Transcript PowerPoint-presentatie

Business Mathematics and
Informatics: a Case Study of
Curriculum Restructuring at the
North West University in South
Africa
Kees Boersma
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
[email protected]
A Mutual Agreement…
In reference to the joint conversations between PU and ASBA with
respect to the alliance in order to start up a course on Business
Mathematics and Informatics at the University and the use of it by
us, we gladly want to confirm the approval by the ABSACommittee to financially cover the estimated costs of the course.
We will evaluate the collaboration after 5 years from now.
(Letter from ABSA Bank to the rector of the PU, 3 February 1997;
Archives of NWU).
Overall research question
How do organizational actors implement and give meaning to
ideas and policies of Higher Education in their local situation?
In my approach I use theories from the fields of Science and
Technology Studies, Higher Education Research and Organization
Studies:
- Mode2 (Gibbons), heterogeneity of HE (e.g. Rip) and the
entrepreneurial university (Clark) as empirical questions,
- institutionalization patterns (DiMaggio) and travelling of ideas
(Czarniawska and Joerges),
- sensemaking processes (Weick) in a actor-network approach
(Callon and others).
Specific research questions
Why and how did the local policymakers of the South African North
West University (NWU) ‘invent’ and implement Business
Mathematics and Informatics (BMI), which parties became involved
and how did BMI affect the research and curriculum of the faculty of
Natural Sciences?
- What is Business Mathematics and Informatics?
- What parties became involved and how do the different relevant
actors give meaning to BMI?
- What is the outcome of BMI at the NWU?
Co-authors of the paper: Carools Reinecke and Michael Gibbons
The inter-disciplinary profile
Research in the context of application
The context: motives for implementing BMI internationally
 Practical: declining amount of students in mathematics,
 Policy: commodification of scientific activities: interrelationship
between academia and industry (in a Mode 2 fashion),
 Processes:
- standardization and modeling within disciplines,
- sector-specific mathematical and statistical analysis (e.g.
within the financial industry: risk analysis and the Basel
regulations).
BMI at the North West University
The NWU is the outcome of a merger:
 Potchefstroom campus (Potchefstroom University for Christian
Higher Education) since 1869. ‘In 1998 the Statute of the PUK
was completely rewritten to enable the PUK to continue to fulfill
its important role as part of the single, co-ordinated system of
higher education in South Africa, while reserving its institutional
culture of Christian higher education, based on its original
foundation’ (website).
 Mafikeng campus
 Vaal Triangle campus
Number of students enrolled per campus
Campus
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Mafikeng
Potchefstroom
7674
23875
8667
25606
9652
27485
9001
26391
8488
26849
8966
41484
Vaal Triangle
Total
1 567
33116
2123
36396
3008
40145
3204
38596
3372
38709
3354
53804
These numbers are including distance students
Policy: NWU as a Mode 2 University
Mode 2: a change instrument at the NWU
BMI in the context of South Africa
The actors:
 HE policy of the South African government after the apartheid,
 The local policy of the NWU as a HE institute,
 The policy of the ABSA Bank.
South African GOVERNMENT
Challenge
Policy
• Nation building
• A national culture:
The rainbow-nation as the
ideal (Mandela, 1994)
The Constitution of South
Africa, Act no 108 of 1996.
*Comprehensive initiatives
• Transformation
The transformation of higher
education specifically relates
to redress of past inequities,
to serve a new social order,
to meet pressing national
needs and to respond to new
realities and opportunities.
(Bengu, 1997).
The production of a new
comprehensive policy for
higher education through an
extensive process of
investigation and
consultation.
Education White Paper 3 A Programme for Higher
Education Transformation,
Government Gazette, No.
18207, of 15 August 1997.
Responses
• New Resources for
funding HE institutes
The implementation of a
new funding framework for
the allocation of subsidy to
institutions.
Directed resources are made
available for niche areas
as defined in programmes
like THRIP (Bok Marais)
Challenge
North West UNIVERSITY
Policy
• Regulation of higher
education
The act includes a
preamble of 10 intensions,
of which one intention
encourages institutions to
respond to the human
resource, economic and
developmental needs of the
Republic.
• Merger
The Minister of Education
2002 amends section 23(1)
of the higher education act
to enable him to merge
institutions of higher
education. NWU is the
outcome of a merger.
Responses
* Statute of the PU
* Vision and strategy
The Council of the PU
approved a new statute for
the University to comply
with the requirements of
the new higher education
act.
A new vision statement
and strategic plan was
developed and
implemented. Reference to
quality, the entrepreneurial
approach and societal
responsiveness.
Focus Areas for advanced
education and research
* Decision of the Council
PU's Council decided on
27 June 2002 to accept in
principle the
unavoidability of the
merger with UNE, but then
with other modalities and
different timeframes than
those appearing in the
notices.
including BMI.
• Unity in diversity
The physical size, stage of
development and
educational offerings of the
components of the merged
institutions differ(ed)
extensively.
Processes: BMI at the NWU
 Declining amount of students at the Faculty of Natural Sciences
 Institutionalization: BMI at NWU as part of an international
network:
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (inspirator),
- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (benchmark).
 Local networks: relations with the ABSA bank,
 BMI as a new Focus Area.
