CASE STUDY: and Metropolitan University Study - SA and... · Universities and Economic Development in Africa CASE STUDY: South Africa and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Universities and Economic Development in Africa

CASE STUDY: South Africa and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Tracy Bailey, Nico Cloete and Pundy Pillay

UNIVERSITIES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA | SOUTH AFRICA CASE STUDY

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Contents

List of tables and figures ........................................................................................................ v

Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. vii

Project group ...................................................................................................................... viii

Acronyms and abbreviations ................................................................................................ ix

Glossary of terms ................................................................................................................... x

Higher Education and Economic Development Publications .............................................xiii

PART 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Introduction to the Higher Education and Economic Development project .......... 1

1.1.1 Overview of HERANA ................................................................................... 1

1.1.2 Project focus and process ............................................................................ 2

1.1.3 The analytical framework for the study ....................................................... 3

1.1.4 What the project is not doing ...................................................................... 5

1.2 Data collection for the South African case study .................................................. 5

1.3 The focus and structure of this report .................................................................. 6

PART 2: THE SOUTH AFRICA CASE STUDY: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT ....................... 8

2.1 The South African economy and approach to economic development ................. 8

2.1.1 Economic development, competitiveness and innovation .......................... 8

2.1.2 Economic development policy and planning ............................................. 14

2.2 The South African higher education system ........................................................21

2.2.1 Size and shape of the system ..................................................................... 21

2.2.2 Higher education expenditure and financing ............................................ 23

2.2.3 Higher education governance and policy................................................... 28


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2.3 The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University ....................................................32

2.3.1 Key moments in the development of the institution ................................ 32

2.3.2 Governance and strategic objectives ......................................................... 33

2.3.3 Institutional finances .................................................................................. 34

PART 3: THE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA .......................................36

3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................36

3.2 The national perspective.....................................................................................37

3.2.1 Key national stakeholders in relation to the pact ...................................... 37

3.2.2 The role of higher education in national policies ...................................... 37

3.2.3 Governance and policy coordination ......................................................... 38

3.3 The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University perspective .................................38

3.3.1 Institutional narrative(s) on the role of the university .............................. 38

3.3.2 Initiatives around research and innovation ............................................... 51

3.3.3 Initiatives around teaching and learning ................................................... 56

PART 4: THE NELSON MANDELA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC CORE ...........59

4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................59

4.2 SET enrolments and graduations ........................................................................61

4.3 Postgraduate enrolments and graduations .........................................................65

4.4 Student‐staff ratios .............................................................................................69

4.5 Academic staff qualifications ..............................................................................71

4.6 Research funding ................................................................................................72

4.7 Research outputs ................................................................................................74

PART 5: THE ENGAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT‐RELATED ACTIVITIES OF THE NELSON MANDELA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY ...........................................................77

5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................77


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5.2 Engagement and linkages with external stakeholders .........................................77

5.2.1 University‐government‐industry linkages .................................................. 79

5.2.2 Incentives, rewards and coordination ....................................................... 81

5.2.3 Summary .................................................................................................... 82

5.3 The connectedness of development activities to the academic core ...................82

5.3.1 A brief overview of the projects ................................................................. 84

5.3.2 Articulation ................................................................................................. 97

5.3.3 Contribution to strengthening the academic core .................................. 103

5.3.4 Analysis of the connectedness of development projects/centres .......... 106

PART 6: KEY FINDINGS ................................................................................................. 109

6.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 109

6.2 Some macro‐observations about higher education and economic development in South Africa ...................................................................................................... 110

6.3 Evidence of a pact around the role of higher education in South Africa? .......... 111

6.3.1 Analysis of the connectedness of development projects/centres .......... 113

6.4 The academic core of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University ................. 117

6.5 Coordination and connectedness ...................................................................... 121

6.5.1 Knowledge policy coordination and implementation .............................. 122

6.5.2 Connectedness to external stakeholders and the academic core ........... 126

6.6 Concluding comments ...................................................................................... 128

6.6.1 Factors impacting on the university’s capacity to contribute to development ............................................................................................ 129

List of resources ................................................................................................................. 132

Appendix 1: List of interviewees ........................................................................................ 135

Appendix 2: Cluster analysis methodology and data ........................................................ 136

Appendix 3: Academic core rating descriptions ................................................................ 140


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List of tables and figures

Tables

Table 2.1: GDP per capita vs. Human Development Index in sub‐Saharan Africa (2007) ......... 9

Table 2.2: Selected higher education and economic development indicators ....................... 11

Table 2.3: Global competitiveness and global innovation ....................................................... 14

Table 2.4: Higher education spending in South Africa (Rands, billions) .................................. 24

Table 2.5: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University government income (2000‐2008) ........ 34

Table 4.1: NMMU: Total enrolments by field of study (thousands) ........................................ 62

Table 4.2: Comparison of total science and technology enrolments (thousands) .................. 63

Table 4.3: NMMU: Total SET graduates ................................................................................... 64

Table 4.4: Comparison of total science and technology graduates ........................................ 65

Table 4.5: Comparison of total postgraduate enrolments in all fields of study ...................... 66

Table 4.6: NMMU: Master and doctoral enrolments and graduates ...................................... 67

Table 4.7: Comparison of masters and doctoral enrolments .................................................. 68

Table 4.8: Comparison of doctoral graduates ......................................................................... 68

Table 4.9: NMMU: FTE students and academic staff .............................................................. 69

Table 4.10: Comparison of permanent academics with masters and doctoral degrees (2007) ......................................................................................................................... 72

Table 4.11: NMMU: Research outputs .................................................................................... 74

Table 5.1: Overview of the development‐related projects ..................................................... 96

Table 5.2: Articulation with institutional objectives and national priorities ........................... 98

Table 5.3: Initiation/agenda‐setting, funding sources and implementation agencies ............ 99

Table 5.4: Financial sustainability of the projects/centres .................................................... 101

Table 5.5: Articulation rating (maximum score = 13) ............................................................ 102

Table 5.6: Contribution to strengthening the academic core ............................................... 104

Table 5.7: Strengthening academic core rating (maximum score = 5) .................................. 105

Table 5.8: Summary of ratings ............................................................................................... 106

Table 6.1: Role for knowledge and universities in development in South Africa .................. 112

Table 6.2: Comparing national and institutional notions of the role of higher education in South Africa ............................................................................................................................ 117

Table 6.3: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University: Rating of the academic core ............. 119


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Table 6.4: National coordination of knowledge policies ....................................................... 124

Table 6.5: Implementation of knowledge policies and activities .......................................... 125

Table A2.1: Cluster analysis data table .................................................................................. 137

Figures

Figure 2.1: Income by source as a percentage of total income, NMMU (2005‐2007) ............ 35

Figure 4.1: NMMU: Enrolments by field of study .................................................................... 62

Figure 4.2: Comparison of science and technology majors as % of total enrolment .............. 63

Figure 4.3: NMMU: Graduation rates by field of study ........................................................... 64

Figure 4.4: Comparison of science and technology graduation rates ..................................... 65

Figure 4.5: Comparison of % postgraduates in enrolment total ............................................. 66

Figure 4.6: Comparison of doctoral enrolments as % of masters and doctoral enrolments .. 67

Figure 4.7: Comparison of total doctoral graduates ................................................................ 68

Figure 4.8: Comparison of 2007 FTE student‐staff ratios ........................................................ 70

Figure 4.9: Comparison of totals of permanent and FTE academic staff (2007) ..................... 70

Figure 4.10: Comparison of ratios of FTE to permanent academic staff (2007) ..................... 71

Figure 4.11: Comparison of highest formal qualifications of permanent academics (2007) .. 72

Figure 4.12: Comparison of research income in market rate USD and PPP$ (millions) .......... 73

Figure 4.13: Comparison of total research income per permanent academic in market rate USD and PPP$ (thousands) ...................................................................................................... 74

Figure 4.14: Comparison of research publication units per permanent academic ................. 75

Figure 4.15: Comparison of doctoral graduates in given year as % of permanent academics employed ................................................................................................................................. 76

Figure 5.1: Plotting the development‐related projects ......................................................... 107

Figure 6.1: The four notions of the role of knowledge and universities in development ..... 114

Figure 6.2: Plotting the development‐related projects/centres at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University ......................................................................................................... 127

Figure A2.1: Plot of means for each cluster ........................................................................... 139


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Acknowledgements

This study would not have been possible without the support and participation of the following organisations and individuals:

Funding The Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University contact Dr Charles Sheppard (Director, Management Information) for his assistance in providing background information on the NMMU as well as the academic core data, and for scheduling interviews.

Interview respondents at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Prof. Derrick Swartz (Vice Chancellor), Prof. Christo van Loggerenberg (Deputy Vice Chancellor: Academic), Prof. Thoko Mayekiso (Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research, Technology and Planning), Prof. Heather Nel (Director: Institutional Planning), Prof. Piet Naude (Director: Business School), Prof. Peter Cunningham (Head: Dept of Sociology), Prof. Richard Haines (Professor: Development Studies), Prof. Hendrik Lloyd (Director of the School for Economics, Development and Tourism), Ms Jackie Barnett (Director: Innovation, Support and Technology), Prof. Werner Olivier (Head of Department: Mathematics and Applied Mathematics), Prof. Danie Hattingh (Head of Automotive Components Technology Station), Ms Lucinda Lindsay (Researcher: Automotive Components Technology Station), Mr Andrew Young (Researcher: Automotive Components Technology Station), Prof. Hennie van As (Director: Institute for Sustainable Government and Development), Mr Xola Mkontwana (Centre Manager: Small Business Unit), Prof. Jan Neethling (Project leader of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project), Prof. Japie Engelbrecht (Project leader of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project), Prof. Ben Zeelie (InnoVenton, Institute of Chemical Technology), Geoff Ritson (InnoVenton Technology Support), Dr Willem van Heerden (Dept of Agriculture and Game Management), Prof. JJ van Wyk (Dept of Building and Quantity Surveying), Mr Hugh Bartis (Head: Dept of Tourism).


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Project group

Academic advisers Higher Education Studies: Prof. Peter Maassen (University of Oslo) and Dr Nico Cloete (Director: CHET, and University of the Western Cape)

Development Economics: Dr Pundy Pillay (CHET Consultant)

Sociology of Knowledge: Prof. Johan Muller (University of Cape Town) and Prof. Johann Mouton (University of Stellenbosch)

Researchers Dr Nico Cloete (Director: CHET) Dr Pundy Pillay (CHET Consultant) Prof. Peter Maassen (University of Oslo) Ms Tracy Bailey (CHET Consultant) Dr Gerald Ouma (Kenya and University of the Western Cape) Mr Romulo Pinheiro (University of Oslo) Mr Patricio Langa (Mozambique and University of Cape Town) Mr Samuel Fongwa (Cameroon and University of the Western Cape) Mr Biko Gwendo (Kenya and University of the Western Cape)

Contributors to reports Dr Ian Bunting (CHET Consultant) and Dr Charles Sheppard (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) for analysis of the academic core data Mr Nelius Boshoff (University of Stellenbosch) for data on research output

Project assistance Ms Tracy Bailey (Project Manager) Ms Angela Mias (CHET Administrator) Ms Monique Ritter (Research Assistant) Ms Carin Favis (Transcriber)

External Commentator Prof. Manuel Castells (University of Southern California and Open University, Barcelona)

Network Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA)


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Acronyms and abbreviations

ACTS Automotive Components Technology Station

ASGISA Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa

CHET Centre for Higher Education Transformation

DHET Department of Higher Education and Training

DoE Department of Education

DST Department of Science and Technology

ELIDZ East London Industrial Development Zone

FTE Full‐time equivalent

GCI Global Competitiveness Index

GDP Gross domestic product

GER Gross enrolment ratio

GII Global Innovation Index

HERANA Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa

HRD Human resources development

JIPSA Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition

MTSF Medium Term Strategic Framework

NMMU Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

NSFAS National Student Financial Aid Scheme

PBMR Pebble Bed Modular Reactor

PET Port Elizabeth Technikon

PPP Purchasing power parity

R South African Rand

R&D Research and development

SBU Small Business Unit

SET Science, engineering and technology

SME Small and medium enterprise

SMME Small, medium and micro enterprise

USD United States Dollar

WEF World Economic Forum


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Glossary of terms

Academic core The academic core refers to a university’s academic degree programmes and research activities.

Gini co‐efficient The Gini co‐efficient is a standard economic measure of income inequality, based on the Lorenz Curve. It ranges from zero (which indicates perfect equality, with every household earning exactly the same), to one (which implies absolute inequality, with a single household earning a country's entire income).

Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) The World Economic Forum (WEF) defines competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country. The GCI uses this definition to establish a quantitative tool to help policy‐makers benchmark and measure the competitiveness of a given country. The GCI is based on 12 pillars of competitiveness further divided into three pillar groups, which are:

Basic requirements (institutions, infrastructure, macro‐economic stability, health and primary education);

Efficiency enhancers (higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size); and

Innovation and sophistication factors (business sophistication, innovation).

Global Innovation Index (GII) The GII assesses in detail the extent to which different economies benefit from the latest innovation advances, based on three main principles:

There is a distinction between enablers (inputs) and outputs while measuring innovation in an economy. Enablers are aspects that help an economy to stimulate innovation and outputs are the results of innovative activities within the economy.

There are five enabler pillars that are included in the GII: institutions, human capacity, general and information and communications technology infrastructure, market sophistication, and business sophistication. The enabler pillars define aspects of the conducive environment required to stimulate innovation within an economy.


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The two output pillars which provide evidence of the results of innovation within the economy are scientific outputs and well‐being.

Gross domestic product (GDP) The GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, which equals total consumers, investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports. Changes in the GDP on an annual basis provide a measure of economic growth.

Gross enrolment ratio (GER) The GER indicates the total enrolment in a specific level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the official school‐age population, corresponding to the same level of education in a given school year. The GER is calculated by dividing the number of pupils (or students) enrolled in a given level of education, regardless of age, by the population of the age group which officially corresponds to the given level of education, and multiplying the result by 100. The GER is widely used to show the general level of participation in a given level of education. It indicates the capacity of the education system for enrolling students of a particular age group. It is used as a substitute indicator to Net Enrolment Ratio (NER, outlined below) when data on enrolment by single years of age are not available. The GER can also be a complementary indicator to the NER by indicating the extent of over‐aged and under‐aged enrolment.

Human Development Index (HDI) The HDI is a summary composite index that measures a country's average achievements in three basic aspects of human development. These include the following:

Health (measured by life expectancy at birth); Knowledge (measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined

primary, secondary and tertiary GER); and A decent standard of living (measured by GDP (income) per capita).

The HDI was created to emphasise that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth.


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Pact

A ‘pact’ is defined by Gornitzka et al. (2007: 184) as “a fairly long‐term cultural commitment to and from the University, as an institution with its own foundational rules of appropriate practices, causal and normative beliefs, and resources, yet validated by the political and social system in which the University is embedded. A pact, then, is different from a contract based on continuous strategic calculation of expected value by public authorities, organised external groups, university employees, and students – all regularly monitoring and assessing the University on the basis of its usefulness for their self‐interest, and acting accordingly.”

Purchasing power parity (PPP)

The PPP is a rate of exchange that accounts for price differences across countries, allowing international comparisons of real output and incomes. At the PPP$ rate used in this report, PPP$ has the same purchasing power in the domestic economy as USD 1 has in the US.


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Higher Education and Economic Development Publications

The eight case study reports in this series contain the detailed data and analysis for each country and university in the sample. Together, they form the empirical basis for the analysis and discussion of findings contained in the CHET book, Universities and Economic Development in Africa, which was published in August 2011. While every effort has been made to check the data and edit the text in the time available, it should be noted that these case study reports have not been subjected to the publishing rigours of formally published publications. They are therefore made available ‘as is’.

Higher education and economic development: A literature review Pundy Pillay (2010)

This report reviews the international literature on the relationship between higher education and economic development. The review focuses on previous research and theory on the link between higher education and economic growth, the knowledge economy, innovation, and local and regional development. The review would be of interest to academics and students who work in the field of higher education studies. Click here to download a copy of this report.

Linking higher education and economic development: Implications for Africa from three successful systems Pundy Pillay (2010)

This book synthesises the findings of case studies of three systems – Finland, South Korea and North Carolina in the US – that have successfully linked higher education to their economic development initiatives. This publication would be of particular interest to policy‐makers and funders. Click here to download a copy of this report.

Universities and economic development in Africa Nico Cloete, Tracy Bailey, Pundy Pillay, Ian Bunting and Peter Maassen (2011)

This report presents the key findings from each of the eight African case study reports and synthesises these within the analytical framework of the larger study. This publication would be of interest to national policy‐makers, international agencies, funders and university leadership. Click here to download a copy of this report.


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1.1 Introduction to the Higher Education and Economic Development project 1.1.1 Overview of HERANA

The Higher Education and Economic Development project forms part of the work of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA). HERANA was established in 2007 and is coordinated by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) in Cape Town, South Africa. Key partners include the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), Makerere University (Uganda) and the University of Oslo (Norway). The research component of HERANA investigates the complex relationship between higher education and development in Africa, with a specific focus on economic and democratic development. A second research area explores the use of research in policy‐making. Alongside the research component is an advocacy strategy that aims to:

Disseminate the findings of the research projects; Coordinate existing sources of information on higher education in Africa; Develop a media strategy; and Put in place a policy dialogue (through seminars and information technology)

facilitating interactions between researchers, institutional leaders and decision‐makers. The capacity‐building component of HERANA is the Higher Education Masters in Africa Programme, run jointly between the key partners. The main objective of the project is to contribute to the strengthening of higher education in Africa through building capacity and expertise in African higher education. The students contribute to higher education and development research through the research components of the programme.

Part 1

Introduction

AT A GLANCE

Overview of HERANA Project focus and process Analytical framework Data collection Focus and structure of the report


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The research and advocacy components of HERANA are funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. The Higher Education Masters in Africa Programme is funded by NORAD.

1.1.2 Project focus and process As a point of departure, the overall aim of the project was to investigate the complex relationships between higher education (specifically universities) and economic development in selected African countries with a focus on the context in which universities operate (political and socio‐economic), the internal structure and dynamics of the universities themselves, and the interaction between the national and institutional contexts. In addition, the project aimed to identify those factors (practices, strategies) and conditions (context) – at both national and institutional levels – that facilitate or inhibit universities’ ability to make a sustained contribution to economic development. The project began with a review of the international literature on the relationship between higher education and economic development (Pillay 2010a). This was followed by case studies of three systems which have successfully linked their economic development and higher education policy and planning – Finland, South Korea and the North Carolina state in the US (Pillay 2010b). The next phase of the project involved the collection of data at both the national and institutional levels in the eight African countries and universities included in the study:

Botswana – University of Botswana Ghana – University of Ghana Kenya – University of Nairobi Mauritius – University of Mauritius Mozambique – Eduardo Mondlane University South Africa – Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Tanzania – University of Dar es Salaam Uganda – Makerere University

The countries included in the study were selected for three main reasons: on the basis of previous collaboration; being located in sub‐Saharan Africa; and, on the basis of World Economic Forum (WEF) ratings regarding participation in the knowledge economy in the African context. In each of the collaborating countries the national university was selected, except in South Africa where the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University was regarded as a more ‘comparable’ institution. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a wide range of individuals in each country, including selected ministries, commissions/councils for higher education and other stakeholders at the national level as well as institutional leadership, heads of


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development‐related projects and centres, and academic and administrative staff. The analysis also draws on various policy and strategy documents (national and institutional levels), as well as quantitative data including national development indicators and statistics relating to the higher education systems and universities in the sample. Throughout the project process, dissemination and advocacy activities have taken place. These have included seminars in many of the African countries in the sample and in Norway, as well as dissemination via the HERANA web site1.

1.1.3 The analytical framework for the study In the knowledge economy, universities are considered to be key institutions for the production of high‐level skills and knowledge innovation, based on the traditional core business of universities – the production, application and dissemination of knowledge. In many countries, higher education has become one of the central areas in the government’s knowledge policies. This means that more policy/political actors than the Ministry of Education, as well as socio‐economic stakeholders (employers’ organisations, funders and research councils), have become interested in higher education and involved in higher education policy. This raises the issue of system‐ and institutional‐level coordination of knowledge policies with adequate structures and processes within the political system, most notably the capacity to coordinate different political activities of the governing of knowledge production, reproduction and coordination. As mentioned earlier, to get a better understanding of the relationship between higher education and development, the research group undertook three case studies (Finland, South Korea and North Carolina state) where there is a well‐established integration of higher education in national development strategies. Of particular interest to our study was to answer the question: What is it about these three systems that enables them to successfully link higher education to economic development? Put another way: What are the core conditions that are present in each of the three systems that enable their higher education sectors to successfully and sustainably contribute to development? Common to all three systems was a strong, agreed upon framework for economic development aimed at realising an advanced, competitive knowledge economy, and the important role for higher education in this regard. Despite major contextual differences, the three systems exhibited the following conditions for harnessing higher education for economic development:

1HERANA web site: http://www.chet.org.za/programmes/herana/.


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Their higher education systems had been built on a foundation of equitable and quality schooling. There was also an emphasis on achieving high quality higher education.

They had achieved very high higher education participation rates. Their higher education systems were differentiated (institutional and public/private)

as part of achieving their human capital, research and innovation objectives for economic development.

Their governments ensured a close link between economic and (higher) education planning.

There were effective partnerships and networks between the state, higher education institutions and the private sector to ensure effective education and training and to stimulate appropriate research and innovation.

There was strong state involvement in a number of other respects including, for example, adequate state funding for higher education; using funding to steer the higher education sector to respond to labour market requirements; and incentivising research and innovation in the higher education sector. Drawing on the review of literature (Pillay 2010a), the implications from the case studies of three successful systems (Pillay 2010b), and preliminary observations from the eight African case studies, we formulated the following analytical propositions:

1. A condition for universities’ contributions to development is the existence of a broad pact between government, universities and core socio‐economic actors about the nature of the universities’ role in development.

2. As a core knowledge institution, the university can only participate in the global knowledge economy and make a sustainable contribution to development if its academic core is quantitatively and qualitatively strong.

3. In order to link universities effectively to development a country needs various forms and methods of knowledge policy coordination. In addition, the connections between the larger policy context, universities and development are crucial.

The analytical point of departure for our model is, therefore, that the conditions under which each university in Africa, as elsewhere, is contributing to economic development are influenced by the following three inter‐related factors:

The nature of the pact between the universities, political authorities and society at large;

The nature, size and continuity of the university’s academic core; and The level of coordination, the effectiveness of implementation, and connectedness in

the larger policy context of universities. These, in turn, are influenced by local circumstances, for example, the nature of the economy of a country, and its political and governance traditions and culture; institutional characteristics, including the ‘loosely‐coupled’ nature of higher


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education institutions; and the external relations of universities, especially with national authorities, foreign agencies and industry. These analytical propositions give rise to the following sets of research questions:

To what extent is there agreement (a pact) between key stakeholders about the role of higher education, and to what extent does this include a specific role for higher education in economic development? Is there a role for knowledge production and for universities in the national development plan?

What policies, funding, structures and incentives are in place at the national and institutional levels which give expression to the role of higher education in economic development? To what extent is there coordination of these activities between the different national authorities, and between the national authorities, institutional stakeholders and external agencies?

What is the strength of the academic core of the national (‘flagship’) universities? Are development activities in the universities connected to external groupings and do

these activities strengthen or weaken the academic core? This report presents the data that address these questions in the South African context generally, and with specific reference to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU). The analytical framework of the study is elaborated further in Part 6 which discusses the key findings for this case study.

1.1.4 What the project is not doing As can been seen from the analytical framework of the project, this study has a considerable scope. However, the project is not attempting to do the following:

Measure or evaluate the extent to which universities are contributing to development, or the impact that their activities have on development in their respective countries.

Include an assessment of the impact or effectiveness of specific institutional policies, units or development projects.

Review the number or nature of donor projects, or an examination of the overall contribution of particular external donors to university development.

Assume or assert that the primary role for higher education is development, but rather seeks to investigate the factors that either facilitate or inhibit the possible contributions that universities can make to development.

1.2 Data collection for the South African case study A wide range of data sources have been consulted for the purposes of developing this case study. In order to prepare for the research team’s visit to South Africa, CHET obtained a letter of cooperation from the Vice Chancellor of the NMMU, who also


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approved the selection of Dr Charles Sheppard (Director, Management Information) as our Institutional Contact and Facilitator. The next step was to request background information on the South African higher education system and the university from Dr Sheppard. In addition to the background information, Dr Sheppard was asked to assist in the scheduling of interviews for the research team and, together with the relevant institutional leadership, to identify five to ten projects that related to either economic development or poverty reduction. The research team visited South Africa in June 2009 to conduct interviews with institutional stakeholders including institutional leaders, senior academics and project leaders. The full list of interviewees is provided in Appendix 1. In addition to the site visit and interviews, a range of national and institutional documents has been consulted. These are listed in the list of sources. In developing the case study report, additional information was gleaned from the internet as well as further correspondence with interviewees to verify information and fill in gaps. Finally, during July and August of 2010, the first draft of this report was emailed to the Vice Chancellor, the project leaders and other key institutional stakeholders at NMMU with a request to provide written feedback on the accuracy of the information and interpretation of data contained in the report. In addition to the written feedback received from a number of individuals, formal feedback was obtained from two university representatives during a seminar in Franschhoek, Cape Town, in August 2010.

1.3 The focus and structure of this report This report pulls together a wide range of data on the national development context and the higher education system in South Africa, as well as the NMMU, in order to address the key research questions. The structure of the remainder of the report is as follows: In Part 2, we provide background and contextual information about South Africa – its economic development and global competitiveness ratings, its approach to economic development policy and planning, as well as the size and shape, governance, policy and financing of the higher education system. A brief profile of the NMMU is also provided including key moments in the development of the institution, its governance structure and strategic objectives, and the institutional finances. In Part 3 of the report, we turn to the role(s) of higher education in South Africa – in general, and in relation to economic development – through an investigation of the ways in which both national and institutional stakeholders talk about and conceptualise the role of higher education, the policies which give expression to these notions, as well as the structures and mechanisms for coordination which relate to higher education.


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In Part 4 we examine the nature of the academic core at the NMMU. In Part 5, we investigate the NMMU’s engagement with its key external stakeholders and the incentives for development‐related activities. We also undertake an analysis of the selected development projects at the university, with a specific focus on the connectedness between these activities and the academic core. In particular, we explore the articulation of development activities with national priorities and institutional objectives, as well as with external stakeholders, and the extent to which these activities either strengthen or weaken the academic core of the institution. In Part 6, we provide a summary of the key findings of the report and relate these to the analytical framework and key questions of the study presented in Part 1. This includes a discussion of the nature and extent of the pact around the role of higher education in South Africa; the nature and strength of the academic core of the NMMU; the coordination and implementation of knowledge policies at the national level; and the connectedness of development‐related activities in the university to external stakeholders and to the academic core.


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2.1 The South African economy and approach to economic development

2.1.1 Economic development, competitiveness and innovation South Africa’s population was estimated at 47.9 million in 2005 (UNDP 2007) and is now approaching 50 million. Its GDP per capita (income per head of the population) in purchasing power parity terms was estimated at USD 9 757 in 2007 compared to Botswana’s USD 13 604 and Mauritius’ USD 11 296 (UNDP 2009). Growth of GDP per capita between 1990 and 2005 was a negative 0.3% per annum (UNDP 2007). In terms of the Human Development Index (HDI – computed as an average of a country’s adult literacy rate, life expectancy, and GDP per capita, in other words encapsulating both social and economic indicators), South Africa ranked 129 out of 177 countries in 2007 (Mauritius at 81 ranked highest in the sample of HERANA countries.) Interestingly, South Africa’s HDI position is 51 places lower than its ranking on GDP per capita alone. Like Botswana, this reflects both its low life expectancy and an unequal distribution of income. Of the HDI components, life expectancy in 2007 averaged 51.7 years, adult literacy 88%, and the combined gross enrolment ratio (GER) of primary, secondary, and tertiary education was 76.8% (UNDP 2009). Table 2.1 compares GDP (or income) per capita and the HDI for the HERANA sample of countries and the three international case studies. The difference between the GDP per capita ranking and its HDI ranking reflects divergence between economic and broader social development, and is often a consequence of inequality in access to income, education, health, etc. As noted above South Africa’s HDI ranking is 51 places lower than its GDP per capita ranking, and Botswana’s is 65 – these figures are amongst the highest for the countries ranked in this report.

Part 2

The South Africa case study: Background and context

AT A GLANCE

The South African economy and approach to development Higher education in South Africa A profile of NMMU


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Table 2.1: GDP per capita vs. Human Development Index in sub‐Saharan Africa (2007)

Country GDP per capita (PPP, USD)*

GDP ranking HDI ranking** GDP ranking minus HDI ranking

Botswana 13 604 60 125 ‐65

Ghana 1 334 153 152 1

Kenya 1 542 149 147 2

Mauritius 11 296 68 81 ‐13

Mozambique 802 169 172 ‐3

South Africa 9 757 78 129 ‐51

Uganda 1 059 163 157 6

Tanzania 1 208 157 151 6

Finland 34 526 23 12 11

South Korea 24 801 35 26 9

United States 45 592 9 13 ‐4

Source: UNDP (2009) Notes: * PPP shows a rate of exchange that accounts for price differences across countries, allowing international comparisons of output and incomes. At the PPP$ rate shown in Table 2.1 for the eight HERANA countries, PPP$ 1 has the same purchasing power in the domestic economy as USD 1 has in the US. ** 177 countries were ranked. The HDI is a composite index measuring deprivations in the three basic dimensions – a long and healthy life (as measured by life expectancy), access to knowledge (adult literacy, and combined primary, secondary and tertiary education enrolment), and a decent standard of living (GDP or income per capita).

