Doctoral Degrees (School of Higher Education Studies)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (School of Higher Education Studies) by Advisor "Hay, Johnnie F."

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    The challenges of designing a new programme and qualification mix (PQM) for a comprehensive university in South Africa
    (University of the Free State, 2009-04) Dandala, Maxwell Andile; Hay, Johnnie F.; Van der Westhuizen, Louis J.
    English: This study focused on the challenges of designing a new Programme and Qualification Mix (PQM) for a Comprehensive University (CU) in South Africa. The mergers and incorporations of higher education institutions in South Africa resulted in the formation of three institutional types, namely, traditional universities, universities of technology (former technikons) and comprehensive universities (offering both university-type programmes and technikon-type programmes). The interest in pursuing this study was initiated by the challenges that the CUs would face in designing their first post-merger PQMs. Walter Sisulu University (WSU) which resulted from the merger of three historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) was used as the case study. WSU was one of the six South African CUs, four of which were currently offering both university- type programmes and university of technology-type programmes. The other two CUs were seemingly at the initial stages of offering both types of programmes. The study explored the transformation of the South African Higher Education system which was informed by what the position was before 1994 and also by examining the higher education transformation agenda after 1994 through attempts by the first democratic post-apartheid government of South Africa to create a single higher education system through the National Commission on Higher Education (1996), the Education White Paper 3 (1997), the Higher Education Act, Act No. 101 of 1997, as amended, the National Plan for Higher Education (2001), as well as the Guidelines for Mergers and Incorporations (2003). Documents such as the Qualifications Structure for Universities in South Africa – Report 116 (1995), the Qualifications Structure for Technikons in South Africa – Reports 150 and 151 as well as the Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF) – 2007 were used in conjunction with the Eastern Cape Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) – 2004-2014 in order to enrich the debate that informed the designing and development of the PQM for WSU as a comprehensive university. The above legislative framework was followed by an attempt to define or explain terminologies like “university”, “comprehensive university”, “programme”, “qualification”, “programme and qualification mix”, in the context of the South African higher education system. These definitions were compared with equivalent international practice. This study, in attempting to analyse the PQMs of CUs, discussed the inherent nature and roles of universities as well as the classification of university types in South Africa which resulted from the mergers and incorporations of certain higher education institutions. The chapter described in the above paragraph was followed by a discussion of academic programmes and qualifications1 offered at selected comprehensive universities on five continents, namely, Africa, Asia, America2, Australia and Europe. This was done in conjunction with an exploration of the process of the development of the PQM of two South African traditional universities, two South African universities of technology and four3 South African comprehensive universities. In order to analyse the challenges associated with the designing and development of the first post merger PQMs for comprehensive universities in South Africa a sample of eight universities were asked to respond to a survey using questionnaires. Research questionnaires were distributed and retrieved from the selected eight universities including two merged traditional universities, two merged universities of technology and four merged comprehensive universities as well as one questionnaire to each of the three former Vice Chancellors of the three institutions which merged to form WSU. The Executive Deans of the four faculties of WSU had to respond to the same questionnaire and this gave a clearer hands-on and current view of the process of PQM design and development at WSU. These universities were asked questions on the definition of terms like what Programme and Qualification Mix are understood to be, what comprehensive universities are, what their views are in terms of the sustainability of the binary divide, what their PQM development processes entailed, which stakeholders were involved in their PQM development processes and what challenges faced their PQM development processes. A selection of stakeholders who are interested and affected parties in the PQM design and development process of WSU was interviewed. Interviews were conducted with a senior official of the Higher Education division of the national Department of Education, the Eastern Cape Provincial Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education, the official who led the process of developing the Eastern Cape Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) as well as the Executive Mayors of the three District Municipalities, namely, Amathole, Chris Hani and OR Tambo, in whose areas all four campuses of Walter Sisulu University are situated. The interview schedule covered questions like the roles of the above stakeholders in WSU’s PQM development processes and what these stakeholders expected to achieve from the aforementioned PQM processes. They were also probed on what specific programmes they would like the PQM processes to include. The results of both the questionnaire and the interview surveys were analysed and conclusions were drawn therefrom. Since WSU is used as a case study, the challenges of designing the first post-merger PQM for this specific university as a comprehensive university were outlined in detail with a possible model proposed for its PQM. The last chapter drew general conclusions, recommendations and suggested areas for further empirical studies in this field.