SUMMIT ON HIGHER EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION ...

SUMMIT ON HIGHER EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION SUMMARY OF SUBMISSIONS In preparation for the Stakeholder Summit on Higher Education Transformation, stakeholders were invited to participate in an online forum, as well as to submit inputs via email to the Department of Higher Education and Training. This report is a summary of key issues and recommendations arising from these inputs. The intention is to feed into the deliberations at the summit. This report is structured according the four Summit commission themes. In addition, in order to capture inputs that are either cross-cutting or are not specific to one of the themes, there is a section entitled ‘Other inputs’. The views in the summary are those expressed in individual submissions and do not necessarily reflect a consensus or majority view of the submissions as a whole. For more detailed information, readers are advised to see the original submissions on the Summit website: www.cepd.org.za.

Commission 1: The student experience Discrimination, while not overt, remains entrenched in South African educational pathways by virtue of the differential opportunities available to learners of different races – opportunities that are a function largely of socio-economic status (SES) and of the differential horizons for action which SES opens up for learners. In numerical terms, students are the biggest players in the sector and they are the future. Their experiences with HE will have a long term impact not just on themselves but also on the broader society. A concerted effort is needed to increase the intake and success rate of students. The bleeding that the South African HE system suffers through a high failure rate, ‘stopping out’ (through lack of funds) or dropping out has to be staunched. All institutions should be required to admit a quota of students from deprived educational backgrounds. HEIs should ensure that all their students are exposed to programmes and modules that raise social awareness and promote knowledge about transformation and related themes like democracy, racism, gender issues, equity and redress. These can be integrated into the curriculum or can be stand-alone, credit-bearing options. University residences should be communities that go beyond providing lodging only. There are opportunities here for students to work with and interact with a diverse range of others. Technology like Facebook could be used to encourage dialogue among students and between students and staff. There is a poor link between higher education graduates and the world of work. This Summit should address questions such as: To what extent can higher education remain true to higher order purposes while becoming responsive to the mechanistic, labour market requirements? What informs the assertion that there is a perceived lack of fit between HE graduates and the world of work? The Page | 1

workplace requires human resources to drive and maintain a moving ship. So what are the implications for HE providing graduates with high level conceptual abilities when what business needs are employees who can mostly move and maintain the established processes? Other questions that should be addressed are: What is a plausible explanation the sector can give to the reality that graduates are turned away on the basis of their performance on psychometric tests that continue to be used by business and what should be done? What is the HE sector prepared to do to minimise the current non-linear links between HE and the business sector? How much do our preparatory programmes reflect knowledge of where our graduates get deployed within business? Student engagement: HE research indicates that the best predictors of whether or not a student will graduate are academic preparation and motivation. Unfortunately, the only way to control these two variables is to employ more stringent admission and/or selection policies which is not a viable alternative where the HE sector has to enrol more students from increasingly diverse backgrounds. Student engagement can be defined by two key components: what students do, and what institutions do. Recommendations include: 1. Design a four-year undergraduate curriculum. This would be more effective for improving levels of student engagement and, as a result, success rates. For example, to improve the level of academic challenge through more challenging assessments and the use of writingintensive courses will require additional support, which requires additional time. Making use of additional support based on peer-facilitated learning could help to improve active and collaborative learning, but also requires additional time. Enriching educational experiences and creating a supportive campus environment could be addressed through an integrated year-long first-year experience that is based on a general educational model. This year could be structured to include high impact activities such as community service learning, writingintensive courses, foundational courses in academic literacy and numeracy. 2. Improve higher education outcomes. HEIs need to think about how to start requiring students to do things that help them to be successful, ie. become intentional about student engagement and success. Institutions that want to improve student engagement and success should start to think of how they can create a ‘menu’ or ‘matrix’ of different engaging experiences that will present the majority of undergraduate students with the opportunity to participate in various engaging and effective educational practices. 3. Enhance quality assurance in teaching and learning. The data from the South African Survey of Student Engagement could be used to better align student affairs structures with teaching and learning so that student life starts to complement the development of specific competencies. 4. Student engagement data can also be used to enrich orientation programmes and create targeted interventions for specific groups to provide them with more nuanced support. Most students, especially those who are at risk of dropping out prematurely, benefit from early interventions and sustained support at key transition periods. Diversity results in both individual development for the student, and collective benefits for the institution and society at large. Individuals who are educated in diverse settings are far more likely to work Page | 2

and live in racially and ethnically diverse environments after they graduate and they are better prepared for life in an increasingly complex and diverse society. In order to ensure that students develop optimally through exposure to diversity, a wide range of multidimensional activities planned as long-term interventions that deliberately create interracial connections should be implemented by institutions. Goal Oriented Education: Students have different abilities and talents, learn at different paces, have different interests – one student’s failure is another student’s success. Students don’t come to education to fail. What is needed is for students to be allowed to progress vertically in each subject, rather than horizontally in all subjects – this can be referred to as Goal Oriented Education (GO Education) where the student is an active participant, rather than being passive as in OBE. Student support and career advice: The higher education system does not acknowledge the fact that students from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot always comply with all institutional requirements. Once registration is over, students feel they are left to fend for themselves. They need advice on the types of jobs available to them, what direction their careers should follow, where they should apply, etc. Institutions should provide this. JIPSA is a good intervention strategy but if not administered properly, it will embarrass the very institutions whose original ideas were noble, and would later be subject to criticism by those whom it purported to support. JIPSA should intervene at high school level to prevent skewed patterns of career match counselling and a well researched programme synergising the pool for career/job absorption with an internship during the holidays for experiential knowledge. JIPSA should be the custodian of grassroots mass mobilisation of society, in particular those previously marginalised in local high schools for career subject match and counselling on job opportunities in the private and public sectors.