Inequality is a defining characteristic of South African society. With a Gini coefficient greater than 0.6, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries both on the African continent and in the world in general.2 The population living below the poverty line was estimated by the UNDP (2009) as being between 26.2% (USD 1.25 per day poverty line, 2000‐2007) and 42.9% (USD 2 a day). South Africa is a classic example of a ‘dual economy’, that is, a highly developed, largely metropolitan economy co‐existing with a relatively under‐developed, largely‐non‐urban economy.

2The Gini coefficient varies between 0 and 1; the closer to 0 a country is the greater the equality.

Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the countries with the greatest degree of equality, have Gini indices of

0.258, 0.250 and 0.247, respectively.


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In the post‐apartheid era, South Africa has been a model of fiscal prudence and macro‐economic stability. Economic growth has been increasing consistently, if modestly. Inflation has come down from double‐digit figures to around 4‐6% in recent years, and a huge budget deficit inherited at democracy was recently turned into a surplus. However, unemployment remains chronically high (between 25 and 40%), poverty is widespread, and income and other inequalities continue to increase, especially within the black African population. In other words, the benefits of growth in terms of employment, and increased income and wealth, have accrued largely to the previously advantaged and a small proportion of the black population. Economic growth average was 3% for the period 1994 to 2003 and 5% from 2004 to 2007 (PSA 2008a:6). There are, however, serious structural imbalances in South Africa’s current growth path (DTI 2010). First, South Africa’s growth rates have been lower than the average growth rates of its peers across medium‐ and low‐income countries. Second, growth has been driven by unsustainable increases in credit extension and consumption, not sufficiently underpinned by growth of the production sectors of the economy. Thus, consumption‐driven sectors (financial intermediation, insurance and real estate, transport, storage and communication, and wholesale and retail, catering and accommodation) grew by 107% between 1994 and 2008 (7.7% annually). By contrast, production sectors (agriculture, mining, manufacturing, electricity and water, and construction) grew by only 41% (2.9% annually). This has led to large and unsustainable imbalances in the economy, particularly a large current account deficit. Third, even at the peak of recent average annual growth of 5.1% between 2005 and 2007, unemployment did not fall below 22.8% (ibid.: 4). In terms of the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) (WEF 2010), South Africa is ranked at 54 out of 139 countries, the highest ranked country in sub‐Saharan Africa. According to the WEF, South Africa is a Stage 2 (efficiency‐driven) economy. Table 2.2 provides data on quality of the education system, gross tertiary education enrolment rates and global competitiveness, as well as the stage of development of each country’s economy. It shows this data both for the HERANA countries as well as the three international case studies. The latter group has tertiary education participation rates and are all ‘innovation‐driven’ economies. Amongst the HERANA countries, there is a strong correlation between tertiary education participation and global competitiveness, on the one hand, and the stage of economic development on the other. The countries fall into two groups. One group (Botswana, Mauritius and South Africa) has relatively high GDP per capita (Table 2.1) and tertiary education participation and is classified as ‘efficiency‐driven’. The other group, comprising the five other sample countries, has relatively low GDP per capita and tertiary education participation, and is classified as ‘factor driven’. The countries in this latter group are also ranked relatively low in terms of global competitiveness.


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Table 2.2: Selected higher education and economic development indicators

Country Stage of development (2009‐2010)1

Quality of education system

ranking (2009‐2010)2

Gross tertiary education

enrolment rate (2008)

Overall global competitiveness

ranking (2010‐2011)2

Ghana

Stage 1: Factor‐driven

71 6.25 114

Kenya 32 4.16 106

Mozambique 81 1.53 131

Tanzania 99 1.55 113

Uganda 72 3.7 118

Botswana Transition from

1 to 2 48 7.64 76

Mauritius Stage 2: Efficiency‐driven

50 25.9 55

South Africa 130 15.44 54

Finland

Stage 3: Innovation‐driven

6 94.4 7

South Korea 57 98.1 22

United States

26 82.9 4

Sources: WEF (2010) Notes: 1 Income thresholds (GDP per capita in USD) for establishing stages of development (WEF 2010: 10): Stage 1 Factor‐driven: <2 000; Transition from stage 1 to stage 2: 2 000‐3 000; Stage 2 Efficiency‐driven: 3 000‐9 000; Transition from stage 2 to stage 3: 9 000‐17 000; Stage 3 Innovation‐driven: >17 000. 2 Ranked out of 139 countries. 3 2005 figure. 4 2006 figure. The 2010 figure by the Botswana Tertiary Education Council is over 20% while in South Africa the figure remained around 16%. 5 2007 figure. 6 2009 figure.

Of the 12 pillars of competitiveness that the WEF uses in the derivation of the GCI, two are particularly relevant for the purposes of this study: a) the ‘efficiency‐enhancing’ 5th pillar, higher education and training; and one of the ‘innovation and sophistication’ factors, namely innovation. With regard to higher education and training, South Africa ranks relatively poorly (compared to its overall ranking of 45) at 65. On ‘innovation’ it is ranked relatively higher at 41. In general, South Africa ranks well on the following competitiveness indicators: institutions (45), infrastructure (45), goods market efficiency (35), market size (24), business sophistication (36) and innovation (41). It ranks poorly on health and primary education (125), labour market efficiency (90) and technological readiness (65). The WEF reports on South Africa’s competitiveness as follows (WEF 2009: 38):


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South Africa, at 45th overall, remains the highest‐ranked country in sub‐Saharan Africa, with a stable performance compared with last year. The country continues to benefit from the large size of its economy, particularly by regional standards. South Africa does well on measures of the quality of institutions, and factor allocation, such as intellectual property protection (24th), the accountability of private institutions (5th), and goods market efficiency (35th). In this area there has been a notable improvement in the evaluation of the country’s financial markets, which have increased in rank from 24th last year to a very high 5th this year, indicating strong confidence in South Africa’s financial markets at a time when trust has been eroded in many other parts of the world. South Africa also does reasonably well in more complex areas such as business sophistication (36th) and innovation (41st), benefiting from good scientific research institutions (ranked 29th) and strong collaboration between universities and the business sector in innovation (ranked 25th). On the other hand, South Africa’s competitiveness would be enhanced by tackling some enduring weaknesses. The country ranks 90th in labor market efficiency, with inflexible hiring and firing practices (125th), a lack of flexibility in wage determination by companies (123rd), and poor employer‐labor relations (121st). Furthermore, the country’s innovation potential could be at risk with a university enrolment rate of only 15 percent, which places the country 94th overall, In addition, infrastructure, although good by regional standards, requires upgrading (ranked 45th). The poor security situation remains another important obstacle to doing business in South Africa. The business costs of crime and violence (133rd) and the sense that the police are unable to provide protection from crime (106th) do not contribute to an environment that fosters competitiveness. Another major concern remains the health of the workforce, ranked 127th out of 133 countries, the result of high rates of communicable diseases and poor health indicators more generally.

The Global Innovation Index (GII) assesses in detail the extent to which different economies benefit from the latest innovation advances, based on three main principles:

There is a distinction between enablers (inputs) and outputs while measuring innovation in an economy. Enablers are aspects that help an economy to stimulate innovation and outputs are the results of innovative activities within the economy.

There are five enabler pillars that are included in the GII: Institutions, Human Capacity, General and ICT Infrastructure, Market Sophistication and Business


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Sophistication. The enabler pillars define aspects of the conducive environment required to stimulate innovation within an economy.

There are two output pillars which provide evidence of the results of innovation within the economy: Scientific Outputs and Well‐Being. The scientific outputs include knowledge creation (e.g. patents, publications) and knowledge application (e.g. industry value‐added, production process sophistication, employment in knowledge‐intensive services). Amongst the innovation inputs or enablers, ‘human capacity’ is measured by investment in education and the quality of educational institutions. In the 2009/10 GII, South Africa was ranked at 51 out of 132 countries, the highest in Africa. In terms of innovation inputs, the country ranks very highly at 35, but in terms of innovation outputs, it fares relatively poorly at 99. In terms of innovation inputs, South Africa does very well in terms of institutions (political, business, legal) ranked at 30; in terms of human capacity (quality of educational system, innovation potential, availability of scientists and engineers, enrolment in tertiary education) it fares more poorly ranked at 61, as it does on ‘ICT and Uptake of infrastructure’ ranked at 70. On the innovation output side, the country fares relatively well on science outputs (ranked 68) but much worse on ‘creative outputs’ (creative products and services, royalties, trademarks, Gini index, benefits to social welfare), being ranked at 120. These innovation findings confirm the following:

Innovation is being critically hampered by the quality of education and human resources in general; and

Innovation inputs as a whole are excellent in terms of developing country standards but are failing to translate into innovation outputs especially those relating to ‘creative outputs’ and equity in society. Table 2.3 compares the GCI and GII for the eight HERANA countries.


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Table 2.3: Global competitiveness and global innovation

Country Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) Ranking*

Global Innovation Index (GII) Ranking**

Botswana 66 (4.08) 86 (2.80)

Ghana 114 (3.45) 105 (2.66)

Kenya 98 (3.67) 83 (2.84)

Mauritius 57 (4.22) 73 (2.93)

Mozambique 129 (3.22) 100 (2.69)

South Africa 45 (4.34) 51 (3.24)

Uganda 108 (3.53) 108 (2.65)

Tanzania 100 (3.59) 98 (2.69)

Sources:*WEF (2009); **INSEAD (2010)

Notes: 1. GCI

a) The GCI ranks 132 countries, with the top three countries being Switzerland (with a GCI score of 5.60), US, and Singapore.

b) The GCI is derived from three sub‐indices and 12 pillars of competitiveness. The three sub‐indices are “basic requirements” (with four pillars – institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, and health and primary education); “efficiency enhancers” (with six pillars – higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, and market size); and “innovation and sophistication factors” (with two pillars – business sophistication and innovation). The basic requirements sub‐index is considered key for factor‐driven economies, the efficiency enhancers are key for efficiency‐driven economies, and the innovation and sophistication factors are key for innovation‐driven economies.

2. GII a) The GII combines innovation inputs (such as institutions, human capacity, information and

communication technology and uptake of infrastructure, market and business sophistication) with innovation outputs (such as science and creative outputs).

b) The top four countries in the GII are Iceland (with a score of 4.86), Sweden, Hong Kong and China.

2.1.2 Economic development policy and planning

In the democratic era, South Africa does not suffer from a lack of policy documents. This is especially true of the economic and education sectors. The first major policy document of the democratic government was the Reconstruction and Development Programme (Government of South Africa 1994) which mapped out a range of economic and social policy priorities for the new government. The Reconstruction and Development Programme document ranked education and human resources development very high in terms of priorities, but said little about the role of higher education specifically.


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For the purposes of this study, this report focuses on a number of more recent policy documents. These include the following3:

The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) and the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA)

The Anti‐Poverty Strategy The Department of Trade and Industry’s Industry Policy Action Plan The Medium Term Strategic Framework The Human Resources Development Strategy, and The Green Paper on Planning

The objectives of ASGISA were to introduce policies, programmes and interventions that would allow the South African economy to grow enough to halve poverty and unemployment between 2004 and 2014.The specific objectives were to (PSA 2008a):

Reduce the unemployment rate from 30% to 15% by 2014; Reduce poverty from one‐third to one‐sixth of the population by 2014; and Increase the annual GDP growth rate from the then average of 3% to 4.5% per year

for the period 2005 to 2009 and to 6% for the period 2010 to 2014. This target should create a sustainable annual growth rate of 6%. The following priorities were identified for intervention: macro‐economic issues; infrastructure; education and skills; sector development strategies; second economy, and small, medium, and micro enterprise development; and governance and public administration. The Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) The growth envisaged through ASGISA was thought to depend, in part, on resolving the shortage of suitably skilled labour. South Africa lacks sufficiently skilled professionals, managers and artisans. The challenge is amplified by the uneven quality of education and the impact of the apartheid legacy which located many people a great distance from their places of work, thus increasing the price of labour for the poor. The acquisition of priority skills was identified as one of the most significant challenges facing growth because skills development is a long‐term process (ibid.). ASGISA identified a number of medium‐and long‐term interventions to address the skills shortage, including the following (ibid.):

3 The SA National Research and Development Strategy (2002) was also consulted but is not discussed

here as it did not contain any relevant information. PSA (2002) South Africa’s National Research and

Development Strategy. Pretoria: Presidency of South Africa.


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Build a strong foundation in public schooling. Focus on areas of greater priority in tertiary education and training. Here the

priorities include recapitalisation of the further education and training colleges in order to improve their capacity and increase throughput to one million learners; increasing the number of black graduates; and, expanding faculties that produce specialist skills such as engineering, among others.

Initiate and improve work‐based training programmes and scarce skills initiatives. Establish a joint council in government to strengthen and coordinate the activities to

address the skills shortage. It is evident that ASIGSA has not been able to ensure the country’s movement to a growth path that would reduce poverty and unemployment as envisaged. Part of the explanation for this failure is the inability of the education system to make the requisite gains in terms of quantity and quality at all levels to enhance worker productivity for growth and development. In any event, it would appear that JIPSA was not aimed at long‐term education reform but more at short‐term gains in skills acquisition. Anti‐Poverty Strategy The Anti‐Poverty Strategy provides for a key role for human resource development, in particular education and skills development. According to the Strategy, critical interventions that should receive the highest level of attention from government in addressing poverty were (PSA 2008b):

Economic interventions to expand opportunities for employment and self‐employment, in particular including improvement of the state’s capacity to lead in job‐creating industrial development.

Provision of quality education, skills and health care, especially to poor communities; Promotion of access to assets, including social capital to the poor and reduction of

vulnerability. Promoting social cohesion.

In line with the multidimensional nature of poverty, the anti‐poverty framework is anchored around nine pillars. These include the following (ibid.):

Creation of economic opportunities – aimed at ensuring that the economy generates opportunities for poor households to earn improved incomes through jobs or self‐employment.

Investment in human capital – providing health care, education and training needed to engage with the economy and in political processes.

Income security – providing safety nets for the most vulnerable, primarily through social grants.

Basic services and other non‐financial transfers – what has been termed a social wage, consisting of services such as subsidised housing, and expanded access to


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water, electricity, refuse removal and sanitation, as well as a range of minimum free basic services for vulnerable sectors of the population.

Improving healthcare – ensuring that poor children grow up healthy, providing quality and efficient preventative and curative care, and ensuring that illness or disability do not plunge poor households into destitution.

Access to assets – particularly housing, land and capital, including public infrastructure, both to improve economic and social security and to provide the basis for economic engagement in the longer run.

Social inclusion and social capital initiatives – combining programmes to ensure a more inclusive and integrated society, based on the development of more integrated structures and engagements across class and race, as well as community solidarity in communities and society as a whole. The focus is also on strengthening social capital, especially for the poor to expand their networks and ensure they have access to information.

Environmental sustainability – requiring strategies and programmes that help link increasing economic opportunities for the poor to the protection and rehabilitation of ecosystems, reversing environmental degradation and promoting eco‐tourism.

Good governance – direct intervention in the provision of information, facilitating participatory, pro‐poor policies and sound macro‐economic management. This is to ensure proper use of public funds, encouraging shared economic growth, promoting effective and efficient delivery of public services and consolidating the rule of law. The Industrial Policy Action Plan In January 2007, the South African Cabinet adopted the National Industrial Policy Framework which set out the government’s broad approach to industrialisation. Guided by the Framework, the implementation of industrial policy is set out in an Industrial Policy Action Plan (DTI 2010: 3). The Plan identifies seven sets of policies critical to achieving a “scaled‐up industrial policy and a shift towards strengthening the productive side of the economy in general” (ibid.:15). These policies include the following (ibid.):

Stronger articulation between macro‐ and micro‐economic policies; Industrial financing channelled to real economy sectors; Leveraging public and private procurement to raise domestic production and

employment in a range of sectors; Developmental trade policies which deploy trade measures in a selected and strategic

manner, including tariffs; Competition and regulation policies that lower costs for productive investments and

for poor and working class households; Skills and innovation policies that are aligned to sectoral priorities; and Deploying these policies in general and in relation to more ambitious sector

strategies, building on work already done. It is recognised in the document that industrial policy and the Industrial Policy Action Plan form part of a larger set of inter‐related policies and strategies with respect to


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generating a New Growth Path that is relatively more labour‐intensive and value‐adding. The document states that there is a need for a process – led by the Economic Development Department – for a stronger articulation and integration of, amongst others, a fuller range of policies to ensure coherence across them, including the following:

Macro‐economic policy Policies to raise levels of production Policies around decent work in agriculture, mining and construction Policies to develop the green economy The Ten‐Year Innovation Plan Towards a Knowledge‐Based Economy Policies around Skills The National Industrial Policy Framework and Industrial Policy Action Plan Policies around Rural development Policies around Energy The Expanded Public Works Programme Policies around Infrastructure

The Medium Term Strategic Framework The Medium Term Strategic Frameworks (MTSF) of 2004‐2009 and 2009‐2014 define the medium‐term objectives of government. The MTSF for the period 2009 to 2014, under the theme Together Doing More and Better, is informed by the 2009 national electoral mandate of the ruling party and outlines the government’s medium‐term strategy to meet this mandate. The MTSF identifies the challenges facing South Africa and defines the priorities over the next five years. As a statement of intent, the MTSF is supposed to serve as the principal guide to planning and resource allocation across all spheres of government. In this regard, focus areas and targets highlighted in the MTSF inform the core elements of the budgetary submissions that national departments make to the government’s budgeting process. Similarly, Integrated Development Plans of Municipalities and the Provincial Growth and Development Strategies of provinces need to take account of the priorities identified in the MTSF. The strategic priorities of government for the period 2009‐2014 are identified in the MTSF document as follows (PSA 2009a: 2‐3):

Ensuring more inclusive economic growth, decent work and sustainable livelihoods Economic and social infrastructure Rural development, food security and land reform Access to quality education: “The focus will be on, amongst others, learner outcomes,

early childhood development, improving schools management and [monitoring and evaluation] systems and supporting and developing a high quality teaching profession”

Improved health care


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Fighting crime and corruption Cohesive and sustainable communities Creation of a better Africa and a better world Sustainable resource management and use, and A developmental state including improvement of public services

Human Resource Development Strategy The primary goal of the Human Resource Development Strategy of South Africa 2010‐2030 (DoE 2009: 11) is “to contribute to human development. The strategic priorities and interventions that make up the Strategy are explicitly designed to respond to economic, social and wider development imperatives”. According to the document, the development and implementation of a credible HRD strategy is consistent with the historical and current thrust of government’s development agenda. HRD has been identified as a vital instrument in all government strategies to accelerate development. In view of this, the interventions and activities outlined in this Strategy have been formulated in response to a careful analysis of the HRD implications of a number of development strategies in South Africa, namely the Government Programme of Action (covering all cluster priorities), the MTSF, the ASGISA, the National Industrial Policy Framework, the Emerging Anti‐Poverty Strategy, and the Technology and Innovation Strategy (ibid.). In addition, the HRD Strategy is based explicitly on relevant current and emerging education and training‐related strategic frameworks, not least of which are the following (ibid.):

The National Skills Development Strategy The Basic Education Strategic Plans (early childhood development, schooling, adult

basic education and training) The Further Education and Training Framework The Higher Education Strategic Framework The Immigration Policy, and The HRD Strategy for the Public Sector

The HRD Strategy provides for a long‐term (20‐year) strategic framework comprising the following strategic priorities (ibid.):

To ensure universal access to quality early childhood development, from birth to age four;

To eradicate adult illiteracy; To ensure that all people remain in education and training until the age of eighteen

years; To ensure that all new entrants into the labour market have access to employment‐

focused education and training opportunities; To ensure that levels of investment are above the global average for all sub‐sectors of

the education and training system; To reduce significantly inequality in education and training outcomes;


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To ensure that education and training outcomes are equitable in terms of race, gender, disability, and geographic location;

To ensure that the balance of immigration and emigration reflects a net positive inflow of people with priority skills required for economic growth and development;

To ensure that all adults in the labour market have access to education and training opportunities;

To ensure progressive improvement in the external efficiency and effectiveness of higher education, further education and training and the occupational learning system;

To ensure that South Africa is ranked in the top 10% of comparable countries in terms of its economic competitiveness;

To ensure that South Africa is ranked in the top 10% of comparable countries in terms of its HDI;

To ensure that South Africa is ranked in the top 10% of comparable countries in terms of its knowledge and education dimensions of the HDI, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined education enrolment ratio;

To ensure that South Africa is ranked in the top 10% of comparable countries in terms of its Technology and Innovation Index; and

To ensure that South Africa is ranked in the top 10% of comparable countries in terms of its levels of human capital stock. In conclusion, the HRD policy frameworks described above attempt to achieve the following objectives:

Integrating all the components of education and training into a coherent strategy; Integrating HRD with other government policies; Ensuring that there is a closer link between education and broader development

planning; and Creating appropriate institutional mechanisms to achieve the above objectives – for

example, the Human Resources Development Council to be established comprising government, private sector and civil society stakeholders. The Green Paper on Planning The Ministry of Planning in the Presidency has recently developed a Green Paper on national strategic planning which defines systems, processes and structures pertaining to national planning. Amongst others, it is envisaged that, during the course of 2011, in interaction with social partners and the public at large, a long‐term vision and development plan for the country will be elaborated, outlining the country’s broad objectives and targets for some 15‐20 years. The paper sets out an institutional framework for planning and describes the outputs of planning. Proposals include the following (PSA 2009b):

The creation of a National Planning Commission Production of a MTSF every five years, detailing high‐level outcomes and targets


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These outputs will shape policies, programmes, budgets and other resource allocation, and

Long‐term planning will comprise cross‐cutting strategies (e.g. economic development, HRD, regional stability, etc)

2.2 The South African higher education system 2.2.1 Size and shape of the system

System differentiation In the new democracy, South Africa’s racially‐defined higher education institutions were rationalised through a merger process into 23 non‐racial universities. There are three categories of universities in the country presently: 11 universities (those institutions that were defined as such during the apartheid period and remain so); six universities of technology (the former technikons or technical universities); and, six comprehensive universities (which are merged universities and technikons). In addition, there are two National Institutes of Higher Education, offering higher education service sites in the two (of nine) provinces without universities. These institutional distinctions are somewhat blurred, but they generally refer to degree‐awarding research universities (traditional), vocationally‐oriented universities offering degrees and diplomas (the universities of technology), and institutions which are the product of the recent mergers of traditional universities and the former technikons (comprehensives). Despite a rapid deracialisation after apartheid of the student body in the former white universities, the 23 universities are still deeply divided in terms of material resources, research capacity and academic credibility. The 23 universities serve more than 800 000 students of whom more than 200 000 study through distance education offered by the University of South Africa. The end of apartheid also witnessed a tremendous growth in both local and private higher education which eventually was reduced to about 94 private institutions serving about 35 000 students. The most prominent international providers of higher education with campuses in South Africa are Monash University and, until recently, Bond University – both from Australia (Pillay 2010c).


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Participation in higher education South Africa’s current participation rate in higher education, at 16‐17% of the relevant age cohort (18‐24 years old), is substantially higher than the average for sub‐Saharan Africa (around 6%). However, it is much lower than a set of comparator countries (such as Chile 42%, Argentina 56%, Venezuela 27%, Malaysia 27%, Mexico 21%) and industrialised countries (average >60%, Finland 86%, South Korea 98%). In addition to the slightly more than 800 000 students in universities, a further 124 000 are in the further education and training sector. About half of the latter are in the age group 16‐18 years, and the rest are older. Recent research (Cloete 2009) has shown that, in 2007, 35% of persons aged 18‐24 years were in an educational institution. This is more than double the participation rate in higher education, suggesting that several hundred thousand in this age group are in school and other educational institutions outside universities. Low access to higher education is due to a number of factors, one of the most important of which is the poor quality of schooling received by a still significant section of the population. There are at least two worrying aspects to this. First, a large number of children drop out of school before reaching matric. The research has shown that this group, who had obtained a Grade 10 level of education but less than Grade 12, totalled more than 990 000 in 2007 (ibid.). This group was not in the education system nor were they in employment. In addition, there were a further 100 000 students with a matric exemption who were also not in employment. Second, there is a large group that has attempted matric but failed to get a university entrance pass. According to the CHET research, this group (again not in the education and training system, and not in employment) numbered nearly 600 000 in 2007 (ibid.). It is clear that some form of post‐secondary education needs to be developed to absorb this group for further preparation for the labour market or for university education. Increased funding is critical in this regard. The CHET research shows also that there is a clear inverse relationship between level of education and participation in the labour market. For example, while there were more than 990 000 individuals with less than a matric qualification not in employment or in education, there were only 11 000 graduates (bachelors degrees) in this category. (Clearly, some in all groups choose to stay out of employment and education.) In summary, what the CHET research has clearly shown is the following:

Almost one million learners need multiple second‐chance opportunities (further schooling and post‐schooling opportunities);

700 000 individuals with matric need further education and training; and Another one million need a variety of employment, training and youth service

opportunities.


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What the above data and research clearly indicate is that the education system has failed a significant proportion of the South African population. For reasons relating most importantly to justice and fairness, as well as to increasing the proportion of the population with skills to contribute to social and economic development, a serious and urgent effort needs to be made by government to ensure that a large proportion of this group is able to access some form of post‐secondary education in the first instance, and ultimately higher education as well, for a significant proportion. In this way, a clear strategy can be developed for ensuring that higher education access increases in line with the country’s developmental needs. A recent DoE‐National Treasury document (2008) identifies goals relating to student and staff equity. However, the only aspect of equity that is addressed in these goals is that of gender equity. Nothing is said, for instance, about student equity in terms of socio‐economic status and area of origin/location, the two most important determinants of institutional stratification in the higher education system. Moreover, hardly anything is stated in the goals and very little is proposed to address the issues of inter‐institutional equity. It is evident after 16 years of democracy and five years after the introduction of a new funding formula for higher education, that little has been achieved in terms of reducing the structural inequalities that characterise historically white and historically black, and urban and rural institutions.

2.2.2 Higher education expenditure and financing4 Features of the financing framework There are several features of the South African higher education financing framework that are somewhat unique in the African context. First, there is a serious public commitment to spending on higher education. As Table 2.4 shows, expenditure on higher education has increased substantially in nominal terms between 1996 and 2008. As a percentage of the education budget, higher education spending increased from 4% to 14.5% in the same period.

4Unless otherwise stated, this section draws on Pillay (2010).


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Table 2.4: Higher education spending in South Africa (Rands, billions)

Budget Item 1996 2000 2005 2008

Total education 42.1 51.1 83.3 110.2

Higher education excl NSFAS

4.1 7.1 10.8 14.5

NSFAS 0.30 0.44 0.86 1.18

Spending as % of GDP

Item 1996 2000 2005 2008

Total education 6.62 5.36 5.27 5.14

Higher education 0.82 0.74 0.68 0.68

Spending as % of government budget

Item 1996 2000 2005 2008

Total education 23.97 21.82 26.38 27.74

Higher education 2.97 3.02 2.59 2.44

Source: Pillay (2010c) Note: NSFAS = National Student Financial Aid Scheme

Second, the system has always had a fee‐paying component. In fact, tuition fees comprise a significant component of institutional revenue, between 30 to 40%. Third, higher education institutions are free to generate ‘third‐stream’ income through, amongst others, research and entrepreneurial activities. Such third‐stream income constituted 23% and 27% of total revenue in 2004 and 2007, respectively. An interesting feature of this aspect of financing is that, unlike in some other African countries, higher education institutions are not penalised with lower state funding if they raise third‐stream income. Fourth, South Africa has developed one of the most effective student loan schemes for higher education. Called the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), it is an income‐contingent scheme designed for needy students. The scheme is funded by the government (to the tune of R 1.18 billion in 2008, up from R 300 million in 1996) and loans are paid back through the tax administration system when the graduate is employed and has reached a particular income threshold. Under this scheme, the number of grants awarded increased from almost 100 000 in 2002 to nearly 141 000 in 2007. The number of students assisted increased from more than 86 000 to 113 500 in the same period. Moreover, unlike most student loan schemes, this scheme has one of the most acceptable recovery rates internationally. In South African Rand terms, the amount recovered increased consistently from R155 million in 2002 to R479 million in 2007. Fifth, there is a close link between planning (at both the institutional and system levels) and funding. Higher education institutions are required to submit three‐year


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‘rolling plans’ to the government as part of the state’s planning and Medium Term Expenditure Framework budgeting process. Sixth, a key component of the higher education financing framework is that it is underpinned by a funding formula. The funding framework proposed in the 1997 Education White Paper (DoE 1997) re‐conceptualised the relationship between institutional costs and government expenditure on higher education. The new funding framework is seen as a distributive mechanism, that is, a way of allocating government funds to individual institutions in accordance both with the budget made available by government and with government’s policy priorities. The new framework, in effect, recognises that institutional costs tend to be functions of income; of what is available to be spent. Government funds for higher education institutions are not therefore designed to meet specific kinds or levels of institutional cost, but are intended rather to pay institutions for delivering the teaching‐related and research‐related services specified by government‐approved plans. In terms of the higher education funding framework, higher education institutions receive:

Block funds, which are undesignated amounts made available to each institution and which consist of research funds generated by approved outputs; teaching funds generated by planned full‐time equivalent (FTE) student enrolments and by approved teaching outputs; and, institutional factor funds to address equity.

