Welcome to
Universities South Africa
Universities South Africa (USAf) is an umbrella body representative of the 26 public universities in SA.
USAf endorses a comprehensive and equitable national higher education system that is responsive to the challenges facing South Africa. Through lobbying and advocacy, USAf promotes and facilitates an optimal environment conducive for universities to function effectively and efficiently. It promotes cohesive but diverse public universities in service of society, recognising the need for strong and effective universities.
Who we are
We facilitate collaboration through providing platforms for the universities to debate on common challenges, share best practices among one another and with various stakeholder groupings. We also encourage working together for stronger public universities. We offer a vital platform where all 26 public universities and other higher education institutions, whether public, private, local or global can converge and engage on common issues and to collaborate for the common good. Through this role, we are able to strengthen South Africa’s universities and demonstrate their value.
USAf is the mouthpiece of all public universities and ensures that the universities’ views are heard in public debates, hence adopting the tagline: The Voice of South African Universities. In that context, we are a thought leader influencing role players and providing commentary and advice on national legislation and policies.
Our Vision
Sustainable and Responsive Universities
Our Vision for 2026 has been developed around the desire to improve and strengthen South African public universities into sustainable, efficiently and effectively operating institutions. We support our member institutions to become sustainable, financially and socially; to ensure that they are responsive to their immediate contexts, are nationally relevant and internationally competitive. Through our projects and programmes, we enable our institutions to identify and respond to national challenges and opportunities for the ultimate benefit of society.
To achieve this Vision, we will work with and for universities, bringing together both local and international partners to collaborate and share resources, ideas, best practice, and policy options. We will identify opportunities to bolster our universities through building capacity.
Our Mission
To Strengthen South African Universities through Advocacy, Building Capacity, and Advancing Collaboration with local and international partners and with society
Our Strategic Objectives
USAf’s strategic objectives for 2024 to 2026 are to:
- Be responsive to the national context within which universities operate to ensure an effective response to emerging trends for the benefit of the universities, the post-school education and training (PSET) sector, and society more broadly.
- Improve the sustainability of the higher education sector, including financially, environmentally and in terms of staffing.
- Advance transformative universities.
- Advocate for universities through coordinating responses to common priorities and intervening to overcome challenges.
- Build a fit-for-purpose USAf through effective staffing, capacity development, financial sustainability, and good governance practices.
Our Values
At USAf, we subscribe to and anchor our behaviour in four values, namely: Respect, Integrity, Responsiveness and Professionalism.
Respect
At USAf we believe in applying the same standards of justice and fairness, respect, responsiveness and professionalism to everyone. We afford everyone due courtesy, dignity and consideration, regardless of their age, class, ethnicity or country of origin, ability, gender, sexuality, position, race or religion.
Integrity
At USAf we believe in maintaining the highest standards of honesty, dependability, accountability, and ethical and moral conduct at all times. We commit to doing what is morally and ethically right with consistency, in private or in the public domain.
Responsiveness
At USAf we strive to respond expeditiously and most efficiently to our stakeholders’ needs, concerns, and expectations, as well as to the environment in which we operate. Recognising that every employee-stakeholder interaction represents a USAf experience, we will respond timeously and with empathy, especially to the matters over which we have control, giving the best of ourselves in every stakeholder interaction.
Professionalism
At USAf we undertake to discharge our responsibilities accountably, responsibly and to the highest standards of quality, reflective of our skills and competencies.
Our Pillars of Delivery
Drawing on our vision, mission and objectives, as well as the local and international context within which we operate, we will deliver all our work in the next three years focused on advancing Responsiveness, Sustainability, and Transformation.
Responsiveness to our context
Responsiveness refers to the need to ensure that universities and USAf respond appropriately to the changing social, political, technological, and economic context within which public universities operate. Through taking the context into account, USAf will be able to advocate effectively for universities and will work together with partners to identify opportunities for universities to thrive.
Sustainability, long-term
Sustainability is about ensuring a better future through acting responsibly today, cognisant of the need to balance growth, spending, resource use and infrastructure development, environmental care, and social well-being. Within the university context, USAf is particularly focused on improving the financial sustainability of universities and developing an excellent and transformed cohort of academics and support staff for the future. USAf will also highlight the need for universities to lessen their environmental impact and to carry out research on sustainable practices, not just for South Africa’s universities but for broader global impact. Internally, USAf is concerned with its own financial sustainability, staff development, and its environmental impact.
Transformation: Change for a better future
Transformation is about bringing about positive change. In the South African context, it has come to be understood as transitioning from the apartheid era into a democratic era. Transformation remains a key education policy goal, as it is understood that through education change can be realised. The transformation agenda underpins the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training. Building an expanded, effective and integrated post-school system, which envisions ‘a single, coordinated’ system that is ‘fair, equitable, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic’, offering ‘expanded access, improved quality and increased diversity’, strengthened through ‘cooperative relationships’ and ‘responsive to the needs of individual citizens’ and ‘broader societal and developmental objectives’ (DHET, 2013:4). This aligns with USAf’s vision for universities.
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Partners and Stakeholders