Commission 2: The academic experience Culturally relevant teaching and development: In order to be effective, lecturers must be trained regarding the cultural experiences of their students, while using these experiences as a foundation for teaching and mentoring young researchers. Africanisation does not, however, mean that we must isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, or that we should adopt inferior standards. We can be internationally competitive and uniquely African at the same time. We must promote our own uniqueness whilst learning from other cultures. The concept of Africanisation implies that education should balance European pedagogy by also addressing issues that are endemic to Africa in its curricula. Africanised education has its foundations in African philosophy which largely has to do with African experiences, concerns, aspirations and how Africans construct knowledge. By integrating cultural references from students’ backgrounds across the curriculum, educators utilise the strengths that learners bring to the classroom – a rich language, a vibrant culture and a remarkable history in producing productive learners who have a strong sense of self to challenge issues in their society.

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Education should respond to the problems and human conditions in modern Africa and shed light on how Africans learn and construct knowledge. It should also focus on the underlying beliefs and values that constitute education within an African context. We must be mindful of the importance of cultural and indigenous knowledge systems in the transformation of education in African countries. We must ensure mainstream indigenous knowledge in African universities and that research is relevant to African systems. Educators must be trained to identify traditional attitudes related to what counts as evidence in research and practice, expand upon these views and design interventions for their own pedagogy that take into account the role of culture in teaching and learning. Graduate employability through work integrated learning: Work integrated learning is a curriculum matter that if managed and resourced appropriately will directly contribute to graduate throughput, employability and job creation as part of the education-economic continuum and skills development ideals. It must be linked to practise to focus on total student development, and experiential learning must be planned to integrate with academic learning. In order to successfully offer this type of learning, there is a need to review the role, responsibilities and qualities of staff who manage the student experiential learning experience. Management and co-ordination of work integrated learning requires competencies and attributes necessary to liaise with students, academic staff and external stakeholders. The academic and administrative load is complex and varied. Experiential and work-based learning management should not be viewed as an add-on administrative load but as a necessary academic learner support intervention that is integrated with the academic programme. DoHET should carefully consider these aspects in their funding formula for work integrated learning interventions. Resources should be allocated to fast tracking the development of staff from designated areas. Senior academics should be exposed to alternative paradigms on teaching and designing curricula. Practitioners should have a knowledge of South African indigenous languages, and these languages should be developed as academic languages. Promotion criteria should be changed to foreground evidence of engagement with transformation in higher education.

Commission 3: Experiences of leadership, management and governance All our HEIs need to be transformed. Change requires creating a new system which in turn demands leadership. A minimum mass is essential early in the transformation effort. The guiding coalition must develop a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stakeholders and employees. Transformation requires input from everyone. Employees will only make input if they believe that useful change is possible. Thus, communication is essential. The organisation must systematically plan for and create short-term wins. Transformation takes time and a renewal effort risks losing momentum if there are no short-term goals to meet and celebrate. Without short-term wins, many people will give up or actively join the ranks of those who have been resisting change. Until changes sink deeply into the institution’s culture, a process that can take five to ten years, new approaches are fragile and subject to regression. Page | 4

Now that ‘new’ governance structures such as quality control structures and processes are in place, has the system effectively moved beyond internal processes (as enablers) to ultimate promised transformation and delivery of a different kind? What would it take for CHE to boldly make an unequivocal judgement of quality for each of the assessed institutions in a manner that can tell the user to trust or not trust the outcomes of the institution in question? Training and development of all councils and vice chancellors should be prioritised. There needs to be time for this if transformation is to be taken to a deeper level beyond the numbers. Improving the status of women in higher education: Why are large numbers of women who enter higher education with enthusiasm and ability leaving the sector? This is a challenge that must be addressed. Why are so few of our leaders, decision takers and role models women? This has an impact on the effectiveness of universities in their developmental role in overcoming poverty, rural under-development, fighting crime and overcoming discrimination. The Declaration of the 2009 Institutional Cultures and Higher Education Leadership: Where are the Women? conference committed to improving significantly the representation of women in senior academic, administrative and executive leadership positions in all HEIs. There was a commitment to identifying institutional barriers to equity of participation and success in leadership and undertaking innovative ways of addressing these impediments; to initiating an examination of university employment policies and their implementation, particularly as they impact on senior leadership positions; to promoting initiating annual monitoring and reporting to university councils on gender equity across senior positions; to promoting and monitoring fair and effective representation of women on senior committees and external bodies to which the university nominates members or representatives; to facilitating women’s participation in leadership development initiatives; and to promoting a holistic, integrated and sustained approach to gender equity. However, little has been done and there has not been change in the gender situation in our HEIs. This is a critical challenge to the Summit. The university as a public good: The agency for implementing the role of the university as a public good is vested within the institutions themselves. To do this, the universities need to critique and reverse some of their current neoliberal understandings of their purpose. They can begin by rethinking the roles of the vice-chancellor, the deans and the senate. Some VCs act not as intellectual leaders but as CEOs. This makes a mockery of the university. Replacing the academic role of the VC with the business management role of the CEO is a bit like getting a plumber to cut your hair. VCs should be leaders before they are managers. They should be accountable to their students and staff first and foremost and they should challenge their students and staff, and the sector as a whole, to take up their responsibilities as lifelong learners and critical citizens. VCs should earn salaries commensurate with their huge responsibility but these should not be out of alignment with the salaries earned by the staff they lead. At a number of public universities, deans are now called executive deans. Their appointment processes are by those from above rather than by those they are paid to lead, and their main functions are bureaucratic and financial. They should be the first among equals, elected by their peers. They should drive an educational agenda whereby graduates are not simply equipped to afford expensive cars and all the trappings of a lavish lifestyle. Page | 5

