Relativism in national higher education policy documents: what is a university?

Several national higher education policy documents have been published over the past ten years. In spite of the impact of these documents on universities, nowhere do they deal critically with what a university is and what precise aspects of that identity should change. It is important to know what a university is since universities may be expected to undertake tasks which are not necessarily typical. The article points out that the process by which technikons were renamed universities of technology is the best example of relativism in higher education policy documents dealing with the concept of a university.