Chapter 3: Academic freedom – the South African debates
5. The state as threat to academic freedom? The counter-claims
5.2 Conditional autonomy
One solution, compromise, hinges around the notion of „conditional autonomy‟. It arose through a CHE study of governance in South African higher education (2002), which attempted to find a compromise position between institutional autonomy and the need for the state to steer the higher education system towards national transformation objectives. The concept of „conditional autonomy‟, borrowed from European state supervised higher education systems, was advanced as a means of conceptualising the institution-state relationship. This position “acknowledges that institutional autonomy may need to be exercised on condition that the institution fulfils national norms
„continually renegotiated in the light of public policy.‟”285 This was an attempt to allow flexibility of institutional interpretation in both organising and managing teaching and research and serving their obligations to the public good. Hall, Symes and Luescher take this one step further, using a concept derived from Neave and van Vught of a distinction between substantive and procedural autonomy. Neave and van Vught write that:
284 Adam Habib, “The practice of academic freedom in South Africa”, CHE Regional Forum on government Involvement in Higher Education, Institutional Autonomy and Academic Freedom, Pretoria, 24 March 2006; Bloemfontein, 4 May 2006.
285 Overview on Recent and Current Debates in South African Higher Education: Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Public Accountability, Commissioned report to HEIAAF Task Team, Pretoria, CHE, October 2005, p.15. The insert is from Guy Neave, “On being economical with university autonomy: being an account of the retrospective joys of a written constitution” in Tight, M. (ed), Academic Freedom and Responsibility, Milton Keynes, SRHE and Open University Press, 1988, p.36.
As a concept, autonomy not only has to be distinguished from academic freedom. It can also be differentiated, using the distinction between “substantive” and
“procedural” autonomy. Substantive autonomy is the power of a higher education institution to determine its own goals and programs (the „what‟ of academe).
Procedural autonomy is the power of a higher education institution to determine the means by which its goals and programs will be pursued (the „how‟ of academe).286 Drawing on these roots, Hall, Symes and Luescher argue:
That there is every indication that direct state control of higher education is not effective in developing countries, and may be the cause of acute disadvantages which undermine the ability of higher education institutions to promote economic development, social justice and the interests of civil society. In developing economies such as South Africa‟s, policy is best understood through a distinction between „substantive autonomy‟ and „procedural autonomy‟, defining in turn a
„conditional autonomy‟ for higher education institutions. Taken in comparative perspective, the evolution of post-apartheid South African higher education policy marks a path from a comparatively loose system of state steering, to a system of conditional autonomy in which substantive autonomy (academic freedom) continues to be guaranteed while the state exercises increasing control over procedures of funding and academic accreditation.287
This conceptual device thus separates out aspects of autonomy over which institutions should have control, and those which it is in the interests of transformation for the state to be able to steer.
In the discussions around this notion, the HEIAAF Overview reports a “fair degree of discomfort with the concept of conditional autonomy”,288 for the reasons that it does not specify the conditions under which autonomy might be limited and provides no protection for institutions from a possible authoritarian state, which would be operating from the starting point of a diminished autonomy for institutions. Without a concept of cooperative governance, institutions would be in no position to defend the state‟s further encroaches into their autonomy. As Moja et al. note:
286 Guy Neave and Frans van Vught (eds), “Introduction”, in Government and Higher Education Relationships Across Three Continents: the Winds of Change, Headington Hill Hall, Pergamon, IAU Press, 1994, p.7. Referring to Robert O. Berdahl, in Higher Education Policy, 5 (2) 1992.
287 Martin Hall, Ashley Symes and Thierry M. Luesscher, Governance in South African Higher Education:
Research report prepared for the Council on Higher Education, Pretoria, CHE, 2002.
288 Overview on Recent and Current Debates in South African Higher Education: Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Public Accountability, Commissioned report to HEIAAF Task Team, Pretoria, CHE, October 2005, p.13.
A case has not been made as to why conditional autonomy will lead to more effective governance than the cooperative governance model. Within a democratic state, there really is no choice between an imperfect model (cooperative governance) – democracy is by its very nature imperfect – and a model that fits as easily within an authoritarian state as it does in a democratic state – all depending on the vagaries of the minister of the day.289
On the other hand, Waghid‟s concern with conditional autonomy is that the notion of autonomy in substantive areas has reminiscences of the liberal idea of institutional autonomy. He states that “what Hall does not give sufficient attention to in his essay is whether substantive autonomy is unconditional and what ought to be the limits of procedural autonomy exercised by the state”. 290
A further concern with conditional autonomy is that the distinction between substantive and procedural areas is not sufficiently clearly delineated. As an example, in a bureaucratic intervention requiring certain procedures to be followed, such as registering outcomes-based programmes in a specific format, the substantive area of teaching and learning is immediately circumscribed in the way in must be carried out, in which modes, and by which providers.
In short, “there is a concern that conditional autonomy permits conditionality to a degree where it renders the notion of institutional autonomy meaningless, and a view that „to bastardise the concept of institutional autonomy in favour of its conditionalities is illogical‟‟.291 Further, the conditional autonomy concept “was interpreted as proposing a
289 Teboho Moja, Nico Cloete and N. Olivier, “Would moving from co-operative governance to conditional autonomy contribute to effective governance?”, Kagisano, CHE Discussion Series (2), 2003, p.37.
290 Yusuf Waghid, “Academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and responsible action: a response to Martin Hall”, CHE Regional Forum on Government Involvement in Higher Education, Institutional Autonomy and Academic Freedom, Cape Town, 17 May 2006.
291 Overview on Recent and Current Debates in South African Higher Education: Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Public Accountability, Commissioned report to HEIAAF Task Team, Pretoria, CHE, October 2005, p.17. The quote is from T. Mthembu, “Creating a niche in internationalization for (South) African higher education institutions“, Journal of Studies in International Education, 8 (3) 2004, p.290.
one-size-fits-all governance approach for all institutions, while failing to specify the conditions, circumstances and methods that would warrant incursions on autonomy.”292