| Higher Education Monitor: ICTs and the South African Higher Education Landscape |
| July 2006 |
| |
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Cover Pages (1.3Mb ~ 8 min)
Foreword (132Kb ~ 1 min)
List of acronyms used (120Kb ~ 1 min)
Section 1: Introduction (332Kb ~ 2 min)
Section 2: Practitioner-based Notions of ICTs in South African Higher Education (301Kb ~ 2 min)
Section 3: Policies and Structures (325Kb ~ 2 min)
Section 4: Research in ICTs and Higher Education in South Africa (245Kb ~ 1 min)
Section 5: Understanding ICT Change and Higher Education (398Kb ~ 2 min)
Section 6: Key Issues (362Kb ~ 2 min)
Section 7: Conclusion (111Kb ~ 1 min)
Bibliography (272Kb ~ 2 min)
Foreword
The process of the reconstruction and development of higher education in South Africa is part
of the wider process of political democratization, economic reconstruction and development, and
social redistribution. It takes place in a global context of multiple, interrelated and rapid changes in
social, cultural and economic relations, typically referred to as globalization. These changes are largely
enabled by a revolution in the development and application of information and communication
technologies (ICTs).
The White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education of 1997
acknowledged the key role of the ICT revolution in globalization. The same understanding of the
importance of ICTs in supporting and provoking global political, social and economic integration
was reiterated by the Ministry of Education in its
National Plan for Higher Education published in 2001.
Moreover, the National Plan noted the critical and central role that higher education would have to play
in contributing to the development of an information society in South Africa in terms of both skills
development and research. Despite the realization of the importance of these issues, higher education
as a sector has not really engaged with the implications of introducing ICTs into teaching, learning
and research or with the conceptual and political frameworks informing this. At government level, the
Ministry of Education has not yet focused on these issues and, in this sense, there has been no central
steering of the development and application of ICTs in higher education in South Africa.
This issue of the
Higher Education Monitor presents to the higher education community and its direct
stakeholders, as well as to the interested public, a piece of research that seeks to illuminate some of
the challenges presented by the utilization of ICTs in higher education. The work of Prof. Laura
Czerniewicz, Dr Neetha Ravjee and Ms Nhlanhla Mlitwa is a first contribution of the CHE towards
developing an understanding of the ways in which higher education institutions in South Africa have
confronted the challenges posed by the information and technology revolution. In particular, this
work reveals the ways in which researchers, practitioners, and policymakers understand ICTs, and how
they see the relationship between ICTs and change in higher education.
This research is part of broader project of the CHE Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate focused
on higher education and change. The project was made possible with generous funding from the
Rockefeller Foundation. While the different pieces of research emanating from the project will be
published together in book form later this year, this research report is published in its entirety owing
to the topicality of the issue of ICTs in South African higher education and its importance for all
public higher education institutions as well as for the broader South African society in a context of a
relative dearth of research on this subject.
The CHE hopes that the report will generate further interest, discussion and research among higher
education analysts, university and government officials, and also that the non-specialist public will
find that it helps them to understand the implications of the information and technology revolution
in South African higher education.
Dr Lis Lange
Director: Monitoring and Evaluation
Council on Higher Education
May 2006