Earmarked funds, which are designated for specific purposes. The funding framework developed for higher education in South Africa has a number of important implications for equity and efficiency. The first is predictability. Implementing a formula‐driven approach ensures a level of predictability, particularly with regard to ‘certainty of revenue’. Institutions are aware of the factors driving the formula and will know within certain parameters, the magnitude of resources that will flow to them over a certain period. Such certainty undoubtedly enhances institutional planning. The second is recognition of a hard budget constraint: the new funding framework is driven by the availability of public resources for higher education rather than by the costs of provision. The various mechanisms in the framework come into operation only after government has determined (a) the total of public funds that should be spent in a given year on higher education, and (b) what services should be delivered by the higher education system. The third is promoting institutional autonomy and equity. By using a mixture of block and earmarked grants, the formula achieves both these goals. Block grants confer a degree of freedom of use of funds by institutions, while earmarked grants by definition are directed towards the attainment of specific goals such as equity (e.g. in research development, and through foundation programmes for the historically disadvantaged).


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The fourth is efficiency incentives. The formula‐driven framework provides for this in a number of ways, including the following:

The block grant component rewards efficiency of outcomes in research. Grants are based on the output of publications and of masters and doctoral graduates. Research grants are, moreover, not based on a pre‐determined monetary amount but against benchmarks based on academic capacity.

Inadequate research performance by the system as a whole will result in surpluses of funds allocated for research. These funds provide a further incentive to stimulate output in that they are distributed on a pro‐rata (output‐determined) basis.

Outputs and inputs: The formula is designed in such a way that it rewards the output of certain categories of graduates more than it does others (e.g. professional bachelors degrees as against other bachelors degrees). Such a funding mechanism enables the government to stimulate the development of skills that are in short supply. As with research, teaching output funds are determined not by pre‐set amounts of funding, but developed through a set of benchmark graduation rates, based on the National Plan for Higher Education. In line with this, the formula promotes differential funding in line with the country’s human development needs (e.g. agriculture and health sciences as against librarianship and psychology).

Through institutional funding, the framework promotes economies of scale and thus lower institutional unit costs. Finally, equity is enhanced in a number of ways, including the following:

Earmarked funding for, amongst others, capacity building, research development and foundation programmes for the historically disadvantaged;

Institutional factoring for students from historically advantaged backgrounds; and Institutional factoring for small institutions, especially those in rural areas.

The Planning Framework for Higher Education The planning model of higher education funding involves three steps, including the following:

The Ministry of Higher Education and Training determines national policy goals and objectives;

Higher education institutions develop three‐year rolling plans indicating how they intend to address the national goals and objectives; and

Interaction between the Ministry and institutions results in the approval of institutional plans, which would lead to the release of funds based on the quantum of funds available.


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Trends in Higher Education Financing As pointed out by Wangenge‐Ouma and Cloete (2008), the funding of higher education is critical for the attainment of the key policy goals identified by the National Plan on Higher Education. These policy goals include (MoE 2001):

Producing the graduates needed for social and economic development Achieving equity in the higher education system Achieving diversity in the higher education system Sustaining and promoting research, and Restructuring the institutional landscape of the higher education system

The most important source of funding for South Africa’s public universities is the state. However, the degree of dependence varies. Some universities receive slightly more than 30% of their total income from government, while others receive 65% of their total revenues from this source (Wangenge‐Ouma and Cloete 2008). A recent study at Rhodes University (Duncan 2009) has shown that the proportion of institutional revenue received from the state (the so‐called first stream of income) has declined, on average, from 62% in 1986 to 41% in 2007. Second‐stream income (tuition fees) increased from 15% to 32% and third‐stream income (research, consultancies, investment income, etc) increased from 23% to 27% during the same period. However, in both real and student per capita terms, funding has declined. A recent analysis shows that between 2000 and 2004, government funding of higher education declined by 3.1% in real terms (Wangenge‐OumaandCloete 2008). From 1995 to 1999, total state spending per FTE student in higher education increased annually by R352 in real terms (in 2000 Rand) but declined annually by R515 between 2000 and 2004. This decreasing pattern continued in the period to 2009. Expenditure on higher education comprises only about 2.5% of total government expenditure. For 2008/09 and 2009/10 this proportion stood at 2.4% and is projected to rise only marginally to 2.5% for the next two years of the current Medium Term Expenditure Framework (National Treasury 2009). In the higher education budget, the two main items are transfer payments to the higher education institutions and the NSFAS. The transfer payments to NSFAS ranged between 8% and 10% for the fiscal period 2005/06‐2007/08, but this is expected to stabilise around 12‐12.5% for the next four fiscal years (ibid.). The transfer payments to the higher education institutions increased at an average annual rate of 12.3% between 2005/06 and 2008/09 (this was significantly above the average inflation for this period, and thus represents a ‘real’ increase of around between 3‐5%). This expenditure is projected to continue to increase at an average rate of 11.2% over the medium term, again significantly above the projected inflation rate for the period (6‐7%) (computed from National Treasury 2009 figures).


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In conclusion, South Africa has reached a relatively high level of sophistication in the development of its higher education funding mechanisms particularly with the close link between its planning and budgeting processes, and its implementation of a relatively simple funding formula. The system has also benefited from always having had a fee‐paying system so no new cost‐sharing mechanisms had to be developed. Finally, there is also a strong systemic thrust towards greater equity exemplified in both the funding formula and the student loan scheme. However, the South African system does face enormous challenges with respect to quality and efficiency. The apartheid legacy of differentiated systemic quality and efficiency continues except that the main determinant is no longer race but socio‐economic status and region. With respect to the new funding framework, there are serious questions relating to the adequacy of the instruments within the formula to promote inter‐institutional equity. In fact, the funding mechanism currently in place may be serving to entrench and even accentuate inequalities between previously advantaged and previously disadvantaged institutions. In practice, this is occurring for at least three reasons at the current time, including the following:

The formula rewards research outputs but most disadvantaged institutions do not have research capacity and, in the light of their heavy teaching burdens, are not likely to develop this capacity in the short to medium terms.

Capital expenditure, while increasing substantially in the past few years, falls far short of requirements in the light of increased access.

Earmarked grants provided for in the funding formula may be inadequate to ‘level the playing field’ and thus address the equity challenge more effectively.

2.2.3 Higher education governance and policy In terms of regulation, all higher education institutions, both public and private, are regulated through an accreditation system led by a statutory body, the Council on Higher Education, and its implementation arm, the Higher Education Quality Committee. The Higher Education Quality Committee has been responsible for closing down programmes and even whole institutions that have failed to meet specific quality assurance standards.

Outside of the accreditation role of the Council on Higher Education, the most important government reform relevant to internationalisation in higher education was the introduction of a national qualifications framework to standardise university qualifications and to bring about greater harmonisation with cross‐border qualifications. The internal politics of South African universities and inter‐departmental tensions within government (principally between the former Departments of Education and Labour) limited the framework’s potential to build a


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common qualifications system that would facilitate the mobility of students across borders and among institutions of higher learning. In terms of policy, the education sector has produced a large number of policy documents since 1994 including White Papers for education, higher education, further education and training, adult basic education and training, and early childhood development. This section focuses on recent key policy documents that recognise the link between higher education and economic development as well as the role of science and technology in the development of the knowledge economy. Higher Education Strategic Plan (2010/11‐2014/15) As is evident in the following quotes from the Minister of Higher Education and Training in the Foreword to the Strategic Plan, there is a clear and strong recognition of the link between higher education and development (DHET 2010: 8):

Our broad mandate is clear. On the demand side, the system must ensure that the skills needed to drive our country’s economic growth and social development are delivered at an increasing rate, because available, quality skills will enhance both investment and service delivery. On the supply side, the system must serve a growing number of both young people and adults; it must provide different entry points into, and pathways through the learning system; it must provide quality learning wherever learning takes place be it a college, a university or in the workplace; and, importantly, it must provide easy pathways across the different learning. The Department of Higher Education and Training needs to promote a rethink of the relationship between education and training in South Africa, in order for us to adequately prepare the post‐school youth for the labour market. This requires a structured interface between universities, colleges, the Sectoral Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and other training institutions, so that they may interact with one another in producing the knowledge and skills on which our society depends.

The Strategic Plan recognises the linkages between its policies directed at the need to develop critical skills and the objectives of other government policies such as the National Industrial Policy Framework, the Industrial Policy Action Plan, the Anti‐Poverty Strategy, the Rural Development Strategy, and the Technology and Innovation Plan. Key policy issues for the higher education and training sector in the Strategy Plan include access; a differentiated post‐school system; efficient and effective


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administrative and planning systems to support the development of an integrated higher education and training system; and quality and relevance (ibid.: 18‐22). The university‐specific challenges identified in the Strategic Plan are (ibid.: 22‐23):

To increase the participation of men and women in undergraduate and postgraduate science, engineering and technology, in absolute numbers and in proportion to the population demographics, with respect to race and gender.

To increase the size and calibre of the academic teaching and researcher population, in order to create the knowledge required for economic and societal development in the next 50 or more years.

To ensure that the level of investment in education is equivalent to the global average for the further and higher education and training systems. White Paper on Science and Technology (1996) This White Paper was critical in outlining the vision and goals for an innovation policy for South Africa. It started by outlining the basic requirements underlying the country’s science and technology policy, including (DACST 1996):

Promoting competitiveness and employment creation Enhancing the quality of life Developing human resources Environmental sustainability Promoting an information society, and The importance of knowledge generation

Four key features of the White Paper were the following:

It produced the outline of a national system of innovation; It set out the key institutional mechanisms for implementing the national system of

innovation including governmental, parastatal and non‐governmental organisations; It recognised the importance of HRD for an effective science and technology policy

including, in particular, education; and It emphasised the need to start building the necessary science and technology

infrastructure.

Ten‐Year Innovation Plan (2008) The purpose of this Ten‐Year Innovation Plan (DST 2008) is to help drive South Africa’s transformation towards a knowledge‐based economy, in which the production and dissemination of knowledge leads to economic benefits and enriches all fields of human endeavour. The Plan recognises and stresses the important role of science, technology and innovation in the development of the knowledge economy (ibid.: vii).


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South Africa’s prospects for improved competitiveness and economic growth rely, to a great degree, on science and technology. According to the Plan, the government’s broad developmental mandate can ultimately be achieved only if South Africa takes further steps on the road to becoming a knowledge‐based economy, in which science and technology, information and learning move to the centre of economic activity (ibid.: 2). The knowledge‐based economy rests on four interconnected, interdependent pillars, namely innovation, economic and institutional infrastructure, information infrastructure, and education (ibid.). It is accepted that South Africa, which has historically been a resource‐based economy, has some distance to travel to become a knowledge‐based economy. Transformation towards a knowledge‐based economy will necessarily shift the proportion and growth of national income derived from knowledge‐based industries, the percentage of the workforce employed in knowledge‐based jobs, and the ratio of firms using technology to innovate. South Africa has a long way to go in this regard. According to the World Bank’s 2006 Knowledge‐Based Economy Index, South Africa ranked 58 out of 132 countries, down from 52nd in 1995 (ibid.: 6). Progress towards a knowledge‐based economy will be driven by four elements, namely human capital development, knowledge generation and exploitation (R&D), knowledge infrastructure, and enablers to address the “innovation chasm” between research results and socio‐economic outcomes (DST 2008). Increased investment in these four areas will certainly have an impact. International experience, however, suggests that an incremental approach will not work. Nations that have achieved accelerated growth in outputs and capabilities have acted decisively, targeting investments in areas of strategic opportunity. This Ten‐Year Innovation Plan proposes a bold new stance for South Africa to transform towards a knowledge‐based economy in support of government’s broad developmental agenda. Such an economy can only emerge as a result of long‐term policy and resource commitments. The government needs to set the focus, establish the scale, and give appropriate signals to ensure that enabling conditions are in place. For South Africa, expanding investment in R&D is a particular challenge. The country’s small R&D base means that achieving critical mass will require parallel but mutually dependent investments. There is a need to expand R&D activities and to grow research capacity. The goal is an economy in which new knowledge‐based industries, and knowledge workers and systems, fuel stronger economic growth. This Plan introduces five “grand challenges” as a way of expanding the research agenda while promoting specific outcomes. The Plan also recognises the need to ensure that innovation, by introducing appropriate institutional mechanisms and other instruments, strengthens a national competence.


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All these goals require a qualitative and quantitative expansion of South Africa’s human capital and knowledge base in science and technology.

2.3 The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University 2.3.1 Key moments in the development of the institution5

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) came into being on 1 January 2005. It came about as the merger between the Port Elizabeth Technikon (PET) and the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) and the incorporation of Vista University’s Port Elizabeth campus (Vista PE). The process of the merger and incorporation took place in two stages: first came the incorporation of Vista PE by UPE in January 2004 followed by the merger of PET and UPE in January 2005. The merger was part of a government‐led restructuring of higher education which aimed at to create an integrated and coordinated higher education system characterised by more diverse and differentiated institutional types. The establishment of PET dates back to the establishment of the Port Elizabeth School of Art in 1882. After its establishment the city required specific types of training opportunities for jobs which later led to the creation of the Port Elizabeth Technical College. The institution became PET in 1979. UPE was created on 31 January 1964 as a dual‐medium residential university. During Apartheid, this institution formed part of the historically white Afrikaans‐medium universities. It was governed by Afrikaans‐speaking executives and governing bodies which gave strong support to the Apartheid government. Vista University was founded on 1 January 1982 with seven contact tuition campuses to provide teaching qualifications. It was established to serve the African urban community and campuses were established in township areas. The Port Elizabeth campus had its first academic year in 1983. Today, NMMU is a medium‐sized, predominantly undergraduate, institution located in the Eastern Cape Province. It is a comprehensive institution offering both technikon‐ and university‐type qualifications. Characteristics of the South African comprehensive institution include diversity in terms of the academic programmes provided, accessibility in terms of various entry and exit points, student mobility, responsiveness and flexibility.

5 The information in this section was provided by Dr Charles Sheppard as part of the background

information to the institution (Sheppard 2009).


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Currently, the university’s academic programmes are offered at a separate campus in the town of George in the Southern Cape and in the faculties of Arts; Business and Economic Sciences; Education; Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology; Health Sciences; Law; and, Science in the Port Elizabeth campuses. Each of these faculties includes a range of schools and/or departments created according to certain criteria. Schools exist in all faculties, except the faculties of Law and Health Sciences, since these faculties did not meet the size criteria for the establishment of schools. These two faculties therefore only have departments. The George campus houses two schools – the School of Natural Resource Management (Saasveld) and the School of Business and Social Sciences (York Street Campus). The university also has a wide range of institutes, centres and units. The institutes include the Institute for Sustainable Government and Development (incorporating the Law Clinic); the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Research and its sub‐entities; the Institute for Information and Communication Technology Advancement and its sub‐entities; and, InnoVenton: The NMMU Institute for Chemical Technology and Downstream Chemical Technology Station and its sub‐entities. The centres include the Management Development Centre, the Telkom Centre of Excellence, the Centre for African Conservation Ecology, the Centre for Energy Research, the Centre for the Advancement of Non‐Racialism and Democracy, and the Centre for Educational Research, Technology and Innovation and its sub‐units.

2.3.2 Governance and strategic objectives The university is led by a Vice Chancellor/Chief Executive Officer who is supported by two Deputy Vice Chancellors (Academic, and Research, Technology and Planning). Other institutional management include the Registrar, the Executive Directors of Finance, Operations and Student Affairs, the Senior Directors of Human Resources, Planning and Institutional Development and Higher Education Access and Development Services, the Director of Organisational Transformation and Equity, seven Executive Deans of Faculties, and the Campus Principals at Missionvale and George. An Executive Management Committee assists the Vice Chancellor in the management and administration of the university. The Committee consists of the Vice Chancellor, the Deputy Vice Chancellors, Executive Directors, Registrar, Director of Organisational Transformation and Equity, and such other members as determined by the Council. The university’s vision is “To be a dynamic African university, recognised for its leadership in generating cutting‐edge knowledge for a sustainable future.” The mission statement is “To offer a diverse range of quality educational opportunities that will make a critical and constructive contribution to regional, national and global sustainability.” The eight strategic priorities of the institution’s current strategic plan, Vision 2020 Directional Statements, Strategic Priorities, Goals and Objectives (December 2009), include the following:


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1. To establish a distinctive academic brand and educational philosophy at NMMU that promotes critical scholarship and develops well‐rounded and responsible graduates capable of success as citizens in the global knowledge society.

2. To provide a responsive learning environment conducive to fostering holistic student success.

3. To create and sustain an environment that encourages, supports and rewards a vibrant research, scholarship and innovation culture.

4. To position NMMU as an engaged institution that contributes to a sustainable future through critical scholarship.

5. To develop and sustain a transformative institutional culture that optimises the full potential of staff and students.

6. To formulate and implement a financial growth and development strategy to enhance long‐term sustainability and competitiveness.

7. To improve institutional processes, systems and infrastructure in order to promote a vibrant staff and student life on all campuses.

8. To maximise human capital potential of staff.

2.3.3 Institutional finances Table 2.5 below shows that the total income received from government almost doubled from USD 35 022 in 2000 to USD 65 799 in 2008. Government funding comprises just over half of all sources of income to the university while student fees constitute around one quarter (Figure 2.1). Income derived from consultancies and contract research makes up a very small proportion of the institution’s income.

Table 2.5: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University government income (2000‐2008)

Government allocation in local currency (Rands)

(thousands)

Government allocation in USD (thousands)

Conversion rate to USD

2000 243 111 35 022 R 6.9 = 1 USD

2001 273 880 31 724 R 8.6 = 1 USD

2002 279 163 26 524 R 10.5 = 1 USD

2003 294 763 38 955 R 7.6 = 1 USD

2004 354 071 54 966 R 6.4 = 1 USD

2005 389 361 61 236 R 6.4 = 1 USD

2006 428 637 63 423 R 6.8 = 1 USD

2007 585 630 82 970 R 7.1 = 1 USD

2008 543 941 65 799 R 8.3 = 1 USD


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Figure 2.1: Income by source as a percentage of total income, NMMU (2005‐2007)

50% 50%

53%

28%26%

22%

10%9%

10%

2% 3% 3%3%4% 3%3% 3%

5%4% 5%4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2005 2006 2007

State aproppriations

Tuition fees

Private gifts and grantsContract income

Sale of goods and servicesInvestment income

Other income


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3.1 Introduction As was highlighted in section 1.1.3, the existence of a ‘pact’ between national and institutional stakeholders, as well as external stakeholders such as industry and foreign donors, on the role of higher education is a key factor in the extent to which universities are able to make a sustained contribution to development. A pact was defined as a fairly long‐term cultural, socio‐economic and political understanding and commitment between universities, political authorities and society at large of the identity or vision of universities, what is expected of universities, and what the rules and values of the universities are. For the purposes of this study, our interest is in exploring the general nature of the pact, and then the extent to which there is a role therein for higher education in economic development. We begin our analysis of the nature and extent of a pact in South Africa by considering the notion(s) of the role of higher education from the perspective of the national authorities and the institutional stakeholders at NMMU. This includes an investigation of the ways in which both national and institutional stakeholders talk about development and the role of higher education, whether and how these notions are articulated in relevant policy documents, and the extent to which specific structures have been established to give expression to the intent of the policies. It also includes a look at the extent to which matters pertaining to higher education are coordinated across national authorities, and between national authorities, higher education institutions (with a specific focus on NMMU) and key external stakeholders.

Part 3

The role of higher education in South Africa

AT A GLANCE

Key national higher education stakeholders Role of higher education in national policies Policy coordination in the higher education sector Institutional narratives on the role of the university Policies, structures and appointments Research funding Research themes Linkages with the labour market


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3.2 The national perspective

3.2.1 Key national stakeholders in relation to the pact In the South African context there are many stakeholders in the development of a pact for higher education and economic development. These include:

The Presidency, specifically the National Planning Commission and the Department for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation

Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) Department of Science and Technology (DST) Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Department of Economic Development Public research institutes Universities, and The private sector

3.2.2 The role of higher education in national policies As the policy documentation outlined in section 2.1.2 indicates, there is a very clear recognition of the role of higher education in development, specifically in the HRD Strategy, the Industrial Policy Action Plan, the DHET Strategic Plan, and the DST Technology Innovation Plan. In particular, both the DHET and DST stress the critical importance of higher education in further development of the knowledge economy in South Africa. The Industrial Policy Action Plan recognises the importance of education, skills development and the knowledge economy, and the links with industrial policy. Moreover, it acknowledges the need for effective planning and coordination across sectors to achieve the important goal of broader economic development. The MTSF is extremely useful in that it identifies the government’s priorities, defines the cross‐cutting policies that are needed to achieve the medium‐term objectives, as well as the role of the three spheres of government in achieving these objectives. It is evident to even the casual observer that there is huge gap between policy development and policy implementation in the South African public service and this is the huge challenge that needs to be addressed before policy‐makers are able to ensure effective linkages across sectors, a necessary condition for ensuring that higher education can play its role in economic development. The Anti‐Poverty Strategy recognises the importance of education and human capital in general for the alleviation of poverty (pillar 2). With respect to the role of higher education, the document states the following (PSA 2008b: 59):

Higher education should adjust to new needs in rural development and enable their graduates and others to keep abreast of advances.


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These include offering teaching in areas such as natural resources management and rural development with off‐farm employment. A broader role for higher education in, for example, teacher education, literacy programmes, community health and research appears to have escaped the authors of the Strategy.

3.2.3 Governance and policy coordination As stated earlier, South Africa has produced a plethora of policy documents in all sectors, but especially economic development and education. In addition, institutional structures and mechanisms have been developed in all three spheres for effective coordination of policy. These include clusters of departments at the national level (e.g. for the economic and social sectors), MinMecs (Minister plus MECs for a particular sector), and budget structures that include all three spheres. However, the biggest challenge that continues to face government is its inability to deliver services and effectively implement policy. This is clearly evident in the schooling sector where the quality of educational provision to a significant section of the population is at an extremely low level. This in turn affects the quality of higher education institutions that such individuals can access. Furthermore, it does not appear that any collaboration takes place between the DHET and the DST to ensure progress on their respective roles around the enhancement of the knowledge economy.

3.3 The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University perspective 3.3.1 Institutional narrative(s) on the role of the university

The interviews with institutional stakeholders revealed a wide variety of views on what the relationship between higher education and development is or can be. At a general level, one institutional leader argued that the relationship between higher education and development is very complex and indirect and was somewhat sceptical about whether universities, by their nature, are designed to play such an instrumental role:

In my own view, I think that the supposedly revolutionary impact of universities on economic development and let alone poverty reduction or alleviation is an exaggerated one. I think the impact of the universities is much less clear and more ambiguous and more indirect than a direct instrumentalist relationship in the way that it was constructed, at least in the post‐colonial period when post‐independent regimes and governments in Africa and states saw universities as tools for development or instruments to basically


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catalyse national economies, and through human resources development generate the sort of intelligentsia and technocratic classes that must drive those post‐colonial societies and economies. I think [...] the relationship, particularly in market economics, is not such a clear‐cut relationship between demand and supply. It’s complex processes that are intermediating in that relationship and the real impact of universities often is felt probably indirectly, but I guess over a longer period one can basically assess the value of that. It’s not a direct infusion, injection of value in solving immediate economic problems as such. In fact universities are probably not designed in a manner that predisposes them to easily play that sort of instrumental [role].I mean, there is an instrumentality about what we do and I guess we do provide skills in the economy, but I don’t think they function in an instrumentalist manner – at least not in an easy way that for me is discernable, where we can calculate the economic impact with a fixed datum and so on, easily. It also goes the same with the way in which knowledge, as it is constructed at universities, is passed onto society, how that knowledge leads to or generates an economic or market or commodity value that either impacts on poverty or on raising the level of GDP. (Institutional leader)

For this institutional leader, universities’ role in economic development is only one of a number of objectives and functions in the current context:

Universities are sort of like at a crossing point with a number of contradictory tensions that I think are written into its very constitutional character. They’re entrepreneurial and scholastic, on the one hand; on the other hand, they’re conservative and then radical; they’re traditional and they’re forward‐looking, and they have to serve long‐term markets, knowledge markets, the fundamental blue sky research imperatives versus functional research that could make an impact, applied research in the here and now. They produce students that we hope would find work or be employable, yet it doesn’t have control of what happens to those products once they generate them. So I guess the economic development role is one other dimension competing for space in the university as well, and if the vice chancellors have to choose, looking at what makes the institutions survive and viable, and what after all they’re assessed against, it will be probably the sort of internal imperatives of the production of graduates that we hope would be employable, that would be productive citizens, not only economically but also in society as well. [...] So I guess my response is: I don’t think there is any single dominant view on this and each university in its


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original context probably makes up its own rules. (Institutional leader)

The fight for survival inhibits any possibility of collaborative efforts between universities and other partners to contribute to real development needs in a substantial way:

All of us are so involved with this battling to survive and to make sure that the system ticks over that our capacities are stretched, our forces are stretched, and often we just do not have the energy or the space, and sometimes the will too, to tackle more ambitious and larger‐scale regional‐ or provincial‐wide projects aimed at combating poverty systematically, with other partners of course, addressing issues of structural unemployment and stimulating regional industrial or economic development in a major way. I think our interactions are ad hoc and piecemeal, and local and opportunistic, as opposed to strategic and proactive and systematic. (Institutional leader)

This idea of competing demands and pressures on universities today was echoed by a senior academic who suggested that the political trade‐offs required might result in a view of the university as a luxury at worst or, at best, an institution that should deliver skills for the labour market. Another senior academic also suggested that the university’s main role is in producing skills for the labour market:

[...] there is going to have to be a balancing between the actual political reality of global events and people’s perception of the need for change and for actually almost now realising a culture that emerged in the 1990s of entitlement, of that now actually being delivered. But whether the actual delivery processes will occur will be to a large extent to what extent certain political leaders are able to appease people verbally if not materially – which will then place the educational institutions in a very vulnerable position because people are likely to see them more as a luxury in many cases rather than a right to more. I think your first right of demand is going to be to what extent is an educational institution, it needs to re‐define itself as delivering somebody that can actually materially produce for the society rather than purely as an institution that is responsible for the generation and creation of knowledge. That concept of creation of knowledge will not be real to the majority of people. [...] So more a delivery institution. Do we spend more money on it or do lower levels of education now receive greater attention? That is going to be I think where the shift is, that’s where the dilemma is going to be [...] there’s going to be far more emphasis to see what at the lower levels what can actually be delivered, and probably more at the intermediary level, meaning the level of the type of skills‐based


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training that is going to have to occur. Because if we’re going to see the emergence of things like public works programmes, etcetera, those are going to require much more technical skills which are clearly lacking in South Africa. So the university will have to either restructure itself in order to address that very, very big demand for pharmacy assistants, engineering assistants, doctors’ assistants, nursing assistants – it’s that level that is going to be, in my mind, where the notion of: these people with a very limited period of training can actually be economic and job‐generating in a very much quicker way than a long‐term graduate. (Senior academic)

Well, if you look at higher education, what is the main business of higher education? It’s to train people and to deliver quality human capital to address those skills in future. I also think that universities have got more and more a regional character being placed on them, where you are the physical space that you occupy. The space that we’re occupying at this moment in time is sort of smack bang in the middle of needing to develop the capacity to have economic development to reduce poverty. I don’t see them as being mutually exclusive; I think you need to have economic development in order to address poverty reduction. I think to have the economic development portion running, universities will have to play a very critical role in future, because if you look at economic development one of the key issues within economic development is the development of your human capital – and that is our core business. So the quicker that we understand our role as higher education in a regional dispensation and to deliver on those scarce skills to address economic development, the quicker we will also be able to address poverty reduction as a longer‐term exercise. (Senior academic)

An institutional leader suggested that one of the ways in which the university can contribute to development is by broadening the pool of researchers which the institution is attempting to do through its research capacity development efforts. She indicated that this is aligned to the government’s research strategy which “has identified research capacity as a priority”, and particularly with regard to black and female staff and postgraduate students. This institutional leader also pointed to the signal from government that university research should “bring value” to community or social development (although not at the expense of fundamental or blue sky research). For this institutional leader, not much needs to be done in this regard, especially from the former technikon component of the new institution: “we haven’t specified that because I think coming from this background of a technikon – a technikon by its very nature, they do research that is applied.” It is also apparent that the NMMU sees itself as playing a role in development through technology development and transfer, in part in response to government’s


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call for universities to play such a role. For example, this link is mentioned on the web site of the Department of Innovation Support and Technology Transfer:6

Technology Transfer is increasingly important for universities globally as a source of competitive advantage for a country. Although some may see this as diluting the business of teaching and research, it fits with the university mission of creating and disseminating knowledge. Universities are increasingly expected to play a role in regional innovation and economic growth. [...] Recently, the South African Government has recognised the importance of innovation to the economy and the role that universities can play in stimulating growth and economic development. The Government also wants to maximise research outputs and societal benefit from public funds invested in universities.

