A reflection on perspectives on multiculturaiity in South African higher education

On 6 November 2020, the Policy Framework for Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa was promulgated. It provides high-level principles and guidelines for the internationalisation of higher education in South Africa, lays down specific rules for certain aspects of the process and aims to shape the process of internationalisation at South African higher education institutions, redressing past inequalities whilst addressing policy imperatives of higher education in a democratic South Africa. In this paper, we analyse the context and content of the Policy Framework. We first explore the context by discussing the historical background leading to the development and drafting of the Policy Framework, whereafter we analyse the substantive content of the Policy Framework. We consider its suitability for advancing the South African higher education system's internationalisation objectives, interrogate whether it can provide direction for comprehensive internationalisation of higher education in the country and provide recommendations on the way forward devoting attention to strategies for successful policy implementation.

Quality assurance is a world‐wide phenomenon that urges Higher Education institutions to be accountable and reflect value for money in all their activities. In the South African Higher Education system quality assurance practices and procedures differ. The present practices and initiatives directed towards quality improvement and assurance within the universities and technikons are examined. There is, in quality assurance activities, the complexity of mechanisms to assure quality, and the necessity of a holistic approach to quality assurance. Quality assurance in South African Higher Education is still in a developmental stage. Engaging in quality assurance activities requires acquaintance with the present state of the art of South African Higher Education quality assurance practices.

Transformation in higher education in South Africa over the last 20 years has been strongly shaped by post-apartheid pressures. Recent research shows that South Africa's current higher education system can be described as medium knowledge-producing and differentiated, with low participation and high attrition. In the decade following 1994, both policy frameworks and capacity building of the sector received considerable attention. Massification and differentiation are concepts that have been under discussion for some time in South Africa, but have yet to be translated into practical mechanisms for delivery of results. The Centre for Higher Education Transformation initially focused its efforts on stimulating debate on cutting-edge issues in South Africa. More recently, it has shifted its focus to strengthening regional and national development of African universities to enable their more meaningful participation in the global knowledge economy and society.

The South African Department of Science and Technology Ten Year Plan seeks to move the system of innovation toward growing a knowledge economy. It sets ambitious targets for scientific production (PhD graduates; world share of scientific publications) whose attainment in part rests on the effectiveness of the universities. The paper commences with a thumbnail sketch of the system of innovation. This is followed by a discussion of the international ranking of universities and South Africa's standing. Next we provide a comparative analysis of the domestic ranking of universities. A limited survey of five countries shows that concentration of research in a cluster of universities is ‘normal’. Turning to the South African case we use the national R&D Surveys (HSRC, 2008) to examine the changing diversity among the universities over the merger period. This reveals two concentrations, the first comprising the ‘Big Five’ research institutions and second the ‘Next Six. ’ This implies a double gap in the distribution of universities according to research expenditure and appears to be a feature unique to the South African higher education system. We then unpack the meaning of the targets of the Ten Year Plan and analyze the potential of the universities to meet these in the light of the gaps. The paper concludes with suggestions for policy.

This article discusses and analyses the emergence of globalisation and its impact on developments within the African continent. Africa’s response at a regional level through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and at a subregional level through the Southern African Development Community’s Protocol on Education come under scrutiny. These developments, coupled with proposals to liberalize education through the General Agreement on Trade Services (GATS), affect the future of higher education in Africa. Drawing from the experiences of higher education in South Africa, the article poses policy issues arising from the liberalisation of education through GATS. It concludes by suggesting the use of regional and subregional initiatives, resources, expertise, and plans to negotiate the best possible policies for the African continent without foregoing the role of the state in these processes.

