Search

This paper explores the university, industry and government (UIG) research and development (R&D) collaborations that academia in South African higher education institutions (HEIs) with clothing-related programmes engage in. In the research on which the paper is based, Fashion, Consumer Science, Textiles and Clothing Management academia were purposively sampled to gather data regarding the UIG R&D collaborations. Data collection was conducted through an online questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze data and present results in figures and graphs. Findings show that majority surveyed academia had never been involved in UIG R&D collaborations with any government levels, the clothing, textiles, leather and footwear (CTLF) industry or other clothing related organizations. The paper concludes that the ability of surveyed academia to produce 'relevant' new knowledge may be limited due to under developed UIG R&D collaborations. The likelihood of the surveyed clothing-related programmes producing graduates with 'relevant skills' for a changing world may also be negatively impacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This concept note was produced for a symposium held under the banner of Critical University Studies – South Africa (CUS-SA) at the University of Johannesburg in August 2022. The opening plenary session was addressed by Profs. Premesh Lalu, Sarah Mosoetsa and Sarah Nuttall. A summary of a paper prepared for this symposium by Michael Peters on the university in techno-rational times was presented as part of the panel. The rest of the symposium featured critical discussion in response to this concept note and presentations of potential chapter contributions for a book on the theme. The concept note is followed below by six responses by South African higher education scholars in response to Michael Peters' and the CUS-SA concept note. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall student protests of 2015-2016 at universities across South Africa foregrounded the need for the transformation, decolonisation, redress and Africanisation of the country's higher education institutions. One of the ways that Stellenbosch University (SU) has endeavoured to address transformation-related challenges linked to symbols and names is with the Visual Redress Project, whose aim is to change the visual landscape of the university's campuses. This paper explores the reactions of students and staff to initiatives carried out thus far by the Visual Redress project on SU's Stellenbosch campus. It attempts to contribute to the discourse around the transformation of higher education in South Africa through a look at how social cohesion and the sharing of stories and identities could be achieved on SU's campus through visual redress. It draws upon and expands on the existing research on visual redress conducted at the University (Fataar & Costandius, 2021; Costandius et al., 2020; Clarke & Costandius, 2019). The paper aims not only to provide insight into SU's transformation efforts but to also use these responses and reactions to potentially inform future transformation imperatives and redress initiatives in particular on this and other campuses locally and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quarter of a century after South Africa's transition to democracy, the rhetoric of 'transformation' remains firmly ingrained in its higher education policy and discourse. In many of the reviews, reports, proposals, and frameworks on the transformation of the South African university system, one thing stands out: an oversupply of rhetoric and a dearth of empirical data. This article is a direct response to how infrequently data has been used and seeks to reveal the actual quantum of change, albeit with a focus on an admittedly singular element on the transformation spectrum but one which nevertheless preoccupies South Africans: equity (or race). The evidence presented in the paper shows that the absence of a clear articulation of transformation, accompanied by a lack of indicators and targets to track progress over time, hinders the progression of the discourse to equally important dimensions of performance such as efficiency, success and productivity—all of which are critical in determining the university's role in national development. The paper goes on to show that based on the data available, the public university system in South Africa is transforming given the increases over time in the number of black students and staff. However, without a clearly articulated idea of what constitutes change, one cannot claim a transformed system, and the political narrative of no transformation is likely to prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes online teaching and learning strategies and the challenges involved in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Three years on in the pandemic, universities have struggled with the challenges faced by the move from traditional learning to online teaching and learning. Instructional strategies have advanced rapidly given the epidemic's realities of isolation, separation, and distance but not all of them have been successful. A cause for concern is that the well documented benefits of online learning become diminished as the negativities of online learning become more obvious. For example, technological difficulties are becoming more prevalent, as inadequate technical skill sets and levels as well as incompatible teaching styles. Furthermore, a lack of engagement between students and instructors, and poor communication further hampered online learning. From the view of academic staff developers, this study analyzes online learning strategies and provides recommendations for lecturers to take heed of in a world designed on Covid-19 restrictions. The study is important for both lecturers and students struggling with online learning and institutional wellbeing as it reflects on post-Covid dynamics. Based in South Africa, the study provides a Pan-African perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has distorted the teaching and learning pedagogy, as well as the research process of higher education institutions, particularly in Africa. This pandemic-imposed restrictions on movement and demanded a shift to online interaction. This blurred the lines between work and home life and has exacerbated the deep chasms of inequality upon which South African society operates. Established on empirical evidence, substantiated by documentary data, this paper explores how these existing inequalities, exacerbated by COVID-19, manifest in the postgraduate research space of South African higher education institutions. Qualitative data were collected during a recorded focus group interview, and thematically analysed. Through a Neo-Weberian lens, it will illustrate that