For sustainable funding and fees, the undergraduate system in South Africa must be restructured

South Africa has the most diverse and differentiated higher education system in Africa – despite some persistent attempts at academic drift and mimetic normative isomorphism. Globally, in the 2008 country system ranking by the Shanghai JiaoTong Academic Ranking of World Universities, the South African higher education system was placed in the range between 27 and 33 along with the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Ireland. It is well known that South Africa consistently has four of the five African universities that appear in the Shanghai top 500.Even more impressive is that The Times Higher Education 2016 ranking of BRICS and emerging economies1 places three South African universities in the top 12: the University of Cape Town (UCT) 4th, the University of the Witwatersrand 6th and Stellenbosch University 11th. Brazil and Russia each have only one university in the top 12, and India, with a billion people, has none. China, with their differentiation policy aimed at producing 30 world-class universities, has six in the top 12

Nurturing doctoral growth : towards the NDP’s 5000?

CITATION: Cloete, N. 2015. Nurturing doctoral growth : towards the NDP’s 5000? South African Journal of Science, 111(11/12), Art. #a0127, doi:10.17159/sajs.2015/a0127.The original publication is available at http://sajs.co.zaNo abstract available.http://sajs.co.za/nurturing-doctoral-growth-towards-ndp%E2%80%99s-5000/nico-cloetePublisher's versio

Nurturing doctoral growth : towards the NDP’s 5000?

CITATION: Cloete, N. 2015. Nurturing doctoral growth : towards the NDP’s 5000? South African Journal of Science, 111(11/12), Art. #a0127, doi:10.17159/sajs.2015/a0127.The original publication is available at http://sajs.co.zaNo abstract available.http://sajs.co.za/nurturing-doctoral-growth-towards-ndp%E2%80%99s-5000/nico-cloetePublisher's versio

Research Universities in Africa

"From the early 2000s, a new discourse emerged, in Africa and the international donor community, that higher education was important for development in Africa. Within this ‘zeitgeist’ of converging interests, a range of agencies agreed that a different, collaborative approach to linking higher education to development was necessary. This led to the establishment of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (Herana) to concentrate on research and advocacy about the possible role and contribution of universities to development in Africa. This book is the final publication to emerge from the Herana project. The project has also published more than 100 articles, chapters, reports, manuals and datasets, and many presentations have been delivered to share insights gained from the work done by Herana. Given its prolific dissemination, it seems reasonable to ask whether this fourth and final publication will offer the reader anything new. This book is certainly different from previous publications in several respects. First, it is the only book to include an analysis of eight African universities based on the full 15 years of empirical data collected by the project. Second, previous books and reports were published mid-project. This book has benefited from an extended gestation period allowing the authors and contributors to reflect on the project without the distractions associated with managing and participating in a large-scale project. For the first time, some of those who have been involved in Herana since its inception have had the opportunity to at least make an attempt to see part of the wood for the trees. Different does not necessarily mean new. An emphasis on the ‘newness’ of the data and perspectives presented in this book is important because it shows that it is more than a historical record of a donor-funded project. Rather, each chapter in this book brings, to a lesser or greater extent, something new to our understanding of universities, research and development in Africa.

Moving forward:a review of North-West University's first ten years

This independent report commissioned by North West University (NWU) contradicts the university's recently published claim that it has bridged its racial divisions and addressed historical inequalities. According to the 10-year review, “Present management structures and practices are not fully conducive to achieving transformation goals [and] … racial and gender imbalances persist in the composition of student and academic staff bodies.” The report follows NWU’s own review published in December 2013. NWU's own findings on campus divisions differ substantially from those of the independent panel. Both reviews assess the extent to which NWU has met the many targets it set in 2004, when the government merged the formerly white, Afrikaans-medium Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education and Mafikeng’s former University of Bophuthatswana

NEPAD Southern African Water Centres of Excellence - Report on task JLP1.1 and JLP1.2

The NEPAD SANWATCE network investigation in collaboration with the European Commission Joint Research Centre looks into the skills shortages that exist in the SADC region in water resources management, and further discusses how the Water Centres of Excellence could better address sector expertise and advocacy for sector development in the region.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