The University Senate should not be an institutional structure which rubberstamps decisions or dances to the tune of upper management. Senate should be the most powerful voice of the university, and should not be involved in petty politics.

Commission 4: Institutional differentiation The debate about university differentiation should include the earlier history of differentiation and its legacy as well as the effects and efficacy of the restorative processes that have been tried. There must be recognition of the complications that have come out of the creation of the new institution types and its implications on the institutions themselves as well as the national understanding of the types. Universities in a developmental state need not be the same. There is an urgent need for the research pool and quality of research to be expanded. The debate on differentiation should be broadened and include a wider section of South African society. Funding cannot be tied to differentiation as this goes against the need for redress for those institutions that have come from a deprived past and continue to serve deprived communities and students. Differentiation is good as longs as it is premised on the following principles: 1. It is not intended to bring us back to the size and shape debate in terms of our higher education system. 2. HEIs will be allowed space to play their roles as HEIs in terms of their core business of learning and teaching, research and community engagement. In other words, we should not allow the debate to take us back to the notion of bed-rock institutions and research institutions. 3. Differentiation should be located within the context of the mission fitness of institutions that are located in different contexts with diverse socio-economic challenges. However, this should also be located in the overall human resource and development needs of the country. Clearly, HEIs are not at the same level on a number of fronts re outputs, student composition (equity), staff equity, as well their infrastructure and resource base. Any debate on differentiation should be about recognising the historical inequities and addressing these particularly through the funding framework. It is also in this context that the role of historical disadvantaged institutions needs to be located. DoHET must play a central and increasing role in helping the system of HE truly transform. It must particularly help previously disadvantaged institutions take their appropriate place in the provision of appropriate human resources for the development of the country. Deep structural inequalities deliberately created by the apartheid system must be consciously and consistently addressed through targeted interventions by the state. The Ministry must assist in creating an enabling environment for institutions located in rural and poor environments if these institutions are to thrive. There is therefore a need for a review of the inequities in the sector in terms of student support systems and learning and teaching facilities. Page | 6

Lack of resources: Government cannot talk about transformation when the universities that admit the poorest learners disadvantage them further because of a lack of resources. The mergers were meant to help redress the imbalances in resource levels of HDIs. In some cases, this happened because one of the merging institutions was well resourced. But what about those who did not merge with rich institutions? Can government pretend they do not know that the standards of teaching and learning in HDIs are below matric level? How sustainable is it that HDIs, because of a lack of resources, are producing unemployable young people? Should HDIs that did not merge with HAIs continue to exist? How does it help development to have these former HDIs continue to churn out half-literate graduates? Government must take these issues seriously.

Other inputs Higher education sector transformation Equity, access and success of adult learners: Addressing education of adults is a political, moral and economic issue. A 2006 study found that 50% of HE students, including 80% at undergraduate level, were over 23 years of age. So a large proportion do not come straight from school. Addressing the development needs of working people is essential. The argument in the study is that to improve access, equity and success for adults, transformation is needed in the teaching/learning relationship, institutional cultures and socio-economic environment. However, little has been done since the study to address these issues, and so action is needed. Propositions: 1.

Create a broadly accepted Charter on Lifelong Learning in the universities. DoHET could broker or support the process of developing these, drawing on experiences and best practices in SA and in Europe where such charters are in place.

2. Monitor adult learners’ access and success in universities, including the impact of the HEQC, funding formula, and access to NSFAS, on adult learners’ access and success. Many students ‘stop out’ (better term than drop out) for economic reasons with the intention of returning. Funding (both to HEIs and to students via NSFAS) is encouraging a focus on fulltime rather than part-time, complete degrees rather than part degrees or diplomas, and fast achievement rather than slower, and this could be acting as a disincentive in relation to adult learners. HEMIS should produce age statistics so trends can be monitored. Monitoring and research should be done across HEMIS, NLRD, SAQA to identify trends and the impact of policy and inform policy review. 3. Set national targets for students admitted via Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and provide ring-fenced funding. RPL was an important goal, but an unfunded mandate. There is evidence that where students enter university after support and training with portfolios of evidence, they perform better than younger students. There should be a target for adults with ring-fenced funding to take RPL to scale.

