This document has been compiled to facilitate our interaction and to contribute to a productive engagement.

The CHE is happy to provide any further documentation and/or information and data that the Portfolio Committee on Education may request.

The Council on Higher Education (CHE) exists as an independent statutory body in terms of the Higher Education Act, No 101 of 1997. It operates in adherence with the prevailing legislative and regulatory frameworks of the Republic of South Africa and with due cognisance of its obligations and responsibilities in terms of such laws and regulations.

The Higher Education Act and Education White Paper 3 of 1997: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education set out the mandate and responsibilities of the CHE.

The vision of the CHE is a transformed, equitable, high quality, economically and socially responsive, productive and sustainable higher education system in a transformed, equitable, just, humane and democratic South Africa based on the principles and values of non-racialism, non-sexism, freedom of expression and other basic human and social rights.

The mission of the CHE is to contribute to the development of a higher education system that is characterised by quality and excellence, equity, responsiveness to economic and social development needs and effective and efficient provision, governance and management.

More specifically, the CHE seeks to contribute to the achievement of a higher education of a system that, in the words of the White Paper on higher education,

• Promotes equity of access and fair chances of success to all who are seeking to realise their potential through higher education, while eradicating all forms of unfair discrimination and advancing redress for past inequalities
• Meets, through well-planned and co-ordinated teaching, learning and research programmes, national development needs, including the high skilled employment needs presented by a growing economy operating in a global environment
• Supports a democratic ethos and a culture of human rights by educational programmes and practices conducive to critical discourse and creative thinking, cultural tolerance, and a common commitment to a humane, non racist and non-sexist social order
• Contributes to the advancement of all forms of knowledge and scholarship, and in particular address the diverse problems and demands of the local, national southern African and African contexts, and uphold rigorous standards of academic quality.

Furthermore, the CHE also seeks to contribute to the realization of the primary purposes of the 2001 National Plan for Higher Education, which are to ensure that

• The higher education system achieves the transformation objectives set out in the White Paper and is responsive to societal interests and needs
• There is coherence with regard to the provision of higher education at the national level
• Limited resources are used efficiently and effectively and there is accountability for the expenditure of public funds.
• The quality of academic programmes, including teaching and research, is improved across the system.

The CHE seeks to make its contribution

• By providing informed, considered, independent and strategic advice on higher education (HE) issues to the Minister of Education
• Through the quality assurance activities of its committee, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC)
• Through the effective monitoring and evaluation of progress with regard to the achievement of policy goals, the efficacy of policy instruments and processes, including reports on the state of South African higher education

• Through publications and through broader dissemination of information, and through conferences and workshops on HE and other focused activities.

In the pursuit of its vision and mission, the CHE is committed to and guided by the following values:

• Equity and redress
• Quality
• Democratisation
• Development
• Effectiveness and efficiency
• Academic freedom
• Institutional autonomy
• Public accountability.

The Higher Education Act and the Education White Paper 3 of 1997 set out the responsibilities of the CHE. These include

1. Advising the Minister on all HE issues on which the CHE’s advice is sought
2. Advising the Minister on its own initiative on HE issues which the CHE regards as important
3. Designing and implementing a system for quality assurance in HE and establishing the HEQC
4. Advising the Minister on the appropriate shape and size of the HE system, including its desired institutional configuration
5. Advising the Minister in particular on the new funding arrangements for HE
6. Advising the Minister in particular on language policy in HE
7. Developing a means for monitoring and evaluating whether, how, to what extent and with what consequences the vision, policy goals and objectives for HE defined in the White Paper on HE are being realised
8. Promoting the access of students to HE
9. Providing advice to the Minister on the proposed new Education Management Information System for HE
10. Formulating advice for the Minister on a new academic policy for HE, including a diploma/degree structure which would advance the policy objectives of the White Paper
11. Formulating advice for the Minister on stimulating greater institutional responsiveness to societal needs, especially those linked to stimulating South Africa’s economy, such as greater HE-industry partnerships
12. Appointing an independent assessment panel from which the Minister is able to appoint assessors to conduct investigations into particular issues at public HE institutions
13. Establishing healthy interactions with HE stakeholders on the CHE’s work
14. Producing regular reports on the state of South African HE
15. Convening an annual consultative conference of HE stakeholders
16. Participating in the development of a coherent human resource development framework for South Africa in concert with other organisations
17. Contributing to the development of HE through publications and conferences.

The numerous and varied responsibilities require the CHE to engage in many different forms, kinds and types of activities. The CHE is required to be both reactive and proactive in the rendering of advice to the Minister. It is also required to provide advice on both a formal and informal basis. On occasions it has needed to provide advice at short notice and with considerable speed, while at other times it has been relatively cushioned from immediate time and other pressures.

