Developing epistemic impartiality to deliver on justice in higher education South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 174619792110486
Author(s):  
Siseko H Kumalo
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Institutional Autonomy ◽  
Public Accountability ◽  
Institutional Governance ◽  
Epistemic Justice ◽  
The Social

In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability as fundamental to institutional governance, in part I of this analysis I broadened public accountability to include the social, political and economic factors that inhibit or act as catalyst to the attainment of educational desire. In this second part publication, I am interested in developing and proposing epistemic impartiality. This concept is developed from Mitova’s proposition of ‘decolonising knowledge without too much relativism’, which ultimately fosters epistemic justice through rigorously scrutinising each epistemic tradition. My suggestion is that epistemic impartiality enables dialogue between divergent traditions.

Documenting mobility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Payne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Education Students ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Cherry Picking ◽  
Independent Commission

While mobility was the sole concern of recent politics, its importance can be gauged from official documents. These include Labour’s White Paper New Opportunities (2009); the Liberal Democrats’ ‘Independent Commission on Social Mobility’ (2009); Conservative policy papers Building Skills, Transforming Lives (2008) and Through the Glass Ceiling(2008); the Coalition’s Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: a strategy for social mobility (2011) and White Paper Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System (2011), and the Conservatives’ Fulfilling Our Potential (2015); plus reports from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (‘SMCPC’), the All-party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility (2012), and briefings like the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit’s Getting on, getting ahead (2008). A review of these reveals wrong technical definitions, cherry-picking of research evidence, and unwarranted assumptions about early life intervention as a mobility facilitator.

scholarly journals Restructuring And Mergers Of The South African Post-Apartheid Tertiary System (1994-2011): A Critical Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Nelda Mouton ◽  
G.P. Louw ◽  
G.L. Strydom
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
White Paper ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
Tertiary Institutions ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Global Science ◽  
The Impact

Socio-economic and vocational needs of communities, governments and individuals change over the years and these discourses served as a compass for restructuring of higher institutions in South Africa from 1994. Before 1994, the claim to legitimacy for government policies in higher education rested on meeting primarily the interests of the white minority. From 1996 onwards, the newly established government considered education a major vehicle of societal transformation. The main objective had been to focus on reducing inequality and fostering internationalisation. Therefore, the rationale for the restructuring of South African universities included a shift from science systems to global science networks. Various challenges are associated with restructuring and include access, diversity, equity and equality. Thus, the restructuring and mergers between former technikons and traditional universities were probably the most difficult to achieve in terms of establishing a common academic platform, as transitional conditions also had to be taken into account and had a twin logic: It was not only the legacy of apartheid that had to be overcome but the incorporation of South Africa into the globalised world was equally important as globalisation transforms the economic, political, social and environmental dimensions of countries and their place in the world. Initially, the post-apartheid higher education transformation started with the founding policy document on higher education, the Report of the National Commission on Higher Education and this report laid the foundation for the 1997 Education White Paper 3 on Higher Education in which a transformed higher education system is described. Restructuring and mergers also had a far-reaching impact, positive and negative, on the various tertiary institutions. This article also reflects on the impact of restructuring and mergers of higher education and reaches the conclusion that higher education faces many more challenges than initially anticipated prior to transformation.

scholarly journals CHALLENGES FACING SMALL TO MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN METSIMAHOLO MUNICIPALITY, SOUTH AFRICA

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23
Author(s):  
Jeremiah Madzimure ◽  
◽  
Lebereko Phillip Tau ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Unit Price ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Management Skills ◽  
Business Skills ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medium Enterprises ◽  
Further Development

In South Africa, the failure rate of Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) amounts to 75% in an estimated interval of 42 months of operation. The purpose of this study is to determine the challenges facing SMEs in Metsimaholo municipality, Free State province of South Africa. Quantitative data was acquired from 102 Metsimaholo SME owners or their representatives, utilizing questionnaires which were completed, returned, and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0 software. It was then established that economic factors have realistic control on the sustainability of SMEs. In addition, further development of SMEs is restrained by competition from immigrant businesses, transportation of inventory, inadequate management skills, substandard marketing, miserable manipulation of financial activities and business, unreachable loans. Notwithstanding the afore-said outcome, SMEs must carefully look at obtaining business skills coaching and support, enlarge or vary the range of products, put back any profits made by a business into it in order to make it more successful. Cooperation amongst SMEs would be a strategy for them to challenge rivalry. Therefore, SMEs will bargain from transportation of goods bought in large quantities for a unit price that is lower than usual.

scholarly journals Restructuring And Mergers Of The South African Post-Apartheid Tertiary System (1994-2011): A Critical Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Nelda Mouton ◽  
G. P. Louw ◽  
G. L. Strydom
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
White Paper ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
Tertiary Institutions ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Global Science ◽  
The Impact

Socio-economic and vocational needs of communities, governments and individuals change over the years and these discourses served as a compass for restructuring of higher institutions in South Africa from 1994. Before 1994, the claim to legitimacy for government policies in higher education rested on meeting primarily the interests of the white minority. From 1996 onwards, the newly established government considered education a major vehicle of societal transformation. The main objective had been to focus on reducing inequality and fostering internationalisation. Therefore, the rationale for the restructuring of South African universities included a shift from science systems to global science networks. Various challenges are associated with restructuring and include access, diversity, equity and equality. Thus, the restructuring and mergers between former technikons and traditional universities were probably the most difficult to achieve in terms of establishing a common academic platform, as transitional conditions also had to be taken into account and had a twin logic: It was not only the legacy of apartheid that had to be overcome but the incorporation of South Africa into the globalised world was equally important as globalisation transforms the economic, political, social and environmental dimensions of countries and their place in the world. Initially, the post-apartheid higher education transformation started with the founding policy document on higher education, the Report of the National Commission on Higher Education and this report laid the foundation for the 1997 Education White Paper 3 on Higher Education in which a transformed higher education system is described. Restructuring and mergers also had a far-reaching impact, positive and negative, on the various tertiary institutions. This article also reflects on the impact of restructuring and mergers of higher education and reaches the conclusion that higher education faces many more challenges than initially anticipated prior to transformation.

scholarly journals On extending the truncated parameters of transformation in higher education in South Africa into a language of democratic engagement and justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuraan Davids
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Engagement ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Real Challenge ◽  
Do So

Universities, in their multiplex roles of social, political, epistemological and capital reform, are by their constitution expected to both symbolise and enact transformation. While institutions of higher education in South Africa have been terrains of protest and reform – whether during apartheid or post-apartheid – the intense multiplex roles which these institutions assume have metaphorically come home to roost in the past 2 years. Not unlike the social-media-infused rumblings, coined as the ‘Arab Spring’, the recent cascades of #mustfall campaigns have brought to the fore the serious dearth of transformation in higher education and have raised more critical questions about conceptions of transformation, and how these translate into, or reflect, the social and political reform that continues to dangle out of the reach of the majority of South Africans. What, then, does transformation mean and imply? How does an institution reach a transformed state? How does one know when such a state is reached? These are a few of the concerns this article seeks to address. But it hopes to do so by moving beyond the thus far truncated parameters of transformation – which have largely been seeped in the oppositional politics of historical advantage and disadvantage, and which, in turn, have ensured that conceptions of transformation have remained trapped in discourses of race and racism. Instead, this article argues that the real challenge facing higher education is not so much about transformation, as it is about enacting democracy through equipping students to live and think differently in a pluralist society.

The Role of Student Affairs in Promoting Social Justice in South Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Schreiber
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Student Affairs ◽  
Universal Design ◽  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Universal Design For Learning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Design For Learning

AbstractStudent affairs, as an integral part of universities, has taken on a key position in contributing to social justice as one of the central imperatives of higher education in South Africa. This article sketches the development of this role and outlines some important tasks for contemporary student affairs. Three conceptual models within the social justice framework are utilized: participatory parity, universal design for learning, and student engagement. These models are uniquely useful to strengthen student affairs’s contribution to the development of social justice in South Africa. It is suggested that student affairs leaders articulate a more explicit position on social justice in order to contribute more cogently to students’ awareness of positionality, privilege, and exclusion.

scholarly journals Higher education leadership responses applied in two South African comprehensive universities during the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamvalethu Kele ◽  
Pedro Mzileni
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
South African ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Comprehensive Universities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Justice Theory

Background: This article explored the leadership responses that were used by two comprehensive universities in South Africa (Nelson Mandela University and University of Johannesburg) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in continuing with the rolling out of their teaching and learning programmes safely and digitally under disruptive conditions.Aim: Whilst universities in the developing world such as South Africa were expected to face challenges during the pandemic, this article showed that the leadership executives and general staff in two of its large universities, instead, crafted equitable and flexible improvisations to overcome the social challenges that could have posed a threat to their academic project.Setting: The selection of these two specific universities provided a unique opportunity to engage with comprehensive, massified and post-merger former Technikon-university institutions that mainly cater for working-class students.Methods: The social justice theory was utilised to frame the study, whilst critical narrative analysis was the methodology.Results: This research reveals that South African comprehensive universities possess capacity to adapt and innovate in the middle of an institutional crisis using their flexible systems and agile personnel to drive the academy under such circumstances. The study also reveals that the process of social justice is full of contradictions. As the universities created equitable measures to assist underprivileged students, these measures also generated injustices for others.Conclusion: This generated admirable and productive systematic traits to observe about some of our universities, as the South African higher education sector continued to engage with difficult conversations such as transformation.

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