Tài liệu Within the Realm of Possibility docx

Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Published by HSRC Press
Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
www.hsrcpress.ac.za
© 2006 Human Sciences Research Council
First published 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
ISBN 0-7969-2155-5
Copy-editing by Laurie Rose-Innes
Typeset by Simon van Gend
Cover design by Flame Design
Print management by comPress
Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver
PO Box 30370, Tokai, Cape Town, 7966, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477
Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302
email:
www.oneworldbooks.com

Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS)
3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8LU, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609
email:
www.eurospangroup.com/bookstore
Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
Order Department, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610, USA
Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741
All other enquiries: +1 (312) 337 0747
Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985
email:
www.ipgbook.com
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Contents
Tables and figures iv
Preface v
Acronyms and abbreviations viii
1 Introduction 1

Mokubung Nkomo and Derrick Swartz
2 The repositioning of two South African universities 15

Botshabelo Maja, Andile Gwabeni and Phuti A Mokwele
3 Constructing a conceptual framework for HBUs in a

developmental paradigm 47
Catherine A Odora Hoppers
4 Turfloop: where an idea was expressed, hijacked and redeemed 65

Abram L Mawasha
5 Fort Hare in its local context: a historical view 85

Seán Morrow
6 Intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial developments at the

University of the North 104
Patrick FitzGerald
7 New pathways to sustainability: African universities in a

globalising world 127
Derrick Swartz
Contributors 167
Index 170
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y

iv
Tables and figures
Tables
Table 6.1 Fee waivers for students, 2001–2003 118
Table 6.2 Undergraduate and postgraduate enrolment, 1998–2003 118
Table 6.3 Characteristics of Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge

production 121
Table 6.4 UNIN’s new academic architecture 123
Figures
Figure 2.1 Sectors of the Limpopo economy and their contributions
to GGP 18
Figure 2.2 Major occupation groups in the UNIN catchment area 19
Figure 2.3 Sectors of the Eastern Cape economy and their contributions

to GGP 22
Figure 2.4 Breakdown of employment by sector 23
Figure 2.5 Student participation rate at UNIN, 1994–2002 27
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
v
Preface
A great risk was undertaken when the idea of doing this book was hatched.
The idea was conceived at a time when there was a raging debate over the

land about whether the historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) were
viable or added intellectual value. (Never mind that the supposed intellectual
value added by historically advantaged institutions was suspect at least to
black people, even though they desired to be admitted to these institutions in
recognition of their rich resource endowments bequeathed by the apartheid
regime.)
Both protagonists and antagonists in the debate took strong fundamentalist
positions. Protagonists held these institutions inviolate, as custodians of the
struggle for democracy and nurseries of some of the leading personalities in
black society. Their view is represented by the following:
The [historically black universities or HBUs] located as they are
in the very midst of the underdevelopment and poverty of the
African Rural Community have their development mandate very
clear before us … to play a direct role in helping to eliminate
underdevelopment and poverty of this largest proportion of the
African population in the country.
1
On the other hand, antagonists charged financial ineptitude and, in extreme
cases, that these institutions were devoid of intellectual currency. Their
exasperation led to a pronouncement by the vice-chancellor of a historically
advantaged institution that ‘the crisis in the higher education system can be
overcome by closing all historically black universities’.
2
The protagonists represent a deep yearning for rediscovery and transformation,
a deep desire to give expression to the post-colonial/post-apartheid rise of the
subaltern, while the antagonists reflect a buoyant self-satisfaction, seemingly
inattentive to the development imperatives of present-day South Africa.
These passions yield more heat than light. Nonetheless, the fact that, in the
contemporary reality of an unfolding democratic culture, these institutional
archetypes are not fixed but increasingly fluid, metamorphic, and even

contradictory or dialectical, deserves mention. And therein lies the potential
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
vi
reach of immense possibilities for transforming institutions with purposeful
delivery capacity within their inherited spatial realms and beyond.
Inspiring the research that informs this book was the idea that a more
dispassionate but sensitive analysis of at least two universities from the HBU
fraternity, with a focus on possible ways to infuse some moderation among the
excesses of the combatants, could shed at least some light in the interests of all.
We wish to stress that, at this point, the emphasis of the study is on the spatial
location of the two institutions (even though rurality has been overtaken by a
creeping peri-urban and, most recently, urban reality, especially in the case of
the University of Fort Hare with its inheritance of the East London campus as
a result of the merger process) rather than their racial identity, although this
remains a stubborn imprint.
Initial dialogue about conducting the research took place around 2000 in
discussions between the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the
Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET). Shortly thereafter,
active support was given by Derrick Swartz at the University of Fort Hare,
who saw merit in a dispassionate probe, and the contagion quickly spread to
Patrick FitzGerald, who had been appointed Administrator of the University
of the North. Gerry Salole of the Ford Foundation believed in the idea and