Calls for the decolonisation of higher education in South Africa gained prominence after the #Rhodesmustfall, #Feesmustfall and series of 2015-2016 students’ protests in South African higher institutions. Visible in the demands of the students during these protests was the need for the decolonisation of higher education curriculum to ensure reflection of diverse realities in South Africa. This led to various conferences in different parts of the Republic. However, while some scholars are clamouring for the need for decolonisation, others consider the desire for decoloniality and glocalization. Thus, the subject of decolonisation remains a debate in South African society. Meanwhile, decolonisation is still very much crucial. Seemingly, in the words of Steve Biko, decolonization should begin from the mind. Hence, this discursive study explores how pre-service teachers’ minds can be decolonised for realities in transforming South African higher education. The study adopts Critical Race Theory as a lens for this phenomenon. South African higher education curriculum has predominantly been Eurocentric and epistemic, reflecting Western dominance in post-apartheid South Africa. The study argues why and how South African higher education institutions can place teacher education at the centre of learning experiences, for students to adapt and maximize the realities in their contexts, and for responsive lived experiences. Thus, adding voices to a curriculum that promotes total rethink, reflections and reconstruction of students' minds in integrating the existing Eurocentrism and epistemic knowledge with African philosophy in higher education institutions.

The 2015–2016 South African higher education student movements evoked critical conversations regarding the extent to which institutions of higher learning have transformed into democratic and inclusive spaces. One of the key gaps in this field is the paucity of research that explores the potential role of theology in steering the direction of transformation in South African higher education system. Through a Wesleyan approach, the paper argues that the four quadrilaterals of the Wesleyn approach, scripture, tradition, reason and experience will be used as a theological tool to weight beliefs in the levels of dogma and doctrine, opinion and so as not to confuse critical reflection with negativity and judgmentalism in critically reflecting on the South African higher education struggles for transformation and decolonization. In our attempt to contribute meaningfully to the broader debates, started by scholars such as Nadar and Reddy ( 2015 ) and more recently, Phiri and Nadar ( 2018 ), who locate their work in theology to think through gender, curriculum and African feminism differently, counter-hegemonically. In this paper, we aim to contribute to this emerging body of work by arguing that theology has a critical role to play in helping us to imagine what a transformed, inclusive and socially just higher education could look like.

Scholars of academic success in higher education in South Africa struggle to find an integrated framework that can explain the interplay between heterogeneous elements that combine in dynamic ways to influence the academic success of students. Language of teaching and learning is indicated as an important element in academic success in higher education. In South Africa, students are multilingual and this is often ignored or perceived as a hindrance to academic success. Conversely, there are studies that have found a positive relationship between bi- and multilingualism and cognitive development during the past 40 years. The aim of this article is to view multilingualism and academic success in higher education in South Africa from a complex systems approach. It is argued that a complex systems approach provides an integrated framework for studies of multilingualism and academic success in higher education in South Africa.

This article provides a descriptive theoretical analysis of the most important higher education policies and initiatives which were developed by the democratically elected government of South Africa after 1994 to transform the South African higher education system. The article sheds light on the rationale for the policies under scrutiny; how they take cognisance of academics’ diverse needs; as well as how their implementation is bound to affect academics and possibly influence job satisfaction. The article argues that the South African higher education fraternity, currently overwhelmed by mammoth change initiatives, is simultaneously faced with two processes, namely transforming the socio-political state of the country, as well as transformation to respond to national higher education policy imperatives. Seemingly South African policy-makers, in their attempts to break away from the past, are oblivious of the realities of thorough policy implementation and do not take the voluminous nature of policies into consideration as an inhibiting factor. Undoubtedly this could have adverse effects for academic staff who are expected to propel change and transformation, but who are oftentimes confronted with the complexities of implementation which entail among others, dealing with cumbersome procedures, processes, bureaucratic structures as well as increasing workloads.

