Student affairs and the politics of space, language and identity

In the South African context, the politics of space, language and identity in higher education have been brought into sharp focus by the 2015/16 student movement. It is largely due to the student movement and campus-based movements and campaigns like #RhodesMustFall, #OpenStellenbosch, #AfrikaansMustFall, and #RUReferenceList, to name but a few, and the national #FeesMustFall campaign that the debates of the mid and late 1990s on the Africanisation of higher education and curriculum reform, the transformation of institutional cultures, and the meanings and implications of advantage and disadvantage in higher education, are receiving renewed attention.

The Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (JSAA) doesn't cease to amaze in the way it is able to attract and publish top quality scholarship as well as emerging researchers' contributions on cutting edge topics. In its 2019 July issue, vol. 7(1), JSAA is publishing a number of guest-edited articles that respond in various ways to matters raised in the course of the 2015/16 student movement or attribute the political salience of their analysis to concerns raised by various student campaigns since 2015.

I felt very happy to work with my former PhD student, now Dr Philippa Tumubweinee on this guest-edited issue on the politics of space, language and identity in higher education.

The opening research article by Philippa and I called ‘Inserting Space into the Transformation of Higher Education’ focuses specifically on the significance of space in the transformation of higher education. In this article, we argue that the concept of social space can provide the conceptual tools for reframing policy and designing new policy interventions in pursuit of higher education transformation goals. We start out by arguing against a notion of space merely as physical infrastructure or a void to be filled. Rather, in keeping with Lefebvre and others, we conceptualise a ‘sociopolitical’ notion of space as socially produced and as co-producer of the social. Using this understanding of space, we conduct an analysis of four national cornerstone policy documents on higher education transformation in South Africa (1997 to 2017). Our analysis shows that, since the original post-apartheid White Paper on Higher Education of 1997, it is only the most recent national policy document, the Draft National Plan for Postschool Education and Training of 2017, which blurs the lines between the social ills affecting the student experience of higher education (and indeed society at large), which we call ‘the realities of the everyday’ on campus, and different functions of space. Our article suggests new conceptual tools for a research agenda that explores the (social) organisation of space in higher education which will allow policymakers to insert space-related concerns into the policy debates on decolonised higher education that have been (re-)ignited by the student movement.

This is followed by a number of excellent articles on thematically related matters. Of the articles in this issue I particularly like:

"What Are We Witnessing? Student Protests and the Politics of the Unknowable" by my former colleague at the University of the Free State, Dionne van Reenen. Here Dionne analyses student movement discourse. Her analysis shows that grand narratives are rejected in student movement discourse in favour of attributes such as complexity, infinity, individuality, contingency, discontinuity, flux and unknowability. Students focused on the ‘lower attributes’ through which they were able to articulate individual life-history narratives. As a result, this led to disagreements in communication between students and university leaders. In addition, the author uses the theoretical frame of Stewart et al. (2012), which posits that movements utilise persuasive tactics of affirmation. In particular, she analyses the student movement in terms of identification, polarisation, framing, storytelling, and power. In doing so, the article problematises the student movement narratives, considering the dominating and silenced voices.

"#FeesMustFall: Lessons from the Post‑colonial Global South" by Sipho Dlamini is a well-researched and written article that feels a bit ... funny... it feels like Sipho was out to show how much free higher education is a must in a post-colonial country and then gets all surprised by finding that elsewhere in Africa, the development related to higher education tuition fees has been the opposite - namely introducing cost-sharing... I really like this sense of bewilderment about the article (it really feels like something has been learnt here!) and also how Sipho disentangles himself from the conundrum, arguing that the inequalities in SA are just to stark not to address them with the partially free HE policy that is operative now.

"Theorising the #MustFall Student Movements in Contemporary South African Higher Education: A Social Justice Perspective" by Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo, Kehdinga George Fomunyam and
#FeesMustFall Protests in South Africa: A Critical Realist Analysis of Selected Newspaper Articles"
by George Mavunga also squarely deal with student movement matters, the one from a social justice approach, the other more empirical.

But let me not spoil anything for you. The Journal is open access available at https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/jsaa/issue/view/284/showToc

But be sure to also read the book review by Monica McLean of Talita Calitz' book (2019). Enhancing the Freedom to Flourish. London, UK: Routledge

University Freedoms and Responsibilities: Responding to the Challenges of the Future

I have just arrived in Hamilton, Canada, after 28 hours of flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg, to Addis Ababa, to Dublin and to Toronto, Canada. This is crazy.

