Prof. Saleem Badat Chief Executive Officer, Council on Higher Education

1. HIGHER EDUCATION CHANGE IN SOUTH AFRICA: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CRITICAL ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF THE NEXT DECADE Prof. Saleem Badat Chief Executive Officer, Council on Higher Education National Assembly Education Portfolio Committee 7 June 2005

2. INTRODUCTION Point of departure is the final chapter of the CHE’s publication South African Higher Education in the First Decade of Democracy (November 2004) Focus on • Achievements in higher education (HE) during the first ten years of democracy • Critical issues and challenges that face HE in the next decade

3. ACHIEVEMENTS • Transformation agenda and policy framework A comprehensive transformation agenda and policy framework for HE that puts us on the road to overcoming our apartheid past and creating a HE system that is more suited to the needs of a socially equitable and developing democracy. • New HE landscape Foundations have been laid for a new HE landscape constituted by a single, co-ordinated and differentiated system of HE encompassing universities, universities of technology (technikons), comprehensive institutions, and various kinds of colleges.

4. 3. Student enrolments and equity • Student enrolments have grown from 473 000 in 1993 to some 675 128 in 2002 • Considerable deracialisation of the student body and of many institutions • African students constituted 40% (191 000) of enrolments in 1999; in 2002 they made up 60% (404 000 out of 675 000) • Women students made up 43% (202 000 out of 473 000) of enrolments in 1993; by 2002 women constituted 54% (363 000 out of 675 000) • Also positive shifts in enrolments by field of study and qualification level 4. Internationalisation • Foreign student enrolments increased from 14 124 in 1995 to 46 687 in 2002, constituting 7% of the total student body • Students from the South African Development Community bloc increased from 7 497 in 1995 to 31 724 in 2002 • Students from other African countries increased from 1 769 in 1995 to 6 317 in 2002

5. 5. Core functions • In a number of areas of learning and teaching, institutions offer academic programmes that produce high quality graduates with knowledge, competencies and skills to practice occupations and professions locally and anywhere in the world. • Various areas of research are characterised by excellence and the generation of high quality fundamental and applied knowledge for scientific publishing in local and international publications, for economic and social development and innovation, and for public policy. • In a variety of areas, there are also important and innovative community service initiatives that link academics and students and communities • Efforts on the part of various institutions to be more developmentally responsive and to address changing economic and social and educational needs

6. 6. Quality assurance regime • National QA infrastructure with policies, mechanisms and procedures related to programme accreditation and institutional audits in place • Developments have significantly raised the profile of quality issues • Emerging institutionalisation of quality management within HE institutions 7. New funding framework and student support • New goal-oriented, performance-related’ funding framework has been instituted • National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has been successfully established and expanded To the extent that key actors face up to various critical issues and challenges, South African HE has great promise to contribute to social equity, economic growth, social development and democracy in South Africa and the economic and social development needs of the Southern African region and the African continent.

7. CRITICAL ISSUES AND CHALLENGES • Student enrolments and equity • The progress of women students masks inequalitiesin their distribution across academic programmes and especially at higher levels of post-graduate training. • The rapid increase in African students again masks inequalities that are similar to that of women students • Staff equity • Academic and administrative staffoverall, at senior levels and especially at the historically white institutions remain overwhelmingly white and male • Creating opportunities for black and women students to undertake masters, doctoral and post-doctoral studiesthrough adequate scholarships, effective mentoring and appropriate induction and support remains a critical challenge

8. 3. Student graduation and success • A key challenge remains improvement of the overall HE efficiencyin terms of reduction of drop out rates and enhancement of throughput and graduation rates. • Inadequate funding to support students adequately is one likely reason for drop outs • Extent to which cultures and conditions exist to facilitate students becoming highly educate,and to graduating with real knowledge, competencies and skills, and with attitudes that are appropriate to functioning as socially committed and critical citizens, must also be posed, • Quality a Key policy Driver • Assurance, promotion and enhancement of the quality of academic programmes and institutions are crucial issues. • Justification of poor quality academic programmes in terms of under-prepared learners and/or in terms of providing access to historically disadvantaged social groups is a cynical notion of equityand confuses certification with meaningful education. • Contended that increased participation in HE, equity and redress must necessarily result in the education of the quality of provision, qualifications and graduates, A risk, but such an outcome is not pr-ordained.

9. Learning, Teaching and Research at the Heart of Institutional Transformation • Innovation, renewal and transformation in core activitiesof teaching, learning and of the curriculum, in research and the production of knowledge, and in community engagement, are sometimes neglected in the institutional transformation agenda. • Curriculum, teaching and learning are key determinantsof the integrity of institutions, the value of their contribution to the social transformation agenda, and to economic and social development in South Africa. • Critical issuesare whether, how and in what ways and to what extend institutions • Provide environments and cultures that are safe, secure and respectful, are intellectually nurturing, promote higher learning, and embrace students as partners in this learning

10. Provide for the varied learning needs of a diverse student body through well-conceptualised, designed and planned teaching, learning and research programmes, and through excellent teaching, mentoring and academic development initiatives • Innovate and offer curricula and pgrogrammes that provides students with the opportunity to develop and succeed as professionals and intellectuals who can undertake high level and middle level occupations, think theoretically, analyse with rigour, gather and process empirical data, and do all this with a deep social sensitivity of the development challenges and needs of our society • Provide environments and cultures for the production of knowledge through different kinds of scholarship • The production of thinking, competent and committed graduates will crucially depend on the transformation of learning and teaching and the curriculum.

