This paper reports on teachers as change agents to implement inclusive education in some rural secondary schools in South Africa. The study followed a qualitative case study research methodology. Eight teachers were recruited to form part of the study through a purposive sampling strategy. Data were collected through interviews, observations and document analysis. The study found that: (a) teachers were resilient in the face of lack of resources to implement inclusive education, (b) teachers did their best despite lack of capacity to implement inclusive education, (c) teachers showed the willingness to effect change, and (d) when they collaborated with others, they achieved more. These findings have at least four implications for teacher education: One that institutions should train teachers to survive with meagre resources. Two, professional development initiatives should be planned to capacitate teachers on inclusive education. Three, teacher education institutions should develop programmes that include models of teacher agency such as the one displayed by these teachers. Four, teacher education should develop programmes that teach teachers how to collaborate with parents and other stakeholders to make inclusive education possible.

The quest for access to higher education has increased rapidly in the past 25 years of democracy in South Africa. However, this increase has not been matched by student academic success. This lack of success may even be worse with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has given rise to challenges that have affected student learning, especially for students who come from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. In response to these, many institutions of higher learning have resorted to online teaching and learning. Despite this aforementioned lack of success, there are some who have succeeded. This group of students is the focus of our study. Therefore, the question discussed here is: How do students of historically disadvantaged backgrounds have access to higher education and succeed in their studies, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic? We employed a qualitative methodological approach, where the case study research design was adopted. A purposive sampling strategy was used to select a total of 18 participants from the School of Education at the University of Limpopo in South Africa. The sample was divided into four categories. The first category was made up of 10 students. The second category comprised 2 administrative staff, the third category consisted of 4 academic staff and 2 support staff (residence and academic writing) formed the last category. Data was collected through interviews and document analysis. The findings showed that students from disadvantaged backgrounds encountered challenges with their academic and their social lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we established that they developed coping skills (working in groups, moving around from one spot to the other in search of a strong connectivity) to navigate through their challenges. These findings imply that students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds can succeed if they leverage their studies on self-agency and social capital despite disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

(1) Background: Health literacy is the intersection of general literacy, health, and healthcare, but it can also incorporate elements of other types of literacies to varying degrees. The notion of literacy surfaced from the fear that individuals would require more than general literacy skills to manage the complexities of health and health system issues. There is a substantial overlap between general literacy and health literacy. Diabetes patients frequently misinterpret medication instructions, resulting in non-adherence and poor health outcomes. (2) Aim: This study sought to review the literature on the impacts of health literacy on adherence and compliance to diabetes mellitus treatment. (3) Methods: A Narrative Literature Review method was used to identify, analyze, assess, and interpret the available information on health literacy regarding prescribed medication instructions. The following databases and search engines were used to locate the literature: electronic databases, search engines, and hand searches. Fifty-three (53) quantitative and qualitative studies and two books were reviewed. (4) Result: The review pointed out the following: the importance of health literacy, the implications of health illiteracy versus medication non-adherence, factors influencing health literacy versus medication adherence, and the interventions to improve medication non-adherence. (5) Conclusion: Relatively few studies have been conducted on how people living with diabetes should carry out their treatment. Therefore, more research on how people living with diabetes carry out their treatment daily is required. (6) Contributions: This study has identified that health literacy plays a role in adherence to treatment and contributes to improved health outcomes.

Low-resourced communities across the world face chronic and cumulative adversity that often lacks clear solutions. This adversity manifests itself in various institutions including schools. Professional resources to address this adversity, for example, bullying, poor academic performance, teenage pregnancy, inclusivity, in low-resourced communities, and elsewhere, are insufficient or undermine community partnerships by being highly individualised and disenabling. In this article, the author argues that so far interventions to close the achievement gap in dysfunctional schools have not been at the curriculum level. To address this gap, he proposes the use of the relationship-resourced resilience (RRR) model developed by Liesel Ebersöhn as generative theory. The theory posits that disadvantaged communities can make a difference if the curriculum is sufficiently flexible to accommodate community partnerships. In this article, he argues for a flexible curriculum that accommodates members of the community and teachers as co-creators of knowledge rather than mere transmitters and customers of knowledge.