Fortunately, I have planted this year already two orange trees, two banana trees, 4 blueberry bushes, one jasmin climber, one granadilla climber and two christophene climbers, and turned a backyard that was entirely concreted up for at least two decades into a garden that produces peas, radish, creeping beans, spinach, cucumber, butter nut pumpkin, strawberries, spring onion, thyme, rosemary, garlic and rocket salad... otherwise I would probably succumb to climate guilt.

And fortunately this travel is for a really important matter: the freedoms, rights and responsibilities, of universities. The Magna Charta Observatory, the University of Bologna and the McMaster University are hosting a conference at McMaster in Hamilton, Canada, and a Ceremony for the Signing of the Magna Charta by universities committed to the principles of the Universitatum.

The conference itself addresses a very important matter dealing with the question of inequality (in society) and how it manifests in the academy. In South Africa, this question is omnipresent in discussions and policy about institutional culture, the legacy of apartheid, staff and student demographics, etc. The conference asks the question in terms of academic freedom: "Is the academy equally free for all its members, and if not, what is the enduring educational value of academic freedom?"

I have been invited to lead a workshop on Wednesday, 16 October, on "The role of representative student associations, current challenges and strategies in response". The workshop seeks to explore, and share experiences of, the challenges that representative student associations (such as student unions, student guilds, and student representative councils) experience to their role and how they respond to such challenges. We will explore questions related to:

1. the different roles of representative student associations, 
2. the effectiveness of student interest representation in formal decision-making structures and processes, 
3. informal interactions with university authorities and stakeholders, and 
4. the experience, effectiveness and impact of student protest action. 

We will consider these topics in relation to (a) the question of students’ rights and responsibilities in the context of the rights and responsibilities of other academic stakeholders and the public; and (b) the diversity of institutional and national student bodies and thus the challenge of aggregating ‘the’ student voice.

And fortunately also, this is not the only thing I took this very long trip for. Indeed, despite the importance (and honour) of participating in this conference and facilitating this workshop, I would not have made this very long trip just for one thing. So I was able to add another thing, which is also exciting.

I will be giving a seminar in the Boston College Centre for International Higher Education (CIHE) on Thursday and spend the rest of the day catching up with the wonderful Dr Rebecca Schendel, with the head of CIHE, Prof Hans de Wit and his colleagues, and with Dr Manja Klemencic who I will go to visit briefly at Harvard and attend a seminar with her there. 

Altbach in India

Altbach in India is a presentation that I gave on 30 August at the 32nd Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) hosted by INCHER in Kassel, Germany. Prof Maria Yudkevich from HSE  Research University, Moscow, was chair of the session and took this picture.

Our argument and study is about analysing the 'longevity' of Altbach's pioneering theoretical work on student politics in India in the 1950s/60s/70s. It argues that amidst the massification and privatization of higher education, dissentive student politics emerging from flagship public universities is on its way to becoming a cornerstone of Indian democratic participation (Martelli 2018). Accordingly, student politics in India has entered a new phase of mobilization and activism. This is evident in protests at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, the Hok Kolorob movement at Jadavpur University, Kolkota, and the Rohith Vemula agitation and other student mobilizations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, to mention just a few. Related recent studies suggest that higher education research on student politics in India has equally entered a new phase in which the agency-centered concepts of political generation, biographical availability, free space, counterculture or value-based mobilization are gaining currency against previous understandings, which perceive educated youth as cohorts reproducing caste and gendered social structures, party politics and consumerism.

Philip G. Altbach’s career as higher education scholar started with a series of studies on student activism in India (Altbach 1966; 1968a & b), followed by similar studies on student politics in America, Europe, and the synthesis of research on student activism in the Global South (Altbach 1984; 1997). In the process, he produced a body of wide-ranging insights relevant to the study of student activism and has become widely considered “the foremost scholar” on student politics and activism in the 20th century (Maldonado-Maldonado & Bassett 2014; Luescher-Mamashela 2015). His expansive work on the topic has since been theorized and applied in a great number of studies and it has recently been synthesized as ten theoretical propositions for understanding student activism in the 20th century (Luescher 2018).

