ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I discuss boredom, play and bliss. It seems as if an educational crisis would be difficult to avert when the structure and procedures of rewarding academics in higher education rely on defective and subjective measures of judgements. It might just be that an educational crisis might further ensue. It is fairly common in South African higher education that academics need to constantly work on their curriculum vitae. Some do it genuinely and others seem to be engaged in a kind of knavery whereby they invariably escalate their levels of scholarship. In the discipline of philosophy of education, one does not find A-rated scholars in the country. But then again, the academic community mostly from the Anglo-Saxon world has very high expectations for philosophers of education and it is not surprising to note that the highest ranking, if it matters at all, that has been assigned to a philosopher of education is a B-1 – that is, a scholar with international acclaim with some reviewers considering such a person as a world leader in her field of inquiry. What appears from my discussion of the foundation's rating system in South Africa, is that it brings some moments of bliss to some academics. However, it seems to discredit other academics whose work seems to have been impacted by boredom.
