How South Africa’s higher education sector must adapt to avoid system deterioration
If South Africa’s higher education sector proceeds with business as usual and maintains the current status quo, the system will deteriorate.
This was among the key findings of the new ‘Alternative Futures for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education In South Africa: Scenarios For 2036’ report launched on the last day of the 3rd Higher Education Conference held in Pretoria from 9-11October 2024. The report is part of an umbrella project implemented by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) called the REconceptualising LeArning and TEaching (RELATE) Project.
During a plenary session that examined various scenarios of what the future of learning and teaching might look like 12 years from now, Dr Whitfield Green (right), the CHE Chief Executive Officer, explained what led to the RELATE Project. He also gave an overview of the numerous research reports that were published under the project and the importance and usefulness of the insights the reports revealed.
He explained how evolving societal dynamics and major fundamental changes were, as to be expected, having a significant impact on the higher education sector. “Broader societal changes have a direct impact on higher education, with the sector obviously being an integral part of society. Although some of these changes occur beyond higher education, they require a response from the sector,” Dr Green said.
“We’ve seen over the recent years, technology-driven change coming to the fore quite strongly and requiring a response – a societal response, an economic response, a higher education response, and an education response generally. We’ve seen crises-driven change, for example the [CoViD-19] pandemic, and what that has meant for societies, what that has meant for higher education.
“We’ve seen the climate change crisis, and the whole threat around sustainability and the future of our existence on this planet — all needing deep thinking and deep responses from all of us, including in higher education. We’re seeing a lot of workplace-driven change and increasing demands from the workplace for higher education to be more responsive to develop graduates that can transition effectively into the workplace with the knowledge and skills that new economies and new societies require.”
It is these and other local dynamics such as poverty, inequality and unemployment, Dr Green said, that were massive drivers that underpinned the CHE’s work.
“At the CHE we’ve been reflecting on what the higher education response should be… What does this all mean for teaching and learning? What kind of responses do we, as a sector, need to think about? What kind of futures should we attempt to craft for ourselves rather than just letting the future happen to us?”
The future of higher education
Ms Doris Viljoen (left), Director Stellenbosch University’s Institute for Futures Research, and project leader of the Scenarios For 2036 report, provided insights for some of these questions and illustrated what the future could look like, based on the report findings.
She explained that in collaboration with the CHE, the research team assessed and distilled factors that could influence the learning and teaching in the higher education sector. They settled on 28 factors that were explored further in the report.
“After identifying the factors, we played around with them, analysed them and tried to understand which ones would have more influence and which ones would have less… We then developed scenario narratives and then assessed what we can learn from these scenarios.
“So how do we think about the future? Wherever we’re standing in the present, we can imagine multiple, plausible futures. So here, today, there’s a range of possible futures that we can imagine. But the seeds of those futures already exist in the present, and through responsible research, we can find those seeds and imagine how they could develop. Just like with real seeds in nature, the ones that get attention will develop. That puts the focus on us, the people inside of this system, because we have an influence over the future that actually plays out.”
What do these 28 factors reveal?
Viljoen said the insights showed that “if we carry on as we’re currently doing, the system will likely deteriorate.”
When asked which of the 28 factors had the most influence on outcomes, she said the four pivotal factors were: the availability of funding to learning and teaching; the approach to institutional capacity and resourcing; the perceived importance of research relative to learning and teaching and the ability to keep pace with new knowledge and ongoing curriculum reform.
Technology and change fatigue
While emphasising the need for adaptability and agility, Viljoen said the sector needs to be cognisant and sensitive to technology and change fatigue, which was a reality that impacted the system’s ability and capacity to keep up with rapid changes.
“Technology and change fatigue is a real thing. We must acknowledge that. It’s hard to adapt to new technologies and we have to do that very frequently. We can’t change the pace of technology but we can pay attention to the people that have to adopt the changes. I’m not entirely sure if we’re good with people management in higher education.”
Viljoen added that: “I think going forward, in such a complex environment with competing priorities… we need to spare a thought, acknowledge and nurture the people that are working within our learning and teaching systems.”
Dr Green concluded by saying: “There are many possibilities and many potential futures that could arise. For me, out of this work, more important focal points are the factors. How we work with these factors will determine the kind of scenario that will emerge for us.
“Let’s think of these scenarios as thinking tools, but in our planning, we must then look at the range of factors and think about the interplay between them, and think about how they work together in support of each other or against each other. We must work with them intentionally if we want to craft a particular future.”
Nontobeko Mtshali is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.