authorised the disbursement of funds to make it happen; the support is
greatly appreciated and we hope this book will do justice to that act of faith
and commitment.
An advisory committee was established in order to give guidance to the
project, especially in its early days. The committee consisted of Derrick Swartz,
Patrick FitzGerald, Joe Teffo, Catherine Odora Hoppers, Wim Hoppers, Peter
Maleta, Tembile Kulati, Bulumbo Nelani, Botshabelo Maja and Mokubung
Nkomo. We are greatly indebted to the collective guidance and wisdom of
these individuals.
A joint research team was also established; led by Botshabelo Maja, it
consisted of Andile Gwabeni and Siyabonga Gwabeni of the University of
Fort Hare, Asaph Ndlovu, Sekgothe Makgoatsana and Phuti Mokwele of the
University of the North, and Catherine Odora Hoppers and Jane Kabaki, who
were commissioned to address identified areas in the research. More Chakane
and Brutus Malada were drawn in at critical points to assist in information
retrieval and consolidation exercises.
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
P R E FA C E
vii
At various times, Barbara English and Richard Jewison gave attention to the
technical and harmonisation aspects of the manuscript in a most friendly and
efficient manner. Thanks also go to the HSRC Press staff for the interest and
forbearance they displayed in the editing and production process.

While eternally grateful to the insightful and practical inputs of these
individuals, they, most assuredly, do not assume responsibility for errors and
omissions that may inadvertently have been committed. Those, regrettably,
remain the editors’ sole and lonely responsibility.
Mokubung Nkomo
April 2006
Notes
1 Vilakazi H (2002) A new policy on higher education. Paper in response to Minister
Kader Asmal’s proposals on mergers and the transformation of institutions of higher
education.
2 Quoted in University of Durban-Westville (UDW) Working Group (2000) HDIs:
Development institutions of the future. Paper presented at the Association of Vice-
Chancellors of Historically-disadvantaged Tertiary Institutions in South Africa
(ASAHDI) Conference on higher education: Imperatives of equity and redress, at the
Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, 19–20 October.
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
viii
Acronyms and abbreviations
ARDRI Agricultural and Rural Development Research Institute
BASA Black Academic Staff Association
BTC Broad Transformation Committee
GGP Gross Geographical Product

HBU historically black university
HDI historically disadvantaged institution
HEI higher education institution
HSRC Human Sciences Research Council
IAG Interim Advisory Group
ICT information and communications technology
ISRDS Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy
IT information technology
Medunsa Medical University of Southern Africa
NP National Party
NPHE National Plan for Higher Education
R&D research and development
RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme
SADC Southern African Development Community
SASO South African Students Organisation
SMMEs small, medium and micro enterprises
SRC Students’ Representative Council
TELP Tertiary Education Linkages Project
UFH University of Fort Hare
UNIN University of the North
Unisa University of South Africa
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
1

Introduction
Mokubung Nkomo and Derrick Swartz
So we have a fractured inheritance … and the question we face
is: what do we do with it? One possible answer is that we should
transform historically-black institutions from the educational
dumping grounds that Verwoerd designed them to be, and
make them bastions of the new democratic excellence. This is
not a vision entirely without merit. Whatever the intentions
of the apartheid rulers, the fact is that individual students and
professors – black and white – made, and continue to make,
valuable contributions from these venues that were intended
as dumping grounds. Their contributions cannot simply be
discarded.
1
Recently, a vice-chancellor of a rural-based, historically disadvantaged
institution made the following rather remarkable observation:
One thing that has struck me is that our institution, which has
been in existence for over half a century, has produced some
of the most outstanding leaders in politics, business, culture
and so on. Many of the leaders were South Africans and some
came from as far as Kenya. Yet, when you look at the immediate
environment of the university you would hardly notice its impact,
except in a limited sense. While we can and should take pride in
its remarkable achievements, despite all odds placed before it by
apartheid, it seems shameful, indeed unacceptable, that we have
made limited impact on our immediate surrounds. Something
must be done about this.
2
The question of ‘engagement’, of how universities (and, broadly, higher
education) relate their core mission (teaching, research and ‘public service’) to

society (civil, economic, cultural, political and so on), has become quite topical
1
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
2
in the post-apartheid period. Although university linkages, however defined,
have been a feature of most South African universities even during the pre-
democracy days, very little has been written either conceptually or empirically
on this, specifically in respect to post-apartheid university ‘engagement’
challenges. This question of how the university defines and relates itself to
its environment has become a particularly vital consideration for historically
disadvantaged universities in the post-1990 period as they grapple with new
conditions within a rapidly changing higher education sector.
This book examines the way two such institutions, the University of Fort Hare
(UFH) and the University of the North (UNIN), have defined and expressed
the new politics of ‘engagement’, their attempts to ‘reinvent’ themselves in
order to achieve new meaning in a post-apartheid democracy, their new vision
and mission orientations and ‘development’ strategies, as well as the forms
of engagement they have sought, and their underlying assumptions. In the
case of both UFH and UNIN, institutional change was the result of internal
and external pressures: on the one hand, a rising tide of political pressure
from students, academics and alumni pressing for these two institutions to
find a new meaning and role in a post-apartheid South Africa; on the other

