Teaching With Presence: Professor Jonathan Jansen Calls for Human-Centred Education at Rhodes University

By: Lance Myburgh

“Universities often blame students for being disengaged, but what if the real problem lies in how we teach?” This was the provocative question posed by Professor Jonathan Jansen of Stellenbosch University during his recent seminar at Rhodes University’s First Principles: Higher Education Seminar Series. Far from a dry academic talk, the seminar offered a bold and deeply human vision for the future of education in South Africa.

For Jansen, disengagement is not simply a matter of poor student preparation or lack of discipline. Instead, he placed responsibility squarely on the way teaching is conceived and practised. “Teaching is not content delivery,” he argued, “it is presence, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual presence.”

He explained how the lack of presence from educators, whether through delayed feedback or dismissive classroom attitudes, signals disrespect to students and drives them further from learning. By contrast, when teaching is built on mutual respect and kindness, students are not only more likely to stay engaged but also to flourish. This framing of education as relationship building, rather than transaction, strikes at the core of one of society’s most urgent challenges: keeping young people motivated and inspired in an often-alienating system.

Jansen critiqued what he called the “transactional mindset” that dominates much of higher education, particularly in environments where students are encouraged to treat knowledge as a commodity to be acquired for exams or qualifications. “When education is reduced to a transaction,” he warned, “students will give you the minimum effort required to get the credential, but you will have lost their curiosity, their imagination, their hunger to know.”

He spoke passionately about fostering a culture of discovery, one that encourages students to ask questions and embrace uncertainty rather than simply chasing the “right” answers. “Our job as educators is not to close down the conversation with certainty, but to open it up with possibilities,” he said.

The seminar also addressed the systemic tendency within South Africa’s education system to shift blame. Schools blame families, universities blame schools, and employers blame universities for under-prepared graduates. Jansen challenged this cycle directly. “If we do not start from the realities of our students’ contexts, we will continue to lose them,” he stated.

He pointed to bridging programmes as one attempt to close the gap. Still, he argued that too often these repeat high school content rather than inducting students into the intellectual demands of university study. Instead, he called for approaches that scaffold learning from students' lived experiences, building trust and engagement along the way.

This conversation is precisely the kind of public research that Rhodes University seeks to foster - research that doesn’t just live in journals, but actively tackles society’s challenges. By bringing voices like Jansen’s into the heart of campus life, Rhodes reaffirms its mission to serve the common good through ideas that matter.

While Jansen was uncompromising in his critique of current practices, his message was ultimately one of hope. He reminded the audience that disengagement is not inevitable. “When you build trust, when you respect your students, when you challenge them intellectually while standing with them emotionally, they will rise,” he said.

This counter-culture experiment, as he called it, is not simply about rethinking pedagogy. It is about reimagining the role of education in society. It is a call to action for educators, institutions, and supporters of education alike.

For Rhodes University, hosting such a dialogue is part of its ongoing effort to connect rigorous academic research with the pressing social issues of our time. And for those who believe in the power of education to change the world, it serves as a reminder that investing in research and teaching innovation is not just a contribution to academia, but a direct investment in building a more equitable and humane future.