Abstract

 
 
 Although there has been rapid expansion of higher education around the globe, such expansion has not resulted in a more equitable system. Drawing on the work of Nancy Fraser, equity in higher education is conceptualised as ‘parity of participation’ and includes both equity of access and outcomes. The tensions between expansion and equity are illustrated by comparing South Africa’s equity challenges with those of Brazil and the USA. Focusing on South Africa’s critical choices, four scenarios or possible futures are provided to illustrate some of the trade-offs and strategic choices. The main argument is that if South Africa’s higher education system continues to expand without a concomitant investment in the effectiveness of teaching and learning, it will not achieve the policy goals of equity of access and outcomes. Furthermore the investment needs to be strategically targeted to interventions that can serve as systemic levers of change for reducing drop-out rates and improving graduation rates. To this end, over the next decade the state needs to prioritise an investment in an undergraduate curriculum more ‘fit for purpose’. The investment needs to be in curriculum reform that normalises different levels of foundational provision, identifies and removes curriculum obstacles that delay or impede graduation, and provides opportunities for ‘breadth’ for all students, not only those who come from privileged backgrounds.
 
 
 
 
 Significance: 
 
 
 
 If South Africa’s higher education system continues to expand without a concomitant investment in the effectiveness of teaching and learning, it will not achieve the policy goals of equity of access and outcomes.
 
 
 
Highlights
Much has been written about the rapid expansion of higher education over the past 50 years, which has been characterised as a shift from elite to massified systems, and there is a great deal of commentary on the relationship between this expansion and the goals of a more equitable higher education system.[1]
The relationship between growth and equity is a tension that runs through South Africa’s policy discourse across its decades of democracy where the state has advocated for the need to simultaneously address the imperatives of increasing access and improving success, for those who have been historically under-represented in higher education.[3,4,5]
The investment needs to be strategically directed at interventions that can serve as systemic levers of change that lead to reduced drop-out rates and improved graduation rates, especially for black and coloured students
Summary
Much has been written about the rapid expansion of higher education over the past 50 years, which has been characterised as a shift from elite to massified systems, and there is a great deal of commentary on the relationship between this expansion and the goals of a more equitable higher education system.[1]. To summarise the main proposals: a curriculum more fit-for-purpose will address the ‘articulation gap’ as a systemic problem by normalising different levels of foundational provision to support the majority of capable students who either drop out or take unacceptable time to complete. To further support this outcome, the second proposal is to identify key ‘high risk’ combinations of courses across the degree that delay or impede graduation for a significant proportion of the students. What is harder to find is the vision, leadership and political will for change
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