In summary, the work of the CHE involves

1. Advising the Minister at his/her request or proactively on all policy matters related to higher education
2. Assuming executive responsibility for quality assurance within higher education and training - including programme accreditation, institutional audits, programme evaluation and quality promotion and capacity building
3. Monitoring and evaluating whether, how, to what extent and with what consequences the vision, policy goals and objectives for higher education are being realised, including reporting on the state of South African higher education
4. Contributing to developing higher education - giving leadership around key national and systemic issues, producing publications and holding conferences and research to sensitise government and stakeholders to immediate and long-term challenges of higher education.
5. Consulting with stakeholders around higher education.

• To prioritize as the principal responsibilities and activities of the CHE the provision of informed, considered and strategic advice to the Minister, on request and proactively; and higher education quality assurance, including programme accreditation and co-ordination, institutional audits and quality promotion and capacity development
• To pursue as an important activity that facilitates the provision of advice and effective quality assurance the monitoring and evaluation of higher education, including the responsibility to produce regular reports on the state of South African higher education
• To further pursue activities that contribute to the development of higher education, and in particular effectively making the case for higher education in relation to the economic and social development of South Africa, building a positive image for higher education and public confidence in higher education, and promoting access to higher education
• To undertake standard setting as a possible additional responsibility and activity only on condition that additional resources are provided

• Further consolidating and developing the ability of the CHE to provide informed, considered and strategic advice to the Minister.
• Demonstrating the value of an effective system for monitoring and evaluating policy goals.
• Making the transition from quality assurance and promotion systems development to effective implementation.
• Continuing to build and consolidate the consultative, integrated, interlocking and coordinated functioning of the different responsibilities and organisational components of the CHE (advice, quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation and HE development).
• Effectively addressing through appropriate strategies the key risks that are embodied in its mandate and its organizational character.

On the basis of the expertise that it possesses, the wise counsel that is available to it, the experiences of the past six years, and the funding that is now committed through the National Treasury, the CHE is well positioned to continue to effectively discharge its mandate and responsibilities.

Document 3B below presents the CHE Action Plan for 2006 – 2007. We present it both for information and accountability purposes, happy to be held accountable by the CHE Council and the Portfolio Committee for its effective and efficient implementation.

We wish to highlight the following:

1. Advice on Building Relationships between Higher Education and the Private and Public Sectors to respond to Knowledge and High-Level Human Resource Needs in the context of Inequality and Unemployment.

The purpose of the 'responsiveness' project was to give effect to the CHE's statutory responsibility 'to formulate advice to the Minister on stimulating greater institutional responsiveness to societal needs, especially those linked to stimulating the South African economy such as greater higher education-industry partnerships'.

The project has aimed to understand labour market needs, the fit between graduates' skills, competencies and attributes and employers needs while reviewing the theoretical and methodological approaches that underpin the issue of responsiveness. In addition, the project brought together leaders of higher education and leaders from the private and public sector and labour unions to talk about expectations, needs, and, especially, the possibility of relationships that were not only beneficial for higher education and employers, but also appropriate for the economic and social needs of the country.

This project is now synthesising the lessons of the past few years and preparing a Policy Advice Report for the CHE to discuss and approve, before submission to the Minister of Education. This Report takes into account the CHE experience of facilitating actual collaborative partnerships between higher education and different private and public stakeholders (2003), as well as the analysis of the fit between sectoral needs and graduate skills through the lens of the re-accreditation of the MBA).

In the context of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGISA) of government, the question of the appropriate quantity and quality of high level personnel is an important issue. Unless there is adequate support for higher education to capacitate it to produce the appropriate quantity and quality of high level personnel, economic and social development could be compromised and the current shortages of high level personnel could worsen.

2. Government Regulation, Institutional Autonomy, Academic Freedom and Public Accountability

1. The purpose of the CHE investigation is to

Stimulate through research, writing, and other mechanisms

• Scholarly and public discussion and debate
• The building of shared understandings
• Perhaps consensus
• A Report

on

• The appropriate nature and modes of government involvement in higher education transformation
• Appropriate relationships between government (and other bodies with higher education regulatory functions) and higher education institutions, and
• Appropriate conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability, in general and in the specific context of South Africa and higher education transformation.

1. The rationale for the investigation and research

In any fundamental process of higher education restructuring and transformation within a democracy, such as the kind that is being attempted in South Africa, government, of course, has a vital and key role to play.

Indeed, the South African Ministry of Education has committed itself to a ‘state steering’ model of state involvement as opposed to, say, a ‘state interference’ model, which characterises the role of the state in higher education in a number of countries.

The state steering model is predicated on the principles, given expression in numerous higher education policy documents, of

• Institutional autonomy
• Academic freedom
• Public accountability

and the related principles of

• Democratisation
• Development.

