Transcript Slide 1

Ford Foundation Meeting
Cape Town, May 2012
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Reflecting on the role of academics/intellectuals in the struggle (Habermas)
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Muller & Cloete (1987) The white hands: academic social scientists, engagement
and struggle in South Africa. Social Epistemology, 1,2: 141-154
Cloete & Muller (1991) Social scientists and social change in South Africa.
International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 28(3-4): 171-192
Muller & Cloete (1993) Out of Eden: modernity, post-apartheid and intellectuals.
Theory, Culture and Society, 10(3): 155-172
From protest to policy
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National Education Crisis Committee (Internal resistance to apartheid [1987])
Education policy units (Wits, Natal, UWC in 1989 – activists on campus)
National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) – restructuring SA higher education
started with NEPI (web)
Union of Democratic University Staff Associations -1991 (back to the street)
UDUSA Policy Forum (1993) – prepared for National Commission For Higher
Education (NCHE)
NCHE – Mandela appointed participatory policy framework
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Coffee grounds of Braamfontein
• Braamfontein’s rejuvenation from anti-apartheid NGOs in close
proximity to the post-apartheid development agencies
• As with the implicit bargain between the ANC and the National Party,
CHET’s work would be both empirical and symbolic
• Capacity-building without a theory – strengthening HE governance (1997)
(building the boat on the sea)
• Reviewing first 5 years of post-apartheid HE (2001) – performance
indicators
• Policy formation has been SA/Global (Manuel Castells – the rise of the
network society )
• Finding the rest of Africa – Higher Education Research and Advocacy
Network in Africa (HERANA) (2009)
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• Loosely and tightly coupled networks
• High profile Board, two-person office, outsourced services (pay for
services) and commissioned experts (academics work for little – no
consultants – must be employed elsewhere) and designated project
managers
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Service providers
Publishing: Compress/African Minds
News: University World News
Events: Millennium Travel
IT: Tenet
Financial Support services: CHEC
• Construct research programmes with historical/new networks –
local and global
• Connect capacity-building – empirical research - training - advocacy
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HERANA
Higher Education Research & Advocacy Network in Africa
RESEARCH
ADVOCACY
Higher Education and Development
Investigating the complex relationships
between higher education and economic
development, and student democratic
attitudes in Africa
The HERANA Gateway
An internet portal to research on higher
education in Africa
The Research-Policy Nexus
Investigating the relationship between
research evidence and policy-making in
selected public policy sectors in South
Africa
University World News (Africa)
Current news and in-depth investigations
into higher education in Africa
Nordic Masters in Africa (NOMA)
Collaborative research training by the
Universities of Oslo, Makerere, Western
Cape, and CHET
FUNDERS
Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, Kresge, DFID, Norad
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• Ear of the great man – Castells/Mbeki
• Infiltrator – Bunting
• Seminars in nice places
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Seminars are strategically inclusive
• 10 to 15 seminars per annum over 1 or 2 days
• includes multiple system levels, i.e. supra-national, government, university
management, academics, funders
• Includes experts, university representatives and policy-makers
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Informational Development and Human Development:
Creative Synergy or Mutual Destruction (August 2010)
• Participants – Castells, 2 NEC members of ANC (coordinator of policy),
3 academic economists who advise minsters or Presidency, Deputy DirectorGeneral of Budget in the Treasury, 2 serious capitalists (Africa’s richest woman),
2 VCs, 2 environmentalists (SANBI), 2 ICT (researcher and director general),
6 academics and a political commentator (Mbeki’s brother)
• Main outcomes: why ICT failed and R300million grant to SANBI
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Differentiation: Diversity and Stratification (January 2012)
• 7 senior officials from DHET, 1 National Development Plan (Presidency),
1 higher education SA, 3 university directors of planning, 8 CHET network
• Outcome: DHET ask CHET to organise Differentiation Implementation meeting
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• Dialogues
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between experts
between experts and bureaucrats
• Presentations
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to VCs and university councils
to HE commissions
• Representation by proxy
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at government departmental level (e.g. Bunting in DoE)
at the level of commissions/committees (e.g. HE financing review committee)
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“Covert and overt political and ideological agendas will always be there,
but once hard data and their implications are widely known as well as to
a politician, change is to some extent more likely to move in a sensible
direction.” (JBA)
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Leads to “empirical independence” of the organisation rather than it
being an ideological hand-maiden (of government or others)
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• Publications and other outputs are conceived of as part of the planning
process BUT what is produced remains flexible with an opportunistic
focus
• In order to capitalise on opportunities and to ensure findings remain
relevant, the speed of production is essential but not at the expense of
quality
• All publications and data are open access, and published in multiple
formats across multiple channels – the imperative is broadest possible
reach
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• CHET has access to public data which is difficult to access through its
networks
• CHET adds value to raw data collected by government and/or universities
by cleaning, verifying and analysing source data
• Data is made public and focused presentations are made to government
on key issues (e.g. differentiation; doctoral output, etc.) as well to the
universities
• In doing so CHET
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fills the capacity void in the ministry of HE and in many of the universities’
planning departments
provides government and institutions with an empirically-based picture of postsecondary education in South Africa
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1. UWN Special Africa editions and fortnightly Africa newsletters
launched in 2008 in collaboration with the HERANA project.
2. More than 27 000 people in 150 countries receiving the weekly
global edition.
3. Of UWN’s total of 27 026 registered readers, 13 280 receive the
Africa edition.
4. More than 6 000 of UWN’s readers are based in Africa, in 29
countries.
(Figures as at December 2010)
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