Reshaping universities to create a student-centered higher education system in South Africa

• In Event: Issues in Higher Education Institutions: New Missions and Challenges

Proposal

South African society continues to be grossly unequal with a legacy of persistent poverty, unemployment and various ‘misrecognitions’ (Honeth, 1995) shaping the lives, aspirations and opportunities of large numbers of South Africans, in particular, university students. Society (including higher education) is also profoundly racialized and where various forms of discrimination are systemically and culturally anchored and persistent. Social justice in higher education, in a South Africa context, implies a commitment to challenging these social, cultural, and economic inequalities arising from a legacy of differential distributions of power, resources, recognitions and privilege. Social justice is also a commitment to understand and address how the benefits and burdens are distributed among the members of both the higher education system and broader society, and to understand what is required for each person to determine a conception of, and to live, a good life. Social justice, and social and educational equity, therefore, has much to do with the quality of life, the well-being, and the agency of students in higher education in South African.

One of the central and most exigent goals of the South African system of higher education is, therefore, to provide the fullest possible opportunity for its students to develop - physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually. At a time when the South African higher education system is under the sway of vast social dynamism the evolution (including recent and current social disquiet and protests such as ‘Rhodes Must Fall’, ‘Fees Must Fall’, ‘Asinamali’ and ‘Decolonizing the Curriculum’), the design of the system and its institutions cannot be left to chance or to the perils of inertia (Universities South Africa Transformation Strategy Group, 2020). Universities South Africa (USAF) and the Transformation Strategy Group’s (TSG) main purpose is the identification and prosecution of sector-wide understandings and associated projects that give inspiration and impetus to the broad transformation enterprise facing higher education in South Africa, in its role as an important social institution in the processes of national development.

A central tenet of the higher education transformation process is therefore the understanding, conceptualization and embrace of the notion of ‘student centered universities’ as a driver of change that will empower historically marginalized students and challenge and transform inequitable institutionalized policies and practices. This paper reflects the work-in-progress synopsis of research that was conducted at the behest of the TSG of USAF. Three co-researchers (each of whom will present one facet of this larger research project) conducted a phenomenological study (Husserl, 1938; and Cresswell, 2013) of ‘student centered universities’ (Hayek, 2001; and Brown, 2011) using the Delphi method (Brown,1968 and (Graham, Regehr & Wright 2003; Okoli & Pawlowski 2004; and Landeta 2006). Twenty two experts (senior faculty and administrators invited to participate using purposive sampling) from the 26 higher education institutions were interviewed (via Moodle) in order to understand their conceptions of elements of ‘student centeredness’ (guided by the research question) “How institutional cultures can be reshaped to create a student-centered higher education system in South Africa?”. Data from the interviews were transcribed and analyzed (using NVIVO and a simplified grounded theory approach) using both deductive and inductive processes, the deductive analysis guided by the ‘capabilities framework’ (Sen, 2005; and Nussbaum, 2011) and the emergent inductive conceptual framework was guided and informed by Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory. As a qualification of the initial phase findings and as a triangulation reference point, focus groups were conducted with university students using the initial analysis and emergent findings and model, as the point of departure for the focus group discussions. The initial report of this research was presented to the TSG and USAF advisory board and to member of the expert panel in May 2022. This research presentation reflects the current and ongoing (phases two and three of the Delphi method) findings and emergent model and provides direction for the continuing efforts of USAF and the TSG to both assess and inform transformation strategies toward nurturing more student-centered higher education systems in South Africa.

Authors

• David Bell, Clark University

• Beverley Bell, University of Massachusetts Amherst