the pandemic, among other challenges, posed significant ethical challenges to honours students completing their research projects, in turn, shifting policies and requirements of higher education institutions (HEIs) themselves to ensure the protection of their students and quality of research output. These include concerns around digital exclusion, locating participant consent, as well as the collection of data via online channels (Zoom, WhatsApp, Skype) and their privacy parameters. Considering these gulfs of inequality, the paper recommends key requirements for the future of ethically sound research in higher education in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigate a framework for improving library services and resource usage in a private higher education institution in South Africa. Marketing of library services and resources has a great impact on their usage. If marketing is not properly applied, libraries can turn into the unused institution, render useless or unused services, no matter how good their available services and resources are. Design/methodology/approach: This multi-method study used questionnaires to collect data from both staff and students at the private higher education institution concerned. The questionnaire was augmented with data collected from staff using group interviews. It is unfortunate that the target institution approved the conducting of the study only on the condition that their name could not be disclosed or used in any study reports. On this basis, the institution is referred to as Campus A for the purposes of this paper. Findings: The study discovered that Campus A lacked key marketing tools, such as a marketing policy for the library, and that it also failed to take advantage of new platforms such as social media and other available computer software and technologies. This has resulted in its users being unaware of certain important services and resources rendered by the library. Originality/value: The study proposed a framework for library marketing practices to improve services and resources usage as a benchmark for libraries. The study also recommends that the management of Campus A library come together to gather information for the development of an appropriate library marketing policy and also ensure that their marketing strategies take advantage of the latest technology, including social media, by means of which their clients may be easily reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the state's response to students' claim for free education that has rocked South African tertiary institutions since 2015. These responses have been characterised by the enforcement of a de facto state of emergency materialised by an extreme securitisation/militarisation of campuses and other public spaces, resulting in human/student rights and the rule of law being brought to a standstill. The paper further discusses the background to the #FeesMustFall protest and attempts to understand why the crisis was addressed only more than two years after it erupted. The article proceeds by looking into the aftermath of the fees must fall campaign characterised by an escalation of security mechanisms which succeeded in turning the campuses into camps where fact and law are merged into one another and where a state of emergency has lost its exceptional character and became the new normal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Transformation forces in South African (SA) higher education and beyond have called for incorporation of community engagement into higher education. Specifically, the SA white paper 3 that informed the Higher Education Act No. 101 of 1997 mandated higher education institutions, including those involved in the training of nurses, to move towards community-engaged teaching and learning (CETL). An array of interventions has been implemented that aim at magnifying community-engaged pedagogical practices in SA universities, including nursing departments. However, this has not been without challenges. Objective. To describe stakeholders' CETL experiences at three SA universities. Methods. A phenomenological descriptive qualitative study using focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews was conducted with academics, students and community members at the health sciences departments of three universities that applied CETL approaches. Data were analysed through an inductive thematic approach and the outcomes are presented as themes. Results. Four themes emerged from the data: empowerment; forms of CETL; principles of CETL; and awareness. Conclusion. Stakeholders in CETL at the health sciences and nursing departments at three universities in SA indicated a rich array of experiences that can be used to leverage a transformative effect in nursing education. Appropriate integration of CETL into programme design and development of curricula, and use of explicit CETL methods with intentional outcomes for the students and communities, will go a long way toward achieving transformation in nursing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching English with digital technology has exacerbated the process of teaching and learning. In youth leisure, computers are more than information devices: they convey stories, images, identities, and fantasies through providing imaginative opportunities for play, and as cultural and ideological forms. In this paper, I report on a project conducted with teacher education students at a university in Johannesburg, South Africa. The focus of the project is to examine how students construct their identities digitally through the multimodal narratives they create in the English classroom. To do this I report on two narratives, as well as a recurring theme, decolonisation. The latter theme is significant because it was during the time of this project that South African universities found themselves in the grip of decolonisation and free education protests. I use New Literacy Studies as a framework to theorise literacy practices, and the work of Hall and others to theorise identity. The paper presents further possible implications of digital identity construction for teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African higher education has faced much structural transformation since the dismantling of apartheid, and yet remains a racialized space. Despite a stated commitment to transformation in university policy nationally, lay discourses of transformation are highly contested. In these debates, black students are often represented in stigmatizing ways; which affect students’ self-esteem and academic performance. This paper explores black students’ experiences of transformation at the University of Cape Town (UCT), a previously “white only” university, based on the results of a photovoice project. The data analysed are drawn