N Pandor: Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern
Africa Conference

27 November 2006

"Achievements of the academic development movement applauded"

Professor Errol Tyobeka, Vice-Chancellor of the Tshwane University of
Technology (TUT)
Dr Brenda Liebowitz, Chairperson of HELTASA
Ms Matete Madiba, 2006 Conference Convenor
Members of HELTASA
Ladies and gentlemen

I am very pleased to be able to join you at the opening session of the 2006
HELTASA conference. This is something of a homecoming for me. I am reminded of
the first ASP Conference that I attended at the University of Cape Town (UCT)
in 1988, while I was still a staff member at the former University of
Bophuthatswana (UNIBO) and the many South African Association for Academic
Development (SAAAD) conferences in subsequent years.

HELTASA certainly has a proud heritage, with its roots in the Academic
Development (AD) movement in South Africa. The development of AD in our country
has, to a considerable extent, run alongside the transformation of the higher
education and in particular the expansion and broadening of access to the
sector.

In his keynote address to the Seventh Annual SAAAD conference in Port
Elizabeth in 1992, Professor Merlyn Mehl, boldly asserted that:

"Academic support/development has grown from a purely peripheral activity
within the tertiary sector, which does not enjoy any sort of recognition either
financially or academically, to one which is now in a powerful position to
influence the very structure of the university, its priorities and the way it
pursues its academic endeavours. In doing so AD has begun to come to grips with
the educational reality in South Africa at this time."

Professor Mehl made this statement in a period when AD was dynamically
associated with the mass democratic movement and the struggle for freedom and
democracy. It was also in this period that the Independent Development Trust
(IDT), of which he was Director: Education, began investing heavily in the
institutionalisation of AD in universities and technikons across the
country.

While a critical analysis still needs to be carried out on the full extent
and scope of the influence of AD on the transformation of higher education,
including its impact on teaching and learning practice, the achievements of the
AD movement over the past 20 years must be acknowledged and applauded.

AD has, for example, played an important role in the broadening of access to
higher education, through, among others, the development of alternative
admissions, selection and placement processes. The tests developed by the
Alternative Admissions Research Project (AARP) are today widely used in
institutions across the country.

The Teach-Test-Teach initiative of the former Natal University helped to
inform the curricula framework of foundation and other academic programmes.
Similarly, the experiences of the language support courses at UNIBO and
elsewhere have influenced mainstream curriculum developments as well as
foundation courses. Many of the writing centres that we find in universities
today also have their roots in AD. Science foundation programmes, such as UNIFY
at the former University of the North, have played a major role in increasing
the number of black graduates in science, engineering and technology (SET).

Notwithstanding these and numerous other achievements of AD in the country,
it has suffered periods of decline both in terms of individual institutions and
as a collective movement.

Again, a rigorous analysis is needed to better understand these shifts.
However, I am optimistic that especially with the institutionalisation of
funding for foundational level work as an earmarked component of the subsidy,
AD is again well positioned to influence and shape change in institutions.

The focus on quality through the work of the Higher Education Quality
Committee (HEQC) in the area of institutional audits and academic programme
accreditation also provides important opportunities for AD practitioners to
advance their priorities for change.

Professor Jakes Gerwel, in his preface to the first volume of AD dialogues,
a publication of the Academic Development Centre of the University of the
Western Cape (UWC) in 1993 stated the following:

"South African universities face two major challenges as we move towards a
new society. They must become increasingly open so that students from the
majority sector make up a much larger proportion of their intake and they must
ensure that they offer education of quality. At UWC, selection policy is
designed to broaden access to university. However, we recognise that admitting
students disadvantaged by apartheid education is in itself of no virtue, unless
we create circumstances conducive to success for a significant proportion of
them. This highlights the need for comprehensive teaching and learning
innovations and methods of academic development."

I draw on this particular quote from Jakes Gerwel, who was the Rector of UWC
at the time, because of its relevance 13 years later, not just for a single
university but the higher education sector as a whole.

I recently hosted a policy discussion in Cape Town at which Professor Ian
Scott of UCT, who is one of the stalwarts of the AD movement in South Africa,
presented the initial findings of research into student performance patterns in
the higher education sector, with the view to informing educational strategies
and interventions to improve performance.

Ian Scott's analysis is based on a Department of Education (DoE) cohort
study, which traced the first-time-entering intake of the year 2000 into the
higher education for a period of four years. The analysis highlights the
following:

* Higher education participation rates are still comparatively low and
remain racially skewed.
* Low overall completion rates. By the end of 2003, only 22% of the total
first-time entering student intake into the sector had graduated. A staggering
50% of the intake (60 000 students) had left the sector and 28% were still in
the system.
* Low levels of efficiency. Only one in five students in the 2000 cohort
graduated in the stipulated minimum time. Even after four years of study under
one-third of the intake (36% of university students and 26% of technikon
students) had graduated.
* Unequal outcomes. There are major discrepancies between black and white
success rates. Black student attrition rates after four years consistently
exceeded the white student attrition rates.

