The book is a must read for policy makers, academics, university administrators and post graduate research students in the broad field of education and in higher education studies in particular. The book brings together a wealth of information regarding the imperatives of transformation in Africa’s higher education systems. Not only do some of the chapters provide critical discussion about the conceptualisation of transformation, the majority of the chapters reflect on empirical evidence for transformation in diverse fields of mathematics, science, gender, the training of doctoral students and the governance and management of universities. This central theme of sustainable change and reform runs across the chapters of the book. For students, the book provides exemplars of practical research in higher education. For scholars in higher education and policy makers, specific issues for reform are identified and discussed.

This book is a comprehensive survey of all aspects and dimensions of higher education in Africa.

Drawing on the South African case, this book looks at shifts in higher education around the world in the last two decades. In South Africa, calls for transformation have been heard in the university since the last days of apartheid. Similar claims for quality higher education to be made available to all have been made across the African continent. In spite of this, inequalities remain and many would argue that these have been exacerbated during the Covid pandemic. Understanding Higher Education responds to these calls by arguing for a social account of teaching and learning by contesting dominant understandings of students as decontextualised learners premised on the idea that the university is a meritocracy. This book tackles the issue of teaching and learning by looking both within and beyond the classroom. It looks at how higher education policies emerged from the notion of the knowledge economy in the newly democratic South Africa, and how national qualification frameworks and other processes brought the country more closely into conversation with the global order. The effects of this on staffing and curriculum structures are considered alongside a proposition for alternative ways of understanding the role of higher education in society.

From the early 2000s, a new discourse emerged, in Africa and the international donor community, that higher education was important for development in Africa. Within this ‘zeitgeist’ of converging interests, a range of agencies agreed that a different, collaborative approach to linking higher education to development was necessary. This led to the establishment of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (Herana) to concentrate on research and advocacy about the possible role and contribution of universities to development in Africa. This book is the final publication to emerge from the Herana project. The project has also published more than 100 articles, chapters, reports, manuals and datasets, and many presentations have been delivered to share insights gained from the work done by Herana. Given its prolific dissemination, it seems reasonable to ask whether this fourth and final publication will offer the reader anything new. This book is certainly different from previous publications in several respects. First, it is the only book to include an analysis of eight African universities based on the full 15 years of empirical data collected by the project. Second, previous books and reports were published mid-project. This book has benefited from an extended gestation period allowing the authors and contributors to reflect on the project without the distractions associated with managing and participating in a large-scale project. For the first time, some of those who have been involved in Herana since its inception have had the opportunity to at least make an attempt to see part of the wood for the trees. Different does not necessarily mean new. An emphasis on the ‘newness’ of the data and perspectives presented in this book is important because it shows that it is more than a historical record of a donor-funded project. Rather, each chapter in this book brings, to a lesser or greater extent, something new to our understanding of universities, research and development in Africa.

Around the world, more young people than ever before are attending university. Student numbers in South Africa have doubled since democracy and for many families, higher education is a route to a better future for their children. But alongside the overwhelming demand for higher education, questions about its purposes have intensified. Deliberations about the curriculum, culture and costing of public higher education abound from student activists, academics, parents, civil society and policy-makers. We know, from macro research, that South African graduates generally have good employment prospects. But little is known at a detailed level about how young people actually make use of their university experiences to craft their life courses. And even less is known about what happens to those who drop out. This accessible book brings together the rich life stories of 73 young people, six years after they began their university studies. It traces how going to university influences not only their employment options, but also nurtures the agency needed to chart their own way and to engage critically with the world around them. The book offers deep insights into the ways in which public higher education is both a private and public good, and it provides significant conclusions pertinent to anyone who works in – and cares about – universities.

The dominant global discourse in higher education now focuses on world-class universities inevitably located predominantly in North America, Europe and, increasingly, East Asia. The rest of the world, including Africa, is left to play catch-up. But that discourse should focus rather on the tensions, even contradictions, between excellence and engagement with which all universities must grapple. Here the African experience has much to offer the high-participation and generously resourced systems of the so-called developed world. This book offers a critical review of that experience, and so makes a major contribution to our understanding of higher education.

There have been institutions of higher learning for centuries in Africa, but the phenomenal growth has taken place in the last fifty years, first in the later days of colonialism and then in the heady days of independence and commodity boom. Without them, there would have been no development. The three highly distinguished authors have written the first comprehensive assessment of universities and higher education in Africa south of the Sahara. As can be seen from their biographies, they draw on experience from both francophone and anglophone Africa and from teaching in both the sciences and the arts.

Although initially utilized in business and industrial environments, quality management systems can be adapted into higher education to assess and improve an institution’s standards. These strategies are now playing a vital role in educational areas such as teaching, learning, and institutional-level practices. However, quality management tools and models must be adapted to fit with the culture of higher education. Quality Management Implementation in Higher Education: Practices, Models, and Case Studies is a pivotal reference source that explores the challenges and solutions of designing quality management models in the current educational culture. Featuring research on topics such as Lean Six Sigma, distance education, and student supervision, this book is ideally designed for school board members, administrators, deans, policymakers, stakeholders, professors, graduate students, education professionals, and researchers seeking current research on the applications and success factors of quality management systems in various facets of higher education.

Tensions in South African universities have traditionally centred around equity (particularly access and affordability), historical legacies (such as apartheid and colonialism), and the shape and structure of the higher education system. What has not received sufficient attention, is the contribution of the university to place-based development. This volume is the first in South Africa to engage seriously with the place-based developmental role of universities. In the international literature and policy there has been an increasing integration of the university with place-based development, especially in cities. This volume weighs in on the debate by drawing attention to the place-based roles and agency of South African universities in their local towns and cities. It acknowledges that universities were given specific development roles in regions, homelands and towns under apartheid, and comments on why sub-national, place-based development has not been a key theme in post-apartheid, higher education planning. Given the developmental crisis in the country, universities could be expected to play a more constructive and meaningful role in the development of their own precincts, cities and regions. But what should that role be? Is there evidence that this is already occurring in South Africa, despite the lack of a national policy framework? What plans and programmes are in place, and what is needed to expand the development agency of universities at the local level? Who and what might be involved? Where should the focus lie, and who might benefit most, and why? Is there a need perhaps to approach the challenges of college towns, secondary cities and metropolitan centers differently? This book poses some of these questions as it considers the experiences of a number of South African universities, including Wits, Pretoria, Nelson Mandela University and especially Fort Hare as one of its post-centenary challenges.