Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Dimensions of higher education and the public good in South Africa

  • Published:
Higher Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The focus is on the micro-possibilities of student capabilities formation as the end of public-good higher education, rather than on a systems or organizations approach more commonly found in discussions of the public good and higher education. This does not discount other valuable public-good ends. Using South Africa as a global South context, a capability-based approach to the public good of higher education is proposed for its humanizing ethic, attention to fair opportunities, and participation in terms of what students are able to do and to be in and through higher education. A capability frame is complemented by thinking about decoloniality and epistemic justice to help identify central higher education capabilities. The three proposed intersecting capability dimensions are as follows: personhood self-formation, epistemic contribution, and sufficiency of economic resources, intended to guide university practices and policy interventions in the direction of the public good. By populating the space of the public good with capabilities, a shift is made away from micro-economics which see the public good as a reductionist space of commodities and human capital development. Higher education is rather understood as having both instrumental and intrinsic value, generating an alternative logic to that of neo-liberalism, and an individualist ontology of competition and untrammeled markets. The pressures of the global context are acknowledged so that the public good is understood as both “ideal-aspirational” but also “practical-feasible” in the light of local South African conditions. An expanded capability-based framing would contribute to reducing higher education inequalities as a public-good and public-accountable contribution by universities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Badat, S. (2016). Deciphering the meanings and explaining the South African Higher Education Student Protests of 2015–2016. Retrieved 9 December 2016 from https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/uhuru/documents/.

  • Biko, S. (1978). I write what I like. Johannesburg: Picador Africa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bisseker, C. (2017). Debunking the myths. Financial Mail, 21-27, 23–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boliver, V. (2017). Misplaced optimism: How higher education reproduces rather than reduces social inequality. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 38(3), 423–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boni, S., & Walker, M. (2016). Universities and global human development. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2005). The social structures of the economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calitz, T. & Hoeppener, M. (2017). #FeesMustFall: a media analysis of students voices on access to universities in South Africa, unpublished paper.

  • Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL). (2016). Engaging the Student Voice. Annual Report 2016. Bloemfontein: University of the Free State.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, D. (2015). SA students from skewed to stalled revolution. Higher Education Quarterly, 69(3), 237–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Sousa Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the south: Justice against Epistemicide. London: Paradigm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Department of Education (DOE). (1997). Education white paper 3: A Programme for higher education transformation. Pretoria: Department of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Department of Education (DOE). (2008). Report of the ministerial committee on transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions, final report. Pretoria: Department of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). (2013). White paper on post-compulsory education and training. Pretoria: DHET.

    Google Scholar 

  • Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). (2015). Are we making progress with systemic structural transformation of resourcing, access, success, staffing and researching in higher education: What do the data say? Paper prepared for the second national Higher Education Summit, Durban, October 2015.

  • Fanon, F. (1967 [1961]). The wretched of the Earth. Trans C Farrington. London: Penguin Books.

  • Fanon, F. (2008 [1952]). Black skin, white masks. Transl. Charles Lam Markmann. Reprinted London: Pluto Press.

  • Fricker, M. (2015). Epistemic contribution as a central human capability. In G. Hull (Ed.), The equal society. Lanham: Lexington Book.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, K. (2017). Favour rigorous debate not security. Mail and Guardian. 3–9 March, 26.

  • Guzman-Valenzuela, C. (2016). Unfolding the meaning of public9() in universities: Toward the transformative university. Higher Education, 71, 667–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, C. (2009). Uncertain citizenship and public deliberation in post#aparthied South Africa. Social Dynamics, 35(2), 355–374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hlatshwayo, M., Maharah, R., Mawrawu, Z., Motala, E., Naidoo, L-A, Vally, S. (2016). Higher education not a commodity. Mail and Guardian. November 18–24, 30.

  • Kessi, S., & Cornell, J. (2015). Coming to UCT. Black students, transformation and discourses of race. Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 3(2), 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Le Grange, L (2016). Decolonising the university curriculum, SAJHE, 30(2). Available online at http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/709. Accessed 13 Dec 2017.

  • Leibowitz, B. (2012). Introduction: Reflections on higher education and the public good. In B. Leibowitz (Ed.), Higher education for the public good: Views from the south. Stoke on Trent, UK and Sterling, USA: Trentham Books & Sun Media.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lotter, H. (2016). Poverty, ethics and justice revisited. Res Publica, 22, 343–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luckett, K., & Naicker, V. (2016). Responding to misrecognition from a (post)colonial university. Critical Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1234495.