Jean-Thomas Martelli and I decided to revisit the theoretical insights gained by Altbach in his five decades of scholarship on the topic of student politics and activism, in light of latest research on the student movement in the Global South. In particular, we are doing a small study to analyse contributions to a forthcoming volume on student mobilization and activism in contemporary India and South Asia (Parkar & Martelli forthcoming). We engage with the contemporary transformations of student politics in South Asia by re-examining Altbach’s insights on the mobilizational legacy of the Indian independence movement, on the elite-in-the-making leanings of student participation, on the shift of campus participation towards demand-based politics, and on the importance of student movements as springboards for new political leaders. The paper thus interrogates the theoretical relevance of Altbach’s work for understanding current metamorphoses of political representation in the Global South.

Advocating for Social Justice from the Global South to the Global North

The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP/PS) which was founded in 1888 has been one of the strongest, if not the strongest party in the Swiss Parliament and in many cantonal parliaments for over a hundred years. Since 1960 it is also one of the four ruling parties that make up the federal executive, the Swiss Federal Council. As Wikipedia says, "The SP is the largest pro-European party in Switzerland and supports Swiss membership of the European Union, unlike most other Swiss parties. Additionally, it is strongly opposed to capitalism and maintains a long-term goal of "overcoming capitalism." This is informed by its strong social justice agenda, which is reflected also in its German motto "For All, not just for the Few". 

It is a great honour to be called by a political party of such high standing to be a candidate for the 2019 National Council (Swiss federal parliament) election. I have been called as an international candidate, one who is residing abroad but has the right to vote in Switzerland, to stand on the party list of the SP/PS. Given that the National Council election takes as 'wards' or 'constituencies' the cantons, I am a candidate for the National Council in the State of Fribourg (Canton Fribourg). The Canton, is mainly French-speaking and borders on the neighbouring Cantons of Berne, Vaud (with the capital Lausanne) and Canton Neuchatel.

My goal is to have as many Swiss abroad as possible come out to vote (using the e-voting or mail system) and vote in their respective cantons for the SP/PS. The SP/PS is the only party in Switzerland that has a plan for Switzerland in Europe and in the world. It is the party that instituted the social welfare state that even as Swiss abroad (and all who ever lived and worked in Switzerland) have access to. It is a party that understands how global inequality reproduces itself in local, and the local in the global, with all the repercussions this has for global insecurity, inequality and poverty, climate degradation and conspicuous consumption. The full election manifesto for 2019 of the international arm of SP/PS can be found here. 

The significance of space in higher education transformation

Congratulations to Dr Nyakato Philippa Tumubweinee who graduated today from the University of the Free State. Her thesis examined the significance of space in the social construction of the everyday on a university campus.

I am proud to have been a co-promoter of her PhD together with Prof. Loyiso Jita.

Reflections of South African student leaders - towards a long history to the #FeesMustFall campaign

Early announcement - soon to be published:

Reflections of South African Student Leaders

1994-2017 

This exciting collection brings together the reflections of thirteen former SRC leaders from across the landscape of South African universities. Each student leader’s reflections are presented in a dedicated chapter that draws closely on an interview conducted in the course of 2018/19 as well as an interactive process of editing, correcting, and approving the chapter between the researchers and the student leaders. 

Among the purposes of the research and book is to provide a longitudinal, a historical, perspective to #RhodesMustFall, the #FeesMustFall campaign, the #EndOutsourcing campaigns and so forth which continues to change South African higher education profoundly.

Each former student leader was asked a set of questions:

