HELTASA 2006
Sub Theme 1 : Dealing with diversity
Improving the abilities of South
African academics to deal with
diversity at home
Nan Warner
African Academic Links Manager
International Academic Programmes Office
University of Cape Town
1.
Introduction
Many South African academics are products of isolation as a
result of a world-wide boycott of apartheid South Africa.
However players in our new globalized world are expected
to have developed an effective approach to problem-solving,
a good understanding of global and regional issues.
Higher Education needs to provide these abilities. In South
African HEIs, former isolation has negatively impacted on
regional and African academic linkages and knowledge.
This presentation offers a case study carried out at UCT in
which participants improved their abilities to offer
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a more Africa-focused learning experience,
based on a better understanding of the African research environment,
to a culturally diverse student audience.
2.
Background
South African HEIs are in the process of
restructuring in order to meet their commitment to
their own mission and to their country’s Higher Education needs.
Parallel to this ‘internal’ restructuring, South African HEIs have experienced a high level of interest by
potential students and staff from the rest of the world
particularly from other countries in Africa.
In summary : South African HEIs are required to
serve the needs of the country, in the context of the
region, the continent, and the rest of the world.
2a. The South African academic
1. S/he
has to deal successfully with a workplace restructure.
2. While restructuring, the student body (in many cases) changes rapidly from
fairly mono-cultural South African to multi-cultural South African.
3. At the same time, students are arriving from many other African countries,
as well as from Europe, North America, the Far East, and elsewhere.
4. The newly restructured HEI is expected to re-address its curriculum content,
in order to ensure quality and relevance in its graduates.
5. Quality and relevance are taking on a more African look as a result of strong
government engagement in the African Union, SADC and NEPAD. For
many academics ‘relevance’ demands urgent and closer engagement with research and teaching on the continent.
In this presentation I will consider the requirements implicit in Points 2
– 5. Viewed laterally, they include the development of multi-cultural
abilities in an individual, the ability to deal with diversity, and lastly an
academic knowledge and understanding of regional as well as global
research in their discipline.
2b. Experiential Learning
Like all human beings, academics constantly undergo
experiential learning.
David Kolb’s famous model of experiential learning unpacks the process into four basic stages : Concrete experience, Reflective
observation, Abstract conceptualisation, and finally Active
experimentation. (Kolb 1971 : 25)
In the conditions experienced by South African academics
during the past decade, flexibility and openness to new ideas
and change are of particular importance.
Henry tells us that a learning experience can impact on a whole
variety of aspects of a person, such as their personal
development, work, community, activities, social development,
and problem solving skills (Henry 1989 : 29-33).
3. How to address the need to develop the
abilities of South African academics to
deal with diversity
I suggest that a single academic visit to a
university in another country in the Anglophone
region of Africa can be shown to have an
impact on a South African academic great
enough to change their attitude towards
other African people, universities, research,
and teaching; as well as their own African
identity.
3a. Transformation at the
University of Cape Town
The South African College, founded in 1829, became the University of
Cape Town (UCT), which has functioned as a full statutory university since
1918.
In the case of UCT the contemporary structure of higher education was
heavily influenced by the high proportion of staff members who had been
trained in the Scottish system. (Phillips 2003)
The UCT Health Sciences prospectus of 2002 stated that until the late
1990s “little change or modernization of medical education had occurred since the 1920s.” (University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences 2002)
In 1996, UCT initiated what was to be a formidable transformation
process, with the ideological aim of changing from a ‘university in Africa’ to become an ‘African university’. (University of Cape Town 2000 : 10)
If the UCT Mission Statement designed in 1995 is considered, one finds
the stated need to change UCT into a globalized, efficient, productive,
research-oriented, multi-cultural, international African university.
4.
A description of the project
From 1996 to the present via the USHEPiA Programme, a small
group of academics at the University of Cape Town have been
afforded the opportunity to supervise non-South African African
academics who are staff members at a range of universities in the
south / east region of the continent, for Masters and PhD degrees.
As a result of the Programme requirement for an initial Planning
Visit, they travelled to other south or east African countries, often a
first visit to another African country.
What effect did the USHEPiA experience have on the
academic work and personal development of a small sample
of UCT academics, and what are the implications of this
experience for UCT?