In recent years the transformation agenda has shifted from the articulation of general visions and frameworks of higher education principles, values and goals to policy formulation and the need to make difficult choices and take tough decisions in the contexts of competing goals and principles, financial constraints and the lack of professional personpower.

In this new context, there are concerns in some quarters, indeed claims, that the nature of government involvement in higher education is showing signs of or has indeed moved from ‘state steering’ to ‘state interference.

It is becoming clear that whether they are expressed as concerns or claims, at play and informing such concerns or claims are particular conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability and the relationships and priorities between these.

Moreover, there also appear to be different views on the appropriate balance in specific domains of higher education between government prescription and regulation and institutional self-regulation, either individually or as a sector through the umbrella bodies representing institutions.

The questions of

• The nature of government involvement in higher education transformation
• The appropriate character and modes of government regulation of higher education and regulation of higher education through other bodies with regulatory functions, such as the Council on Higher Education in the domain of quality assurance
• The conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability that are held by different key higher education actors – the government, the Council on Higher Education and higher education stakeholders

• The conceptions of the relationships between institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability that are held by different key higher education actors have the potential to become major issues of conflict and contestation between government, institutions and different higher education constituencies, stakeholders and organisations and also constrain the transformation of South African higher education.

Consequently, a sober and rigorous investigation and conceptual and empirical research are urgently required that can illuminate the issues noted above, especially in the specificity of the South African context of transition from apartheid to democracy.

1. The Aims of the Investigation and Research

The specific aims of the investigation and research are to:

1. Identify, describe and critically analyse the claims being made of government interference in higher education
2. Identify, describe and critically analyse whatever responses there may be to the claims of government interference in higher education
3. Describe and critically analyse the nature and modes of government involvement in higher education transformation, as well as the nature and modes of involvement of other regulatory bodies
4. Describe and critically analyse the conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability that are held by key higher education actors – the government, the Council on Higher Education, higher education institutions, and various stakeholders
5. Advance argument and conclusions on the nature of the involvement of government and other regulatory bodies in higher education
6. Advance argument and conclusions on actors conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability and their relationships
7. Advance argument and conclusions on the validity and appropriateness of actors conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability, in general and in the specific context of South Africa and higher education transformation

4. Objects of the Investigation and Research

The objects of the investigation and research are to:

1. Critically review select literature on regulation by government and other bodies with regulatory functions in higher education
2. Critically review select literature on institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability in higher education and their relationships
3. Critically review the literature on and also invite commentary on the involvement of government and other regulatory bodies in higher education in South Africa under apartheid
4. Critically review the literature and also invite commentary on the involvement of government and other regulatory bodies in higher education in South Africa post-1994
5. Invite and assemble assertions and arguments claiming government interference in higher education
6. Invite and assemble assertions and arguments rejecting claims of government interference in higher education
7. Invite and assemble conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability and their relationships in higher education
8. Establish engagements through appropriate forums between actors holding different views on the nature of government involvement in higher education
9. Establish engagements through appropriate forums between actors holding different conceptions of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability and their relationships in higher education
10. Interview representatives or select members of the Department of Education, the Council on Higher Education, higher education institutions, higher education stakeholder organisations and higher education research and development agencies to advance the aims of the project

5. Framework of the Investigation and Research

The investigation and research and the conclusions and arguments that are advanced must keep in mind the values, principles that inform post-1994 South African higher education, the purposes and goals that have been defined for higher education in various policy documents.

The higher education system is intended to

• Promote equity of access and fair chances of success to all who are seeking to realise their potential through higher education, while eradicating all forms of unfair discrimination and advancing redress for past inequalities

• Meet, through well-planned and co-ordinated teaching, learning and research programmes, national development needs, including the high skilled employment needs presented by a growing economy operating in a global environment
• Support a democratic ethos and a culture of human rights by educational programmes and practices conducive to critical discourse and creative thinking, cultural tolerance, and a common commitment to a humane, non racist and non-sexist social order
• Contribute to the advancement of all forms of knowledge and scholarship, and in particular address the diverse problems and demands of the local, national southern African and African contexts, and uphold rigorous standards of academic quality.

The higher education system is also required to contribute to the realization of the primary purposes of the National Plan for Higher Education (p.6), which are to ensure that

• The higher education system achieves the transformation objectives set out in the White Paper and is responsive to societal interests and needs
• There is coherence with regard to the provision of higher education at the national level
• Limited resources are used efficiently and effectively and there is accountability for the expenditure of public funds
• The quality of academic programmes, including teaching and research, is improved across the system.

The values and principles that are required to inform higher education are:

• Equity and redress
• Democratisation
• Development
• Quality
• Effectiveness and efficiency
• Academic freedom
• Institutional autonomy
• Public accountability.