from focus groups, personal reflections, photographs and written stories exploring their experiences at UCT. The findings suggest that there is a failure of transformation at UCT, characterized by the dominance of whiteness in the institution. The paper also discusses how many students internalize the negative stereotypes they encounter whilst others use coping mechanisms and strategies to resist the discourse of black inferiority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In South African universities, a particular epistemic hierarchy exists within which African knowledge and resources are under-valued. This paper examines humanities courses that include content that deliberately aims to interrupt the existing knowledge hierarchies, through a qualitative analysis of spaces where African knowledge is granted importance. The paper provides a snapshot of the potentials for change in South African higher education today, and of the ways in which theories of Africa, for Africa, and about Africa, are being generated and taught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex transformative intent of policy goals is often marginalized in favour of tangible, measurable outcomes. Such a pattern is evident in the tracking of global social justice goals, such as gender equality, where sole reliance on numerical parity data to track progress has led to the simplification of the concept for the sake of measurement. This intensifies the need to focus both on conceptual and methodological considerations in policy development and evaluation to enhance human development and promote the transformation of inequalities towards social justice. Through reporting on a mixed-methods process to inform and develop a capabilities-based gender equality policy at a South African university, the paper asks what gender equality should look like conceptually, and identifies empirically valued functionings and capabilities which could act as transformative policy evaluation indicators. The paper reports on diverse student data from 57 qualitative interviews and 843 survey respondents, which indicate differences between what social groups value and where interventions are needed. The paper suggests that the capabilities approach could be an important evidence-based policy driver in higher education, with the possibility to combine both a rich conceptual approach and methodological considerations in operationalization so that social justice goals and outcomes result. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Located within the context of equitable higher education as an enabler of human development, this paper presents a two-pronged approach to the development of a capabilities list for equitable transitions to university in South Africa, as an example of the global South. Drawing on an extensive analysis of the literature on access, participation, readiness and educational transitions, together with quantitative and qualitative data collected from high school and first-year university students, a list of seven capabilities is proposed. The paper demonstrates how the process-based methodology used satisfied all five criteria for the development of capabilities lists proposed by Robeyns (2003). Through the bringing together of top-down and bottom-up approaches in the formulation of the list, the methodology presented here provides a means of avoiding the pitfalls of omission and power (Nussbaum 2000), as well as ensuring space for participation and dialogue (Sen 2004). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It has been argued that traditional governance practices and decision making associated with the collegial model are no longer effective in universities, and business-like management techniques should be adopted. Dwindling resources, external demands for accountability, and increased competition for market share, have resulted in efficiency measures and increased demand for performativity. Executive leadership techniques that crept into universities during the early 1980s, referred to as ‘managerialism’ or ‘executivism’, are now widely practised. The increased focus on managerialism in the last decade has resulted in collegial crises and heightened conflicts between academics and administrators. The emergence of ‘executive deanship’ in South African higher education about a decade ago was in keeping with international trends and local demands for efficiency and performativity. With specific reference to the universities in the Gauteng province, this paper argues that the blanket introduction of executive deanship (referred to as executivism) appears not to have contributed to the envisaged operational efficiency, performance, and effectiveness, as initially claimed. Rather than fostering an enabling and empowering environment, it has added new layers of complexity to deanship pointing to a potential crisis in the advancement of the academic project. The position of dean is now more management oriented and allows little or no room for strategic intellectual and academic leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two years, institutions of higher learning in South Africa have been sites of student protests. At the core of these protests were language politics which drew attention to theories of decoloniality and which challenged universities to examine their language policies and practices. Nelson Mandela University was no exception. In the Faculty of Education, in particular, it became clear that language debates should form part of ongoing conversations about a transformed and decolonised curriculum. Teaching and learning conversations had to be reimagined as ‘talking spaces’ with students. Using a critical pedagogy lens, this article seeks to provide an auto-ethnographic reflection on the language issues as revealed in student voices generally, during and after the protests. Moreover, this paper focuses on how the language politics has influenced thinking about strategies for developing a language policy at the university. It is argued that a language policy that does not address issues of social justice, equity and does not serve the needs of the diverse university community is problematic. Furthermore, a case is made that in order to make an effective contribution to debates on language politics, universities should aim to engage students as active participants as their voice can influence change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning Basic Sciences can be a challenge for first year nursing students. At Walter Sisulu University (South Africa), learning Anatomy is lecture-based in the first semester, but active and collaborative in the second semester. This paper investigated how students assessed their Anatomy learning environment of the second semester, as well as explored the possibility to group the