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