Student Funding (In)equity in South African Higher Education

Masutha, Mukovhe; Motala, Shireen

doi:10.1163/9789004677432_012

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Other scholars have gone further by outright dismissing postcolonial Africa's higher education as unsuitable for its context (Rufai, Adedeji & Musa 2021). Such a situation then passes on the financial and other support mechanisms to students and their families as explained by Masutha and Motala (2023) and it is mainly students from working-class families who suffer the most, most of whom are disadvantaged. Of importance in the foregoing argument is the view proffered by Fataar (2023) who highlights how the structural adjustment programme-related pressures of the 1980s manifested in challenges within the areas of gender, ethnicity, class, status and physical location of universities.…”

Section: An Overview Of the Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embracing Plural Curricula Amid Neoliberalism in Contemporary Universities in Africa: Asante’s Afrocentric Idea Revisited

Nyoni,

Chiramba

2024

The Thinker

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This paper focuses on how Asante’s idea of Afrocentricity could assist in the understanding of the main challenges andopportunities associated with curricula in Africa’s post-colonial universities. In terms of methodology, the paper constitutes a conceptual treatise that draws from previous empirical research that focused on Afrocentricity and a plural programme – the extended curriculum programme within a university context where neoliberalism remains dominant. In this regard, the paper combines an extensive review of empirical cases and the authors’ experiences of the extended curriculum programmes in diverse South African universities. Literature was reviewed from a wide range of sources that included Afrocentricity and curriculum transformation through plurality at individual and institutional pedagogic levels. The paper explores the complex nature of pedagogic transformation mainly due to the persistence of Western ideals under a resurgent neoliberal philosophy that shapes practices in contemporary university spaces. The paper thus highlights how Afrocentricity transcends simplistic notions of intellectual discussions as it highlights seriousand practical realities that shape the identities, ideals, aspirations, and values of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In the process, ways in which pedagogic educational aspirations of the students could be redefined through an Afrocentric approach together with constraints are discussed. The individualist-oriented complications posed by neoliberal ideals that tend to contradictand, in some instances, hinder the Afrocentric core principle of inclusivity have left African universities at a crossroads with little to show in terms of progress in the transformation agenda.

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Section: An Overview Of the Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embracing Plural Curricula Amid Neoliberalism in Contemporary Universities in Africa: Asante’s Afrocentric Idea Revisited

Nyoni,

Chiramba

2024

The Thinker

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“…Following a wave of protests by the #FeesMustFall movement and widespread calls for a free decolonised HE, in 2017, the South African government replaced its 26-year-old incomecontingent student loan scheme with a grant-based free HE policy for poor and working-class students. While the policy intervention restored relative stability across the sector, major fault lines in the student funding policy remain (Masutha and Motala 2023).…”

Section: Context: South African He Funding At a Crossroadsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free yet? Progress, setbacks, tensions and the potential futures of South Africa’s free higher education policy: A 6 year "WPR" critical review

Masutha,

Motala

2023

SAJHE

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Prior to 2017, maladministration, unfunded and underfunded students, misalignment with student needs, high non-completion rates and a violent student debt crisis characterised South Africa's student financial aid scheme, and triggered annual unrest across the higher education (HE) sector.Following a wave of protests by the #FeesMustFall movement and widespread calls for a free decolonised HE, in 2017, the South African government replaced its 26 year old income-contingent student loan scheme with a grant-based free HE education policy for poor and working-class students. While the policy intervention restored relative stability across the sector, several fault lines in the student funding policy remain. In this article, drawing on a combination of qualitative policy document analysis and descriptive statistics, we employ Carol Bacchi "what's the problem represented to be?" (WPR) approach to analyse recent student funding policy developments in South African HE. We employ the WPR approach to (a) direct attention to the significance of reflecting on how the HE student funding problem has been constituted and framed in policy proposals, and (b) challenge the dominant "problem solving" paradigm (inherent in mainstream policy propositions) by drawing attention to benefits of an alternative "problem-questioning" approach to the country's pursuit for a just and equitable student funding model. We then make some recommendations on how South African HE policymakers can avoid the pitfalls of wellmeaning HE funding policies turning into instruments for creating and reproducing the very disparities they are meant to ameliorate.

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Student Funding (In)equity in South African Higher Education

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Embracing Plural Curricula Amid Neoliberalism in Contemporary Universities in Africa: Asante’s Afrocentric Idea Revisited

Embracing Plural Curricula Amid Neoliberalism in Contemporary Universities in Africa: Asante’s Afrocentric Idea Revisited

Free yet? Progress, setbacks, tensions and the potential futures of South Africa’s free higher education policy: A 6 year "WPR" critical review

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