variables studied. A questionnaire with 16 items was handed to all students at the end of academic years 2014-16, and 80.7% (n=168) of the total, was included in this study. Descriptive statistic of the variables was calculated and exploratory factor analysis with maximum likelihood extraction was the mean to explore the dimensionality of the scale. Participants satisfactorily assessed items related to attributes of the individual, attributes of the other members of her/his group, as well as the design of the course. Variables could be grouped into two dimensions: the first dimension being related to the cognitive strategies and skills that the individual as an agent displayed maximizing the learning opportunities afforded by the course, and, the other dimension related to the social relations and interactions that unfold among students when they learn in collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational literature shows that students from working-class backgrounds are significantly less likely to persist to completion in higher education than middle-class students. This paper draws theoretically and analytically on Bernstein’s ([1990.Class, Codes and Control, Volume IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge; 2000.Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield]) thesis that, through differential framing of pedagogic practices, the curriculum has capacity to accommodateallgroups of students. Pedagogic practices in both a science foundation course and four first-year mainstream science courses in a higher education institution in the South African context are examined. Whilst the foundation course exhibits modalities that generally favour access, the mainstream courses have some modalities that appear to be constraining. It is argued from a social justice perspective that holistic curriculum transformations that better enable epistemic transitions are an urgent imperative, and that consideration of differential framing of pedagogic modalities offer a close-up empirical means of conceptualising such reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The problem which this paper addresses is the difficulty of knowing students in large diverse classes in pedagogically useful ways. The paper discusses how the phenomenographic methodology can be employed to address this problem. It describes how phenomenographic studies and their results can enable teachers to 'know their students' at a collective level in terms of a set of qualitatively distinct idealised types rather than at a personal level of individuals with their particular characteristics, and demonstrates the pedagogical utility of this kind of knowing. The means used to describe the approach and to demonstrate its utility when teaching large classes is to present, as a case study, a phenomenographic investigation into the learning practices among students in a large, diverse cohort of entrants to an engineering programme in South Africa. General principles are drawn from the case study and are discussed as they apply to the teaching of large classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After achieving democracy in 1994, South Africa experienced major socio-political reforms in a number of areas, including a new constitution, language policy reforms, and new national curricula for schools. Due to the perceived instrumental value of English, many local schools rejected indigenous languages as medium of instruction in favour of English. This shift toward English-medium education has resulted in the limited development of students' academic language proficiency and hampered their access to higher education. At the University of the Free State, 65% of students struggle to understand academic content in English. This paper describes the national curricular reforms; the language-in-education policy and the intervention designed to meet this challenge at the university. The paper reports the implementation process of the academic literacy program and preliminary findings on the effectiveness of this intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, emerging technologies and transformative practices have diffused into higher education social systems in ways that formal leadership styles are increasingly stretched to both keep abreast of and to manage. While many scholars have argued for the importance of the role of leadership styles in shaping the strategic direction of institutions, there is a paucity of research on the role that informal leaders, and more particularly opinion leaders and change agents, can play in enabling wide-scale adoption of innovations in higher education institutions. This paper focuses on the ways in which leadership in higher education can best extend their influence to accelerate the diffusion of transformational educational practices using emerging technologies by leveraging informal leaders. To illustrate how this could be achieved, we report on a study of 22 public higher education institutions in South Africa involving 259 participants who responded to an online survey. The survey focused on the uses of emerging technologies to transform the teaching and learning practices and the nature of institutional support such initiatives received. The findings reveal that for emerging technologies to be diffused in institutional social systems, more transformative and less transactional leadership is required. The paper proposes a model for accelerating the diffusion of emerging technologies in higher education institutions and concludes that leveraging informal leadership is particularly critical in accelerating the uptake of emerging technologies practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the potential and limitations of Megan Boler's ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ in a post-apartheid yet heavily racialised South Africa. Taking an ‘ethnographic sensibility’ to anthropological teaching, this paper sketches the social and historical context of discomfort produced by everyday classroom practices at a historically privileged university. This paper argues that new patterns of thought, if achieved at all in the course of learning through ‘discomfort’, are deeply embedded within uneasy social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital theory holds that a higher education will be pursued to the extent that its pecuniary rewards outstrip its costs. This notion is founded on the neoclassical economic assumption that expected earnings conditional on educational investment are accurately anticipated by those considering such investments. However, the evidence in support of this thesis is slim and, in the case of South Africa in particular, remains largely untested. This paper - the product of a qualitative study - reports the expected earnings data of Durban University of