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4. Develop Credit Accumulation and Transfer (CAT) system. This is related to RPL. There will need to be discussion across the system to create trust, parity of esteem and improve the use of credit transfer between institutions. 5. Build relationships between workplaces and universities: promote research into work and learning. The relationship(s) between work and learning are complex and touch on the ability of students to sustain study through generating income and the ability of workers to access study, for up-skilling or re-skilling. Policies of government and employers can impact on this relationship. There is a need for research into this and the DoHET should support this and recognise initiatives within universities to do this. 6. Incentivise and reward universities who widen access to adult learners and encourage flexible delivery of programmes to enable access, including the provision of appropriate guidance and counselling services to adult learners. The whole interface with adult learners needs to be reviewed from administrative practice, to counselling and support and the Ministry should provide incentives for this. History of discrimination and developmental needs: Any transformation that does not take into account our history of discrimination and the developmental needs of our society is irrelevant and shallow and will thus yield no results. We therefore request the Summit to consider the following: 1. Address the dearth of black academics – government must put its money where its mouth is. If we are serious about transformation, we must ensure that we attract black talent to the HEIs. Government should provide a subsidy that will help attract black talent. 2. Recognise prior learning – the purpose of RPL is not only to recognise competency but to learn from the person being RPL’d so that their RPL can make a meaningful contribution to our body of knowledge in a particular area of expertise. 3. Review the funding model – the funding model for HEIs should be linked to the contribution that HEIs are making in the country and their contribution to the upliftment of rural and black communities. 4. Address scarce skills – engage with professional bodies in all occupations around issues of curriculum development and prioritisation of certain skills. 5. Link knowledge creation to economic value creation – Alice is fast becoming a ghost town and this is unacceptable, as it is the home of one of the oldest and most revered universities in the country. HEis must look beyond the classroom and get involved in research and business and economic development where they are located. 6. Balance cognitive development and applied vocational and practical learning – HEIs must prepare students for the world of work. This could be done through creating opportunities for students as part of their curriculum to offer services to local business, for example. A conceptual framework for transformation: The starting point of any endeavour to engage on the complex subject of transformation should be clearly defining the construct. Transformation of the Page | 8

sector should be approached from an organisational perspective because HEIs are organisations in every sense. Whilst they are open systems that are affected by the global, national and regional environment, at the level of policy implementation, they are expected to behave as independent organisations. Organisational transformation is a process whereby an organisation changes its form, structure and culture in order to adapt to environmental changes. Transformation represents a change from the past way of doing things. Organisational transformation in HEIs in South Africa includes revolutionary change, qualitative change, and multi-dimensional change. Transformation is contrasted with evolutionary change which implies that change happens gradually and over a long period of time, and results in things being done in a similar way to how they were done in the past. Have HEIs really approached transformation as a comprehensive and complex change process? Have the organised and planned changes led to a change in the organisation’s character, form and appearance? Is the organisation’s form, character and appearance now displaying discontinuity with the pre-transformation state? If not, then now is the time to take stock of the past state, compare it to the current state and then identify areas for further transformation. The HE sector should embark on an organisational transformation process that has a particular purpose and which seeks to bring about significant changes in the identified areas. These changes should take place over a defined and limited period of time. From statements from the Minister of Higher Education and Training, it is apparent that the ANC-led government has lost its patience with the evolutionary approach to transformation by some HEIs. The HE sector should systematically review its approach to transformation, using the elements of the broad contextual framework to organisational transformation. Transforming higher education requires being honest in dealing with the problems in our basic education. It requires a serious examination of the educational needs of our students, more focus on creative educational development programmes in which students themselves have a pivotal role. It calls for critical introspection by those who serve in higher education to assess their readiness to improve their skills and deepen their knowledge through ongoing research. It calls for a radical and contextual approach in making higher education respond to the critical needs of a developmental state. Finally, it calls for an ongoing revision of our policy framework in keeping with global trends in higher education. The comprehensive university challenge and opportunity: Six years ago a new institution was created – the comprehensive university. The aim was to increase access, particularly for rural and poor students. The comprehensive institutional type has great challenges and opportunities and its performance needs to be reviewed. There are now eleven “universities”, six comprehensive universities and six universities of technology. CHE reports indicate a bias in the former towards career and professional programmes and research and in the latter to vocational. The comprehensive universities fall between the two and are at risk of schizophrenia. The non-traditional universities have had to grapple with often painful merger processes, then defining their identity and also building and establishing themselves as institutions – all without real guidance from government. Seeking a unique value proposition has been very difficult. Page | 9

