Introduction to Higher Education

Presented at

Unisa Young Academics Programme

3 August 2009

Professor George SubotzkyExecutive Director: Information & Strategic Analysis, Unisa

Overview

• DISA• Source material• Higher education as a scholarly field of study• What is higher education?

• Definition• Purposes

• Key issues & terms• Post-1990 policy process• Contemporary context of higher education• The changing high education workplace• Gender equity in higher education (time permitting)

33

DISA

UNISA

Business Units/

Business Units

Business Units

Business Units

Business Units

Business Units

Pol. Ec.

HE Policy

ODL

HE Dev.

DISA Mandate

Integrated Strategic Management Framework

DATA TO INFORMATION + ANALYSIS = STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE

DATA

Vision, Mission, SP & Business Model (ODL)

INFORMATION & ANALYSIS/IR

OUTPUTS

• Calendarised• Periodic • Ad hoc Requests

• Strategic Discussion Forum

STATUTORY REPORTING

• HEMIS• Other External Stakeholder Requirements

ICT + IR ExternalDISA

4 types of Outputs/Services

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

AND ANALYTICAL

SUPPORT SERVICES

• Formal & informal

• BI support

BI/IR ENTERPRISE

ARCHITECTURE

plan

review

change

act

Strategic Management

Framework

INSTITUTIONAL INFORMATION & ANALYSIS

PORTAL• Institution-wide Web-based BI Analytic Tool

• Downloadable I & A outputs

Source material

• Taught modules in UWC Masters/PG diploma in Higher Education Studies: Policy Analysis, Leadership & Management (PALM) 2002-4• Introduction to Higher Education Studies • The Contemporary Context of Higher Education• Overview of the post-1990 Higher Education Policy

Process in South Africa• Changes and continuities in the higher education

workplace• Challenge of adaptation: included slides,

recapitulation & detail • Previous publications & recent analyses – self-

citation

Higher education studies as a field• Relatively new as a field of scholarly study• Most developed in the USA: Pre-requisite for

appointment in highly professionalised workplace

• Many qualification & professional development programmes, including Europe & South Africa

• Numerous academic & professional organisations, journals, conferences & networks• SARDHE; AERA; ASHE; SRHE; AIR, EAIR, SAAIR

• Considerable body of knowledge• Multi-disciplinary in nature

Approaches to HE Studies

• Theoretical paradigms:• Positivist, Interpretive, Critical• Modernist, Post-modernist/post-structuralist

• Sociological• Historical• Philosophical• Political Science• Political Economic• Economic• Comparative/International

Higher education studies: Focus areas• Students

• Persistence & Retention• Student affairs (quality of student

experience)• Assessment

• Faculty/staff• Teaching & Learning (curriculum, ICTs)• Finance• Governance/Management &

Administration• Policy• International comparative

What is Higher Education?

• Definition • What is ‘higher’ about higher education?• What distinguishes it from other levels of

education?• Purposes

• Multiple• Conflicting

Functions/Purposes of HE

• Science/knowledge production, dissemination & preservation• Intrinsic value: formative education, cultural & intellectual

enrichment• Instrumental value: Growth/Development/

Transformation – problem solving, innovation• Professional/Vocational education & training to serve HRD

& labour market needs• Public good

• Community engagement• Critical independent space• Growth/Development/Transformation

• Ideological: reproduction & social mobility

What is distinctive about HE?

• Epistemology/knowledge dimensions• Scholarship & research

• Systematically elaborated and conceptualised, theoretically informed knowledge construction, pursuit of truth, meaning and objective knowledge, both within and across disciplines and institutional boundaries

• Knowledge structure: vertical• Specialisation (fragmentation?) of knowledge: the

disciplines and subdisciplines – in-depth authoritative expertise

• Higher order theoretically informed and evidence-based thinking

• Professional/ academic/vocational education & training• Outcomes/ontological dimensions: graduateness

• Preparedness for labour market & citizenship commensurate with high-level knowledge framework

Higher education as socially situated activity• HE has had a long history – among the most enduring

institutions in society • HE is a socially situated and contested activity, and

therefore inevitably serves particular ideological interests• It takes on different features according to historical, political

economic and geographical specificities. Different emphasis on its multiple purposes and a variety of shifting institutional forms are the result of changing relations with society, namely:• State • Global institutions• Corporate sector• Civil society• Technology

Proliferation of forms of HEIs

• Carnegie (re)classification: 2-year colleges, 4-year UG (liberal arts colleges), comprehensives, research intensive, etc

• Traditional research model: still dominant?• Graduate schools (major US contribution)• Differentiation and articulation: wide variety of binary &

trinary systems (comprehensives, specialists)• Specialised professional institutions: eg graduate

business schools• Residential, commuter, distance education/ODL (6

generations)• Virtual universities (‘click’)• Hybrids (‘brick & click’)• Corporate universities

Contested vs shared concept

Many institutions claim university status. Therefore, the key questions are:• Can we derive a general, universal definition

despite contestations, historical, geographic and ideological differences (Modernist view – Barnett, Holiday)?

• Does the proliferation of forms and purposes preclude this (postmodern view – Scott, Castells)?

Barnett

• Weakness of the field: paradox • No educational theory of higher education• No theoretical framework

• Intrinsic vs instrumental/functionalist value• Attempts to construct an educational and

epistemological theory of HE, based on the assumption that there is something universally common about HE despite its historical and geographic variations, and defines this in terms of a reconstructed version of liberal HE

• Argues for defining the value and nature of HE as a unique and special critical process

Holiday: The Idea of an African University

• Relevance of Newman’s The Idea of a University for African Educationalists• “Africans in their quest for a form of university education

which will harmonise with their Africanness are driven by an innate conviction … that such education will have to be inseparable from their own spirituality and religious commitments” (p 1)

• This is under threat in the dominant climate of scientism and secularism

Holiday

• The idea of the university is not reducible to a list of typically observable features: there are varying cases outside of observed categories: this is so much more the case in contemporary times, given the variety of new forms: eg the corporate university, the virtual university (‘click’ institutions) and hybrid (‘brick and click’)

• Main claim: The idea of a university denotes something universal. Therefore, something must be a university (in generic terms) before it can be properly called an African university (in particular terms).