Technology first-year students who, on the whole, are evidently able to relatively accurately predict their commencing and medium- to long-term earnings. This merited the computation and analysis of expected private rates of return to educational investments which were found to be significantly related to study field and parents' educational attainment, useful knowledge in any description of higher education demand. More importantly, though, the paper argues, possibly somewhat controversially, that human capital theory may offer a more plausible explanation of individual higher education choice if it is unconstrained by its neoclassical economic framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an appreciation of the need to increase gender sensitivity and awareness among tertiary students in the field of science, engineering and technology (SET), there is a paucity of research that explores how students in this field construct gender. A greater understanding of such constructions can assist in transforming gender relations and creating a more gender-sensitive learning environment for SET students. This paper explores SET students' constructions of gender and the discourses they draw on when constructing female participation in SET. Focus group discussions were conducted with male and female students from an urban South African university. A discourse analysis identified various restrictive discourses that resist female participation in SET and value traditional gender roles for men and women, as well as more marginal voices that support gender equity. The paper concludes with recommendations for interventions aimed at challenging restrictive constructions of gender in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major requirement for transformation contained in the new education policy in South Africa is that the graduate outputs of the higher education system should match the needs of a modernizing economy. This paper addresses the organizational aspect of university-industry relationships that is an element of the transformation. In empirical terms, it reflects upon the policy of the North-West University in South Africa, as embodied by means of the introduction of the Business Mathematics and Informatics (BMI) curriculum and research. Empirical results indicate that the number of students who opted for mathematics had increased dramatically. The majority of graduates delivered by the BMI programme are employed in the financial sector, both nationally and internationally. This paper indicates that the organization of university-industry relationships enforces a difficult institutional balancing act that attempts, on the one hand, to meet the benchmark of international scientific indicators, and on the other hand, “fitness for purpose” in the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of situated cognition theory to investigate how new academics learn to judge complex student performance in an academic department at a South African university. The analysis revealed the existence of two largely separate communities of practice within the department, one centred on the provision of undergraduate teaching and the other on the production of research. Newcomers follow a range of trajectories in the course of their identity construction as academics and their learning is strongly shaped by their histories and individual experiences of negotiating their way into and across these key communities of practice. Learning to assess student performance in an Honours research paper was found to be integrally linked to the process of gaining entry into the research community of practice with limited opportunity for legitimate peripheral participation given the high stakes context within which assessment decisions are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first decade of democracy in South Africa has seen intensive policy-making in the higher education sector with a view to transforming the teaching and learning practices to be more consistent with a modern democracy on the African continent. In addition to addressing specific problems and gaps caused by the destructive policies of the past, the government has sought to ensure that the higher education institutions improve the government's performance with respect to global competitiveness. This paper analyses the key policy trends that are likely to impact on academic libraries' efforts to extend their information literacy education programmes. The authors discuss the progress made by librarians in establishing partnerships with academics to deliver quality education and so participate in the transformative agenda. These efforts are viewed against the background of global moves towards definitions of graduateness and the establishment of quality assessment management systems for universities. The paper shows how librarians have developed their conceptions of information literacy education and makes the case that they can accelerate the uptake of information literacy education interventions in the curriculum by more pointed leverage of higher education policy initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse of social media adoption in higher education has often been funnelled through utopian and dystopian perspectives, which are polarised but determinist theorisations of human engagement with educational technologies. Consequently, these determinist approaches have obscured a broadened grasp of the situated, socially constructed nature of human interaction with educational technologies and failed to explain ambivalent positions of technology adoption. To contest the innate determinism embodied in the aforementioned technological views, this paper draws on technological ambivalence to unravel the complex, multiple possibilities in pragmatic use of technology-including the double-bound relationship between human agency and educational technology. A phenomenological approach that draws on self-narratives of the use of social media by Computer Science and Informatics educators at a South African university is employed to unravel how their perceptions of social media shaped and informed their pragmatic instructional uses of these technologies. Findings suggest that the sharp contrasting experiences of collaborative engagement, enactment of decentralised power and democratic expression in social media coexist recursively with the disempowering, dependence-ridden and distractive effects of these technologies. This technological divergence is further compounded by ambivalent views that neither celebrate the unrealistic hopes of social media nor grossly protest against the debilitating effects of these technologies. This view foregrounds the social embeddedness of technology and its potentially multiple, contradictory effects. The implications of these findings include