A senior academic added two other notions of the university’s role in development. The first is the economic activity that is stimulated in the immediate vicinity of the university: “we have 26 000 students attached to seven campuses – they eat and sleep, they drive taxis, they go to movies, they drink over the weekends; we talk millions of Rands”. The second related to the idea of the future potential economic growth that is generated by university graduates: “if somebody graduates here they either start a job or are at least active in the economy. But if one person is active in the economy the economists tell us five others benefit in South Africa, and in poorer communities it might even be seven.” One respondent described the role of higher education in development more broadly than economic development:

[...] it’s not only in a narrow sense of just socio‐economic development or responding to national human resource needs – it’s also about developing citizenship in such a way that the young people, even the older people, that you educate at the university are developed in such a way that they can make a contribution to society and to the democratic values that are upheld in the Constitution. So I think it’s not only about the research that we do and how that contributes – it goes to the very core of the curriculum and what we teach in the curriculum, the types of values that we teach. (Institutional leader)

Finally, one respondent regards the current discourse and emphasis on development as a fad:

6Web site: http://www.nmmu.ac.za/default.asp?id=4139&bhcp=1.


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[...] if we look at the 1970s and 1980s we had issue‐specific development. You had religious, you had the educational – the 1990s removed that and funding was therefore channelled into development agencies; so everybody then jumped on the bandwagon, if you weren’t a development agency you didn’t get finance. Now suddenly everything you do is translated into this vague concept of development, and if you want to take it further you say it’s actually going to be to sustainable development. So you’ve linked two vague concepts almost to ensure your funders, and in that way you’ve almost allowed yourself then to play with a little bit of Aids there, a little bit of health there and in that way have been everything to everybody. (Senior academic)

Over and above these general observations about the relationship between higher education and development, much of the discussion in the interviews centred on the ongoing internal debates about the identity and role of the newly merged institution. The apparent diversity of ideas above might be a reflection of this lack of consensus about what the NMMU’s identity and role is supposed to be. At the broadest level, the difficulties with finding a unified identity have to do with the very different backgrounds and orientations of a university and a technikon. In other cases, different views about the institution’s new identity and the extent to which it should be involved in engagement, were influenced by some academics’ more traditional views about the role of the university.

The discussion about the identity of the institution and the philosophy of education reveals a number of tensions: one body of opinion argues that the university should essentially focus on more practical, vocational training that will hopefully generate students that can find quicker employment and make a difference out there. There’s another part coming from the old part of the university arguing that we should focus on more medium‐ and long‐term development goals [...] Those fault lines of debate are still very much present in the institution now. [...] So we’ve achieved the formal merger but the qualitative and strategic issues have not yet been resolved, still remain to be resolved. (Institutional leader)

I would be idealistic if I said that everything is sorted and people are on the same page, because I still think that there are underlying tensions in terms of how people perceive the idea of the university. (Institutional leader) There are still the colleagues from the ex‐university side, ex‐UPE side, that would say we’re not a community college, and so on and so forth. But in a lot of cases people have realised that there’s much to be said for being more engaged – because the whole context of our


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student population as it has changed over the years since ’94, I think has made staff more aware of the fact that we have to be more practical. The whole context in the country in terms of the country’s needs and the priorities that have been set by the national plan, etcetera, gradually staff are realising that the context has changed, the way that we approach our students, deliver our programmes, have to be slightly different. Even if it’s only to respond to the call for increasing the graduation pass rates, dealing with your new student profile, with the under‐prepared students and this whole new diversity of everything. It’s not just the merger but a whole collective of factors that have changed the scenario of higher education completely compared to what it was ten, fifteen years ago. Of course, also new staff coming into the new situation of the comprehensive institution helps to change that attitude. But there are certainly still quite a number of very traditional professors and academic staff. (Institutional leader)

One respondent argued that the pre‐merger institutions – and particularly the Vista University and PET – had always had a development focus and role to play:

I think each of them played a particular role in terms of economic development and poverty reduction. If you look at the old Vista University, it was situated right in the middle of a rather depressed area. Hence the focus there was quite significant research being done in terms of means and methods of addressing poverty reduction. Also not only researching it but also being part of the implementation plan in terms of trying to change or alter the landscape of the area, the people and the processes. Again, if you look at the old Technikon, there the idea was more on practice, on innovation, but again economic development was a primary focus because as we quite rightly know that innovation is one of the primary drivers of economic development. So you can look at each one of these institutions and they each had their own unique characteristic in terms of what they focused on in terms of development and in terms of poverty reduction. Of course, putting them together now you will have a mixed bag. The important thing now is to capitalise on the strengths of each one of these programmes and to pull it out into some synergy that will move towards a general goal. (Senior academic)

To an extent, this idea is echoed in the university’s 2008 Self‐Evaluation Report which points to the strong ‘engagement’ focus of the former PET (NMMU 2008: 36):

Responsiveness, and the notion of academic engagement with the external community and specifically the needs of employers, was


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embedded in the teaching, learning and research of the Port Elizabeth Technikon (PET). PET has a dedicated structure in the form of the Bureau for Industrial Liaison, which served as the centralised structure for driving engagement within the institution. In addition to this, entities situated within faculties were extensively engaged with external stakeholders.

At the time of the interviews, the university was in the process of drafting its Vision 2020 – a document based on broad internal consultation about the future strategic direction of the institution. This, for one institutional leader, would also contribute to achieving some kind of consensus about the identity, focus and role of the university. While there is frequent mention of making a contribution to sustainability or a sustainable future in Vision 2020, there are very few references to ‘development’ per se. The vision and mission statements do allude to a role for the institution in development through knowledge production and “educational opportunities”: the vision of the university is “To be a dynamic African university, recognised for its leadership in generating cutting‐edge knowledge for a sustainable future” and the mission is “To offer a diverse range of quality educational opportunities that will make a critical and constructive contribution to regional, national and global sustainability” (NMMU 2009:1). The following are further references to development and ‘sustainability’ in the strategic priorities of Vision 2020 (see section 2.4.2):

Strategic Priority 1 of the Vision 2020makes reference to the “global knowledge society” and one of the goals under this priority mentions development: “Determine the academic size and shape of NMMU in a manner that optimises our strategic niche as a comprehensive university and responds to regional, national and global development needs” (ibid.:4).

Strategic Priority 3 focuses on research and innovation: “Create and sustain an environment that encourages, supports and rewards a vibrant research, scholarship and innovation culture” (ibid.:7). The first strategic goal focuses on sustainability: “Conduct research that contributes to local, regional, national and global sustainability” (ibid.). One of the strategic objectives is to “identify and develop institutional research themes” and another is to “promote the commercialisation of research outcomes in the form of products, processes and services” (ibid.). (Initiatives around research and innovation are discussed in greater detail in section 3.3.2.)

Strategic Priority 4 focuses on community engagement: “Position NMMU as an engaged institution that contributes to a sustainable future through critical scholarship” (ibid.:8). Here, reference is made to, amongst others, ‘work‐based experiential learning’ and ‘work‐integrated learning’, as well as consultancy, contract research and technology transfer. Many respondents were cognisant of the changes in the local economy – particularly the decline in the automotive industry – and the potential role for the university in contributing to solving this problem. While there are a number of important linkages with this industry at the project level, some institutional stakeholders expressed a


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concern about the lack of interaction at a macro‐level between the university, industry and the provincial government in this regard:

For example, in Port Elizabeth the automotive industry is in major recession at the moment and that directly impacts on the communities that we serve as well. I haven’t had a conversation with, for example, people, including the motorcar industry, how we can come in as a partnership between the universities and them and the [further education and training] sector to look at the retraining of some of maybe the more skilled senior levels of workforce. But there’s no space, no networks existing for those conversations to take place. (Institutional leader)

This economy in Port Elizabeth and East London, the manufacturing parts of it at least has principally evolved for the last 50, 60 years on the backbone of the automotive and allied industry, the components industry. It is clear from the last ten years that that industry has reached its saturation point, it's not going to expand further significantly; if anything it’s being denuded now because of the collapse in North America – General Motors, for example, may well close; Volkswagen is dependent on foreign markets. But even at the best of its abilities I do not think that a manufacturing economy will be able to sustain the large numbers of people coming into the labour market and seeking – you have to diversify that narrow economic spine on which the province or the metropolitan parts of the province has gravitated around as well. As far as I know there have not been discussions between different stakeholders in the province – civil society, business, labour, government – to look at ways in which that could be done. If that mapping has been successfully and smartly thought through, how can we basically mobilise the energies of, amongst others, universities as one player to become a participant in re‐imagining and redeveloping the industrial landscape, so to speak, in the province. I’ve never been party to a discussion around that. (Institutional leader)

On a broader level, quite a number of respondents suggested that part of the reason there is no clear focus about the role of universities in relation to (economic) development is because the national and/or provincial government does not have clarity either. In this regard, institutional stakeholders pointed to the lack of a macro‐economic framework which signals the role of universities, the lack of forums for interaction, no funding or incentives, or simply undervaluing or “denial” of the potential and/or real contribution that universities make. The following is a selection of quotations which reflect these views:


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We’re almost stuck in this projectisation mode as you call it, because of the absence of a kind of a macro‐economic development framework within which universities’ value, strategic long‐term value, could be better be harnessed. In the absence of that, what universities do is essentially the old style project‐based interventions. I’m not denigrating them; they do, as I say, solve or help to solve particular problems here and now, but the fundamental mechanisms that are driving basically development or the lack thereof, remain largely untouched in the way that we think about our roles. That conversation you need to bring with industry, with the policy‐makers, civil society, the labour unions are powerful in that conversation, and so on. [...] This is actually quite a good time to have that conversation, in which the longer‐term role, where I think universities probably could do much better than where they are now at, could be played out as well. And I hope that the planning commission can at least set up conversations or facilitate a context where we can have those conversations. We tried some few years ago, I think it was still – ja, Mbeki was still in power, to have a conversation about the triple helix model, but it just fizzled out, as you may recall, at the time. I think people’s attentions were on other things as well. (Institutional leader)

Whether government is serious about this – I guess rhetorically of course, but I don’t think the Mbeki government, at least not the time I had spent talking to them, had really thought through this – how this relationship should be constructed as well. It’s partly a function to do with basically that the Presidency didn’t see higher education, at least not initially, as a sector that he deemed to be central to debates on macro‐economic development and raising the economic standards of living of people in the country. I couldn’t get that sense of engagement. It was only at the tail end of his term that Mbeki had begun to raise the issue of partnerships around economic development with the universities, through the Presidential Working Groups. But those were intermittent occasions of conversations. There wasn’t a structured attempt for forging the triple helix concept that we have, for example, in North America and other countries, I couldn’t get a sense of seriousness from the side of the Thabo Mbeki administration, and even in fact the Minister of Education too. [...] I think the energies of the Department were spent on other aspects of higher education – to some extent the merger issue, the institutional landscape reconfiguration. Politics dominated at least four to five years of the Mbeki administration’s time and that of the technocrats. And besides, that section, the branch of higher education was actually quite small and not adequately staffed to begin to look into this aspect as well. (Institutional leader)


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For one, I don’t think either government – whether it’s national, provincial or local government – fully works with notions that economists and others use in terms of economic development, whether it’s on the new regional economic geography, the work industrial districts or the growing amount of work on social capital – that doesn’t seem to come into planning whether by the treasury or the DTI [Department of Trade and Industry]. [...] the state still sees itself playing a powerful role in stimulating economic development; it hasn’t quite moved, acknowledged, the growing international paradigm of best practice where you’re looking for smart sophisticated partnerships either on a district level or on a territory level or even across‐border level as you’re finding in Europe. [...] We’re still caught up in the mineral energy complex thinking. This permeates, as far as I’m concerned, a good deal of the thinking about universities. We had a meeting, for example, with the municipality; the municipality saw its role as actually spearheading economic development despite problems in terms of delivery and conceptualising whatever. So the notion that it’s working in South Africa with the development state, a kind of centralist top‐down with the provinces, particularly in the Eastern Cape, playing a subordinate role, actually it goes against a whole range of successful examples elsewhere in the world. So that’s part of the problem that the universities – and I think particularly some of the universities in the Eastern Cape – have a bit of a Cinderella role. [...] there’s a fairly technical approach which doesn’t understand the role of the university, the new university, the new style. I mean, if you look at what Columbia’s doing or you look at Atlanta or Georgia Institute of Technology and look at the work they’re doing in terms of high tech and the appreciation of the linkage between business, government, third sector and university – you don’t find that appreciation at local level. [...] So I think the role of the universities collectively in South Africa is massively underrated by government. It’s particularly so in the Eastern Cape where you find underdevelopment of the universities in terms of the lack of medical schools and absolute lack of resources. [...] we’re still sitting with a 1960s approach to development by central national government. They haven’t fully come to terms with the implications of a whole range of new practical and theoretical developments within the broad area of development, economic development and industry [...] You actually have to have a new mindset. [...] we haven’t moved significantly away from the old apartheid central planning to the new planning, that’s part of it. [...] basically what you still have in South Africa is a compartmentalisation – the university belongs here, business belongs here and the state belongs here. (Senior academic)


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You take University of Grenada which is essentially a medical university which is run by a US consortium – that has a massive impact, a net impact on the Grenadian economy. Again, the failure of the state to realise that money spent on universities, particularly on academic capital, not extending the administration but on academic capital directly to departments, has a significant impact [...]. So that is an underrated aspect. It’s also your spending – if you want to create your knowledge capital, which is crucial for any 21st century economic development strategy, the university is a key site, and what’s actually happening in South Africa is that we’re actually not funding the universities. [...] if you look at the academic capital and our inability to attract competitive academic capital from wherever, it’s a major, major problem if we are to keep up. You only have to look at the east Asian NICs and see what they’re spending in terms of higher education. (Senior academic) If you look at some of the western European countries, Germany for example, some of their depressed economies were kick‐started again by a university being settled there and then the human / social capital being derived around that. I think we are essentially lacking that perspective to drive the role that higher education should be playing in this process of developing a regional economy that transcends the national borders long‐term. And there should be a more cohesive partnership agreement between your regional, your national and your transcending international cooperatives as far as governments and higher education is concerned. (Senior academic) The Department of Education support for development, I think that’s a figment of somebody’s imagination. I think in fact it is exactly the opposite of that; I don’t think that the systems, whether it is DoE or whether it’s the research report systems in South Africa, are not geared towards supporting the concept of development at all. Just if one looks at, for example, the way that DoE would fund universities. A couple of years ago – I can’t remember, three, four years ago – the whole concept of patents was thrown out as a subsidy‐bearing output of research. Now that makes a mockery of this. The way that the government funds research at universities, and if you just look at the NRF system, it is so individual‐based; that’s all that the NRF can do is fund an individual. It’s basically got no mechanism to fund a particular project and a group of people around that. Now individuals can never address these bigger issues, it has to be a much bigger team that operates almost across the globe if you’re going to really start making an impact. (Project leader)


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The funding formula is essentially based on traditional outputs, and that’s why there’s no incentive built into it. [...] I’m not as optimistic we’re going to get additional funding from government; I think we’re sitting with a budget deficit situation for the next two years at least – there are calculations about less R 200 billion worth of tax revenues that they’re anticipating as well. There’s a huge crisis in other parts of the public sector – health care, social development now with rampant unemployment coming on its way. I think they’ve got other things that are going to worry them much more than higher education. (Institutional leader) Provincial governments certainly don’t provide much steer [...] partly because many of them are quite weak, like in the Eastern Cape. They’re battling just to hold themselves together, and universities have been really seen as an esoteric space or a national competency, and so on. They do projects here now but there’s not a structured engagement between us and provincial governments. [...] provincial governments really don’t know how to interact with universities, they’re not confident also to negotiate ideas and to open themselves up to ideas on regional development with universities. (Institutional leader)

An institutional leader also spoke about the ongoing political instability at the provincial and local government level which impacts on relationships and partnerships between these tiers of government and higher education institutions:

[Political instability] tends to paralyse the administration to carry through more longer‐term systematic planning and project management because the civil service is too vulnerable to the perturbations, the shifts at the electoral helm [...] and that acts as a kind of a frustrating drag on its ability to see through partnerships with institutions – because it takes an enormous amount of time to get simple things done. So what happens is universities lose confidence and they retreat because they cost‐benefit, they say: well, for the amount of time and energy I’m going to spend in nurturing this, it’s not worth it, I’ll rather do something else. And of course it’s not the most productive attitude to take. (Institutional leader)


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3.3.2 Initiatives around research and innovation Institutional policies, structures and appointments The university’s current strategic planning document, Vision 2020, has research and innovation as its third strategic priority: “Create and sustain an environment that encourages, supports and rewards a vibrant research, scholarship and innovation culture” (NMMU 2009:7). There is, however, no specific mention of the role of research and innovation in relation to development, although there are efforts to increase research funding, infrastructure and support, as well as to promote and reward research and innovation. The role for development is more explicitly stated in the university’s Research, Technology and Innovation Strategy which states that in attaining the university vision, the institution will be able to achieve the following (NMMU 2007:2):

“Contribute to the transformation and development of our communities in terms of the full spectrum of their needs through research, technology and innovation solutions;

Empower our institution, staff, graduates and communities to contribute and compete, both locally and internationally, as researchers of note; and

Continue to make a major contribution to sustainable development in Africa through research projects that are informed by societal needs.” However, the primary emphasis in both the interviews and the university’s research strategy is on increasing research capacity and outputs – particularly at the postgraduate level and in terms of producing publications out of postgraduate research theses. The key institutional structure which relates to research and related activities is the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research, Technology and Planning. Amongst others, the Research, Technology and Planning Office includes the departments of Research Capacity Development, Research Management, and Innovation Support and Technology Transfer, all of which form a ‘virtual’ research office. The focus of the Department of Research Management is to provide support to established researchers at the university and as the main interface with the National Research Foundation. The focus of the Department of Research Capacity Development is on providing support to emerging researchers, including financial support to postgraduate (masters and doctoral) students and postdoctoral candidates. According to the Department of Innovation Support and Technology Transfer’s web site7, the “primary purpose and function of the Department is to support innovation

7Innovation Support and Technology Transfer web site:

http://www.nmmu.ac.za/default.asp?id=4139&bhcp=1.


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and technology transfer activities inside the NMMU and to promote and give effect to the new national policy on the protection and exploitation of intellectual property developed at publicly funded research organisations.” The two key functions of the Department include the following:

1. Grant and contract management for externally‐funded research‐related projects: assisting researchers in obtaining and negotiating external research grants and contracts; and

2. Management and commercialisation of NMMU intellectual property: transferring technology to industry and society by managing and commercialising the intellectual property of the university. The Director explained that there are three aspects to the intellectual property management and commercialisation task. The first is the ‘pure’ intellectual property management – “making sure the patent actually gets filed, getting a disclosure, making sure the renewal fees get paid”. The second part is looking for commercialisation opportunities – usually with regard to patents: “do we licence it? Do we create a spin‐off company? What is the purpose of that spin‐off company?” The third aspect is actually getting involved in commercialisation – getting the start‐up business up and running. There is some controversy about the university’s involvement in the third aspect – the spin‐off companies – and the Department is still grappling with both the principle and practice of this role. For instance, the Director remarked: “I think because it’s new to us and we’re not quite sure what we’ve let ourselves in for, that’s going to have to be a process of working its way out: how do we do it? Do we hire in external people to do that for us?”At the time of the interview, the Department was involved in three major commercialisation projects – one involving licensing technology, a second a start‐up company (the university remained involved in this because there was still some development work to be done), and a third involving both technology development and a start‐up company. The Department is run by a very small staff – the director and a secretary. They are planning to hire a proposal development manager who will be responsible for the development of the pipeline of ideas and to source external funding (e.g. from Innovation Fund, Eskom and the European Union). The Department reports directly to the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research, Technology and Planning. It appears that this Department is very well funded by the university and the Innovation Fund. In addition, R5 million venture capital funding was secured from the Industrial Development Corporation for one of the start‐up companies. At the time of the interviews, the Department was in talks with the other universities in the province about setting up a regional technology transfer office.


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Research funding A number of respondents commented on the limited university funding available for research and reported that the burden for raising external funding mostly rests with individual researchers:

The university does have its own research budget and there are some allocations made to the faculties, but very limited; it’s more driven by the individual researchers. The individual researchers will obviously apply for funding from places like the National Research Foundation, from SANPAD [South Africa Netherlands research Programme on Alternatives in Development], and so on. [...] we’ve got a dedicated research office within the university and they will facilitate the attraction of funding as well and will endorse processes of research that can attract funding from our side. But in general funding is problematic and it is difficult at the best of times. But if you’ve got a sellable product then the funding becomes less of a problem. (Senior academic) There is some funding internally but mostly it comes from accredited articles, it goes to individual researchers. So, again, it’s part of saying, it’s about your staff‐student ratios, so you’re going to find if you put more academic resources – as Rhodes or UCT – you’re going to increase your per unit output and your PhD output per student. But also the funding is modest because the NMMU doesn’t get the funding flows of say Rhodes or UCT, the donor funds. Our development office, to be frank, hasn’t come up with much in the way of funding. So good researchers have to be entrepreneurial, basically you have to look at external. (Senior academic) I think the biggest problem is we don’t have money for research. And the academics are so used to getting a R30 000 NRF grant, they don’t go for R15 million Innovation Fund grant where they could have 50 students on it. (Institutional leader)

In addition, what might be considered ‘development‐related’ research is not funded or incentivised by the university:

There’s no incentivisation of policy‐relevant research as opposed to esoteric or scholarly research. (Senior academic) Applied research is not funded internally by the university at all, and that is what the outside community wants. So if you want to attract funding as an individual academic from inside, you need to do the


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highly theoretical academic papers which very few people outside of academia will read or understand. (Senior academic)

The university’s Research, Technology and Innovation Strategy acknowledges the inadequate levels of research funding and sets out strategies for increasing external funding (NMMU 2007: 3):

To realise the vision and mission of the University it is necessary to recognise that the present level of funding available for research is inadequate. It is therefore necessary that present university funds are effectively used to support institutional goals and for realisation of the strategy. The University must also attract substantial additional funds to adequately resource the various elements of the strategy.

Research themes / focus areas One of the principles underlying the institution’s Research, Technology and Innovation Strategy is that “it is important that a critical mass of academics and students are developed in a limited number of academic focus areas that are informed by the central thrust of sustainable development” (NMMU 2007:2). In 2005, the university identified eight academic focus areas around which it plans and funds its core business of teaching and learning, research and engagement. The academic focus areas are listed on the web site8 as follows:

1. Health and wellness; 2. Economic and business development with a focus on job creation and

entrepreneurship; 3. Materials, infrastructure and process development for industry and manufacturing; 4. Emerging information and communication technology (ICT) for development; 5. Environmental and natural resource management; 6. Culture, communication and language; 7. Leadership, governance and democracy; and 8. Educational development in support of excellence in teaching, learning and curricula.

These academic focus areas were then developed further into research themes in each faculty, taking into account the following factors which include institutional strategic objectives, national imperatives and local and regional development needs:9

1. The vision, mission and value statements of the NMMU; 2. National imperatives; 3. Regional and local challenges, particularly with respect to sustainable development;

8Web site: http://www.nmmu.ac.za/default.asp?id=3853&bhcp=1. 9 Research Management web site: http://www.nmmu.ac.za/default.asp?id=7500&bhcp=1.


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4. The level and volume of the competencies within the faculty and institution; 5. The future potential of research within the particular area; 6. The complementarities of the theme with respect to competencies within other

faculties; and 7. Strengthening the broad academic focus areas of the NMMU.

One respondent described the process and idea of these research themes as follows:

Within the university we’ve got a Research, Technology and Innovation Committee that’s driven by the DVC RTP [Research, Technology and Planning]. At that committee, all the eight faculties and their research institutes have got a seat. Within each of the faculties there are certain research themes also developed that will be sort of cross‐faculty research themes. For example, in our faculty the two themes that we are looking at specifically are local economic development, and governance, ethics and African leadership. Those are our two very broad research themes within our faculty. You will have others that deal with resource economics, and so on, within other faculties. Based around those focus areas and themes the research agenda is set via this committee structure that we have within the university – under the leadership of the DVC institutionally, and under the leadership of the deans within the faculties, because each faculty will also have its own faculty Research, Technology and Innovation Committee. From there the environment will be set for individual academics to develop and to research around those broad themes, channelling their PhD and M students, their higher degree students, into those research themes, and of course then getting output in terms of papers, of conferences, and of consulting work with local governments, with parastatals or whatever the case may be. (Senior academic)

Only one respondent was not in favour of using academic focus areas or research themes as a way of steering university research:

I think we’re beginning to realise that increasingly we’ve tried to box research, we’ve tried to focus research, we’ve tried to earmark research, we’ve tried to do all of these things. I think that ultimately you’re going to have to have space for a multi‐pronged approach. You’re going to have to realise that certain research is going to be pure, it’s going to be disciplined‐based, and certain research is going to be individually led, certain research is going to be collaborative. You cannot put research now into a single box and expect one box fits all. If you’re going to promote research it’s going to have to have a multi‐pronged almost independent driven paths to that actual research, because again I get back to – one must not lose the point –


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research is not actually research, it’s individuals actually interested in finding out about something. [...] it’s the individual passion – and if we don’t work from that individual passion and ask what actually drives the individual, the research will not be research, it will be sort of a mechanistic process in order to comply with certain rules of engagement. So, yes, research has a very significant role, but it has to be research that has a number of legs attached to it; that it allows the [...] individuals intellectual space in order to drive the process. The minute you start dictating how funds are going to be earmarked, how the process is going to occur, that these are only going to be the focus areas that you’re going to earmark, you find then that people sort of start alienating themselves from that process. (Senior academic)

This respondent went on to suggest that what is required is a “more autonomous research climate” rather than clearly defined research focus areas since these keep on changing: “it’s almost like a moving target – just when you feel that you’ve fitted yourself into this, the target moves and you suddenly now have to realign yourself and the target moves again.”

3.3.3 Initiatives around teaching and learning

There is no specific institutional policy, structure or appointment linking teaching and learning to the university’s role in development. However, in the Vision 2020 document, Strategic Priority 4 focuses on community engagement: “Position NMMU as an engaged institution that contributes to a sustainable future through critical scholarship” (NMMU 2009:8). Notions of ‘work‐based experiential learning’ and ‘work‐integrated learning’ are embedded in the strategic objectives of the third strategic goal: “Advance and support the integration of the three core functions (CE, T&L, R) with a particular focus on scholarship that contributes to a sustainable future” and “Promote and advance engaged teaching, where applicable (i.e. work‐based experiential learning, work‐integrated learning, service learning and volunteerism linked to curriculum)” (ibid.). This emphasis on experiential learning was described in the institution’s Self‐Evaluation Report as follows (NMMU 2008: 87):

Experiential learning in the form of work‐integrated and service learning forms an important element of many career‐focused programmes as well as some professional programmes. Given that NMMU’s mission is to be an engaged university, that it defines experiential learning as a form of community engagement, and that there is a focus on professional and career focused programmes, the inclusion of experiential learning in curriculums, and the development


57

of appropriate forms of experiential learning, have a high priority in the new University.

There appears to be quite a strong tradition of experiential learning, particularly in the diploma programmes from the former technikon, some of which are credit‐bearing. According to the Self‐Evaluation Report, experiential learning is a compulsory component of 63% of all diploma programmes but less than 15% of undergraduate degree programmes (ibid.). The Policy and Guidelines for Experiential Learning was approved in 2007. One respondent reported that there are signals from government that enrolments in certain fields are priority areas but that the university also decides what it thinks are important fields to promote:

We have the prompt from government that what is important is SET – science, engineering and technology – as well as education, teacher training, and also business. The broad humanities is not prioritised as such, but what is said is that you cannot have a science without that, so it is that humanities have to play a very important support role. (Institutional leader)

In 2006 the national Department of Education “required NMMU to indicate five academic growth areas as part of its Institutional Operational Plan and enrolment plan for the period 2006‐2010” (ibid.:28). As part of this process, the university conducted an environmental scan which included a review of a range of national policy documents and economic growth strategies, including the ASGISA, the national Human Resource Development Strategy, the Eastern Cape Provincial Growth and Development Plan, and the Integrated Development Plans of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro and the Eden District Municipalities. According to this report: “These sources consistently highlight the role of higher education in securing a supply of skills, especially scare skills, which anticipate and respond to specific needs in society” (NMMU 2008:28). The five academic growth areas identified included (ibid.:28‐29):

1. Infrastructure development; materials and manufacturing for industry with a focus on the automotive industry;

2. Environmental and natural resource management; 3. Economic and business development with a focus on financial services,

entrepreneurship and tourism; 4. Community and health development with a focus on primary healthcare; and 5. Education, culture and communication.

According to one institutional leader, the former technikon had a long tradition of engaging external advisory boards in its curriculum and programme review and development. In the institution’s Self‐Evaluation Report reference is made to the


58

need to consult external stakeholders in the development of new, or review of existing academic programmes (ibid.: 81):

Depending on the nature of the programme, a range of consultations in respect of the need for a proposed new programme, and its structure and content, or changes to an existing programme will typically include industrial and/or commercial forums and experts, advisory committees, government departments, local communities and stakeholders and networking contacts.