Holiday (cont)• Problem of retro-defining the university in terms of an

interpretation of Africanness: eg in RDP or African Rennaissance terms: any institution which purports to address these goals is therefore automatically a university.

• “The truth is no matter how noble are motives for wishing it otherwise, there are real constraints on what may be allowed to count as a university”

• New Zealand contemporary example: rejection of notion of universities of technology

• Suggestion: Africanness as a common identity can be interpreted as “identification with and commitment to challenges of context” and therefore to development priorities, rather than in cultural, spiritual, nationalist, genetic or metaphysical terms

Universities as dynamic systems of contradictory functions (Castells)• General theoretical claim: In all societies, universities

perform basic functions implicit in the role assigned to them by society through political power or economic influence

• These functions are specific to historical, cultural ideological and scientific context

• 4 Main (general) functions (at the theoretical level) whose specific weight in each historical and geographic context defines the predominant role of the system and the specific task of institutions:• Ideological apparatuses• Selection of dominant elites• Generation of new knowledge: science function• Professional training

4 Functions of HE1. Generation and transmission of ideology

• Not just reproductive of dominant ideology but reflecting within them external ideological struggles

“The formation and diffusion of ideology has been, and still is, a fundamental role of universities, in spite of the ideology of their ideology-free role” (Castells, 2001: 206)

2. Selection of dominant elites (adapting this to the historical & cultural characteristics of each society)• Selection• Socialisation• Formation of networks• Codes of distinction

4 Functions of HE (cont.)3. Production and application of knowledge: science function

(research)• Late development: 19thC Germany• Exception rather than rule: 200/3500 in USA• Research diffused in society, especially in Europe (central

research labs) and Japan (government-funded corporate R&D)• Grew out of professional university as research needs grew (US

graduate school model)• Land Grant Institutions: prototype of HE-industry links in regional

development (foundation for expansion in S&T and humanities)• Boosted by military needs

4. Professional training of skilled labour force (development-related teaching)

• Training of the bureaucracy• Successive waves: Church, Medicine, Law, Engineering,

Business, Social Services/Health/Education, IT• Professional university gave rise to the science university

Source of the contradictory reality

• In addition to performing their role assigned to them by society (ie the particular balance of the 4 main functions):

“Universities as organisations are also submitted to the pressures of society, beyond the specific roles they have been asked to assume, and the overall process results in a complex and contradictory reality”

Contradictory functions• In contemporary times, a new function: Social

Demand for HE “Massification”• Implicit role: surplus labour absorption: where can youth

be? “Warehouse function”• SA potential of this?• Contradiction: equity and development (p 30)

• Universities “combine and make compatible the seemingly contradictory functions simultaneously although within different emphasis” Castells, 2001: 211; Singh p 81)

• “It is not possible to have a pure … model of the university” – key point for policy-makers to understand.

• Contemporary pressure is for them to function as a “productive force in the new informational economy” (as technology institutes, research universities, university-industry partnerships) – instrumental aspect

• But they remain “conflictual spaces” (Is this so in UoTs?)

Challenge for developing countries

“The ability to manage such contradictions, while emphasising the role of universities in the generation of knowledge and the training of labour in the context of the new requirements of the development process, will condition to a large extent the capacity of new countries and regions to become part of the dynamic system of the new world economy”

(Castells, 2001: 212)

Functions of Developing Country Universities • Universities in the 3rd world are “historically rooted in colonial past”: they

perform an ideological function in post-colonial period• “The recruitment of social elites, first for the colonial administration, later

on for the new political elites created with independence, became the fundamental function of universities in the 3rd World” (Castells, 2001: 213)

• Educational and economic functions backgrounded because of the initial dominance of the political function – led to considerable braindrain

• Need for skilled labour as part of development tasks gave impetus to educational function

• Professional function: colonial and “homeland” administration (HBUs)• Massification, but in traditional fields: law, humanities and social

sciences (HBUs)• Attempts to develop S&T fields difficult• Structural and institutional impediments to expansion of science function

(see page 215)• Castells recognises the need for autonomy from political pressure: “The

necessary distance and independence of academic research vis-à-vis the immediate pressures of political conflicts …”

Challenges for Dev C. universities• Rise of technological institutions, but science function

lags behind training function• Inability to manage contradictory functions and interaction

between ideological/political/cultural, science, technology, economy and society

• Technical universities not able to fulfil scientific needs – without cross-fertilisation and self-determination (detachment): no discovery (Castells, 2001: 216). Need “complete systems”.

• “Only possible to apply science that exists” – cf Mode1/2• Castells argues for: a) undifferentiated comprehensive

university as key to development; b) for inter-disciplinary flexible programmes and c) selected research centres

• Suggestions for rejuvenating HE in dev. countries

Challenge for Dev Country HE

• If 3rd World countries are also to enter the Information Age and reject an increasingly marginal role in the world system, development policies must include the impulse and transformation of HE systems as a key element of the new historical project

Bridging the divide between

1st and 3rd worlds

Interdependence …• Interdependence argument for multilateral Marshall Plan

• Moral• Functional• Political• Economic: “The development of the 3rd World is in the

(rational) economic self-interest of the OECD countries and their corporations”

• “It will not be possible to integrate 3rd World countries in a dynamic world economy without creating the necessary infrastructure in higher education”

• Prospects and challenges?? What do you think?