the need for educators to consider social conditions of technology use, the alignment of such conditions with innovative social media-enhanced pedagogical models and the use of proven models to demonstrate the educational potential of social media technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiculturalism currently aims for the political accommodation of difference instead of the subversion of the resulting privileges of difference. In the South African context such a distinction is especially important since the economic and symbolic subjugation of the majority of Black South Africans continues despite political transformation, and is exacerbated by an unwillingness to reflect on privilege and inequality. Drawing on Biko and Soudien’s critique of multiculturalism and vision for anti-racist education, this paper describes a classroom activity set for 164 nationally and culturally diverse second year sociology students at a university in Cape Town, South Africa. The activity tasked students to reflect on texts by Peggy McIntosh and Khaya Dlanga (one canonical, the other contextual) and reports on these students’ nuanced understandings of personal biography, experiences of privilege and self-reflexivity that connects personal experience to social structure and historical contexts. It concludes by offering modest implications for moral education in a multicultural university classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In South Africa and in other parts of the world, many professions are bemoaning the poor ability of many graduates to communicate their skills and knowledge effectively once they enter the workplace. Increasingly, pressure is placed on higher education to do more in terms of equipping future professionals with the necessary critical reading, research, thinking and writing skills the workplace demands. However, in South Africa especially, the demand for access to higher education is resulting in increased admissions, and in many lecturers standing in front of larger classes filled with students from a wide range of home and educational backgrounds with 'variable' commands of English as a medium of instruction and communication (Greenbaum and Mbali in S Afr Linguist Appl Lang Stud 20:233-244, ). This makes the task of equipping these students with disciplinary knowledge and skills a challenge. In responding to this challenge, the Law Faculty at the University of the Western Cape, in collaboration with a writing specialist, initiated a project aimed at transforming the way in which legal writing was taught at first year level. The overall aim was to start training students, from first year, to adapt their thinking and writing to the kinds of knowledge and practice required by academic study as well as the legal profession. The project was successful in achieving its modest aims, but certain challenges remain. This paper reflects critically on the development and evolution of the model for teaching legal writing in large classes. It argues that teaching legal writing in large classes requires creative and sustainable approaches so that students can become active and critical writers, readers and thinkers over time in this, or any, field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models of doctoral education in Africa remained similar to those in European universities, well into the 2000s. However, there has been an increasing realisation that such programmes are ill-suited for the African realities. With recent efforts to revitalise higher education in Africa, considerable attention has been placed on the need to explore more effective models of doctoral education, better suited to the African context. Doctoral education is key to this rebuilding as it offers the potential for developing skilled staff for academic and research institutions, and is central to the development of much-needed locally relevant knowledge in Africa. In the last decade, innovative programmes have emerged that make use of partnerships to achieve more than individual institutions could, working alone. This paper examines the constraints, challenges and opportunities in African doctoral education and identifies critical elements of doctoral education that have particular nuances in the African context. We propose a framework for evaluating the suitability of the structure and practices of such programmes. We review two of the more successful collaborative Ph.D. programmes with reference to this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between the use of online learning resources and academic performance in an Accounting 1 course conducted at a South African Higher Education Institution. The study employed a quantitative analysis over three academic years comparing the collection of end of year marks and the time spent online. The results provide preliminary empirical evidence to show that students who spent more time online significantly improved their course mark. Although much accounting-based educational research exists on the use of computers, there is a dearth of research testing any relationship between the use of online learning material and performance. While the results are preliminary and have some limitations, they are useful to students, teaching instructors and administrators, and provide a platform for future research into the value of using online learning in accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper adds to extant professional education literature by reflecting on apparent differences in pedagogy of similar professional programmes of study, allowing deeper insight into the unique strand of higher education influenced by the professions. A comparative international case study approach is adopted of an interpretive qualitative nature regarding curricular, teaching and learning and assessment strategies of an accounting department in South Africa (SA) and one in the UK. Findings point to significant differences in curriculum and assessment but less so in teaching and learning approaches. One department endeavoured to find a balance between vocational and academic activities, whilst the other favoured the former being inconsistent with both its governmental and institutional governing bodies. Explanations offered include differing strengths of coercive, competitive, mimetic and normative influence [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the habitus and technological practices of a South African rural student in his first year at university. This student is one of five self-declared rural students, from a group of 23 first-years in four South African universities, whose access to, and use of, technologies in their learning and everyday lives was investigated in 2011 using a 'digital ethnography' approach. Their digital practices, in the form of their activities in context, were