Higher education institutions in South Africa are engaged in the social transformation of that society. Universities and technikons are being called on to transform themselves as well as to contribute to the broader transformation of the country.
Higher education institutions from the United States and other countries that partner with South African institutions are drawn into this dynamic situation. Therefore, it is important for such potential partners to consider the legacy of apartheid, the needs of the new society, and the culture in which this change is taking place.
The conference began by analyzing these national realities - and broader global realities - as a context for discussing partnerships among higher education institutions that could build capacity for all the partners.
The South African Context
Two leaders in South Africa's deliberations about education policy described for the conference the social and political context within which partnerships need to be understood. Naledi Pandor, Deputy Chair of the National Council of Provinces (one of the two houses of Parliament), discussed the transformation of South African society and the history of the educational system. Teboho Moja, Special Advisor to the Minister of Education, discussed the extensive deliberations about the transformation of the higher education system.
Under apartheid, a dual system of education was designed to serve the economy in which whites were privileged and Asians, Coloureds, and especially Africans were disadvantaged. (These racial categories on which the educational system of South Africa was based are a legacy of apartheid that still affects the current period.) Hendrik Verwoerd, former Minister of Native Affairs, was quoted more than once at the conference explaining the purpose of Bantu education:
There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labor. . . . For that reason it is of no avail for him to receive a training which has as its aim absorption in the European community. . . . What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it [sic] cannot use it in practice?
Apartheid education left a devastating legacy. Primary and secondary schooling for African students was of poor quality, and training for teachers at African schools was woefully inadequate. Naledi Pandor told the conference that, for every 1000 scholars who began schooling, only about 45 African scholars entered post-secondary education, as compared with 470 white scholars. Beginning with the student uprising in 1976, many secondary schools became sites of struggle between the authorities and students instead of a locus of a culture of learning.
An historical and contemporary overview of South Africa's higher education institutions was provided at the opening session of the conference by representatives of the three South African associations that co-sponsored the conference: the Committee of Technikon Principals, the Historically Disadvantaged Institutions Forum, and the South African Universities' Vice Chancellor's Association.
Universities for African students were established in the isolated and poor homelands or Bantustans. As Vice Chancellor Cecil Abrahams, Chair of the Historically Disadvantaged Institutions Forum, explained, these universities for Africans - about half of the universities and technikons in the country which train approximately 80 percent of African graduates - were created to be "separate and very unequal."
Founded beginning in 1960 (with the exception of the older University of Fort Hare), these institutions were built poorly, received inadequate funding, and had inadequate facilities for the number of students and the programs they were expected to offer. A major challenge for these institutions was coping with the under-preparedness of students entering their institutions, Abrahams said.
In addition to these inequities, the Bantustan universities were not permitted to offer strong programs in the physical sciences and applied fields such as engineering and architecture. Furthermore, many faculty members at African institutions had inadequ ate training for the programs they were expected to teach.
White institutions, too, were creatures of apartheid, and they must now reinvent themselves, said Colin Bundy, Vice Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand.
South Africa's technikon system is designed to provide students with career-focused technical training that will meet standards needed by industry, according to Brian Figaji, Vice -Chancellor of Peninsula Technikon and Chair of the Committee of Technikon Principals. In the 1960s, when a larger and more skilled pool of workers was needed in the economy, more technikons were opened, and they were redesigned to grant degrees. During the apartheid era, few African students attended these technikons because job reservation laws excluded them from many technical jobs for which the technikons provided training.
The main task facing South Africa is to build a sustainable democracy, Naledi Pandor told conference participants. According to Patrick Fine, who represented the U.S. Agency for International Development, supporting this agenda is the principal priority of U.S. policy there.
A new political ethos is being created in South Africa in which inclusive consultation among all stakeholders is key. This model was honed in the negotiations for the new constitution and on the new socio-economic policy contained in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), Teboho Moja explained to the conferees. South African higher education has been undergoing a negotiated transition that mirrors the consultation about broader political and social policy, according to Moja, who has been involved in these discussions since their inception before the new government was elected in 1994. Recent milestones include the report of the National Commission on Higher Education (August 1996), the White Paper on "A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education" (July 1997), and the Higher Education Act of 1997. (These documents and many other materials on South African higher education transformation and organizations are available on a website prepared for the conference, "Resources on South African Higher Education" at Resources on South American Higher Education
The principles of equity and redress underpin South Africa's new vision of higher education, Moja said. The racial and gender balances must be changed at all levels of higher education. The vision spelled out in the White Paper also points to a higher education system that will meet national development needs, including for high-skilled employment. It will support a democratic ethos and culture of human rights and will contribute to the advancement of knowledge with rigorous standards of quality, in particular to address the demands of the local, national, and regional contexts.
