Community Engagement and Service-Learning in African and South African Higher Education: A Question of Relevance—A Historical and Current Sketch

Abstract

This chapter offers a synopsis of the historical development of community engagement in Africa, with a specific focus on South African higher education. The chapter links community engagement and service-learning to the broader debate about higher education and development in Africa. Given the shifts within the developmental role of African universities and associated challenges, the chapter highlights some structural, institutional and social factors that could enable and impair universities from using community engagement and service-learning as strategies to contribute to advancing teaching, research and learning and the well-being of communities. With the slightly different South African higher education history and the high level of uptake and institutionalisation of community engagement and service-learning, the chapter engages with the discourse of community engagement and service-learning with respect to human development and the common good in South Africa. Central to this analysis is an argument that, albeit with numerous challenges, community engagement and service-learning have not been critically explored as pathways through which universities and external communities can work together to promote human development and the common good.