Achieving equity and quality in South Africa

Building a post-apartheid higher education system in South Africa has to overcome old and new forms of inequity. Since 1994, enrolment rates for black students have risen to 60.8 percent of total enrolments in non-distance mode courses. Women students comprise 54.5 percent of all students in the higher education system. Yet their academic success and more representative distribution across subject areas remain a challenge.

The sector needs to:

• increase enrolment and graduation rates for black students. Current figures show that while 16 percent of all 20 to 24 year-olds are enrolled in higher education, there are marked racial inequalities. In 2005, only 12 percent of black 20 to 24 year-olds were enrolled in higher education, with 60 percent of white students in the same age group enrolled.
• encourage women into post-graduate level studies and science and technology subjects
• reduce the high drop-out rates among students unable to afford fees
• ensure that staffing profiles reflect the country's race and gender demography, with particular attention to black people
  provide equivalent resources for all academic and research institutions
• increase funding for academic and infrastructure improvements.

Yet better success rates without credible quality would be a hollow gain. The government has identified planning, funding and quality as the main elements necessary for positive change, for example:

• 36 universities have been reconfigured into 22 with new identities and missions.
• A national target has been set to increase the overall participation rate from 15 to 20 percent of adults in 15 years.
• Government monitors negotiated institutional equity targets for programmes where black and female students are under-represented. Universities have also set employment targets for equity in race and gender in senior academic and professional positions.

Since 2004, extra funds of 8,420 billion Rand above annual expenditure have been allocated to improving infrastructure (including information and communication technologies) and increasing student financial aid.

The Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council on Higher Education, an independent statutory organisation, includes social transformation in its definition of quality and encourages universities to focus on the connection between equity and quality.

Evaluation systems include race and gender equity within a broader notion of social transformation that focuses on curriculum reform, changes in institutional culture, and innovative scholarship.

Not all universities have the resources to achieve new approaches to equity with quality. This could set up new forms of inequity as only some institutions can respond effectively to new social and educational priorities. Therefore, the agency runs a continuing programme of training workshops which includes staff from all institutions in the country.

It is too early to know whether the policy commitment and actions to connect equity with quality are having the intended effect. The equity and quality link is focused on institutional agendas but higher quality teaching and research have yet to be achieved across all institutions. However, a start has been made.

Mala Singh
Centre for Higher Education Research and Information, Open University, Briggs Building, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
M.Singh@open.ac.uk