A wide range of factors no doubt influence student performance in higher
education, some of which relate to the level of preparedness of learners
exiting the schooling sector and to issues of financial aid. However, as Ian
emphasises, there are a host of factors well within the control of the higher
education sector itself that determine success or failure.

Ian, like other analysts, highlights the mismatch between traditional
curricula structures and arrangements with the needs of the majority of
students entering higher education, pointing, in turn, to the need for
far-reaching curriculum change and innovation.

As Jakes Gerwel argued over a decade ago, there is little virtue in
admitting students into higher education unless we create the conditions
conducive to success. The evidence before us suggests that a critical review of
traditional degree structures and approaches is long overdue.

In this regard, I invited Vice-Chancellors and other executive leadership to
join me in the policy seminar in order that they could proactively take the
necessary policy action at institutional level. We simply cannot continue with
"business as usual" when we are falling short of meeting the needs of students
and, in turn, the economic and social aspirations of the country.

This was brought home to me starkly on a recent visit to Ireland, where the
higher education system has played a critically important role in the economic
development of the country. I have no doubt that you, as academic development
practitioners; have an important leadership role in assisting the sector to
identify what it will take to improve the performance of the system both
quantitatively and qualitatively.

One area that I believe needs renewed attention is the use of postgraduate
students in tutoring and mentoring undergraduates. My impression is that this
has been cut back in recent years at many of our universities. I look back to
my experience of some of the interventions of the Desmond Tutu Educational
Trust in the Western Cape, which supported the training and deployment of
postgraduate teaching assistants and tutors. This was not only valuable in
providing tutorial support for undergraduates but also an important training
ground for postgraduates interested in pursuing academic careers.

I would now like to turn my attention to the relationship between school and
the Further Education and Training (FET) colleges and higher education.

I am aware that this is an area that continues to be of particular interest
to AD practitioners. As far back as 1986, Vusi Khanyile, in his keynote address
to the ASP conference at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg (which,
incidentally, had to be delivered on his behalf by somebody else because he was
subject to intense security police harassment and was in fact detained within
days of the conference) emphasised the role of university academics in the
reconstruction of schooling. He said at the time:

"Let us begin with the situation in schools: As I have already stated, the
erosion of the Department of Training (DET) has placed an enormous
responsibility on the universities, amongst others, to become creatively
involved in the development of a new education system at school level."

"This huge undertaking requires academic and technical expertise, much of
which is located in universities. Progressive individuals at universities, who
have both the necessary expertise and political commitment, are keen to become
part of the process of compiling new courses and study materials for 'People's
Education'." This call, made 20 years ago, remains pertinent today.

The higher education sector has a very important part to play in the
development of quality schooling through, in particular, the provision of high
quality pre-service teacher education and in the continuing professional
development of teachers.

Teacher education and training must be a national priority if we are to
improve the quality of schooling for all children and to ensure that graduates
from the school system are better equipped for the labour market and to enter
higher education.

I am in the process of finalising the policy framework for teacher education
and development, which, amongst others, makes provision for service-linked
bursaries for teacher education students, particularly in SET and other
priority and scarce fields.

Higher education, through its research and development, also has an
important part to play in informing curriculum development and teaching and
learning practice in schools and FET colleges, in areas such as dealing with
the challenges of multi-lingual classrooms, the use of educational technology
and in the promotion of basic literacy and numeracy for all children.

I am pleased that higher-education academics are playing an important role
in the development of the new curriculum for grades 10 to 12, which will lead
to the national Senior Certificate. This ongoing relationship is the best way
to ensure synergies between school and higher education.

Before closing, let me turn my attention to HELTASA itself.

I hope that the Association will become an important vehicle for advancing
teaching and learning policies and practice in higher education in the coming
period. My advisors met recently with members of the HELTASA Executive
Committee and proposed that an annual meeting should take place between the
Department of Education and HELTASA (in particular the Director's Forum and the
Foundation Programme Interest Group) to provide an opportunity to exchange
experiences in relation to the earmarked AD funding grants and other matters of
common interest.

I want to end by congratulating the Curriculum Development Support Unit of
the Tshwane University of Technology for hosting this conference. This year's
conference theme, "Learning and teaching innovation in higher education:
Expanding the frontiers," will no doubt generate much debate.

I wish you all the best for a successful conference.

Issued by: Department of Education
27 November 2006