ABSA BANK
Challenge
Policy
Responses
•National regulation
•Amalgamation
•A Centre for BMI
Diversification
of
the
employees (due to the 1997
South
African
Labour
Relations Act and the Bill
on Employment Equity)
Leaders at the parochial banks
in the South Africa of the
beginning 1990’s realized that
size is the name in modern
banking. The leaders took the
road of amalgamation of small
banks, which became
Amalgamated Banks of South
Africa (ABSA).
The initiative of PUCHE to
direct the focus in its
mathematical and IT
academics towards BMI
opened a unique
opportunity for ABSA to
get important risk-related
topics researched, as well as
securing the appointment of
new experts in this field.
•International regulation
The Basel accords contain
fundamental innovations to
introduce greater risk
sensitivity into the accord.
* Financial risk management
Risk management may be
defined as the process of
protecting one’s person or
organization intact in terms of
assets and income directed by
quantitative financial models.
The centre is another
possible means to meet the
government’s demand to
hire more black employees.
The center BMI at the NWU
The growth of student numbers
350
300
250
200
Y5
Y4
Y3
150
100
50
0
Y2
Year
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
Y1
1998
Students per Year
BMI + Actuarial Total
Client
organiza
tion
ABSA
Total #
# Students per Year
1998
-00
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
8
5
8
11
9
7
10
8
66
(52%)
2
8
9
3
7
6
35
(28%)
1
2
8
4
3
6
25
(20%)
11
21
26
14
20
20
126
(100%)
Other
Banks
Other
Comp.
1
TOTAL
9
5
Distribution of alumni of the Centre for BWI
8%
Absa
4%
38%
19%
Banks
Unis
IT Vendors
Fin Con
3%
5%
Int Bank
23%
Cons
Research: A comparison between the publication output by the
BMI Focus Area for the period 1996 - 1998 (triangle to the left) and
the period 2002 - 2004 (triangle to the right). The numbers at the
bottom of the triangles indicate the total publication output. The
publications purely in the fields of business sciences (B),
mathematical sciences (M) or information sciences (I) were
counted, and placed in the circles at the respective B, M or I
corners.
Discussion: heterogeneity at BMI and NWU!?
Two major problems:
1) BMI is very much dependent on the cooperation with
the financial industry (esp. ABSA),
2) The NWU still struggles with the past.
Business orientation at NWU/BMI
More News about the Centre (http://www.puk.ac.za/fakulteite/natuur/bwi/index_e.html):
• BMI Research results in the founding of a new company
[Read more ]
• Bond Exchange of SA and Centre for BMI sign memorandum
of understanding. [Read more]
• Prof. PJ de Jogh place a leading roll in the establishment of
the GARP Executive Committee of SA. [Read more]
• Professor Machiel Kruger associated with the Centre for BMI,
who win the 2005 SAS Academic Intelligence Award developed a Sudoku Puzzle-solver using SAS. [Read more]
•Professor Dawie de Jongh on the Editorial Board of GARP
Digital Library. [Read more]
•Absa signs two contracts with NWU's Centre for BMI. [Read
more]
NWU in the context of South Africa
‘This NWU innovation, further, takes places within a highly
racialised university community that remains deeply divided and in
which the knowledge roots of the institution (and that is what it is)
continues to observe deeply held Christian National beliefs,
epistemologies and practices; to think that a business-oriented
mathematics program in such a context would suddenly render
liberating outcomes on matters of equity and diversity is, quite
frankly, naive.’
A remark of a reviewer to an earlier version.
Discussion and conclusion
 Mode 2 as a policy instrument and as a sensitizing concept,
 BMI is the outcome of a balancing act:
- mathematic research and education became more
heterogeneous but also focussed on the financial sector,
- conserving the own identity at Potchefstroom and the
pressure towards the integration of three campuses,
 The outcome of BMI: ABSAdized scholarship at the NWU
Centre for BMI,
 NWU (should) enrich the academic portfolio in more
heterogeneous ways (Rip).
Number of students enrolled per race at NWU
Race
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Asian
Black
283
20131
325
21714
321
24969
338
23454
616
22412
898
32606
Coloured
791
1050
1255
1195
1220
1577
White
10300
11447
12662
13389
14288
18694
Other
1611
1860
938
220
173
29
Total
33116
36396
40145
38596
38709
53804
Number of students enrolled per race at
Mafikeng
Race
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Asian
27
30
27
20
18
21
Black
7600
8536
9592
8914
8305
8107
Coloured
16
57
18
26
53
72
White
31
44
15
41
108
762
Other
0
0
0
0
4
4
Total
7674
8667
9652
9001
8488
8966
Number of students enrolled per race at
Potchefstroom
Race
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Asian
220
254
245
256
526
804
White
9333
10493
11596
12166
12914
16651
Coloured
739
946
1202
1127
1116
1448
Black
11972
12065
13747
12747
12182
22557
Other
1611
1848
695
95
111
24
Total
23875
25606
27485
26391
26849
41484
Number of students enrolled per race at Vaal
Triangle
Race
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Asian
36
41
49
62
72
73
White
936
910
1051
1182
1266
1281
Coloured
36
47
35
42
51
57
Black
559
1113
1630
1793
1925
1942
Other
0
12
243
125
58
1
Total
1567
2123
3008
3204
3372
3354