Transformation Discourses and Universities in South Africa

Our vision is of a South Africa in which all our people have access to lifelong education and training opportunities, which will in turn contribute towards improving the quality of life and building a peaceful, prosperous and democratic society'. (Department of Education, Vision Statement, 2008) 'What is it about [higher education] which keeps alive our optimism in its socially transformative power and provides the preconditions for any socially transformative project, yet which also pulls in the opposite direction -towards an ethos of individual competition and the reproduction of a hierarchy of social advantage?' (Ruth Jonathan, 2001, p.48) This paper explains some of the terminology used to describe South African universities, traces key shifts in access, and seeks to explain and identify issues around the transformation project in higher education. It constitutes a work-inprogress contribution to thinking in the research team on how we understand transformation discourses and practices in relation to policy and institutions on the one hand, and poverty reduction and pro-poor professional education on the other. Jansen et al raise the question as to what the reach and impact of changes in higher education have been on higher education practices, what changes mean to higher education practitioners, and how changes are shaped by both the national context and the global arena. How poverty reduction is framed by universities, by selected professional education sites in those universities, and how this framing is acted on, negotiated, understood by diverse actors and shapes professional education is central to the research project. Framings of transformation and human development discourses and practices in relation to professional education by universities and diverse actors are then also at issue.

Cogent Education, 2019

Before 1994, some higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa seem not to value social inclusiveness of various groups in higher education, particularly people from disadvantaged backgrounds. As a result, access and widening participation are viewed as problematic and difficult to sustain since they involve students from poor and under-represented social backgrounds. The perception of restricting access from a social justice point of view presupposes inequalities based on the segregation policies of the apartheid era. Transformation in higher education is considered an indicator of social progress. It relates to a process of an absolute overhaul of social thinking and results in meaningful social transition. In 2002, a major policy decision was taken via the National Plan on Education as a means to approach transformation of the higher education system in South Africa. Attempts to amend the policy on higher education have not translated into material benefits for the majority of previously disadvantaged black people in South African society in terms of access, equity and participation in higher education. This research study aims to provide an overview of the conditions resulting from the policy on transformation in the context of higher education. The research concludes that improving access could be achieved by offering equal and standardised educational programmes in all universities. The research further

Identity Culture and Politics an Afro Asian Dialogue, 2000

Based on Paulo Freire’s thoughts, this chapter explores ‘the particular view’ and how it can be taken into account in capacity building and other action programmes in higher education. It uses Khanya College, a small South African alternative tertiary access programme, as case study. Khanya College was established in 1986 and had Neville Alexander among its founders. There were two campuses, one in Cape Town, which had an agreement with the University of Cape Town, and one in Johannesburg, which had an agreement with University of the Witwatersrand. By participating in the one-year programme, students classified as ‘black’ under apartheid legislation gained access to the second year at these universities that were classified as ‘white’. Khanya College was based on Freirean pedagogy and embodied the idea of education for liberation and it primarily targeted black youth, many of whom were activists involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. Established during the time of unrest, Khanya College worked to transform the university – and thereby also to transform society – by assisting black students’ access to universities. In this chapter, we are primarily interested in the ways Khanya College faculty engaged with ‘the particular view’ in this process; with (South) African history and identity, while at the same time preparing students for the apartheid (white, racial, Euro-centric) university system.

che.ac.za

European Review, 1998

Since the fall of the apartheid regime South African higher education has begun to undergo a process of fundamental transformation. First-world universities, which were beneficiaries (however unwilling) of past racial inequalities, have had to adapt to the urgent needs of what is a post-colonial and, for the majority of its citizens, a third-world society. South Africa, therefore, provides a particularly sharp example of the encounter between a higher education system established within the European tradition, in terms of both its institutional and its academic culture, and a society in the process of radical change. This encounter has been mediated through the work of the National Commission on Higher Education which attempted to produce a compromise that would enable South African higher education to be both ‘Western’ (in terms of academic values and scientific standards) and also ‘African’ (in terms of its contribution to building the capacities of all the people of South Africa)...

2009

This paper looks at higher education policy changes in South Africa (1994-2002), focusing on political constituency views and higher education funding. The structural flaws of apartheid higher education are contrasted to the post-1994 policy framework, and the following argument is presented. Although a radical shift in policy content and direction has occurred from apartheid to post-apartheid, numerous problems continued within the higher education sector and in policy processes, specifically in their implementation within and between institutions. The policy weaknesses exist in various areas, such as funding, redress and capacity building, both for historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) and for students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. One reason for such problems in the higher education system is the fact that the market mechanism remains strong in the system in general and in universities in particular. The system thus continues to be fragmentary, althou...

Excellence' and the [Re] Racialisation of the South African University System, 2023

Over the past two decades, the key organising principles for higher education transformation, so we argue, have come to be framed to construct the 'ideal type' university along historically produced and colonial/Apartheid hierarchies resulting in the [re] racialised distribution of institutional worth across the system. This paper attempts at disclosing how this is facilitated not only by the policy and legislative architecture of the system, but also by the 'philosophies', 'orientations' and 'praxes' of public agencies and institutions within the sector. In exploring 'excellence' as the governing discourse by which institutional worth is apportioned, we argue that the university sector is systematically being [re] racialised with significant consequences for the higher education transformation project.

2015

IntroductionRecent protests at South African universities around the question of "race" and identity, particularly as they relate to the question of transformation at the Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch, and Rhodes, have brought into sharp focus the debate about the future of the university. What is the new South African university to be? How does the South African university work with its legacy-to continue where it is already engaged in socially transformative work, to begin new initiatives to transform itself in places where it is struggling, and to develop an agenda that shows clearly how it understands itself in relation to the social context in which it finds itself?In this paper, I argue that the contemporary South African university cannot be understood and engaged with outside of an appreciation of its constitutive beginnings. Race is central to these beginnings. But how race takes form, is worked with and deployed in the university is, to be historically ...