Reconceptualising Formative Assessment Through Ubuntu: Advancing a Humanising Curriculum for Pre-Service Teachers in South African Higher Education

Abstract

The study writes a systematic literature review of research studies carried out from 2010 to 2025, concerned with the reformulation of formative assessment through Ubuntu and Ujamaa frameworks with focus on pre-service teacher education in South African higher education. Predominant assessment models tend to reflect individualistic, competitive paradigms, thus conflicting with indigenous African worldviews of interconnectedness and communal learning. Using Ubuntu, with special emphasis on human dignity, relationality, and empathy, and Ujamaa, with emphasis on collective responsibility and social justice, the review seeks to interrogate how the process of formative assessment can be reconfigured to promote a more humanizing and context-responsive curriculum. The findings show that African worldviews-based formative assessment practices stimulate deep engagement, affirm the identity of pre-service teachers, encourage reflective collaboration, and redress equity in historically marginalised educational settings. The study also claims to expose there are structural as well as epistemological problems, which include rigid curriculum structures, poorly trained educators, and policy-practice disconnects. It therefore recommends the integration of Afrocentric pedagogies and decolonial perspectives into assessment design for the formation of caring, critically conscious teachers. This review contributes to the discourse on educational transformation by advocating for formative assessment models that speak to African philosophies and thus to socially just teacher preparation.