Globalization and higher education restructuring in South Africa: is democracy under threat?

Abstract

My intention is to explore the link between globalization and higher education restructuring in South Africa and whether it looms as a threat to democracy. I contend that an argument can be made that the ascendancy of market-driven concerns in defining the restructuring of higher education in South Africa may have the effect whereby higher education institutions (universities and technikons) become subordinated to the demands of the market place, which situation in turn, can be detrimental to the consolidation of South Africa's newly found democracy. First, I argue that the restructuring of higher education according to the ‘logic of globalization’ would not necessarily minimize socio-economic inequality, thus providing a major barrier to the move towards deepening democracy. However, the economic, political and cultural effects of globalization as determinants of higher education restructuring in South Africa are not going to disappear, at least not for the immediate future. Already the South African government considers as a central feature of its economic policy the meeting of the ‘challenge of international competitiveness … (and) an inability to compete will increasingly marginalise the South African economy (and), have profound effects on its rate of growth and consequences for the social well-being and stability of South African society’ (CHE 2000a: 20) Second therefore, in order to safeguard and promote democracy, in spite of the market-bound trend, I assess some democratic prospects of a globalizing world in the restructuring of higher education. Like Jones (1998: 153), I contend that an argument can be made for achieving democracy in a sphere of corporate dominance if higher education is considered as a public good that allows space for the development of relations of trust, individual autonomy and democratic dialogue.