University transformation at the crossroads
Whatever transformation may mean to universities and their publics and the officials within the South African higher education system, somewhere in its intent is the advancement of social justice and human rights.
27 Şubat 2020 - 13:17
The primary policy documents of the 1990s all have very strong formulations on this. As time went by, the watering down of these statements and its associated practices within the inner workings of state and public agencies and universities have been obvious; only flaring up as disoriented noise when crises, such as student protests, arise. The present clutter and chatter on ‘decolonisation’ in South African universities is a case in point.
Social justice and human rights
As we move from the National Plan for Higher Education of 2001 to the eagerly awaited adoption of the National Plan for Post School Education and Training, do not look for firmer articulations of social justice and human rights. You will be told that it is embedded, transversal, cross-cutting and intersecting.
Ideally this should be true. But in the real world of South African universities, embedded strategies came to mean weak, tentative practices. As some universities in other parts of the world are waking up from their colonial slumber to study their connections to and gains from slavery, the South African higher education sector seems to be writing out the ideas of advancing social justice and human rights as antidotes to the legacy of ‘Apartheid’.
Dangerous trade-offs
Without doubt, higher education transformation represents complex challenges; and notable transformative strides have been made.
Yet, even so, we need to reject the popular arguments that appear to steer the thinking and programmatic work of our public agencies around trade-offs between excellence and quality on the one hand, and social justice on the other; and between equity and development. Or, as some would have it, the trade-offs between social equity and knowledge production.
Despite growing scholarly work and research reports that debunk these forms of logic, it has ruling currency within the dominant higher education policy and programmatic space. Why this is the case will be an illuminating study, which may well explain the post 1994 systemic re/racialisation of the university sector.
But, let us be honest. Apart from putting a single coordinated system in place, strides in student access and some equity movements relating to university staff, the deep transformation around knowledge, pedagogy and institutional culture is eluding us; except for pockets of productive work in some of our universities. A new, emancipatory imagination for higher education looks like a bridge too far.
Ingrained transformation slowness
In essence, the system has a designed and ingrained transformation slowness rooted in the governing ‘philosophies’, ‘orientations’ and ‘praxes’ of our state and public agencies responsible for the university sector. This determines the choices they make in relation to policy and programmes. It also steers the distribution of ‘discourses’, ‘analyses’, ‘voices’, ‘funding’ and ‘ideologies’ that shape the consultancy and advisory landscapes of the system.
We may find, upon reflection, that how these are stacked up into a state of affairs, is framing the key organising principles of higher education transformation to construct the ‘ideal type’ South African university along historically produced hierarchies and racialised distributions of worth on the maps of ‘excellence’ of ‘quality’.
Despite our critiques of the human rights and social justice project of post 1994 South Africa, we need to revitalise and radicalise it against the backdrop of present calls to ‘decolonise’ the university. This is perhaps the most appropriate way to find our way back to the vision and principles of Education White Paper 3 of 1997, A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education.
Professor André Keet is chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. He is also chairperson of the Ministerial Oversight Committee on Transformation in South African Public Universities and former visiting professor for the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality, Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom. He can be reached at andre.keet@mandela.ac.za.
Social justice and human rights
As we move from the National Plan for Higher Education of 2001 to the eagerly awaited adoption of the National Plan for Post School Education and Training, do not look for firmer articulations of social justice and human rights. You will be told that it is embedded, transversal, cross-cutting and intersecting.
Ideally this should be true. But in the real world of South African universities, embedded strategies came to mean weak, tentative practices. As some universities in other parts of the world are waking up from their colonial slumber to study their connections to and gains from slavery, the South African higher education sector seems to be writing out the ideas of advancing social justice and human rights as antidotes to the legacy of ‘Apartheid’.
Dangerous trade-offs
Without doubt, higher education transformation represents complex challenges; and notable transformative strides have been made.
Yet, even so, we need to reject the popular arguments that appear to steer the thinking and programmatic work of our public agencies around trade-offs between excellence and quality on the one hand, and social justice on the other; and between equity and development. Or, as some would have it, the trade-offs between social equity and knowledge production.
Despite growing scholarly work and research reports that debunk these forms of logic, it has ruling currency within the dominant higher education policy and programmatic space. Why this is the case will be an illuminating study, which may well explain the post 1994 systemic re/racialisation of the university sector.
But, let us be honest. Apart from putting a single coordinated system in place, strides in student access and some equity movements relating to university staff, the deep transformation around knowledge, pedagogy and institutional culture is eluding us; except for pockets of productive work in some of our universities. A new, emancipatory imagination for higher education looks like a bridge too far.
Ingrained transformation slowness
In essence, the system has a designed and ingrained transformation slowness rooted in the governing ‘philosophies’, ‘orientations’ and ‘praxes’ of our state and public agencies responsible for the university sector. This determines the choices they make in relation to policy and programmes. It also steers the distribution of ‘discourses’, ‘analyses’, ‘voices’, ‘funding’ and ‘ideologies’ that shape the consultancy and advisory landscapes of the system.
We may find, upon reflection, that how these are stacked up into a state of affairs, is framing the key organising principles of higher education transformation to construct the ‘ideal type’ South African university along historically produced hierarchies and racialised distributions of worth on the maps of ‘excellence’ of ‘quality’.
Despite our critiques of the human rights and social justice project of post 1994 South Africa, we need to revitalise and radicalise it against the backdrop of present calls to ‘decolonise’ the university. This is perhaps the most appropriate way to find our way back to the vision and principles of Education White Paper 3 of 1997, A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education.
Professor André Keet is chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. He is also chairperson of the Ministerial Oversight Committee on Transformation in South African Public Universities and former visiting professor for the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality, Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom. He can be reached at andre.keet@mandela.ac.za.
YORUMLAR