20 Years of Democracy in SA Higher Education

1994 - 2014 presents two decades of democracy in the South African higher education system. A lot of changes have occurred in the process of re-inserting South African academia into the global knowledge community and addressing and redressing the legacy of colonialism and apartheid in the sector.

This book presents an in-depth analysis of the transformation of the SA HE sector over twenty years, focusing on:

- Regulation
- Governance
- Teaching and Learning
- Research
- Community Engagement
- Academic Staffing and
- Funding

The chapter on Governance was written by Lis Lange and Thierry Luescher. It is available open access as well as the full e-book can be downloaded for free.

The chapter on Governance deals inter alia with the vexed question of what post-managerialist, knowledge-based governance and management in higher education, at system and institutional level, would look like.

Here an abstract:

Abstract (Chapter 3)
In the last twenty years, much theorization has gone into discerning what kind of governance relationships should shape a democratic, post-apartheid higher education system that reflects the transformative aspirations of South Africa’s constitution. This paper provides a periodised analysis of changes in public higher education governance in South Africa between 1994 and 2014 focusing on policy change, the establishment of new governance structures and implementation of new policy instruments, and their impact on higher education governance, leadership and management. We conclude by outlining an emerging post-managerialist system of decision-making defined by its ability to produce and use transformation knowledge.

The Digitisation of African University Presses

African Minds has been commissioned by Carnegie Corporation to conduct a baseline study into the digitization of African University Presses. This study aims to produce new knowledge on the landscape of academic publishing in Africa in the light of current technological advances and market opportunities. 

The project's goals include enhancing access to basic knowledge and increasing awareness and use of high-quality African academic publishing, as well as increasing awareness and promoting open access publishing and other viable models among African University Presses. The project is led by Francois van Schalkwyk and Thierry Luescher. As part of this project, we have mapped all university presses in Africa in an interactive map that is continuously being updated. Users can either view the map by applying any of a number of filters, or download the full dataset. 

Corrections and feedback can be submitted by following the link under the information box on the map.

Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa

The new student movement in South Africa turned yesterday one year old. It was on 9 March 2015 that Chumani Maxwele at UCT courageously staged his performative soiling of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes with human waste in an act (that was in planning for months) that would spark the #RhodesMustFall movement.

"Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa" is a commentary that I wrote some weeks ago on the movement for Politikon, as an appreciation what the role of academics can be in relation to the #MustFall movements.

I hope you will enjoy reading it. Unfortunately it is not open access :( but I can send you a PDF Copy. The doi is: 10.1080/02589346.2016.1155138

A ‘third force’ in higher education student activism - University World News

A ‘third force’ in higher education student activism - University World News



I think that's the first time that a paper of mine, actually mostly written by Taabo Mugume and hopefully to be published shortly is cited before it is out :)  Thanks Nico.

#Equity #SocialJustice #HigherEducationAfrica: the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa

The Journal of Student Affairs in Africa has just published its latest issue, Vol. 3 Issue 2. 

The Observatory of Student Politics in Africa - Virtual Research Centre is up and running!

The virtual research centre Observatory of Student Politics and Higher Education Research in Africa (Osphera.net) was established in December 2015 as a network of researchers interested in conducting research and continuously document the development of higher education in Africa. It was established following the successful conclusion of the project “Student Representation in African Higher Education Governance” sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York (2014-2015).

The general mission of Osphera.net is to document and analyse the changing higher education sector in Africa with a specific focus on student affairs, student politics and the student experience. It offers a platform for researchers to observe, collaboratively investigate, and share their knowledge on ongoing developments in student politics, student affairs and students’ experience of higher education in Africa. The platform includes a blog on student politics and higher education research, resources, links to news sites and RSS feeds on higher education in Africa, and the contact details of the network or researchers and partners involved in the Observatory.

The network of researchers is coordinated by a leadership team led by Dr Thierry Luescher with the support of partner organisations. Membership to the network is open, see contact us for joining.