collected through multiple strategies in order to provide a nuanced description of the role of technologies in their lives. The student reported on here came from a school and a community with very little access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). While the adjustment to first year can be challenging for all students, the findings show that this can be especially acute for students from rural backgrounds. The study provides an analysis of one student's negotiation of a range of technologies six to nine months into his first year at university. Earlier theoretical concepts provide a lens for describing his practices through a consideration of his habitus, and access to and use of various forms of capitals in relation to the fields - especially that of higher education - in which he was situated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two pressing demands directed to the South African academy in the post 1994 environment, have been those of gender equity and of increasing research output. The progression of women to the higher academic ranks is a problem, not only in South Africa, but worldwide. In view of the importance attached to research output for purposes of academic promotion, raising the research output of female academics is therefore important beyond the reason of being an end in itself. This paper is a case study at one university of the intersection between these two issues. The aim is to assess the improvement of the research output of female academic members of staff relative to their male counterparts, in the post 1994 period. The data used in the study indicate a steady increase in the research output of female academics relative to their male counterparts. However, a significant gender discrepancy in this regards still remains. In conclusion some suggestions are made with regard to how to an increase in the research output of female academics may be facilitated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the reciprocal capacity building that occurred through collaborative research between occupational therapy departments from six higher education institutions in South Africa, community-based organizations and a disabled people's organization on disabled youth and their livelihoods. The authors aimed to identify principles for collaboration and capacity building from the pilot phase and first phase of the main study. Occupational therapy departments place students in communities for service learning experience, but little collaboration with disabled people's organizations and communities in research processes occurs that could enrich such partnerships and inform relevant curriculum development. Secondary data from different sources including a transcript of a focus-group interview with the researchers in the pilot phase, workshop reports, and transcripts of free-writing exercises done by researchers were analysed thematically, both inductively and deductively. Two themes are explored: first, reciprocal building of organizational capacity and, second, generating collaborative relationships. The principles that were identified are integral to the strengths and challenges faced when multiple organizations work together over a wide geographical area on a complex research topic that also builds capacity reciprocally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of risk awareness among undergraduate students studying mechanical engineering at a South African university. A questionnaire developed at the University of Liverpool was modified and used on students from the first, second and third year cohorts to assess their awareness in the areas of professional responsibility, risk assessment, techniques for reducing risk and potential exposure to hazards and risk in the workplace. Students performed best in hazard identification in the workplace. The student performance was similar in the first and second years, but a significant improvement was evident towards the end of the third year. This was attributed to the third year design curriculum, which formally covers certain aspects of risk awareness, including the ones showing improved performance. The results were compared to those obtained from the University of Liverpool - the UK students outperformed their South African counterparts. It is recommended that teaching interventions regarding health and safety be introduced earlier in the South African Mechanical Engineering curriculum to address this deficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1994, the South African higher education system, fragmented and divided along racial lines during the years of apartheid, has been subject to a wide range of initiatives directed at bringing about the 'transformation' necessary for a more equitable dispensation and, ultimately, a new social order. One of the 'levers' being used in transformation processes is quality assurance. The paper uses a case study of an institutional audit at one historically white, elite South African university to provide a social realist account of an audit process and to analyse the likelihood of the audit contributing to institutional transformation. A conclusion is that the South African audit methodology per se is unlikely to bring about the change necessary because of its tendency to focus on the mechanistic implementation of recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: South African universities have responded in a variety of ways to national policy directives to broaden access to mature adult learners. In this paper we examine the progress made by one institution—the University of the Witwatersrand—to open its doors to adult learners through the Centre for Part-Time Study, known as Wits Plus. We examine critically the government policies, institutional context, concept of adult learners and programmatic achievements which have shaped Wits Plus. We show that the approach to adult learners adapted by policy makers in government and in the University is at best ambivalent, and at worst self-defeating; hence the metaphor of opening and closing doors to adult learners. