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tertiary focus Higher education – a different kind of management By Dr Jeffrey Mabelebele Chief Executive Office for Higher Education South Africa Like their counterparts in other parts of the world, South African public universities are required to strike a balance between the imperatives of a collegial management system in which decisions are made in consultation with a range of stakeholders including the academics, who are the heartbeat of every university worth its salt; and a managerialist approach which requires a university to embrace utilitarian and technicist managerial concepts in the name of public accountability. However, there is generally an acknowledgement that both collegiality and managerialism have their strengths and place in the management and leadership of universities. What is important is the balance between the two, and the position of an institution in relation to where it wants to be according to its planned development trajectory. The two reinforce each other, in a dialectical way. Therefore, university leaders are not just required to be adept at business management; and should also understand the dynamics of a university including constant mediation of power relations between proponents of managerialism and collegiality. A normal business management course offered by a prestigious business school is not enough to prepare a wellrounded manager and leader of a higher education institution. A combination of both historical and contextual understanding of the university, its origin and purpose and how all of these have evolved over time is an important component of leadership and management training for university managers and leaders. This is particularly important because the academic world is unique and shares little similarity with your average public or private sector business. The management of a university requires a deep understanding of education and business, and in particular, where business and academia meet. It is a give and take relationship between the two. In responding to this, HESA, an association of public universities in South Africa, has developed a unique Higher Education Leadership and Management (HELM) Programme, which combines both theory and practice in unimaginable ways. We have fully committed ourselves to promoting strategically planned leadership and management development for managers in higher education. With HELM we are able to provide university middle and senior management with the necessary skills to navigate the constant challenge of change and to interpret the operational impact of internal and external drivers; and to continually mediate the tensions between managerialism and collegiality approaches. There are two components to HELM • The HESA Fellows EXCHANGE element This element allows more senior management to engage in peer-to-peer learning through a six-week exchange programme to another institution. The Fellow is able to learn at the feet of the expert from the receiving institution for a period of six weeks, and this would allow the Fellow to benchmark their institution’s practices and policies against those of the institution to which she/he is attached. The six-week placement involves the achievement of objectives spelt out in the learning contract of the Fellow – the kinds of issues the Fellow would like to learn at the end of the placement period. From previous 18 November 2013 | Education Southern Africa
tertiary focus University enrolments need to be managed experiences, the Fellows Exchange Programme has allowed Fellows to learn the best of both worlds; which enables them to experiment with newly acquired practices and approaches, in the context of their institutions. management and leadership capacities and capabilities within the sector. l • The HELM LEAD This is supported by the Education and Development Training SETA (EDTPSETA), which specifically targets the middle management layer in our Institutions. These are people who have been identified as potential leaders by the universities; and have some attributes to succeed either in their current positions or in higher positions. Here we focus on areas like strategic planning processes, policy and regulatory environment peculiar to the higher education sector, institutional planning, and higher education steering (planning; funding and quality assurance) and the use of data as an effective management tool. In 2012, we awarded 30 fellowships through this programme with outstanding results. In 2013, we have just awarded 30 Fellowships to begin their leadership and management journey later this year. With programmes like HELM, we bring all 23 of South Africa’s universities together and put them on an equal footing with experiential and peer-to-peer learning that benefits the entire sector. In 2014, we plan to scale up the programme to target the executive management layer. In this way, HESA would be making its modest contribution to the improvement and strengthening of 23034 Educ 09/2013 Education Southern Africa | November 2013 19
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