“VUT’s CAD and Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship hosted a two-day Academic Writing Retreat to boost writing skills and explore the Telagogy framework.”
27 October 2025 | Story: Qhawekazi Memani | Photo: Keitumetse Makgope
The serene Emerald Tsogo Sun Resort became a crucible of ideas from 20 to 21 October 2025 as the Vaal University of Technology’s Centre for Academic Development (CAD) and the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) hosted a dynamic two-day Academic Writing Retreat, a creative and intellectual sanctuary where theory met transformation and innovation took centre stage.
Far from a routine workshop, the retreat pulsed with scholarly energy and purpose. Its heartbeat was the preparation of chapters for the forthcoming Cambridge Scholars Publishing volume Telagogy: In Theory and in Practice – Beyond Neo Coloniality and Neo Cyber Coloniality, set for release in 2026. In a rare nod of confidence, the UK-based publisher waived all publication fees, affirming the global resonance of VUT’s thought leadership. Another complementary volume, Telagogy: New Learning in Society 5.0, authored by VUT lecturers, will follow soon, positioning the institution at the forefront of reimagined digital scholarship.
The intellectual spark came from the presentation “The Telagogy App Online,” which traced the evolution of learning from pedagogy and andragogy to heutagogy and paragogy before culminating in Telagogy, derived from “tela,” meaning web. This transformative framework captures the dance between human cognition and intelligent technology, a bold step into the age of Society 5.0, where learning is not confined to classrooms but flows across networks, platforms and minds.
Professor Teboho Pitso, Manager at CIE and one of Telagogy’s architects, described it as the convergence of imagination and intelligence, a movement beyond replication toward creation. Under this vision, learners and educators evolve into co-creators of knowledge, blending critical inquiry with technological fluency to pursue equity, relevance and innovation.
Across two immersive days, academics delved into spirited debates on decolonising knowledge, dismantling intellectual hierarchies and reclaiming African scholarly agency. The retreat fostered a rare intellectual intimacy, with participants sharing drafts, challenging assumptions and sharpening each other’s prose in feedback circles alive with laughter, passion and purpose.
Day Two transformed Emerald’s quiet corners into buzzing writing labs, where the tapping of keyboards became a symphony of ideas. Guided by facilitators and peers, participants advanced their manuscripts while reimagining how technology can humanise rather than mechanise learning.
As the retreat drew to a close, participants left with more than polished manuscripts; they carried the conviction that learning can be liberated. The soon to be launched Telagogy App, expected by year’s end, will empower both lecturers and students to become digital nomads, seamlessly collaborating and learning from anywhere. Once tested, the Science and Technology Park will oversee its commercialisation and rollout, marking a proud milestone for VUT innovation.
In the next chapter, VUT’s Deans and Heads of Departments will contribute to crafting a compendium of decolonised curricula, ensuring that every discipline reflects its unique African heritage and societal context. By integrating advanced technologies like ChatGPT and DeepSeek, the Telagogy model champions originality and discourages academic plagiarism, nurturing a culture of authentic, context-driven problem-solving.
The forthcoming Telagogy: New Learning in Society 5.0 volume will feature a Foreword by the distinguished Kenyan scholar Professor PLO Lumumba, whose presence cements the work’s intellectual and Pan African significance. His inclusion signals more than prestige; it signals a continent in conversation with itself, reclaiming the future of learning through African intellect and innovation.
In the end, the retreat was not merely an academic exercise. It was a declaration that the Vaal University of Technology stands ready to shape the next frontier of digital learning and scholarly freedom, where African voices write their own futures and technology becomes a bridge to possibility.