Search

This study examined the motives underpinning involvement in community engagement by academics. The broader context of the study is the idea of universities as actors for and contributors to the public good, especially through community engagement. Engaging with communities is associated with the historical social mandate of universities, and is generally framed as a way through which universities participate in addressing pressing social, economic, and moral challenges that confront communities and society at large. However, as illustrated in this study, university-community engagement is also being framed in ways which, though not necessarily antithetical to the pursuit of the public good, treat it as an occasional, peripheral, 'add on' activity, geared towards advancing the private interests and benefits of academics. The study illustrates this framing and practice using a case study of community engagement in an African university. The study highlights transactional forms of community engagement, which are at odds with its transformative potential with respect to the public good. We argue that for university-community engagement to become an effective mechanism for advancing the public good, there is a need for universities, and individual academics, to rethink the undergirding principles and values of community engagement and put in place the requisite institutional support to drive community engagement as an institutionalised practice, towards genuine engagement with communities.

This study examined the motives underpinning involvement in community engagement by academics. The broader context of the study is the idea of universities as actors for and contributors to the public good, especially through community engagement. Engaging with communities is associated with the historical social mandate of universities, and is generally framed as a way through which universities participate in addressing pressing social, economic, and moral challenges that confront communities and society at large. However, as illustrated in this study, university-community engagement is also being framed in ways which, though not necessarily antithetical to the pursuit of the public good, treat it as an occasional, peripheral, 'add on' activity, geared towards advancing the private interests and benefits of academics. The study illustrates this framing and practice using a case study of community engagement in an African university. The study highlights transactional forms of community engagement, which are at odds with its transformative potential with respect to the public good. We argue that for university-community engagement to become an effective mechanism for advancing the public good, there is a need for universities, and individual academics, to rethink the undergirding principles and values of community engagement and put in place the requisite institutional support to drive community engagement as an institutionalised practice, towards genuine engagement with communities., Author(s): Ntimi N. Mtawa [sup.1] , Gerald Wangenge-Ouma [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412219.d, 0000 0001 2284 638X, SARCHi Chair in Higher Education & Human Development (HEHD) Research Programme, University of [...]

The contribution of universities to regional development has in the last few decades gained significant currency. Inter alia, this contribution has been through steered national, regional, and institutional policies aimed at enhancing national development, good governance, human capital creation and innovation in an increasing knowledge-dependent economy, and through the universities' core technologies of teaching and research. Based on empirical findings from an African case study, this article argues that other forms of contributions to regional development exist, which are neither from deliberate efforts nor steered by direct policies. This article proposes new forms of contributions termed "unintended contributions", in which universities become growth poles by virtue of being located in a particular region. Using the counterfactual and "export and import substitution" methods of analysis, this study shows the various ways in which a rural university in Cameroon has "contributed to regional development as a 'growth pole'".

The funding of higher education in South Africa has in the recent past been a subject of animated debate. This debate has ranged from the adequacy of government funding of higher education, the suitability of the funding framework, to protestations against frequent tuition fee increases. At present, the debate is mainly about "free" higher education. Unlike most African countries, South Africa has an established history of cost sharing. But, for a while now, students, especially Black students, have been demanding tuition free higher education even though the country has a student financial aid scheme to support talented but poor students. The demands for tuition free higher education suggest, among others, the possible existence of financial barriers to higher educational opportunities. This paper is a sequel to the debate on free higher education in South Africa. It seeks, in the main, to understand and examine the rationale and drivers for the students' demand for "free" higher education. What are the financial barriers to higher educational opportunities that the current funding architecture has failed to address? Secondly, why are students demanding free higher education when there is a scheme to support talented but poor students? Is cost sharing inconsistent with the country's post-apartheid transformation policy in higher education? Finally, is "free" higher education the panacea to the access and participation challenges facing Black students?

