SOCIETY & ENVIRONMENT
4.8.13 Critical Issues and Key Challenges Facing Higher Education Institutions In the South African context, unique opportunities and challenges facing the HEIs are overlaid by In the South African context, unique opportunities and challenges facing the HEIs are overlaid by
the dual imperatives of reconstruction and development (Griesel, 2003:39). The NSI will be a hollow aspiration due to the inability to perceive that innovation in education and immigration as
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the key problem (OECD, 2007b:65-66; SA DST Ministerial Review Committee, 2012:90). This research observes that unresolved issues in the entire South African education system have remained a bottleneck in the transition towards the proposed SA DST TYIP (2008) knowledge economy. Addressing the scarcity of engineering professionals, for example, will require a two- stage process, of providing a HEIs qualification, followed by a comprehensive workplace-based training towards professional registration (OECD, 2007b:65-66). A strong policy focus is critical for an enlarged engineering capability (Foray, 2010:102). Engineering disciplines in this research context relates to both hard sciences (mechanical, electrical, computer, among others) and the social sciences or “service engineering” which deals with organisation and management practices (Foray, 2010:102). Towards addressing the bottleneck, the SA DST Ministerial Review Committee (2012:90) states that “good-quality, high-capacity training programmes in the S&E to implement new technologies is often rooted in the interface between the social and the technical”. The inclusion of a fifth five Grand Challenge, the ‘Human and Social Dynamics’ is a major positive commitment by the DST's TYIP (2008) towards the knowledge economy. However, the DST's TYIP (2008:30) plan for South Africa’s PhD production in S&T to grow fivefold, to about 3 000 SET PhDs by 2018 should be reviewed in the light of the aforementioned bottleneck. There are only about 5,500 academics at South African universities with PhDs and who can supervise, with a current average of one PhD every four years. CREST study by Mouton (2013:2) identified a number of crucial supervisor-related determinants of PhD production: “huge differences” in supervisor knowledge, competence and style, a growing supervision burden and differing levels of institutional support in terms of scholarships and bursaries, research facilities and equipment and institutional policies.
The complex nature of NSI human resources and capital issues produces a more complex epistemological challenge, beyond requiring the HEIs to simply change the curricula and research priorities. Combined age and race data suggest that a serious crisis in the HEIs (CHE, 2004:250), as a result of disciplinary ageing due to failure to produce next generation of scholars, the ‘frozen demographics’ (OECD, 2006:80). The HEIs will also have to take into account the additional academics required for the HEIs to expand as envisaged by the 2001 NP for HEIs and the TYIP, from the current gross participation rate of 16% to that of 20% by 2016.
South Africa has the fourth highest rate of HIV/Aids infection and tuberculosis (TB) in the world (WEF, 2013:46). According to the HSRC (2013) survey an estimated 6.4-million people were living with HIV/Aids in 2012. The estimated overall prevalence of HIV increased from 10.6% in 2008 to 12.2% in 2012. According to the HSRC survey, the increased prevalence of HIV in 2012
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was largely due to the combined effects of new infections and a successfully expanded antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme (HSRC, 2013). Owing to the HIV/Aids pandemic, life expectancy in South Africa has decreased from 63 years in 1990 to just 51 in 2006 (WEF, 2013:46). The HIV/AIDS epidemic is of enormous significance in South African HCD (OECD, 2007b:13; CHE, 2004: 235-236; Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme South Africa (HEAIDS, 2010). In Sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy stagnated at 49.5 years between 1990 and 2000, a result of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Between 2000 and 2012, however, life expectancy increased 5.5 years (UNDP, 2013:24). Addressing and tracking research progress and output is needed, as well effective strategies to maximise HEI’s knowledge contribution in combating HIV and AIDS. The HEAIDS research revealed that certain sub-populations are more vulnerable to HIV infection: female students, older students, male staff, and African staff and students. This implies that the HEIs should put in place efforts to prevent the spread of HIV and to offer care, support and treatment to students and staff living with HIV.
There is a dearth of data on the mobility of highly skilled individuals, both outward and inward, as well a lack of database of Masters and Doctoral degree-holders. In South Africa a complete database is needed for the throughput of postgraduates, layered by level, discipline, source of funds, gender, group, social class, scholarship support, and nationality (SA DST Ministerial Review Committee, 2012:79). Unrestricted movement of talent and skills is important for South African HCD. The SA DST Ministerial Review Committee (2012:153) notes that “the free circulation is enshrined in the SADC Protocol on Education and Training, but South Africa's immigration regulations appear to be implemented in ways that frustrate the intent of the protocol”.
There are also a dearth of information on the production, retention, mobility, replenishment and turnover of public sector academics, researchers and demographics of science council staff (NACI, 2007). The availability of data and information on the patterns and interventions should facilitate shift performance curves in the right directions towards the proposed knowledge economy.
The DHET Task Team report of 2013 has set about an overhaul of the SETA, citing widespread corruption and inefficiency and suggests that the National Skills Authority (NSA) be disbanded.
The DHET Task Team (2013:2) notes that “in terms of the Skills Development Act, the NSA must advise the minister on: national skills development policy; national skills development strategy;
the allocation of subsidies from the National Skills Fund. “However, the NSA has not been able to fulfill all of the roles adequately”. The DHET Task Team (2013:2) report adds that “the skills development and human resource development institutional landscape is currently composed of a wide range of existing structures that duplicate functions. As a consequence, it has become
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increasingly unclear what role an institution such as the NSA can effectively play…a voluntary system would do away with all the negative perceptions and inefficiencies associated with SETAS” (DHET Task Team, 2013:2). However, Business Unity South Africa (Busa) supports a hybrid option of improving the SETAS and NSA system, stating that “it is our view that many, if not all, of the current problems mentioned in the report could be resolved within the current framework and that an alternative system could equally well include these and other problems if it is not properly managed”. Having examined the triple helix model within the South African NSI, the next section presents the South African NSI strengths and weaknesses.