• What is your personal background and context of getting involved in student leadership at university level?
• What is your personal background and context of getting involved in student leadership at university level?
• What were the most important contextual issues defining your time in student leadership?
• How did you see your role in the SRC and the role of the SRC in the university?
• What kind of support did you receive from your institution during your term of office?
• What is your view of the student governance model, the electoral system, and the involvement of political parties in the SRC as prescribed by your university?
• How did you relate to the student body during your term in office?
• How did you participate in university governance (‘co-operative governance’)?
• What were the main challenges that needed to be dealt with during your time in leadership?
•  How did you as student leader deal with these various challenges?
• To what extent was the student voice heard?
•  How do you explain the continued use of student protests in a context of formal student representation in governance structures?
• How do you understand the emergence of the 2015/16 student movement, including #RhodesMustFall, #OpenStellenbosch, and #FeesMustFall, its way of operating (including social media etc.), and its achievements?
• What lessons have you learnt in student leadership?
•  What would you change regarding student governance?
• What has been the impact of your participation in student leadership on your political attitudes and ideology, your participation in politics, your career, and your personal life?
• What were the most important contextual issues defining your time in student leadership?
• How did you see your role in the SRC and the role of the SRC in the university?
• What kind of support did you receive from your institution during your term of office?
• What is your view of the student governance model, the electoral system, and the involvement of political parties in the SRC as prescribed by your university?
• How did you relate to the student body during your term in office?
• How did you participate in university governance (‘co-operative governance’)?
• What were the main challenges that needed to be dealt with during your time in leadership?
•  How did you as student leader deal with these various challenges?
• To what extent was the student voice heard?
•  How do you explain the continued use of student protests in a context of formal student representation in governance structures?
• How do you understand the emergence of the 2015/16 student movement, including the #RhodesMustFall, #OpenStellenbosch, and #FeesMustFall campaigns (amongst others), its way of operating (including social media etc.), and its achievements?
• What lessons have you learnt in student leadership?
• What would you change regarding student governance?
• What has been the impact of your participation in student leadership on your political attitudes and ideology, your participation in politics, your career, and your personal life?

In addition to presenting the student leaders’ answers to these questions in a variety of ways, the book includes an introduction as well as cross-analysis conclusion chapter. 

For the Council on Higher Education, this book represents its second successful publication from its leadership reflections project (which also included a colloquium on student governance in 2019). The first book was published in 2016 as Reflections of South African University Leaders, 1981-2014.

For the Human Sciences Research Council, the research for this book is part of its project on the historical dimension of the new South African student movement “From #RhodesMustFall to #FeesMustFall”, funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

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SETA life: acronymical overload and skills planning data shocks

WSP, ATR, SSP, ETDP, SETA, SDF, NSDP, NSDS, HRC, OFO, PIVOTAL, APP, CPD, PSET, QCTO, NEET, SIC, SpOL, HRDSSA, MTSF, WSPR, HTFV, SAQA-NLRD, UMALUSI, CHE-HEQC, PERSAL, EMIS, HEMIS, CETMIS, FETMIS, PDE, ETQA, LMIP

If you know the first 10 abbreviations/acronyms, you qualify: you are clearly a skills development expert in South Africa 😂😂😂.

Jokes and acronymical overload aside - in a context of growing unemployment, poverty and inequality; demand for high-level skills, skills shortages, and massive youth unemployment; we need to get skills development and related to that, skills planning, right. SETAs, or sectoral educatoin and training authorities, prepare annually updates on their sector skills plans, based on sectoral labour market research and workplace skills plans and reports. In the last years, these SSPs have, apparently, improved in quality. I was involved in research related to the SSP of the public sector ETA; here as a member of the higher education and research chamber of the education, training and development practices SETA, I am still catching up to the work of ETDP SETA and the specific mandate of the HER chamber.

So long, quite a few interesting infos have come from our ETDP SETA HER Chamber workshop of yesterday. Figure 1: What is Skills Planning? And how did the Labour Market Intelligence Project (LMIP) approach the task of developing a skills planning system for SA?

Figure 2 gives an impression of the "skills supply side". What is happening within the schooling and post-schooling system? If 100 learners start at Grade R (pre-Grade 1), how many will get a GETC (Grade 9 completion), or a matric (Grade 12), or make it into higher education and eventually get a higher education certificate, diploma or degree?

The short answer is: 4. In other words, the other 96 percent will not have a (3 year) degree within 6 years of finishing matric. The tragedy is that a degree is basically a guarantee in SA to get a good job; it is a ticket  to upward social mobility, and typically means that an entire extended family will benefit and be lifted out of poverty and have opportunities for their young ones because one family member made it. But the number, even with a GER of 19%, is still way too small.

Lastly, what about the demand side of the Labour Market. Where is there employment growth,? Where does value add/growth also lead to significant employment growth? In other words, where can we get 'bang for the buck' in terms of stimulating sectoral growth for enhancing employment? Figure 3 gives an idea: ... financial services, transport, construction, government, public and social services, and manufacturing. The harsh reality: it is not mining, not agriculture, although the latter can certainly provide for self-employment and dignified livelihoods.