hand, a contradictory combination of changes in higher education policy,
and structural changes in the higher education market that began to exert
themselves on the political economy of institutions. It is hoped that one
contribution this project can offer is a conceptual outline of some key tenets
that could assist other similar institutions to identify new points of departure
for developing strategies for social responsiveness, survival and innovation in
the current national context.
Around the mid-1990s, South Africa’s first democratic government adopted a
series of higher education policy reforms that significantly altered the terrain
of higher education provision, bringing with it a new and less favourable
funding regime, increased competition over students, and growing demands
for greater institutional ‘responsiveness’. Firstly, although the absolute level of
investment in public higher education increased during the first ten years of
democracy, in real terms subsidy levels have declined and, increasingly, have
been pegged to performance on student numbers, throughput, programme
mix and research output. Secondly, abolition of racial restrictions on access
after 1994 meant, in effect, an ‘opening up’ of the market for students – a
move that led to larger numbers of black, particularly black middle-class,
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
3
I N T ROD U C T I O N
students drifting to formerly white institutions. Thirdly, in the post-1994
period, institutions came under severe policy pressure to demonstrate greater

‘responsiveness’ in expanding their traditional mandate beyond production
of graduates and formal research to also becoming more and more ‘engaged’
in public service.
These pressures coincided with, and in many ways reflected, wider changes in
the socio-economic environment globally and within South Africa, principally
as a function of globalisation. Major and precipitous changes in the global
economy, fuelled by new technology and forms of mass communication in
the last 20 years, have imposed new pressures on higher education, at once
seen as another commodity in cross-border trade, as well as no longer the
sole prerogative of universities. At the same time, the advent of democracy,
expressed through a new Constitution and the expansive role of the state in
the transformation of South Africa, has precipitated growing expectations for
a broadening of the role of higher education beyond graduate teaching and
research to include ‘social engagement’ in civil and industrial society.
The aim of the research presented here was to raise some conceptual and
strategic issues that have underpinned the historical experiences of the two
institutions in their quest to propagate a ‘development’ agenda in response
to the challenge of ‘engagement’ – that is to say, pressing policy and popular
expectations, combined with institutional definitions of ‘relevance’, for linking
universities into more meaningful relationships with their wider environs.
The challenge of engagement, as it turns out, is not a simple one-sided,
subject–object relationship, in terms of which universities are called upon,
or decide, to ‘serve’ the needs of society in one or other way. The forms of
engagement and types of relationship built are often initiated from outside
universities; and they are multi-sided, involving business, civil society groups,
individuals, development agencies and all manner of actors independent
from higher education. As such, ‘engagement with society’ cannot be taken at
face value as these relationships are imbued with a range of different, often
contradictory expectations, values, interests and outcomes.
Moreover, ‘society’ is neither internally homogenous nor necessarily unified.

Different types of engagement often reveal quite contrasting, even opposing
interests, and these, as will be argued in this book, may have significant
consequences for how university missions are acted out. It might be more
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
4
accurate to speak of ‘communities of interests’ contesting the specific
meanings that development must obtain.
Indeed, ‘development’ is a portmanteau concept, imbued with potentially
different, sometimes contradictory meanings and potential outcomes. On
the one hand, definitions of development associated with, for example, trade
unions, civic movements and co-operatives tend to place a heavy premium
on values such as social capital, democracy, civic society and public good,
turning to knowledge institutions for intellectual support; whereas corporate
alliances, on the other hand, often tend to emphasise projects for their value
in relation to revenue generation, entrepreneurship and individual good, a
different set of organising principles.
Although some of these elements are not mutually exclusive, with several
interesting combinations recorded in the experiences of both UFH and
UNIN, they do point to quite different paradigms at work. Often, as is the case
with both UFH and UNIN, institutional responses have tended to be varying
combinations of ‘social’ and ‘corporate’ orientations in their ‘development
agenda’ setting. Their apparently contradictory development strategies may

be a reflection of their attempts to embrace and express two diverging
mandate imperatives. On the one hand, mandate requirements for greater
‘third-stream’ income to supplement declining subsidies and research funds
are creating conditions where institutions look to entrepreneurial strategies
to source revenue, trading their knowledge, skills and capital assets as
‘commodities’. On the other hand, mandate requirements for ‘relevance’ and
‘responsiveness’, as well as putative commitments to ‘public good’, have seen
institutions forging a multiplicity of ‘civic relations’ based on public service,
duty, solidarity and non-profit norms.
Institutional responses, such as those of UFH and UNIN, suggest that
such dual imperatives have been embraced and expressed within overall
development strategies and plans, perhaps suggesting that these are not seen
by institutional actors as necessarily in conflict. The specific accounts of the
experiences of UFH and UNIN (see Chapter 2) indicate different modes of
accommodation of each of these imperatives, which are seen as extensions of
the core missions of the universities. Nonetheless, these accounts also show
forms of engagement embedded with different interests and social forces,
often entailing institutional linkages with diverging strategic objectives.
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
5
I N T ROD U C T I O N
The selection of the two particular universities – UFH and UNIN – stemmed
from an assessment of their shared commonalities and divergences. Firstly, both

