The Restructuring of South African Higher Education

http://www.unisa.ac.za/default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=23530

The Restructuring of South African Higher Education: Rocky Roads from Policy Formulation to Institutional Mergers, 2001-2005 by Terri Barnes

Before 1994, South Africa supported 36 higher education institutions, as part of its apartheid legacy. Enforced racial segregation resulted in a plethora of institutions to accommodate specific racial and language groups, which were managed and professionally staffed mostly by white males. Financially, these higher education institutions were an enormous burden for the new state after 1994. This book examines the processes of restructuring following on the government’s decision in 2001/2002: to radically reform the legacy of ‘the geopolitical imagination of the apartheid planners’ in higher education. This is an innovative attempt to get under the skin of what was clearly the most major intervention in South African higher education since 1959, utilising a set of site-based observers on each campus, and regular interviews with key informants at each case-study site. Since the merging of institutions was far-reaching but widely contested, the study gives descriptive information to analyse whether the mergers were helping towards advancing the causes of equity and increasing student access to higher education. A comprehensive range of institutions are covered; and the main researchers, all institutional insiders, represent strong diversity in training and perspectives.