Student voices, public value and AI governance test university resilience

Day Two Reflections from the Parallel Sessions challenged universities to act on student participation, anticipate familiar disruptions, strengthen innovation and coordinate their response to artificial intelligence.

Students who sit on university committees without influencing decisions, leaders who wait for predictable registration disruptions and researchers rewarded for publications rather than solutions were among the concerns raised as university leaders examined what institutional resilience should deliver.

Those concerns shaped the closing reflections on Thursday, 8 October 2026, during Day Two, “Reimagining Universities”, of the 4th Universities South Africa (USAf) Higher Education Conference. The conference ran from 7 to 9 October at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) International Convention Centre in Pretoria under the theme “Co-Creating a Resilient Future”.

Professor Thokozani Majozi, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation at the University of Cape Town, chaired the session. He invited speakers to examine agreement, tensions and opportunities for collaboration across the day’s discussions. The reflections came from Dr Sanele Nene, Professor Thoko Mayekiso, Dr Saloschini Pillay, Professor Lynn Morris and Professor Thobeka Ncanywa.

Professor Majozi identified tensions between efficiency and equity, technological change and institutional capacity, and global engagement and local relevance.

Dr Nene, Director: National Standards and Reviews at the Council on Higher Education (CHE), returned to the afternoon discussion on student success. Admission, she told delegates, was insufficient, with students still facing financial, academic and institutional barriers. Student success had to include a positive educational experience, digital capability, participation, and prospects that extend beyond conventional employment.

Her account echoed the earlier contribution from Dr Thato Masekoa, spokesperson for the South African Union of Students, who had described application fees, late funding, hunger and accommodation difficulties as obstacles that begin before teaching does. He had also questioned institutional consultations in which student representatives could attend meetings but exercise little influence over fee decisions.

Dr Nene distinguished students being present in discussions and their views being reflected in the decisions. Universities should treat them as partners in shaping curricula and institutional responses, while recognising that responsibility for success also rests with universities, government and society.

Dr Nene also urged universities to understand students in the context of their broader circumstances rather than solely as entrants to academic programmes. She linked educational success to relevant skills, a positive learning experience and the ability to contribute to society, including through enterprise.

Professor Francois Strydom of the University of the Free State had provided a practical example earlier in the day. He described the institution’s use of learning-management data to identify students who might need assistance, followed by calls that referred them to existing services. His point was that disconnected support systems could generate substantial activity without responding coherently to a student’s circumstances.

Professor Mayekiso, former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Mpumalanga, drew on the session devoted to institutional resilience, strategy and agility. She said university leaders needed foresight, adaptability and the capacity to manage risks, including disruptions during registration and student protests.

The difference between adaptation and survival, she argued, begins before a crisis. Registration difficulties are recurring events: management should anticipate them, allocate resources and work with university structures rather than wait for disruption to dictate its response.

Professor Mayekiso named senates, student representative councils, organised labour, management committees and alumni associations among the institutional partners leaders must engage. Listening, she stressed, required more than inviting representatives into meetings. Where management rejected their proposals, it should explain why.

Professor Mayekiso said effective leadership depended on working with people inside the institution, not only securing their attendance at meetings. Her account followed the afternoon discussion involving former vice-chancellors Dr Max Price and Professor Xoliswa Mtose, who examined how strategy, leadership and crisis management shape institutional resilience.

Dr Pillay, Manager: Student Support Services at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s College of Health Sciences, reported that the session on people, equity and the public good had challenged universities to examine whose knowledge counted, who participated in decisions and whose experiences were improved.

“Equity must be experienced and not simply declared,” Dr Pillay told delegates. She argued that institutional activity was an inadequate measure without evidence of its effect on communities. Teaching, research and international partnerships should contribute to public value, not merely expand a university’s catalogue of outputs.

She also questioned whether internationalisation produced reciprocal benefits, allowing knowledge and expertise to move in several directions. That concern connected with the morning’s discussion of knowledge equity and academic solidarity, and with Day One’s insistence that universities preserve intellectual independence while responding to society.

Dr Pillay said the value of universities should also be assessed through the development and resilience they enable in communities. She urged institutions to ask whether research, graduate education and partnerships had changed the lives of people beyond campus.

Professor Morris, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation at the University of the Witwatersrand, reflected on the morning presentation by Professor Vukosi Marivate of the University of Pretoria. She highlighted examples of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging, environmental monitoring and urban planning, but warned against adopting systems merely because technological change was rapid.

Professor Morris recalled Professor Marivate’s caution about AI-detection software and the need for deliberate choices about how technologies are used. She said South African universities possessed considerable expertise but needed stronger mechanisms for researchers and educators to share approaches to AI in teaching, research and governance.

Asked about research integrity and data sovereignty, Professor Morris highlighted the risks of knowledge being absorbed into commercial AI systems without adequate safeguards. Universities needed to update practices governing intellectual property, assessment and research collaboration, while recognising that some questions required national or wider regulation.

Professor Morris also raised questions about postgraduate assessment as generative AI changes how researchers produce and review written work. She cited the oral examination as one approach that institutions were reconsidering, alongside policies on responsible research and data use.

She referred to existing principles for fair research partnerships and responsible data use, but said the scale of commercial AI systems raised questions beyond the reach of any one institution. Universities could revise internal practices while wider regulation was considered.

Professor Ncanywa, a research chair in entrepreneurship and financial inclusion at Nelson Mandela University, challenged universities to make innovation part of teaching, postgraduate research and academic advancement. She questioned incentives that rewarded publication without sufficiently recognising solutions, commercialisation or collaboration with communities.

She called for closer integration of technology-transfer offices and entrepreneurship centres, clearer guidance on protecting intellectual property before publication, and research projects designed around identifiable social or industrial problems. At her institution, she said, work was under way on a short learning programme to help lecturers design more innovative teaching.

“What problem have you solved?” Professor Ncanywa asked, directing the question at academics as well as students. Her emphasis on implementation contrasted with innovation strategies confined to institutional documents. She also advocated cooperation among universities, industry, government and communities, rather than partnerships limited to the first three.

Professor Ncanywa said innovation should begin while students were framing their research proposals, not after graduation. She pointed to a short learning programme being developed at Nelson Mandela University to help lecturers make curriculum design and lesson planning more innovative.

A question from the floor challenged the fragmented organisation of university expertise on AI, spanning teaching and learning, governance, and ethics. Professor Morris supported further collaboration and engagement across institutions but offered no settled coordinating arrangement.

Professor Majozi ended the session after that exchange, encouraging further discussion among delegates. The question remained concrete: how would universities bring their separate AI initiatives, expertise and institutional policies into closer coordination?

Bhekisisa Mncube is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.