universities have a broadly similar historical trajectory, as so-called struggle
universities, deeply embedded in popular consciousness (with UFH’s origins
during the First World War, and UNIN’s in 1959). Secondly, both institutions
evolved as ‘rural-type’ universities, having their core operating bases outside
major urban centres, although recently this has been reconstituted. Thirdly,
both universities have faced near-terminal institutional crises in the post-
1994 period, triggering specific efforts to redefine and reposition themselves
in the context of the end of apartheid. Fourthly, in both cases, there was some
institutional record of their transformation ‘experiments’, combined with
leaderships interested in giving wider analytical expression to their respective
historical experiences.
Although it was not anticipated at the time, it turned out that both UFH and
UNIN would be spared losing their institutional identities (although this
too, it could be argued, may presumably be renegotiated) in the context of
the merger (and incorporation) policy of the government in the late 1990s.
As such, at the time of conducting the study, each institution was legally
autonomous and governed by its own council (though in UNIN’s case, this was
to give way to an interim council in 2005). As a consequence of government
policy, UNIN was to ‘merge’ with the Medical University of Southern Africa,
creating a new institution known as the University of Limpopo, and UFH was
to incorporate Rhodes University’s East London campus while retaining its
name and independent status.
The core focus of this book is on the particular historical experiences of UFH
and UNIN, and it is not assumed that generalisations can be made, at least
not without careful evidence and argument, on conditions and lessons at
other historically disadvantaged universities. Nonetheless, it is hoped that one
can draw insights that may be applicable to similar debates and experiences
obtaining at institutions with approximate conditions of existence.
The book brings together a wide range of contributors, some having had
direct involvement, in a variety of capacities, with UFH and UNIN, and

others, scholars of higher education in general, and of the challenges facing
historically disadvantaged universities in particular. Amongst the contributors
are a former administrator of UNIN and serving vice-chancellor of UFH,
a number of prominent project leaders who have been intimately involved
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
6
in recent changes at the two universities, and leading scholars interested
in the transformation of higher education and the particular challenges of
historically disadvantaged universities. What makes this mix interesting is
that it brings together a range of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ perspectives on the
imperatives of engagement at UFH and UNIN.
It is also worth noting that the notion of ‘rurality’ is of course a generalised
descriptor, denoting a set of spatial and geo-strategic conditions, and the
terms ‘rural-based’ or ‘rural’ must be used with qualification. Thus, the
political economies of both UFH and UNIN are probably more aptly peri-
urban, as the local economies are tied in a range of ways to major cities (King
William’s Town–East London in the case of UFH and Polokwane in the case
of UNIN) and their trading links. Moreover, a significant proportion of the
population in these environs not only draws income from urban centres
(and are, thus, urban working or middle class), but also maintains complex
linkages with urban centres. As such, the notion of an isolated, hermetically
sealed ‘rural’ area, conceived in early nineteenth-century terms, is neither

historically correct nor empirically sustainable. In this context, the use of the
term ‘rural university’ must take into account the dynamic and constantly
interchangeable linkages between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, blurring many traditional
social and spatial associations. Indeed, the argument is made by some of the
authors (see, for example, Chapter 7) that the universities are actively seeking
opportunities for new trading linkages (around skills, technology, goods and
services) between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, stimulated as it were by UFH and UNIN
operating across the traditional divide and, by extension, redefining the
existential relationship of ‘rural’ to ‘urban’.
Notwithstanding these nuances, it must be pointed out that ‘rural-based’
universities since their inception have been on the periphery of the mainstream
of knowledge production and meaningful application in a development
context. This can be traced back to the political economy of racial capitalism
during its colonial and apartheid phases of historical development (Malherbe
1965).
3
The marginalisation of rural-based universities was also premised on a
development paradigm steeped in the social imagination of ‘grand apartheid’,
which effectively sought to balkanise the geography within which historically
disadvantaged institutions were allowed to develop. By contrast, the notion of
integrated development evolved in public policy circles around the mid-1990s
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
7

I N T ROD U C T I O N
as an alternative concept to the balkanised notions of development under
colonialism and apartheid (or separate development).
It is argued in this book that the fragmented and disarticulated inheritance of
these institutions is not, nor should it be, an insurmountable and immutable
historical condition (Habib 2000). There exist, elsewhere, similarly placed
institutions that have reinvented themselves in a manner that has turned
them into national assets. The Northern Scotland University of Highlands
and Islands ‘is now a robust enterprise with a technological backbone that
is breathing new educational, cultural and economic life into the region’
(Fehnel 2001: 2).
4
In India, the Ghandigram Rural University has become
the anchor for a vibrant interchange between the university and the
surrounding community.
5
In the United States of America (USA), the Rural
Community College Initiative funded by the Ford Foundation is another
example of innovative sustainability. These institutions, it has been argued,
have ‘redefine[d] their missions to focus on developing the entrepreneurial
knowledge and skills needed by the community to support economic growth’
(Fehnel 2001: 2). The so-called ‘land-grant’ universities in the USA have also
played a vital role in the development of agricultural research and development
capacity, turning the rural hinterland into the food basket of the rest of the
country. It offers one model that could be considered in similar situations
in South Africa (though presumably taking into account this country’s own
historical specificities).
New modes of thinking and the application of modern technology have been
proven to be quite able to mitigate the effects of rural–urban spatial dislocation,
which was for a long time a defining feature of the political economy of South