Coming soon: Rachel Brooks' book "Student Politics and Protests"

Rachel Brooks is Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey (UK) and her research interests lie in the sociology of education, including higher education; transitions from school to university and from education to work; lifelong learning; international education; citizenship education and political participation; the impact of friends and peers on experiences of education; and education policy. Clearly, there are many interests we have in common! Thus, it was wonderful to be invited to participate in her international book project "Student Politics and Protests: International Perspectives" (Routledge, forthcoming 2016) and contribute with Manja Klemenčič (Harvard), the chapter on student politics in Africa. The original book outline includes:

An introduction and conclusion chapter by Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey, UK

• Chapter 2. Complexities of a Student Political World by Joseph Ibrahim, Leeds Beckett University, UK and Nick Crossley, University of Manchester, UK
• Chapter 3.Affinities and Barricades. A Comparative Analysis of Student Organizing in Quebec and the USA by Rushdia Mehreen and Ryan Thomson, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
• Chapter 4. ‘Free Education’: a Totemic Issue of Student Politics by Debbie McVitty, National Union of Students, UK
• Chapter 5. Resisting the ‘Neo-Liberal University’. Struggles and Power Relations in Today’s Universities in Italy and England by Lorenzo Cini, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
• Chapter 6. Student Protests, Austerity and the ‘Value’ of Education by Gritt Nilsen, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Chapter 7. Student Power in 21st Century Africa: the Changing Role and Character of National Student Associations by Thierry Luescher, University of the Free State, South Africa, and Manja Klemenčič, Harvard University, USA 
• Chapter 8. Students’ Unions. The New Zealand Experience by Sylvia Nissen and Bronwyn Hayward, University of Canterbury, New Zealand 
• Chapter 9. Campaigning for a Movement: Collective identity and Student Solidarity in the 2010/11 UK Protests against Fees and Cuts by Alexander Hensby, University of Kent, UK
• Chapter 10. ‘If not now, then when?’ The Student Protest Movement in Hong Kong by Bruce Macfarlane, University of Southampton, UK 
• Chapter 11. From Silent Conformists to Post-Modern Rebels: Student Mobilization during Turkey’s Gezi Resistance by Begum Uzan, University of Toronto, Canada.
• Chapter 12. The Chilean Student Movement: Neoliberal Discourses and Agentic Responses Towards Social Transformation by Carolina Guzman Valenzuela, University of Chile, Chile

Manja and I settled for an analysis of the key trends in student organising in Africa with specific focus on national systems of student representation. This is what our 'blurp' reads like:

"This chapter provides a systematic overview of African student politics and the character of systems of student representation in national and higher education politics. It outlines key trends in contemporary African student politics, including the emergence of internet-age student movements such as #FeesMustFall, followed by an analysis and classification of national systems of student representation in a selection of ten countries. The chapter thus shows the impacts of democratisation and economic growth, neo-liberal reforms and higher education expansion, and the ICT revolution, on the changing character and role of student organising in 21st century Africa."

Looking forward to 2016 - University World News

Hans de Wit, new Director of the CIHE at Boston College looks back at 2015 and forward to 2016 in this article by University World News. He argues:

"2015 was an intense year for higher education. What were some of the key issues that dominated the higher education agenda? How much are they related to other global developments? And will they continue to drive the agenda in 2016? The following developments, in my view, have been rather dominant over the past twelve months:

• A broad call for lower tuition fees or for tuition-free higher education;
• The increasing number of all kinds of rankings;
• The role given to higher education in the new Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, or rather the lack of one;
• The increase of study abroad credits and degrees;
• And as a supplement to this, the call for other forms of internationalisation, in particular internationalisation of the curriculum, employability and global citizenship;
• And the impact of global instability, terrorism and the refugee crisis on higher education."

We certainly had our share of most of the above in African higher education:

• from the contestation around fees in South Africa, Kenya and elsewhere (#FeesMustFall);
• the development of new 'alliances' and 'groupings' of African 'research' universities announced this year (over and above existing ones like the HERANA Network);
• a (final?) engagement on the continent with MDGs and the debates and BIG policies including the role of HE in African development (e.g. with the AU 2063 Plan; the HE Summit Declaration in Dakar; and related books like Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions, by Cloete et al);
• stalled (?) discussions around internationalising and harmonising the African HE space, including a continent-wide application of the B-M-D model, and the work of the ANIE network on internationalisation;
• related issues around curriculum renewal (and unrelated, the call to a de-colonisation of the curriculum at UCT with the #RhodesMustFall movement);
• and finally, the tragic terrorist attack on the Garissa University College in Kenya in April 2015 which left 148 persons dead and injured many more.