The contribution of education to social progress

Education is the process of learning and expanding culture, and, as it contributes to the improvement of the human condition through better knowledge, health, living conditions, social equity and productivity, is a central tool for social progress. Education is expected to foster social progress through four different but interrelated purposes: humanistic, through the development of individual and collective human virtues to their full extent; civic, by the enhancement of public life and active participation in a democratic society; economic, by providing individuals with intellectual and practical skills that make them productive and enhance their and society’s living conditions; and through fostering social equity and justice. The expansion of formal education, which was part of the emergence of the nation states and modern economies, is one of the most visible indicators of social progress. In its expansion, education created a complex web of institutions distributed according to different paths along the life course, from early education through the school cycles to the final stages of higher education, continuing with the provision of forms of lifelong education. This web of institutions is subject to breaks and cleavages that reflect their diverse and multiple historical origins and purposes and the asynchronous developments in different regions. From primary schooling, education institutions grew horizontally (by learning fields, subjects, or occupations) and vertically (by levels and credentials.) The allocation of children and young people to different tracks and institutions, by a mixture of choice and assignment, is a core process in formal education that often reflects and reproduces preexisting inequalities. The chapter presents the main actions needed to allow education to fulfill its promise to promote social progress considering the four purposes of education. On a global level more research informed policy is required and a balanced approach to educational reform, including teacher education, by putting more emphasis on the civic and humanistic purposes. Governance structures that are flexible, participatory, and accountable considering the political and social context are recommended. The new agenda of Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 established in 2015 calls for a new cooperative paradigm based on the concept of “full global partnership” and the principle of “no one will be left behind.” Sustainable Development Goal 4 for Education aims “to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”. This provides a broad framework for education’s contribution to social progress. To achieve this, it is necessary: (1) to expand access and improve the quality of early childhood education, as a precondition for life-long educational success in all its goals; (2) to improve the quality of schools, including in learners’ direct interactions with their peer groups, educators and the surroundings; in institutional characteristics such as group size, student-teacher ratio, teacher qualifications and spatial and material conditions, and in the provision of a meaningful and relevant curriculum; (3) to enhance the role of educators, considering that teachers are not just carriers of knowledge and information, but role models that have a significant impact on children’s dispositions towards learning and life more generally; (4) to make higher and vocational education more inclusive and socially relevant, thereby enhancing the opportunities for students of all sectors of society to further their education in a meaningful and practical ways, eliminating social and cultural restrictions to access and reducing the dividing lines between high and low prestige and esteem between institutions and careers. Additionally, appropriate use of the opportunities created by the new digital technologies is recommended. These are not a magic bullet that will replace existing educational institutions and create a new learning world. But they can be powerful instruments to improve the quality and relevance of education and its contribution to social progress

"Outroduction":A research agenda on collegiality in university settings

Collegiality is the modus operandi of universities. Collegiality is central to academic freedom and scientific quality. In this way, collegiality also contributes to the good functioning of universities’ contribution to society and democracy. In this concluding paper of the special issue on collegiality, we summarize the main findings and takeaways from our collective studies. We summarize the main challenges and contestations to collegiality and to universities, but also document lines of resistance, activation, and maintenance. We depict varieties of collegiality and conclude by emphasizing that future research needs to be based on an appreciation of this variation. We argue that it is essential to incorporate such a variation-sensitive perspective into discussions on academic freedom and scientific quality and highlight themes surfaced by the different studies that remain under-explored in extant literature: institutional trust, field-level studies of collegiality, and collegiality and communication. Finally, we offer some remarks on methodological and theoretical implications of this research and conclude by summarizing our research agenda in a list of themes

“Outroduction” : a research agenda on collegiality In university settings

Collegiality is the modus operandi of universities. Collegiality is central to academic freedom and scientific quality. In this way, collegiality also contributes to the good functioning of universities’ contribution to society and democracy. In this concluding paper of the special issue on collegiality, we summarize the main findings and takeaways from our collective studies. We summarize the main challenges and contestations to collegiality and to universities, but also document lines of resistance, activation, and maintenance. We depict varieties of collegiality and conclude by emphasizing that future research needs to be based on an appreciation of this variation. We argue that it is essential to incorporate such a variation-sensitive perspective into discussions on academic freedom and scientific quality and highlight themes surfaced by the different studies that remain under-explored in extant literature: institutional trust, field-level studies of collegiality, and collegiality and communication. Finally, we offer some remarks on methodological and theoretical implications of this research and conclude by summarizing our research agenda in a list of themes

Beyond outputs: pathways to symmetrical evaluations of university sustainable development partnerships

As the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) draws to a close, it is timely to review ways in which the sustainable development initiatives of higher education institutions have been, and can be, evaluated. In their efforts to document and assess collaborative sustainable development program outcomes and impacts, universities in the North and South are challenged by similar conundrums that confront development agencies. This article explores pathways to symmetrical evaluations of transnationally partnered research, curricula, and public-outreach initiatives specifically devoted to sustainable development. Drawing on extensive literature and informed by international development experience, the authors present a novel framework for evaluating transnational higher education partnerships devoted to sustainable development that addresses design, management, capacity building, and institutional outreach. The framework is applied by assessing several full-term African higher education evaluation case studies with a view toward identifying key limitations and suggesting useful future symmetrical evaluation pathways. University participants in transnational sustainable development initiatives, and their supporting donors, would be well-served by utilizing an inclusive evaluation framework that is infused with principles of symmetry