African universities. It also bears noting that there is, finally, a revival of once-
moribund African universities. The Partnership for Higher Education in
Africa, a consortium comprising the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the
Ford Foundation, the John D and Catherine T McArthur Foundation and the
Rockefeller Foundation, ‘came together out of a common belief in the future of
African universities’ by providing the necessary support ‘to transform themselves
and promote national development’ (Musisi & Muwanga 2003: xv).
6
Furthermore, it is clear that if South Africa’s racially bifurcated economy,
based on a highly developed, largely urban industrial economy and a largely
rural, underdeveloped subsistence sector, is to be overcome, major work
has to be done to transform the structural dynamics of the economy as a
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
8
whole. Within their very limited sphere of influence, universities can begin to
contribute to building up the critical social and community capital necessary
for new social forces to emerge.
Rural-based universities can also derive their legitimacy, if they need any,
from the notion of ‘differentiation’, which is a concept advanced in the
National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE). To be sure, the ‘differentiation’
suggested in the policy document (mission and programme differentiation) is
restrictive in meaning; nevertheless, it can and should be interpreted flexibly

to extend its application to include having universities that are dedicated to
servicing the rural and peri-urban sectors, thereby ensuring the realisation of
the sustainable rural development strategic policy framework. The inclusive
nature of the integrated development approach recognises the need, beyond a
mere notion of balancing or equity between rural and urban, to construct new
relationships between rural and urban in a manner that also recognises the
internally differentiated nature of these categories. Thus, UFH’s attempts to
link Buffalo City with Alice, by way of a complex chain of exchange relations
involving communities and business groups in agricultural production,
marketing, small-scale manufacturing, technology transfer, arts and crafts,
as well as opening up new markets for investment in the rural hinterland, is
a good innovation. The innovative interventions at UNIN are also relevant
here, and include the establishment of Edupark – an educational centre in
Polokwane that houses several tertiary institutions and attracts people-in-
service from all over the northern region, mainly to the University Graduate
School of Leadership.
The project of bringing about democracy in South Africa should be understood
as comprehensive in scope, in that it is not an exclusively political project
in the narrow sense of ‘politics’. Disenfranchisement of the vast majority
of the population in the colonial and apartheid eras was entrenched in all
conceivable spheres of society. It embraced not only the political, but also the
economic, social, cultural and intellectual spheres. In this sense, it was holistic
and assumed an expansive political economy connotation. Education became
an instrument for ideological domination (complementing the more brutal
and coercive instruments of domination – defence and the police services –
which were the standard issue of oppression). The over-resourcing of white
institutions ensured a form of white intellectual hegemony (albeit partial and
largely operating within the then dominant political discourse), which is still
Free download from www.hsrc
p

ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
9
I N T ROD U C T I O N
stubbornly apparent in post-1994 South Africa. While it is manifestly evident
that political emancipation has been achieved, it is equally true that it has not
automatically followed in the other spheres of transformation, including the
relations of knowledge production and reproduction.
The rural-based universities are strategically positioned (above and beyond
rectifying the urban-biased development strategy) to support the project of
the democratisation of knowledge production (one that is fundamentally
different from the parochial apartheid epistemology). As demonstrated
especially in their earlier periods, albeit in a restricted way, they can also
produce black leaders (both intellectual and otherwise).
7
Given proper
support, these institutions can develop (within distinctive niches) genuine
research and intellectual cultures that meet world standards while contributing
significantly to the general welfare of their surrounding communities.
Addressing the critical need for the production of intellectuals who can make
a contribution to the transformation project in South Africa, Education
Minister Naledi Pandor has stressed the need for the ‘development of scholars
interested in actively pursuing and developing new knowledge about the
continent, scholars who realise that Africa desperately needs intellectuals
who focus on Africa. We have been subjects of scrutiny by others for too
long’.

8
Needless to say, focusing on Africa would not be at the expense of
scholarship that is globally conscious and upholds high norms and standards
of performance. There is a symbiotic relationship between the local–global
(or particularism–universalism) nexus, as there is between the rural–urban
nexus.
There is a strategic space that rural-based universities should occupy in the
development of scholars and researchers capable of empathically addressing
the daunting challenges of the African Renaissance. There can be no genuine
African Renaissance without unleashing the vast latent energy that lies
untapped in the rural sector. This is a task that is not singularly reserved
for rural-based universities. Manganyi (in White 1997: 30) puts it more
expansively: ‘When I talk about African universities … I am not referring
to an ethnocentric particularism … but rather this: that all South African
universities will hopefully begin to see themselves as being in Africa and of
Africa.’
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
10
On the face of it, there appears to be a tension between the notion of a
university addressing local needs and a worldwide process of globalisation.
This seeming contradiction is only in appearance, not in substance. By
definition, a university is a lofty institution that seeks to reach beyond the