There is a problem in the way language is developing around the three types of universities. The classification in itself causes problems. Traditional universities do not attract an adjective and so derive a certain status. Some universities are classified as ‘leading comprehensives’, and they dialogue with each other to the exclusion of the other four, and again derive status – the two have emerged from mainly former white institutions. The danger is the marginalisation of former black universities. This danger could be increased by actions at CHE level and DoHET level when it comes to developing case studies or allocating research. Rural and formerly disadvantaged universities are starting to network and form alliances to tackle their situation in relation to the more advantaged institutions. Universities of Technology are also forming alliances as well as international networks, separate from the comprehensives. Powerful, formal arrangements have been entered into with Australian and Finnish institutions. Again, there is a danger of the comprehensives being isolated and marginalised. So what is this ‘new institutional type’ expected to do? Founding policy documents indicate a number of roles: increased access to career-focused programmes; improved articulation and mobility between career and academic programmes; expanded research opportunities; enhanced capacity to respond to regional and community needs. There was a specific objective of making vocational programmes available to respond to regional economic labour market needs. Has this been achieved? Have the comprehensive institutions established their value add? Is achieving this hampered by sharp internal differentiations that make integration difficult? There are three key criteria that the comprehensive universities need to deliver on if they are to establish their value proposition separate to the other institutional types: Access, responsiveness, and social and economic development. Access is a priority and must be measured and assessed to see how far it has been achieved. Responsiveness is difficult as it touches on the relationship between the university and business, which can lead to problems. Improved impact on social and economic development is dependent on the diversity of academic offerings, flexibility of structures and the opportunities provided. These universities have had to do this in difficult circumstances following merger, but have the advantage of not having continuity. There are challenges of eliminating the former structure, but also advantages. The new DoHET must help them achieve success within seven years of establishment. If they do not succeed by then the opportunity will be lost. Diversity and shared values: Higher education must get its house in order. Diversity is a reality of life, and we need to recognise it, understand it, respect it, value it and manage it. Cultivating shared values is crucial for developing an inclusive institutional culture in which mutual understanding and respect, commitment, loyalty and the pursuit of excellence can flourish. Shared values serve as a cohesive force to support and underpin the institutional vision and goals. Mutual respect is imperative for effective teaching and learning. A vision for higher education is clearly set out in the preamble to the Higher Education Act, 1997. Because an HEI’s core business is teaching and learning, research and scholarship, and community service, success in these areas would be most meaningful. Key performance areas must include student achievement, student support, staff performance, research and scholarship, strategic Page | 10

leadership and management, and community service. Goals should be developed around these key performance areas and they should be underpinned by shared institutional values. There are five major elements that must be included in a higher education mandate: FET vision and the legislative framework; a statement of priorities; institutional authority; resources; and accountability. Africanisation: Africanisation has an important role to play in national, regional and international knowledge systems. The Soudien report opinions that transformation of higher education stands or falls on epistemological transformation. The challenge identified is that institutions are resistant to epistemological transformation. Institutional racism with regard to epistemological transformation (Africanisation) cannot be effectively addressed without more firm intervention by the Ministry. The Ministry must specifically address the need for Africanisation of curricula in its engagement with institutions. The Ministry should set up a body to house, coordinate, oversee and guide the Africanisation of curricula. It should also set aside and source funding to support Africanisation. To do this, the Ministry could set up its own internal structure to monitor and guide Africanisation, or this could be done by an oversight committee monitoring the transformation of HE. The Ministry could include an investigation (by CHE) of Africanisation in the review of the current undergraduate degree structure. The Ministry could initiate activities relating to effective use of English in the context of African languages. A Ministerial Task Team should be established to undertake a broad review of the theoretical and historical basis for Africanisation of language and curriculum, develop guidelines and recommendations for the implementation of Africanisation in HE, establish support for those working in the field of Africanisation, coordinate and support inter-university activities in the area of Africanisation, including institutional planning and implementation, and give input into reviews of curriculum. Funding should be earmarked and ringfenced to support epistemological transformation. Institutions should set up a body to house, coordinate, oversee and guide the Africanisation of curricula within the institution, and set aside and source funding to support Africanisation. To do so, institutions could initiate broad enquiry and research into the alienating effect of the continued marginalisation of indigenous knowledge systems, such as indigenous law and modern African law; introduce compulsory staff development programmes to familiarise staff with and sensitive them to the issues of Africanisation; and promote the interests of indigenous knowledge systems by campaigns, workshops, discussion groups and events. Institutional transformation frameworks should include issues of Africanisation. Funding should be earmarked and ringfenced to support epistemological transformation. Indigenous African law has since the beginnings of law curriculums in South Africa, suffered from ‘separate but equal’ treatment. It has always been taught as a separate subject in the law curriculum. At best 0.8% of the total education of our law graduates is dedicated to indigenous law. By marginalising indigenous law, we send a message that it is irrelevant and not worth focusing on, and that it has little to contribute. It is crucial to give indigenous law the space to contribute to our own legal system, if we hope to reach the global stage.