In 2008, the NMMU approved a new policy on advisory boards but it appears that the implementation of this policy in the former university programmes is only slowly taking place:

Again it’s something from the technikon. They’ve had advisory committees. But that is now spilling over into the ex‐university side. We’ve actually got a policy on advisory boards that we approved last year, spelling out how you should go about it – structurally and what the do’s and the don’ts are. [...] Also on the university side you had the professional disciplines like accounting and nursing and psychology and pharmacy and all of that. (Institutional leader)

Some new programmes have been developed with a view to linkages and responsiveness to local and regional economic development needs:

You’re looking at national needs but also at local and regional needs. I mean, take the automotive industry for example. When we became the university and could now offer a B engineering degree and not just diplomas as the Technikon people (the university didn’t have engineering), what did we decide then? To do a bachelors in mechatronics engineering which links with the automotive industry, and we’ve got links with Volkswagen and General Motors. We’ve got chairs, a GM chair now that recently was filled and kind of a Volkswagen chair. So that specifically looks at the local and the regional needs around being excellent in that particular area. That was also just building on the tradition that the Technikon had with the automotive industry. (Institutional leader)


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4.1 Introduction As outlined in the analytical framework (section 1.1.3), the nature, size and continuity of the academic core is a key factor in the extent to which universities can make a significant and sustained contribution to development. The academic core of universities refers to teaching via academic degree programmes and to research activities (often, but not exclusively of the basic type). In societies where there is a strong pact between higher education and society, the universities have been able (and allowed) to develop a strong core of academic activities that forms the basis for all their activities. The stronger its academic core the easier it will be for a university to defend its institutional identity and integrity against external or internal threats. In addition, a strong, institutionalised academic core will allow the university to invest a large part of its resources in the maintenance and further strengthening of the core, which can be regarded as the main foundation under its specific institutional identity. According to Burton Clark (1998), when an enterprising university evolves a stronger steering core, and develops an outreach structure, its heartland is still in the traditional academic departments, formed around disciplines, and some interdisciplinary fields. The heartland is where traditional academic values and activities such as teaching, research and training of the next generation of academics occur. For the purposes of this project, we have used the following to operationalise the concept of the academic core and to identify important preconditions for the development of a strong academic core in African universities:

Increased enrolments in science, engineering and technology (SET): In African governments and foreign development agencies alike, there is a strong emphasis on

Part 4

The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University academic core

AT A GLANCE

A profile of the NMMU academic core: Enrolments in science, engineering and technology Postgraduate enrolments and graduation rates Academic staff‐to‐student ratio Academic staff qualifications Research funding Research output


60

SET as important drivers of development (Juma 2005). Included in SET are the agricultural sciences, architecture and urban and regional planning, computer and information science, health sciences and veterinary sciences, life sciences and physical sciences.

Increased postgraduate enrolments: The knowledge economy and universities are demanding increased numbers of people with postgraduate qualifications.

A favourable academic staff to student ratio: The academic workload should allow for the possibility of research and PhD supervision.

A high proportion of academic staff with doctoral degrees: Research (CHET 2010) shows that there is high correlation between staff with doctorates, on the one hand, and research output and the training of PhD students, on the other.

Adequate research funding per academic: Research requires government and institutional funding and ‘third‐stream’ funding from external sources such as industry and foreign donors.

High graduation rates in SET fields: Not only is it important to increase SET enrolments, it is crucial that universities achieve high success rates in order to respond to the skills shortages in the African labour market in these fields.

Increased knowledge production in the form of doctoral graduates: There is a need for an increase in doctoral graduates for two reasons. Firstly, doctoral graduates form the backbone of academia and are therefore critical for the future reproduction of the academic core. Secondly, there is an increasing demand for people with doctoral degrees outside of academia (e.g. in research organisations and other organisations such as financial institutions).

Knowledge production in the form of research publications recognised in ISI journals: Academics need to be producing peer‐reviewed research publications in order for the university to participate in the global knowledge community and to contribute to new knowledge and innovation. The preconditions outlined above are translated into the following academic core indicators:

Indicator 1: Programmes – Strong SET enrolments and graduations Indicator 2: Postgraduates – Increased enrolments and graduations Indicator 3: Teaching loads – Improving academic staff/student ratios Indicator 4: Qualified staff – High percentage academic staff with PhDs Indicator 5: Funding – Availability of research funds Indicator 6: Research output – High or improving output

In order to develop a benchmark against which the NMMU academic core could be assessed, an analysis was undertaken of South Africa’s 22 contact universities and the seven African universities included in the current study, based on seven input indicators and two output indicators. (See Appendix 2 for a description of the cluster analysis methodology, the detailed data for the institutions included in the analysis, and a graph showing the results of the analysis.) A cluster analysis of the results produced the following four clusters of institutions:


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Cluster 1 consists of the five South African universities which have a strong focus on both undergraduate and postgraduate studies, which are well‐resourced in teaching and in research, and which have strong research outputs.

Cluster 2 consists of two South African and five African universities which have a primary focus on undergraduate studies, which have adequate undergraduate teaching resources, and which have good undergraduate but moderate research output rates.

Cluster 3 consists of eight South African and two African universities which have high proportions of SET students, which have a main focus on undergraduate studies, but which do not have available the same levels of undergraduate teaching resources as Cluster 2. Their undergraduate output rates are satisfactory, but their research output rates fall below the targets set for South African universities.

Cluster 4 consists of seven South African universities which have low proportions of postgraduate students. Their resource levels are low compared to the other three clusters, their output rates at undergraduate level are unsatisfactory, and their research performance is poor.

NMMU appears in Cluster 3 together with Ghana, Nairobi, North West, KwaZulu‐Natal, Free State, Venda, Zululand, and Fort Hare. In the analyses which follow, NMMU (which had an enrolment of 24 000 in 2007) is linked to (a) one of the African universities in Cluster 2 (Ghana which had an enrolment of 21 000 in 2007) and (b) one South African university in Cluster 2 (Free State which had an enrolment of 25 000 in 2007). NMMU is also compared to the Cluster 1 university which is close to it in terms of enrolment size. This is Witwatersrand which had an enrolment of 25 000 in 2007.

4.2 SET enrolments and graduations Table 4.1shows that NMMU’s student enrolment fell from 32 400 in 2001 to 23 800 in 2007. This sharp decline was the result of an institutional decision to decrease the number of students registered for teacher training programmes offered in distance mode. Enrolments in SET programmes increased by 1 500 (or 24%) in 2007 compared to 2001. Figure 4.1 shows that NMMU's proportion of SET majors rose from 18% in 2001 to 31% in 2007.


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Figure 4.1: NMMU: Enrolments by field of study

Table 4.1: NMMU: Total enrolments by field of study (thousands)

Field of study 2001 2003 2005 2007 Average annual growth rate: 2000‐2007

Science and technology 5.9 6.4 7.2 7.4 3.7%

Business and management 5.0 5.2 5.8 5.9 2.8%

Social sciences, humanities and education

21.5 12.7 11.2 10.5 ‐11.3%

Totals 32.4 24.3 24.2 23.8 ‐5.0%

Compared to the other two Cluster 2 universities in the graph, NMMU had a reasonable proportion of SET students in 2007 (Figure 4.2).

18%26% 30% 31%

15%

21%24% 25%

67%

53%46% 44%

2001 2003 2005 2007

Science & technology Business & management Humanities


63

Figure 4.2: Comparison of science and technology majors as % of total enrolment

Table 4.2: Comparison of total science and technology enrolments (thousands)

2001 2003 2005 2007

NMMU 5.9 6.4 7.2 7.4

Ghana 3.2 3.6 4.7 4.5

Free State 4.5 5.9 7.0 7.2

Cluster 1: Wits 9.8 11.5 11.6 12.1

The data in Figures 4.3 and 4.4 measure output performance in terms of a university’s ratio between graduates in any given year and student enrolments in that same year. These ratios serve as proxies for cohort output rates, which indicate what proportion of any cohort entering a university can be expected to eventually complete their degrees or diplomas. The bench mark of 25% is a proxy for a cohort success rate of 75% of entering students obtaining their degrees or diplomas. Figure 4.3 shows that NMMU's average graduate rate for SET declined slightly over the period 2001 to 2007, and remained below the benchmark rate of 25%. NMMU's average graduation rate of 20% for all programmes for the period 2001‐2007 is equivalent to a cohort success rate of 60%, which is an indication of inefficiencies in its graduate output rate.

18%

26%

30%31%

22%18% 18% 17%

32%

27% 29% 29%

48%

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50%

46%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

55%

2001 2003 2005 2007

NMMU Ghana Free State Cluster 1: Wits

NMMU

Ghana

Free State

Cluster 1:Wits


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Figure 4.3: NMMU: Graduation rates by field of study

Table 4.3: NMMU: Total SET graduates

2001 2003 2005 2007

NMMU 1 270 1 197 1 317 1 307

Figure 4.4 shows that NMMU's performance in producing SET graduates was below the benchmark, but was close to the rates of Free State and Witwatersrand. NMMU's average graduation rate of 18% for SET for the period 2001‐2007 is equivalent to a cohort success rate of 56%, which is lower than it should be. The average cohort success rates for 2001‐2007 for SET for the other universities were: Ghana 50% and Free State 55%. The average cohort success rate for 2001‐2007 for Witwatersrand was 64%.

20%

19%18%

18%

13%

20%

23%

25%

10%

12%

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16%

18%

20%

22%

24%

26%

28%

30%

2001 2003 2005 2007

Science & technology Average for all programmes

Target


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Figure 4.4: Comparison of science and technology graduation rates

Table 4.4: Comparison of total science and technology graduates

2001 2003 2005 2007

NMMU 1158 1 191 1 317 1 307

Ghana 611 608 740 579

Free State 1 031 1 054 1 346 1 353

Cluster 1: Wits 1 726 1 841 2 442 2 291

4.3 Postgraduate enrolments and graduations Figure 4.5 shows that the proportion of postgraduate students in NMMU's total enrolment was 11% in 2001 and 11% in 2007. The reason for this is that a sharp decline occurred in postgraduate enrolments for qualifications below masters level between 2001 and 2007. NMMU's proportion of postgraduate students was about one third of Witwatersrand’s, the Cluster 1 university depicted in the graph.

20%19%

18%

18%

19%

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13%

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18%19%

19%

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2001 2003 2005 2007


NMMU

Ghana

Free State

Cluster 1:Wits


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Figure 4.5: Comparison of % postgraduates in enrolment total

Table 4.5: Comparison of total postgraduate enrolments in all fields of study

2001 2003 2005 2007

NMMU 3 644 3 254 2 816 2 599

Ghana 1 641 1 395 1 433 1 682

Free State 6 475 9 390 7 861 7 174

Cluster 1: Wits 6 393 7 423 7 730 7 896

Table 4.6 gives, for NMMU only, details of masters and doctoral enrolments and graduates over the period 2001 to 2007. The table shows that masters enrolments increased by 232 (or 21%) and masters graduates by 60 (or 30%) in 2007 compared to 2001. NMMU's output rate for masters graduates was below the target set for South African universities, but was nevertheless acceptable. Doctoral enrolments grew by 152 (or 87%), and doctoral graduates by only eight in 2007 compared to 2001.

11%

13% 12% 11%12%

7%5% 6%

46% 43%

32%29%

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2001 2003 2005 2007


NMMU

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Free State

Cluster 1:Wits


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Table 4.6: NMMU: Master and doctoral enrolments and graduates

2001 2003 2005 2007 Average annual growth:

2000‐2007

Masters

Enrolments 1 100 1 445 1 473 1 332 3.2%

Graduates 201 268 307 261 4.4%

Doctoral

Doctoral enrolments 175 229 259 327 11.0%

Doctoral graduates 27 28 30 35 4.4%

Total masters + doctoral

Enrolments 1 275 1 674 1 732 1 659 4.5%

Graduates 228 296 337 296 4.4%

Since doctoral students, especially in SET, are essential parts of research programmes, Figure 4.6 can be used as a first measure of a university's involvement in research. A university which has strong research programmes should have reasonably high proportions of doctoral candidates in its grouping of masters plus doctoral students. The graph shows that, for the period 2001‐2007, NMMU enrolled on average five masters students for each doctoral student enrolled, which is a high ratio, indicating that the flow of masters through to doctorates could be high. The comparable ratios for the other universities in the selected group are: Ghana 16 masters enrolments per doctoral enrolment, Free State five and Witwatersrand six. These last two universities have well‐balanced masters‐to‐doctorate student ratios.

Figure 4.6: Comparison of doctoral enrolments as % of masters and doctoral enrolments

14%14%

15%

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6%7%

6%

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17% 20%

16%

13% 13%

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2001 2003 2005 2007


NMMU

Ghana

Free State

Cluster 1:Wits


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Table 4.7: Comparison of masters and doctoral enrolments

2001 2003 2005 2007

Masters Doctoral Masters Doctoral Masters Doctoral Masters Doctoral

NMMU 1 100 175 1 445 229 1 473 259 1 332 327

Ghana 1 349 69 1 272 79 1 337 94 1 580 102

Free State 2 057 449 2 702 529 2 573 544 2 402 618

Cluster 1: Wits 3 656 686 4 166 620 4 620 697 4 856 976

Figure 4.7 compares the total numbers of doctoral graduates produced by each of the four universities between 2001 and 2007. Free State produced 31% and Witwatersrand 50% of the doctoral graduate output of these four universities in 2007.

Figure 4.7: Comparison of total doctoral graduates

Table 4.8: Comparison of doctoral graduates

2001 2003 2005 2007

NMMU 27 28 30 35

Ghana 9 14 12 11

Free State 50 82 65 77

Cluster 1: Wits 79 73 101 134

27 28 3035

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82

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777973

101

134

0

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2001 2003 2005 2007



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4.4 Student‐staff ratios Data on the formal teaching hours carried by academic staff at the four universities are not available. Use has therefore been made of proxies that compare student to academic staff growth rates, and ratios of FTE students to FTE academic staff. Table 4.9 shows how NMMU's totals of FTE students and FTE academic staff changed over the period 2001 to 2007. As can be seen, NMMU was able to increase its total of FTE academic staff at double the rate of the increase in its FTE student totals. Its FTE student to FTE academic staff ratios declined but was still high and unfavourable at 28:1 in 2007.

Table 4.9: NMMU: FTE students and academic staff

2001 2003 2005 2007

Average annual growth:

2000‐2007

Permanent and FTE academics

Permanent academic staff 509 515 557 528 0.6%

FTE academic staff 494 501 545 619 3.8%

Ratio of FTE to permanent academics 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.2

FTE students and FTE academic staff

FTE students 15 227 16 449 16 992 17 012 1.9%

FTE academic staff 494 501 545 619 3.8%

FTE student to FTE academic ratio 30.8 32.8 31.2 27.5

Figure 4.8 compares FTE student to FTE academic staff ratios for 2007. The average ratio for three of the four universities was 20 or less, which is regarded as satisfactory in terms of South African targets. NMMU had, at 28:1, the most unsatisfactory ratio in the group of universities. It is worth noting that NMMU's SET ratio was more than double those of the other three universities.


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Figure 4.8: Comparison of 2007 FTE student‐staff ratios

Figure 4.9 compares the four universities' 2007 totals of permanent academic staff and FTE academic staff. The point of the comparison is made in the paragraph above.

Figure 4.9: Comparison of totals of permanent and FTE academic staff (2007)

Figure 4.10 can function as a proxy of the load carried by permanent academic staff members, who are expected to be the main supervisors of research students and producers of research publications. Figures 4.9 and 4.10 show that the permanent

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academic staff at Witwatersrand has the highest level of support from temporary and part‐time academic staff. Witwatersrand had, in 2007, 989 permanent academics and the equivalent of a further 858 part‐time and temporary academic staff. NMMU had 528 permanent academics and the equivalent of a further 91 temporary and part‐time academic staff members.

Figure 4.10: Comparison of ratios of FTE to permanent academic staff (2007)

4.5 Academic staff qualifications

Figure 4.11 compares the 2007 proportions for the group of the permanent academic staff who have either a masters or a doctorate as their highest formal qualification. NMMU's figure of 34% of permanent staff with doctorates is close to the average for South African universities, but is below those of universities which have a strong focus on research.

1.21.1

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Ratio of FTE to permanent academic staff


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Figure 4.11: Comparison of highest formal qualifications of permanent academics (2007)

Table 4.10: Comparison of permanent academics with masters and doctoral degrees (2007)


Doctorate highest 182 405 344 446

Masters highest 211 364 252 317

Lower than masters 135 96 112 226

4.6 Research funding10 The information in Figures 4.12 and 4.13 attempts to set out the total funding which each university had available for research in 2007. The data should therefore reflect research income rather than expenditure on research. In their annual income statements, South African universities report on their research funding in terms of (a) recurrent research income and (b) research contracts for designated purposes. Witwatersrand’s 2007 income statements gave its recurrent research income as R5.2 million and its designated research contract income as R469 million. Free State's 2007 income statements gave its recurrent research income as 0

10It must be noted that all universities in the sample appear to use different means to estimate their

research income. For the purposes of comparison where no figures have been supplied a percentage

of university income has been used. These figures however are not reliable and more work needs to

be done in further studies to accurately track university research income.

34%

47%49%

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36%

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Doctorate highest Masters highest


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and its research contract income as R17 million. NMMU's income statements gave its recurrent research income as 0 and its research contract income as R26.6 million. The calculations of market rate dollars are based on average exchange rates quoted by the central banking authorities of each country. The calculation of Purchasing Power Parity dollars (PPP$) is based on estimates contained in the 2008 publication on World Development Indicators (World Bank 2008). Because these estimates are based on 2005 exchange rates, the following method was used for the 2007 calculations:

The indicator set gives for each country a ratio between the PPP conversion factor and the market exchange rate. For example, the South African ratio is given as 0.61, based on a market exchange rate of R 6.4 per USD in 2005.

The 2007 calculations assume that the 2005 ratio will apply again. So the 2007 PPP conversion factor is taken to be 2005 ratio times 2007 market exchange rate. For example, the conversion factor for South Africa is calculated as 2005 ratio times 2007 exchange rate = 0.61 X 7.0 = 4.27. The calculations in Figure 4.12 are based on the research income totals referred to above. The amounts in local currency were converted to market rate USD and PPP$ using the methodology referred to above.

Figure 4.12: Comparison of research income in market rate USD and PPP$ (millions)

Figure 4.13 is based on the actual and assumed research income totals in Figure 4.12 and the permanent academic staff totals in Figure 4.9.

4.0 1.1 2.4

67.0

6.52.7 4.0

110.0

0.0

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40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0


Market rate $ PPP $


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Figure 4.13: Comparison of total research income per permanent academic in market rate USD and PPP$ (thousands)

4.7 Research outputs For the purposes of this study, research outputs are measured in terms of research publications11, and doctoral graduates. Table 4.11 lists NMMU’s totals of research publications and doctoral graduates for the period 2001‐2007.

Table 4.11: NMMU: Research outputs

Research publications Doctoral graduates

2001 154 27

2003 155 28

2005 209 30

2007 180 35

Figure 4.14 deals only with research publication units. The target is based on the assumption that a permanent academic should publish at least one research article

11 The research publication data presented here are based on the peer reviewed research publications

data in the Web of Science citation database within the ISI Web of Knowledge, produced by Thomson

Reuters. The database captures papers from all countries that are published in journals that meet

certain criteria of quality as determined by Thomson Reuters.

7.61.4 3.4

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12.3

3.4 5.6

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every two years. The data in the graph show that Witwatersrand and Free State met this target. The ratio of NMMU suggests that each permanent academic will publish one research article every three years.

Figure 4.14: Comparison of research publication units per permanent academic

Figure 4.15 sets out ratios between doctoral graduates and permanent academic staff, with the target again being derived from the research output targets used in the South African higher education system. In this case, the target takes account of the productivity of academic staff in terms of the total of doctoral graduates produced in a given year divided by the total of permanent academic staff employed in that year. The target ratio of 10% is based on these calculations: At least 50% of the permanent staff of a university should be supervising at least one doctoral student, and these students should take on average five years to complete their degrees. So a university with (say) 100 permanent academics should enrol at least 50 doctoral students, and 20% of these should graduate each year. The ratio between permanent staff and doctoral graduates should therefore be at least 10/100 = 10%. The data in the graph show that Free State and Witwatersrand fell below the target in 2001 but exceeded it in 2007. NMMU’s ratio was below the target in both 2001 and 2007.

0.30

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0.92

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1.00


2001 2007

Target


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Figure 4.15: Comparison of doctoral graduates in given year as % of permanent academics employed

5.3%

1.4%

8.3%7.9%

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2001 2007

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5.1 Introduction In order to ensure that the core activities of teaching and research are to some extent aligned with national development priorities and can thereby contribute to development in society, universities increasingly emphasise the need to engage with relevant external stakeholders. Furthermore, much of what might be termed the development‐related activities of the university usually fall within the so‐called ‘third mission’, which is variously referred to as ‘engagement’, ‘service’ or ‘community outreach’. This could include academics serving on committees in the public or private sector, providing support to small businesses, responding to requests for short courses, or undertaking contract research for outside clients. More often than not, the economic development‐related projects and activities of the institution fall under its engagement function. In the first part of this section, we explore the NMMU’s engagement with its key external stakeholders. Given that the NMMU does not, at the institutional level, receive significant foreign‐donor funding, we focus specifically on its linkages with government and industry. In the second part of the section, we turn our attention to an analysis of the extent of the connectedness of the economic development‐related centres and projects included in this study.

5.2 Engagement and linkages with external stakeholders If institutional stakeholders do see a role for the university in development, this is more often than not encapsulated under ‘engagement’ activities. Strategic Priority 4 of Vision 2020 focuses on community engagement: “Position NMMU as an engaged

Part 5

The engagement and development‐related activities of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

AT A GLANCE

University engagement and linkages with government and industry Incentives for academics to engage in development‐related activities Coordination of development activities Connectedness of economic development‐related projects and centres to the

academic core


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institution that contributes to a sustainable future through critical scholarship” (NMMU 2009:8). The first strategic goal focuses on the development of a conceptual framework for community engagement: “Develop a conceptual framework for CE that will inform policies, systems, structures and scholarly activities pertaining to community engagement (CE)” (ibid.). The fourth strategic goal: “Promote and sustain the recognition of CE as a scholarly activity at NMMU” is supported by the strategic objectives: “a. Stimulate, support, recognise and reward CE at all levels of the institution” and “b. Develop and implement strategy‐aligned criteria and reward systems for recognising and rewarding CE” (ibid.:9). At the time of the interviews, a new engagement policy was being drafted although it was clear that what engagement entails was still under debate, as highlighted by an institutional leader:

We are all at this point in time, the last couple of years, coming to grips with being responsive and relevant, the clichés, where we rather refer, I think want to refer to being ‘engaged’. ‘Socially responsive’ is the other concept that is bandied about. We had a big engagement indaba [meeting], engaging with the city there on the Missionvale campus. But, again, to be perfectly honest, it was still very theoretical. I think the big issue is how to make engagement a reality in the sense that the community with whom you want to engage, local and further afield, to experience a positive result affecting their lives or affecting the community, making it better. (Institutional leader)

This institutional leader spoke about ‘community work’ and ‘service learning’ – in relation to issues like HIV/Aids and people with disability – as examples of engagement, although much of this is undocumented and not linked to formal academic programmes. Another institutional leader said that she was hoping to see the institution move in the direction of ‘scholarly engagement’. This notion of scholarly engagement would enable a much closer link of engagement activities to strengthening the academic core of the institution:

What we’re trying to push very strongly is not just engagement from the sense of going out into a community and doing some community relief work or welfare work from a service perspective, but doing it from a scholarly perspective and contributing from the point of strength of a university which is knowledge production and dissemination. So what we’re trying to advocate at an institutional level, but I think it’s going to take a lot of time to seep through and cascade down to the most operational levels of academia, is the scholarship of engagement which is engaging with your communities – and I say communities because people also tend to think sometimes community just means an impoverished community, whereas your communities can be much broader than that: it can be industry, it


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can be big business, it can be civil society, it can be wide‐ranging stakeholders. But to engage with them from a point of scholarship and ensure that that feed back into the curriculum as well as the research that the academics are doing – because coming from academia I didn’t always see those linkages and that integration happening. It was sort of loose things happening where you do some engagement or you do some consulting that stands aside from what you teach in your class situation, and that stands aside from your research – you do some research projects here and there and you get some publications. What we want to see is far more integration between those three core functions, but that it’s all done with engagement as a lens. (Institutional leader)

One institutional leader was hoping to move the engagement activities of the university beyond ad hoc projects to a more strategic and systematic engagement with development needs:

What I’m yearning for and hinting at is not so much more engagement but much smarter forms of engagement that can have the possibilities of systematically helping to tackle structural issues underlying inequality such as poverty and unemployment, and so on. They respond to project needs opportunistically in the environment. That’s fine, I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t do those remediations and interventions, and so on. But there’s a level below that that I’m thinking about, and on a scale and over a longer period than a project that is only for a year or two. For example, rethinking and rehabilitating the industrial landscape is a massive challenge for this province. (Institutional leader)

5.2.1 University‐government‐industry linkages The university’s Research, Technology and Innovation Strategy stresses the importance of linkages with external stakeholders in order to ensure relevance (NMMU 2007: 7):

In the interests of realising its vision of being an engaged university, it is particularly important that the NMMU develop mutually beneficial collaborations with the local/regional/national/ international industry and sector leaders in particular fields. In this case, it will be necessary to develop a close interactive relationship with external stakeholders to ensure that the research agenda addresses the imperatives of engagement.


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The institution’s Self‐Evaluation Report claims that the university “works closely with local and provincial government in the Eastern and Southern Cape” and makes specific mention of the work done by the Institute for Sustainable Government and Development and the School of Information and Communication Technology (NMMU 2008:44). However, as was highlighted in section 3.3.1, many respondents expressed concern about the limited forums of interaction between the university and government (national or provincial), as well as the general undervaluing of the role of universities on the part of government. Having said that, there were some indications that the linkages with government might be improving, as the following quote highlights:12

My colleague has spoken about the meeting that we had with our local municipality, for example, in terms of their, let’s just call it their local economic development directorate, where we’ve now set up to have regular meetings with them where we inform them what we can do, what we have done, and they will then tell us what they would like to have done – and on that we sort of try and create this common ground where we can say: yes, we can do that if you want us to do that; or, ja, what you want from us, we do have that and let’s collaborate on those areas. So it’s a fairly new initiative from our side but it’s now up and running. (Senior academic)

The interviews with project leaders of the development‐related projects/centres identified for inclusion in this study (see section 5.3 below) indicate that, at the project level, there are indeed a number of linkages with business and industry. These linkages are also highlighted in the institution’s 2008 Self‐Evaluation Report which states that the “University has well‐established linkages with government and industry, as well as broader society, in order to promote problem‐solving, knowledge transfer and product development” (NMMU 2008: 44). Examples mentioned include the Automotive Components Technology Station (ACTS); the International Chair of Automotive Engineering that was established with VWSA and the German Academic Exchange Service; the multi‐million Rand contract awarded to the Department of Physics by the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Company; and the support provided to SMMEs in the Eastern Cape by the Small Business Unit (ibid.). According to one institutional leader, the university has a relationship with a few specific companies but that in general there are very few university‐industry partnerships or relationships.

12At the August 2010 feedback seminar it was reported by an NMMU representative that the

university was in the process of signing a memorandum of understanding with the metro municipality

with regard to participating in the establishment of a regional innovation forum to promote local and

regional development.


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The biggest problem we have is some people come, even Coega and East London IDZ [industrial development zone], they come, they talk about research that we can do for them. We say: we can do this research for you, just pay for it. Too often they almost expect us to do it for free and we can’t. We signed a memorandum of understanding; it doesn’t mean we can do the research for free because where’s the money supposed to come from? (Institutional leader)

5.2.2 Incentives, rewards and coordination There are incentives for individual staff members to get involved in innovation. According to one institutional leader, there is a sliding scale but, on average, an individual inventor would get about 30% of the income coming into the university. However, some respondents highlighted the lack of incentives – from the university or nationally – to get involved in engagement activities:

If I may just throw in something from my side, which is fairly sad in terms of our recognised scholarship in higher education, which is research, teaching and community engagement. Community engagement has been the black sheep in terms of funding support and the recognition as far as staff time. The official funding model doesn’t make provision at all. Nationally, not as well. So that to me is such a sad state of affairs. Even if they allow us 5% of our staff time to be official, you know, just a little token, but there’s not even that. You have to do it over and above – there’s no funding for that. If you want funding go outside, go get some funding. [...] that whole thing must be broken down, it must be seen as a natural extension of your activities. (Project leader) There’s no incentive in terms of the engagement, we are taking initiatives for ourselves that we engage in the communities in the name of the university. Probably the university is saying: we are paying because of the branding! (Project leader) The [university’s commitment to engagement] is more symbolic, the commitment is not direct, honestly speaking. We are doing a lot of work in the communities. We engage communities, we bring value for the university. The university is known by the committees through our outreach programmes. The university doesn’t see the impact in terms of that. So if the university did see the impact they would contribute a lot, they would budget for those units. There’s no budget at all. You develop your own. You survive on your own. (Project leader)


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This was conceded by an institutional leader who reported that there were plans to put together a task team that would develop a policy on the recognition and reward of research, teaching and learning, and engagement activities, although he acknowledged that this will be challenging to formulate:

It’s not going to be easy. I’m sure there’s going to be lots of discussion about this and whether we’ll get it – well, I won’t say we’ll be getting it right the first time but we’re going to make an honest and serious attempt to do that. [...] Going with research, it’s easy – it’s peer review and all those things. Teaching, well you can get peer review there too. But engagement is going to be a difficult one. (Institutional leader)

The institution’s Self‐Evaluation Report also makes reference to the development of a workload policy that will “ensure both an equitable distribution of work within teaching units, and an appropriate balance between teaching and learning, research and community engagement responsibilities among academic staff members” (NMMU 2008:64). There was no evidence of a specific structure or unit responsible for the coordination of internal and external interests.