parochialism of dated tradition that impedes social development. Thus, the
knowledge production mission of a university is nothing more than a search
for innovative and creative ways to help society to realise possibilities that
otherwise would seem unattainable or undesirable if tradition were to have
its way. In actuality, particularism and universalism can and should coexist,
dialectically, for a university to achieve credibility and relevance in its mission
to uplift the community that surrounds it and in contributing to the greater
society, in a regional and global sense. It can operate in such a way as to
give meaning to the now commonplace expression, ‘thinking globally and
acting locally’. Neither rurality nor identity as a historically black university
(HBU) should be regarded as being in contradiction with urbanity or the
rainbow character of South Africa. Particularism can enhance understanding
of identity and facilitate adaptation to universalist nation-building and the
creation of global consciousness projects.
It should be noted that this book consists of a loose collection of essays, not an
integrated and thematically synchronous set of contributions. As such, each
contribution is distinctive in style and theoretical orientation, and no attempt
at a ‘grand narrative’ has been made. Some chapters, notably Chapter 2, are
decidedly empirical, providing readers with a relatively detailed descriptive
narrative of the history and character of institutional ‘renewal’ at UFH
and UNIN, zooming in on an explication of their respective ‘institutional
development’ plans. Others, such as Chapters 4 and 5, are historiographical in
nature, while Chapters 3, 6 and 7 are more philosophical and conceptual.
From a methodological point of view, the authors have drawn on a range
of research strategies, including interviews with key players, documentary
analyses, group discussions and textual analyses.
In Chapter 2, Maja, Gwabeni and Mokwele provide a descriptive and
evaluative study of recent efforts by UFH and UNIN to restructure their
institutional profiles in response to perceived imperatives of ‘engagement’.
The authors attempt to relate recent efforts at ‘institutional repositioning’

at UFH and UNIN to, firstly, the policy requirements set out in the NPHE
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
11
I N T ROD U C T I O N
and, secondly, wider ‘regional’ political economy imperatives as set out in the
Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy.
In Chapter 3, Catherine Odora Hoppers explores, in critical philosophical
and normative terms, the idea of ‘relevance’ of ‘African universities’ moulded
in epistemologies and constructs essentially borrowed from medieval Europe.
She proposes the idea of Africanisation, in both strategic orientation and
content of curricula, if universities are to find meaning and ‘relevance’ in the
present. Furthermore, she takes issue with the current fashion of reducing
the complex and diverse roles of African universities to ‘market imperatives’
and ‘globalisation’, with their familiar emphasis on ‘competitiveness’, and
argues the importance of culture and curriculum. Instead of seeing students
as ‘customers’ or ‘users’, Odora Hoppers prefers the notion of ‘academic
citizens’ and reverses the Rostowian hierarchy of knowledge that tends to
marginalise and relegate ‘local’ and ‘indigenous’ knowledge forms to the
realm of the ‘informal’, and forcefully argues for universities such as UFH and
UNIN to radically reconstruct their meaning and relevance against these new
metaphors. Odora Hoppers urges African scholars not to give up on the task of
developing the protocols for an indigenous view of learning and consolidating
spaces for self-determination and empowerment. She sees this task not as an

attempt to return to an ill-defined global age but as a transformation to new
futures that value a variety of forms of learning and the sharing of knowledge
on a trans-societal level.
In Chapter 4, Abram Mawasha provides a spirited narrative of the historical
origins and development of UNIN from its founding days as the University
College of the North to the present, where the university has finally come
to resemble the idea it was founded on almost 50 years ago. Mawasha traces
the important role played by local communities, particularly traditional
African leadership, in the establishment of UNIN in the late 1950s. However,
he contends that the original idea of an ‘African university’, occasioned by
popular pressure from staff and students, was hijacked by the architects
of apartheid who managed to articulate this call within apartheid’s racist
and ethnocentric ideology, which sought to legitimate the grand design of
‘separate development’. Mawasha’s central argument is that a university’s
definitions of itself mutate during different periods of historical formation
and reformation, and the way in which this is manifested depends, in a
large measure, on political power within and over the institution. Although
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
12
UNIN, according to Mawasha, has been through some turbulent times as it
struggles to redefine itself against the new challenges of a post-apartheid era,
it is greatly assisted by a long-standing intellectual commitment to the idea of