The study took place in 2003 with a group of white male South
African UCT academics from a variety of faculties & departments.
5. Feelings about the Home
Environment
They welcomed the new South Africa and the potential that it
offered. Open to the process of increased representativeness
and ‘Africanization’ of South Africa. Open to the opportunities offered by USHEPiA to develop their links with and knowledge
of another African country within the region.
Regarding their academic work, all the interviewees
demonstrated a strong involvement in research. In teaching,
and particularly in the integration of educational requirements
with changing student needs, a strong commitment to the
students was expressed.
Within the workplace rapid top-down institutional
transformation has driven departmental transformation at
UCT. It is probable that by remaining successfully in a
transforming country and workplace, the interviewees had
improved their international & multi-cultural competencies
during the previous 10 years.
6. South or East African Academic
Experience
The Planning Visit was a very valuable
experience from a perspective much greater
than that confined to the academic.
It was an exposure to another country with a
different culture, within the same region of
Africa.
6a. Reactions to the Planning Visit
experience
The ‘vibe’ was generally found to be good and the people very pleasant. All interviewees learned of the importance of
hospitality in the region.
Impressions of country infrastructure varied from poor to
reasonable, but the communications systems were generally
seen to be poor.
A strong South African commercial presence was found in all
the countries visited. All the countries put a high value on
education.
It was most interesting to discover that the interviewees felt
strange but comfortable during their visit.
The Planning Visit also brought home a powerful lesson on the
importance for all the players in a USHEPiA Fellowship to
contextualize the research in its environment.
6b. Learning about academic work
in South & East Africa
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6b.1
Conditions
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6b.2
Structure
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6b.3
Teaching
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6b.4
Research
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6b.5
Contract work
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6b.6
Academic counterparts
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6b.7
Research data
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6b.8
Quality of USHEPiA Fellows
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6b.9
Supervision
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6b.10
English as Foreign Language
7. Direct ways in which the understanding of
diversity is addressed by an African
academic visit
This is informed by the fact that UCT has
undergone institutional transformation with the
purpose of developing into an international African
university.
Short term effects at UCT have included a
significant change in the student demography to
better reflect that existing in the Western Cape, and
a big influx of international students at UCT
especially from other African countries (in 2004
50% of UCT students were ‘non-white’).
The Planning Visit had the potential to give the
interviewees a much better insight into their academic
responsibilities at UCT.
They experienced the realities and qualities of other
African cultural and academic systems, in some cases
discovered the need to understand country norms in order
to effectively contextualize research in these countries,
and developed greater experience in dealing with students
for whom English is a second language.
To a greater or lesser extent, all underwent
experiential learning that could almost be
described as customized to enhance their
abilities to become ‘new South African’ academics.
8.
Some broad conclusions
What has the project described above to offer in addressing the need in SA
HEIs to improve the abilities of academics to deal with diversity?
The interviewees appeared to show evidence of a new type of academic in South
Africa. I suggest that institutional transformation could be seen as a driver for the
development of individual abilities necessary to function more effectively with
diversity.
It is clear that the participants now have a better insight into their academic
responsibilities in South Africa.
Given that diversity at UCT and in South Africa is strongly Afrocentric, it was an
important lesson for the interviewees to learn respect for, and insight into African
research and HE.
Also, there exists in the region a strong norm of hospitality and personal
involvement. The participants’ acceptance as Africans by their hosts was very important. Most have brought this back to South Africa and it has influenced them
both personally and in the workplace. They showed the beginnings of a better,
more balanced understanding of Africa.
The individuals considered in this project have demonstrated African
competencies and growing, but complex, African identities.
WRAP-UP
It is my opinion that part of South Africa’s future success in Africa can and must be measured by the abilities of its
academics to successfully integrate and then become leaders
in African research and teaching. In order to do this, they need
to become researchers and teachers in and of Africa.
I feel that the project described above has demonstrated that
this change process has been initiated and can and should be
accelerated by means of African academic travel.
I must therefore conclude that in my opinion a single academic
visit to a university in another country in the Anglophone region
of Africa has been shown to have much to offer in improving
the abilities of South African academics to be African
academics, and therefore to deal with the range of diversity that
they now encounter at home.