5.2.3 Summary Much of what could be considered the university’s ‘development‐related activities’ would fall under the engagement mandate. However, as has been shown, what exactly constitutes ‘engagement’ is still to be resolved. In addition, while there are incentives for staff to engage in innovation, there are no such incentives for other kinds of engagement activities. And, although there is no formal coordination of linkages with industry, these appear to be strong at the level of individual units, departments and faculties.

5.3 The connectedness of development activities to the academic core A key issue for the relationship between higher education and economic development is to establish a productive relationship between knowledge and connectedness. On the one hand, if there is an overemphasis on the basic knowledge activities of teaching and research – in other words, an excessive inward orientation towards strengthening the academic core – this results in the university becoming an ‘ivory tower’. Or, if the academic core is weak, an overemphasis on knowledge results in the ‘ancillary’ role of the university (i.e. no direct role in development). On the other hand, if there is an overemphasis in the university on connecting to


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development activities, then it weakens the academic core and the university has little new or relevant knowledge to offer in the exchange relationship. The challenge for universities, then, is to deal with this inherent tension between ‘buffering’ (protecting) the core technologies of the institution, and ‘bridging’ (linking) those with external actors (Scott 2001: 199‐211). In reality, the boundaries between internal and external are not that clear cut. A number of theorists, such as Gibbons et al. (1994) and Scott (2001) have argued that during globalisation and its associated ‘new’ forms of knowledge production, the boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred and permeable. The higher education studies literature describes this problem in terms of the conceptual notion of ‘coupling’ (Scott 2001; Weick 1976); that is, the extent to which the core and the external (or ‘periphery’) are linked with, or connected to, one another. In ‘tight coupling’, the boundary is weak and the university is in a direct, ‘instrumental’ relationship with external actors such as government or industry. In ‘loose‐coupling’, the boundary is stronger, such as in the traditional notion of the university as a self‐governing institution, which assumes an indirect contribution to development. The more complex relationship is with the ‘engine of development’ notion where there are multiple, simultaneous forms of knowledge production and exchange. For the purposes of this study, we are using the term ‘connectedness’ to refer to the relationship (and tension) between the inward focus on strengthening and maintaining the academic core, and the outward focus on linking with external stakeholders and development. We operationalised ‘connectedness’ along two dimensions. The first dimension is ‘articulation’ which has a number of aspects. Firstly, it refers to the extent to which the aims and activities of development‐related activities articulate with national development priorities and the university’s strategic objectives. Secondly, it refers to the linkages the project has with two of the groups of stakeholders in the triangle – the government (usually through specific government departments / agencies) and external stakeholders (e.g. industry, small businesses, NGOs or community groups such as fishers or small‐scale farmers). In particular, our focus is on the extent to which there are linkages with an ‘implementation agency’, (i.e. an external body which takes up the knowledge and/or its products generated or applied through research or training). Thirdly, articulation takes into account linkages generated through sources of funding in two respects: whether the project/centre obtains funding from one or more of the three stakeholder groups (government, an external funder or the university itself); and, the extent to which the project/centre develops a relationship with its funders over time. This latter aspect is determined through the nature of the financial sustainability of the project. The second dimension focuses on the extent to which development activities serve to strengthen the academic core of the university. This was operationalised in terms of the extent to which the work undertaken in projects/centres feeds into teaching or curriculum development; is linked to the formal training of students; enables


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academics to publish in academic publications (journals, books etc); is linked to international academic networks; and, generates new knowledge (versus applying existing knowledge). These various aspects relating to articulation and strengthening the academic core were converted into indicators which could then be applied to an analysis of the development‐related projects and centres included in the study. On the basis of the indicator ratings, the projects/centres were plotted on a graph depicting the intersection between articulation and strengthening the academic core. In this section, we present the analysis of the connectedness of selected development‐related activities at NMMU. These projects, which have an economic development or poverty reduction focus, were identified by the institutional leadership for inclusion in the study. It should be noted that this method of analysis is a work‐in‐progress and, in the context of this study, has two possible limitations. The first is that the method of analysis has been developed since completion of the data collection which means that there are some areas of the project data which were not explored in great detail during the interviews. We have, as far as possible, attempted to obtain this additional data from project leaders in the drafting of this report. A second limitation is that the analysis which follows is based on a small number of projects rather than a large representative sample. In addition, the projects selected have an in‐built bias since they were selected by institutional leadership on the basis of their economic development or poverty reduction focus. Despite these limitations, however, we believe that the analysis that follows is an illuminating first step towards the development of a tool which can enable institutions and donors to think critically and strategically about the implications of different models of funding and engagement or development‐related activities.

5.3.1 A brief overview of the projects

Automotive Components Technology Station (ACTS)

Location Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Information TechnologyUnit head Prof. Danie HattinghTimeframe 2002; ongoingType Consultancy projects and trainingWeb site http://acts.nmmu.ac.za/

What is today the Automotive Components Technology Station (ACTS) developed organically over time. It began with Prof. Hattingh who, as an academic at the then Port Elizabeth Technikon, was active as an individual consultant and had already developed “some footprint through consulting with industry” (Project leader). ACTS then recruited two Masters students, both of whom also had some years’ experience working in industry before taking up research positions, and the programme began


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to take shape. According to one of these Masters graduates, the programme gave further structure to what they were already doing: “We used to get phone calls through the week asking: could we do this or could we do that – and when the programme was started that just added the structure to what was already happening.” ACTS is a multi‐disciplinary advisory centre for the automotive component and related manufacturing industries in Southern Africa. The focus of ACTS is to provide support to small and medium enterprises in the automotive component manufacturing industry in order to improve innovation and competitiveness, with the aim of making the South African automotive industry more globally competitive. The project leader said that the unit’s prime function “is to ensure that we stay at the forefront of technology for the sector in which we’re operating” and that the drive is “supplier development – developing and supporting SMMEs.” He also emphasised the very applied nature of their work: “We really pride ourselves in putting engineering solutions on the table and not documented theoretical solutions. We’ve got capability in engineering design, manufacture, process development and control systems engineering.” There are three operational categories within the unit: technical consulting (short‐term problem‐solving), research and development, and administrative. The technical support structure of the unit is divided into Supplier Development, Process Engineering, and Control System Engineering divisions. ACTS supports a wide range of activities for automotive component supplier and related companies including, amongst others, technology and skills development for diversification of smaller suppliers; increasing export readiness of current product range; component quality improvement; process optimisation; testing (material and mechanical); training (advance technologies); fatigue and failure analysis; and stress measurement and evaluation. ACTS works mainly with companies in the Eastern Cape region but also in other parts of the country. They focus on SMEs but also have the big original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as clients. There are three main ways in which ACTS engages with companies in terms of their technical groups. The first is short‐term problem‐solving projects where the unit is approached by an SME that has a specific need and one or more of the ACTS engineers will work with the company on a solution. They have approximately 240 SMEs on their books and complete about 250 such projects in a financial year. The second type of project is longer‐term problem‐solving work that can take three weeks or longer to complete. The third type of activity is under the research and development arm of ACTS which is longer‐term in nature. These projects will typically involve postgraduate students working on Masters or Doctoral degrees as part of the project. The project leader emphasised that intensive training often accompanies the problem‐solving aspects of the consultancies undertaken for the SMEs in order to try to develop their capacity for the future so that they do not remain dependent on ACTS to solve all of their problems.


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About 50% of ACTS funding comes from income generated through projects, services and training for industry.13 The other 50% is funded by the Tshumisano Trust, which is the implementation agency for the Department of Science and Technology and now part of the DST’s Technology Innovation Agency (TIA). ACTS has signed an agreement with DST/TIA for a three‐year funding cycle (2009‐2012). The unit head is the only employee whose salary is paid by the university. The ACTS agenda is influenced by three groupings, namely national government policies, industry and the NMMU which hosts the technology station. At the national level, the Tshumisano Trust ensures that the strategies are aligned with what government expects the unit to deliver and that the impact of the interventions is properly measured. This is clearly spelled out in the Grant Agreement. Industry has a strong presence on the ACTS advisory committee from where they influence the technical strategic direction. As ACTS is housed within the NMMU it is also important that they make a contribution to academic development. All faculty academic managers related to the operational field of ACTS are members of the ACTS management committee from where they give input on the positioning of ACTS within the institution. InnoVenton: NMMU Institute for Chemical Technology and Downstream Chemicals Technology Station Location Faculty of ScienceUnit head Prof. Ben Zeelie (InnoVenton Chief Executive Officer)Timeframe 2005; ongoingType Research programme, consultancy and trainingWeb site http://www.nmmu.ac.za/default.asp?id=3370&bhcp=1

According to the web site, in 2005, within the newly merged NMMU, three units of the former PET – the Catalysis Research Unit, ChemQuest (semi‐commercial analytical laboratory of the Technikon’s Chemistry Department) and the Materials Resource Centre – were amalgamated into one operating entity called InnoVenton. Initially, this entity was registered by the NMMU as InnoVenton: NMMU Institute of Chemical Technology. In 2006, InnoVenton was awarded a Technology Station by the Department of Science and Technology’s Tshumisano programme. The activities of the Technology Station were incorporated into InnoVenton to form InnoVenton: NMMU Institute of Chemical Technology and Downstream Chemicals Technology Station (abbreviated as InnoVenton/DCTS). The unit head explained that in South Africa, there is a serious concern about the “top heavy” nature of the downstream chemical industry which has fewer than 400 companies (compared, for example, to the sector in Italy which has about 7000

13In terms of fees charged, they use the Department of Trade and Industry’s subsidy table for the

subsidy of projects. So while some companies might get a 60‐90% subsidy, other companies which fall

outside of this category will get no subsidy and will have to take full responsibility for the costs

involved.


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companies) and which is monopolised by Sasol (about 80% share). The government had undertaken research in this regard in about 2003 and said at the time that it was important for South Africa to create an underlying platform for smaller companies to develop. The establishment of InnoVenton was a direct response to that call: “We have actually set ourselves up to address that particular problem” (Unit head). InnoVenton’s mission is to enable the growth and diversification of the downstream chemicals process industry through the effective training of high‐level manpower, and creating new knowledge in its two unique enabling strategies – Small Production Platform R&D and Synergistic Products Discovery Methodology Research. InnoVenton’s research agenda follows directly from its mission and the two enabling technology strategies that it has selected. Expertise is developed in these areas through basic research, mainly as part of postgraduate student projects, and then applied to relevant industrial opportunities. The latter can arise either from identifying such an opportunity in‐house (which leads to the creation of spin‐out companies), or externally by existing industries that have a specific need/opportunity. In addition, InnoVenton also participates in national programmes, for example, the Centre of Excellence in catalysis, and the Hydrogen Economy Flagship Programme of the DST. This participation also leads to specific research opportunities and programmes. The research activities are organised into two main thrusts, namely product development and process development. The unit has a range of research facilities to support staff and student research including, for example, a Reaction Calorimeter, a Microstructured Organic Synthesis Plant, an Electrochemical Synthesis Plant and a Multi‐Purpose Kilo‐Lab Facility. The Multi‐Purpose Kilo‐Lab Facility is used for InnoVenton’s Technology Demonstration which aims to provide semi‐technical production, scale‐up and economic evaluations of production processes. According to the web site, using this facility for Technology Demonstration plays “a key role in stimulating and enabling especially SMME’s in developing chemical manufacturing processes that would otherwise require investment that is beyond their available resources, in order to prove concept and thus attract the required project support.” It is also used for training students in the operation of larger scale chemical processing equipment. The various activities of InnoVenton include the following:

Technology Support: Process and product problem‐solving services for industry and SMMEs; technical innovation support and project management; and, transfer of technology from in‐house and client innovations to pilot plant and commercialisation stage to SMMEs.

Analytical: Chemical and material testing and analysis services rendered for industry and other research institutions, and for InnoVenton projects.

Quality: Quality assurance for the commercial analytical services unit and the contract R&D unit; student training and consultancy to industry around quality assurance procedures.


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Training: InnoVenton provides professional and corporate training via a BSc Honours in Formulation Science, a Professional Science Masters (for personnel in SMEs and larger industries), and tailor‐made, in‐house short courses for personnel in the chemical and allied products manufacturing sectors.

Intellectual Property: InnoVenton works with NMMU Innovations and the Office of Innovation Support and Technology Transfer to improve their efficiency in making intellectual property an actual product or service. To ensure the long‐term success of the innovations, they also provide ongoing technology support service to such new ventures. Over the past year‐and‐a‐half, three spin‐off companies have been created – Afrepell Technologies (for the commercialisation of a novel, synergistic insect repellent formulation); Floralush Africa (for the commercialisation of preserved cut flowers); and, Zalgen (for the production of micro‐algae and conversion into biofuels and bio‐products). At the time of the interview, they were in the process of setting up the first pilot reactors on the campus. There are currently 20 full‐time staff members and each year approximately 30 Masters and PhD students. The majority of the staff are from industry rather than academia. InnoVenton is funded entirely by external funds, either through grants such as from the DST through the Tshumisano Trust for example, doing contract research for external clients, selling expert services to industry, and by dividend/royalty income from commercialisation projects.

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project14

Location Department of Physics, Faculty of ScienceUnit head Prof. Jan NeethlingTimeframe 2006; ongoingType Research programmeWeb site ‐‐

The aims of this project are twofold:

1. To undertake research on nuclear reactor fuel, quality control, development of improved and safer fuel for the future; and

2. To train highly skilled scientists. The NMMU has entered into a contractual agreement with the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) Company to undertake certain aspects of the research needed for the development of PBMRs. (Similar agreements had also been signed with Stellenbosch University, the University of Pretoria, the North West University and the

14Since drafting this case study report, government funding for the PBMR has been cut.


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University of the Witwatersrand.) The research, conducted by Prof. Neethling and his team in the Department of Physics, has focused on the evaluation of the materials used in the multilayered fuel particles as well as the fuel pebbles. The effects of subatomic particle irradiation damage in the nuclear fuel particles were investigated as well as the effects of nuclear fission and transmutation products that were produced during the operation of the PBMR. The team has also performed key specification checks and research on the fuel pebbles for a pilot reactor to be built at Koeberg near Cape Town. There have been various spin‐offs from the PBMR contract and the THRIP (South Africa’s Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme) funds. The first is the availability of nuclear energy bursaries for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as local and overseas postdoctoral student grants, with the aim of developing a critical mass of the knowledge and skills necessary to support the PBMR programme and a sustainable nuclear industry in South Africa. The second spin‐off has been that the Department of Physics, a leading centre of expertise on transmission electron microscopy, has been able to leverage additional funding to purchase an atomic resolution transmission electron microscope – the first of its kind in Africa. Other departments in the faculty have also benefitted from the funding secured for this project and the expertise that the project leader has been able to bring in and train: some of the funds have been given to various departments so that they can upgrade their laboratories and equipment, while some of the staff who have been appointed to the Pebble Bed project have trained students in these other departments as well. The plan is to establish a National Centre for High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy that will focus on nanotechnology research. The proposed Centre would be located within the Department of Physics. However, as a national centre, other universities will be able to send their students there for training. Researchers or students in other departments or institutions will be able to utilise the facilities and, where applicable, fees will be charged for this usage. They are also planning to build another floor of office space and will be approaching various potential donors to raise funds for this (e.g. Oppenheimers, Ruperts and Sanlam). Funding for this project is from various sources including the following:

The PBMR Company for setting up laboratories, buying necessary equipment and training people.

THRIP funds were used to replace existing equipment and to purchase a new scanning microscope. A portion of these funds has been shared with other staff in the faculty (Departments of Biochemistry, Applied Mathematics, Geology, Chemistry and Botany) so that they could also update their laboratories and equipment.

Sasol, the PBMR Company and the DST to purchase the atomic resolution transmission electron microscope.


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Agro‐Processing Study for the East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ)

Location Department of Agriculture and Game ManagementProject leader Mr Willem van HeerdenTimeframe Four‐month consultancy project in 2009Type Once‐off consultancy projectWeb site ‐‐

The ELIDZ wanted to facilitate development of the agricultural sector in the area and identified agro‐processing as the next possible growth point. They wanted to commission a consultancy project that would look into how this could be done and what agricultural products should be focused on. The ELIDZ approached Mr van Heerden and asked him to submit a quote, which he did, and was awarded the consultancy. The aim of the project was to advise the ELIDZ with regard to agro‐processing opportunities that might be available in their service area. The project entailed making a study of the agricultural sector in a 200‐250km radius around East London. These parameters were necessary because, depending on the agricultural products that were selected, the distance would have implications for the associated transport costs. The project team identified all the different agricultural products being produced in the area and highlighted those which were ‘bottle‐necked’; in other words, those where the ELIDZ could intervene by setting up the necessary infrastructure – a processing plant – which could have either backward spin‐offs (i.e. being able to produce more of that product) or forward spin‐offs (i.e. creating a first‐level market where rural farmers could deliver their produce). The project team analysed the situation in order to identify the most viable options taking into consideration climatic conditions, and the types of products which could be produced and which would have an advantage in that particular area. They also looked at existing infrastructure such as availability of land, adequate storage space (e.g. for grains) and transport systems (e.g. railway trucks), as well as the overall logistics that would be required for the system to function efficiently. The team developed a matrix of all the different products and then evaluated these according to a number of criteria. Eleven of the products were then selected which were evaluated further in terms of the value‐added chain backwards and forwards, as well as the potential impact in terms of the number of people who would be supported. At the time of the interviews, the team was in the process of selecting two or three products which they regarded as the most viable options for further development. The project team consisted of the project leader, who is an Agricultural Economist, and other staff members who participated in various aspects of the consultancy according to their areas of expertise (e.g. plant and animal specialists). The project was funded by the ELIDZ.


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Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Unit

Location Department of Mathematics and Applied MathematicsProgramme head Prof. Werner OlivierTimeframe 2001; ongoingType Research and support programmeWeb site http://www.nmmu.ac.za/mathsgmsmdp/

According to the web site, during his 90th birthday celebration speech, Govan Mbeki made the appeal that "Our South African youth must study Mathematics and Science in order to be a winning nation." To honour his wish and to respond to the mathematical needs of communities in the Eastern Cape, the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics decided to consolidate their existing mathematics projects into an expanded mathematics development programme. In December 2001 the Department managed to secure a sponsorship from SASOL which led to the formation of the Govan Mbeki SASOL Mathematics Development Programme. In October 2008, the GMSMDP was re‐constituted as a formal NMMU entity as the Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Unit (GMMDU). The aims of the Unit include:

Improving the mathematical problem‐solving skills of learners and educators to meet the challenges of the new NCS syllabus for mathematics;

Promotion of the use of technology in the teaching and learning of mathematics; Facilitating the smooth transition of Grade 11 and12 learners with potential into SET

(science, engineering and technology) programmes in higher education institutions; Attract, nurture and support Grade 11 and 12 learners as prospective new

mathematics and science educators at further education and training level; Project‐related mathematics support in the form of web‐based resources for all

schools in the Eastern Cape Province and beyond; and Project‐related research to promote and communicate the successes and challenges

of the intervention strategies to a wider national and international audience. The work done under the auspices of this Unit is seen as the Department’s contribution to community engagement. Some of the projects are targeted at about 40 previously disadvantaged schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan, while others, which focus on popularising problem‐solving skills as life skills with mathematics as the basis, are broader in their geographic scope. The following are the key project activities of the Programme:

The Mathematics Olympiad for both primary and secondary school learners, mainly in the Eastern Cape: This competition aims to improve the problem‐solving skills of learners and promote awareness of the importance of mathematics and applied mathematics in society.

Mathematics, Science, Engineering and Technology Incubator School: The aims of this project are to improve the understanding and problem‐solving skills of learners with potential to meet the challenges of the new NCS syllabus for mathematics; to facilitate the smooth transition of Grade 11 and 12 learners with potential into SET


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programmes at higher education institutions; to attract and nurture Grade 11 and 12 learners as prospective new maths and science educators at further education and training level; and to improve the quantity and quality of Grade 11 and 12 maths successes.

Two structured Short Learning Programmes (SLPs) to address the shortage of mathematical skills amongst maths educators at the further education and training level: A series of 30 interactive audio‐graphic maths DVDs which cover the compulsory sections of the new NCS syllabus for Grades 10‐12 and maths exam preparation DVDs form the basis of the SLPs. The DVD series was the product of three years of R&D by staff. The SLPs include a contact period where contact delivery is facilitated using the DVD series, as well as two follow‐up workshops which focus on the use of modern technology to assist with the teaching of maths, and the facilitation of exam preparation using the DVD series.

Mathematics Problem‐Solving Workshop Programme for educators from previously disadvantaged schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan.

Maths and Science Exam Preparations Project: This project aims to give Grade 12 learners participating in both the SET and VWSA Maths Incubator School Project the opportunity to prepare themselves for the trial and final exams. This project is offered in the June/July school holiday.

Technology Workshops for Educators: The aim of these workshops is to stimulate the interest in and use of the latest maths computer software by educators in order to improve the quality of the teaching and understanding of maths in the further education and training level classroom. There are plans to incorporate mathematics literacy within the Unit with the specific aim of raising awareness amongst the general public about the importance of real‐life applications of both basic and applied mathematics. In terms of the research agenda, staff in the Unit conceptualise research questions that are directly linked to their project activities, in terms of outcomes or impacts, and these would then be taken up by staff or PhD students. They also try to link with relevant stakeholders such as in the national Department of Education, for the purposes of dissemination and uptake of the research results. The Unit is funded by Sasol and Volkswagen SA. The NMMU Trust provided limited funding up until 2008 for administrative infrastructure.


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Ilinge Lomama Cooperative Bakery Project

Location Small Business Unit15, Business School, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences

Project leader Mr Xola Mkontwana (Centre Manager: Small Business Unit) Timeframe 2002; ongoingType Business support serviceWeb site ‐‐

Women from the townships were providing food to the primary schools in the area as part of the government’s school nutrition programme but on an individual volunteer basis. Some of these women decided that they needed to organise themselves. The Department of Social Development suggested that the women form a cooperative so that they could develop themselves and generate income through the provision of this service. As part of their outreach or engagement work, the SBU visits communities to find out about their business activities and to see in what ways they can provide assistance. In this way, they met the women who wanted to form a cooperative and offered to assist them. The women decided to form a bakery cooperative to supply bread to schools. The aims of the project include:

To alleviate poverty and uplift the women through maintaining a sustainable job creation initiative;

To work as one of the recognised bakery services; and To be the first women empowerment project owning a fully‐fledged bakery premises

in the township. The SBU’s involvement began with undertaking a needs analysis of the group looking at: Who are these people? Where are they coming from? What are their capacities and what are their strengths and weaknesses? And then what is the Department of Social Development coming in to do? The SBU also ran business awareness programmes with the women covering topics such as how to start a business, business development, how to make a profit, how to operate as a non‐governmental organisation, and how to engage with different stakeholders. They provided training in business plans and assisted the group to develop their own business plan. Once this was complete, the SBU assisted the women to register their cooperative with Social Development which gave the cooperative some funding to stimulate them to become more viable. They then facilitated the linkage with the Department of Education so that the cooperative could secure a five‐year tender for servicing about 15 early learning pre‐primary schools in the township with about 20‐24 loaves of bread each morning. The SBU then initiated discussions with ABSA Bank’s corporate social responsibility arm that deals with income‐generating projects to

15 The Small Business Unit has now merged with the Management Development Centre to form the

Leadership Academy.


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request funding to purchase capital equipment for the cooperative. They assisted the women to fill out the application forms. ABSA then visited the cooperative in order to do a sustainability analysis. ABSA was assured about the project’s sustainability because they had already been awarded the tender by the DoE. The women also contributed some of their own money (R1 700) towards kick‐starting the initiative and opened a bank account with ABSA with these funds. The cooperative started with 55 women but to‐date there are only 15 women left. It seems that the other women found employment elsewhere. In addition to servicing the pre‐primary schools, the women also sell their bread to local communities at quite a low price. Having done the business skills training and facilitated linkages with key stakeholders, the role of the SBU then shifts to that of mentorship. The project leader emphasised that although, in such cases, the SBU does have an “exit plan”, they never completely leave the group – they continue to communicate with them and provide mentorship around needs arising. This is just one of a number of income‐generating projects in the Eastern Cape in which the SBU is involved. The project is funded by ABSA (for capital equipment and to cover staff time) and the national Department for Social Development. The SBU is a self‐funding unit of the university, that is, it does not get any funding from the university, although the university does take 15% of the income generated by the unit which counts as third stream income. Five percent of the income goes to the faculty. The Department of Social Development was involved in the initial stage of the programme for two to three years. Thereafter the Cooperative received a tender from the Department of Education for the nutrition programme until to date. They have also teamed up with the other big suppliers to supply bread to the immediate and identified schools in the Nelson Mandela Bay and the surrounding rural areas. They produce a quantity of bread for the big supplier daily and in return the business is paid what is due to them. They also continually supply immediate schools with the daily orders.

*** The key features of these development‐related projects/groups are summarised in Table 5.1 over page. The projects/centres have been categorised according to type and range from long‐term research programmes and training, to a short‐term consultancy and business support service. The economic development focus of the projects/centres range from consultancy projects and training for industry and long‐term research for government and industry to upgrading the mathematics skills of learners and educators and providing business support to poor women.


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A number of the projects have both government and industry as funders and only one receives funding from the university itself. Despite this reliance on external funding, four of the six projects were initiated and/or have their agendas set by the academics themselves. Only the short‐term consultancy project did not report any external linkages; the rest of the projects/centres reported a wide range of external connections.


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Table 5.1: Overview of the development‐related projects

Project/centre Classification Funder(s) Beneficiaries External linkages Initiation/ agenda‐setting

Economic development focus

Automotive Components Technology Station

Consultancy projects and training

Government agency and income generation

SMEs in the automotive components industry

Original equipment manufacturers, international universities and technology transfer partners

Academics with industry experience, donor

Consultancy projects and training for industry (especially SMEs)

InnoVenton Research programme, consultancy and training

Government agency, industry clients, commercialisation

Industry International and local universities and research organisations

Academics, government and industry

Research, consultancy and training for specific industry

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project

Research programme

Government agency and industry

Industry Foreign researchers, public enterprise in South Africa

Industry Research to assist in developing a pebble bed modular reactor for South Africa

Agro‐Processing Project

Once‐off consultancy

Government‐industry initiative

Industry, farmers None reported Government‐industry initiative

Advise ELIDZ on agro‐processing opportunities in the area

Maths Development Unit

Research and support programme

Industry and university

Maths learners and educators in the province

Government departments, industry and a network

Academics Upgrading skills of maths learners and educators

Cooperative Bakery Project

Business support service

Financial institution and government department

Poor women in the local township

Financial institution, government departments, NGOs

Academics Providing business support to poor women in the community


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5.3.2 Articulation Table 5.2 below summarises interviewee’s responses to the question about the extent to which the project or centre aims and objectives were in response to / articulated with the university’s strategic objectives (as contained in the institution’s strategic plan), as well as the country’s national development priorities. Methodologically, we do recognise that project leaders might have drawn these links more strongly in retrospect than originally was the case in order to give the impression of greater articulation. A deeper exploration of the circumstances of the initiation and agenda‐setting of the project would have enabled us to see these linkages more clearly ourselves. Nevertheless, the reported linkages are sufficient for a first‐level analysis. As can be seen from Table 5.2, all six of the projects reported articulation of project aims with national objectives, while two of the six did not report any articulation with institutional strategic objectives. The articulation with institutional objectives or national priorities is, in some cases, quite specific (i.e. links to a clearly identifiable objective or priority) while, in other cases, the articulation is more general (i.e. linking to a broader, less specified, objective or priority). In order to rate the degree of articulation of each of the projects, we used the notions of ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’ articulation (see Table 5.5). Table 5.3 indicates the extent to which each project or centre had linkages with an external agency that has or will directly or indirectly ‘implement’ (or utilise) the outputs. Table 5.4 summarises the comments made by project leaders about the financial sustainability of the projects. Finally, Table 5.5 summarises the total articulation ratings for the six projects/centres.


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Table 5.2: Articulation with institutional objectives and national priorities

Project/centre Funder(s) Initiation/ agenda‐setting

Institutional strategic objectives National priorities




To provide a major focus area for the NMMU in terms of product and process technologies in the manufacturing sector.

To provide a significant long‐term benefit to the NMMU, its staff and students in terms of career opportunities and enhancement.

To create new opportunities for the NMMU to participate in third stream activities.

To make a contribution to the NMMU’s vision of being an ‘engaged institution’ through active linkages with industry clients, funding agencies, government and government agencies, and other national and international research and development groups.

To play a role in the development of the local economy through such activities as the creation of new business opportunities and enhancing existing business opportunities.

To become part of a national network of Technology Stations linked to other national facilities such as the CSIR’s Manufacturing and Materials Technology Division, the South African Bureau of Standards, the Automotive Industry Development Centre, and the Small Enterprises Development Agency.

InnoVenton Government agency, industry clients, commercialisation

Academics, government and industry

None reported The focus on providing technology support to SMMEs is seen as an important contribution to the government’s strategies to revitalise the South African chemical industry by 2014. In addition, the provision of such technology support is vital in the establishment/ strengthening of the local innovation system and is an important function of the university in the national innovation system.


Government agency and industry

Industry It is in line with the university's strategic plans of improving the research culture, establishing top research infrastructure, research outputs and MSc and PhD graduates.

This project is in line with the following national priorities defined by the DST and NRF: Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Energy Materials and the mineral beneficiation Development of highly skilled scientists, i.e. top PhDs.