Africanisation, which to many others has only recently become part of their
institutional definition.
In Chapter 5, Seán Morrow gives a lucid historiographical account of the origins
and development of UFH from the citadels of early colonialism, through the
dark apartheid years, the brief homelands period and the awakenings of
democracy. The chapter vividly traces the university’s relationship with its
local context from the very early days when it was seen as a nursery for the
cultivation of a native black Christian elite cooperating with paternalistic
white power, to ascending to positions of influence within a decidedly colonial
system. Morrow traces the problematic relationship of UFH to the wider
social structures of colonialism and apartheid, pointing out the impact of
accumulated disadvantages as a function of location and history. Although
more recent policy changes have seen UFH extend its operating environment
beyond Alice into East London, Morrow raises the structural and human
challenges faced by a project aimed at long-term institutional sustainability.
In Chapter 6, Patrick FitzGerald, a former administrator of UNIN, traces the
emergence of recent shifts in strategic orientation, which are suggestive, in his
view, of an emergent, though still precarious and provisional, entrepreneurial
and intrapreneurial character to the university. Drawing on the work of
Burton R Clark (1998), FitzGerald refers to five generic characteristics typical
of such ‘entrepreneurial’ universities: the existence of a strong steering core; an
enlarged development periphery; a wide funding base; a stimulated academic
corps; and an overall and integrated entrepreneurial culture. FitzGerald
cautions that we should not see the transformation of UNIN as having
happened easily or imagine that the way ahead is free of challenges. In fact, we
are told about the danger that the entrepreneurial approach could be likened
to the ‘selling out’ of previous values, unless this approach is combined with
a developmental vision based on functional and integrated knowledge. How
these two aspects are combined in practice remains the subject of debate.
In Chapter 7, concluding this book, Derrick Swartz writes a pithy account

of the issue of sustainability for universities in the developing world, in
general, and for UFH, in particular. He describes the strategic dilemmas
facing institutions of higher learning that are trying to maintain themselves
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
13
I N T ROD U C T I O N
and flourish, while grappling with the contradictory forces of globalisation
and democratisation at the same time. The chapter probes the issue of
‘engagement’ – of forming mutually beneficial linkages with communities and
institutions outside of the university. Swartz makes the point that engagement
in the African context differs widely from engagement in the context of the
developed world, which is generally understood as meaning how universities
can draw resources from their environment to supplement their core budgets.
Instead, in the developing world – and despite the deeply felt need to uplift
rural or economically struggling communities – the question of who one
engages with is a taxing one precisely because of the need for universities to
sustain themselves.
Although, as mentioned, this collection of essays does not constitute an
integrated and unitary narrative, with a number of authors assuming
different theoretical perspectives and analytical approaches, they all deal with
a central theme of how HBUs situated in rural or peri-urban settings are
seeking to redefine and reposition themselves in the face of new historical
realities. Through ingenuity, liabilities inherited from the past can be

converted into assets and currency for renewal. Commitment to intellectual
revival and development is needed to transcend the formerly crippling
spatial isolation. Application of appropriate management and technological
expertise, harnessing of indigenous knowledge and political will are the
critical ingredients to the revitalisation of the institutions.
Notes
1 Speech by former Minister of Education Kader Asmal at the 3rd Consultative
Conference convened by the Council on Higher Education in 2001.
2 From a conversation with Derrick Swartz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Fort
Hare, 2002.
3 Malherbe refers to the heavy investment of resources in white, especially Afrikaans,
universities in the early days of apartheid, with per capita ratios exceeding world
standards because of the widely held belief that this would help in developing the
human resources needed by the country, although this consideration excluded black
institutions.
4 See also the Association for the Development of Education in Africa at <www.adeanet.
org/newsletter/vol11no1/en_9.html>.
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
14
5 Ghandigram Rural Institute (Deemed University) <www.ruraluniv.ac.nl>
6 See also Mkude, Cooksey & Levey (2003), Mouzihno, Fry & Chilundo (2003) and
Cloete, Pillay, Badat & Moja (2004).

7 For example, Habib (2000: 22) quotes Professor PN Luswazi as saying: ‘Fort Hare is
the cradle … of African intellectualism.’
8 Address by Minister Pandor at the South African Association of Senior Student Affairs
Professionals Gala Dinner, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 4 November 2004.
References
Clark B (1998) Creating entrepreneurial universities: Organisational pathways of
transformation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cloete N, Pillay P, Badat S & Moja T (2004)
National policy and regional response in
southern African higher education. Oxford: James Currey.
Fehnel R (2001) Reinventing rural higher education institutions in South Africa.
Unpublished paper.
Habib A (2000) Structural disadvantage, leadership ineptitude, and stakeholder complicity: A
study of the institutional crisis of the University of the Transkei. A study commissioned
by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation.
Malherbe E (1965) Manpower training: Educational requirements for economic expansion,
South African Journal of Economics 33: 29–51.
Mkude D, Cooksey B & Levey L (2003)
Higher education in Tanzania: A case study. Oxford:
James Currey.
Mouzihno M, Fry P & Chilundo A (2003)
Higher education in Mozambique: A case study.
Oxford: James Currey.
Musisi N & Muwanga N (2003)
Makerere University in Transition 1993–2000: Opportunities
and challenges. Oxford: James Currey.
White C (1997) From despair to hope: The Turfloop experience. Sovenga: University of the
North Press.
Free download from www.hsrc
p

ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
15
The repositioning of two
South African universities
Botshabelo Maja, Andile Gwabeni and Phuti A Mokwele
Introduction
The end of the apartheid-produced dual spatial economy of bantustans and
‘white’ South Africa has led to progressive reintegration, most obviously
seen in significant population migration during the 1990s from the ex-
homelands to towns and cities. At the same time, the historic distinction
between a wealthy urban ‘core’ and a poor rural ‘periphery’ has blurred as
inequality has increased in both urban and rural areas and as short-term,
work-seeking migration from rural to urban areas has risen. Modernisation
policies and exposure to global markets have brought about economic
growth, but simultaneously have failed to create adequate numbers of jobs
and have resulted in higher levels of income disparity, and a reinforcement of
economic duality, in spite of a wide variety of transformative interventions.
The national challenge is to build an integrated rural and urban economy
through coherent economic and industrial strategies and an increased role for
the developmental state.
The University of the North (UNIN) and the University of Fort Hare (UFH)
are today faced with different sets of challenges from those they encountered
before the advent of democracy in 1994. At the core of today’s challenges for
these universities is the National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) and the
Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy (ISRDS), both developed

by the democratic state since 1994. The objectives of the NPHE that affect
these universities include: increasing participation rates and graduate output;
expanding the social base; recruitment from Southern African Development
Community (SADC) countries; focusing on priority fields of study; increasing
cognitive skills; equity in access and success; staff equity; mission and
programme alignment; research concentration and funding; outputs at
2
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
W I T HIN THE REALM O F P O S S I BILIT Y
16
masters and doctoral levels; programme and infrastructural collaboration;
and encouraging new institutional and organisational forms.
In the context of the developmental state in which the newly democratised
South Africa finds itself, the role of universities has become important. The
role of UNIN and UFH in terms of the government’s ISRDS is critical to
defining their role in relation to the communities they serve. The objectives
of the ISRDS include encouraging rural development that is sustainable and
integrated, and that promotes growth and safety and security.
The researchers studied the two universities during 2003, examining the
socio-economic environment in which they are located, their histories
and the institutional changes that they have been engaged with since the
1994 elections and during the period of mergers. Just as the economy has
been affected (positively and negatively) by the forces of globalisation, so

too have the universities. Increasing competition and commodification of
education and knowledge, various policies in relation to funding of students,
skills development and local economic development, and related structural
changes, have placed enormous additional challenges on institutions that do
not have a history of high-level leadership and management capacity. It is
hoped that this chapter will throw some light on how these two universities
have addressed their new realities, as well as drawing some lessons that may
be of use to them in the period ahead.
The socio-economic contexts of UNIN and UFH
University of the North
Limpopo province incorporates three apartheid-era homelands and is
predominantly rural. The province shares international borders with three
countries, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. On its southern flank, the
province shares a border with Gauteng, with its Johannesburg–Pretoria axis, the
most industrious metropole on the continent. Thus, the province is placed at the
centre of the vortex of developing regional, national and international markets.
The province is one of the poorest yet most populous of all the provinces
in South Africa.
2
Approximately 12 per cent of South Africa’s population
live there, of which 97.2 per cent are black. About 89 per cent of the total
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za
T H E R EPOSI T I O N I NG OF TWO SOUTH A F R I C AN UNI V E R S I T IES

17
population is rural and 98.8 per cent of the rural population is black. With
only 11 per cent of the population classified as urban, Limpopo is the least
urbanised province in South Africa.
The overall age distribution of the population is pyramidal in shape: 14.2 per
cent are under 5 years old; 42 per cent are under 15 years old; and 5.6 per cent are
over 65 years old. There has been a sharp decline in the proportion of black and
white people aged between 19 and 29 years, which indicates that this is the sector
of the population that is relatively mobile, leaving the province to attend tertiary
institutions or to take up employment elsewhere. The dominant age group is the
5–9 year olds, who make up 14 per cent of the total population. The 20–24 year
olds, who are seen as the potential tertiary education age group, constitute 9.4
per cent of the total population. The potential workforce (the 15–64 age group)
constitutes 55 per cent of the total population. This figure provides an indication
of expected employment levels.
About 33.4 per cent of the population have no formal education; 19.6 per cent
have an education level of between Grade 1 and Grade 7; 26.1 per cent have an
education level from Grade 8 to Grade 11; 14 per cent have Grade 12; and 6.8
per cent have a post-Grade 12 tertiary qualification. The proportion of black
adults in Limpopo without any formal education is greater than that of black
adults nationwide. Of great concern is also the lower proportion of black
adults in relation to the national proportion with educational qualifications
ranging between Grades 1 and 12. It is clear that the educational attainment
of the population in Limpopo is below the national average.
In comparison with the other provinces, Limpopo has the lowest mean
years of schooling at 4.6, which is an increase from 2.8 in 1980. Associated
with the low level of education is the low mean human development index
of 0.470. Previous studies also indicate that functional literacy (people with
Standard 4 or Grade 6 as their highest education level) is very low in the
former bantustans of the Gazankulu and Lebowa areas (StatsSA 1996). The

functional literacy of these areas ranges between 23 per cent and 29 per cent.
The adult literacy rate in Limpopo has been calculated as 73.6 per cent, which
is the third-lowest literacy level in South Africa and lower than the national
figure of 82 per cent.
However, the total Gross Geographical Product (GGP) of Limpopo has
been growing steadily. The province’s GGP is indicative of the economic
Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc
p
ress.ac.za