What has 2016 in store? Looking forward to 2016 - University World News

Presentation "An International Perspective on Student Representation" Manja Klemenčič, Harvard University

Dr Manja Klemenčič's presentation at the 2014 African Minds symposium on "Student Representation in African Higher Education Governance" in Cape Town. An chapter based on her theoretical framework presented here will be published in the book Student Politics in Africa: Activism and Representation in 2016.



Presentation 'An International Perspective on Student Representation Manja Klemenčič Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Harvard University African.'

The 2015 #movements in South Africa: From #RhodesMustFall to #Luister and #FeesMustFall

 Last night I had a fascinating Skype call from New York from the former vice-chancellor of Rhodes University in South Africa, who is the current program director of the Mellon Foundation for international higher education and South Africa: Prof Saleem Badat. Now what many may not know, Prof Saleem Badat is not only a former university vice-chancellor and before that, the first CEO of the SA Council on Higher Education, Badat is also a serious scholar - a critical sociologist by training - who has never stopped being a critical voice in the higher education sector. Before he established the CHE he was a professor of higher education studies at the University of the Western Cape working amongst others with Prof Harold Wolpe.
Now, Prof Badat is also an expert on student politics in South Africa. Indeed he has published a great number of books, including The Forgotten People:  Political Banishment under Apartheid (Brill, 2013), Black Man, You are on Your Own (STE Publishers, 2009) and Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid (RoutledgeFalmer, 2002); co-author of National Policy and a Regional Response in South African Higher Education (James Currey, 2004); and co-editor of Apartheid Education and Popular Struggles in South Africa (Zed Books, 1991). His 2002 book Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid is the most authorative book on black student politics under apartheid in South Africa.


So it is no wonder Badat has great interest in the 2015 student movement in South Africa, the #movements. And, given his training and intellect, the call was so fascinating because he was asking me questions that will occupy me for many months to come: what is the ideological and class character of the #RMF, #FMF etc #movement? Are these concepts helpful in understanding the #movements? And what is the significance of the 2015 student movement... socially, politically, for the higher education sector, for deep transformation?

And then he made me laugh. "Thierry", he said, "the movement has not even stopped and already the analyses and papers are being circulated". I guess in parts this was a comment on the chapter Manja and I drafted and which I sent to him for comments; the chapter on student organising in 21st century Africa includes a first consideration of #FeesMustFall as a "internet age student movement". Sharp. 

HERANA III Scientometrics, Rankings of African Universities, and Knowledge Productivity

The Stellenbosch University’'s Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) is offering this year a three-day workshop linked to the annual HERANA workshop, focused on Scientometrics, Rankings of African Universities, and Knowledge Productivity. CREST is the foremost competency centre on bibliometrics and scientometrics in Africa, and hosts the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP).

HERANA is the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, and includes flagship universities from eight African countries: University of Botswana, University of Cape Town (SA), University of Dar es Salaam (TZ), Universitiy of Nairobi (KE), Makerere University (UG), University of Mauritius, University of Ghana, and Eduardo Mondlane University (MZ). Institutional researchers, research development managers, registrars, quality managers, etc. from the different institutions meet annually to share best practices, present their data to each other, and learn about latest developments in the sector. This year, the focus is firmly on knowledge production and capacity development in scientometrics to better understand international university ranking systems and consider the development of a HERANA 'ranking' of African universities. The first set of workshops are presented by Prof Johann Mouton (Stellenbosch/CREST) and Prof Robert Tijssen (Leiden), while the second set are facilitated by Prof Nico Cloete. The workshop includes a visit to UCT's Research Development Department.

One of the problems mentioned frequently regarding knowledge production in Africa is that only a tiny fraction of African scholarly journals are indexed in either Scopus or the Web of Science. The main bibliometric index is provided by AJOL, the African Journals Online; but AJOL does not include a citation index. Thus, there is quite a lot of work to be done; and if African universities want to find comparative metrics to measure and enhance their performance, then knowledge productivity cannot the be only ones; rather, the developmental university should also measure matters such as civic engagement; forms of community engagement; local community relationships; university - industry - government - civil society linkages; teaching quality etc; and perhaps accessibility, especially to historically disadvantaged, first generation and poor communities.