  • Macey, D. (2000). Frantz Fanon. A Life. London: Granta Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maldonado-Torres, N. (2016). Outline of ten theses on Coloniality and Decoloniality. Available at https://www.din.today/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/maldonado-torres_outline_of_ten_theses-10.23.16_.pdf/ Retrieved 20 June 2017.

  • Makou, G., Wilkinson, K., Bhardwaj, V. (2016). FACTSHEET: Funding & the changing face of SA’s public universities. Available at https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-funding-changing-face-sas-public-universities/ Retrieved 13 Dec 2017.

  • Marginson, S. (2011). Higher education and public good. Higher Education Quarterly, 65(4), 411–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mignolo, W. (2007). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 449–514.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montenegro, C. E. & Patrinos, H. A. (2014). Human development reports comparable estimates of returns to schooling around the world. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Retrieved 16 June 2016, from :https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-7020.

  • Msila, V. (2016). FeesMustFall is just the start of change, Mail and Guardian, January 21. Available at https://mg.co.za/article/2016-01-20-fees-are-just-the-start-of-change/ Retrieved 13 December 2017.

  • Neocosmos, M. (2016). Thinking Freedom in Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

  • Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and Human Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Panyane, M. (2016). Young, black, educated, jobless, City Press 3 June, 15.

  • Pithouse, R. (2016). Violence: what Fanon really said, Mail and Guardian, 8 April to 14 April, 23.

  • Reeler, S. K. (2015) Steps towards Decolonial Higher Education in South Africa? Researching Epistemic Disobedience in the Postcolonial Humanities. Paper presented at CODESRIA, Dakar, 8–12 June 2015.

  • Robeyns, I. (2017). Wellbeing, freedom and social justice: The capability approach re-examined. UK: Open Book Publishers.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sekyi-Otu, A. (1996). Fanon’s dialectic of experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. London: Allen Lane.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. (2017). ‘What’s the use of Education?’ Keynote address delivered at the launch of the Centre for International Education and Development (CIED), University College London,15 June 2017.

  • Singh, M. (2001). Re-inserting the ‘public good’ into higher education transformation, Kagisano, 1 (1). Pretoria: Council on Higher Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soldatenko, G. (2015). A contribution toward the decolonization of philosophy: Asserting the Coloniality of power in the study of non-western philosophical traditions. Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 7(2), 138–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soudien, C. (2008). Sociology and the possibilities of ‘southern theory’: An engagement with Raewyn Connell. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(6), 719–725.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soudien, C. (2016) Non-racialism's politics: reading being human through the life of Neville Alexander. In A. Zinn (Ed.), Non-racialism in South Africa: The Life and Times of Neville Alexander. Port Elizabeth: CANRAD.

  • Walker, M. (2017). Perspectives on access. Dean’s seminar series, University of Pretoria, 26 April 2017.

  • Walker, M. & McLean, M. (2013). Professional Education, Capabilities and the Public Good. Abingdon: Routledge

  • Walker, M. & Fongwa, S. (2017). Universities, Employability and Human Development. London: Palgrave Macmillan

  • Walker, M. & Wilson-Strydom, M. (2016). Student development, decolonization and an ethics of care. Paper delivered at the HELTASA conference, 23–25 November, 2016, Cape Town.

  • Williams, J. (2016). A critical exploration of changing definitions of public good in relation to higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 41(4), 619–631.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wiredu, K. (2004). Prolegomena to an African philosophy of education. SAJHE, 18(3), 17–26.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

My thanks to all the following for ideas or comments: two anonymous referees, Monica McLean, Merridy Wilson-Strydom, Geoff Hinchliffe, Carmen Martinez, and participants in my UCL seminar on decoloniality and the public good. I acknowledge funding support from the NRF for my SARCHi chair grant number 86540, and the ESRC award number ES/NO10094/1 for the Miratho project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CRHED, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, 9301, South Africa

    Melanie Walker

Authors
  1. Melanie Walker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Melanie Walker.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Walker, M. Dimensions of higher education and the public good in South Africa. High Educ 76, 555–569 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0225-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0225-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation