Tuition fees and the challenge of making higher education a popular commodity in South Africa

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

Achieving SDG 4:A Challenge of Education Justice

The main point in this chapter is that SDG 4 targets cannot be achieved without education justice, which entails that every child, young person and adult benefit from quality education and lifelong learning. There is no justification for the injustices arising from poor-quality education and exclusion as they exist today. Accordingly, tackling the problem of social, political and economic exclusion that emerges from the education sector, and the limitations they impose on the prospects of some individuals, must be prioritised to expedite the realisation of SDG 4. That entails, among other things, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. Drawing a nexus between education justice in basic education and higher education, the chapter exposes the nature of the challenges that sustain the injustices of educational exclusion and poor-quality education. These include the knock-on effects that injustices in basic education have on higher education, especially for students from marginalised schools. Interventions that seek to advance education justice towards attaining SDG 4 are also discussed

Questioning private good driven university-community engagement : a Tanzanian case study

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.http://link.springer.com/journal/107342022-01-15hj2021Education Management and Policy Studie

University as regional development agent : a counterfactual analysis of an African University

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 knowledgedependent economy, and through the universities‟ core technologies of teaching and research. Based on empirical findings from an African case study, this paper 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‟.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raer202017-06-30hb2016Occupational Therap

The scholarship of university-community engagement : interrogating Boyer's model

Albeit with different conceptualisations, the engagement between universities and external communi- ties continues to gain significant currency. While the emphasis has been on more socio-economic relevance in a period of significant financial constraints and a changing clientele, a more significant area of engagement has been on promoting the scholarship of engagement towards regional/local development. The praxis and outcomes of community engagement continues to be surrounded by strong debate on issue such as its impact on the core functions of the university, teaching and research. This article sheds light on the community engagement practices from a case-study university in Africa. Using Ernest Boyer’s proposed scholarship of engagement model as a framework, findings provide evidence that, different contextual specificities affect the way university-community engagement practices evolve. The methodology involved an analysis of primary and secondary data collected through interviews with policy and academic staff. The article concludes with an argument that the success of university-community engagement in fostering social and economic development significantly relates to how much the practices of engagement is foregrounded in the universities’ core policy and practice. But also on how much academic scholarship draws on engagement activities. The challenge lies in ensuring this balance.Norwegian Research Development Agency, NORAD.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev2017-07-31hb2016Education Management and Policy Studie

Higher education funding, justice and equity - critical perspectives

How governments choose to fund students in higher education (HE) is inextricably linked to the sector’s sustainability and efforts to achieve a just and equitable HE experience and outcomes for all students. The way funding mechanisms are structured and subsequently enacted within the university, has far-reaching consequences, with the implications reaching far beyond the walls of the institution (Shermer, 2021). In the context of austerity, marketisation, credentialisation and related neoliberal conceptions of education and society, student funding models have greatly transformed the sector and its role in enabling or hindering efforts to achieve a more just and equitable society (Quinlan, 2014). However, despite well-intentioned global and national-level policy commitments to achieving justice and equity in and through HE, the persistent effects of geography, race, wealth, gender, and class-based disparities in patterns of access, participation and attainment rates have undermined the idea of HE as a vehicle for just and equitable futures and transformation (Boliver, 2017). Higher education institutions globally find themselves at a crossroads of trying to maintain their core purpose as a public good on the one hand and compliance with global neoliberal policies, which are foundational to the modern university on the other. The tension between these contested and seemingly contradicting paradigms is made visible in how universities respond to issues of inclusion, equity and in how and what they choose to fund.https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/indexam2024Education Management and Policy StudiesSDG-04:Quality Educatio

Achieving SDG 4: A challenge of education justice

The main point in this chapter is that SDG 4 targets cannot be achieved without education justice, which entails that every child, young person and adult benefit from quality education and lifelong learning. There is no justification for the injustices arising from poor-quality education and exclusion as they exist today. Accordingly, tackling the problem of social, political and economic exclusion that emerges from the education sector, and the limitations they impose on the prospects of some individuals, must be prioritised to expedite the realisation of SDG 4. That entails, among other things, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. Drawing a nexus between education justice in basic education and higher education, the chapter exposes the nature of the challenges that sustain the injustices of educational exclusion and poor-quality education. These include the knock-on effects that injustices in basic education have on higher education, especially for students from marginalised schools. Interventions that seek to advance education justice towards attaining SDG 4 are also discussed

Reducing resource dependence on government funding : the case of public universities in Kenya and South Africa

Includes bibliographical references.This study explores the question of how public universities seek to reduce their financial dependence on government fundig. Globally, the neo-liberal economic order, among other factors, has privileged the reduction of state funding of public higher education. Given the obvious instability conequent upon the (drastic) reducation of government funding, public universities have to re-gain stability by, inter alia, generating incomve from non-government sources, hence reducing their dependence on the fiscus. To address this evolving shift of resource dependence from public sources to non-government sources, this study examines how public universities in Kenya and South Africa (SA) have attempted to seek economic self-determination