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Table 5.2: Articulation with institutional objectives and national priorities (continued)

Project/centre Funder(s) Initiation/ agenda‐setting

Institutional strategic objectives National priorities




The university’s Vision 2020 statement has a strategic thrust of ‘community engagement’. The project contributes to this through engagement with a particular community in order to develop and create new knowledge as well as to apply available knowledge and expertise for the betterment of the community.

This project falls 100% within the strategic priorities of national and provincial government. This stated strategic priority addresses the upliftment and development of the rural communities of South Africa. There is a major drive by national and provincial government to improve food security for rural communities. This project will play a part by way of creating work and a market for surplus product.


Industry and university

Academics The Unit contributes to increasing science, engineering and technology diploma and degree enrolments, especially among black students. This, in turn, helps the university to meet the objectives of its enrolment plan.

The crisis in South Africa of poor maths literacy and school results is widely documented and this Unit is a direct response to trying to address this situation through projects aimed at upgrading the skills of both learners and maths educators. The use of educational technologies is also one of the priorities of the national Department of Education.


Financial institution and government department

Academics The project has been established through the university's initiative to be an engaged institution. Most postgraduate students do social investment and practicals through this project.

The national vision of ‘vukuzenzele’16 concept has been fulfilled through this project as most of the women have taken the initiative and heeded the President’s call.

16Vukuzenzele is an initiative by the South African Presidency which aims to get all government departments, through volunteers and without government

funds, involved in a social outreach programme with the projects run under the auspices of each government department’s Director General.


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Table 5.3: Initiation/agenda‐setting, funding sources and implementation agencies

Project/centre Initiation/agenda‐setting Funder(s) Implementation agencies




The SMEs and OEMs that ACTS provides technology support, problem‐solving and training to as clients

InnoVenton Academics, government and industry Government agency, industry clients, commercialisation

SMEs in the downstream chemical industry which receive support and training; spin‐off companies

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project Industry Government agency and industry The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Company

Agro‐Processing Project Government‐industry initiative Government‐industry initiative The East London Industrial Development Zone

Maths Development Unit Academics Industry and university Mathematics educators who receive support and training; district level education branches use the Maths DVD Series developed by the Unit

Cooperative Bakery Project Academics Financial institution and government department

The Ilinge Lomama Bakery Cooperative


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Table 5.4: Financial sustainability of the projects/centres

Project/centre Timeframe Funder(s) Financial sustainability


2002; ongoing Government agency and income generation

50% of the ACTS funding comes from the Tshumisano Trust and the unit is currently on a three‐year funding cycle until 2012. The unit head reported ongoing uncertainty around sustainability which presents a number of challenges to the unit. The unit head would prefer to secure funding on 10‐year cycles, particularly in order to retain the industry‐based staff. He said: “It’s not ideal, we’re in a very vulnerable situation. If these technical professionals resign from the unit then the unit will no longer be able to deliver an avenue for delivering fast track solutions for industry; you cannot sustain a unit like this with academics only.”

InnoVenton 2005; ongoing Government agency, industry clients, commercialisation

InnoVenton is funded entirely by external funds (grants, contract research and dividends from commercialisation projects). According to the unit head, the nature of InnoVenton’s funding model requires a careful balance of resources in order to sustain its core objectives. There is a real danger that the need to generate external funds (to pay salaries, etc.) can easily become the dominating activity, thereby preventing the execution of its primary R&D and training functions. As a result, and in order to provide a more “stable” financial basis to support these primary functions, InnoVenton has embarked upon a strategy to establish formal (degree/diploma) programmes to generate DoE subsidy.


2006; ongoing Government agency and industry

In terms of the future sustainability of the project, the plan is to establish a National Centre for High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy that will focus on nanotechnology research. The proposed Centre would be located within the Department of Physics. As a national centre, other universities will be able to send their students there for training. Researchers or students in other departments or institutions will be able to utilise the facilities and, where applicable, fees will be charged for this usage. They are also planning to build another floor of office space and will be approaching various potential donors to raise funds for this (e.g. Oppenheimers, Ruperts and Sanlam).


Four‐month consultancy, 2009




2001; ongoing Industry and university

The programme leader reported that the sustainability of the Unit into the future is a challenge. In part, this has to do with the fact that funding is sought year to year. The other challenge with regard to sustainability has to do with the fact that this Unit falls under ‘engagement activities’ and there is no official time set aside for these projects; in other words, the work on the Unit is over and above the official duties related to the Department’s teaching and research functions.


2002; ongoing Financial institution and government department

The future sustainability of the Small Business Unit’s involvement in this project is unclear since there do not seem to be any future plans for additional funding beyond the current Department of Education tender for the nutrition programme.


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Table 5.5: Articulation rating (maximum score = 13)

Project/centre Automotive Components Technology Station

InnoVenton Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project




Institutional objectives 2 0 2 2 2 2

National priorities 2 2 2 2 2 1

No. of funding sources 2 3 2 1 2 2

Funding sustainability 3 3 2 1 2 2

Implementation agency 2 2 2 2 2 2

Total articulation rating 11 10 10 8 10 9

Key: Institutional objectives / National priorities: 2 = Direct (link to specific strategic objective or national priority) 1 = Indirect (broad/general reference) 0 = None (no reported link) No. of funding sources: 1 for each of the following: University; Government; Foreign donor; Income generation Funding sustainability: 1 = Once‐off, short‐term (a project that is one year or less in duration and which receives only one round of funding) 2 = Long‐term but capped (a project that is more than one year in duration and which receives one or more rounds of funding, but the funding is capped) 3 =Ongoing (a project which receives ongoing funding, e.g. from the university or from income generation) Link to implementation agency: 2 = Direct 1 = Indirect 0 = None


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5.3.3 Contribution to strengthening the academic core Table 5.6 below summarises the information pertaining to each of the projects with regard to their connection to the academic core activities of the university. ‘Core strengthening’ activities include the generation of new knowledge; the involvement of students in the project as part of their formal training; project knowledge and experience feeds into teaching and curriculum development; project knowledge and experience is published in academic publications; and, the project is linked to international academic networks. In order to rate the extent to which the projects contribute to strengthening the academic core, each of the five factors highlighted above were assigned a value of 1 when present. The results are captured in Table 5.7. Perhaps not surprisingly, those projects/centres which include a focus on training or providing support tend to apply existing knowledge rather than generate new knowledge – except of course where research is also a key focus. While students are often linked to project activities, this is not always part of their formal training. All of the projects/centres’ activities and knowledge feed into teaching and curriculum development, but not all are linked to international academic networks.


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Table 5.6: Contribution to strengthening the academic core

Project/centre Classification New/existing knowledge

Link to academic core Link to international academic networks

Student involvement Teaching/curriculum Publishing


Consultancy projects and training

New and existing Masters and Doctoral students’ research projects are linked to longer‐term R&D projects in the unit

Yes Yes Yes

InnoVenton Research programme, consultancy and training

New and existing Masters and Doctoral students are registered across the various research programmes; students from other faculties are linked to InnoVenton projects as part of their formal training

BSc Honours in Formulation Science and the Professional Science Masters programmes have been developed as a result of the work of this unit.

Yes Yes


Research programme

Generate new knowledge

Bursaries are made available for undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral students but not part of their formal training

Yes Yes Yes




No Yes, at post‐diploma level No No


Research and support programme

New and existing Undergraduate students involved in Incubator School Project but not part of their formal training; PhD students link their research to the Unit

Experiences gained from DVD‐driven skills upgrade and Incubator School Project integrated into Maths training of BEd students who specialise in Maths

No No


Business support service

Apply existing knowledge

Fourth‐year BCom SMME students have done part of their compulsory practical training linked to the project

Yes, into the BCom SMME programme

Yes No


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Table 5.7: Strengthening academic core rating (maximum score = 5)

Project/centre Teaching / curriculum

development

Formal training of students


Academic publications

Link to international academic networks

Total rating

Automotive Components Technology Station 1 1 1 1 1 5

InnoVenton 1 1 1 1 1 5

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project 1 0 1 1 1 4

Agro‐Processing Project 1 0 1 0 0 2

Maths Development Unit 1 1 1 0 0 3

Cooperative Bakery Project 1 1 0 1 0 3

Key: 1 = Yes 0 = No


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5.3.4 Analysis of the connectedness of development projects/centres In order to analyse the development projects identified for the study, we operationalised the notion of ‘connectedness’ along two axes – the first, articulation, refers to the extent to which there is some coherence between the development projects/centres and the objectives and priorities of government and the institution, as well as linkages between the project and key external stakeholders, and especially implementation agencies. The second axis considers the extent to which the development projects/centres serve to strengthen or weaken the academic core of the institution. The total ratings for each project in terms of its articulation and contribution to strengthening the academic core of the university are summarised in Table 5.8 below. Using these ratings, each of the projects is then plotted on the articulation and academic core axes in Figure 5.1.

Table 5.8: Summary of ratings

Project/centre Articulation Academic core

Automotive Components Technology Station 11 5

InnoVenton 10 5

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project 10 4

Agro‐Processing Project 8 2

Maths Development Unit 10 3

Cooperative Bakery Project 9 3


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Figure 5.1: Plotting the development‐related projects

Key: ACTS Automotive Components Technology Station IV InnoVenton: NMMU Institute for Chemical Technology and Downstream Chemicals

Technology Station PBMR Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project AP Agro‐Processing Study for the East London Industrial Development Zone MD Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Unit CB Ilinge Lomama Cooperative Bakery Project

Following the analytical proposition, our assumption would be that for development‐related projects to make the most sustained contribution to development they would best fall within the top right‐hand quadrant in the graph; in other words, their activities articulate with national priorities and institutional strategic objectives; they have close linkages with key external stakeholders, especially any implementation agencies; and, they contribute towards strengthening the academic core of the institution, rather than weakening it. As can be seen from Figure 5.1, three of the six projects/centres fall with the top right‐hand quadrant of the graph. Two of these – ACTS and InnoVenton – engage in a large number and variety of consultancy projects for industry, which in part explains their strong articulation rating. What is also interesting about these two projects is

ACTS 5, 11

IV 5, 10

PBMR 4, 10

AP 2, 8

MD 3, 10

CB 3, 9

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Direct articulation

Indirectarticulation

Weakening academic core

Strengthening academic core


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that despite the strong orientation towards consultancy projects, these two centres also manage to make significant contributions to strengthening the academic core of the university (they both score the maximum rating of 5 on this axis). The PBMR project, a long‐term research programme, follows closely behind to ACTS and InnoVenton in its potential to contribute to development in the region and country. It is perhaps not surprising that the short‐term consultancy project as well as the two projects which are characterised more as ‘community service’ type activities within their respective departments, score quite high on the articulation rating. However, one of these especially – the consultancy project – potentially draws academic staff away from the core of the university, arguably weakening the academic core.


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6.1 Introduction A vast amount of data has been gathered and presented in the preceding sections of this report. But what does this tell us about the possible contribution that higher education in South Africa can make to the country’s economic development? In order to answer this broader question, we return to the key concepts and questions which were summarised in section 1.1.3. Here, our point of departure was that higher education’s role in and contribution to economic development can best be understood by investigating the following three inter‐related factors:

The nature of the pact between the universities, political authorities and society at large;

The nature, size and continuity of the university’s academic core; and The level of coordination, the effectiveness of implementation, and connectedness in

the larger policy context of universities. Furthermore, these factors need to be considered in relation to various contextual features including local circumstances, institutional characteristics and external relations. By way of concluding this report, we review and analyse the data presented in order to answer the following questions:

1. How does South Africa fare on the preconditions for an effective and productive relationship between higher education and economic development identified in the international case studies (see Pillay 2010b)?

2. To what extent is there a pact between key stakeholders (national and institutional) in South Africa about the role of higher education in general, and in relation to economic development in particular?

Part 6

Key findings

AT A GLANCE

Macro‐observations about higher education and economic development in South Africa

The nature of the pact around the role of higher education in South Africa The strength of the NMMU’s academic core The connectedness of the university’s development‐related activities to the

academic core


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3. Does the NMMU, as a specific case, have capacity to make a contribution to economic development in terms of: a. The nature and strength of the academic core; and b. The connectedness of its development‐related activities to the academic core?

6.2 Some macro‐observations about higher education and economic development in South Africa Pundy Pillay’s investigation of three systems (Finland, South Korea, and North Carolina) suggested a number of ‘preconditions’ for an effective and productive relationship between higher education and economic development (Pillay 2010b). These were summarised in section 1.1.3. How does South Africa fare in meeting these preconditions?

1. High quality schooling. Participation rates are relatively high at both the primary and secondary levels. The net enrolment ratio (NER) in primary education was at 88% in 2006 but still leaves the country a bit short of achieving universal primary education (UNESCO 2009). The NER in secondary schooling was at around 65% in 2006, leaving considerable room for improvement.

However, quality of schooling remains the biggest challenge. An indication of the quality of schooling in South African education can be gained by an analysis of the SACMEQ reading and mathematics scores. In SACMEQ II, conducted in 2005, South Africa came eighth out of 14 Southern and East African countries (after Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Swaziland and Tanzania) and ninth in mathematics (after the same seven countries listed earlier plus Uganda). Inequality in South African society is also mirrored in the education outcomes by socio‐economic status and region. Amongst the countries participating in SACMEQII, with only one exception (mathematics in Lesotho), pupils from high socio‐economic status backgrounds outscore pupils from low socio‐economic status backgrounds in every country. What is of additional concern is the magnitude of the difference in the score in many countries. On the reading scores, the difference between high and low socio‐economic status students ranges from 5 points to 103. South Africa is the worst offender in this regard with the 103 point difference. On the mathematics scores, the difference ranges from ‐4 to 78, with South Africa again the worst offender.

2. Effective economic and education planning. A serious commitment to economic and

education planning is reflected in the policy documents. However, there is little evidence that such planning actually takes place. The policies are in place, as are the necessary institutions, but there is little evidence thus far of effective planning between the economic and education/higher education sectors.


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3. The role of the state. The state plays an important role with respect to funding. The state’s policy documents give prominence to the role of tertiary education in development broadly, and in the further development of the knowledge economy in particular.

4. Partnerships. In general, no evidence could be gleaned of partnerships between the

state, the universities and the private sector. 5. Institutional differentiation. Theoretically, universities are differentiated. In

practice, however, they all appear to aspire to the same goals with regard to teaching and research. At another level, the tertiary sector needs to be expanded to provide for a much broader role for colleges.

6. Quality. Serious questions have been raised about the quality of educational

provision across the system. In the higher education sector, pockets of excellence coexist with a number of poor‐quality institutions. The finding on poor quality features prominently in the WEF’s GCI and the GII.

7. Funding. State funding of tertiary education is relatively high in African terms but,

given the extent of need and the imperative to increase access and enhance equity, much more funding is needed. In addition, while the overall budget has increased over the past decade, the government subsidy per student has declined.

8. Innovation. In the African context, South Africa is performing very well in terms of

international innovation indicators. However, this is because of a small, highly developed component of the society that is able to participate fully in the knowledge economy. The need for South Africa to broaden access and to improve equity and quality to ensure greater expansion of the knowledge economy segments is paramount.

6.3 Evidence of a pact around the role of higher education in South Africa? For the purposes of this study, we use the definition of a pact provided by Gornitzka et al. (2007: 184):

A ‘pact’ is a fairly long‐term cultural commitment to and from the University, as an institution with its own foundational rules of appropriate practices, causal and normative beliefs, and resources, yet validated by the political and social system in which the University is embedded. A pact, then, is different from a contract based on continuous strategic calculation of expected value by public authorities, organised external groups, university employees, and students – all regularly monitoring and assessing the University on


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the basis of its usefulness for their self‐interest, and acting accordingly.

The key actors of the pact are national, institutional and external stakeholders. It is assumed that the stronger the pact between universities, university leadership, national authorities and society at large, the better the universities will be able to make a significant, sustained contribution to development. Our interest is in exploring the extent to which there is a pact around the role for higher education in economic development in South Africa. Key to the development of such a pact is agreement or consensus that there should be a role and then about what that role should entail. In order to investigate this aspect, we have sought to address the following questions:

1. Is there a role for knowledge production and for universities in the national development plan?

2. How do the relevant national authorities and institutional stakeholders talk about and conceptualise the role of universities? The role of knowledge and universities in national and institutional policies and plans were operationalised into a series of indicators. These indicators were then rated on a 3‐2‐1 scale by three of the researchers. The indicators and the ratings (indicated by shading) are presented in Table 6.1 below.

Table 6.1: Role for knowledge and universities in development in South Africa

National Rating = 4/6

The concept of a knowledge economy features in the national development plan

3 Strong Appears in a number of policies

2 Weak Only mentioned in one policy

1 Absent Not mentioned at all

A role for higher education in development in national policies and plans

3 Prevalent Clearly mentioned in development policies

2 Weak

1 Absent

Institutional (NMMU)Rating = 3/6

Concept of a knowledge economy features in institutional policies and plans

3 Features strongly in strategic plan and/or research policy/strategy

2 Vague reference in strategic plan or research policy

1 Not mentioned at all

Institutional policies with regard to the university’s role in economic development

3 Institutional policy

2 Embedded in strategic plan, research policy etc

1 No formal policies


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FINDINGS:

There is a lack of clarity and agreement (pact) about a development model and the role of higher education in development, at both national and institutional levels.

South Africa, with its historical dependency on mineral extraction and thus a resource economy, has not accepted that knowledge, and by implication higher education, is key to development.

The formation of a ‘super ministry’, which combines universities and training, is unprecedented in the context of the knowledge economy. It signals that the government sees the universities from the traditional African post‐liberation perspective of training professionals and for upward mobility (new elite formation)17.

There is an emerging awareness about the importance of the knowledge economy approach, particularly in the Department of Science and Technology, but not in the Department of Education. At the university level it is surprisingly absent, except for specific pockets, mainly in the sciences.

6.3.1 Analysis of the connectedness of development projects/centres In terms of notions of the role of the university, how do national and institutional stakeholders conceptualise the role of higher education and the university in development? And, to what extent is there consensus or disjuncture between the national and institutional levels? Our conceptual framework for addressing these questions comprises four notions of the relationship between higher education (especially universities) and national development. These four notions18, which are elaborated upon below, emerge in the interaction between the following two sets of scenarios:

Whether or not a role is foreseen for new knowledge in the national development strategy; and

Whether or not universities, as knowledge institutions, have a role in the national development strategy. These two sets of scenarios, and the concomitant four notions of the role of universities, are depicted in Figure 6.1 below:

17In his 2011 State of the Nation address (Cape Town, 10 February 2011), the President, Jacob Zuma,

referred to higher education only in terms of increasing access and funding for poor students. 18 These four notions are based on ideas developed by Maassen and Cloete (2006) and Maassen and

Olsen (2007).


Figure 6.1: The four notions of the role of knowledge and universities in development

The four notions are elaborated as follows:

The university as ancillary: In this notion, there is a strong focus on political/ideological starting‐points for development. Consequently, it is assumed that there is no need for a strong (scientific) knowledge basis for development strategies and policies. Neither is it necessary for the university to play a direct role in development since the emphasis is on investments in basic healthcare, agricultural production and primary education. The role of universities is to produce educated civil servants and professionals (with teaching based on transmitting established knowledge rather than on research), as well as different forms of community service.

The university as self‐governing institution: Knowledge produced at the university is considered important for national development – especially for the improvement of healthcare and the strengthening of agricultural production. However, this notion assumes that the most relevant knowledge is produced when academics from the North and the South cooperate in externally‐funded projects, rather than being steered by the state. This notion portrays the university as playing an important role in developing the national identity, and in producing high‐level bureaucrats and scientific knowledge – but not directly related to national development; the university is committed to serving society as a whole rather than specific

University not part of development strategy

No/marginal role for new knowledge in development

strategy

Central role for new knowledge in development

strategy

University part of development strategy

AncillarySelf‐

governing

Instrument Engine


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stakeholders. This notion assumes that the university is most effective when it is left to itself, and can determine its own priorities according to universal criteria, independent of the particularities of a specific geographical, national, cultural or religious context. It also assumes there is no need to invest additional public funds to increase the relevance of the university.

The university as instrument for development agendas: In this notion, the university has an important role to play in national development – not through the production of new scientific knowledge, but through expertise exchange and capacity building. The focus of the university’s development efforts should be on contributing to reducing poverty and disease, to improving agricultural production, and to support small business development – primarily through consultancy activities (especially for government agencies and development aid) and through direct involvement in local communities.

The university as engine of development: This notion assumes that knowledge plays a central role in national development – in relation to improving healthcare and agricultural production, but also in relation to innovations in the private sector, especially in areas such as information and communication technology, biotechnology and engineering. Within this notion the university is seen as (one of) the core institutions in the national development model. The underlying assumption is that the university is the only institution in society that can provide an adequate foundation for the complexities of the emerging knowledge economy when it comes to producing the relevant skills and competencies of the employees in all major sectors, as well as to the production of use‐oriented knowledge. At the national level in South Africa, the notion of the role of the university varies – from training for the labour market and training researchers (DHET), to a strong emphasis on research and innovation (DST), to skills and innovation policies aligned to sectoral priorities from the Cabinet’s Industrial Policy Action Plan. These different government positions basically cover all four notions described above. A senior university leader argued that the Mbeki administration did not see higher education as central to debates on macro‐economic development and that it was only towards the end of his administration that the issue was raised intermittently. Now, the Minister of Higher Education and Training is focussing on training for the labour market. What is fascinating is that this lack of agreement about the role of higher education among the key government stakeholders is mirrored, and even amplified, within the NMMU. A university leader put it so eloquently that it is worth repeating here:

Universities are at a crossing point with a number of contradictory tensions that are written into their very constitutional character. They’re entrepreneurial and scholastic, on the one hand; on the other hand, they’re conservative and then radical; they’re traditional and they’re forward‐looking, and they have to serve long‐term knowledge markets, the fundamental blue sky research imperatives, versus


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functional research that could make an impact; applied research in the here and now. They produce students that we hope will find work or be employable, yet they do not have control over what happens to those products once they generate them.

He concludes that there is no single, dominant view about the role of higher education in South Africa and that each university effectively makes up its own rules. The views of university respondents on the role of the NMMU in relation to development were very varied. One respondent reflected that current demands require political trade‐offs which might result in a view of the university as a luxury at worst, or at best as an institution that should deliver skills for the labour market. Other views included that the university’s real contribution to development is broadening the researcher pool; that it is through technology development and transfer; and, that it lies in stimulating economic activity in the immediate vicinity of the university. There was also a view that linking the university to economic development was a recurring fad. Perhaps not surprisingly, much of the discussion in the interviews was about the ongoing internal debates about the identity of the newly‐merged ‘comprehensive’ institution. Table 6.2 below summarises the notions of the role of higher education held by national and institutional stakeholders, and indicates whether the notion is strong, prevalent or present. As can be seen, overall at the NMMU, there was no dominant view; instead, there were a range of competing views representing all four notions. People from the previous university seem to favour the self‐governing and the engine view, while staff from the previous technikon lean more towards an instrumental role. The ancillary notion also had some support, even though it was less strongly expressed. In conclusion, two things stand out: firstly, everybody is acutely aware of the debate about the identity of the ‘comprehensive university’ and its possible role with regards to development and, secondly, there is absolutely no agreement.


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Table 6.2: Comparing national and institutional notions of the role of higher education in South Africa

Notions National stakeholders Institutional stakeholders

Ancillary Strongly present in some policy documents

Some academics thought that this is how the university is perceived

Self‐governing Accepted in a number of policies and expected to provide general education and train researchers

Very strong amongst some stakeholders

Instrument for development agendas

Probably most directly expressed by Cabinet document

Many academic see the ‘technikon’ model as the future with technology application

Engine for development Very strongly favoured by the DST

Some academics see globally competitive research and innovation as the way to go

Key:

Strong Prevalent Present

FINDINGS:

In terms of notions of the role of the university in development, at the national level there is an unresolved tension between the self‐governance and instrumental roles. This reflects the well known tension between institutional autonomy, on the one hand, and engagement or responsiveness, on the other.

At the university level, the merger between three institutions with different notions of the role of a higher education institution is evident in the lack of resolution amongst institutional stakeholders.

At neither national nor institutional level is there agreement about the role of the university in development. It is quite surprising that amongst university leadership there is such low support for a knowledge economy approach.

6.4 The academic core of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University The university’s unique contribution to development is via knowledge – either transmitting knowledge to individuals who will go out into the world and contribute to society in a variety of ways (teaching), or producing and disseminating knowledge that can be applied to the problems of society and economy (research, engagement). Part of our conceptual framework for understanding what impacts on a university’s ability to make a sustainable contribution to development therefore focuses on the nature and strength of its knowledge activities. According to Burton Clark (1998), the ‘heartland’ of enterprising universities, with strong steering cores and developed outreach structures, remains in traditional


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academic departments built upon disciplines and some interdisciplinary fields. This ‘heartland’ is where traditional academic values and activities reside including teaching, research and training of the next generation of academics. Instead of ‘heartland’, we use the concept ‘academic core’. According to our analytical assumption, it is this core that needs to be strengthened if flagship universities – such as those included in this study – as key knowledge institutions, are to contribute to development. While most universities also engage in knowledge activities in the area of community service or outreach, our contention is that the backbone or the foundation of the university’s business is its academic core – that is, its teaching via academic degree programmes, its research output, and the production of doctorates (those individuals who, in the future, will be responsible for carrying out the core knowledge activities). Furthermore, in societies where there is a strong pact between higher education and society, the universities have been able (and allowed) to develop a strong core of academic activities that form the basis for all their activities. Our interest in the academic core of the NMMU has the following two dimensions:

1. What is the strength of the academic core of the institution? 2. Has the academic core been strengthening or weakening in recent years?

In Part 4 of this report, we presented a detailed profile and analysis of the nature and strength of the NMMU academic core. The analysis was undertaken on the basis of seven key indicators (see Table 6.3 below). The rating of the NMMU indicators was undertaken on the basis of a cluster analysis which included South Africa’s 22 contact universities and the seven other African universities included in the study.


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Table 6.3: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University: Rating of the academic core

Indicator Strong(3) Medium(2) Weak(1)

1 Science, engineering and technology enrolments and graduations

SET students = 31% in 2007, and increasing. But only 60% of SET intakes expected to graduate

2 Postgraduate / undergraduate enrolments ratio Masters / PhD enrolment ratio

Proportion of postgraduates low at 11% in 2001 and in 2007. However, masters and doctors enrolments grew and ratio between masters and doctoral enrolments satisfactory at 6:1

3 Teaching load: Academic staff / student ratio

Overall ratio 28:1 in 2007, and 23: 1 in SET. Both unsatisfactory

4 Proportion of academic staff with doctorates

34% of permanent academics have doctorates, which is the South African average

5 Research income per permanent academic staff member

Research funding moderate in 2007; USD 7 600 per academic

6 Doctoral graduates Graduates on average from 2001 to 2007 constituted 5.5% of permanent academics

7 Research publications Outputs in 2007 about 60% of targets set for research universities

The following observations can be made about the academic core data for NMMU:

1. SET enrolments – NMMU’s SET enrolments grew from 5 900 in 2001 to 7 400 in 2007, at an average annual rate of 3.7%. Because of the sharp drop that occurred in its teacher education enrolments, NMMU’s proportion of SET students rose from 18% in 2001 to 31% in 2007. Its SET graduation rate, however, declined over the period. Only about 60% of students entering SET programmes in NMMU are likely to complete their qualifications.

2. Postgraduate enrolments – The proportion of postgraduate students in NMMU’s total enrolment was 11% in both 2001 and 2007. Masters enrolments did, however, grow from 1 100 in 2001 to 1 332 in 2007, at an average annual increase of 3.2%. The masters graduation rate was below the target set for South African universities but was satisfactory. Doctoral enrolments doubled from 175 in 2001 to 327 in 2007. Doctoral enrolments had, in 2007, a share of 20% of the masters plus doctoral total. This implies that there should be a flow of masters graduates into doctoral studies.


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3. Teaching load – Between 2001 and 2007, NMMU’s FTE academic staff total grew at double the annual growth rate in FTE students. Its average FTE student to FTE academic staff ratio, as a consequence, fell from 31:1 in 2001 to 28:1 in 2007. NMMU’s SET ratio was 23:1 in 2007, which is high by South African standards. NMMU’s permanent academics appear to have heavy teaching loads which may make it difficult for them to engage in research activities.

4. Qualifications of staff – In 2007, 34% of NMMU’s permanent academic staff had

doctorates as their highest formal qualifications. This is close to the average for South African universities, but is below the proportions reported by research‐intensive universities.

5. Research funding – NMMU had, in 2007, the equivalent of USD 7 600 in research

funding per permanent academic staff member. This is a reasonable amount, but is below the sums available to South Africa’s research‐intensive universities.

6. Doctoral graduates – Graduates increased from 27 in 2001 to 35 in 2007, which is a

very modest increase of 4.4%. This does not reflect the considerable increase in doctoral enrolments, from 175 in 2001 to 327 in 2007, which is almost a 50% growth. Neither is this strong growth reflected in outputs, and is quite surprising given that masters enrolments only increased from 1 100 to 1 332 (8%) over the same period.

