AHMED ESSOP: Resetting SA’s higher education system

Hype aside, the government of national unity (GNU) is an opportunity to reset the trajectory of the SA higher education system.

The current policy dispensation and regulatory framework was developed in the late 1990s, informed by the 1995 report of the National Commission on Higher Education established by Nelson Mandela. However, aside from changes on the margins, its efficacy and continued relevance has not been assessed.

There is a pressing need to review the fitness of purpose of the higher education system given both the challenges that continue to plague it and changing global trends.

These changes, associated with the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, developments in artificial intelligence, the rise of the knowledge economy and the impact of Covid-19, have resulted in new approaches to teaching and learning, including hybrid and online approaches. There is also a growing focus on interdisciplinarity in the curriculum and interinstitutional collaboration in research to address societal grand challenges such climate change and health pandemics.

At the institutional level in SA the effect of the changes has been largely limited to the introduction of hybrid and online teaching and learning in response to Covid-19. Curriculum change, including its decolonisation to reflect the plurality of knowledge systems, which was at the centre of the RhodesMustFall student protests in 2015/16, has been uneven with limited traction and little evidence of systemic change across all disciplines. 

Challenges

That institutional practice is not at the cutting edge of global trends in higher education is not surprising given the challenges that confront our institutions. The most damaging is the decline in funding, which has not matched the exponential growth in student enrolments. From 2005 and 2019 headcount enrolments increased by 54% — from 699, 345 to 1, 074, 912 — but have plateaued since then.

However, the block grant, which funds the core teaching and learning activities of universities, decreased by 1.1% between 2019 and 2024, which has resulted in real spending per student decreasing by 9%. In money terms it is estimated that this was equal to a shortfall of R1,5bn in 2023. 

The decline in the block grant, austerity measures aside, is largely due to the introduction of fee-free higher education by Jacob Zuma in 2017 — a populist sop and poisoned chalice in the middle of the factional battles in the lead-up to the ANC conference that led to his dismissal from office.

It was introduced without modelling its affordability and sustainability and has resulted in the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) budget increasing in real terms by 6%. The allocation to the NSFAS is now significantly higher than the block grant and adversely affects the ability of universities to deliver on their core academic mandate.   

This has put enormous pressure on institutional resources, both infrastructure and staffing. The infrastructure budget decreased in real terms by 1.7% between 2019 and 2024, which should put paid to the proposed two new universities announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his 2020 state of the nation address. 

Casualisation

The increase in academic staff — 33% from 2005 to 2022 — has not matched the growth in enrolments, resulting in the staff: student ratio increasing from 1:24 to 1:30. More students and fewer staff is detrimental to the quality of teaching and learning. And 62% of the academic staff are on temporary contracts. This casualisation of academic work is a disincentive to pursue academic careers and does not bode well for the revitalisation of the profession, which the National Development Plan indicates is critical to enabling universities to “drive the knowledge society and economy”. 

The caution expressed in the national plan for higher education (2001) that it was “imperative to guard against rapid enrolment growth unless it is matched by additional resources” to ensure the long-term stability, sustainability and quality of the higher education system, has been thrown out of the window. This smacks of populism but is not surprising in the face of pressures for increased access from students in the context of past inequalities.

However, increased access in the absence of adequate resources for teaching and learning, including supporting academically underprepared students given the poor quality of schooling, is a revolving door for poor and working-class students back into unemployment and poverty. The fact is that 40%-50% of students entering higher education drop out without obtaining a qualification.   

The Council on Higher Education’s advice to the erstwhile minister, Blade Nzimande, to address the articulation gap between the outcomes of schooling and the requirements of higher education through restructuring the undergraduate curriculum by adding an extra year, was given short shrift. The modelling of the proposal to add an extra year indicated that in the medium-term it would result in improved throughput rates and be more cost-effective. The minister did not engage on the merits or otherwise of the proposal either with the council or institutions.

Indeed, the policy advisory role of the council has diminished in recent years. During my tenure as CEO of the council from 2010 to 2015 I cannot recall any occasion when the minister communicated in writing his response to advice provided by the council, as required by the Higher Education Act. This speaks to a broader tendency in which engagement with the leadership of higher education is perfunctory, if at all. It is indicative of a lack of trust that has characterised the governing party’s relationship with external organisations. In the context of the GNU, if it is to succeed the ANC will have no choice but to listen to, and take seriously, voices from outside.   

The funding challenge is compounded by perennial crises of institutional governance. The breakdown in governance at UCT and Unisa in 2023, widely reported in the media, is but a tip of the iceberg. Since 1997 more than a third of universities have been subject to an independent assessor appointed by the minister to investigate governance crisis resulting from a combination of dysfunctional governance structures and/or management and financial maladministration.

Underlying problems

The underlying problems at the level of council include a lack of understanding of the distinction between governance and management, inappropriate appointments in terms of expertise, and stakeholder representatives unable to distinguish between their interests and those of the institution, which is the fiduciary responsibility of council. This model of democratising institutional governance is inappropriate to meet the challenges of higher education in the 21st century and must be revisited.   

The higher education system is at a turning point. Its multiple crises require urgent attention if the progress that has been made in the transformation of the system to date is to be sustained and strengthened. A new road map is needed to chart the future direction of the higher education system.

It requires reviewing and reassessing the fitness of purpose of higher education, its functions and roles, including revisiting and redefining its role as a public good that contributes to social, cultural and economic development and transcends the Global North-Global South knowledge divide; the current policy and regulatory framework, including the efficacy of the key instruments — funding, planning and quality assurance — developed to build and transform the system; the institutional governance model; and the capacity of the bureaucracy to steer and manage the system.   

As in 1995 this calls for a national commission on higher education but with a narrower focus as outlined, drawing on the capacity and expertise that resides in our institutions, including international experts, to map the way forward.

The ball is squarely in the court of Ramaphosa and the new minister.

• Essop is an independent consultant and research associate at the Ali Mazrui Centre for High Education Studies at the University of Johannesburg.