTL, SoTL benchmarking, institutional change, SoTL project funding

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AUTHOR(S)

Manuela Fernandes-Martins (PhD) is a Senior Educational Developer at the North-West University at the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), South Africa. She is the coordinator of the Institutional SoTL programme. She was the coordinator of the Induction programme for new and early career academics and the coordinator of two Teaching Awards, the Novice Teacher Award and the Leadership in Teaching Award. She is also the programme coordinator of the annual NWU Teaching and Learning Conference. She was the assistant editor of the international SoTL book publication series, A Scholarly Approach to Student Success in Higher Education. Her interests include identifying directions for SoTL in Higher Education by planning opportunities for academics and professional staff to be able to engage in scholarly research and share their research findings with the broader community.

Musara Lubombo (PhD) is a Deputy Director of the School of Communication at the North-West University, South Africa. His work spans disciplinary research in communication for social change and academic development, with an interest in Disciplinary Literacies instruction and SoTL. He has convened Institutional SoTL Colloquia and coordinated the Disciplinary Literacies Programme at NWU. His current research focuses on the institutionalisation of SoTL, transformative pedagogical practices, digital pedagogies, and postgraduate programme development and pedagogy in Higher Education.

TO CITE ARTICLE

Fernandes-Martins, Manuela, and Musara Lubombo. “SoTL cultures in South African Higher Education and future directions: Insights from a multi-Institutional benchmarking study.” Journal of Education and Learning Technology 7, no.2 (2026): 13-36. https://doi.org/10.38159/jelt.2026722