There has never been a better time for tertiary curricula to provide a learning framework for the development of personal as well as professional ethics and accountability. Research shows that tertiary education today should address the development and transformation of the self (Mezirow

The South African government has invested in skills development ever since 1995 in an effort to facilitate more opportunities for small business and micro business (SMME) owners. Skills development programs offered in South Africa include the development of technical skills like apparel construction. At least 129 active apparel SMMEs were operating in the Pretoria region of Gauteng province during between 2001 and 2013. Most of these SMMEs provide custom‐made apparel for their individual customers and the owner‐designers of these businesses are involved in the design process of the custom‐made apparel, but also play an imperative role in the business functions that directly relate to the design process.

Citizenship implies association and involvement in a community. Even though the conditions of involvement can be specified by government laws, citizenship is in fact not only a matter of politics, but actually an issue of culture and experience. It can therefore be described as a status and as a set of attitudes, associations and expectations that go beyond territorial boundaries. Active citizenship is the viewpoint that citizens should work for the improvement of their community. The notion requires active participation through economic contribution and volunteer work to improve life for all citizens.

This paper draws on a multiple case study on school leadership in seven schools in South Africa. The views and experiences of principals of so called failing schools were elicited and analysed to try and answer the research question: Why could these schools not achieve more than a 20% pass rate in the National Examination for the last five years amongst their grade 12 pupils?

Design thinking features in post-modern educational literature (Doll 1979, 1986, 1993; Kress 1996; Cope, & Kalantzis 2003) as a construct that purportedly enables educators to prepare students to deal with complexity and „super-complexity‟ (Barnett 1996; 2000; 2003; 2006) when they enter their professions. Although not explicitly stated, post-modern educational literature tends to stress the importance of systems thinking, critical problem solving, cognitive flexibility, abductive and connective reasoning as competences that prepare professionals to also perform optimally within a post-modern cultural situation and in age of information and super-complexity.

This paper presents a review of different authors’ approaches about a framework to guide design education and practice. Such framework was named as “factors”, “points”, “conditions”, “requirements”, words that have been used as a significant part of the discourse of modern design thinkers and educators. Basically those factors are identified with the notions of form, function, and information, man, utility, economy, aesthetic, ergonomics, industry, and others. Our particular approach to that issue is that clear design factors are important to the definition of industrial design disciplines.

Conventional design education does not prepare a designer fully for the 21st Century context of globalizing societies, dynamic marketplaces, and complex political structures. A young designer now needs an awareness and understanding of a context’s inner relationships to be able to contribute design strategies that are appropriate for the more complex situations we face. This insight must also be supported by skills of observation, research, analysis, mapping, and knowledge management in order for a designer to contribute significantly to multi-disciplinary teams that are increasingly becoming necessary to address the “wicked” (indeterminate) problems needing a leadership through design for policy institutions, business enterprises, and social organizations.

The anticipated hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ events has provided significant impetus to opportunities for mainstreaming Universal Design in Cape Town. Other cities have been benchmarked to demonstrate the efficacy of Universal Design, albeit in markedly different contexts and using different approaches to effect change. Cape Town stands to benefit from the experience of such cities that have hosted similar mega-events or wherein similar challenges for promoting greater inclusiveness obtain. The issues highlighted in so doing could potentially inform Cape Town's quest to become a sustainable Universal City- in which accessibility, equity and ubuntu form the inherent characteristics of its engagement with its residents and visitors.