In South Africa, the question of whether a Western education system can lead to the achievement of equality among citizens is quite a problematic one. Thus, the question that has since the advent of the post-apartheid South Africa been a subject of contestation among scholars, is that of, how can the higher education system that was founded on colonial and apartheid white supremacy and hegemony be transformed into a transformative tool that addresses inequalities characterising South African society in the democratic era? This article seeks to provide a de-colonial perspective of how the higher education system of the post-apartheid South Africa can be transformed to address different developmental needs of a heterogeneous population. The purpose is not to dictate answers, but to create avenues of (re)thinking the knowledge production in the South African higher education sector in the quest for an equal and inclusive society. The article’s key argument is that a higher education system such as that in South Africa which was founded on colonial and apartheid ideologies, interests and agendas needs a de-colonial transformation in order to respond to the developmental needs, challenges and aspirations of its heterogeneous population. After an engagement with the myths and assumptions of a decolonised world that conceals coloniality of knowledge, this article, delves into the South African higher education system and the quest for equality that confronts the country. The need to ‘unthink’ and ‘unlearn’ present forms of imagining higher education in South Africa is emphasised.

Background: The need for transforming South African education can ultimately be traced to a form of Western subjectivity which dominated Europe since the classical age (1600–1750). The notions of ‘discipline’ and ‘subjectivity’ suggest distinct associations with repressive regimes like apartheid, and the present article will argue that the assumptions behind apartheid education cannot be understood without understanding the still more foundational assumptions – taken as axiom – underlying Western subjectivity. This conception of subjectivity underlies the ‘disciplined society’ and its concomitant ethos of expansion, ranging from its colonial projects to the rise of the human sciences. As a result, it is of considerable value for the South African educational environment to consider Michel Foucault’s unmasking of the interplay between subjectivity, truth and power, and to explore the possibilities offered by Foucault’s own ethic of transgression. Aim: Drawing on Michel Foucault’s genealogy of the modern subject and archaeologies of modern knowledge, it will be demonstrated that the process of transformation of higher education in South Africa not only provides the opportunity to tend to a grave historical injustice, but also to develop a critique of modernist educational practices of the West and thus to cultivate its own educational ethos as a more just and authentic South African alternative. Setting: South African Higher Education in the 21st century. Methods: Foucauldian–Nietzschean genealogy, in the spirit of Foucault’s own use of Nietzsche: ‘The only valid tribute to thought such as Nietzsche’s is precisely to use it, to deform it, to make it groan and protest’. Result: A re-considered and reconfigured notion of educational identity beyond the confines of modernist Western subjectivity. Conclusion: While full justice can never be done to the full horrors of the past, the process of transformation in education may provide an opportunity to not only address injustices in the past, but also to create a new African educational ethic which may contribute something truly new to the world’s educational heritage.

