Neither ivory towers nor corporate universities: Moving public universities beyond the "mode 2" logic

This article investigates the tensions in the "mode 2" thesis, which suggests the emergence of new, global trends in the production and dissemination of knowledge. I explain its influence in recent South African higher education policy debates and research practices by referring to competing readings of "mode 2", which have allowed it to feed simultaneously into both liberal and critical discourses on higher education transformation in South Africa. Clear tensions emerge from the limitations of "mode 2" in speaking to existing inequalities and in informing non-corporate models of institutional transformation

The politics of e-learning in South African higher education

Introduction: The appearance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the intersection of competing perspectives on higher education transformation in South Africa suggests that the increasing use of ICTs is not an automatic ‘good in itself’ but needs to be problematised. This paper first describes the new ICT-related practices emerging in South African higher education institutions, and then identifies and compares four broad approaches informing the relation of these new practices to higher education change. The first three approaches conceive of this relationship in terms of the role of ICTs in effecting specific changes in higher education institutions, while the fourth approaches the relation discursively. The final section describes access patterns in ‘dual-mode’ institutions, and asks whether the emerging trends are redefining the meanings of access to higher education. In thinking about how to re-imagine current elearning practices outside of the tight globalisation script, this paper supports a framework that both embraces the possibilities offered by online pedagogies, and problematises central aspects of the political economy and cultural politics of e-learning in higher education

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and South African Higher Education: mapping the landscape

The report describes the language of ICTs in higher education both in terms of the shifting, emerging terminology and the varied understandings of ICTs in terms of national and institutional policies and reported practices. It reveals the emerging organizational forms that locate the work, and argues that despite an absence of an over-arching policy framework, policy in South Africa is being formed implicitly by practice. It moves on to describe three prevalent meanings of technological change: change as improvement; change as innovation; and change as transformation. Finally, key issues and debates, which emerge from the data "texts", are identified and examined