Diversity, quality andcommunity involvement:

key curriculum challenges in South African higher education

Ian ScottUniversity of Cape Town

and LearnHigher, Liverpool Hope UniversityMay 2007

Theme

• HE curriculum implications of meeting developmental needs in the South African context

• Sub-theme: To what extent are these issues present in other contexts?

Outline• Context: Some key conditions affecting

higher education in South Africa

• To what extent is higher education meeting key developmental needs?

• Implications for systemic change• with particular reference to curriculum

What does South Africa (most) need from higher education?

• ‘Development’

• economic growth and globalisation

• ‘integrated knowledge solutions to deal with complex socioeconomic problems’ (CHE 2004)

• universities ‘key agents for the continual improvement of the conditions in which people live’ (Ndebele 2007)

What does South Africa (most) need from higher education?

• Equity and inclusiveness

• distributing the benefits of higher education

• contributing to ‘social responsiveness’ in research and curriculum

• in the interests of social justice and stability

What does South Africa (most) need from higher education?

• Special need for ‘good’ graduates: quantity, quality, mix, orientation

• Skills shortages as major obstacle

• Education key to ‘economic development and … social cohesion’ (Minister of Ed 2005)

• The core of higher education’s ‘core business’?

The first post-transition decade

• Considerable achievements• extensive policy development

• a single higher education system

• substantial growth: over 50% since 1991

• diversity in the student intake

• Time for appraisal of progress and priorities

How well is the sector doing?

• Performance patterns derived from DoE’s cohort study of the 2000 and 2001 intakes of first-time entering students

• Acknowledgements: • Council on Higher Education: ‘Improving Teaching

and Learning for Success’

• Department of Education

• Jane Hendry and Nan Yeld (UCT)

Student performance after 5 years: Overall

Graduated 30%

Still registered 14%

Left without graduating 56%

Estimated completion rate 44%?

Do we need to be concerned?

• To what extent is the sector doing what it can to meet the country needs?

• Are the performance patterns ‘normal’, or perhaps unavoidable?

Participation rates* and their significance

• Overall: 16%

• White: 61%

• Indian: 50%

• Black: 12%• Coloured: 12%

* Approximate gross rates derived from HEMIS 2004:all participants as % of 20-24 age-group

Implications of the participation rates

• The view that a large proportion of current students ‘do not belong’ in higher education is not tenable

• Essential backdrop for assessing equity and social responsiveness

Equity of outcomesGraduation after 5 years in general

academic first B-degrees, excl UNISA

CESM Black White

04: Business/Management 33% 72%

15: Life and Phys Sciences 31% 63%

22: Social Sciences 34% 68%

12: Languages 32% 68%

Observations

• Among the CESMs and qualification types analysed in the contact universities:

• in all cases the number of black graduates is less than the number of white graduates

• the gains in access are reversed

Implications of the patterns• Output not matching national needs in respect of

‘economic growth … and social cohesion’ (Pandor 2005)

• Current system not meeting the needs of the majority• sector successfully accommodating only about 5% of

the Black age-group

• Pressing need to widen successful participation• high stakes for development

Improving the outcomes of the system to meet societal needs

• Large proportion of (needed) students not well served by the current system

• Improving outcomes depends on systemic change

Where does responsibility lie?

• Factors beyond the higher education sector’s control• ‘money and poor schooling’ (M&G 2006)

• Factors within the higher education sector’s control• Institutional climate and orientation

• The educational process in higher education is in itself a major variable affecting who benefits from higher education

Where does responsibility lie?