Towards a definition/statement of purpose

HE is concerned with the legitimation, production, dissemination, reproduction and perservation of high-order academic & vocational knowledge in order to:• Prepare graduates for the labour market and

citizenship• Provide formative education and to enrich cultural and

intellectual life• Enhance socio-economic growth, development &

transformation, in particular by solving problems and creating opportunities for social mobility

• Contribute to the public good through community engagement and by providing a critical, independent space

Key Issues & Terms: Epistemology

• Knowledge:• Tacit, Practical, Political, Intuitive, Pre-theoretical,

Rational, Indigenous, Technical/Academic• Truth, evidence & validity (Philosophy of Science)• Theory & Practice• Science & Technology• Research

• Basic (Mode 1), Applied, Strategic (Mode 2)• Discipline & Department• Multi-disciplinarity, Inter-disciplinarity & Trans-

disciplinarity

Key Issues & Terms: Governance• Academic Freedom• Autonomy• Accountability• Governance

• Systemic and institutional• Style & method: spectrum from steerage to

control• Transformation• Quality

• Quality assurance & promotion• Certification, accreditation

Key Issues & Terms: Policy

• Formulation• Adoption• Planning• Implementation• Monitoring• Evaluation• Review• Research• Analysis• Advocacy

Key Issues & Terms: Ideology & Power Relations• Ideology• Discourse• Interests• Power• Power relations• Reproduction• Micro-politics

Key Issues & Terms: Equity

• Access & admissions• Equality• Equity• Inclusivity• Success & throughput/residents• Massification• Social demand• Assimilation vs transformation• Policy tensions (real & imagined):

• Equity & Excellence• Equity & Development

• Shifting equity discourse in South Africa

Key Issues & Terms: Value & Purpose

• Value:• Intrinsic: Knowledge for its own sake• Instrumental: Knowledge in service of an

ideological or socio-economic purpose• Liberal/formative education• Emancipatory education (critical theory)• Science function• Professionalisation• Vocationalisation

Key Issues & Terms: Institutional & Academic Identity

• Vision, Mission, Niche (strategic identity), Business Model• Institutional differentiation (universities, UOTs, comprehensives – the ‘size and

shape’ processes & debates, contact & distance)• Africanness• Status and reputation

• Academic identity• Teaching/Research/Community Engagement balance• Profile: Professoriate, Tenure

• Teaching and learning• Programme and course: PQM• Curriculum and pedagogy• Admissions, assessment policies• Delivery Model• Graduateness

• Research• Basic, Applied & Strategic

• Service/outreach/Community Engagement• Service learning

Key Issues & Terms: Institutional Organisation/Governance/Management

• Leadership• Management: strategic & operational, academic

• Collegialism vs managerialism

• Administration• Student ‘Affairs’: Support/Development• Academic: Teaching and Learning• Research • Human Resources• Finance• Other support/enabling mechanisms: business

architecture

OPERATIONS• Functional/Operational

UnitsInputs, Processes, Outputs, Outcomes & Performance Measures

INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE &

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

• Monitoring and Evaluation(BI/Institutional Research)

• Quality Assurance/Service• IPMS• Risk ManagementOngoing:• Strategic Reflection/Review• Environmental Scanning

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

• Strategic Change Initiatives

• Continuous Improvement Initiatives

These are identified through ongoing review process, and then find expression, as the case may be, in:

• New or revised Strategy or Strategic Projects

• Objectives and Actions in the IOP

• Changes to Operations, the Business and Enterprise Architectures and Enabling Conditions

FUNCTIONAL PLANS eg Academic, Research, HR, Estates, ICT etc• ProjectsFunctional Outcomes, Objectives, Outputs & Performance Measures, Integrated Scheduling

plan

STRATEGY FORMULATION• Mission, Vision, Business Model

(ODL)• Strategic PlanStrategic Outcomes, Objectives & Performance Measures (all shaped by Social Mandate)

review

change

RESOURCE ALLOCATION (SRAM)

• Budget• ACHRAM & PADRAM

Enabling Conditions(in addition to appropriate

Business & Enterprise Architectures)

• Effective Leadership & Management

• Conducive Climate & Culture

Business & Enterprise Architectures

Shaped by strategy - the optimal configurations of:

• People/capacity• Processes/Systems•

Resources/Infrastructure

• Technology

Strategic

Projectsact

IOP & STRATEGIC PROJECTS

Strategically-aligned Outcomes, Objectives, Outputs & Performance Measures

Strategic Management

Framework

Key Issues & Terms: Current Impacts• Marketisation or market-like behaviour

• Academic capitalism• Entrepreneurialisation• Managerialism• Globalisation• Internationalisation• ICTs• Responsiveness/engagement

• New public accountability; new instrumentality (North: competitive position in new economy; South: the development University)

• Changing relations between state, society & the Academy• Counter trend: public good, community development, service

learning

HE Studies Policy Analysis Leadership and Management

Sub-Module 1B:

The Contemporary Context of Higher EducationMarch 2004

Associate Prof George Subotzky

Key Issues & Concepts

• The multi-faceted nature of globalisation• The nature of the ‘network’ society and the

role of knowledge, information and technology

• The emergence of new modes of economic production and new organisational modes of knowledge production

• The various impacts and implications of globalisation on higher education

Key Issues & Concepts (cont.)• In particular, the marketisation of HE and the

rise of managerialism, and the corresponding constriction of the civic role of the academy and its contribution to the public good

• Alternatives to the dominant patterns of globalisation and marketisation of HE (to the entrepreneurial university)

• The role and responsive of HE not only towards the competitive global knowledge-driven economy but also towards democracy, equity and basic reconstruction and development

Assumptions: Key Aspects of HE (see Intro.)

• HE is a ‘socially situated’ activity• Social relations are contested, unequal and ideologically

contested• HE shaped by, and responds to external environment:

global forces/ institutions, the nation state and society (private/market corporate sphere and public/civil society)

• Reproduces and/or transforms unequal social relations• Key aspects and levels of external environment: Global level:

globalisation• Changing economic production patterns and social

relations• Role and modes of knowledge and information• Changing function, role and forms of HE• New relations between HE and state, private sector and

community• New ICTs: cross-border provision

• International level: Internationalisation of HE (Scott, 1998)

Key aspects of HE (cont)• National level:

• Public & macro-economic policy, political economy• HE policy formulation & implementation: government and

other agencies• Regional level:

• Contribution towards regional development• Regional collaboration & competition

• Institutional level:• Complex, loosely coupled organisations• Contested sites: Multiple centres of authority and interests

• Disciplinary organisation vs departments (feudal fiefdoms) vs inter-disciplinary cross-cutting organisation

• Managerial vs collegial tensions• ‘Local’ vs ‘Cosmopolitan’ Allegiances: Academics and Managers

engaged in multiple networks• Academic vs non-academic staff interests

What is globalisation?• Your understanding and definition?• Key feature of contemporary society, impacting - directly

or indirectly - on all aspects of life in every society (eg HIV/AIDs), including HE

• Generalisability of trends and patterns? Problem of extrapolation of part to the whole eg Internet economy, flexible labour, new modes of knowledge production

• Different perspectives from ideological positions• Supporters: assume inevitability: ‘There is no

alternative’ (TINA)• Opponents: question this & assume alternatives

• Therefore different definitions & interpretations – ie good and bad dimensions: threats & opportunities

Globalisation• Globalisation is the intensification of trans-national

relations/exchanges/integration in the sphere of economics (services and production), culture and media, knowledge, science and technology, through the advancement of ITCs and the process of progressive deregulation which primarily serves the interests of global capital, transnational corporations and the advanced industrial nations

• Networking and partnerships in development leading to interdependence and connected results

• Unified space and time of various exchanges• Unavoidable and feared (conspiracy??), supported by the

wealthy: inevitable and sustainable in its current form??• Positive potential – reasons for participation: global

competitiveness avoid marginalisation• Cultural imperialism

Dimensions of Globalisation• Ideological: Castells (2001):

Globalisation is both a code word for the new emerging world system and “the banner to rally both the determined march of global corporate capitalism and the worldwide sources of resistance to it”

• Economic (focus of Castells, 2001)

• Technological, Space/time compression (Urry, 1998)

• Regional, National and Local responses: homogenisation and heterogenisation - Conceptualising mediating levels and processes

• Cultural and Media/IT: implications for identity (“transnational imaginaries” and local responses - solidarity (Stromquist & Monkman, 2000, see also McGrew, 1992), power, gender, knowledge (technological vs social)

Economic GlobalisationCastells (2001, 2-3): The New Economy

Key sociologist of globalisation – SA contestations of his views in CHET book

• Worldwide and Capitalist• Not the Internet economy: “It is the economy of all

kinds of businesses and all kinds of activities whose organisational form and source of value and competition are increasingly based on information technologies, of which the Internet is the epitome and organising form” (Castells, 2001: 2)

• But: Labour is still the basis of the economy• Can be defined as the combination of 3 inter-related

characteristics (see Castells, 2001: 2)• Various dimensions of economic globalisation

The New Economy3 inter-related characteristics (Castells, 2001, 2-3):1. “It is an economy in which productivity and

competitiveness are based on knowledge and information … powered by IT”

2. This new economy is a global economy “The global economy … has the capacity [in relation to its core activities] to work as a unit in real time, on a planetory scale”

3. “This capacity [comprises of] 3 aspects:• Technological capacity: its ability to structure the entire planet

through telecommunications and informational systems• Organisational capacity: firms and networks working in this

economy organise themselves to be active globally … [in relation to both] supplies and markets

• Institutional capacity: governments create the institutions on the new economy through deregulation and liberalisation “which opens up the possibility for this new economy to operate globally”

Financial Globalisation“The heart of the global economy is the global financial market”

• Globalisation refers to core activities: “Global financial markets, the integration of capital markets and money markets in a system which works as a unit in real time”

• Indicators: eg currency market trading in 1999 = $2-trillion = 20% more than UK GDP per day! (Castells, 2001: 4); current crisis

• Global interdependence and speed, size and complexity of financial markets are the result of 6 developments:

1. Deregulation/liberalisation2. Technological infrastructure (speed, size & complexity): trading

through electronic networks which allow rapid movement of capital in real time

3. Interdependent nature of financial products4. Speculative movement of financial flows: systemic volatility: vast

gains from small fluctuations5. Market valuation firms: sentiment and perceptions, not performance

– open to manipulation? (SA bemused: fundamentals are there, but Foreign Direct Investment isn’t following)

6. International financial institutions: conditionality

Summary

“What we have is a new kind of system in which global financial markets are integrated, interdependent and at the same time, highly unstable in their processes. If capital markets and currencies are interdependent, so are monetary policies and interest rates, and therefore, so are economies everywhere. Capital flows become global and increasingly autonomous, at the same time vis-à-vis the actual performance of the economies. What is the relationship between the performance of an economy and what happens with its financial system? It is a very undetermined equation.” (Castells, 1999: 6)

Transformation of International Trade1. Transformation of composition of international

trade a) from commodities and raw materials to advanced services b) within manufacturing from low value-added/low tech to high value-added/high tech• WTO want to include HE in GATS. What are the

implications? HE and FTAs (Mallea, et al 2002, SA Minister of Education, 2003, CHE)

2. OECD: 19% pop and 74% trade, but developing countries’ share of international trade increased substantially

• Africa – most internationalised region – why?• Trading blocs and regional integrated economies: neither

integrated regions nor single global economy: instead: networks of trade.

Internationalisation of Production• Core of the matter: “What really has happened in the world in the last 20 years is that the core of production of goods and services in every sector has been internationalised through transnational networks of production, distribution and management” (Castells, 2001: 8).