In addition, it is vitally important that the investigation be conducted with an appreciation of South Africa as a country and higher education as a domain in transition – that is, an understanding of the context of higher education change and transformation in South Africa.

Finally, the transition and attempts at higher education transformation take place in a wider international context of globalisation and trans-nationalisation of higher education and the predominance of particular ideologies, values and policies. These could condition the nature of the transition and attempts at higher education transformation in South Africa.

In sum, the investigation must aim to develop a reasonably clear conceptual framework that is - as far as possible - a normative framework in respect of 'steady-state' notions of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability.  At the same time, it must provide an analysis which is appropriately periodised and qualified to take account of conceptual evolution in time and in different circumstances (e.g. distinguishing between periods of South African higher education policy development in 1994-1999, and of delivery in the years after 2000), and in the light of mediating factors (e.g. the influence of neo-liberalism internationally, the influence of 'the market' nationally and globally, the influence of regional and continental goals and accords, and so forth).

6. Progress to date

To date, in relation to the key tasks:

• Stakeholders (institutions and individuals) have made submissions to the Task Team as to their understanding of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability, and as to actual or potential infringement of these. These have been analysed.
• A first draft Overview paper has been produced on recent and current debates in South African higher education around academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability
• Interviews are to be conducted with selected individuals or groups having relevant knowledge, experience, perspectives or affiliations, after the submissions of stakeholders have been processed
• Papers on key issues have been commissioned from researchers following the Task Team discussion of the Overview document.
• Regional fora are being established to facilitate discussion, exchange views, and further debate. The first forum will be held at the University of Pretoria on 24 March 2006, with a second at the University of Free State in Bloemfontein in May 2006.

Forthcoming activities are:

• A fourth meeting of the Task Team on 23 March 2006
• A Task Team forum on 23 March 2006 for engagement with key stakeholders such as the DoE, and also with those that made submissions and indicated a willingness to make a presentation
• A meeting of all researchers on their topics and progress on 24 March 2006
• A regional forum for the Northern Gauteng region and Limpopo province at the University of Pretoria on 24 March 2006
• Regional fora at the University of Free State in Bloemfontein (the Free State/Northern Cape provinces), at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban (KwaZulu-Natal province), at the University of Western Cape in Bellville (Western Cape province), at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape province), and at University of Fort Hare in East London (Eastern Cape province)

1. Profiles of Institutions

The Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate of the CHE has been producing profiles of institutions in order to inform its audits of institutions. This work ahs drawn considerable interest on the part of various stakeholders and the CHE is now seeking to expand its work in this regard so that the profiles can serve other purposes than only audits.

The portfolio committee may wish to have a presentation on the profiles of certain institutions and the CHE would be happy to undertake this.

 

2. Investigation of Postgraduate Education

The Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate of the CHE is also conducting an extensive investigation of postgraduate education in association with a number of key stakeholders. The investigation seeks to establish conditions in the field of postgraduate education, successes and achievements, specific challenges and also possible interventions from the side of quality promotion and capacity development.

 

3. Institutional Audits

The HEQC is continuing with its audit of higher education institutions. Thus far audits have been completed of the universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Rhodes. In the next year, there will be audits of Vaal University of Technology, and the universities of Free State and Witwatersrand. In addition, there have been and will continue to be audits of private higher education institutions. The results of the audits are published in executive summary form on the CHE website.

 

4. National Reviews

As is well-known the first national review was of the MBA programme. Since then the HEQC has undertaken a national review of a number of mater of Education programmes. The results of this national review will be released shortly. In the coming year there will be national reviews of the ACE, B.ED and PGCE programmes. The national reviews are rigorous peer-review exercises that result in the accreditation, conditional accreditation or de-accreditation of institutions to offer the programmes reviewed.

1. Various activities, especially related to research and investigations and quality assurance, are organised in partnership with other organisations or through contracting organisations, trained evaluators and expert consultants.

• The Portfolio Committee will be glad to hear that with the new increased allocation to the CHE from the National Treasury as from 2005-2006, the CHE is not requesting additional finances.
• The CHE considers itself to be adequately funded with respect to its current mandate.
• We have, however, indicated that should the function of standard setting become a CHE responsibility (currently a SAQA responsibility), the CHE would need to be adequately funded for this new mandate.
• We are pleased to report that the CHE has, with the support of the Department of Education, secured a four-year R 12 million Finnish- South Africa bi-national grant for quality promotion and capacity development
• In addition, we continue to submit proposals and receive donor funding for various projects
• Finally, we are extremely pleased to also report a 7^th successive unqualified audit by the Office of the Auditor General – achieved by an all black and all women Finance section.
• The tables below indicate the state of CHE finances for 2005-2006 and 2006-2007