• Argument that the higher education sector needs to take its share of responsibility for systemic change• on pragmatic and principled grounds

• based on vision of different outcomes

Centrality of curriculum

• Curriculum structure as the primary framework for teaching and learning

• traditional curricula suiting only a minority of the student intake

• Curriculum a key terrain of tension between equity, development and social responsiveness

Key curriculum challenges

• Accommodating diversity• in the SA context, catering successfully for student

diversity has become an essential condition for development as well as social inclusion

• Quality and standards• allowing for responsible admission on the basis of

‘potential’

• Social responsiveness• preparation for the diversity of contemporary

societies, and particularly for the developing world

Accommodating diversity• Understanding diversity

• cultural diversity widely seen as enriching learning process and outcomes

• but diversity in educational background is rooted in inequalities

• Key educational challenge for the universities is to cater effectively for the different forms of diversity in the student body

Implications for curriculum structure

• Traditional, inherited curriculum framework not modified despite major changes in the student intake

• inadequacy of unitary curriculum structures for diverse intake

Graduated in regulation time:General academic first B-degrees, excl dist ed

CESM Black White

04: Business/Management 11% 43%

15: Life and Phys Sciences 11% 35%

22: Social Sciences 14% 43%

12: Languages 13% 52%

Accommodating diversity in educational background

• Nature of educational disadvantage in SA

• disparity and difference in educational capital

• home language and the medium of learning

• school-teacher capacity and over-reliance on rote

• prospects for the improvement of school outcomes

The need for curriculum space and flexibility

• For HE-orientated developmental or ‘foundational’ learning for all who need it

• building on the realities of school outcomes

• ‘unjamming’ the curriculum

• for academic literacies and skills: e.g. language, information and quantitative literacy

• for experiential and community-based learning

• not ‘remedial’

Towards the desired outcomes: Implications for structures

• Viability of alternatives to traditional approaches?• educational development experience in SA

• The validity of sub-degree qualifications in the South African context?

• Institutional differentiation as the solution?

Implications for structures

• Need for diversity in mainstream provision• in all institutions

• Curriculum flexibility and reform as a key to enabling admission on the basis of ‘potential’• pointing the way to balancing inclusiveness

and quality

Social responsiveness

• Central concept in SA higher education policy• cuts across research and teaching

• reaction to perceived ‘first-world’ orientation

• UCT key phrases: • ‘engagement’

• ‘putting knowledge to work in addressing pressing economic and social issues’

Aims of social responsiveness irt ‘teaching’

• Preparation for living and working in diverse social environments• balancing local/continental and international

relevance

• Promoting responsible, active citizenship

• Improving quality of life in local communities

• Role in promoting inclusiveness?

Voluntary service

• e.g. UCT’s Students’ Health and Welfare Centres Organisation: SHAWCO

Social responsiveness in teaching: issues and obstacles

• A fundamental curriculum issue• tensions in values and orientation for students

as well as staff

• Where does community-based or service learning work? • in areas with inherent community relevance,

e.g. health, housing, education

• through individual or departmental commitment, e.g. law, politics, environment

Social responsiveness in teaching: issues and obstacles

• Ethical issues• Who benefits?

• Practical and attitudinal obstacles• curriculum space

• large classes

• assessment and ‘standards’

• safety

• lack of recognition of effort and expertise

Social responsiveness in teaching

• Complementarity in policy and mission statements

• In practice, unresolved tension between research, teaching and social responsiveness

• Key choices and commitments still to be made

Significance of ‘educational expertise’

• Traditional teaching approaches not adequate in SA context

• Importance of educational ‘expertise’ (Kreber)

• Understanding the core challenge and recognising all the manifestations of scholarship

In conclusion

• Educational development as a key instrument for meeting priority needs

• Consequences of business-as-usual?• In whose interests is the status quo?

• ‘Disadvantage’ as a majority phenomenon• Help or hindrance?

• Lessons from comparative studies?

‘What goes on in actual teaching, learning and researching environments

is at the heart of the goal of transformation’

Njabulo Ndebele 2006

Some references

• SA Higher Education White Paper, 1997

http://www.education.gov.za/index.aspx >documents>legislation

• UCT Social Responsiveness Report 2006

http://www.ipd.uct.ac.za/ >social responsibility

• SHAWCOhttp://www.shawco.org

• Tensions between research, teaching and social responsiveness in SA

http://portal-live.solent.ac.uk/university/rtconference/2007/resources/ian_scott.pdf