• Internationalisation of the production process through a layered network

• Transnational Corporations (TNCs): decentralised networked units formed through FDI in the form of mergers and acquisitions• Much wider than usually assumed: 53 000 TNCs

• 30% of global GDP (15% within same TNC), 66% of global trade, but employ fraction of global labour market

• Subsidiary networks: SMMEs and informal sector

(Selective) Globalisation of S&T• Science & Technology (S&T) is globally

integrated through connections to developing countries

• But with tremendous asymmetry: S&T very highly concentrated in ‘core’/ leading economies

• Networks are (somewhat) interactive, with diffusion to developing countries (eg India) is possible

Summary“A key characteristic of the new economy is that it is organised in networks … a set of interconnected nodes. These … are in the large corporations [and are] decentralised. Small and medium businesses connect to each other, forming networks [which] connect to these decentralised networks of the corporation, forming networks of networks [increasingly using] e-commerce. The new technological basis for the new economy is the Internet . The Internet is not simply one more technology. The Internet is the equivalent of electricity and of the electrical engine of industrialisation. It induces the networking form, just as the fusion of the electrical engine allowed the formation of the industrial factory, at the heart of the development of the large capitalist corporation (Castells, 2001: 10).

“If knowledge is the electricity of the new network society, then HE is the power station”

Networks and global reach• Networks: a set of interconnected nodes: key characteristic

of the new economy• New economy and survival activities are the two key

sectors in the world• Relation between old & new economy (p 10-11)• “Double logic” of network society: clear patterns of

inclusion and exclusion: does not integrate everyone but affects all (p 11 - see below)

“It is a very lean efficient system of including and excluding”• Integrated global networks and excluded local societies:

Cuts across North and South divide, which no longer prevails.East Palo Alto and Bangalore examples – do you agree?“Globalisation does not integrate everybody. In fact, it currently excludes most people on the planet but at the same time , affects everybody”

Transformation of Labour Markets• New technologies and unemployment – jobs are lost “under

some conditions”: therefore we must “create dynamism in other sectors” (unclear and fuzzy regarding interventionist role of the state??)

• Flexible labour and individualisation of labour-capital relationships have become the norm

• “Self-programmable” vs “generic” labour – key issue for education (Castells, 2001: 10)“Self-programmable labour [has] the built-in capacity to generate value through innovation and information, and has the ability to reconstruct itself throughout the occupational career on the basis of this education and this information. Therefore it is always at the source of the creation of [added] value” (Castells, 2001: 13)

• 2 key issues: global search for talent and pressure for access to developed world – migrations including women (Stromquist and Monkman)

• Capital is global, labour is local: Majority of labour not globalised

Globalisation and developing countries• Leap-frogging technology – possible?• New production modes: Manufacturing not

disappearing but changing: “Post-Fordism” (Kraak, 2001: 38): manufacturing plus automation, innovation, flexible responsive output, high-tech, connected to information and global markets

• 2 phenomena: a) Devaluation of low-skilled generic labour, leading to b) expansion of informal, survival and criminal sectors, which are linked to new economy

Globalisation, inequality and poverty• Impact on LDCs: dual society (p 15; Smythe in Subotzky, 1999)

• 4th world – marginalised discarded societies: (p 15)• What is Castells suggesting about alternatives here?• New economy: “simultaneously highly productive and

extraordinarily exclusionary through the process of networking and segmentation” (p15)

• Well documented indicators of asymmetries in distribution of benefits and wealth: 4 axes - inequality, poverty, polarisation and social exclusion – see examples (p 16)

• What is responsible? Correlation and causation• Problem of personifying globalisation!• Key issue: relationship between this new mode of development –

info development – and the overall process of intergration

6 Factors re: exclusion1. Nature of networks [and the interests underlying them]

allow for exclusion2. Extreme under-development of technological

infrastructure in most of the world3. Likewise, education, technological literacy and R&D

extremely unevenly distributed: not just massification “warehousing” but also quality [resources & capacity!]

4. Impact of integrated market volatility5. Bypassing and restraint of national states by

international finance institutions [World Bank and IMF]6. Parallel criminal economy, and social crises:

migration, urbanisation without conditions to integrate, corruption strife, ecological crisis, impacting most on women and children – all “the contradictions of development are sharper than ever”

Sustainability? Alternatives?• Proponents: TINA and the trickle-down approach:

“redistribution through growth”• Opponents: Inherent contradictions make it

unsustainable: • Underlying tensions: (Subotzky p 58/9)• Crisis of Interdependency: unregulatable systemic

volatility of markets, ecology, social cohesion• Crisis of overcapacity• Crisis of supply of talent

• Left: Castells, Chomsky, NSMs as well as Orthodoxy: Sachs, Fisher, Stiglitz – socially and politically unsustainable as well

Alternatives?• Global turning point: realisation of rational self-

interest in avoiding negative global impacts – idealistic optimism or real hope?

• Role of state: • minimal state vs regulatory/interventionist (Stromquist

& Monkman, 2000: 22-23)• diminished role or not?

• Position of SA • Explaining current political economy (Subotzky, 1999:

60-61):• Dual development path and current privileging of

global• Complementary development path? Settlement?• TINA or not?

Subotzky (1999)

• Situates the impacts of globalisation within political economy

• Tensions underlying globalisation• SA political economy• Seeks complementary alternatives to the HE-

industry partnership and market-oriented knowledge production – model of CSL: an instance of serving the public good and RDP

• Tracks impacts of globalisation: tensions and the SA case; SA HE; impacts on HE

Additional issues

• Impacts of Globalisation on HE• Reinserting the public good (Singh)• Changing modes of knowledge

production (Kraak, Subotzky)• Changing functions of HE: shift from

elite to mass HE (Kraak, Scott)• Massification, internationalisation and

globalisation (Scott)• Approach issues through close

reading of cross-cutting debates in various sources: analysts’ critique each others’ accounts

Forces of Change acting on HE• Multiple impacts of globalisation:

• New global economy & ICT-driven knowledge society• Shifting purposes and role of HE in innovation and competitiveness

driving economic development : the new instrumentalism – the call for ‘responsiveness’

• New public accountability to national government & society mainly in terms of contribution to economic development: quality assurance

• New relations between HE and state, private sector and community• Neo-liberalism and the emphasis on fiscal constraint and efficiency• Marketisation, Vocationalisation, Managerialism and Privatisation• New knowledge production (Kraak, Subotzky)• Impact on faculty life (Stromquist & Monkman, Subotzky - June)

• Internationalisation (exchange, curriculum, collaboration, Scott)• Social Demand: increased access: “Massification” (Scott,

Kraak)

• ICTs – the rise of new Distance Education, Multimedia instruction, virtual universities, corporate universities (Scott)

• Counters: Reinserting the public good (Singh, Subotzky)

Reinserting the Public Good• Responsiveness primarily interpreted in economic

terms (Singh, Subotzky)• Impacts of Globalisation: Social Purposes of HE

losing ground• Hold multiple purposes in balance (also Castells)• Strategies to operationalise public good:

• Analytic clarity: public good and market• Interrogating relevant knowledge and skills• Identifying strategic possibilities: TINA issue• Operational opportunities (eg Community Service

Learning - Subotzky)• Implications for leadership and management• Good practices• Role of State and donor communities

New Modes of Knowledge Production• Kraak paper: outline of debate and centrality of Mode 2

debate in HE policy• Key factors in the emergence of Mode 2: Globalisation +

democratisation – simultaneous impact led to a ‘major shift in the institutional organisation and delivery of HE programmes since the late 1980s (too simple?)

• Globalisation:• post-Fordism (new modes of economic production): flexible

specialisation• IT & the facilitation of internationalisation of capital• The networked firm• New educational demands: highly skilled labour force – specialised

skills + generic competencies – ‘portable’ skills, self-programmable• Democratisation/massification

• Egalitarian pressure for wider access• Diffussion of skilled professionals, knowledge workers and research

organisations outside HE institutions

Impacts of Changes (Kraak)• Impact 1: The shift from a closed to an open HET system:

• New programme offerings – beyond discipline-based degree qualifications, based on open-learning methods (see Scott in Kraak, 2000: 8)

• Economic (new skills needs) and educational responses (accommodating non-traditional students)

• Eroding of the dominance of elite academic cultures [FE or HE slippage?]

• Shift from closed to open intellectual systems (dynamically interactive with outside social interests and knowledge structures) incorporating the values of non-elite communities [optimism about knowledge equivalences, interfaces and seamless mobility?]

• 4 key changes (Scott) [dichotomous from-to pattern?]:• From courses to credits• From departments to programmes• From subject-based teaching to student-based learning• From knowledge to competence

• Unified system and institutional differentiation

Impact 2: From Mode 1 to Mode 2• Mode 1: Disciplinary knowledge production:

• ‘basic/blue sky/curiosity-driven + ‘applied’• formulated within disciplinary boundaries

• Mode 2: • Transdisciplinary knowledge production• Applications driven: generated in the context of

application• Organisational diverse (transient teams) and

heterogeneous• New forms of quality control• Socially reflective

Interpretations & Critique of Mode 2• Kraak: optimist• Subotzky (1999) argument: cautiously exploratory• The Gibbons Thesis: promise or peril for LDCs?

(Subotzky; Muller and Subotzky: critically cautious – the debate moves on)

• Alternative interpretations (Rip, Etzkowitz, Subotzky et al, 2003)

• Key issue: Uncritical uptake and interpretation of policy

Massification, Internationalisation & Globalisation• Scott: Tension between massification and internationalisation?

International mission vs responsiveness to local circumstances?• Myth of:

a) universities as international institutions – they are national institutions created to fulfil national purposes

b) International community of scholars believing in universal values – contemporary world is much more complex, diverse and pluralistic

• Characteristics of mass systems (shift from elite to mass):• Inclusive• Diversified institutions: including ‘local’ institutions• New managerial approach• Quality assurance and regulation

• International dimensions of mass HE• Student flows (across boundaries and market-driven)• Staff flows• Research and teaching collaboration• Flow of ideas (postmodernist pluralism – globalisation not just about real

time IT-driven markets)

Globalisation and Internationalisation

• Internationalisation:

World-order dominated by [certain] nation states involving increased cross-national flows

• Globalisation:

“National boundaries rendered obsolete [weaker? – danger of totalising tendencies] by the transgressive tendencies of high technology and world culture”

Recap: The multifaceted nature of globalisation

• Various dimensions: • Ideological• Economic• Cultural (identity) • Technological, space/time

compression

• Mediating responses – national, regional and local

• The nature of the network society: inclusion and exclusion

Recap (cont.)• Globalisation and Developing Countries

• Inequality, Poverty, Polarisation and Social Exclusion

• Sustainability and alternatives• Interdependence and Internal Contradictions:

Possible turning points?• Political-economic position of SA: choices?• Role of state and transnational civil society

formations in relation to globalisation and fostering alternatives

• TINA or not?• Conditions for developing alternatives

HE Studies Policy Analysis Leadership and Management

Sub-Module 2B:

Overview of the Post-1990 Policy Process in South Africa

March 2004

Associate Prof George Subotzky

Context for HE transformation in SA• Opportunity and imperative for this:

• 1990 political changes – offered opportunity for fundamental reconstruction

• Legacy of apartheid: unequal, ineffective, inefficient, distorted and dysfunctional

• Scale of fundamental transformation unprecedented• Policy framework characterised by two key factors:

• Globalization• Dual social structure

• Dual national development priority:• Engagement in the competitive global economy• Address the basic needs of the majority poor

• Ongoing challenges of impacts on HE of:• Globalisation• Internationalisation

Historical overview• SA history: characterised by intense political

conflicts and socio-cultural divisions• HE system therefore shaped by prevailing balance

of forces in successive historical periods• Colonialism and underlying conflict between British and

Afrikaner nationalism• Phases of economic development (agriculture, mining,

industrialisation)• Apartheid

• Multiple institutional system: result of intense rivalry between 2 dominant politico-cultural linguistic groups: British colonialists and Boer Afrikaners

Post-1990 Policy Process

• Period of negotiation and re-entry into international community

• Engagement with multilateral & development assistance agencies: international and local studies

