Abstract
This article examines the position of creative practitioners working in South African tertiary education, with specific focus on the scope and impact of the 2017 Policy on the Evaluation of Creative Outputs and Innovations produced by South African Public Higher Education Institutions. I argue that, although the Policy is a welcome development, several fundamental issues related to creative work, definitions of knowledge, differences between ‘pure practice’, artistic research and academic research and the position of creative work in the knowledge economy are not adequately addressed in the Policy. Furthermore there are several instances, I argue, where the Policy exposes biases towards certain disciplines and sub-disciplines, and shows a significant lack of consistency in terms of the evaluation of outputs in different fields. I probe the question of whether creative and academic work should be considered as equally valuable within academe, and if so, what the implications of such a position could be for creative practitioners working in South African tertiary education.
Highlights
Higher education in South Africa has undergone many essential and positive developments since the beginning of democracy in 1994, and educational reform has featured in several of the country’s development and transformation policies (Badsha and Cloete 2011; Cloete 2014; Mzanga 2019).1 Transformation agendas have been driven by commitments to redress and restitution in the aftermath of apartheid, and significant changes in the South African higher education landscape have occurred in areas such as student diversity and inclusivity, expansion and development of curricula and infrastructure development for formerly disadvantaged institutions
On the one hand one could argue that creative work should be supported and rewarded as research: this argument is endorsed by many creative practitioners employed in South African academia, who cite the several similarities in terms of process and rigour that are features of both traditional forms of research and creative work
It is interesting that the predecessor of the 2017 policy refers under its point 9 to creative research, rather than creative outputs as is the case in the 2017 policy’s number 10 (DHET 2015b)
Summary
Dr M Stolp, University of the Witwatersrand, School of the Arts, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg 2000 South Africa. The creative practitioner in South African higher education: Practice and scholarship in conversation and flux. This article examines the position of creative practi tioners working in South African tertiary education, with specific focus on the scope and impact of the 2017 Policy on the Evaluation of Creative Outputs and Innovations produced by South African Public Higher Education Institutions. I argue that, the policy is a welcome development, several fundamental issues related to creative work, definitions of knowledge, differences between ‘pure practice’, artistic research and academic research and the position of creative work in the knowledge economy are not adequately addressed in the policy. I probe the question of whether creative and academic work should be considered as valuable within academe, and if so, what the implications of such a position could be for creative practitioners working in South African tertiary education
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