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The market: We must avoid slipping from the call for improvement into the discourses of the free market, or we will kill the university as a public good. Preventing the public university from performing as a public good by focusing only on how it performs as a skills developer for economic growth is a serious threat to our fledgling democracy. The spate of reforms since 1994 is entrenched in the neoliberal assumption that the efficiency of the market system can both drive and improve the functioning of our universities. If universities succumb to such assumptions, they lose their capacity to act as a public good and become mere training centres. Neoliberal discourses of accountability assume that the market will triumph and that students will vote with their feet so that only the good institutions survive and the current funding formula incentivises this. But it does not help to save our HDIs or to protect the roles of the university beyond those of skills development. We must guard against the free-market rhetoric underpinning some of the higher education drivers and demand that the university has cultural and structural space to claim its role as transformation agent. Resources available for higher education should be divided up somehow but public universities should not be pitted against each other for funding and students. Ministerial responsibility and accountability: The Minister’s powers over HE must be discussed to see if these powers are sufficient to properly influence higher education in South Africa. His powers are critical in policy implementation. In other countries, the Minister’s Office or the Presidency play a critical role in the appointment of rectors and CEOs of SETAs and FETs or the equivalent. There is lack of transformation in higher education because section 34 of the Act gives the Minister ceremonial and scanty powers to run the department. It must be amended to allow the Office of the Minister to directly appoint rectors and CEOs of SETAs and FETs. He must choose the best candidates who can take development and transformation forward. Teacher training: Currently, there is a relatively low reward for universities for initial teacher training, in comparison with high reward for post-graduate training. To avoid continuation of disadvantage along apartheid lines, universities should be rewarded far more substantially for training undergraduate teachers, or for training lecturers who will staff reopened training colleges.

Developmental role of universities United Nations General Assembly Resolution 57/7254 declared the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development January 2005 to December 2014. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It requires a commitment to overcoming poverty through focusing on welfare issues affecting the poorest sectors of society. Addressing the developmental role of universities would include examining how higher education can attend to the issues of the poorest sectors of society. A developmental university can be seen as one that is not just internally focused, in a static manner, but which views itself as a developmental agent or node for potential development. Through active engagement with the community of institutions, the university can contribute significantly to the building of social capital that can sustain development over time to benefit future generations. It can, amongst other things, raise Page | 12

literacy through its core activities as a learning centre resulting in high social capital. High literacy and social capital increase prospects of employability which leads to higher productivity and GDP and thus a higher standard of living and increased quality of life and social well being. Rural-based universities are advantageously situated and possess a variety of characteristics such as strategic location within the rural community; existing physical infrastructure; existing and potential intellectual capital; potential to promote the development of social capital; potential to promote relevant teaching and learning methodologies; and potential to build strong collaborative relationships based on community of trust. The UN Declaration on a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development presents an excellent global instrument and benchmark for these universities as they articulate their developmental paradigm. Nation-building: The Summit is urged to recognise the scale of potential contribution to nationbuilding in terms of community development that could be made by universities. Community engagement should be regarded as part of the core business of universities, perhaps in partnership with local government and NGOs. Work already being done by academics in university-based community centre could be counted as part of their load. This would help to amplify the effect of these initiatives. Ongoing verbal support and praise for these initiatives needs to be backed up by financial support.

Sectoral and sectional interest inputs NEHAWU Institutions are embedded in social relations and conditions. The “ideas, values, norms, laws, policies, regulations, rules, structures, organisation, mechanisms, instruments, processes, procedures, actions, practices, conventions, habits and behaviour” are a reflection of the power relations that exist. Universities inherited culture that evolved during apartheid. The restructuring took place in the context of a neo-liberal GEAR strategy, which also shaped the nature of how universities evolved. In effect, universities were corporatised. The emphasis during the restructuring of doing more with less meant that the emerging institutions have remained underfunded. Inequalities have been reinforced, working class throughput and pass rates have not improved and staff working conditions have worsened. Vice-chancellors have become CEOs and managerialism is dominant. Salaries of VCs have increased, lower paid staff wages have been held back and so the wage gap has widened. The review of NSFAS is welcomed. The main problem facing poor students is that the funding they get does not cover the costs. It is not surprising that a third of B degree students do not pass within 5 years and that the pass rates of whites are double those of black students. Access figures look good on the surface but the reality remains very bad.

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The issue of institutional autonomy needs to be examined. It gets conflated with academic freedom and at the same time private business interests and influence are increasing. Autonomy and independence must be accompanied by accountability. Democratisation is needed. There are now black people and women in leadership positions but they are generally representative of business or upper social class interests. The women tend also to be white. National collective bargaining has been resisted, and many anomalies have continued after mergers. Workers’ rights have been disregarded, casualisation has increased and many services contracted out. It is normally the contractor with the lowest bid that is taken on but when efforts are made to improve pay and conditions the university stays aloof as the staff are not employed by them. Contracted workers are intimidated and their rights challenged, particularly their right to strike. Many staff and functions have been defined as “non-core” and many support services to workers, academic staff and students have been withdrawn. Academic staff have also seen more short term contract arrangements, whilst their student numbers have increased and other demands placed on them. The academic staff profile still reflects a lack of progress towards genuine equity. Competition between institutions has not helped. Racism is still a problem, with many policies in place but a lack of systematic work to promote diversity. Many pressures exist to push universities towards a common, less diverse, way of working. The practice of withholding exam results until fees have been paid is very damaging to poorer students, and contributes to the high dropout rates of black students. Proposals: Return to the vision of massification of HE, including universities in Northern Cape and Mpumalanga, with clear medium term targets on access and participation; there should be policy and guidelines on management salaries and national collective bargaining arrangements out in place; universities should be required to report annually to Parliament; ensure the NSFAS review results in loans being changed to bursaries linked to performance; ban results being held up for nonpayment of fees; establish a Labour Chair in NRF; develop policy on RPL and a framework of integration; increased role for government in transformation; complete HRD strategy with clear targets; implement Soudien report; review the mergers in relation to operations, institutional culture, transformation, access, curricula, throughput rates, participation rates, differentiation, etc.