• Progressive policy formulation through key processes and documents: • National Education Policy Initiative• ANC manifesto and IPET• National Commission on HE• Green Paper, White Papers• HE Act• Size and Shape reports• National Plan• National Working Group – Mergers• Implementation of 3 regulatory levers: funding framework,

QA, enrolment planning

Periodisation• Pre-1990

• Apartheid planning, control, repression• Opposition, activism, analysis

• 1990-1994• Negotiations and realisation that post-apartheid policy

framework would be required• Multilateral and bilateral agencies: 1st studies and

quantification of apartheid inequalities• National Education Policy Initiative (NEPI)

• Policy options by progressive educationists• Equity and development issues

• ANC Education and Training Policy Framework: election manifesto

• Implementation Plan for Education and Training (IPET): plan of action for new minister

1994-1997• Consultative Process of Formulation of Macro-

policy Framework• National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE)

(1996)• Comprehensive framework for single, unified but

institutionally differentiated programmes-based system • Wide consultation, general consensus

• White Paper on Higher Education Transformation: 1, 2 and 3 (initial contestations, wide consensus on final version) (1997)• 3 imperatives:

• Redress• RDP needs• Global competitiveness

• 8 policy goals (p. 550)

3 Overarching HE Goals• Equity:

• access and success• redress: social and institutional• democratic, “co-operative” governance

• Effectiveness:• relevance (responsiveness to societal needs:

contributing to global and basic development)

• quality• quantity: graduate and research outputs

• Efficiency: • delivery (within fiscal constraint) • removing inefficiencies of apartheid

Post-1997 Immediate DOE Priorities

Implementation diverted:• Creating/strengthening required structures

and bureaucracy: HE Branch and Council for HE

• Incorporation of colleges• Regulation of private HE• Institutional management/finance crises• Norms and standards for teacher education• HEMIS• NSFAS

1997 – 2001: “Implementation vacuum”

• Between White Paper and National Plan• Symbolic vs substantive policy• Conditions not ready: policy naivety to policy

maturity; capacity, other preoccupations• Role of state: (structural intervention and

market regulation to achieve equity, effectiveness, efficiency) vs minimal state

• Tension between regulatory national planning and autonomy (without denying accountability)

• New Minister (1999)

Partial Regulation and Market Conditions

• Partial regulation 2 conditions

a) market conditions - various institutional responses:- Entrepreneurialism: Local and transnational DE and

telematics, satellite campuses (HWAUs) - Academic restructuring towards programmes and

inter-disciplinarity (HWEUs) - ‘Disciplinary’ vs the ‘credit accumulation and transfer’ positions

- Private Sector needs (HWUs and some Techs)

b) greater inequalities and dysfunctionality of some HDIs – no substantial redress policy

Size and Shape Debate

• Preoccupation with restructuring: Rationale?• CHE 1st Discussion Document (May 2000)

2nd Discussion Document (July 2000)• Huge controversy

National PlanOperationalises WP goals: objectives, targets and strategies, timeframe.

• Indicative targets: • participation rate 15% to 20%;• graduation rate benchmarks;• shifting enrolments between the humanities, business and

commerce, engineering and technology from the current ratio of 49:26:26 to 40:30:30 respectively; and

• student and staff equity targets.

• Regulatory steps to ensure diversity of institutional mission and programme differentiation (PQM). Institutional programme mixes to be determined on basis of current profiles, relevance to national priorities, and demonstrated capacity for proposed new programs.

National Plan• Restructuring of institutional landscape through

the reduction in number of institutions but not delivery sites

• Various immediate institutional mergers are recommended while further potential ones and regional collaboration will be guided by a National Working Group, heavily laden with economists – signaling a strong efficiency intention

• Principle of differentiation and restructuring accepted (as far back as NCHE): detaching differentiation from disadvantage

3 Regulatory Levers1. National/Institutional goal and results oriented

Planning framework:• 3-year Rolling Plans; Strategic Plans; PQM; Enrolment

Planning

2. Funding framework: new doc• Goal oriented, earmarked and block grants• Separate research funding• Teaching inputs/outputs• Minimalist government: ‘funding in the last resort –

lever for market solution• Institutional factors: ‘redress’: size and African/Col enr.

3. Quality Assurance: HE Quality Committee• Accreditation of programmes• Institutional site visits

Current Policy Processes• Restructuring (post-Zuma ANC review?)• Annual Fiscal ‘fight’• Programme & Qualifications Mix (PQM)• New academic policy – HEQF (CHE)• NQF review• New school leaving certificate & FETC framework• Distance Education & Satellite Campuses• Redress Policy• Language Policy • National Higher Education Information and Applications

Service• Ministerial Teacher Education Committee• Enrolment & output targets: tensions between participation

& efficiency (post-Zuma ANC review?)• Autonomy debate: governance style

Restructuring• Reduce 36 to 22 institutions but retain 48 sites: • 11 Universities; 6 Comprehensives; 5 Technikons• 10 mergers from 23:

1. U of Natal and UDW = UKZN2. MEDUNSA & North = U of North3. RAU and Wits Tech (Comprehensive) = U of Johannesburg4. Port Elizabeth Tech and UPE (Comprehensive) = Nelson Mandela UoT5. Potchefstroom & N West Univ.(Comprehensive) = U of Northwest6. UNISA, Tech SA and Vista Distance (Comprehensive) = (new) UNISA7. Cape and Pen Techs = Cape Peninsula U of T8. Natal, ML Sultan and Mangosuthu Techs = DIT9. North West, N Gauteng and Pretoria Techs = Tswane U of T10. Unitra, E Cape and Border Techs = Walter Sisulu U of S&T, EC (compr)

• 12 Untouched: Wits, UCT, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Free State U, Rhodes, UWC, Fort Hare, Venda (UoT), Zululand (C), Free State Tech, Vaal Triangle Tech

