Draft national plan for higher education in South Africa

 

 

 

This National Plan for higher education gives effect to the vision for the transformation of the higher education system outlined in Education White Paper 3 - A Programme for the Transformation of the Higher Education System (DoE: July 1997).

 

 

According to this plan, the role of higher education in a knowledge-driven world is three-fold:

 

• “Human resource development: the mobilisation of human talent and potential through lifelong learning to contribute to the social, economic, cultural and intellectual life of a rapidly changing society.

• High-level skills training: the training and provision of personpower to strengthen this country's enterprises, services and infrastructure. This requires the development of professionals and knowledge workers with globally equivalent skills, but who are socially responsible and conscious of their role in contributing to the national development effort and social transformation.

• Production, acquisition and application of new knowledge.

 

 

This National Plan provides a framework for ensuring the fitness of the higher education system to contribute to the challenges that face South Africa in the 21st century. Its primary purpose is to ensure that:

 

• the higher education system achieves the transformation objectives set out in the White Paper and is responsive to societal interests and needs

• there is coherence with regard to the provision of higher education at the national level

• limited resources are used efficiently and effectively and there is accountability for the expenditure of public funds

• the quality of academic programmes, including teaching and research, is improved across the system.

 

The plan is intended to develop a higher education system that will:

 

• promote equity of access and fair chances of success to all who are seeking to realise their potential through higher education, while eradicating all forms of unfair discrimination and advancing redress for past inequalities;

• meet, through well-planned and co-ordinated teaching, learning and research programmes, national development needs, including the high-skilled employment needs presented by a growing economy operating in a global environment;

• support a democratic ethos and a culture of human rights through educational programmes and practices conducive to critical discourse and creative thinking, cultural tolerance, and a common commitment to a humane, non-racist and non-sexist social order;

• contribute to the advancement of all forms of knowledge and scholarship, and in particular address the diverse problems and demands of the local, national, southern African and Africancontexts, and uphold rigorous standards of academic quality” (White Paper 1997: 1.14).