Health Education Private Health Education Providers of South Africa: Independent Nursing Education Institutions have made a substantial contribution towards an output of qualified nurses in different categories over the past ten years. These qualified nurses are available to be employed throughout the whole spectrum of health care services in South Africa. There is, however, a perception that these institutions are not providing quality education and training. PHEPSA would like to outline its contribution in assisting DoHET in achieving the transformation as envisaged in the White Paper on the Transformation of Higher Education in South Africa through equitable access, quality education and training, producing employable, highly skilled qualified individuals. It would also like to diversify and become involved in related soft skills development programmes which will add value to the

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professional and personal development of its students and ultimately graduates that have a thorough understanding of citizenship. Gauteng Department of Health and Social Development, Chris Hani Baragwanath Nursing College: In line with the Van Wyk Commission’s recommendations, nursing colleges entered into affiliation agreements with universities. The role of the universities has been the moderation of assessments, monitoring of academic standards and development of nursing colleges. Nursing colleges have been by far the greatest producers of professional nurses in the country, eg in Gauteng, universities produce 100 graduates while nursing colleges produce over 400 graduates. The legitimacy of nursing colleges to continue to offer higher education programmes is questionable. However, should nursing colleges stop training professional nurses, the health sector will be seriously compromised in terms of service delivery. The shortage of professional nurses will be exacerbated. The recommendation is that public nursing colleges should be declared HEIs. Nursing Education Association: All nursing qualifications should be placed in the higher education band as this will facilitate accreditation and the movement of learners between qualifications. A system needs to be developed for accrediting provincial nursing colleges as higher education institutions. The system must consider, inter alia, the readiness of these nursing education institutions in respect of higher education requirements and functioning and provide for organisational and academic development and support. Innovative collaboration between nursing education institutions at all levels, in the delivery of basic and post-basic diploma and degree nursing programmes, must be explored. Emmanuel Verpleegokollege Oudtshoorn: The accreditation system for private nursing colleges requires attention. The SA Nursing Council has not come to inspect this school which means that it is unable to register as a higher education facility.

Environmental studies Despite growth in HE offerings, environmental skills are still in short and critically short supply, with high vacancies in researcher, manager and technician positions across the sector. This is partly due to demand side issues (institutional ability to offer and fill posts) and in specific areas due to inadequate supply. The inability to fill vacancies is also related to poor skills planning for the environmental sector, partly due to the lack of a dedicated SETA for this cross-sectoral concern, partly due to lack of foresight regarding the rapid growth of the sector. In areas such as teacher education, environmental content is still inadequately addressed in many HEIs, with a resultant effect in the workplace. Specialists in particularly the emerging field are few and this limits teaching and particularly research supervision capacity in universities and universities of technology, an inability of staff to keep up to date with rapid developments in the arena is another concern. There must be provision for interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary learning programmes since environmental occupations often require multi-disciplinary knowledge. It is difficult to count students in environmental study fields and monitor progress as the latter are poorly differentiated in HEMIS data.

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Measures to enable interactive learning, fieldwork and attention to learner experiences, as well as staff exposure to the fields in which they teach, must be considered, across institutions and departments. Recommendations to support the transformation drive of the environment sector include: 1. In the reconfiguration of the SETA landscape, consider the need for cross-sectoral, environment-related skills associated with meeting the needs of a greening economy, rural development, poverty eradication and sustainability, while better meeting the mandates of environmental agencies to deliver sustainable development and environmental management to the benefit of all. 2. When reviewing skills planning and monitoring mechanisms, consider the need to count with greater refinement the students and employees in environment-related study fields and occupations. 3. Provide structures within HEIs to accommodate and promote inter- and trans-disciplinary programmes as fully-fledge contributions to academic excellence and transformation. 4. Acknowledge the contribution of quality teaching and research supervision to transformation and academic excellence. 5. Provide support for overburdened staff and departments with research supervision capacity and proven track records in achieving transformation targets. 6. Provide financial support for experiential learning and fieldwork as part of under- and postgraduate studies. 7. Consider the entry requirements for honours programmes across HEIs, and the role of the research masters, in order to encourage South African students to attain doctoral degrees. 8. Top up inadequate bursaries for students unable to progress because of financial constraints or professional demands. 9. Devise measures to encourage and reward, rather than stifle, curriculum innovation aimed at meeting social needs, and to share best practice in teaching methodology across institutions. 10. Strengthen the environmental content of teacher education programmes, as this is the basis for all further environmental learning and practice.

