Abstract
With the demise of apartheid the higher education landscape of South Africa
(SA) had to change as well. As a guiding document, the Restructuring of the
Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 (RSA 1997) sets out the programme for the
envisioned new higher education system. Among some of the changes
envisaged by this Act was that higher education needed to be responsive to
the broader process of SA’s socio-economic and political transition. Of note is
that, by virtue of the history of the higher educational landscape in SA, the
changes were experienced in two phases. The first phase just after 1994 was
characterised by debates on the restructuring centred on the changed political
environment. This was a period where issues such as equal access to higher
education institutions and opportunities for staff and students across race and
gender lines, unequal funding, appropriateness of curriculum, shortages of
graduates in the fields of science, and inefficiency and ineffectiveness of
university management were attempted to be addressed.
The second (current) phase is the “globalisation of education” – market
principles are introduced into education, with a resultant rise in study fees;
academic training is being steered more by market forces than by
government; and incorporations and mergers of higher education institutions
are being enforced to ensure efficiency, amongst other things.
My intention to undertake a study on the restructuring of higher education was
because the subject has raised different views and different reactions from
different stakeholders. There are authors who are against the manner in
which the restructuring of higher education is being formulated and
implemented, especially in this second phase, i.e. the globalisation of higher
education. Such authors include Komane (2002:7), Goedegebuure, Kaiser,
Maassen and De Weert (1994:3), Berstelsen (1998:130), Kgaphola (1999:19)
and Clark (1998:5).
Ms. Carina van Rooyen