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper reviews briefly the relationship between the South African government and higher education. This relationship, which has shaped the landscape of higher education, is looked at on the premise that public institutions depend to a large extent on government for funding and other resources, and as such there has been constant influence and interference in higher education affairs. Whereas under colonial rule, the relationship mimicked that of the Scottish and British universities, the postcolonial relationships had their own characteristics, emulating government policies under apartheid and confirming therefore the establishment of two‐tier university systems. Like most African countries, South Africa is currently faced with an immense task to bring together economic, social and political stability. This requires proactive national policies to develop particular skills and therefore a focused intervention and delivery within and through the institutions of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African higher education institutions are increasingly under scrutiny to produce knowledge that is more relevant to South Africa’s social and economic needs, more representative of the diversity of its knowledge producers, and more inclusive of the variety of the sites where knowledge is produced. Only a small percentage of South Africans are graduates of universities or technology institutes, and these graduates are not representative of the diversity of the South African population. As a result there is a shortage of skills to address the country’s reconstruction and developmental needs. This places a burden on higher education institutions to expand access to their programmes, and to ensure that their programmes are relevant to the developmental context. Policy makers have found in the Gibbons [Gibbons, M., et al. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London Sage Publishers] thesis on ‘Mode 2 knowledge production’ a rationale for the transformation of higher education through the inclusion of practices which are less abstract, less discipline bound and closer to those processes which characterise the diversity and distribution of knowledge production in the wider society. Nowotny et al. [Nowtony et al. (2001). Re-thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.] have taken Gibbons’ thesis further and have described society itself as becoming increasingly ‘Mode 2’. In a Mode 2 society, differentiation is replaced with integration, and networks of knowledge producers conduct their work in transdisciplinary teams across widely distributed sites. Such ‘transgressivity’ both pushes knowledge production systems forward and distributes and diffuses knowledge more widely throughout society. In this paper, it is argued that there is a need for higher education practitioners to engage critically – and constructively – with the knowledge bases of policy directives to ensure that the new teaching and learning processes and systems adequately prepare students for the complexity and diversity of South African society, and enable them to contribute meaningfully to its reconstruction and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides perspectives on the unique challenges and opportunities facing the national auditing and accreditation system in South African higher education. In doing so, the quality assurance contexts of developed countries, Africa and South Africa are considered and the issues of uncertainty and conformity are highlighted. This is followed by a more in-depth analysis of the policy developments, mandates and functions of the South African higher education quality assurance system, its impact, the challenges it is facing, and debates about future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 5 years have witnessed a concerted effort to regulate higher education by the government as part of its drive to redress the inequities of the past. One sees the twin problems of co-ordination and control reflected in this effort. From all indications, attention seems to be directed more to quantity of outputs, than to resources and processes with the result that universities appear to have been put in a situation in which they have to show that they are worth government's investment. There is the expectation on them to produce more and better results with ever diminishing resources per student. In the rush to respond positively to state demands, most universities have introduced programme-based degrees in place of discipline-based ones. To guarantee their survival, some universities have had to activate all their powers of innovation to find internal regulatory mechanisms considered suitable to academic work, or 'invent' their own models of management compatible with academic values. In the process, disciplinary specialisms and values have been demoted in the 'order of things'. This paper argues that such a move by the universities is organizationally damaging. Disciplinary cultures and values are very vital in any restructuring of the university. This is because in each discipline, there exists a 'self-organized' collective control (regardless of the theoretical epistemological, methodological and ideological differences) which tends to take quite different forms from that of official regulation at the institutional level of the higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of the marketisation of higher education and the change to a democratic dispensation, South Africa, universities find themselves facing budgetary constraints that need to be reconciled with the transformation of previous bastions of elitism into institutions accommodating and representing all South Africans. The Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was founded in 1967 to provide Christian National education for white working-class Afrikaans-speaking students and its first vice-chancellor was a leading member of the Broederbond. Although this ethos tended to dominate university policy and practices until fairly recently, the university has at the same time been involved in innovations with regard to leaching since its inception. This paper focuses on recent changes that have taken place at RAU. It analyses she role of marketisation in facilitating changes in the student composition and forms of delivery in particular and evaluates the extent to which these trends contributed to promoting transformation at the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is offered as a contribution to the larger task of providing a comprehensive study of South Africa's universities during the era of apartheid (1948-1990). Because of the centrality of the state to apartheid, the focus adopted is that of the role of the state in university affairs. The inadequacies of state theory in general are acknowledged, but, it is argued nonetheless, that the state warrants special consideration, provided the limits of this type of approach are firmly grasped. It is also suggested that the state's actual relations with the racially fragmented university system are best conceptualised in terms of Neave's notion of 'boundaries' which implies flux. Indeed, the interactions between the state and universities in South Africa were more volatile than is generally portrayed in the literature and were especially so during the 1980s as the state struggled unsuccessfully to overcome the popular challenge to White domination in general and to apartheid university education in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]