South African Institute of Architects and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Infrastructure The architecture sector needs to undergo significant transformation in order to ensure that there are sufficient architects available to meet the country’s demands. There are international standards that detail the number of architects per capita and South Africa is at a ratio of 1: 12000, compared to the optimum standard of below 1: 600. The limitations faced by our present university structures do Page | 16

not make it possible for us to radically change the rate of output and while there are only 3600 professional architects, there are a further 6000 architectural professionals who through some timely innovations in learning could begin to address the challenges of access and finance and utilise technology to introduce effective fully auditable self-paced distance learning programmes while using professional architecture practices as sites of learning, mentoring and skills acquisition. Challenges can be solved through the following: 1. Scalability of the curriculum – training systems based on self pace, rather than locking students into a full-time path of study for seven years. 2. Review the funding reforms. Institutions cannot in their present form practically extend themselves to offer courses on a part-time or night school basis. Since most architecture learning is studio-based and task oriented rather than text book derived, theoretical, examination tested components can easily be put into modules freeing students in employment to pursue the core learning task based design experience and site supervision within architectural practice over a longer period of internship administered by professionals and monitored by the appropriate regulating body. 3. Recruit students from other undergraduate degrees, not just an architecture degree. 4. Use the diploma structure for creating a national night school culture and for turning professional architectural practices into recognised office-based learning sites. 5. Explore the practicality of establishing FET colleges for the built environment. 6. Allow retired professionals to augment the levels of design competence through a combination of self-evaluated learning programmes and task based learning assignments.

Pearson Education There are several challenges facing universities today. These include: diversity – large classes with a wide range of students with differing degrees of ability and experience; volume – an explosion in class sizes; unreliable grades – the grades which students achieved in matric were not in keeping with previous years’ standards and they are an unreliable indicator of student ability and a poor predictor of student academic achievement. The outcomes of these factors include disillusioned staff, unmotivated students, high drop out rate among students and a high turnover rate among staff. A potential remedy is eLearning. eLearning could help relieve some of the prevailing pressures. Pearson Education recommends that DoHET and HEIs trial the eLearning labs in certain key science and business courses. They are willing to assist with this.

Kick Racism Very little attention is being paid to transforming organisational culture through addressing racism and discrimination at its root – the attitudes, values and relationships of the staff and students who populate the academic terrain. Page | 17

Kick Racism proposes focusing on implementing a sustainable and cost-effective model of developmental training programmes for staff, students and middle managers. The programme is sustainable in the sense that it identifies and trains a core group of inhouse facilitators who are certified to extend the trainings and initiatives within the institution, with decreasing mentorship from the training provider.

Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) As part of a response to the question of ‘new forms of support and development needed’ we propose a properly developed and formalised relationship between DoHET and HELTASA. This will also contribute to the concerted action that is needed to transform and improve performance in higher education. HELTASA has a long history in academic development and has recently incorporated SAARDHE (South African Association for Research and Development in Higher Education). Another recent development is partnering with the HEQC to recognise and reward excellence in teaching and learning. The manner in which such a relationship is conceptualised and operationalised provides an appropriate infrastructure for mobilising higher education practitioners. It creates an enabling environment for practitioners to make a significant contribution in solving the sector’s problems and strongly positions them to be transformation agents. As pointed out, the emphasis should not be on lack of capacity in the sector, but rather on how to translate the available potential and use it to build capacity. With a sound relationship between HELTASA and DoHET, infrastructure can be built to enable the sector to make significant strides towards capacity building. We would like to have further discussions regarding how the relationship can be structured to facilitate the envisaged concerted action.

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Submissions were received from: •

Black Management Forum

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Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)

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Dr Oupa Moshebi, Cape Peninsula University of Technology

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Centre for Adult Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal

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Mrs S Peters, Chris Hani Baragwanath Nursing College

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Nico Cloete, Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET)

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Michael Cosser, Education Unit, Education, Science and Skills Development Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council

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Council on Higher Education and University of the Free State

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Dr Mathilda de Beer, University of the Free State

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E Dlamini

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AA de Wet, Emmanuel Verpleegkollege Oudtshoorn

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Gummy NB Gumede

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HERS-SA

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Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA)

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Kick Racism

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Dr John Makhene (retired Vice-Chancellor)

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Loyiso M Mbabane (3 submissions on behalf of the Black Management Forum – Amathole (East London) Region)

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Lazarus GM Modise

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Mrs Thigam Nathoo

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National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU)

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Dr Sharon Vasuthevan, Nursing Education Association

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Pearson Education South Africa (PESA)

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FJ Kotze, Private Health Education Providers of South Africa

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Rural Education Access Programme Page | 19

•

Dr Eureta Rosenberg (on behalf of South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Lewis Foundation)

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Dr Anshu Padayachee, SANTRUST

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South African Institute of Architects and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Infrastructure

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Southern African Society for Co-operative Education (SASCE)

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Professor D Taylor

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Peter Utting

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Walter Sisulu University

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Professor Shirley Walters, Division for Lifelong Learning, University of the Western Cape

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Siphamandla Xulu

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