"What we are looking for at the historically disadvantaged institutions is to build capacity in curriculum, faculty and administrative development, student development, financial systems, information technology development, research, and post-graduate expertise. It is important that we quickly begin to develop human resources so that we can help to build a better country for all South Africans to benefit from."
- Cecil Abrahams, Vice-Chancellor, University of the Western Cape and Chair, Historically Disadvantaged Institutions Forum
The White Paper envisioned a higher education system that is planned, governed, and funded as a single national coordinated system, reversing the racial fragmentation of the apartheid education system. This is designed to allow for coherent planning to address the present and future challenges of South African and to break down the isolation and barriers between historically advantaged and disadvantaged institutions.
As David Longanecker, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, pointed out, the structure of South African higher education is starkly different from the "non system" of diverse private and public institutions in the United States in which institutions have greater autonomy to determine their priorities, programs, and methods.
Because South African higher education institutions receive 57% of their support from government, Naledi Pandor contended that they have a central responsibility for advancing the transformation of South African society.
The Global Context
Colin Bundy began his presentation by discussing the impacts of the international isolation of South African higher education institutions and scholars during apartheid rule. South African educational institutions were expelled from African and international associations, and many U.S. and European higher education institutions and individual scholars participated in the academic boycott that the liberation movement promoted. Thus, South African institutions were largely excluded from the cross-fertilization that occurred among many institutions in other countries in the 1970s and 1980s when internationalization of higher education took root. According to Bundy, South African students and faculty members did not benefit from international contacts, social sciences became introverted, and South African contributions to world science fell.
As Teboho Moja noted, "Apartheid did not just isolate us from the rest of the world; it also isolated us from one another - not only within the country, but within the region and the continent. These are some of the things we need to take into considerati on as we talk about partnerships."
South Africa's emergence on the global scene in the mid-1990s and the current rapid acceleration of international partnerships is occurring at a propitious time, according to Bundy. As a latecomer to international educational partnerships, South African institutions can learn about best practices and pitfalls from the experience of others.
Richard Fehnel, Director of Education Programs for the Ford Foundation in Johannesburg, challenged the conventional wisdom that historically advantaged institutions (HAIs) have a comparative advantage for addressing South Africa's challenges of globalization, especially when partnered with U.S. institutions that already have been competing in the global intellectual and technological race. Continuing this logic, it has been argued that historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) are best positioned to address many of South Africa's development challenges because they train the majority of African students and are located in the heart of poor areas where the country's development needs are greater.
Instead, Fenhel supported the challenge that South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki has laid before the higher education community - for HAIs and HDIs to collaborate to address South Africa's development problems. The results of such collaboration will have global significance because South Africa's development problems are mirrored in other countries across Africa and the South. Such collaboration can bridge the divide between HAIs and HDIs and challenge the assumed duality between the demands on South Africa to compete globally and to meet the development needs of the poorest part of its population. "The centrality of globalization to our age means that we understand the world differently and we behave in it differently. A question for potential U.S. partners is, 'Are you ready for the social purpose - the social and political content - of some of the partnerships you will experience in South Africa?'
How do we prevent partnerships from simply perpetuating existing power relations - perpetuating, for example, North/South inequalities? The 1990s finds the world not only more closely linked but also more deeply divided. Higher education and higher education partnerships have an immense capacity to affect this, but with the necessity of asking some disquieting questions about globalization."
- Colin Bundy, Vice Chancellor, University of the Witwatersrand Indeed, the world is facing rapid change that challenges higher education institutions everywhere. We all face the challenges of development in an era of increased global economic inequality and the persistent problems of racism and sexism. Lou Anna Simons, Provost of Michigan State University, said that scholars from the North and South can learn from each other about how to address these and other global problems.
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