7. Research publications – In terms of research publications, NMMU’s output is

moderate. Its 2007 ratio of publication units per permanent academic was, at 0.34, below the ratio of 0.50 which has been set as a target for South Africa’s research universities. In terms of the previous discussion about the four competing notions of the role of the university amongst institutional stakeholders at NMMU, the academic core data tells a different story. Firstly, the institution is changing dramatically from a predominantly undergraduate social sciences/humanities (67% in 2001) to a SET (31%) and business management (25%) institution, with the social sciences/humanities declining to 24%. Secondly, the proportion of postgraduate enrolment is very small – not much better than the University of Ghana – and neither the postgraduate enrolments nor the doctoral graduates have increased by much (NMMU went from 27 doctoral graduates in 2001 to 35 in 2007, while the University of the Witwatersrand went from 79 to 124 over the corresponding period). Thirdly, NMMU has the poorest student/staff ratio of the institutions compared, while the percentage of staff with doctorates is also the lowest. Fourthly, research income is a fraction of an institution like the Witwatersrand. Doctoral output has remained stagnant, despite an almost doubling of enrolments. The 5.5% doctoral graduates per permanent academic staff member is well below the target of 10%. And, finally, the research output is only 0.34, slightly up from 0.30 in 2001, but well below the modest government target of 0.50. NMMU is, therefore, really an undergraduate teaching institution, with a strong shift towards SET and business management. This implies a strong instrumental


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orientation, while the institution’s knowledge‐producing capacity (increasing proportion of doctorates amongst staff and students and an increase in publications) does not position it to be a strong self‐governing institution, nor an engine of development.

FINDINGS:

The knowledge production output variables of the academic core do not seem strong enough to enable NMMU to make a sustained contribution to development.

The university is not significantly changing from a predominantly undergraduate teaching institution. However, it is changing from a mainly undergraduate social science/humanities to more of a SET and business studies institution. In that sense it is moving closer to a number of other African universities such as Nairobi and Mauritius.

On the input side, NMMU scores medium in comparison with the rest of the HERANA sample with regards to postgraduate enrolments, student‐staff ratios, staff with doctorates and research income.

On the output side, NMMU scores medium both with regards to doctoral graduates and research outputs, but both are very low in comparison to an institution such as the University of Cape Town.

The most serious challenges to strengthening the academic core seem to be around increasing the percentage of staff with doctorates, doctoral graduation rates and research outputs.

6.5 Coordination and connectedness Knowledge policies have become increasingly important in the context of the knowledge economy. Broadly speaking, knowledge policies refer to political mechanisms (such as policies and incentives) that are aimed at improving the (knowledge) capacity of a country to participate in the global knowledge economy. Such policies thus relate to the higher education and science and technology sectors, and to high‐level skills training, research and innovation. The coordination of knowledge policies can take place at the level of both policy formulation and policy implementation. In this project ‘coordination’ is used to refer to more structured forms of interaction, mainly between government and institutions; in other words, the knowledge policies and implementation activities of different government departments, particularly departments of education, science and technology, and research councils. Of specific interest to this study is the coordination of knowledge policies across ministries involved with higher education, science, technology and innovation, as well as those responsible for economic development or planning.


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Implementation can be regarded as a component of the coordination of government policies and is a complex combination of agreement (relevant parties support the policy) and capacity to design and apply the implementation mechanisms or instruments. At the national level we looked at the role of the ministry responsible for higher education, steering and funding. At the institutional level, indicators dealt with aspects such as units or structures to implement strategic plans, incentives and rewards, special teaching and research programmes that link to economic development and funding support for research. Another key issue for the relationship between higher education and economic development is the establishment of a productive relationship between knowledge and connectedness. The university stands in danger of becoming an ‘ivory tower’ if there is an excessive inward orientation towards strengthening the academic core by concentrating only on the basic knowledge activities of teaching and research. And if the academic core is weak, the university faces the potential of being able to play only an ‘ancillary’ role contributing nothing towards development. Conversely, if there is an overemphasis on establishing a connection with development activities, the academic core is weakened resulting in the university having little new or relevant knowledge to offer in the exchange relationship. The challenge for universities, then, is to deal with this inherent tension between ‘buffering’ (protecting) the core technologies of the institution, and ‘bridging’ (linking) those with external actors (Scott 2001: 199‐211). For the purposes of this study, we are using the term ‘connectedness’ to refer to the relationship (and tension) between the inward focus on strengthening and maintaining the academic core, and the outward focus on linking with external stakeholders and development. In this section, we address the following three questions relating to coordination and connectedness:

1. Does government coordinate policies and steering mechanisms that enable the university to contribute to development?

2. Does the university connect to external groupings in ways that promote development?

3. Do development activities in the university strengthen or weaken the academic core?

6.5.1 Knowledge policy coordination and implementation As was highlighted in section 2.1.2, South Africa has produced a plethora of policy documents in all sectors, but especially in economic development and education. In addition, institutional structures and mechanisms have been developed for coordination of policy. These include clusters of departments at the national level (e.g. for the economic and social sectors), MinMecs (Minister plus MECs for a particular sector), and budget structures that include all three spheres. And, the


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MTSF is a very important document that identifies priorities and defines cross‐cutting policies that need to achieve the medium‐term objectives as well as the role of government. However, the biggest challenge that continues to face government is the coordination and effective implementation of policies. For example, it does not seem that any collaboration takes place between the DHET and the DST to ensure progress on their respective roles around the enhancement of knowledge production. And, while the DST has world‐class research and innovation policies, the DHET has not even developed a plan for research, as was promised in the 1997 White Paper. Instead, the orientation of the DHET is now towards linking higher education and the labour market, as reflected in the creation of a Ministry of Higher Education and Training, while in other parts of Africa (e.g. Kenya and Mauritius) and in many other countries in the world, higher education is integrated with science and technology. A senior academic asserts that not only is the claim that the Department of Education supports development “a figment of somebody’s imagination”, but that the Department and the National Research Foundation’s funding policies could be considered “anti‐development”. For instance, the Department has stopped funding patents and the Foundation only supports small‐scale individual projects, thereby encouraging projectisation rather than large‐scale development projects or programmes. If there is not much direction from the national Department of Education, then provincial governments certainly do not provide much input either. In part this is because many of them are quite weak, like in the Eastern Cape, and are battling just to hold themselves together, and there is considerable political instability amongst the senior leadership. In addition, universities are often seen as either esoteric spaces or simply as a national (and not provincial) competency.


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Table 6.4: National coordination of knowledge policies


Economic development and higher education planning are linked

3 Systematic Formal structures Headed by senior minister

2 Sporadic Clusters / forums

1 Weak Occasional meetings

Link between universities and national authorities

3 Specific coordination structures or agencies

2 Some formal structures but no meaningful coordination

1 No structures, and political rather than professional networks

Coordination and consensus building of government agencies involved in higher education

3 Higher education mainstreamed across government departments

2 Intermittent interaction with ineffective forums

1 Higher education issues limited mainly to one ministry or directorate

FINDINGS:

At the national level, there are considerable coordination activities, including clusters and the reorganisation of the national education ministry. However, there seems to be no improvement in the historical non‐coordination between different ministries, particularly higher education and science and technology.

While there may be some personal networks between government officials and particular university leadership, these do not seem to contribute towards strengthening the sector as they tend to be more orientated towards political rather than productive advantage – a widespread problem in Africa.

As is the case in all the other HERANA countries, South Africa has a tertiary or higher education council which could help strengthen national governance capacity, but it is undergoing ‘role redefinition’.


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Table 6.5: Implementation of knowledge policies and activities


Role of the ministry responsible for higher education

3 Organised ministry with capacity to make predictable allocations

2 Spots of capacity with some steering instruments

1 Weak capacity with unpredictable allocations

Implementation to ‘steer’ higher education towards development

3 Strong Instruments such as funding / special projects that incentivise institutions/individuals

2 Weak Occasional grants for special projects

1 Absent No particular incentive funding

Balance / ratio of sources of income for institutions

3 Government, fees and third stream

2 Mainly government plus student fees

1 Mainly government with external funders

Funding consistency 3 A stable, transparent public funding mechanism based on criteria agreed upon by all actors involved

2 Funding allocations somewhat predictable but do not allow for long‐term planning nor reward enterprising behaviour

1 No clear funding or incentives from government

National Rating =13/18

Specific units, funding or appointments linked economic development

3 Specific units, funding or appointments

2 Economic development initiatives aspect of a unit or appointment

1 Mainly ad hoc, staff‐initiated operations

Incentives and rewards for development‐related activities

3 Incentives / counts towards promotion

2 Some signals but largely rhetoric

1 No mention

Teaching programmes linked to the labour market

3 Targets for enrolments in fields considered to be of high economic relevance

2 Some programmes in response to specific industry requests

1 No new programmes linked to labour market

Special programmes linking students to economic development

3 Entrepreneurship, work‐based learning and/or incubators for students mainstreamed

2 Ad hoc programmes

1 No special programmes

Research activities are becoming more economy‐oriented

3 Research policy/strategy has an economic development focus

2 Some research agendas have an economic development focus

1 Ad hoc project funding

Levels of government and institutional funding for research

3 High

2 Medium

1 Low


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FINDINGS:

At the national level, one of the weaknesses is implementation: while South Africa does have steering instruments and mechanisms, there is no national human resource plan in the context of a development approach/model.

While NMMU does have development‐related structures and special programmes linking the university to development initiatives, the problem is that in too many cases these initiatives are driven by individuals rather than being institutionalised. In addition, these special implementation efforts need to be more connected.

Despite policies that extol the importance of research related to development activities (mainly through focus themes), research related to development is not rewarded through incentives beyond the traditional academic promotion system.

6.5.2 Connectedness to external stakeholders and the academic core Much of what could be considered the NMMU’s ‘development‐related activities’ would fall under the engagement mandate. However, as has been shown, what exactly constitutes ‘engagement’ is debated as energetically as the identity of the university, and of course these two issues are related. In addition, while there are incentives for staff to engage in innovation, there are no such incentives for other kinds of engagement activities, and community engagement is seen as the ‘black sheep’ in terms of funding support. Although there is no formal coordination of linkages with business and industry, these linkages appear to be strong at the level of individual units, departments and some faculties, as was demonstrated by the development‐related projects/centres included in the study and highlighted in the institution’s 2008 Self‐Evaluation Report. However, a university leader asserted that while the institution has a relationship with a few specific companies, in general there are very few university‐industry partnerships or relationships at the institutional level. So again, not unlike at the national level, there seems to be a wide range of activities and a large number of projects, but these are mostly uncoordinated and take place without any real clarity of how they fit into the university’s as yet undefined role in development. With regard to the connectedness of development‐related activities to the academic core, the articulation and academic ratings applied to the six projects/centres (section 5.3) are presented again in Figure 6.2 below.


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Figure 6.2: Plotting the development‐related projects/centres at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Key: ACTS Automotive Components Technology Station IV InnoVenton: NMMU Institute for Chemical Technology and Downstream Chemicals

Technology Station PBMR Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Project AP Agro‐Processing Study for the East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ) MD Govan Mbeki Sasol Mathematics Development Programme CB Ilinge Lomama Cooperative Bakery Project

Following the analytical proposition, our assumption would be that for development‐related projects to make the most sustained contribution to development they would best fall within the top right‐hand quadrant in the graph; in other words, their activities articulate with national priorities and institutional strategic objectives; they have close linkages with key external stakeholders, especially any implementation agencies; and, they contribute towards strengthening the academic core of the institution, rather than weakening it. As can be seen from Figure 6.2, three of the six projects/centres fall with the top right‐hand quadrant of the graph. Two of these – ACTS and InnoVenton – engage in a large number and variety of consultancy projects for industry, which in part explains their strong articulation/connectedness rating. What is also interesting about these two projects is that despite the strong orientation towards consultancy projects, these two centres also manage to make significant contributions to strengthening

ACTS 5, 11

IV 5, 10

PBMR 4, 10

AP 2, 8

MD 3, 10

CB 3, 9

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Direct articulation

Indirectarticulation

Weakening academic core

Strengthening academic core


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the academic core of the university (they both score the maximum rating of 5 on this axis). The PBMR project, a long‐term research programme, follows closely behind to ACTS and InnoVenton in its potential to contribute to development in the region and country. It is perhaps not surprising that the short‐term consultancy project as well as the two projects which are characterised more as ‘community service’ type activities within their respective departments, score quite high on the articulation/connectedness rating. However, two of these especially – the mathematics development programme and the consultancy project – serve to draw academic staff away from the core of the university, arguably weakening the academic core.

FINDINGS:

While there is evidence of connectedness between the university and industry or the private sector, this is generally confined to the level of units or centres rather than institutional‐level partnerships.

Unlike most of the universities in the HERANA sample (except for Mauritius), the NMMU is involved in a wide array of R&D consultancies with, or for, industry.

Projects/centres that are considered by university leadership to be strongly connected to development tend to score well on the articulation indicators – in other words, they reflect national priorities (and to a lesser extent institutional objectives), have more than one funding source and, in some cases, plans for financial sustainability, and may have a connection to an implementation agency.

A number of these projects/centres also manage to keep a strong connection to the academic core of the university, whilst others are virtually disconnected from these core knowledge activities.

At each of the universities there are ‘exemplary’ development projects/centres. The problem is scale: there are simply not enough, and some seem overly dependent on exceptional individuals.

6.6 Concluding comments

In the African context, South Africa is performing very well in terms of international innovation indicators. In our sample, only Mauritius outscores it on the World Bank knowledge economy index, except for innovation, good scientific research institutions (South African ranks 29th in the world), and collaboration between universities and business in the area of innovation. South Africa thus has in place a very strong ‘architecture’ for research and innovation, albeit a very small sector in which only a select, highly‐developed component of the society is able to participate. (Mauritius far outperforms South Africa in HDI and equity.) At the national level, a very complex picture emerges. There are seven major policy documents – starting with the famous Reconstruction and Development Programme


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– all dealing with development and, to a greater or lesser extent, with human capital development (improving schooling, special skills, work‐based training, etc). However, none of these deals strongly with a knowledge economy as driver for the economy. The Human Resource Development Strategy (2009) lists as the last three of 15 strategic priorities that South Africa must be ranked in the top 10% of comparable countries in terms of knowledge and human capital stock. The real global‐orientated research, innovation and HRD for science and technology comes from the DST which says that South Africa has to shift from a resource‐based economy to a knowledge economy. In this regard, the four interconnected pillars are innovation, economic and institutional infrastructure, information technology, and education. This information is drawn directly from the World Bank knowledge economy index. However, as was illustrated above, despite structures and mechanisms between government departments, and between government and universities, to ensure coordination and implementation, this is not happening. Coordination of policies require agreement on the role of knowledge, and higher education, in development. And in South Africa there is neither. As the highly successful soccer world cup has shown, resources and capacity are not as big a constraint as in the rest of the continent. For once in the ‘new’ South Africa there was agreement on a goal and a wide diversity of resources were mobilised to achieve this goal – along with strict intentional monitoring of progress. However, with regards to higher education there are competing notions without a pact as to how to resolve the differences. Different policies, and a range of interviews, reveal widely divergent notions of the role of the university in development. Some respondents even questioned whether the university has more than an ancillary role to play. The absence of a pact emerges as a possible contributor to explaining the endemic lack of coordination and implementation outlined above. One major problem seems to be that while there is broad agreement in the society about the importance of education, education is seen as a key mobility mechanism for individual enhancement. This is part of the enormous emphasis on equity which means that education is essentially for social mobility and the promotion of equality. Sadly, as all the statistics show, the South African education system (post‐secondary, in particular) has not yet delivered on this promise, except for a rather small minority.

6.6.1 Factors impacting on the university’s capacity to contribute to development In terms of input variables, NMMU has teaching loads which probably make it difficult for academic staff to engage in research activities. A further problem is that the proportion of postgraduate students at NMMU remained low, even though masters and doctoral student enrolments have increased. Another issue is that the proportion of academic staff with doctorates was below that normally found in a research‐intensive university. In terms of output variables, such as the production of


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research publications and the weighted output of publications plus research graduates, NMMU’s performance was below the targets set for South African universities. The key factors that seem to be weakening NMMU’s academic core are (a) the low proportions of postgraduate students, (b) the high student to academic staff ratios (particularly in SET), (c) the moderate outputs of graduates in research degrees, and (d) the low publication output rate relative to the targets set for South African universities. A positive development is that NMMU is experiencing a growth in masters and doctoral enrolments, which should begin to provide an underpinning for research programmes. A related problem is that the university is ‘conflicted’ by its contested identity, meaning that it will be difficult to allocate resources to strengthen the academic core. This is partially reflected in the assessment of development‐related projects and centres. Two of the centres engage in a large number and variety of consultancy projects for industry, which in part explains their strong articulation rating. What is also interesting is that despite the strong orientation towards consultancy projects, these two centres also manage to make significant contributions to strengthening the academic core of the university. That the short‐term consultancy project as well as the two characterised more as ‘community service’ type activities score quite highly on the articulation rating is perhaps not surprising. However, these types of projects weaken the academic core by drawing academic staff away from their core functions. While it could be argued that the projects which are weakening the academic core are making a contribution to development in terms of an instrumentalist notion of the university, in terms of our analytical framework, this is not a sustainable position that will enhance the longer‐term contribution of the university. In conclusion, why not revisit Burton Clark (1983), since this is the year that the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) conference honoured him with a memorial keynote session. Almost 20 years ago, Clark (1983: 193‐194) had the following to say about 'comprehensive' universities::

The modern comprehensive university in some countries represents an effort to have it both ways, to allow for differentiation of major parts and, at the same time, assign formal equality that hopefully will keep down individual distinctions. But this form appears unstable, especially in large systems, as the more prestigious parts resist the lumping together of everyone and as attentive publics as well as insiders perceive real differences and attach different values to the parts. [...] As those in the Italian system have been painfully finding out, the nationalised public university alone cannot zigzag in all the many directions called for by an increasing heterogeneity of function. It does not adapt well to new types of students, new connections to labour markets, or new academic fields, especially when they viewed to be of lower status. [...] the university, becomes overloaded and


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risks a loss of concentration of resources and attention upon its traditional activities. Everyone then feels caught in a difficult situation, leading to a sense of continuing crisis.


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List of resources

CHET (2010) Cross‐National Higher Education Performance Indicators. DRAFT. Cape Town: Centre for Higher Education Transformation

Clark B (1998) Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organisational pathways of

transformation. Oxford: Pergamon‐Elsevier Science Cloete N (ed) (2009) Responding to the Education Needs of Post‐School Youth. Cape Town:

Centre for Higher Education Transformation Cloete N, Maassen P, Pillay P, Bailey T, Pinheiro R and Muller J (2010) Higher Education and

Economic Development: Analytical Framework. Cape Town: Centre for Higher Education Transformation

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Appendix 1: List of interviewees

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Prof. Derrick Swartz (Vice Chancellor) Prof. Christo van Loggerenberg (Deputy Vice Chancellor: Academic) Prof. Thoko Mayekiso (Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research, Technology and Planning) Prof. Heather Nel (Director: Institutional Planning) Prof. Piet Naude (Director: Business School) Prof. Peter Cunningham (Head: Dept of Sociology) Prof. Richard Haines (Professor: Development Studies) Prof. Hendrik Lloyd (Director of the School for Economics, Development and Tourism) Ms Jackie Barnett (Director: Innovation, Support and Technology) Prof. Werner Olivier (Head of Department: Mathematics and Applied Mathematics) Prof. Danie Hattingh (Head of Automotive Components Technology Station) Ms Lucinda Lindsay (Researcher: Automotive Components Technology Station) Mr Andrew Young (Researcher: Automotive Components Technology Station) Prof. Hennie van As (Director: Institute for Sustainable Government and

Development) Mr Xola Mkontwana (Centre Manager: Small Business Unit) Prof. Jan Neethling (Project leader of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project) Prof. Japie Engelbrecht (Project leader of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project) Prof. Ben Zeelie (InnoVenton, Institute of Chemical Technology) Geoff Ritson (InnoVenton Technology Support) Dr Willem van Heerden (Dept of Agriculture and Game Management) Prof. JJ van Wyk (Dept of Building and Quantity Surveying) Mr Hugh Bartis (Head: Dept of Tourism)


136

Appendix 2: Cluster analysis methodology and data

A K‐means clustering analysis was applied for the identification of four statistically significant and distinct clusters. Averages for 2005 to 2007 were used for input variables as well as non‐financial output variables. Financial data for 2007 were used. Original values for all variables were statistically scaled to make the data comparable and to ensure equal weighting for all variables. The following input variables were used for the clustering analysis:

% headcount enrolments in science, engineering and technology (% SET) % masters and doctoral headcount enrolments (% M & D students) Inverse of the student: academic/research staff FTE ratio (inverse of student: staff FTE

ratio) % of permanent academic/ research staff with a doctoral degree (% staff with PhD) % private income Total income per FTE student (purchasing power parity dollar thousands) (income per

FTE) Academic staff costs per FTE academic (purchasing power parity dollar thousands)

(staff cost per FTE) The following output variables were used for the clustering analysis:

Graduation rate (number of graduates in a given year/ enrolments in a given year x 100)

Research outputs (doctoral graduates + research publications) The data values are shown in Table A2.1 over page. Figure A2.1 lists the universities in the four clusters and plots the means for each cluster.


137

Table A2.1: Cluster analysis data table

INPUT INDICATORS OUTPUT INDICATORS

Total 2007 head counts (thousands)

Averages for 2005‐2007 2007 only

2007 income 2007 expenditure Averages for 2005‐2007

% SET % M & D students

Student: staff FTE ratio

% Staff with PhD

% Private Income

Income per FTE(purchasing power parity

dollar thousands)

Academic staff costs per FTE academic (purchasing power

parity dollar thousands)

Graduation rate

Weighted research output per permanent academic

LARGE CONTACT

Tshwane University of Technology

51 38% 3% 31 12% 16% 10.5 81.0 19% 0.27

University of Pretoria 49 38% 15% 18 38% 40% 24.8 92.8 24% 1.36North West University 45 20% 8% 30 43% 37% 12.6 106.2 24% 1.17University of Johannesburg 42 31% 5% 16 18% 27% 15.9 46.0 23% 0.94University of Nairobi 39 30% 16% 16 71% 34% 9.9 58.7 16% 0.45University of KwaZulu Natal 38 32% 14% 18 30% 37% 21.2 96.1 21% 1.07Makerere University 34 31% 7% 18 31% 15% 5.9 48.7 26% 0.51

MEDIUM CONTACT

Cape Peninsula University of Technology

29 48% 2% 26 11% 27% 15.3 98.1 22% 0.20

University of the Free State 25 29% 12% 17 49% 30% 18.2 73.6 21% 1.27University of the Witwatersrand

25 48% 23% 11 45% 51% 39.7 96.7 21% 1.52

Walter Sisulu University 24 26% 1% 30 9% 5% 8.7 108.6 12% 0.05Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

24 30% 7% 29 34% 25% 18.4 120.1 23% 0.82

Stellenbosch University 23 41% 22% 16 61% 51% 36.4 90.9 25% 2.03Durban University of Technology

23 48% 2% 28 7% 11% 12.4 108.9 20% 0.14

University of Cape Town 21 42% 18% 13 58% 42% 40.0 99.3 26% 2.13University of Dar es Salaam 18 39% 10% 15 50% 16% 8.6 44.1 24% 0.40University of Ghana 26 18% 6% 29 47% 15% 6.3 68.5 20% 0.53

SMALL CONTACT

University of Limpopo 16 44% 11% 16 16% 19% 21.3 77.5 21% 0.31Vaal University of Technology

16 48% 1% 31 12% 13% 11.4 81.5 15% 0.12

Eduardo Mondlane University

16 50% 3% 12 19% 14% 5.6 24.9 8% 0.03

University of Botswana 16 25% 23% 17 20% 10% 14.8 85.6 22% 0.27University of the Western 15 31% 10% 19 43% 41% 22.3 84.0 20% 0.91


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INPUT INDICATORS OUTPUT INDICATORS

Total 2007 head counts (thousands)

Averages for 2005‐2007 2007 only

2007 income 2007 expenditure Averages for 2005‐2007

% SET % M & D students

Student: staff FTE ratio

% Staff with PhD

% Private Income

Income per FTE(purchasing power parity

dollar thousands)

Academic staff costs per FTE academic (purchasing power

parity dollar thousands)

Graduation rate

Weighted research output per permanent academic

Cape University of Venda 12 31% 3% 34 35% 14% 10.0 100.3 16% 0.24Cape University of Technology

10 45% 3% 28 29% 14% 13.0 79.2 22% 0.32

Mangosothu University of Technology

10 59% 0% 44 5% 13% 10.6 140.9 17% 0.03

University of Zululand 9 16% 5% 32 38% 30% 15.9 95.9 21% 0.70University of Fort Hare 9 18% 6% 21 19% 37% 15.6 94.2 20% 0.45University of Mauritius 8 42% 15% 16 45% 6% 3.7 20.9 27% 0.94Rhodes University 6 22% 14% 17 50% 29% 26.9 107.7 32% 1.65

Notes: 1. The calculation of purchasing power parity dollars (PPP$) is based on estimates contained in the World Bank’s (2008) World Development Indicators report.

Because these estimates are based on 2005 exchange rates, the following method was used for the 2007 calculations: The indicator set gives for each country a ratio between the PPP conversion factor and the market exchange rate. For example, the South African ratio is

given as 0.61, based on a market exchange rate of R6.4 per USD in 2005. The 2007 calculations assume that the 2005 ratio will apply again. So the 2007 PPP conversion factor is taken to be 2005 ratio times 2007 market

exchange rate. For example, the conversion factor for South Africa is calculated as 2005 ratio times 2007 exchange rate = 0.61 x 7.0 = 4.27. 2. The financial data for the following three universities were based on the following assumptions:

University of Nairobi: academic staff costs assumed to = 35% of total expenditure Eduardo Mondlane University: academic staff costs assumed to = 35% of total expenditure University of Dar es Salaam: (a) academic staff costs assumed to = 35% of total expenditure; (b) private income = donor income.


139

Figure A2.1: Plot of means for each cluster

% SET% M & D students

Inverse of stud: staff FTE ratio

% Staff with PhD

% Private Income

Income per FTE

Staff cost per FTE

Graduation Rate

Weighted Research Outputs

Cluster 1 0.27 1.54 1.04 1.00 1.33 1.78 0.50 1.03 1.72

Cluster 2 0.19 ‐0.10 0.78 ‐0.23 ‐0.72 ‐0.58 ‐1.25 0.10 ‐0.53

Cluster 3 ‐0.86 0.04 ‐0.37 0.46 0.47 ‐0.14 0.22 ‐0.14 0.11

Cluster 4 0.84 ‐1.07 ‐1.00 ‐1.14 ‐0.89 ‐0.49 0.58 ‐0.63 ‐0.86

‐1.50

‐1.00

‐0.50

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00Cluster 1

University of Pretoria, Witwatersrand University,

Stellenbosch University, University of Cape Town, Rhodes University

Cluster 2 University of Johannesburg,

Makerere University, University of Dar es Salaam, University of Limpopo, Eduardo Mondlane

University, University of Botswana, University of Mauritius

Cluster 3 North West University, University of Nairobi, University of KwaZulu ‐Natal, University of the Free State, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, University of Ghana, University of the Western Cape, University of Venda, University of Zululand, University of Fort Hare

Cluster 4 Tshwane University of Technology,

Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Walter Sisulu

University, Durban University of Technology, Vaal University of

Technology, Central University of Technology, Mangosothu University of Technology

Cluster 1

Cluster 2

Cluster 3

Cluster 4


140

Appendix 3: Academic core rating descriptions

Indicators Strong(3) Medium(2) Weak(1)

1 Strong science and technology

SET enrolments growing, and SET share of enrolment shape increasing. Graduation rates of cohorts of SET students minimum of 70%.

SET share of enrolment shape steady. Graduation rate of cohorts of SET students 60% to 70%.

SET enrolments static, and SET share of enrolment shape declining. Graduation rate of cohorts of SET students below 60%.

2 Increased postgraduate enrolments and outputs

Postgraduates at least 25% of total enrolment. Masters and doctoral enrolments and graduates increasing. Ratio of masters to doctoral enrolments no more than 5:1. Ratio of graduates in year to enrolments in same year: masters 25%, doctorates 20%.

Postgraduates as proportion of total enrolments above 10% and increasing. Ratio of masters to doctoral enrolments no more than 10:1. Ratios of graduates to enrolments: masters 20%, doctorates 15%.

Postgraduate enrolments and graduates grow at average annual rate below that of undergraduates. Postgraduates 10% or less of total enrolment. Ratio of masters to doctoral enrolments above 10:1.

3 Teaching loads of academic staff

FTE academic staff ratio close to growth in FTE students. FTE student to academic staff ratios maximum of 15:1 for SET, and maximum average of 20:1 for: all programmes.

FTE students grow at faster rate than FTE academic staff. FTE student to academic staff ratios close 20:1 for SET, close to 30:1 for all programmes.

FTE students grow at faster rate than FTE academic staff ratio. FTE student to academic staff ratios more than 20:1 for SET, and 30:1 for all programmes.

4 Qualifications of academic staff

At least 50% of permanent academic staff have doctorates.

Between 30% and 50% of permanent academic staff have doctorates.

Less than 30% of permanent academic staff have doctorates.

5 Availability of research funding

Annual research funding of at least USD10 000 per permanent academic.

Annual research funding of between than USD 2 000 and USD 10 000 per permanent academic.

Annual research funding of less than USD 2 000 per permanent academic.

6 Doctoral graduates Doctoral graduates in given year = 10% or higher of permanent academic staff.

Doctoral graduates in given year between 5% & 9.9% of permanent academic staff.

Doctoral graduates in given year < 5% of permanent academic staff.

7 Research publications

Ratio of 0.50 or higher of publication units per permanent academic.

Ratio of publication units per permanent academic between 0.25 and 0.49.

Ratio of publication units per permanent academic < 0.25.

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