Descriptive Overview of Current System

• 36 Institutions, reducing to 22• Ambiguous Binary System • Historical Categories: HAIs and HDIs (still

valid??)• Unexplained fluctuations in enrolments

The “Skewed Revolution” (Cooper & Subotzky, 2001)

• Some important aggregate changes, but apartheid imprint intact in many ways

• Disaggregations reveal race and gender groups concentrated by institutional type, field and level (new public-private partnerships)

• Staff:- Largely unchanged- 14% professors are women

• Institutional capacity still highly uneven

Key HE Challenges

• Planning & Implementation• Capacity• HE Policy shaped by political-economic choices:

Reconciling conflicting policy imperatives: equity and development

• Integrated Policy-making: avoiding ‘immediatism’ (demonstrable change which may not meet goals of equity, efficiency and effectiveness) and ‘big bang’ policy (change the world)

• HIV/AIDS: major humanitarian and HRD challenge for planning and management

Higher Education ChallengesEquity

• Social and individual redress: need for political settlements and alternative funding sources

• HE and the Public Good, service, and contributing towards basic Reconstruction and Development, critical function of HE

• Access and success: assimilation vs transformation: RPL, NQF

• Greater representivity/diversity: staff, students & outputs

Higher Education ChallengesEfficiency- Institutional landscape- Management and leadership crises- Throughput and success rates

• Tensions between managerialism and marketisation of HE and collegiate culture

Higher Education ChallengesEffectiveness: - HRD, Labour market needs and dual

development path in the context of globalisation

- ‘Graduateness’/quality- ‘Responsiveness’: Curriculum, disciplinarity

and interdisciplinarity new knowledge issues, partnerships

Peril or promise for developing countries:

Uncritical policy uptake?

The Nature of Policy

“Policy is the authoritative allocation of values”Policy is a complex process, which involves far more than the documented texts to which the term usually refers. It involves several formal and non-formal non-sequential elements, a variety of agents in different settings, and consists of various types. Without fully grasping these aspects, policy-making, implementation and analysis will remain inadequate.

Components of the Policy Process• Research and the identification and privileging of

areas and options• Formulation • Interpretation, Adoption and Adaptation (necessary

prioritisation and emphases)• Planning• Implementation• Monitoring (tracks change) and evaluation

(formative and summative – explains change)These are not linear steps which can be rationally determined, but inter-relate in complex ways, are subject to multiple determinants

Policy Agents• Government (including the ministry, other

ministries and cabinet); • Parliament (including Portfolio Committee and

ANC study group on education); • The civil service (which involves the bureaucratic

function of policy); • The organised business sector; • Civil society (organised labour, teacher and

student organisations, academics, researchers and other stakeholder bodies); and

• Foreign advisors, multilateral and bilateral development agencies and philanthropic foundations.

Policy Models

• Rational Model• Conceived as a cycle comprising linear steps• Assumes outcomes

• Complexity Model• Policy process as unwieldy, complex,

contradictory, indeterminate subject to unequal power relations, interests and contestations

These have methodological implications

Types of PolicyAdapted from Dudley & Vidovich, 1995:14-15 and Taylor et al. 1997:33-35

• Distributive: favour all groups in allocation of resources and benefits

• Redistributive: distribute additional resources to one set of beneficiaries for equity reasons.

• Regulatory: limit or direct behaviours of particular groups through conditional resource allocation

Types of Policy• Symbolic: signifies general values,

principles and normative ideals with very little or no indication of implementation procedures or resource allocations. Provides benchmark for evaluation and its political function is to achieve consensus

• Substantive: concrete actions governments want to take: the content of decisions

• Procedural: indicate how decisions are to be implemented, eg guidelines

• Material: show commitment to implementation through the allocation of resources. These are not discreet elements but part of overall policies.

Types of Policy (cont.)• Rational: Outlines a set of guidelines for

new policy development independently of practice

• Incremental: dependent upon previous or existing policies and practices.

• Top-down: Developed by an authoritative structure and distributed downwards through the system in a top linear, hierarchical process. Linked to the notion of ‘forward mapping’ (Elmor, 1980). • Assumes those closest to the source of policy

have greatest authority and influence, and that responding to problems in complex systems depends on clear lines of authority and control

Types of Policy (cont)• Bottom-up: Builds on existing practices,

analysing the conditions at the coalface of implementation• Seek to create conducive behaviours

(compliance, knowledge, skills, capacities and resources) among practitioners which will support successful implementation

• Relates to Elmore’s concept of ‘backward mapping’

• Assumes that those closest to the source of the problem have the greatest ability to influence it and that problem-solving in complex systems on maximizing discretion at the point where the problem is most immediate (Elmore 1980:605).

Types of Policy (Cont.)

It is important to note that not all policies fall neatly into one or other of these distinctive categories. In practice, they are typically a combination of the categories and/or their components (Taylor et al., 1997).

Consequences for Implementation

Successful implementation rests on a number of necessary conditions:

• Adequate human, financial and other material resources necessary

• Clear planning strategies• Understanding, capacity and political

opportunity to turn symbolic policy into substantive, material and procedural policy

• Understanding the dynamics various components of the policy process in the specific context

Consequences for Implementation• Among the various agents involved – their differentiated

‘behaviours’ which might facilitate or obstruct implementation (Elmor)

• Understanding the various roles, interests, motives, possible recalcitrance, priorities, capacities, technical skills, knowledge and the required discretionary ability and opportunities to deal with contingencies

• Successful implementation thus involves attaining supportive compliance, which in turn depends on sufficient ideological consensus and trusting belief in the symbolic value, substance and planning strategies of policy

• As this always varies, successful implementation also depends on monitoring, evaluation, review, accountability, and, where necessary, sanctions.

Policy Tensions• Policy is necessarily a contested and

indeterminate process, inevitably subject to competing interests, ideologies and values

• Shaped by unavoidable resource constraints which lead to competing priorities

• How do these abstract considerations find concrete expression?

• In South Africa, given its sharply polarised history, these tensions take on a particular character, which can be seen to be the outcome of both structural and conjunctural conditions