The heterogeneous student body of universities has led to a need for urgent transformation of different aspects of higher education. In South Africa, this transformation agenda places an emphasis on the curriculum and teaching and learning methods, including the integral role of language, especially following the #FeesMustFall movement. This transformation seeks to align curricula and teaching methods with the diverse student body.

This thesis studies failure and disillusionment in black post apartheid South African fiction. As it officially ‘comes of age’, South Africa, like many post liberation states on the African continent, is trapped in the mire of disillusionment: there is a perception that the past continues to hold the present ransom, coupled with a recognition of a ‘newness that cannot yet be born’, to paraphrase Gramsci (276).

Counselling psychologists represent a considerable proportion of psychologists in South Africa (SA), yet knowledge on the discipline’s workforce is limited. In addition, professional lifespan issues have received inadequate attention, inclusive of the early career stage, identified as an exceptionally vulnerable segment of the professional lifespan.

The foundation of the South African narrative is framed by identity politics; a politics instituted at the intersection of race and class to exclude all people considered non-White concerning the socioeconomic and political landscape of the country. The preamble of the Freedom Charter signed in 1955 declared that the country belongs to all who live in it: Black and White people. The dominant constructivist narratives of addressing the racial dichotomy obliterate the injustice suffered by the Khoe-San people whose identity was overshadowed under the homogeneous term, Coloured people.

Saul Msane was a prominent founding member of the ANC and an active journalist and editor of the ANC newspaper Abantu-Batho. His career generated controversy. Towards the end of his life, he had a feud with his colleagues in the African National Congress (henceforth Congress) that led to him being labelled isitha sabantu, “the enemy of the people” for his refusal to support the Shilling strike of 1918, an accusation which was retracted a year after his death in 1919.