11. Completion and consolidation of the mergers and creating genuinely South African and African Institutions • Hugh difference between declaring merged institutions and actually creating onesthat indeed • Serve new social and educational purposes, goals and priorities • Develop new institutional identities and cultures • Develop new academic qualification and programme mixes of high quality academic and research programmes, and • Forge new governance and new organisational structures, forms and practices. • Whether the mergers and other restructuring create HE institutions that are more equitable, more responsive to new economic and social imperative, more effective and efficient, of higher quality, and better governed remains to be seen

12. 7. Mediating “demand overload” • HE and its institutions are buffeted by the cross-currents of the state, market and civil society, each with its specific, varied and different expectations and demands. A common experience of all institutions, therefore, is an exceptional ‘demand overload’. By this is meant that institutions • Must cope with a vast array of varied and differing national goals and imperatives, policy initiatives, market pressures, public expectations and institutional stakeholder demands • Must remain faithful to the ‘public good’ ideals of national policy and the social purposes that define an institution as a HE institution • Must do this with difficulty in securing and retaining specialist person power, which is increasingly attracted to the greener pastures of the public and private sectors, and • Must do this without any significant increase in public finance, with limited scope for increased finance from student income, and with various difficulties raised by income from other sources.

13. 8. Securing adequate funding for HE and for student access and equity of opportunity • Not in dispute that current inefficiencies in HE , which waste valuable public finances, must be vigorously addressed • Yet increasingly clear that public funding of HE is inadequate in the face of the legacy of past inequities and the new demands on and expectations of HE • Five areas of HE are in need of additional funding: • NSFAS- current investment is inadequate to fully provide access and equity of opportunity to eligible and talented students from working class and rural poor families and from even lower middle class families • Academic development initiatives to support students to succeed • Curriculum innovation, renewal and transformation to enhance the capabilities of institutions to meet the high and middle-level person power needs of the economy and society • Producing the next generation of academics and researchers • Capital infrastructure

14. 9. Reproducing the Next Generation of Academics • Issue that merits especial attention is the reproduction and transformation of the social composition of the next generation of scholars and researchers • From angle of current social composition of our academic labour force - a serious and immediate crisisin relation to employment equity • From angle of age profile of our academic labour force, the remuneration of academics, the pull of the public (government, public enterprises and science councils) and private sectors, the opportunity costs for first generation black graduates etc. – looming crisis • Can also pose whether we arenurturing the next generation of critical scholarsthat are passionately committed to both justice, and honest, critical and independent scholarship, and who must be the critical voices and public intellectuals of our society.

15. 10. Creative Change Leadership and Management • Given context and challenges, creative and effective change leadership and management are critical for the successful initiation, mobilization, steering and management of changes and transformation • Extent and depth of leadership and specialist person power to steer, manage, implement and consolidate change and transformation must be a concern

16. 11. Consolidation • Various speeches of the Minister of Education have alluded to the ‘consolidation’ of HE • By late 2003 the CHE concluded: ‘Priorities are for the Ministry to purposefully effect the restructuring that is necessary and to build and consolidate the system through planning, funding and quality assurance activities • The view of the need for consolidation likely to enjoy widespread support within HE • Suggest that: • ‘Consolidation’ cannot be an excuse for any reversion to ‘business as usual’ • ‘Consolidation’ cannot preclude new initiatives that may be necessary and designed to contribute to the transformation and development of higher education • ‘Consolidation’ cannot be reduced to more funding for higher education (as welcome as this would be), or to simply the idea of healthier relationships between actors or better communication and/or coordination – this is incapable of comprehending the real nature of the challenges that ‘consolidation’ in HE poses

17. Instead • ‘Consolidation’ should be about ‘the deepening of transformation’, and particularly ‘as it impacts on the core work of HE, that is, teaching and learning and research’ • ‘Consolidation’ should be about consensus and a social contract between government and HE about strategic priorities and how the transformation and development agenda in HE will be pursued in the coming years • Consolidation should centre on strategic priorities that include: • Ensuring that the mergers and general institutional restructuring are brought to fruition • Giving concerted attention to rapidly enhancing the academic capabilities of institutions and academics, including improving the quality of HE programmes and teaching, learning and supervision • Extending and deepening the curriculum innovation and restructuring to enable HE institutions to respond to the changing knowledge and high level skills requirements of the economy and society

18. Securing additional and adequate finances to enable HE to meet the huge demands on it – use this on strategic priorities for the next decade than as part of formula funding • Consolidation should include a high degree of certainty, consistency and continuity of national policy.