Another Progressive Move by the UFS Leadership

Yesterday afternoon I went to Prof Jonathan Jansen's office to thank him personally; I will do the same today to Prof Nicky Morgan. They are respectively the Rector/Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Rector: Operations of the University of the Free State. After the announcement of the rectorate's response to the memorandum of the worker-student forum regarding outsourcing at the UFS, I had - soapy soapy - tears in my eyes.

My mother cleaned for half of her life the kindergarden, Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays, two streets from the block of flats where I grew up in, that was in Oberentfelden, Switzerland, not far from the little town Aarau. I vividly remember spending my Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays helping her put up the little chairs onto the little tables so that she could wax the vynl floors while I would wash hand-basins coloured with paint stains from the week that was or sweep the court yard, playground and parking of the acorn leaves of the four huge trees in front of the prefab kindergarden.

That's how my mom earned her bit of money, raising three kids, while my dad was a postman, delivering from 5 am to 2 pm door-to-door in the neighbouring village, only to come home to work in the gardens of our block of flat as outside warden and gardener. There was no shortage of jobs and my dad had permanently three, working 7 days of the week about 14 hours a day. They both had Grade 8; my dad was 'qualified': After the apprenticeship with the Post and a year in the Geneva Post Office to learn French, he became permanent. (I became permanent this month too.) My dad's jobs paid peanuts, and I grew up valuing every coin of money I earned from helping him; there was always enough and I was always ok; who cares if they are 'hand-me-downs'? Most of the kids in my school were like me, working class kids. Who cares that my bike was second-hand? I had a bike! I was well taken care of. And, very unlike a typical working class kid in Switzerland or anywhere else in the world, my big sister, my little brother and  I enjoyed many benefits of my parents' labour and determination: Summer holidays in the tent, camping in Caorle and Pippione in Italy; skiing in the Alps, a must, one week, in a hotel every other year; the hotel was owned by the Union of Postal Workers; and hiking trips to the Jura mountains. My dad's treat for the month: taking us out to the Pizzeria. He still loves his Pizza.

I shook Jonathan's hand and said: "Thank you for what you have done today. My mother worked for half of her life as a kindergarden cleaner. Many of the workers on our campus are going home very happy today." He looked back at me, a bit puzzled perhaps, and then told me that the rectorate, and particularly Prof Morgan, had been looking for a way to make the increases possible since May. Now, it has happened. The UFS is supplementing worker salaries to ensure that no worker earns less than R 5000. That's still little; but it is double than some are earning today. It goes a long way. And if all goes well, we will soon see imitators - the madam's paying a decent wage to their maids and gardeners in their private homes, private companies rethinking whether the ration of 500 to 1 between the earnings of a CEO and that of his tealady is ok; parastatals.... SA has the worst Gini-coefficient in the world, I believe, or are we now number 2? Wow. It's a shame either way.

#OutsourcingMustFall - is one of the rallying cries of the joint worker-student movement that has been reinvigorated by the student protests against tuition fees coined #FeesMustFall. A number of universities have committed to ending outsourcing of cleaning, gardening, security and other services, including the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand. Yesterday, the Rectorate of the University of the Free State or "Kovsie" has responded to the memorandum handed over on Tuesday. It announced that as of December 2015, no worker at UFS will earn less than R 5,000 per month, which is well above the minimum wage. Some workers of outsourced services have been earning less than half of this amount! UFS also has for a while now re-instituted the benefit that the children of outsourced workers can study for free at the University. In addition, a joint committee of workers and management will seek to find ways to end outsourcing as soon as possible.

#Proudly Kovsies.

Student Power in 21st Century Africa

Nothing is as exhilarating and exhausting like being "in the Zone" like Sheldon calls it... final sprint on the drafting of a brand new chapter for the forthcoming book edited by Rachel Brooks (Surrey) on Student Politics and Protests.

Our chapter is (provisionally) called: "Student Power in 21st Century Africa: The nature and role of student organising" and "our" refers to Manja Klemencic and I.

The chapter starts - perhaps unsurprisingly - with #FeesMustFall.