Dr. Swapna Naskar Williamson: Previous Associate Professor in Teaching and Learning, and Research at the University of West London, United Kingdom (UK). She has teaching experience spanning over 40 years in higher education in the UK and in India. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. She holds PhD, MMEd, LLB, BA, MSc and BSc Nursing degrees. Her area of expertise is in self-directed learning and research, ethics, leadership and management and learning to learn modules. Her teaching techniques and supporting students leave a profound impact on her students in class rooms in developing research skills and conducting research projects from foundation degree to PhD levels. She is passionate about mentoring students and colleagues using appropriate instructional methods and techniques that facilitate effective students’ learning and reflective practice. She has presented numerous research papers in national and international conferences predominantly on self-directed learning, peer learning and employability skills. She has served as editorial board member for the Journal of the World Universities Forum and Madridge Journal of Nursing. She peer-reviewed and provided constructive feedback for journal article manuscripts to ensure high quality and standards. Her published original research is on Development of the Self-Rating Scale of Self-Directed Learning (SRSSDL) (2007). The SRSSDL instrument is highly regarded by researchers/teachers across disciplines globally. She presented her research findings on The Role of Universities in the Globalisation of Education, which was identified as one of the top ten research articles at the international conference (2009). She co-authored and published a research article on Self-directed learning competence assessment within different healthcare professionals and amongst students in Italy (2011). She also published research articles titled: Student Evaluation of the Usefulness of the Self-Rating Scale of Self-Directed Learning tool in the FdSc in Health and Social Care Course (2017), The Impact of Peer Learning within a Group of International Post-graduate students – a pilot study (2018) and An Exploration and Analysis of the Relative Importance of Employability Skills for Undergraduate Nursing Students as Perceived by Stakeholders – A Mixed Methods Approach (2021). She has recently co-edited/authored and published a book (2023) on Psychosocial aspect of care of patients with Ophthalmic conditions. Currently (2025), she is the editor/author of a book titled: Self-Directed Learning in Rapidly Changing Society. Since retirement, she consults the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Jammu, India, focusing on new medical and nursing schools’ curricula, faculty support for innovations in teaching and learning including interdisciplinary research opportunities. Her leisure time activities are gardening, singing, and supporting novice legal practitioners.

Robert John Balfour was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1971 and completed his schooling at Christian Brothers College in Pretoria in 1989. He has worked in higher education since 1994 starting as a tutor of English, and a residence sub-warden in Livingstone House, at Rhodes University where he read English and History for a BA, a BA Hons in English (1993), and an HDE in 1994. He then enrolled for a Masters degree in English and Education at the University of Natal which was completed with distinction in 1995. Balfour was made the recipient of a Commonwealth Trust Scholarship in 1997 and completed his doctoral degree in English language in Cambridge in 2000. He returned to South Africa in 2000 to take up a post as lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the University of Natal, teaching English Literature, English Language, English for Academic Purposes, and Creative Writing. In 2002 he was appointed as Programme Chair to the Programme of Language Education in the Faculty of Education and moved to the Edgewood Campus where he taught Academic Literacy at first year and BEd Hons level. In 2004 he was appointed as Head of School at a critical phase in the post-incorporation of Edgewood Teacher Training College and worked with academics in the former University Faculty of Education and former College to establish an ethos of integration and scholarship, supervising between then and 2013, seven Doctorates in English language and education, and five Masters degrees. Appointed Associate Professor in 2005, and Head of the new School of Languages Education in a restructured Faculty (in the newly merged University of Durban-Westville and University of Natal into the University of KwaZulu-Natal), Balfour went on to lead the development of the School for a further two terms of office as Head of School, before being appointed as Registrar to St Augustine College of South Africa from 2008-2010 where he helped facilitate the establishment of the undergraduate programmes (BTh, BCom, BA) and the development of the administration. He is still Honorary Professor of Education in the School of Education Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and has held three fellowships at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies at the University of London (2003-5), Clare Hall at Cambridge University (2003), and the Institute of Education at the University of London (2014). In the course of sixteen years of academic work he has published over fifty scholarly publications, all peer-reviewed and accredited. He has edited three collections of academic essays in three international language journals, published in five scholarly books, edited four books on education, language, and literature. His latest book on literary-cultural studies Culture Capital and Representation (with Palgrave, 2010) was received with critical acclaim. In 2015 the book, Education in a new South Africa: crisis and change was published by CUP. He is an also a National Research Foundation (South Africa) rated academic (C2 – established with international profile). Focusing on language learning and literacy, rural education, and post-colonial literature he has also featured widely in the popular press for perspectives on multilingualism and education. In 2011 he was appointed as Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education Sciences on the Potchefstroom Campus of NWU. Robert John Balfour is an applied linguist and educationist. He is an exhibited painter, exhibiting for the first time in a group exhibition in Cambridge in 2003, and then at ArtSpace Gallery in Durban in 2007 and 2015 respectively. Occasionally, Balfour has also published poetry and short fiction in literary journals in the USA, Australia, and South Africa. He believes that the balance between creative and scholarly work is complementary and important.