This article examines the emergence of the public university in Kenya as a key provider of private higher education, characterised mainly by the phenomenon of the "private public university student." It probes the broader socio-economic reforms circumscribing the privatisation of Kenya's public universities and the local and global forces responsible for these reforms. From the enrolment patterns of Kenya's public universities, where state-subsidised students are becoming a diminishing minority and where a range of exclusive programmes for private students (mainly taught in the evenings) are a growing trend, it may be argued that a new kind of private university is emerging; namely, private universities owned by public universities.

The paper has a twofold structure and focus. The first part is an examination of the funding challenges facing African universities resulting mainly from public finance difficulties, and the second part is a case study of how some Kenyan and South African public universities have attempted to mitigate resource dependence difficulties through multiple exchange relationships. The study identifies economic and policy contexts, and institutional capacity, both scientific and management capacity, as key determinants of the success of public universities' attempts at economic self-determination. The study concludes that although revenue diversification presents an opportunity for universities to mitigate resource dependence difficulties, a combination of factors, especially small domestic markets and capacity related challenges, constrain possibilities for meaningful revenue diversification for many African universities.

The link between the funding of higher education and the attainment of higher education transformation goals in South Africa, especially access by students from previously under-represented communities, is the main focus of this paper. Specifically, the paper examines three questions: (a) How does public funding of higher education encourage (or discourage) the attainment of higher education transformation goals in South Africa? (b) What challenges do frequent tuition fee increases pose to the attainment of higher education transformation goals? (c) How can South Africa's higher education be made affordable for indigent (mostly black) students? The paper concludes that although South Africa's higher education funding formula is generally geared towards attaining the goals of transformation, several of its aspects are inimical to the achievement of these goals. Further, declining public funding of higher education and frequent tuition fee increases by public universities vis-a-vis higher education's natural inclination to reproduce, and even to exacerbate, existing social disparities and inequalities do not bode well for the attainment of transformation in South Africa's higher education. This is aggravated by existing high levels of poverty and inequality mostly affecting the majority of the communities that were marginalised during apartheid. (Contains 3 figures, 1 table and 1 note.)

This study discusses the phenomenon of making claims of excellence by universities, which we interpret as a response, inter alia, to the hitherto unfamiliar context of scarce and diminishing resources. The main objective is to understand how claims of excellence are mobilised by higher education institutions to achieve "competitive advantage". The paper argues that most claims of excellence do not derive from evidence and are a misrepresentation of reality geared at attracting resources. It is further argued that by making claims of excellence universities take advantage of the experiential nature of their goods and services, and the phenomenon of information asymmetry. Those targeted by these claims only discover the true excellence of the university's goods and services after consuming them and of course, providing resources.

This study addresses the implications of higher education marketisation for quality in Kenya. It focuses on full fee-paying programmes, the de facto market source of revenue for Kenya's public universities. The study argues that Kenya's public universities were precipitately subjected to diminished public capitation, and so was their plunging into marketisation. These institutions started enrolling full fee-paying students at a time when they were strained in terms of institutional capacity. There were not enough physical facilities, and most of those available were suffering decay following many years of neglect. They did not have enough teaching staff, a problem, which the marketisation agenda has made worse. The desire to claim a bigger share in the student market has seen the introduction of many new courses in advance of capacity to offer them. The study concludes that by seeking economic self-determination through full fee-paying programmes, in advance of a well-developed institutional capacity, the subsequent pressure seems to have made the quality situation worse.

This paper identifies, examines and discusses higher education funding policy shifts that have taken place in Kenya. The paper argues that even though Kenya's higher education funding policy shifts, from free higher education to cost-sharing, and privatisation and commercialisation, are (to a greater extent) products of the country's encounter with globalisation, local social, political and economic dynamics have been of equally significant influence. Thus, the country's higher education funding policies have been products of a convergence of both the dynamics of globalisation and local contextual imperatives. Furthermore, the point is made that the shift from free higher education to cost-sharing, and privatisation and commercialisation, was symptomatic of a global transition from a development paradigm that was predominantly based on Keynesianism to a neo-liberal paradigm that privileges mean expenditure on social services (such as higher education) and the market logic.