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This editorial is a culmination of various research on the area of posthuman theorization as applied to the field of education. It also focused on the need for borderless curriculum to circumvent global challenges such as genocide, terrorism among other things. It details the rationale of adopting a post human and borderless curriculum to respond to the ambivalence brought by the corona virus. The special issue gives alternatives which emerged during the pandemic and arms educators and learners with new models of learning that will ensure education system is not disrupted on the even another pandemic emerges. The argument of the special issue is that within the auspices of posthuman and borderless curriculum something else, and new is possible through working and thinking together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical editorial piece sets the tone for a special issue that focuses on teasing new directions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece is underpinned by bricolage thinking, and we seek to show that it is essential to reimagine various educational disciplines in order to meet new challenges and opportunities presented by COVID-19. In doing so, we are convinced that the relationship between a serene scholarly quest and applied space has to be re-examined. Thus, to reimagine a better world during and post COVID-19, cross-disciplinarity is no longer an option for humanity, instead, it is essential, to ensure the collective efforts needed to address the pressing issues of the day. We end this editorial section by arguing that new strategies that are adopted need to be shared across disciplines and faculties, to reinvent multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches to addressing human crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a positive peace lens to examine the replacement of the War and Strategic Studies (WSS) degree curriculum, to the degree in Conflict, Peace Building, and Social Transformation (CPST) at the University of Zimbabwe in the year 2021, by considering the global pandemic and seeking new directions in the field. The paper addresses two questions: 1) What changes and factors provoked the change in direction, from the WSS curriculum to CPST, and 2) What are the potential benefits of repackaging the WSS degree programme? The paper argues that the paradigm shift accommodates pandemics, such as COVID-19, which reconfigured social, political, and economic patterns of life, and a new direction emerged, that is, a change of focus from negative to positive peace. Among the reasons for curriculum changes, and for CPST superseding WSS, was the desire to give the programme a human face, and to align the degree so that it promotes the positive peace and sustainable development needed to address trajectories associated with emerging nonviolent threats to humanity -- such as a global pandemic. Lastly, we see the new direction of CPST as a counterhegemonic strategy to address confrontational and militaristic approaches to human conflict. COVID-19 has reminded us that confrontational politics are slowly becoming irrelevant for addressing the ambivalence of life, and in the struggle to contain global pandemics, which pose new threats to peace, security and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused unprecedented global socio-economic disruptions. One of the areas negatively impacted is the education system. The country's over reliance on traditional face-to-face teaching has brought about serious challenges to policymakers who have to decide how learning would proceed in the absence of physical contact between the teacher and the learner. This has been exacerbated by the general lack of access to textbooks and other teaching and learning materials which makes it difficult for parents to assist with home schooling. The potential use of mobile apps to support and enhance early childhood learning has received little attention in developing countries such as Zimbabwe, yet its impact in supporting early childhood education would be enormous during and post the COVID-19 pandemic. The study seeks to develop a numeracy-based app prototype that uses a local language (IsiNdebele) in a classroom or home-based schooling in response to the COVID-19 pandemic or other natural disasters or man-made situations that may make face-to-face interaction impossible. The analysis showed that kindergarten teachers had positive opinion towards the app as they perceived the prototype to be useful, easy to use, simple and that learners would be eager to use it. The results of this study can inform policymakers and educators on optimising technology based early teaching and learning at school and home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using a critical emancipatory research framework, this theoretical paper discusses the COVID-19- induced commercialisation of the education system in Zimbabwe. It argues that COVID-19 exposed and widened the digital gap between privileged and underprivileged learners, regardless of the learners' geographical location. The digitalisation of the education space -in adherence to World Health Organization's COVID-19 guidelines - has resulted in the creation of virtual elite schools. Learners from privileged families found sanctuary in digital learning, whilst underprivileged learners continue to be exposed to the reality of commercialised education. This trend has revealed educational inequalities between privileged and underprivileged learners. The paper answers two major questions: 1. What are the inequalities that were reintroduced by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Zimbabwean education system? and 2. How effective is stakeholders' response to COVID-19-induced inequalities? The paper argues that COVID-19 has dashed the hopes of free education for all, by creating a digital gap that perpetuates and entrenches inequalities in relation to learners. In light of these findings, the study suggests that education stakeholders invest in digital infrastructure, with special attention being paid to learners' economic status, as opposed to their geographical location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses using bricolage to mitigate the struggles faced by progressed learners in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Most progressed learners perform poorly in many subjects, especially sciences. Their struggle has stimulated the need to find ways to enhance their performance. Reinvented artefacts and processes can be used for emancipation, and to transform agendas for improving the performance of progressed learners. To collect data, we used participatory action research, which uses a thematic approach to make meaning of data. We created a WhatsApp group to enable focus group discussions for collecting data, to circumvent COVID-19 restrictions. The group had 14 members, among whom teachers and learners from rural schools. The study found that the factors that contributed to poor performance were a lack of teaching and learning materials, too few teachers, less than optimal teaching methods and learners' attitudes towards science subjects. The main argument of the article is that, in this time characterised by the COVID-19 pandemic, embracing bricolage has the impetus to mitigate challenges relating to the education of progressed learners. Thus, it is important to emancipate teachers, so that they can bricolise the environment for teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]