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Negotiating Change in the Process of Transition from School to Higher Education offers a powerful, continent‑wide examination of one of the most critical yet under‑supported stages in the educational journey. Bringing together leading scholars from Southern, Eastern, and Western Africa, this groundbreaking volume reveals the hidden dynamics that shape how students enter, navigate, and succeed in higher education systems marked by deep inequality, linguistic diversity, neoliberal pressures, and enduring colonial legacies.
Through empirical studies and theoretical insights, chapter authors explore the structural barriers that make transition into higher education a struggle, but also a process of identity‑building, resilience, and possibility. From rurality, multilingualism, disability, and psychosocial well‑being to admissions testing, COVID‑19 disruptions, and institutional culture, this volume reframes transition as a multidimensional, justice‑oriented process of becoming.
Rich, rigorous, and urgently relevant, this volume is essential reading for anyone working to build equitable and transformative higher education systems, across Africa and globally.
Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis is a Professor and Director at the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies (AMCHES), University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Emnet is currently the Chair of the World Council for Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) Peace Education task force and the advisor board member of the Finnish Higher Education Partnership Programme (HEP), representing the African continent.
Simon Vurayai is a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies (AMCHES), University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include the sociology of knowledge and the curriculum, higher education studies, digital sociology, the sociology of inequality, and gender studies.
Chapter 1. Introduction: Transition as a Contested Social Process; Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis and Simon Vurayai
Chapter 2. Theorising Transitions as Sites of Struggle: A Theoretical Inquiry into the School-to-University Trajectory; Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis
Chapter 3. Theorising Structural Barriers in the Transition from Secondary Schools to Higher Education for Students with Disabilities in South Africa: A Critical Disability Studies Perspective; Sibonokuhle Ndlovu
Chapter 4. Liminality for the Natives of Nowhere: Black African Students' Experience Transitioning from High School to Higher Education; Marcina Singh
Chapter 5. Bridging the Gap: Exploring Transitional Challenges from Secondary Schools to Higher Education in Ethiopia; Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis
Chapter 6. From School to University: A Bourdieusian Analysis of First-Year B. Ed Students Negotiating Academic Literacies in South African Higher Education; Halima Namakula
Chapter 7. Negotiating the Transition from High School to Higher Education in South Africa under the COVID-19 Pandemic; Alois S. Baleni
Chapter 8. The Significance of Diversity in Transition: Diversity Dimensions in Admission, Administration, and Reporting of Higher Education Institutions in Ghana and South Africa; Philina Wittke and Berit Stoppa
Chapter 9. Navigating Educational Transition in Uganda: Students' and Educators' Experiences; Monicah Rullonga Kanyesigye and Faith Mugisha Ahabyoona
Chapter 10. The Myth of Freedom: Psychosocial and Academic Experiences of Transition; Tendayi Dzinoreva and Peter Oloba
Chapter 11. Bridging the Transition Gap: Academic and Social Challenges of Rural Students in Zimbabwean Higher Education; Simon Vurayai
Chapter 12. Exploring the Transition Experiences from High School to University among Successful Disadvantaged Students in a South African University; Elizabeth S. Ndofirepi and Otilia Chiramba
Chapter 13. Socio-Economic Status and Higher Education Admissions Test Performance: A Large-Scale Quantitative Study; Robert Noel Prince and Zach Simpson
Chapter 14. Enabling Spaces: Experiences of Rural Students in Navigating the Complexities of Higher Education; Hellen Agumba
Chapter 15. The Role of Pre-Entry and Demographic Variables in Shaping Transition: Perceived Uptake of Student Support Services at a South African University of Technology; Lucky Sibanda, Chux Gervase Iwu, and Tendai Makwara
Chapter 16. Covert Exclusion of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Students in Malawi; Tiffany V. Banda
Chapter 17. Conclusion: Educational Transitions in African Higher Education: Structural Conditions, Epistemic Struggles, and the Possibility of Transformation; Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis and Simon Vurayai