Theorising institutional change: post‐1994 South African higher education

Abstract

Since 1994, the South African state and various social actors have sought to realise far‐reaching and extensive institutional change in higher education. This article posits a framework for the theorisation and analysis of institutional change in South African higher education during the post‐1994 period, and then analyses the contexts, trajectories, dynamics and determinants of change. The article concludes with observations on the nature of change. On the one hand, there is evidence of ruptures and discontinuities with the past: a recasting of higher education values, goals and policies, a new legal structure and policy framework, new institutions to govern and steer higher education, and the emergence of a new institutional landscape and configuration of public universities. On the other hand, the troublesome stasis and continuities in conditions and institutions include: limited access to students from working‐class and rural poor social origins, the social composition of academic staff which remains largely white, limited decolonisation, de‐racialisation and de‐gendering of knowledge production, and institutional cultures dominated by historical tradition.