Reviewed by: The Skewed Revolution: Trends in South African Higher education: 1988-1998 Trish Gibbon (bio) David Cooper and George Subotzky (2001) The Skewed Revolution: trends in South African higher education: 1988-1998. Bellville: Education Policy Unit, University of the Western Cape 'Empiric', Peter Burke reminds us, was 'a traditional English term for practitioners of alternative medicine, men and women innocent of theory' (2000:16) who based their practice on the observation of symptoms. Dismissed by Aristotle as mere description that could not rise to the level of true knowledge, it took Francis Bacon to elevate empiricism to the status of a serious scientific method, a method which followed 'neither the empiric ant, mindlessly collecting data, nor the scholastic spider, spinning a web from inside itself, but the bee, who both collects and digests' (Burke 2000). This also provides the terms within which Cooper and Subotzky's detailed empirical study of changes in the South African higher education system over the decade 1988-1998 must be assessed. What has been collected, and how has it been digested? The authors describe their work as 'a reference handbook of higher education in South Africa based on detailed analysis of selected SAPSE data over the past decade' (viii). In this, it is also a final salute and farewell to SAPSE, the South African Post-Secondary Education data base of the Department of Education that has now been replaced by the somewhat more sophisticated Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS). The two areas on which the authors focus attention are student enrolment patterns and staff employment trends and it becomes immediately and abundantly clear that the real focus is on whether equity, a major transformation goal of the new South Africa, has been achieved in these two critical areas. [End Page 133] To reveal the patterns of enrolment, Cooper and Subotzky present their data in terms of institutional and historical type: universities and technikons are the primary categories, which are then broken down into their origins in the racial dispensations of white, African and non-African (the institutions specifically designated for Indian and coloured students). 1993 is taken as the key median point, and racial and gender shifts are often analysed from a pre- or post-1993 perspective. At the most general level, in terms of total population ratios, the data show that white and Indian students are still over-represented, coloured and African students under-represented in the higher education system. Nonetheless, Africans commanded over 50 per cent of enrolments in 1998 from a mere 21 per cent in 1984. Trends vary considerably over the sub-types during the period examined, with all the six African historically disadvantaged universities (HDUs) expanding up to 1993 and then experiencing a sharp decline in enrolments, while the Afrikaans historically advantaged universities had a huge surge in African enrolments post-1993. The authors are quick to point out what is now generally well known, that many of these enrolments are in undergraduate teacher diploma qualifications offered in partnership with private providers. By contrast, the five African historically disadvantaged technikons (HDTs) grew steadily over this period, while the previously white historically advantaged technikons (HATs) experienced tremendous growth, particularly in African enrolments, a phenomenon that has begun to reverse the 'inverted pyramid' of tertiary enrolments (inverted in favour of university enrolment) identified in the 1996 report of the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE). Overall, African headcount enrolment in technikon programmes increased from 2 000 in 1984 to a staggering 127 193 in 1998. From broad institutional enrolments, the enquiry moves to enrolment by qualification level and field of study based on six primary CESM (Classification of Educational Subject Material) groups and 22 first-order CESM categories. The finding that more than half of all masters and doctoral enrolments are at the 'big four' universities of Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Wits will not surprise anyone familiar with this system. African enrolments are still concentrated at undergraduate levels with marked gender skewing in favour of male students at postgraduate levels across all race groups. At the universities, African students are enrolIed predominantly in social science and humanities programmes, particularly at the six African HDUs. In this respect, the technikons...

In changing societal contexts, systems and institutions of higher education are in need of reorientation. In this article, it is argued that part of the search for reorientation in the South African higher education system is confronted by two overlapping processes: national transformation on the one hand and the impact of challenges related to international trends in higher education (such as the reference to processes of globalisation and the knowledge society) and their interpretation in South Africa on the other. A brief portrait of current international developments in higher education with a view on the changing role of the nation state is provided, followed by a description of recent developments in South African higher education. Against this background it is shown how the rhetoric of globalisation and of the knowledge society are mirrored in South African policy documents and how that has influenced the national transformation process of higher education.

Private Higher Education (PHE) in South Africa has been perceived to deliver programmes of questionable quality in search of profit maximisation (CHE 2016, 84). To curb this perception, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) has instituted strict regulations with regard to accrediting qualifications offered by Higher Education (HE) institutions. To determine the contributions of PHE to the South African higher education landscape, this article evaluates a registered management programme, on recommendation of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) of the CHE, with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) (CHE, 2013). Using Kirkpatrick’s (1996) four-level model of training programme evaluation as the theoretical framework, the management programme was evaluated to determine its contribution to higher education in South Africa. The four levels included the perception of the learners, the knowledge gained by the learners, the learners’ performance in the workplace and the return on investment. Other stakeholders, such as the sponsor and students’ line managers, were interviewed to determine whether the programme has contributed to work outputs. Overall, the results show that the programme is contributing to the development of higher education in South Africa.

The intention of this chapter is to contribute to the scholarship of diversity, equity, and inclusivity in contemporary higher education. Its purpose is to develop an understanding of pedagogical issues concerning the inclusion and support of students with disabilities in the South African higher education system through literature review. The chapter will contribute to debate on policy imperatives and how these have informed practice, the social model of disability and its role in shaping educational provision, access and support constraints as products of intersectionality of disability and disablement, and possible ways to re-culture higher education for support.