Abstract
This paper examines the idea of ‘core business’ in contemporary South African public universities. South Africa’s public higher education system has global ambitions, but is also highly internally stratified. Drawing on new data from interviews with higher education leaders and government policymakers across a number of South African institutions, we show that while the rhetoric of ‘core business’ of the university has been adopted by higher education leaders, the question of what constitutes the purpose of the university, in South Africa and arguably beyond, is subject to ongoing debate and negotiation. The multiplicity of conflicting but coexisting narratives about what universities should do in South African society—producing excellent research, preparing a labour force, or addressing societal inequalities—exposes a persisting tension surrounding the purpose of a public university. And while this tension has historical origins, we show that responses to addressing these various roles of the institution are not developed organically and in a neutral context. They emerge under conflicts over limited state funding and attendant and opportune market pressure put on public universities in times of crisis, that shape profoundly their framing and outcomes, and the future of the universities.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, the purpose of universities has been under close scrutiny
In the case of higher education, ‘Institutional change in post-1994 South African higher education has occurred in an epoch of globalization and in a conjuncture of the dominance of the ideology of neoliberalism’ (Badat 2015: p. 79)
In one of our interviews, a retired member of senior management from University A expressed his frustration about the use of the concept of ‘core business’ in his institution today: What is core business? I cannot tell you how many senior meetings I’ve been in where somebody rushes in late and says, BSorry, guys, you know, it’s – I was held up by core business.^ That wasn’t fixing the first year physics labs, you can be sure of that
Summary
Over the past two decades, the purpose of universities has been under close scrutiny. There have been new pressures on universities to provide online or digital offerings, both as a means of generating income, and to enhance students’ flexibility With this context in mind, we turn to our interviewee’s perceptions of the ‘core business’ of public universities, focusing on the tensions surrounding their purpose in South Africa today. In the face of limited state funding for higher education, the growth of a research-intensive portfolio has been a way to generate ‘third-stream’ income in order to supplement the institution’s income from student fees and government subsidies Some of these universities are beginning to explore online education as a means to grow third-stream income, either working independently or in partnership with private companies. These aims are coming into conflict with one another, as universities are pressed into serving these conflicting functions simultaneously
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