Kagisano Issue Number 4: Ten years of Higher Education under Democracy

2006

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Preface

In 2004 the Council on Higher Education hosted a colloquium to commemorate the first decade of democratic government in South Africa. The focus of the colloquium was an assessment of the state of higher education after ten years of policy making and implementation. The colloquium gathered vice-chancellors of public higher education institutions, leaders of private higher education institutions, representatives from the Department of Education, and other government departments, stakeholder organisations and statutory bodies as well as policy analysts and specialists in higher education.

The CHE took the opportunity to invite Prof. Colin Bundy to give the keynote address at the colloquium. Prof. Bundy’s address stirred a great deal of comment and engagement during the colloquium and in the months thereafter.

The importance of the debate suggested that Prof. Bundy’s paper should be published in Kagisano HE Discussion Series, a CHE publication dedicated to stimulating debate among the higher education community. Each issue of Kagisano is structured around one central piece to which different authors are invited to respond. In this issue of Kagisano the central piece by Colin Bundy is discussed by four authors. The CHE wishes to thank Prof. Bundy and the four contributors, Prof. Sipho Seepe, Ms Piyushi Kotecha, Dr Mala Singh and Dr Lis Lange, for the time they took to prepare the pieces contained in this publication.

As this issue of Kagisano was being finalised the CHE was shocked by the untimely death of Dr Prem Naidoo, who was the Deputy Executive Director of the HEQC. Prem was very interested in understanding the ways in which policy is translated into practices and he was himself a particularly keen ‘translator’. It is because of this that the CHE dedicates this issue of Kagisano to Prem’s memory.