HELTASA is a non-profit, membership organisation concerned with the professional learning of university teachers, student, curriculum and institutional development. Our mission and vision is to engage in policy matters, developmental practice and educational research. Given its location in the global South in an African context, HELTASA recognises the need for academic development to be re-contextualised and practised in a more deliberate and critical way, to respond to calls for social inclusion, decolonisation, multilingualism, polyvocality, and epistemic justice, among other concerns.

HELTASA hosted its first (Un)conference online, using open-space methodology. The theme Sivela phi? Siphi? Siya phi? focusing on ‘time’, questioned how we relate to our past and its legacy while considering our presence and our co-creation of the future. By flattening hierarchies and being participant driven, the (Un)conference was also a decolonial gesture for those historically silenced, marginalised and invisible in academia thus far; and affirmed our location in a place and space that is Africa. It is in this spirit that I draw on my experience as past president of HELTASA to embrace my role as ICED President, to merge the local and global and to amplify human connection, partnerships and conviviality in educational development.

Our Association has restructured itself into an entity that is resilient, responsive and relevant, ready for any eventuality. We use a rotational leadership model. We are now an organisation with multi-pronged sites and nodes of contact across the domains of student learning, professional learning, program development, academic leadership, doctoral studies, teaching awards and decolonial approaches.